The Top 40

The president's four-hour Seattle visit is likely to snarl Interstate 5 and downtown traffic through the late afternoon.

Re-write: "Expect up to 8 eight hours of traffic gridlock on Insterstate 5 and downtown due to the president's four-hour Seattle visit."

What would the NYT call that? Oh yes, the Keynesian multiplier effect.

You see, if it were Reagan, the traffic would be snarled with well-wishers and people eager to see their president. The press would have groused, but the rest of us would have cheered, and that is because Reagan didn't do it all the time, and he took a crappy economy and inspired people to hope and change it. Not like this dummy.

This may be just a random thought, but wouldn't it be easier to have Air Force One land at the nearest air force/air national guard base and have these people go out there to meet the president? Just to save the wear and tear on the other residents of the metro area?

whoops! Silly me! That would be considerate - can't have that!

And other explanations are possible; not that I'm wedded to the notion, but possible.

Regards,
Ric

The congestion isn't only felt on the ground.
Air Traffic Control (ATC) keeps a zone of safety around Air Force one when it's in the air. That means slow downs, diversions, and even cancellations for scheduled air carriers.

That was one thing I respected about Bush. He knew how much inconvenience to the citizens was created whenever the POTUS leaves the White House. Obama uses AF-1 like it was a personal corporate jet with no thought for the chaos he creates wherever he goes.

If you have ever seen the Secret Service in action clearing a site where the POTUS will visit, you will know how much extra expense Obama is creating with all his fund raising, vacations, and schmoozing. I can't imagine what it must be like to be around a golf course when Obama is playing.

I was the co-pilot in an airline crew that flew the King of Sweden around on an official visit to the U.S. The Secret Service had to sanitize every place we stopped for his visits.(Several cities with large Swedish-American populations.) They frisked us, pawed through our luggage, and went over the airplane with a fine tooth comb at each stop. They never gave any indication that we were anything but potential assassins. That was, of course, before the days of suicide pilots. But Secret Service members are paid to be paranoid, and we understood that. That was a huge hassle to move a high level dignitary around safely. It is much more so with the POTUS.

Hmmmm, if I wanted to know what it would take to tie up the city of LA for some future reason, what better way?

And yet he won't go to church because he doesn't want to inconvenience others. I find that excuse...convenient

'Kay - for the aptly named 'stone'.
Games are scheduled and the traffic problems are caused by fans going to the games. They know it, they chose it.

A presidential visit isn't scheduled quite like a game and the traffic screw ups are caused by a monumental ego coming in for a campaign stop - for other people. The ones inconvenienced didn't exactly choose this.

I know this - I live in a Big Ten college area and I am looking forward to the home games.