It's positively a bargain compared to what Americans spend on our monarchy.

What am I talking about? Have you taken a good look at the imperial presidency lately?

I live in Southern California, and needed to get some reporting done Thursday. But President Obama was out here raising money, so good luck getting anywhere on the westside of L.A. Traffic was shut down all over town because Obama had to get to fundraisers at a studio in Culver City and at a restaurant in Brentwood. No one could plan around this because the federal government, citing "security concerns," wouldn't give advance warning of what streets will be shut down.

When Obama came to town last August, my wife and young toddler child were stuck in their car for four hours by an unnecessary street closure (Obama was raising money at a TV producer's house more than two miles away from the closure). When I tried to walk the mile to where they were stuck, I was threatened with arrest for attempting to cross a deserted Olympic Boulevard (deserted because the president might drive down it sometime in the next two hours).

If the president were really a commoner, and not above the law, he would have braved the 405 traffic like the rest of us. Instead, the rest of us were stuck in gridlock so he could be protected from interaction with the public and the inconveniences of visiting a city with four million people. How is an American president not a king?