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McCain: Hey, Wanna See My Wife's Tits?Wednesday, Aug. 06, 2008 3:52 AMIs it presumptuous for John McCain to refer to his wife as the First Lady? Just wondering. Said reference took place at a campaign appearance at the Sturgis Rally, an event in South Dakota honoring veterans - said honors including bikini and wet t-shirt competitions as well as pickle-licking contests. God Bless America. But nothing's too good for John McCain, who encouraged wife Cindy to participate. "I told her with a little luck, she could be the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip," said McCain. A joke, perhaps, but certainly one in poor taste, and without thought to Cindy McCain's dignity. Another joke which has backfired on McCain is his reference to Paris Hilton in questioning Obama's 'celebrity status,' as a bikini-clad Ms. Hilton now proposes her own energy policy in a mock campaign commercial. So while mocking Obama's suggestion that properly-inflated tires will improve our fuel economy (a fact), McCain has not only succeeded in making himself look stupid, he's now engaged in a debate with Paris Hilton. That's about as 'ready to lead' as Dan Quayle picking on Murphy Brown. The missing laptop computer containing the personal information of CLEAR program applicants has mysteriously been found - in the very office it was supposedly taken from - over a week after it was first reported as stolen. The implication, of course, is that the laptop was never truly missing and the data it contained never at risk, but this still smells fishy to me. If the laptop is assigned to a specific individual, then they're so disorganized as to lose track of a fairly significant piece of equipment. If the laptop is shared by several workers (i.e., whomever is working the kiosk), then it was not properly checked in at the end of the business day. Not to mention which, if the theft was reported and police came to investigate - recall that the original story said that the office had been 'broken into' - no one, not the police, not the TSA, not employees with the CLEAR program, noticed the laptop sitting there? (The official story is that it was 'not in an obvious place.') We're supposedly living in a new world, the post-9/11 world, where the scales have fallen from our eyes, we are aware of the threat to our national security, and stand ever vigilant. Except we keep misplacing things like nuclear warheads, fuses for nuclear warheads, and laptops with critical information on them. No less disturbing is reporter Ron Suskind's latest story: how the CIA and the Bush Administration conspired to forge a document that would become one of the cornerstones of the 'Saddam has WMD! Grave and growing threat!' mantra. But, wait, what's that sound coming from Nancy Pelosi's office? Oh, that's right: SILENCE. I don't trust Michael Chertoff, period. As news of a major credit card theft ring comes to light, Chertoff solemnly explains that we need networks that can verify transactions, so hackers can't pull this kind of stunt. I doubt that will be private encryption, but, instead, a pitch for another layer of government intrusion into our daily lives. (Remember John Poindexter's 'Total Information Awareness,' which proposed tracking commercial activity as a means of finding terrorists?) I wouldn't be at all surprised if this then links to a national ID card and more 'we're mindful of your civil liberties' horseshit.
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