TSA is the New DMV

Critics of the president's health care plan like to ask whether you want your health care run by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

We all know why. The Department of Motor Vehicles is the only government agency that most people ever interface with as a customer. It's the only time they get ordered around by rude, uneducated, overweight dolts. And these are dolts that cannot be fired. It's the only time when they experience the eternal constant of governance: How not to do it.

On Sunday, Lady Marjorie encountered the new DMV, the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) the creation of 9/11. Marjorie was selected for a random search. This meant being ordered into a glass cage, barked at, ordered out of the glass cage, having her belongings spilled on the floor, being ordered around, and generally treated as though she was applying for a drivers license at the DMV.

You'll recall that on the insistence of Democrats in the Senate, airport security checks were to be performed by uniformed government employees rather than the contract personnel, as previously. They must have thought that they had scored a real coup by creating a new special interest that would be good for votes and contributions in the years ahead.

But I think they may have made a strategic mistake. It used to be that Americans didn't come into contact with the federal government too much, except to talk to the friendly ranger at a National Park. But now they have to suffer the ministrations of a new Circumlocution Office, well practiced in the arts of How not to do it, every time that they fly.

At least you only have to deal with the DMV once every five years.

I admit it. I hate the security checks at the airport, absolutely hate them. It is just wrong for a free people to be subject to such routine policing and manhandling by the government. As time goes by, I expect that I will project my distaste more and more upon the unfortunate TSA employees manning the security checkpoint.

I expect that many Americans will come to feel the same. Democrats will find out that there will be political repercussions to this.

It will mean that critics of glorious new government progams will ask, in future: Do you really want your health care run by the TSA?