Thursday, January 8, 2009

Post Blithely Reports Inauguration Police State

You would think a story about the shutting off every commuter point of entry into a major city would be worthy of including a critical voice, right?

Not in The Post, where a series have stories appeared regarding the police state tactics being adopted for the "security" of the inauguration, including the closing of metro stations near the inauguration, the closing of metro parking lots at stations outside the beltway that might be used by commuters (a plan later jettisoned because the wild guessing about the number of charter buses needing metro parking turned out to be wildly inflated) and the decision to close 395 and 66, two major highways leading into the city , an option discussed even before the bridge closure decision was made.

Note the quote from that last article linked above, that these security plans will "secur[e] the largest area of the nation's capital for any inauguration".

All this "security" for an incoming president with a personal approval rating in the high 70's? You would think that Cheney had been elected.

A bit ironic that now that throngs of black people are expected to come into Washington to view the swearing-in of the first black President, that there needs to be a massive shutdown of virtually every common-sense way to enter the city via vehicle.

So when people flood the residential streets through which they can still enter the streets via Maryland, can we expect the entire city to be gridlocked? Oh, the brilliance of planning in the absence of media critical analysis.

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