Posted on 08/07/2004 8:13:30 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
It had been a pretty lazy vacation, kicking around in Maryland, a state whose pre-Alan Keyes claim to fame was as the home of another great Republican, Spiro T. Agnew.
So, having had our fill of crab cakes and miniature golf in Ocean City, The Boyfriend and I decided to head to Washington for a tour of the nation's capital. We were hoping for some cultural and intellectual stimulation of the kind you can mention to make yourself sound like an inspiration-seeking traveler rather than a boardwalk french-fry-eating tourist.
Sunday morning, planning nothing more adventurous than trying to navigate a traffic circle or two, we climbed into our rented station wagon, flipped open the road atlas and turned on the car radio. There wasn't much to listen to, other than bad weather reports and pundit chatter, until a super-excited Wolf Blitzer interrupted his interview with Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) to report that the terror alert level in Washington had been raised to code orange.
Papers, please
At first, the whole thing seemed more laughable than scary. Not quite as laughable, of course, as the idea that a griping 60-something bum with neither money nor connections posed a serious threat to a downtown federal building, but pretty ridiculous nonetheless.
What exactly were we supposed to do as we crossed the still-unguarded border from yellow alert Maryland to orange alert Washington? The Subaru, while it did have All-Wheel Drive, did not have an extra-vigilance gear.
We checked the map to see where the supposedly-targeted International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters buildings were, but that quickly proved unnecessary, since the traffic-blocking clusters of TV news vans parked outside them pretty much gave them away.
Then we parked in our hotel's underground garage -- cash only, no guard in sight -- and strolled into the lobby with our uninspected luggage. We walked past the elevators to the check-in desk. It was only then that we spotted the security "desk," a guy sitting on a stool near the front door, checking people's IDs as they entered. He didn't seem to be checking anyone's name against a copy of the terrorist watch list, but maybe he just had the whole thing memorized.
I've never grasped the whole ID-checking thing, whether in a Chicago high-rise or a D.C. hotel. What, exactly, does flashing your driver's license prove? Do the terrorists not have IDs? Or do they have special ones that say "terrorist" in big red letters?
And, anyway, if I could get a fake ID when I was 16, I'm pretty sure bin Laden could get one, too. Not to mention the garage entrance. Wasn't that, um, kind of a gaping hole in the security plan?
I happen to believe in Ben Franklin's dictum that "they who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security," but I tried -- just for a moment as I stood in that air-conditioned lobby -- to pretend that I didn't. I tried to imagine being a hysterical alarmist in the Annie "Terror in the Skies, Again?" Jacobsen mode.
Would I be willing to give up some of my liberty -- and if checking into a hotel under an assumed name isn't an American tradition worth preserving, what is? -- for no additional security at all?
Liberty, security, humidity
At every destination in Washington, from the food court in the Old Post Office to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, we went through some form of security check. And most of them had a lot in common with the hotel's bar stool guy plan: They just didn't make any sense.
Why do I have to pass through a metal detector to get to a food court? Why does somebody have to look through my purse before I can check out an exhibit of voting booth technology?
I found all the pretend vigilance inside Washington's buildings to be frustrating and depressing, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of walking around outside in what is supposed to be the people's city. The beautiful monuments that symbolize our freedom are surrounded by concrete barriers and chain-link fences. Armed guards with gas masks hanging from their belts stand outside government offices.
Instead of walking around feeling like you own the place -- and, by the way, you do -- you find yourself, as a tourist, feeling more like your presence there is an imposition, an inconvenient rupture of an otherwise perfect security bubble. The most fun thing for kids to do there is to practice climbing the barriers.
Washington was never a great place for a summer visit. Between the swampy humidity and the skid marks left by legislators on their way out of town, there's not a whole lot to recommend the place.
But, still, I used to like it there, especially the way it felt to lean against a cool white marble wall and think about the people who dreamed big enough to build a place so audacious.
Now, cloaked in its orange jump suit, it's just another place to lock down.
What a silly woman.
I mean, this lightweight piece doesn't even make a half-decent travelogue.
Take The Boyfriend and shove it....
Silly me I forget if you are a journalist in chicago, you have to be a member of the crime machine.
Remember that is why they have to bring in out of state prosecutors to go after the outfit in chicago.
Effective security, on the other hand, is largely invisible.
-Eric
It was only then that we spotted the security "desk," a guy sitting on a stool near the front door, checking people's IDs as they entered. He didn't seem to be checking anyone's name against a copy of the terrorist watch list, but maybe he just had the whole thing memorized.
If they would like the tourist experience of having their car searched when they park, I can recommend any number of garages in Midtown Manhattan...
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