By Andrew Zajac
Snapshots from the run-up to the inauguration.
There's only a trickle of passenger traffic at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on the eve of the Martin Luther King Day holiday.
But a knot of people fills the waiting area near Gate B10. As Southwest Airlines Flight 449 to Baltimore begins boarding, a pair of Transportation Security Administration workers begin picking ticket-holders out of the queu for apparently random searches of persons and bags, something not seen in four years of fairly frequently flying on this route.
It's an unusually well-decked out crowd, with many men in suits and several women in furs and dressy hats. A flight attendant notices, telling passengers via the intercom, "I've been flying for eight years and I've never seen a better-dressed flight."
Later, as the flight approaches Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, the flight attendant comes back on the intercom:
"In a few days, we're all going to be part of history...a momentous event. Why don't you join me on this next song?"
She then launches into a very serviceable version of 'God Bless America'.
.........
A reminder of the less lofty underpinnings of our democracy comes from a Mr. Tuttle, calling on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shortly after 9 this morning.
"We did pick up 24 seats," Mr. Tuttle allows. But "we did end up going into debt. We had to take out a $15 million loan..."
To some, it might seem crass to collect political money on the holiday of a martyred civil rights leader. But the calculation of the DCCC probably is that for everyone put off by the partisan solicitation, many more will write a check, buoyed by the results of an election that to many represents the fruit of King's sacrifice.
Comments
As I posted previously, I hope the TSA is carefully profiling the passengers and picking people to search based on the group most likely to want to hurt Obama: Rednecks and sourtherners with their connections to white supremicists and the KKK. Clearly profiling innocent muslims has kept us safe from Al Qaeda, so we must apply the same strategy here. So we inconvienence a few people, so we treat some like second class citizens, that's the price we pay for security. I'd rather detain a bunch of innocent white southerners than run the risk of a white supremicist getting through. Until the white southerners eliminate the racists in their midst, they must be treated the same as the muslims who have not eliminated the terrorists around the world. The next time you see a guy in a NASCAR shirt, err on the dside of safety and assume they are from the KKK.
Posted by: J. Swift | January 19, 2009 1:16 PM
Listen to the newspaper scribe; elect Obama, and suddenly people dress better, and flight attendants sing better....
What next? Will The Swamp report that chickens are laying bigger eggs because The Messiah is now president?
Haven't read media propaganda this fawning since Pravda and Joe Stalin.
Posted by: Change You Can Believe In | January 19, 2009 1:19 PM
Works for me, 'Change'
I got a spiffy new hairdo just for Tues. Haven't had my blonde afro in years.
Posted by: Flo | January 19, 2009 2:05 PM
Change: Since Obama was elected, the sky is bluer and the sun shines brighter for ALL Americans, including you!
Posted by: lochnessmonster | January 19, 2009 2:42 PM
Just knew you were a guru of fashion and cool, Flo. Hope we all have a great day Tuesday and we hear a memorable speech that Americans will take to heart.
Posted by: Bubba Porter | January 19, 2009 6:27 PM
Why Bubba Porter, you're being nice. I'm disarmed!!
Posted by: Flo | January 19, 2009 10:45 PM
@J. Swift: Are you serial? I don't know where you live, but people who live in the north are thrice as racist as southerners, at least. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Yawk...you name the northern state and it will be home to scads of racists of every color, creed, and ethnicity.
Further, the home of a goodly number of white supremacists reside in the northwest region of this country. Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington all have unhealthy populations of hateful morons who hate not just blacks, but everybody who believes differently than they do.
Move it to Chicago and the state of Michigan, where you will find minorities whose hate for whites burns brightly. The wrong Rev. Wright, Øbama's spiritual mentor, is the exemplar of these ignorant morons. The Detroit metro area itself is home to hundreds of thousands of America-hating foreigners who wish ill on you (unless you are one of them yourself...which you may be, since you know exactly nothing about the south).
Posted by: skh.pcola | January 20, 2009 1:56 AM
Posted by: skh.pcola | January 20, 2009 1:56 AM \
Ahh, so you don't like the suggestion that your particular group should be stereotyped and profiled, that's just for aother groups, right? Like all those "america haters" in Detroit.
Posted by: J. Swift | January 20, 2009 9:36 AM