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.

Washington Post Misses Obvious Questions

The Washington Post's coverage on the Metropolitan Police Department's latest ineffectual idea to take on a sudden spike in crime once again fails to address key questions.

MPD says it will cordon off one block on a one-way one-lane major thoroughfare in the violence-plagued Trinidad neighborhood.

But The Post fails to ask some basic key questions:

Why this block? Is this particular block a high crime area? Exactly how many people have been shot from vehicles or in vehicles? Can't pedestrians shoot people sitting in vehicles, decimating the logic for half the rationale here? How many shooters are on foot?

Since Montello is a one-lane one-way street (a key fact not mentioned in this article), won't this just create gridlock for people legitimately trying to navigate Trinidad residential streets? Also, since the location of the checkpoint is known, won't criminals just take West Virginia or Trinidad Ave instead?

This doesn't sound very effectual at ALL.

If there is an open air drug market on this block, it will move to another block.

There have been a lot of killings in that area, but I don't think this is anywhere near a solution.

More officers on bike patrol, at night, might be an effective way of reducing a brazen crime like out-in-the-open homicide, but this seems like it will just slow traffic, not crime.