In Manhattan early this afternoon, I stopped by the big Library at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, and saw signs announcing it was closed for the day. Then I looked across the street and saw a massive number of police officers just milling about. Not doing anything, just standing around.
I crossed over and asked one of them what was up, and he told me they were mobilizing here so they could “secure the library” for President Obama’s visit this evening. I didn’t ask him how many officers would eventually be going into the library — that’s the sort of question that could get you arrested these days, and I had no way of proving I was a magazine editor and not a terrorist — but my best jellybeans-in-a-jar guess was that about 400 of them had already arrived.
When I got back to 42nd Street a few hours later– well, actually I didn’t: both vehicular and pedestrian traffic had been banned for about a two-block radius around the library. I can’t speak for the cross-streets north of 42nd Street, but 40th Street (and presumably 41st) had been emptied, looking weirdly post-Apocalyptic.
As empty as 40th Street was, 5th Avenue leading up to 40th was a disaster area: at 5:15 on a weekday afternoon, one of Manhattan’s major roads just came to a sudden stop.
And need we even discuss the traffic disruptions caused by the President getting to the library?
Was this library trip really necessary? Was President Obama speaking at the New York Public Library worth closing the library for the day, deploying thousands of policemen, devastating mid-town Manhattan, and disrupting traffic into the City?
(Obama’s New York Adventure also includes a visit to the United Nations which will also be highly disruptive, but at least is of legitimate importance — and it won’t inconvenience me personally)
And the larger question is, should life as we know it really come to an end every time a president feels like going someplace? I mean sure, we want to keep the guy safe — but come on, let him ride in a police car with the siren going, and be done with it. We don’t need to shut down all the surrounding streets for hours before his arrival.
Afraid of an ambush? In Manhattan, it’s the easiest thing in the world: find ten taxis with Israeli drivers, who between then will swear to eleven “best ways” of getting from Point A to Point B. Put the president in one of them, and a decoy chain-smoking black guy in the other nine. He might get where he’s going by way of Staten Island, but he’ll get there, and nobody will be able to anticipate his route.
I mean seriously, all due respect, but we have presidents here, not imperial sun gods. They shouldn’t get to shut down major cities on a whim or for the sake of their own convenience. They shouldn’t want to.
And by the way… maybe giving a talk in a huge, cavernous library with nooks and crannies and countless rows of shelves, which takes hundreds of police officers to secure, just isn’t a good idea for a sitting president.
None of this is unique to President Obama, of course: some years back, George H.W. Bush was traveling from New Jersey to Manhattan and the Imperial Motorcade couldn’t decide whether to take the New Jersey Turnpike or one of two other roads — so they decided what the hell, let’s close them all down for the afternoon.
Coincidentally, large sections of Berlin have been blocked off today for the Pope’s visit. The relative effect will be even worse when he continues to Erfurt (a much smaller city). It’s highly unlikely that Benedict will utter even one word that is significant enough to make the security juggernaut worthwhile.
President Obama’s Chicago home is about a mile away from where I live. They’ve toned it down a lot since the beginning of his term, but you can still tell when he’s in town by increased CPD activity (and presumably Secret Service, but they don’t seem to have marked cars:-) ), additional barricades, and so on. But we’ve gotten used to it.
I love your method of getting him there, that made me laugh.
I waited till 6 and saw no sign of him arriving. Earlier in the day i was coming out of Starbucks and Joe Biden was going into brooks brothers next door.
I can just imagine the scene: “Mister President, I just got some f****** good deal on a suit.”
You say “potato,” I also say “potato.”
Some say, “potatoe”…
Why don’t you ask Rep. Giffords if all the security it worth it?
Or is your point that the President should be confined to the White House for the entirety of his (or, someday, her) term? You know, so as to avoid inconveniencing anyone?
James, there’s necessary inconvenience and there’s unnecessary inconvenience. Dropping in on the New York Public Library is unnecessary.
And in fact, yeah, if the world we live in requires such drastic measures to protect the president every time he steps out of the White House, then maybe he SHOULD stay there as much as possible.
Invoking the Giffords shooting is invalid: she had no protection, and she was shot. Reagan had the best protection in the world and HE was shot.
Bill, you’re leaving out the possibility that the Secret Service learned from the Reagan shooting, and that’s one of the reasons why the security zone around the President’s appearances are broader now than they were thirty years ago.
Now, I don’t live in NYC (I’m about 3000 miles away) so I wasn’t bothered by this particular incident. A few years ago the President chose to make a campaign fundraiser stop in Portland and shut down one of the main commuter freeways right at rush hour. So I understand the frustration.
Here’s a simple way to avoid being inconvenienced by disruptions in traffic (caused by the President or anyone else)… move to South Dakota, or Wyoming, or Nebraska. Now, this isn’t a perfect solution (I’m pretty sure Cornhuskers home games cause plenty of traffic grief) but I’m sure you’ll see considerably fewer traffic disruptions if you choose carefully.
On football Saturdays, the stadium at the University of Nebraska is larger than the third-largest city in the state.
And a special ambulance had to be reserved every time Dick Cheney visited his hometown of Lincoln.
Unfortunately, once he sees how many people have moved to Hoople, North Dakota, he will visit there too.
With a little imagination you can probably think of possibilities between the extremes of “the President should be confined to the White House [for his whole term]” and the President should have so much security that much of an entire city gets shut down every time he visits.
One pereson being shot is not a good argument that every security measure is worth it. Your question is somewhat on par with “If you don’t think it makes sense to stop people from bringing bottled water on a plane, why don’t you ask the 9/11 victims?”
One person being shot? One person being shot RECENTLY. The number of political figures who have drawn assassination attempts is, um, not “one”. Perhaps the security efforts are over-the-top… but the streak of Presidents not shot is up to four. Causation, correlation, coincidence…
CITY to a standstill?? I’m worried about him bringing the whole COUNTRY to a standstill! (Ba-dump-tish!)
I have to wonder if it was all just an elaborate ruse to cover up the fact that the president had to return some really overdue library books.
In the late 80s Regan ate lunch at a restaurant/estate across the street from my shop. The secret service came in before hand, asked if we had any guns (yes, we had one for protection) and we were advised that we were NOT permitted to neither exit nor stand in the doorway when his motorcade was passing. They never said what they’d do to us if we did, but there were two secret service agents that stood across the street looking in our direction the whole time. Also, the street was closed to all traffic the entire time Regan was there, about an hour and a half. Great for business, NOT. I’d have probably felt different if he’d at least come in and taken a look around.
Ryan probably has it right. He never paid his Somerville Mass. parking
tickets (from Law School) until he prepped for the 08 campaign.
Can’t be. Everyone knows his NY library card is a fake. Nobody’s ever seen the original…
I agree the security is a little excessive, but blaming the President is a little unfair. While nominally, the President is in charge, the Secret Service is the entity that decided this increased protection is necessary (largely since, as stated above, 1981). And with re-election campaigns starting, it’s unfair to the incumbent to suggest he shouldn’t travel as much as necessary to keep up with his opponents.