In the run-up to the 2008 election, pundits on The Right tried very hard to make the election about which candidate would keep America safe.  Since Barack Obama had a name that sounded potentially terroristic and a career as a “community organizer” he tried very hard to make the election about hope and change and George Bush, who wasn’t running.  Since we were at war in at least two places, Obama lost in the defining the campaign contest and about ¾ of the country gave the “keeping America safe” check mark to John McCain despite the fact that with him as Chief, we were one staph infection away from nuclear missiles in the control of a woman who says “golly”.  The reason they gave “good on defense” to McCain was either because he was old and had a bad temper, or because he was wily veteran and people thought that if things ever got very bad, he could hide out in a tree or because Joe Biden is a bozo and people were sure that if anything ever happened to our president, Biden would definitely start world war III by making an ill-advised comment to Kim Jong Il. 

Eventually, Obama won, and The Right told us that if we listened carefully, we could hear terrorists shooting their guns into the air and doing that yodeling thing and celebrating all over the world as one of their own took office.  For the first two years of his presidency he’s acted more like a “hawk” than a community organizing nancy-boy even though many of us voted for him specifically because we thought he would act like a nancy-boy.  But what’s even more shocking than Obama’s transparent attempt to woo “national security” voters since the economy sucks and there’s nothing he or anyone else can do about it, is the fact that the right wing as pulled a not-at-all subtle flip-flop in the past few weeks and seem to have successful y framed Obama as the President of privacy intrusion.

During the Bush administration, the right wing media told us to relax when George Bush was urinating all over the constitution by reading our library cards, eavesdropping on our conversations and throwing us in jail without charging us or telling us why for months at a time.  The Heads at Fox News called anyone who resisted the president’s symbolic and useless security measures pinko commies and terrorist enablers and said that anyone who resisted any of his agenda hated America.  Today, the same clowns are screaming about civil liberties and the fourth amendment over their fat assed listeners’ complaints about TSA’s airport security practices.

During the past few years, people have been able to board American, or American-bound aircraft with explosive devices on their person.  Fortunately, now that Americans are wise to the game, both of these guys had the crap kicked out of them by the other passengers and were never able to detonate but the takeaway for the US Government the FAA, and the TSA was that they are not doing a very good job.  In direct response to these and other threats that did not make news, the government contracted with security firms to create machines that will prevent such occurrences and help take the security of our country out of the often-incompetent hands of the human beings who work at TSA.

The events in recent years have caused me to believe that Americans would be willing to surrender freedom for perceived security in virtually any case but my logic was flawed in that I never considered the scenario in which the choice would be between safety and covering our bodies, which is more American than driving a big car, or being fat.   Americans have so much shame about sexuality and nudity that we actually call our reproductive organs “privates” and have invented such things as makeout-asphyxiation and wearing tee-shirts in the pool.  As a nation we’re happy to treat our bodies like garbage as long as we can buy wind-suits from Wal-Mart to cover it up and full-body scanners and pat downs rip down the façade.  

We’d rather not go anywhere or put everyone else at risk than show our precious wares to a bunch of security personnel.  The kind people at TSA are aware of the concern and have given the option to “opt out” of the full-body scan and instead give in to someone touching your fat thighs and nether regions.  This false choice has prompted “opt-out protests” at airports throughout the county by a shrill and growing movement of Americans who are appalled by the invasion of privacy.

Bush was loved because he convinced Americans that the best way to protect ourselves was to keep being ourselves.  To him, sacrifice (besides the thousands of dead children we never mention) was un-American, and anyone who suggested Americans should alter their lifestyle to beat the terrorists just didn’t get it.  This episode proves that Americans are unwilling and unable to make the tiniest sacrifice for their own good.   I’ll admit I’m not wild about people seeing me naked either,  but if I’m one of yodeling terrorists, this hysteria is better news than Obama’s election.