Protecting the Elected

The man that's a fish bone in the gullet or an errant golf ball from the most powerful position on earth, US vice president Joe Biden, made a trip to Aspen, CO last weekend that put the financial crunch on at least two counties that provided security for the visit, as the local press describes.  The idea that it should take 40 black SUVs to provide protection for this fraud is preposterous on its face but why should these local agencies even be concerned about his short stay in the Rockies? Perhaps there's some federal law, regulation, executive order or administrative fiat that requires the law enforcement personnel of Mayberry, RFD to drop whatever they're doing and erect traffic barriers whenever the Secret Service says they must.  Nonetheless, there are various levels of cooperation, the sheriffs, who are in many ways the most powerful officials in America, have a certain amount of discretion in affairs like this. They should use that discretion.

Back on the Potomac tidewater, some disturbed individual successfully scaled the fence surrounding the White House and actually managed to enter the holy sanctuary before the legion of Secret Service praetorians managed to subdue him and haul him away. The noteworthy aspects of this event were that the intruder wasn't filled with bullet holes and that, horror of horrors, he had, on his person, a folding knife with a blade 2 3/4 inches long! Within the living memory of many Americans, the possession of a small jack knife was almost mandatory for any normal boy or male adult. It's not a weapon but rather a tool, the regular use of which is one of the differences between us and monkeys. Yet the media is aghast that anyone can come within a Miguel Cabrera fly ball of a politician with an edged item normally used for sharpening pencils and peeling apples.

Pre-Columbian native Americans, and even pre-historic Europeans, employed stone axes. While they may have been flaked down to a taper, these items weren't really edged tools. They weren't very sharp. They were more on the order of sophisticated clubs. Today, as a result of our advanced technology, we have hammers that are much nicer and more effective than those primitive tools. How much longer will it be before the media makes breathless comment on a felon having a framing hammer in the trunk of his car after being stopped for having a faulty headlight?