Who wouldn’t want the Marines on their streets? San Francisco, apparently. San Francisco Film Commission executive director Stefanie Coyote barred the Marines’ Silent Drill Platoon from filming a scene for their new recruitment commercial, “America’s Marines,” on California Street in downtown San Francisco on September 11. Coyote claimed it would cause a traffic problem, and permitted the crew to only film the empty street. Sure, San Francisco is a busy city, but the Marines were allowed to film a scene in Times Square during rush hour, so blocking off one lane on a San Fran street shouldn’t have been much more difficult. Defense Tech notes that this is nothing new for San Francisco, the city that got rid of high school ROTC (check out Michelle Malkin’s coverage) and banned the Blue Angels, and asks: “Yet another slap in the face of the US Military by a shrill anti-military area or a prudent exercising of civil traffic control by sage city elders? You decide.” A.J. at PoliPundit is equally outraged and remarks: “Traffic control? That’s funny, that never seemed to stop them from authorizing pro-homosexual, pro-illegal immigrant and anti-war protests before.” Good point. Allahpundit at Hot Air agrees, noting: “Thank goodness we have vigilant civil servants like Stefanie Coyote working to keep our roads free for automobiles. And also for any sort of demonstration whatsoever that doesn’t involve people in American uniforms.” Allahpundit also dug up some interesting info: Stefanie Coyote is married to actor Peter Coyote, who donated to MoveOn.org (“General Betray Us”)… Riehl World View calls the incident “The Ahmadinejad Factor in America: No Marines in San Fran,” and says, “Too bad some San Fran pols can’t appreciate the very people who so valiantly stand between them and a tyrant like Ahmadinejad.” Ace of Spades asks the important question, “I wonder if their anti-military sentiments will be as strong if a future natural disaster makes sending in the National Guard necessary?” Of course, San Francisco blog SFist isn’t outraged by the ban. We wouldn’t expect anything less from Nancy Pelosi’s district.
