President Bush's visit last Wednesday to "a community college near Toledo" caused a few, ahem, problems for some of the instructors at the school I work for, who also teach courses at Owens, the community college Bush visited. Karen says I need to ask one about her experience, but another told me how the security precautions wreaked havoc on classes being held on the second floor of the building in which the President gave his address to 300 invited guests. Anyone entering the building, whether one of the guests or a student who needed to go to class, had to go through a metal detector to get in. When I say "a metal detector," I mean A metal detector. One. Singular. Fewer than two available metal detectors to screen 300 invited guests for the speech and students who paid good money to attend classes. This in addition to having half of the parking on campus cordoned off for security purposes, exacerbating an already tight supply of available parking on campus.
Seems that every time the President goes somewhere to have a good backdrop for his speeches, his visit produces the exact opposite effect of whatever he is talking about. He went to an aircraft carrier to announce that the mission was accomplished and our troops were coming home, thus delaying the homecoming of the troops on that ship. He went to a factory to announce a strong economy, forcing the factory to shut down for an entire day and costing workers a day's wages. He went to a community college to announce a program to retrain workers in community colleges, and effectively prohibited people from going to classes they need to be retrained for new occupations.
This is probably not a problem exclusive to the Bush administration. I imagine security for any presidential visit, no matter who the president, causes the same local problems. Still, one can't help but notice the practical costs of having a nifty backdrop for speeches rather than the Oval Office.
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