Since yesterday, 8 blocks of Constitution Avenue along the Mall in D.C. has been closed because of a strange man who drove a tractor into the Constitution Gardens pond. Although there was no mention of it when the drama began, the authorities now say that he claims to have ammonium nitrate, which is the active ingredient in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Evidently, he’s just sitting there in a tractor, waving an upside-down flag, and playing rock music.
What amazes me is how one road closure can tie up traffic in an entire region. This morning I spent more than an hour trying to just get to a bridge to cross into Washington. I finally bailed out and came home. The scene on the way home:
It is impossible to move around the Washington region even on the best day. What will happen if there is an attack or disaster? A million cars, sitting on jammed highways, unable to move – a perfect target.
3:20pm Postscript: In tomorrow’s Washington Post, an amusing but thought-provoking column by Marc Fisher:
I hate to be giving advice to Saddam Hussein at this moment, but clearly, the most effective path for any enemy of America is to put on a helmet that makes him look like Franz Liebkind, the unreconstructed Nazi in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” get himself a John Deere tractor and drive it into a shallow decorative pond. That’ll shut down any American city but good.
Judging from this guy, I’d say subsidies to tobacco farmers are way too high: Nice shiny new tractor, flatbed trailer, cell phone, loads of time on his hands–this guy needs to see what life is like without subsidies.
The big question right now is, why have the police permitted this man to shut down Constitution Avenue and several federal buildings, simply with his unconfirmed statement that he has some explosives with him?
Can anyone here say “tranquilizer dart”? If the Park Police can’t handle this, call in the National Zoo administrators–they’ve shown a special capacity to quiet wayward creatures.
