This Administration is Inconvenient
I've been held up twice in two days by the presidential or vice presidential motorcade -- this is getting annoying. Yesterday Connecticut Avenue was blocked off at Woodly Park as I was finishing up lunch with a friend (it took us over 45 minutes to get back down to Dupont Circle); today P Street between 17th and 18th was totally closed off as I was walking back from getting coffee. Not even pedestrians were being let through. I'm not sure which member of the executive branch has caused these disruptions but there are certain vehicles you can generally use to identify the status of the motorcade-ee: only the president and vice president seem to travel with their own ambulance at the ready (for Cheney the defibrillators are probably already charged) and a large black vehicle devoted to high-tech communications equipment -- the thing bristles with antennas. So now, besides all their crimes against humanity, this administration in inconveniencing me. Intolerable.
It really is remarkable how many police it takes to shepherd one of these guys through the city. In addition to the maybe 20-car motorcade, ambulance, communications vehicles, and multitude of heavily armed secret service, city police are brought in to block off every possible access point to the travel route. That means a minimum of 5 to 10 police at every intersection, alley, or sidewalk for at least a half-hour before the cars come through. Just to stop access to one residential block this afternoon, I saw at least dozen police cars, 10 motorcycles, a number of bicycle cops, and a horse. Add it up over several miles of a travel route and the numbers are staggering. I once saw the presidential motorcade go by on Rock Creek Parkway while I was running and there was this enormous rotating collection of black SUVs that would pull across every entrance or exit route to the road (even after police had cleared all traffic and blocked the streets), jump out with automatic weapons, wait for the main motorcade to pass, hop back in the car and zoom off to get in front again and block the next entrance ramp.
I don't have a point to this post, just that I'm tired of these guys ruining the world and causing delays in my city.
It really is remarkable how many police it takes to shepherd one of these guys through the city. In addition to the maybe 20-car motorcade, ambulance, communications vehicles, and multitude of heavily armed secret service, city police are brought in to block off every possible access point to the travel route. That means a minimum of 5 to 10 police at every intersection, alley, or sidewalk for at least a half-hour before the cars come through. Just to stop access to one residential block this afternoon, I saw at least dozen police cars, 10 motorcycles, a number of bicycle cops, and a horse. Add it up over several miles of a travel route and the numbers are staggering. I once saw the presidential motorcade go by on Rock Creek Parkway while I was running and there was this enormous rotating collection of black SUVs that would pull across every entrance or exit route to the road (even after police had cleared all traffic and blocked the streets), jump out with automatic weapons, wait for the main motorcade to pass, hop back in the car and zoom off to get in front again and block the next entrance ramp.
I don't have a point to this post, just that I'm tired of these guys ruining the world and causing delays in my city.
1 Comments:
At 7:17 PM, Joyce B. Sousa said…
I think this is kind of frustration that I imagine Iraqis felt when they were asked over and over again about how grateful they must be now that they were "free." They, however, were consumed with their struggle to get food, and water etc.. Getting through daily life was so annoying that the larger issues held little interest. Thus, the world problems this administration is causing are bad enough, but when the political becomes personal--I am really annoyed.
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