Government Doesn't Work

The lesson of the hot-crotch bomber incident is not that, as Secretary Napolitano said, "one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked."

No Madam Secretary. Do not insult us with that kind of talk.

The lesson is that once more, the cumbersome, complicated, bureaucratic security system failed to prevent a terrorist from carrying out a terrorist act. As The Wall Street Journal says:

The lesson here is the same as Flight 93 on 9/11 and shoe-bomber Richard Reid, which is that civilians willing to act in their own self-defense are a crucial part of "homeland security." The willingness of passengers and crew to identify potential threats seems more useful than more onerous airport screening, which only gives terrorists the satisfaction of knowing they have made air travel even more unbearable. The new rule to keep passengers in their seats in the final hour of some flights seems all too typical of arbitrary rules that inconvenience innocents but not terrorists.

And guess what. If you get up in the last hour of flight no doubt they'll want to arrest you. Although maybe if you are a Black Panther, you won't. That's the record of the Obama Justice Department thus far. Rules apply to ordinary Americans but not to favored clients of the Obama client state.

This all reminds me of the whole point of the Second Amendment: "A well-regulated militia..." You can have all the armed forces and police and security services in the world, but it still comes down to the individual citizen stepping up and protecting himself and all of us. Government doesn't work.

There's a good side to all this. After the last decade of cynical political game-playing by the Democrats on terror and on economic policy and a host of other things, they are now in charge and they are responsible. Didn't connect the dots? Democratic problem. Fannie and Freddie still belly up? Democratic problem. Unemployment in the stratosphere? Ask your Democratic friend about that.

The coming year, 2010, is going to be an annus horribilis for the Democrats and it couldn't happen to more deserving people. We are in this mess because of their failed model of top-down expert administrative statism lubricated by shameless Chicago-style machine politics. If they get away losing less than 50 seats in the House I'd say they can call it a miracle. Democrats deserve to lose 100 seats in the House and a switch in the Senate too.

It probably won't happen for one simple reason. The American people are too nice to give them the boot they deserve.

Anyone still not sure about a New Years resolution has got it now. Vote them out. All of them. Vote them out early and often.