Still, it couldn’t have happened to a better guy. Only Barney Frank has a more acidic tongue, and in Barney’s case I’d rather not tell you where the excess acid came from.  Just months ago I watched Wiener on the Floor lamenting the loss of federal funding(your money) for National Public Radio.  Imagine a world without Click and Clack?  Wiener went on and on lamenting the loss, using marginal satire and fancying himself witty.

What is most astonishing about Wiener-Gate is that he can’t answer one simple question.  Is the picture authentic?  For me, if there is one, single question that I can answer with complete authority and without hesitation, it is the question…”is this a picture of your penis?”  No…it isn’t.  Like most people, I would remember that. Also, like most people, that would never happen.  Like most people, the thought never crossed my mind, and if it did, such a barrage of red flags, sirens and air-raid whistles would resound that it would overpower me.

Talk about an activity with “danger” written all over it.  Folks remark that it’s because there are cameras in phones and wrist watches now.  Huh?  So…it was just too much trouble back in the 40′s with those big cameras with the elephant trunk on them?  Maybe adults were too busy being adults back then, to dream up such a bad idea.

You know, there’s a product out there called “Instant Underpants”.  It’s true.  A little tablet you drop in a glass of water and it expands into a pair of reasonably becoming underwear.  If spies have to carry a cyanide tab…then every politician should have an Instant-Undies tab in their pocket.

I must be naive, I guess, because I’m constantly surprised by stuff that seems not to surprise other people.  This is such a case.  A friend brought to my attention that last Christmas, Target refused to allow Salvation Army bell-ringers in front of their stores.  In and of itself, odd but not a deal-breaker for me.  When it comes to folks who collect for different charities outside the entryway to major food or department stores, I admit I sometimes feel a little put out.  It’s like the guy who jumps in front of your car to get the windshield, whether you want it washed or not, and then waits for his dollar.  You feel like a jerk if you drive off, and feel “had’ if you donate.  After all these years I still end up feeling “had”.

But the Target story runs deeper than bell-ringers.  Dick Forrey of the Vietnam Veterans Association claims they recently asked the local Target to be a proud sponsor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during their spring recognition event.  According to Forrey, he received the following response from Target:  “Veterans do not meet our area of giving.  We only donate to the arts, social action groups, gay and lesbian causes and education.”  Hmmm…sounds fishy, right?  Why would a store go out of their way to alienate veterans?

Forrey, no doubt inspired at this point, sent an e-mail to Target U.S. Corporate Headquarters.  Their response was just as firm.  It is their national policy not to donate to veterans groups.  As it turns out, they also will not allow Marines to collect for “Toys for Tots”.

Forrey dug deeper.  Target, it seems, also would not allow families of employees who were called up for active duty in the military to continue their insurance coverage while their loved one was at war.  Nice.  All of this considered, Forrey was not surprised, as I was, to learn that Target is a French-owned company.  Interesting, because, is there a country on the face of the planet that owes more to the American soldier than France?

I don’t know about you, but after considering all of the above, and the obvious additional fact that tons of profit in American dollars spent at Target end up in France…I can safely say that the last time I shopped at Target, was the last time I’ll ever shop at Target.

To give credit where credit is due, President Obama deserves kudos for making a tough call.  It could have gone horribly wrong and been a political disaster for him, a deadly disaster for the Navy, and a psychological nightmare for the country when we need it least.  Instead, a military maneuver straight out of Hollywood, and one for the history books, yielded a captured and killed Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attack on America.  It has been a long time coming.

There will be plenty of time to discuss the details.  The bounty of intelligence that is being culled from the “take” at the compound.  Imagine the information we will garner from this haul.  Already we know that indeed, OBL was still in charge, and actively involved in planning and dispensing terrorist attacks.

We also know that the Pakistan government is not our friend.  It is possible that many officials didn’t know that OBL was living down the street for the past six years.  It is implausible that nobody knew.  This compound was only 300 yards from a major Pakistani military base.  The compound was unique in the neighborhood, with high walls topped with barbed wire and no internet or telephone service.  All household trash was burned on-site.  It’s the old…”he was a quiet man…” neighborhood response.  Particularly quiet in this case.  He never left the building.

There will be time, because the media will be discussing this for weeks on end, to talk about the damage to our military secrets by having left behind large portions of a stealth helicopter.  There was some technological leakage there, but a small price to pay for bringing in the world’s most wanted criminal.

