Hello, Mr. President

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is free America about this morning's festivities:

MSNBC is the usual mix of absurdity and unexamined privilege, as Chris Matthews compares the Bushes to the Romanovs (starring Miss Beazley as Anastasia!) and Keith Olbermann says they're so far away that Obama will "look like a raisin". CNN is predictably boring with their "facts" and "restraint", so I head back to MSNBC, where Matthews waxes global, informing me that the US is not as monarchical as outsiders think. Why, just recently US supreme court chief justice John Roberts' wife was standing next to him at the cobbler's!

I switch to Fox News. It's just a test pattern accompanied by audio of Sean Hannity quietly sobbing.

Back to MSNBC, where Matthews is now rhapsodising about the concept of democracy, telling me there is a sense in America that, "on some level", all people are equal. This note is followed immediately by images of Dan Quayle entering the inauguration with Al Gore right behind him, and I think: Yes, Matthews is right. You can be a rich, white, idiot dude or a rich, white, genius dude and become vice-president. Go equality! Maude bless the USA.

When Bush appears moments later, he is booed. Highly inappropriate, wildly disrespectful and, of course, totally hilarious.

Read the whole thing here.