Like lions pacing back and forth in a cage, the city police in Cincinnati were prowling up one street and down another on Sunday. In my short trip up to the University yesterday, I saw about a dozen. Later, one zipped up to follow my car, with it’s bumper sticker asking “What else did you lie to us about?”. Becoming bored quickly, the policeman suddenly turned down a side street and zipped down and then up the hill opposite, without pause.
Well, this looks like preparation for a Presidential visit, I thought to myself all unawares. Not again, no he couldn’t be coming back to the city where he disgraced himself with that lying speech nearly four years ago.
Sadly. This morning I discovered that he’s going to be here all right, small as life. Whatever for, you might just wonder. To attend a baseball game. Nay, to throw a ceremonial throw before the game. I’d have thought that attending baseball games was fairly peripheral to his duties as President. Nothing actually follows from baseball games, except further baseball games. They’re not consequential.
And neither are ceremonial throws before games. The games themselves don’t depend upon their being performed.
So the President is travelling to Cincinnati to attend something inconsequential, or more specifically to do something that is inconsequential to the inconsequential thing he’s attending. At what cost?
My abacus is broken. I’m sure that the city’s tax people are keeping track of the hundreds or thousands of hours of overtime pay that will go into making this trivial spectacle a smashing success, however. No doubt they’ll be getting back to me with some thoughts about how I can contribute.
What about the cost to the nation? Couldn’t this money have been better spent on body armor for troops in Iraq?
I just wonder whether this expense might have been avoidable. When I was last in Washington, there was a lawn at the White House where, if one were careful, it would be possible to throw a baseball around safely. Then one could pop back into the Oval Office to work on fixing all the problems one has created during the last five years.
Crossposted at My Left Wing
if the Cincinnati ball club wishes to throw out a baseball, does the President have to come do it? Surely they can put it in the bin themselves.
King George is trying to ignore another horrific storm weekend.
There’s a war going on.
There’s more damage due to another storm…
So Geoergie must busy himself with games and ceremonies. Typical of Bush.
I know there are a lot of people in blogtopia that aren’t sports fans (I’m not making that assumption about you smintheus, this is just a generic disclaimer). So I’ll offer up my POV.
Presidents have been throwing out ceremonial first pitches for quite some time now. Baseball and the presidency have been closely tied together since at least the time of Woodrow Wilson, who played baseball in college and was a baseball fanatic.
Are there better places that the money from this trip could be spent? Absolutely. But there isn’t much regarding the pomp and circumstance of the office that you couldn’t say that about.
No, the problem is that this President has created such a division in our country. He lives in such a closed world of paranoia, that police forces larger than those possessed by small nations must accompany our chief executive when he chooses to interact with we plebeians. President Wilson wasn’t exactly the most popular president, but even he eschewed his presidential pass to games, choosing instead to pay for his own ticket and sit with everyone else.
I despise this man and what he has done to this country and in its name. But, this one is something I can’t gripe about too much.
That doesn’t mean I’ll watch it.
But you can bet your ass that I’ll be there with bells on when President Feingold throws out the first pitch of the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers’ season 🙂
Taking Air Force One to Cincinnati to throw a baseball is absurd at any time, especially in a period of record deficits and everything else that Bush has wrought. The owner of the Reds is a Bush crony, thus no matter how much it costs us, Bush will do him a favor.
I’m not sure how Bush is really doing him a favor…opening day is going to be sold out whether he’s there or not. More likely it’s just going to cause headaches.
But maybe there is something going on under the table. Who knows. I wouldn’t put it past them. And that would explain why he didn’t go to the Washington @ New York Mets game instead. That should have been the obvious choice because a) it’s in New York b) it involves the DC team c) it is the first game today and d) it is on national television.
If somebody had to throw a throw somewhere (and I’m pretty confident it wasn’t necessary), why couldn’t it have been Cheney. The last time he was at a ballpark, in Yankee Stadium in 2004, he elicited so many boos the authorities had to mollify the crowd. Felt like good old times in the Roman Empire. I’d like to see that again, just for fun. Why does the President have to cut off from work?
Of course it isn’t necessary. But it is something of a tradition.
I assume you were equally concerned when both President Clinton and V.P. Gore attended Cal Ripken’s record breaking game together?
I think we are just going to have to disagree on this. You see this as cutting off work; I see it as just another responsibility of the President (however menial, ceremonial, or just plain silly) that has evolved over time.
That being said, yes, he certainly could have made a better choice for where to go.
I thought the Ripkin event was pretty stupid as well. On the other hand, it was just a short drive up from DC.
Bush is going to Cincinnati because it’s one of the few Major League Baseball cities where he wouldn’t be vociferously booed by the vast majority of the crowd.
and that is why they are airing it over and over again on the Spews channels.
our police are also reading bumperstickers.
yeah, haven’t you heard?
They can now fine you in certain cities for having “lewd decals” on your car. One lady I forget where, got a $100 ticket for having “Bushit” on her car.
So the cop was probably trolling for “lewdness”…
They have better things to do in my opinion.
There’s nothing in it that specifies the President. Yet everytime I’ve seen a Bush loyalist read it, they’ve immediately associated it with him….even my neighbor, who strenuously denies that Bush has ever lied. Often, they get angry, angry, angry. So maybe they have just a little sneaking suspicion that Bush did lie? Why make the connection otherwise?
Yes, sometimes cops look to punish bumperstickers they don’t like. For ex., the trooper in Vermont who pulled me over years ago for a pretty minor speeding infraction. The first thing he asked, as I handed him my license, was about whether I’d bought the car recently or had I always owned it. He’d stopped and read my bumperstickers, otherwise it would have been a non sequitur. Oh, yeah, he threw the book at me.
My friend has a sticker that says, “Legalize It”… he gets pulled over DAILY.
and let the prosecuter explain what “Bushit” is supposed to mean. Fun!