One thing that can’t, or shouldn’t, wait, is to give credit to former President Bush and his team for the policies they put in place that allowed for the garnering of the information that led to the capture of OBL.  It is a bit painful for some of us, able to remember how the Bush administration got hammered by the same Press that is now busy throwing rose petals on their President, when he tried to explain why we needed enhanced interrogation, wiretapping, and other forms of intelligence gathering that so rankled the Left.  This is not to take away from Obama’s big moment, but without the adults who go to work, make money and pay the bills, there is no Christmas Tree for the kids to have their magic.  It was the hard work, the ability to make unpopular decisions, and a more pragmatic view of our enemy, that was the Hallmark of the Bush administration…in other words…the War on Terror…that gave us the courier, that led us to Bin Laden.

Let’s not forget,also, all of the military, men and women, soldiers from all countries, that have fought this war for the last ten years…all with a common goal.  All of those injured, those who died, the enormous cost of this justice.  We are reminded, too, that there is no other military force on Earth the could have pulled this off.  Truly, truly courageous and masterful beyond belief.

Finally, once located with a 99% assurance that they had their man…a decision had to be made.  And how many choices were there?  Drop a bomb?  You lose the body and the intelligence in the compound.  Not practical.  Capture him and bring him out alive?  Too much work for too little payoff and the political nightmare of where, when and how to bring him to trial.  Uh-uh…no way.  So it was a Special Ops mission almost without question, so in that sense, it must have been a bit easier for the President to make the call.

Let’s enjoy the moment, because when the euphoria wears off, there is unemployment, a tanking economy, foreclosures and four dollar-per-gallon gasoline waiting for us.  Nonetheless…like dozing off on the couch…it was nice while it lasted.

Meanwhile, it would be hard to dispute the absolutely fascinating occurrence of his ascension in the polls.  To be sure, among Independents, he is near the bottom and polling around 9%.  In other polls, he is at the top, above Romney, Huckabee, Palin and everyone else.  Incredible.  He’s not even running, and I don’t believe he will run.  But even if he stopped right now…zipped it…said it was all a big mistake and moved to a cabin in Montana, he has provided Republicans with an invaluable lesson.  He has demonstrated, without question, which issues resonate the deepest with the average American. The economy, corrupt government, government spending, jobs and a Great Nation on the verge of fiscal and moral collapse, to name a few.

He vacillates between cartoonish and Reaganesque, at least to me.  That makes it hard to pin him down.  He did, I think, cause the President to finally produce his long form Birth Certificate, an issue I have always found wanting in importance.  I guess I never really doubted that he was a citizen and, really, if not, what are we going to do…deport him?  I found it to be in the “911 Truther” league…a little wacky.  Still, Obama finally feeling compelled to produce it, is pretty astounding.  It raises the question…why did he let it simmer with so many people for so long?  See the “Handbook of Chicago Politics”, Chapter 1, Verse 1.  They used the issue to keep that certain segment of “Birther’s” alive, well, and looking crazy to a large portion of the country.

Imagine, too, that the President had to vie for media coverage over Trump.  Obama’s announcement, and Trump’s little speech from the tarmac at Pease, were equally lofty news pieces and one could easily call “Trump-1, Obama-0″ on that one.  Again, incredible.

When Trump calls for an investigation into Obama’s grades and an analysis of how he landed at Harvard, he seems a little too edgy for me.  On the other hand, remember how the Press hounded Bush over his attending Yale?  Similar stuff, although Trump is hinting, I imagine, at Affirmative Action, and the implication with Bush was simply that he was an idiot who made Yale on his father’s coattails.

But when Trump says of Libya, and the effort to oust their leader and back the freedom-fighting rebels…”I want 5 billion bucks just to take the phone call…”, well, that actually makes sense to me.  Realistic? Probably not, but I like, and so do a lot of others, the politically-incorrect, shoot-from-the-hip approach.  Those kind of quips remind me of Reagan. There is a similar sentiment.  Think Governor Chris Christie on steroids and with really bad hair, and you have Trump.

Who knows where this will go, but in a Presidential race that will soon be heating up, and with a field of rather lackluster contestants at this point in time, maybe Trump is worth it just for the half-time show.  He has struck a chord, though.  “America has become the laughing stock of the world and we are in a serious decline”.   Pretty hard to argue with that.

According to the Judicial Watch Verdict of 2010, Volume 16, Issue 12, the following numbers apply to Nancy Pelosi and her use of Air Force aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010.  The numbers are made available under the Freedom of Information Act, otherwise you can bet they’d be buried deeper than Hillary Clinton’s weightlifting records.

