This telling nugget is part of a memo distributed to the staff of The Washington Post:

[W]e understand that many Washington Post Digital employees may want to take the day off to participate in inaugural events.

Somehow I doubt the Post’s executives felt the need to write such a memo back in 2000 or 2004, when George W. Bush was the reason for the inaugural festivities.

UPDATE: Jimmie over at The Sundries Shack directed me by tweet to a Washington City Paper blog post that puts the latest Post memo in context.

After Obama won the election in November, the paper offered commemorative editions to its employees. A madhouse ensued.

People took to the stairs, fire-drill fashion, full stampede mode. Totally packed. Think all those employees would have been stumbling over one another to grab the McCain commemorative edition? “This is the definition of the liberal media,” went one quip.

UPDATE (1/15): Obama received a hero’s welcome, applause and all, when he visited The Washington Post today. No one knows for sure whether any newsroom employees were part of the celebration, but based on past and future events, there’s reason to believe they were.