Joan Rivers, national security threat

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is rather amusing. From Think Progress:

The New York Daily News reports that comedian Joan Rivers was among the many travelers to get snared in the heightened-security frenzy that overtook airports after the December 25th failed terrorist attack. Rivers wasn't allowed on her Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica this past weekend by a "jittery Continental Airlines gate agent" who thought the two names on her passport, which reads "Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers," seemed "fishy." Rivers wrote of her experience.

"If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn't pick Rosenberg. I'd pick Jolie or Pitt... Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb... I tried the tears; they didn't work. I tried reasoning. I couldn't bribe because I didn't have any money. I said 'I'm going to have a heart attack over this,' so the woman called the paramedics."

Rivers, who comes across as a pretentious bitch -- sorry, but wearing Manolo Blahniks doesn't make you a special person -- ultimately made it to San Jose, Costa Rica's capital, where she caught a flight home. Now, sure, there's a lot of craziness over security these days, heightened against post-12/25, and I certainly think a more sensible approach is preferable to suspect-everyone paranoia and panic.

But I'd say the system seems to be working just fine, don't you? Rivers, after all, is a threat to good taste and common decency everywhere. I'm just surprised it's her name the gate agent found "fishy." Why not her lack of facial expression beyond the one that's frozen there? Why not that she looks like an unnatural freak? Why not that she calls herself a comedian but isn't, and has rarely ever been, even remotely funny?

All good questions. Maybe she should be sent to Yemen for questioning.

Anger mismanagement, McCain-style

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Biloxi's Sun Herald is reporting, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican, has told the story of how his colleague John McCain once got into "a physical confrontation" on a diplomatic mission in Central America:

Cochran said he observed McCain engage in a physical confrontation with a Sandinista while participating in a diplomatic mission led by Sen. Bob Dole and others in the fall of 1987. Cochran, McCain -- who had won election to the Senate that year -- and other members of a bipartisan committee of lawmakers called the Central American Negotiations Observer Group -- met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, head of the left-wing political party known as Sandinistas, about tensions in the region.

The atmosphere was tense, as the U.S. was pressing "pretty hard." Cochran noticed a disturbance at the meeting table in a room lined with armed personnel.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

No punches were thrown and the two sat back down, Cochran said. The man, who appeared ruffled after the confrontation with McCain, was an Ortega associate, but Cochran said he was unsure of his identity.

Some might say that getting rough with the Sandinistas -- or at least with one of them -- was a sign of genuine toughness, that the Sandinistas deserved it, that McCain acted courageously even in the face of grave danger.

And, sure, it happened a long time ago. So what?

But what's interesting is that McCain is denying Cochran's allegation. And why would he not? Americans like their leaders tough, I suppose, but the story only reinforces the apt characterization of McCain as a guy with a terrible temper, a guy with some anger issues, even as a guy with a screw or two loose.

What's more, such outlandish and violent behaviour is hardly presidential. Does it not speak to a certain lack of judgement, especially in the face of grave danger, tension, and conflict, that is, when a president needs it most?

The denial is a matter of course. There's a lot about McCain, the real McCain lurking behind the faux maverick, straight-talker facade, that McCain doesn't want getting out.