A teddy bear and a blankie would be a lot cheaper

Via Buzzflash comes some info from the January 11 edition of the News-Herald (Cleveland, Ohio) on the weird degree of security surrounding the coronation of our Only President.

The nation's 55th presidential inauguration, the first to be held since 9/11, will take place this month under perhaps the heaviest security of any in U.S. history. ...

Virtually everyone who gets within eyesight of the president either during the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol or the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue later in the day will first go through a metal detector or receive a body pat-down.

Thousands of police officers and military personnel are being brought to Washington from around the country for the four-day event. Sharpshooters will be deployed on roofs, while bomb-sniffing dogs will work the streets. Electronic sensors will be used to detect chemical or biological weapons. ...

The extra officers from around the country will free up Washington police officers so that they can form "mobile platoon civil disturbance units" to prevent protest demonstrations from getting out of hand....

More likely, to prevent them happening at all, along with, for that matter, anything - and I do mean anything - else not officially approved in advance, recorded in triplicate, personally vetted by Karl Rove, and subject to direct White House control: Among the banned items are

coolers, folding chairs, bicycles, pets, papier-mache objects, displays such as puppets, mock coffins, props and "any items determined to be a potential safety hazard,"

including the crosses usually carried by anti-abortion protestors.

I admit this is speculation on my part, but I remain convinced that a lot of this extremist approach to security bubbles not out of the Secret Service but out of the White House in general and George Bush in particular. I think that he really does conceive of himself going toe-to-toe in an almost literal sense with some worldwide organization of terrorists, occupying in his mind the same place that the Illuminati does in others, and that he really does conceive of himself as the central target of all their ever-active machinations. Thus, every venture outside the confines of the White House is fraught with danger and must be totally controlled, his every step protected, because the safety of the world depends on it. "Apres moi, le deluge." Oh wait, he wouldn't say that - it's French. Never mind.

Anyway, so deeply paranoid is the atmosphere that the thousands of members of marching bands, color guards, and the rest that will be participating in the inaugural parade will not only be virtual prisoners in the hours preceding the event, but have been given instructions

includ[ing] a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.

They are left to wonder, apparently, what the consequences of daring to look at His High and Mightiness might be, but they are sure to be dreadful. (See the reference a few posts back to "I thought he had a gun," perhaps?)

Imagining all these people marching straight ahead, eyes fixed straight ahead, brings to mind scenes from Triumph of the Will. The effect is likely unintentional but not without merit.