Why do motorcades upset me?

On my way back to work from a midday walk, I found cop cars blocking each cross street of 16th Street, which is a north-south boulevard leading to the front of the White House. Auto and pedestrian traffic was halted in all directions. Sixteenth Street was eerily barren, with people tapping their feet on the sidelines. The president, you see, was returning to his house. The parade, in order of appearance:

9 motorcycles in a row, spaced 100 feet apart
3 black SUVs
1 armored conversion van
2 black limousines (one presumably carrying POTUS or his deputy)
1 ambulance
1 helicopter
3 black SUVs
3 police cars

This list does not include several police cars that zoomed down side streets, as if to flank the president in case of an attack from the side.

Whenever I see a motorcade, I'm left with the same thoughts: Is this really necessary? What does this accomplish, other than making a spectacle? If the president really wanted to be protected, wouldn't he travel in a single, quiet, nondescript, armored car rather than in a blaring Macy's Day parade? The president might as well be waving from the limo's sunroof. And shutting down a major urban thoroughfare for 10 minutes seems like an intensely irreponsible thing to do. It's very Triumph of the Will-ish, except the citizens lining the motorcade are grumpy, not ecstatic.

$how bu$ine$$

Item 1. Letterman introduced Nicolas Cage Wednesday night as an actor whose films have made $3 billion worldwide. Not as the man who made Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation (each a shining achievement in their respective decades), but as an actor who can really rake in the dough.

Item 2. For the past couple years, the content of my ex-favorite magazine and ex-employer, Entertainment Weekly, has revolved not around film quality (as it did during its infancy in the early '90s) but around box office. All its newsy articles are fixated on predicting or analyzing a film's floppage or blockbuster capacity -- not delineating why something sucked or why it was great and what it means for the medium and the culture.

The point: Culturalists are talking too much about movies and movie people in terms of dollars. I know the film industry is a business; money must be made, and the financial success of a movie can serve as a kind of cultural barometer. But Letterman isn't Sherry Lansing and EW isn't Variety. Let's keep our eye on the ball, folks. I understand there are corporate interests at work here, but Letterman on TV and EW in print and on the Web have tremendous power to point people to quality material. If only they were using that power for good.