Althouse: Won't somebody please calculate the carbon footprint?

August 17, 2010

Won't somebody please calculate the carbon footprint?

"The massive traffic jam that resulted from President Obama's motorcade and speech Monday night in Hancock Park is prompting calls for an investigation from some residents, who say they were caught in traffic for hours."

23 comments:

The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/17/10, 11:33 AM
lemondog said...: Well here are a couple of Carbon Footprint Calculators; 8/17/10, 11:35 AM
kjbe said...: Really, people in LA are complaining about the traffic and carbon footprints? Huh.; 8/17/10, 11:43 AM
Fen said...: Carbon Footprints are for the little people; 8/17/10, 11:44 AM
Larry J said...: Really, people in LA are complaining about the traffic and carbon footprints? Huh.

The traffic in LA is already bad. To make it worse by blocking off many streets during rush hour so Obama can participate in a political fundraiser is really stupid. How many thousands of people - many of them likely Obama supporters - did he piss off so he could raise some money? It wouldn't have been so objectionable if he'd been there on important official business but for a fund raiser? Stupid is as stupid does.; 8/17/10, 11:50 AM
former law student said...: If only Michelle and Malia had vacationed in Newport Beach instead of Spain. Think how grateful Angelenos would have been, that the Obamas picked their beachfront playground for their own vacation.; 8/17/10, 11:52 AM
Scott M said...: It's really stunning, when you think back over the course of the last two years, the very large and glaring number of completely unforced errors this crew has made.

That would be tolerable if the rest the country was doing okey-dokey (hint, we're not), but it just as more horse radish to the already scalding-hot epic fail sauce.

This is just another in a very long string of Sherrod firings.; 8/17/10, 11:54 AM
pm317 said...: And as I understand it, all he raised was 1 million!! Some of the big players (who paid $30K) were not even there. They just gave him pity money.; 8/17/10, 11:55 AM
The Drill SGT said...: That part of LA doesn't have a huge number of major roads. It's all canyons and cul-de-sacs. Apparently they blocked all the roads in a 3 by 4 mile zone around the site. 4 hour delays during rush hour.

90% of the people effected were rich democrats (or were), so there is a bit of justice.

JSF had a nice quote from the Bush (you know the incompetent guys) about how they weigh the visuals of a POTUS visit:

"We want to bring the President to town with major publicity at the event and no problems for people not going to the event. Votes and political capitol are lost if that happens,"

That should be tatoo'd across somebodies forehead in the Obama WH.

LA has it's panties all in a knot... This is gonna kill Boxer and Brown :); 8/17/10, 12:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Obviously O wanted to make sure there would be people lining the streets for his motorcade.; 8/17/10, 12:09 PM
BJM said...: Tone. Deaf.

I've observed in the workplace that once a person fails repeatedly they create a spiral of failure that becomes self-fulfilling.

Clinton pulled back from the brink of the PR fail vortex, but not in time to save the Dems in 94.

Will Obama?; 8/17/10, 12:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Christ's Church Lutheran in Woodstock recently held a "Footprint Fast!"

We no longer atone for our sins if we're hip! Well, our sin is our carbon footprint.; 8/17/10, 12:29 PM
Hagar said...: I hope we will soon get a President with the nerve to take the Secret Service down a couple of pegs. This stuff of arbitrarily shutting down normal community functions for 30 minutes to eirher side of the President's passing has got to stop - even for Presidential functions, and certainly when he/she is just acting as Party fundraiser in chief.; 8/17/10, 1:09 PM
Unknown said...: You can be for the guy, but, when the ^%$#^&%$#^ motorcade keeps you stuck for an hour, voting Druid looks really good.

pm317 said...

And as I understand it, all he raised was 1 million!! Some of the big players (who paid $30K) were not even there. They just gave him pity money.

Watch what happens when Rasmussen and Gallup both have him below 40.; 8/17/10, 1:52 PM
cookasia said...: It's Bush's fault, folks....; 8/17/10, 1:58 PM
Hagar said...: This Los Angeles thing apparently was even worse than usual. The event was at some cinema mogul's home next to Hollywood, and they just shut down everything for miles all around - including 3 freeways - the whole time Obama was there.
This is like the old times in Moscow or Peking, and it does not have anything much to do with "security" - it is just bureaucracy run amuck.; 8/17/10, 2:34 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Everytime some one starts railing on about "carbon footprints" I want to burn a tire.

Obama said he missed being able to drive in a convertable. They should have just given him a convertable, some sunglasses and a hat and no one would have paid any attention to just another black guy in a convertable on the LA Freeways.

Win win.; 8/17/10, 3:12 PM
Jasmina Boulanger said...: I was there in the traffic quagmire. Sheesh!

http://eastofparis.blogspot.com/2010/08/detour-party.html; 8/17/10, 3:46 PM
Big Mike said...: I don't understand -- presidents have been traveling around the country for scores of years without anything like this sort of havoc being created, haven't they? This is the third or fourth "Obama creates gridlock" story I've seen published (and I just missed getting caught in one, when he flew Marine Corps 1 to a fundraiser for the Democrat candidate for governor in last year's election that was not ten miles from the White House). I don't remember this for Clinton, Carter, Reagan, or the two Bushes. Can't they find competent advance men?; 8/17/10, 3:53 PM
AllenS said...: This Obama character, hasn't been getting good press like he used to. Hardly anyone says anything nice about him any more. It's going to be a long and ugly 2+ years. That would be my guess. If the press had done its work in the beginning, none of this would be happening. At one of our worse economic times, we have to put up with this nowhere man.; 8/17/10, 3:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Big Mike, as I posted over at Gateway Pundit, this isn't the first time such idiocy has happened, although this sounds like the worst example to date.

Hagar has the right idea. The president is not a king, and the Secret Service should refuse to displace millions of citizens for his personal convenience.; 8/17/10, 4:41 PM
former law student said...: presidents have been traveling around the country for scores of years without anything like this sort of havoc being created, haven't they?

I had to get from O'Hare to the Loop during the Carter administration, and it had been blocked for perhaps an hour in total to let the Prez go by. Cops preventing people from entering the on ramps, etc. I ended up going down Milwaukee Ave.; 8/17/10, 4:59 PM
MikeR said...: LA Times: "It's unanimous, president's visit leaves L.A. boiling"
I love ambiguous headlines.; 8/19/10, 11:31 AM