Cops 'R Us

There are cops everywhere in mid-town Manhattan. It almost looks as though they’re guarding each other. But the NYPD had big welcoming smiles when asked for directions. I hope the good mood keeps up all week. The test may come on Sunday when tens of thousands of anti-Bush demonstrators are expected to parade near the convention site.

Chatter on radio talk shows recalls the bloodbath in Chicago at the Democrats’ 1968 convention during the Vietnam War when anti-war protestors were beaten back by Mayor Richard Daley’s riot-ready police. Some say that outbreak of violence played into the hands of Republican Richard Nixon who portrayed himself as the law-and-order alternative to those pesky Democrats and beat Hubert H. Humphrey.