Remember, now, this is the diminutive crow of a woman who stood watch while the federal government spent more…in two years…than in the two hundred years preceding them.  All the while, blaming the Bush administration…still…for the ever-deepening recession.  And…advising the rest of us to tighten our belts, accept higher taxes, and continue on an entitlement binge.  This is the woman who proclaimed…and I’m not making this up…that unemployment benefits were one of the best stimuli for the economy because those people spent the money right off.  Fantastic.  And that would be true if the “money” she was talking about grew on trees or fell from the sky like snowflakes or could be squeezed from oranges like juice.  The problem, of course, is that the “money” comes from the paychecks of the rest of us…and then we can’t spend that money “right away” ourselves.  Indeed…we don’t get to spend it at all.

Imagine, then, that this same insipid bubble of a person spent in that 15 month period a little over 2.1 million dollars on Air Force aircraft.  Over 85 trips during a 68 week period, aircraft hours just under 500 hours, or, as it averaged out, $27,715.00 per trip.  Oh…that’s not all though.  There was the booze bill for these flights which almost always included family of some kind. A little over a hundred grand altogether, but averaged out at $1,193.00 per trip.  Not a lot when you consider what she demanded be available on the aircraft.  Are you ready?  Johnny Walker Red Scotch, Grey Goose Vodka, E & J Brandy, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Maker’s Mark Whiskey,Courvoisier Cognac, Bacardi Rum, Jim Beam Whiskey, Beefeater Gin, Dewars Scotch, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Jack Daniels Whiskey, Corona Beer…I’ll spare you the Wine List.

What’s more amazing than this?  That across the country, it is the “left”, the devout followers of Nancy Pelosi and her philosophy, that are becoming so angry, vile and vitriolic at demonstrations.  The Tea Party folks continue, by and large, to keep their cool.  That’s amazing…because when I read how much of our money that corrupt, ass of a woman…that nasty piece of work, spent keeping that massive ego of hers afloat…well…it makes it seem like the folks on our side should be the ones yelling and screaming.

I’m increasingly incensed at hearing “we” and “you” used in these arguments, and how “we” are all going to have to share the “pain” of getting America back to financially solid ground.  Sure…just like I’m anxious to help my neighbor bail his nephew out of a fourteenth arrest for meth production.  It implies that everyone is to blame for the nation’s debt crisis.  Not so.

The Administration would have us believe that we have all been naughty and now it’s time to pay the piper, when in fact, the federal spending binge that got us here has little to do with most Americans.  I can tell you that I have not been on any kind of spending and credit binge over the last few decades.  Instead, I’ve been struggling to keep a small business afloat, keep heating oil surging through the furnace, and to keep something resembling food on the table of a family of five.  It’s not been easy.  Most people I know have paid their bills, lived within their means for decades, and not had anything to do with the financial crisis facing this country.

Like most Americans I love this country and pay my taxes willingly…at least until recently.  But now I’m wondering if the sky is indeed the limit, or if the federal government will vote to raise the limit of “the sky” as well, in terms of how much money they are willing to extort from the working public.  When they finally want more than fifty cents of every dollar I earn, I’ve got to put on the brakes.  That’s just income tax…it doesn’t include the myriad of other taxes and “fees” we all pay in our day to day lives.

Is it any wonder that the gap between us is growing to an insurmountable breadth?  There are two Americas now.  The income-redistribution crowd that wants everyone beholden to the government and the same amount of chicken in every pot, and the rest of us that understand you can’t take everything from the “can-do” crowd to give to the “won’t-do” crowd.

The assault on “the rich” has become so tired and wanting.  America was built on the shoulders of those who wanted more…who worked harder…who were inspired to want the most of life that they could get.  Let’s be honest…some of us work harder than others.  I’ve owned a small business since 1981.  Eighty hour weeks were the norm, but I worked those weeks to carve out a better life for my family, not the family down the street.
The government now wants to level that field, and then, to add insult to injury, they want half of the half after I die as well.  I heard someone defending the death tax by saying, “you don’t want to spoil your kids, do you?”
Well…I’d rather spoil my kids than yours.

I’ll tell you one thing, the more I hear “we” and “you” coming from Washington, the more nervous I get.  I have a hard enough time paying for my own mistakes.  I don’t want to be paying for everyone else’s, too.

Consider the “budget crisis” we just endured in Washington, D.C. .  Never mind that the Obama administration has had since October to hammer out the same details that now had to be plowed through in another “faux” emergency.  Now, with Republicans holding some sway, and the nefarious Tea Party bearing influence in untold sums, agreement on spending and cutting became hard to come by.  Many argued that the 60 billion or so that was holding things up was indeed a small percentage of the overall budget, but there is also a growing sensibility that dictates that no amount is too small to forgo scrutiny.  I am with the latter group.

