.....The parents drove down to Washington on Friday morning. Arriving at their hotel (The Willard) and checking in. The first days festivities were planned out. Joe was to meet Judge Sam outside the Capitol and they'd then walk to their first event of the day, a walk-thru of the Alibi Club. (In the link you'll find an adequate, if brief, explanation of the club.)
As a short aside, the timing of the entire weekend was planned with extreme accuracy, literally down to the minute. You arrived well ahead of time and entered, not a minute before or a minute after your scheduled appearance. To do so risked your very attendance at the event. Reason being....security. Huge, overt, covert, ninja-type, bad-ass big TREMENDOUS security. They screened, poked and prodded all in attendance. To a much lesser extent, pomp, circumstance and tradition.
The inner workings of the Alibi Club are very interesting. The related experience went something like this.
Joe and Judge were to be at a luncheon around the block from the White House. The guest speaker of the luncheon was Robert Gates, SECDEF.
The Judge wanted to show Joe the Alibi Club first hand. There was a timing issue with the visit though. Judge and Joe walked into this exclusive club about 7 minutes prior to 12. The inside was related to be a simple town home of a few stories tall. On one wall were caricatures of the rich and famous who have, for over a century+ graced the halls of this home. These caricatures were made of cut-out photo heads of the person with hand-drawn bodies and settings. No photographs ever, of course.
At 3 minutes to 12 the door opens and the concierge/doorman walks in and announces - "Lady and Gentlemen, arriving, President George H.W. Bush, 41st President of these United States of America." With that, the President walks in, along with his heavy security detail. Since the Judge and Joe were there just for a quick look-see they were almost in the entry hall of the club when the President arrived. Immediately, the President saw Judge Sam, walked over and shook his hand asking how the Judge was doing. In turn the Judge invited over Joe and introduced the two. Within a minute a grand father clock sitting in the foyer began to chime high noon. Upon the sixth chime another staff-man walked into the room, picked up an end of the voice powered intercom (read - air-tube) and announced the traditional Friday lunch was being served in the dinning room. Judge and Joe begged their good-byes and immediately walked out in order to make it the block or so to the Robert Gates luncheon. (A brief picture stop was made outside the club of the Judge. It was a hurried pic that was made even more brief when the Secret Service immediately walked over and asked both men to continue moving onward. (I hope to be able to update this post with the related pic shortly.))
The two men walked to the luncheon, were screened by security and escorted to their table. They sat with the military elite, past SECDEF's, military contractors, congressman, senators, etc. The speech Robert Gates offered was extremely engaging and played with anecdotes and personal details of his nine months in the position. The three most notable anecdotes were how his first nine months had seemed like 55 months. It was a challenge he would not relish on anyone, it at times made him question whether or not he was in his right mind when he agreed to take the job, but had turned to feelings of more personal satisfaction lately. He stated that he would most likely look back fondly on this episode of his life, but certainly one of the most extreme. His next anecdote was relating a recent experience he had with the French. He noted that the relationship with France appears to be improving dramatically and in very intensive terms. The French President Sarkozy has so far proved engaging and open to new relationships. This feeling of openness has permeated to all levels of the government. Recently Mr. Gates visited his French counterpart and had lunch with him (a first in 10 years). Over this lunch, the French Military Chief said a nice show of appreciation between peoples might be for a US naval ship to visit France on a port-of-call. Robert agreed it would be very nice and they shook on it (no approvals needed from Stateside since Gates has the full support and an extremely wide latitude and stand-alone authorization from the President.) Within a couple weeks the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise entered port and spent some time.
Mr. Gates then went on to say that the relationship between the two countries, which under Chirac was extremely frosty at best, has warmed considerably. There's even talk now of France engaging with Nato to send about 1000 of its troops to Afghanistan (though nothing firm is yet agreed upon.)
A Day with Monkey Suits
Saturday evening was the main attraction for the weekend, the Alphalpha Dinner.
Joe arrives at the Hotel about 20 minutes before the Judge. Security is ringing the hotel. Its nothing like he's ever seen before. Washington DC police, mounted, motorcycle, dressed and plain clothes, US Marshal's, Uniformed Secret Service, plain clothes secret service, hotel security, Diplomatic Protective Services, private security, on and on. Quite literally hundreds upon hundreds of police and security staff, some armed to the teeth carrying weapons as big as themselves.
Joe is now standing in the hotel lobby waiting for the Judge to arrive. He's playing gawker at this time in awe of everyone who walks through the doors. The interesting part is that the hotel also has regular guests staying as well. This puts regular Washington area tourists in the same location that the Washington elite are using. Joe notices a man in his 30's just standing off to one side. He's dressed in a tee-shirt, faded jeans and sandals. There he stands just watching everyone, not really moving locations. After a couple minutes Joe notices that the Secret Service have been watching this guy like a hawk. Agents are moving about, changing locations, speaking into their lapels or wrists and then moving about again. Conspiratorially, Joe believes mr. blue jeans is now a marked man with his picture already taken and run through a vast FBI image database to find out who this guy is. A couple FBI agents walk over and stand right beside the guy for a minute or so in an imposing manner, not looking directly at him, but obviously checking him out, they then move away. A minute later in walks a Washington DC police officer with dog. The police officer stops and stares directly at the guy. The dog sits down, he too, staring menacingly at the blue jean guy. Joe gets the feeling that the dog, if leash let go, would just devour the man in an instant. As quickly as the cop appears he too walks away. The rotation continues for a few minutes until it sinks in to the blue jean guy that he's being watched, surveilled, recorded and otherwise visually interrogated. The man moves off.
In walks the Judge. He arrives with another of his close friends, the Bishop of Washington DC.
more later......
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