The easy, and sorely mistaken, response to O'Hare comes from blogger Ed Moed, who writes that among the advantages of the deal is the opportunity for marketers to reach consumers in a more efficient fashion. But this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of republican government. Commerce domesticates passions and satisfies wants, but it is not the purpose of a free people. The enjoyment of liberty--or the just exercise of public authority, which is the same thing--is. And so merely pointing to the commercial advantages of a proposal regarding public property is no argument, any more than would be a scheme to allow vote-buying as a means of poor relief.

But O'Hare neglects the point that the Port Authority needs to raise resources, either by raising tolls--and thus crimping the working poor most of all--or by selling limited amounts of advertisements. The question thus is rather any threat to the public sphere is outweighed by the benefits of such a maneuver.

The obvious point, then, is whether a res publica ever takes on the characteristics of a res sacra. The are obvious examples of such politically consecrated grounds; selling billboards on the lawn of the Capitol might only make obvious what the campaign-finance reform types have been saying for sometime, but the idea would never fly no matter how obviously corrupt the institution became. There is a grandeur necessary for the prominent edifices of the State, and if an imposing facade serves only to mask the hypocrisy of the men inside then it has at least served to remind us that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. We should object to such a display, finally, not because commerce is sinful or contagious, but because symbols matter, and maintaining the impartiality of such facades is an important symbol.

But what is at issue is not the White House or a state house or even a courthouse (all of which, incidentally, are habitually kept in a poorer state of repair than any levelheaded person should wish, out of politicians' fear that they might be thought extravagant). It is a tollbooth. And if the Capitol reminds us of the theoretic majesty of the sovereignty of the People, the tollbooth is an instrument of nothing more lofty than getting from point A to point B. Given the track record of governments in general of keeping such mundane public spaces pristine (think of the public schools, or of the public spaces), we can assume that the widespread dinginess of such areas even when compared to the average McDonald's is a condition that will not soon be ameliorated, and, so reflecting, become more open to the idea that the public space will become more like the private one in certain respects. (Surely anyone who has been to Penn Station would applaud the Port Authority's taking a page from the private sector and eliminating the stench of urine from the building.) It is a bad idea and a worse maxim to run government like a business, but there are some fields in which commerce provides an instructive example.

O'Hare's fear of pollution is revealing; all, or virtually all, of the people using the GWB will engage in commerce; none of them will use the bridge in a public space in any lofty sense (and if they did, they would probably be arrested for interfering with traffic); and the intrusion is so small, that I predict that motorists will quickly learn to filter the advertisements out, if they even notice them. By then, of course, there will be some new pretended threat to public discourse that will inflame O'Hare and the ceaseless activists who make their name by caring about such things.