So naturally, rumors grew about the possibility of a “Government Shutdown”.  We all know that means practically nothing because government never “closes”.  We should be so lucky.  No..it is simply an increasingly popular gimmick to add pressure to hold-out votes.  We soldiered through a brief government shutdown under President Clinton and nobody noticed.  Granted, this one was to be a little more consequential, but it was still little more than “non-essential” workers being told to stay home, and probably still get paid.  I would point out here that only in government could the phrase “non-essential worker” even exist without snickers and guffaws.  For those of us in the private sector, that sounds silly. “I’m here for the non-essential job. I know you don’t need me, but I’d still like to show up everyday for 35 years and then leave with a huge pension and health benefits.  That is…if you don’t mind…”.  Problem is…the taxpayers are starting to “mind”.

This is why Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which was alternately heralded as brilliant or evil, was, if nothing else, radical.  And needed.  Liberals howled that old folks would be dying in the street, and the less fortunate would be left to die as entitlement programs were hacked back and thrown to the States.  This is where they belong, though.  States and communities can do what the Federal Government(the ditzy blonde on the bowling team) cannot…they can discern.  They can discern the needy from the lazy and greedy and we need to do that. There isn’t enough money to help the needy…and THEM too.

States and communities can get more for each dollar because the programs are not enveloped in federal government lard.  If you give fifty bucks to a needy person…they get the entire fifty.  Boom.  You give that same fifty bucks to Washington, and by the time they get it to that needy person…it’s twelve cents.  That’s the problem.

So Ryan’s plan, or one like it, is painful for everyone but it reflects the true need of the country. It isn’t wishy-washy, it is serious and reflects the urgency that every American should feel about getting federal spending under control.  We can continue on our spending spree and run the entire nation off a cliff.  Or we can get serious about the pain that is going to be inevitable, and begin getting it out of the way.  I’m with the latter group.

They have a celebration in Pilsen (Plzen) every five years, on May 6th.  A “Liberation Celebration” which includes a parade, various festivities and a solemn prayer at a very unique monument.  In this granite monument, carved and brilliant gold letters reads: “Thank You America! On May 6th, 1945, the City of Plzen was liberated by the U.S. Army”. More precisely, General George Patton’s 3rd Army.  How touching.  Simple, yet heartfelt and sincere.

The parade includes vintage U.S.Army vehicles and uniforms.  Children seek out the autographs of U.S. Soldiers who may be in the crowd, visiting for the event.  One native pointed out that the “United States soldier is the ‘rock star’ to our young people”.  Pictures show, indeed, young Czech children seeking and acquiring said autographs and the looks in their eyes bears out the statement by their elder.  They gaze upon these guys with the wistful, dreamy look of a teenage American girl watching The Beatles in 1965.

The story of Pilsen, their liberation and their own history, is entwined with our own history there.  This was the town, the place, where Lt. Virgil P. Kirkham, a USAAF pilot, was shot down and killed.  Lt. Kirkham was the last recorded pilot killed in Europe during World War II.  It was Kirkham’s 82nd mission…and one that he volunteered for.  He was 20 years-old when his P-47 Thunderbolt went down.

A 14 year-old Czech girl, Zdenka Siadkova, remembers the crash.  She remembers also being liberated, and was so moved by the sacrifice, that she vowed, then and there, to care for Virgil’s crash site and the memorial that is there.  She is now 79 years-old and has kept her promise for the last 65 years.  The crash site and memorial are near her home.

Here, Czech children are taught in school about America’s sacrifice for their freedom.  Here, the Brian LaViolette Foundation established The Scholarship of Honor in tribute to General Patton and the American Soldier.  Each year the Foundation pays tribute to an American Soldier.  In May, 2011, that recipient will be Lt. Virgil Kirkham.

As we look at world affairs today, we should all remember the efforts and sacrifices this great nation has made on behalf of so many oppressed people.  It is reassuring to see a place where the expression of gratitude is volunteered with such enthusiasm.  Thank you, Pilsen.

It would be impossible, I imagine, to put a dollar figure on what we have spent as a nation on “security” in the wake of 9/11, but it has to be an enormous number.  Think of time lost at work, the general interference with productivity, the cost to airlines and every form of travel.  Consider the cost of the security personnel themselves, the agencies, vehicles and administration.  It is simply nuts and I have to wonder sometimes if we’d be better of just winging it.

