The NYTimes on the new GOP majority taking office in the US House:

A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress. A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution. A bill will be introduced to repeal the health care law. On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber. And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arranged to have his office staff “sworn in” on Tuesday by the chief justice of the United States.

Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification. Then, they may find time for governing.

Um. yeah.

Let me take you back in time:

The Obama Inauguration - the most expensive in history

It was, what, two years ago?  Or was it all a dream?

The federal government estimates that it will spend roughly $49 million on the inaugural weekend. Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland have requested another $75 million from the federal government to help pay for their share of police, fire and medical services.

And then there is the party bill.

We have a budget of roughly $45 million, maybe a little bit more,” said Linda Douglas, spokeswoman for the inaugural committee. That’s more than the $42.3 million in private funds spent by President Bush’s committee in 2005, or the $33 million spent for Bill Clinton’s first inaugural in 1993.

Well, to be fair, maybe the NYTimes editorial board groused about the extravagance of Obama’s inaugural, and fretted that it’d get in the way of The One getting about the peoples’ business, too.

Don’t laugh.  It could have happaned.  I mean, it’s possible. Let’s check:

There was no shortage of powerful imagery on Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day, starting with the confident man who defied all political conventions — that he was too young, too inexperienced, too black or not black enough — to stand on the steps of the Capitol and take the oath of office in a city and a country that are still racially divided in many shameful ways.

And there was the crowd that for a day, and we hope much longer, defied those divisions. By the hundreds of thousands they came from every part of a nation that has rarely been in such peril and yet is so optimistic about its new leader…

…In his Inaugural Address, President Obama gave them the clarity and the respect for which all Americans have hungered. In about 20 minutes, he swept away eight years of President George Bush’s false choices and failed policies and promised to recommit to America’s most cherished ideals.

Heh.

Onward:

With Mr. Bush looking on (and we’d like to think feeling some remorse),

Heh.

Onward:

Mr. Obama was unsparing in condemning the failed ideology of uncontrolled markets. [At an inauguration worthy of Gordon Gecko – Ed. ] He said the current economic crisis showed how “without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control” and that the nation has to extend the reach of prosperity to “every willing heart, not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”

After more than seven years of Mr. Bush’s using fear and xenophobia to justify a disastrous and unnecessary war, and undermine the most fundamental American rights, it was exhilarating to hear Mr. Obama reject “as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

Wow.  Still not much in the way of phumphering over the cost and pomposity and bombast of the whole thing.  Emphasis added:

As the day continued with a parade and parties and balls, the image that stayed with us was the way the 44th president managed to embrace the symbolism and rise above it. It filled us with hope that with Mr. Obama’s help, this battered nation will be able to draw together and mend itself.

Well, there you go.

The NYTimes:  All the news that’s fit to jam into the editorial board’s provincial, far-left template.