Old time pictures of President Franklin Roosevelt show him crippled by polio, trapped in the back seat of an open touring car, no protective bubble, waving at the people and smiling away as though he didn’t have a care in the world and might be enjoying himself. They don’t do that any more.
President George Bush is never seen outdoors in public or, if he is, he is never surrounded by less than a thousand armed guards. So it was quite a surprise to read in the New Orleans Times-Picayune that, “Longtime members of the White House press corps said they could not remember the last time they saw the president riding in an open car in an American city, calling the exposed journey nearly unprecedented.” By way of explanation the newspaper quoted a Secret Service agent saying, "Well, we don't normally cruise through American cities that have been virtually emptied of people." So that’s it. The politicians come out of their holes when there are no people around.
When there are people around - - - Oy! They move through the streets preceded and followed by long strings of SUVs full of nasty looking persons with machine guns. And do they tie up traffic! The National Institute of Special Statistics reports the traffic jams caused by politicians’ carcades annually knock 0.06 percent off of the Gross Domestic Product, which is enough to pay for three large aircraft carriers, the hospital bills of 2,000 cardiac transplant patients and 40 new Wal-Marts. The Institute says that cars and trucks stuck in politician-caused traffic jams use up more than a million gallons of gasoline a day. Also, it is estimated that rage at being trapped for hours because of the delay causes 1.4 people a month to join al-Qaeda.
If the politicians had a place of their own where they could motorcade around to their ego’s content, the resultant savings are beyond calculation. Such a place exists. New Orleans!
Empty, bereft of business, its bars shuttered, its call girls called away to work the mega Baptist churches of Houston, its Dixie Land bands stilled, New Orleans will rise again - - an entire, complete, empty city where politicians can ride and meet in safety for the TV cameras without tying up the traffic anywhere.