…This is the first that I have heard of the Purple Tunnel of Doom.

As God as my witness, I was not aware before today that thousands of people with purple tickets to Obama’s 2009 Inauguration were trapped in a unheated, dirty tunnel in January and forced to wait hours for an Inaugural that most of them ended up not being able to actually access.

…No, seriously, that’s precisely what happened.

By late morning, purple ticket-holders packed the massive freeway tunnel wall to wall. With the temperature below freezing–icicles hung from the ceiling–children huddled with their parents for warmth. The walls were covered in soot from years of cars passing through, so people passed the time painting dirt murals with their fingers. Some played tic-tac-toe with the soot while others drew the Obama campaign logo. After hours of waiting, one person wrote, “FREE THE TUNNEL PEOPLE!!!” There were no bathrooms inside the tunnel, so men made their own artistic contributions to the tunnel walls when nature called.

I’m not sure whether this was a municipal failure, or a Democratic party failure… wait, no, it’s DC: there is no meaningful semantic difference.  I am sure that I’m not surprised that the media neglected to mention the minor detail that this administration started with a symbolic, and highly precognitive, breakdown in elementary organization.  The narrative is, as they say, king.  But the really funny part?  Some people who got trapped in that low-grade hell in 2009 are coming back for a second dose of punishment.  …No, seriously, that’s precisely what they’re planning: as one of them put it, “I just can’t imagine that they would screw it up that badly twice in a row.”

I remember being that naive.  It had its moments, really.

Moe Lane

PS: For my own part, I plan to spend this Inaugural doing the same thing that I did on the first Inaugural: to whit, I will stay in my nice clean, warm, and dry living room, eat some wings, and plan for the midterms.  After all, it worked fairly well the first time…

(Via Hot Air)