Barack Obama was on Jimmy Kimmel's TV show last week. I didn't watch it for fear Jimmy Kimmel would be on it but I have a question. It was a big issue that day in Los Angeles that this street would be blockaded and this one would be detoured and traffic would get backed up to Lompoc on this boulevard, etc. It always is when Obama comes to town.
Now, I'm old enough to remember John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all coming to Los Angeles to do TV shows and appear at fund-raisers and luncheons and dinners. Reagan never seemed to do anything else. I don't remember much panic about streets being blocked. There was some when Johnson or Nixon appeared at some hotel to make a speech but that was largely because there were thousands of people outside protesting The War. It feels like the minute Obama lands at LAX, the L.A.P.D. shuts down Wilshire Boulevard in both directions, no matter where he's going.
I absolutely understand protecting the president, even the presidents I haven't liked. I'm puzzling on why this is now such a problem.
One possibility — and it may be more than one of what I'm about to suggest — is that traffic just gets worse and worse in this town even when no president is near…so it's worse and worse when one is. Another is that perhaps Obama, who is hated by his haters more than most Chief Execs have been hated by their haters, requires more rigorous Secret Servicing.
Still another is that it's really no different. Those who want to dump on him are just blowing the norm all out of proportion, making him seem like someone who if he wants to go be on a late night show, doesn't give a damn about all the Angelenos he inconveniences. I once sat in a jam on Olympic Boulevard for at least 45 minutes because George W. Bush was speaking at the Century Plaza Hotel.
It barely made the news…which makes me think of another possibility. This has always happened but thanks to the Internet and everyone's smartphone alerting them and apps like Waze, we're hearing more about roads being blocked off.
The thing is: We block off streets in this city all the time…and for just about anyone or anything. There's a much-traveled section of Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Orange that is probably blocked two or three times a week. If there's a big event at the Chinese Theater or at the Hollywood and Highland shopping center, that stretch is blocked off. If Jimmy Kimmel, who tapes across the street, is doing a stunt or concert, that stretch is blocked off. That area and more than 25 additional miles of major Los Angeles streets were blocked off this morning for the L.A. Marathon.
And if I'm shooting a major motion picture or a TV show and I feel I need to have streets around your home blocked off, they will almost certainly be blocked off and if it inconveniences you, too damn bad. We've closed freeways because someone wanted to shoot a car chase on one.
I just don't get why it's such a big deal when President Obama comes to town. You'd think Democrats would be glad to have him in our fair city and Republicans would be pleased that for some period of time, he wasn't doing anything in Washington.