hully gee whiz

[sisyphusshrugged]

the White House tried to shut down the HOV lanes of I-395 for six hours on a work day so Our Fearless Leader would have empty roads when he drove to and from Sen. Allen's fundraiser at 6:30.

On one day's notice.

On a work day.

Six hours encompassing rush hour.

It took Virginia officials a full day to convince the White House that perhaps adding more than 20k people to the already brutal evening rush hour on the general purpose lanes and creating a traffic jam which wouldn't clear up until 10pm wasn't all that terrific an idea.

I note this because there are still a few people out there who are buying the No matter what happens, it's good for the Republicans and part of Karl Rove's master plan of brilliant evil spin.

Now remind yourself that those invincible political masterminds wanted to

create a nine-hour photo opportunity of angry, frustrated motorists
many of whom would no doubt quickly be stalled or out of gas
next to a completely empty lane with police guarding it
the week before the Katrina anniversary
so George W. Bush
who has a fully-staffed private helicopter at his disposal
would have a six-hour window in which he didn't have to share the road with anyone
as he was chauffered to and from a "private fundraiser" with the guy who racebaited the kid with the videocamera

and it took Virginia officials many, many hours to convince them that there was a possible downside to this scenario.

Maybe it's time to pay some attention to the men behind the curtain, don't you think?

Comments

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

More than ever, I'm convinced that we're all living in a Philip K. Dick novel.

[spacethyme.livejournal.com]

Works for me--though I do find myself saying at least every other day, "Fred [Pohl] and Cyril [Kornbluth] were right."

[mojo-iv.livejournal.com]

Screw the curtains, its time to deal with the elephant in the room!

--m4

Bush and the HOV

[(Anonymous)]

What the article failed to mention was the last time the HOV lanes were intentionally shutdown was for Yassar Arafat's motorcade as requested by the CLINTON administration. Arafat was in town and staying at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City.

To get him back to his room quicker, Bill requested the HOVs shutdown during the evening rush hour and Virginia complied.

HOV closings due to:
Democrat Administrations: 1
Republican Administrations: 0

Re: Bush and the HOV

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

To get him back to his room quicker?

How about because a whole lot of folks were trying to kill him?

As opposed to because he wanted the road clear for five hours before he had to leave for a private fundraiser for a racist political candidate?

Nice comparison.

Re: Bush and the HOV

[temima.livejournal.com]

Surprised he didn't mention TEH BLOWJOB in there.

Re: Bush and the HOV

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, you can't win 'em all.

[monkey6079.livejournal.com]

Great story, thanks for covering it.

Makes me think of a recent post at DailyKos. (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/26/63846/7347)

And every single time I've said "not even Bush would be so much of a goddamned idiot as to...", I've been very, very wrong. Really, spectacularly wrong. Like, ice cream and hot sauce wrong. The kind of wrong that comes with its own theme music and fireworks show.

So I ain't saying that no more. Someone else can have those words, because I'm done with 'em. Bush is officially enough of a goddamned idiot to do any random thing that comes into his fool head. . .

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Not to sound flip, but:

People who think Karl Rove is behind everything might as well write a left-wing version fo the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Rove Protocols, maybe?

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

assuming that the jews gave frequent press conferences in which they claimed to be secretly responsible for everything bad that happened to Christians, I'd buy that as an analogy.

I leave it to you whether you do.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Well, I meant more in the perception of the people who are the ones who perpetuate that myth of behind-the-scenes power.

But, yeah, on other fronts, the analogy doesn't exactly hold.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

well, no, I don't think so either.

But, you know, it's hard to fault folks for seeing the spiderweb of political spin in a situation where the party which controls the government spends so much time promoting the spiderweb of political spin.

Where I have an issue is where people start to believe that these assholes are competent at anything beyond coordinating with nascent news Celebrities who want to be accepted by the People who Matter and the owners of media corporations who want their taxes cut.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Honestly. Anyone who looks at the last five years and sees a towering achievement of governance has their head so far up their ass they're chewing their own uvula.

[flavobean.livejournal.com]

I don't think people relaize what a choke point that part of the region already is.

Sigh. Just two more years. They can't fuck up too much more in two years can they?

HOV Lanes

[(Anonymous)]

If you're going to comment about politics, you need to learn the difference between the White House (who did not make the request) and Secret Service (who did).

Re: HOV Lanes

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

and if you're going to concern troll, you need to figure out who the secret service works for, and that given their druthers any sane security service which was concentrating on keeping the subject secure would be using a helicopter rather than giving tens of thousands of severely pissed-off drivers a few hours to get ready for him to pass.

pfft.