President Obama visited Rio Rancho, NM this morning. He held a town meeting at the Rio Rancho High School concerning the Credit Card bill he's trying to get through Congress. Of course, no one was told how to get tickets to the meeting, so I don't know who he gave his talk to. I had to work, so I couldn't have gone anyway. Thank goodness I left for work at 6:30 AM so I missed the traffic mess. But, at noon, I left the base to get something for lunch and ran into the police and secret service blocking my route because Obama was going to the airport. His motorcade wasn't scheduled to go through that route for another hour, but they had to clear the way. The traffic director walked over to my car and told me to turn around because they weren't allowing traffic beyond that point. "We can't park and watch the motorcade pass?" No, it won't be through for another hour, and you'd have to park about 1/2 a mile back. "You've got to be kidding, you all must think we have shoulder, rocket launchers in our cars." The secret service didn't find that remark amusing and with my clearance I couldn't afford the problems. So, I turned around and drove to the other side of the base for lunch. But, I wonder--we the American people pay for the secret service, the limo, the president; but we aren't allowed to get within 1/2 mile of any of this. I remember the day, when presidents were more accessible. We could stand on the sidewalk and wave at motorcades. The days when base commanders forced us to stand in hot hangers for up to 3 hours to listen to President Clinton's speak to us about how great we were and then when he thought we couldn't hear him, he called us all four-letter words. Yeah, those were the good old days--we paid for everything, got called names, and in return we at least stood 3 feet away from the president who was taking our money.