SF reroutes torch relay, but misses the point

Since it was my day off, I had the luxury of sitting at home and watching the torch relay live on TV as it dove and ducked throughout the streets of San Francisco. As I watched the torch disappear, only to reemerge in the city on an unannounced route, listening to the media trying to figure out where the flame was going, it became quickly apparent something more was going on.

I can understand why the route was changed. There were thousands of people lining the Embarcadero. Throngs were gathered at AT&T park and the plaza by the Ferry Building. The main job of the city and the police is to keep everyone safe, and there was too much potential for things to get out of hand.

But this was more than just crowd control. The first torch bearer smiled and waved to the crowd, then ran the opposite direction straight into a warehouse where she stayed for at least 15 minutes. Boats circled outside the warehouse - were they going to carry the torch to the plaza near the Ferry Building over the Bay? A motorcade peeled out, but where were they going? Former Mayor Willie Brown, a torch bearer, was whisked by boat to the Ferry Building and told to wait outside where cameras could clearly capture him - was the relay scrapped? Was the mayor told he was bumped? Would the torch end up at the plaza after all? - before he was rushed to the new route to be one of the final torch bearers. When the relay finally ended, they stopped at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge just long enough to make everyone think the flame was heading across - and to back up traffic just as rush hour was starting - before piling into the bus and heading, well, no one knew where they were heading.

Eventually NBC confirmed that they were heading to the airport. They also found out that, as of last night, the Chinese were calling the shots for the relay. Again, this was more than crowd-control. This was a carefully choreographed operation meant to intentionally deceive not just protestors and the media, but everyone who gave up their day to come to San Francisco's waterfront and share in the Olympic spirit.

Again, I understand that changing the route was probably necessary for everyone's safety, but engaging in a bait-and-switch, secret service-like deception operation, the city and the relay organizers did the relay a disservice. The image of the Olympic flame in the United States will be one that was, yes, successful. But it will also be one of a flame that had to be guarded and ultimately hidden from the people.