I’d like to see one airline say “we’re going to fly our airline as though 9/11 never happened and you are welcome to fly with us, or not.  If you do, we’ll be asking for your participation in common-sense efforts to suppress terrorist activity, and urge you to subdue at will any passenger that presents a threat to the safety of the flight.  You will arrive at the airport, check your luggage, get your boarding pass and fly.”

I would fly that airline in a heartbeat and, hopefully, enjoy the lower fares they could offer as a result of their increased efficiency.  We live in a free country where people come and go at will.  Surviving each day is a roll of the dice.  Most important, I have no faith that the people who slow us down in the interest of keeping us safe…are keeping us any safer than we would be without them.

In Detroit, outside a federal building that houses the FBI as well as the offices of Senator Carl Levin and the Social Security administration, a package was left.  The package was left there…outside the building…in February.  A security guard noticed the package and brought it in and placed it in the “lost and found” bin.  Fair enough for a civilian…but a security guard?  The package sat, incredibly, in the lost and found bin until mid-March when another security guard noticed it and called the Detroit Police.  The package was a bomb.  The Detroit Police Bomb Unit removed the device and detonated it.  The design was intended to detonate upon opening.  Let’s be grateful no kids, or curious adults, were snooping around the “lost and found” bin for treasure.

The guard who ultimately discovered the package and reported it was part of a union.  The contract guard who found the package outside originally was not.  So this, of all things, has become the focus of the story.  The brunt of the story for me is human error, coupled with the impossibility of watching everything in a country the size of the United States, as vivacious and alive as the United States, and as free as the United States.

At some point, we will have to decide how much money and energy we are going to spend trying to do the impossible.  We can’t inspect every package.  We can’t even inspect every suspicious package.  And it is only a matter of time before we have suicide bombers here and begin to enjoy the kind of terrorism that has been plaguing Europe and the Middle East for decades.  It’s coming.

That said, I find myself more and more inclined to remove the net.  We’re on the high wire, like it or not, and it’s not the long drop that kills you anyway…it’s the sudden stop.

In the wake of the horrific earthquake, then tsunami, that has rocked Japan, it has become more than a song title for me.  I’m even considering making it a goal.  Not to physically become Japanese, but simply to become more like them, I guess.

We have all seen the graphic footage of what occurred there, and there is some heartbreaking video.  Think also about all the scenes of devastating loss that were not captured on film.  I read an account, just days after the event, of a woman describing being washed away, and how she “felt her daughter’s hand slip away” from her, how she could not hold onto her any longer, and her daughter…age five, was swept away.  The reporter described how the woman folded into agony just after the statement, as though hearing herself say it, probably for the first time, somehow made it real for her.  I simply can’t imagine it.

We tend, also, to dismiss loss of property as being subjective as long as the property owners survived.  There is certainly truth to that, but I would not be so quick to diminish the emotional devastation of watching your home be swept away in current, break apart, and vanish in front of your eyes.  Swallowed up.  During one particular piece of video, you can hear the residents, watching from a nearby hill, wailing, crying and screaming in horror as they literally watch their town disappear in front of them.
Think, for a moment, about your home.  Where you have raised your children, perhaps, and shared holidays.  Your sanctuary from the wind of the world, where you read your children to sleep when they were young.  Photographs, belongings, favorite things…all gone in seconds.  I wonder if, after witnessing that, one feels at all blessed to have survived the event physically.

What struck me most, and a lot of others too, is the demeanor and discipline with which these people handled themselves in the wake.  Every news organization and radio talk show has covered it, but it took us all only hours to notice it.  No looting, no stealing, no hoards of people leaving with widescreens and furniture.  Grocery stores that were without power were left untouched.  One woman offered a prominent journalist a handful of rice.  The journalist was taken back, telling the woman that they needed it more than she did.  Imagine?

When asked about the stellar behavior, the woman replied that if anyone were to steal in this situation, or any other for that matter, they would be looked upon “with shame” by their neighbors and community.  If only that were enough to keep Americans on the straight and narrow.  One can’t ignore the glaring difference in, say…the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan.  Frankly, it should be cause for many Americans to take pause, and a long look in the mirror.

It would be unfair to call it a “silver lining”, but it wouldn’t hurt us to consider the monstrous difference here.  I understand Japan is a much more singular culture, they don’t have the vast diversity in culture that we have here.  But is that reason enough to explain the difference?  Is it reason to pass it off as an anomaly?  There was a time in this country, I’m thinking at least more than 50 years ago, when most Americans would have behaved the same way the Japanese are now, and for largely the same reason.

Whether or not we’ll ever see those days again is a different question.  It has created, at the very least, a “teachable moment” for the next generation.