Whose idea was it?

Saturday, February 13 -- Whose idea was it to declare Washington open for business on Friday?

Did the people who decide these things know, in advance, that only one lane of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge from VA to DC would be open? They they realize that both I-66 and the George Washington Parkway would still be virtual parking lots at noon time on Friday. Did they as Metro about the fact that half the DC metro stations would have no service? And did they ask about the open stations that would have one train every 30 minutes? And that was before the derailment on the Red Line.

The Washington Post has a pretty good account of the horrors of commuting on February 12 in the Washington area.

It is in fact pretty clear that John Berry, the man at OPM who decides these things,figured it would be better to avoid the critical news stories about how much taxpayer money gets "wasted" every day the government is closed, and instead to let the employees suffer instead. He said, "I knew it would be an ugly commute."