The Conservative Soldier

Fixate at your peril on American Idol. There’s real news happening in this world of ours.

Item: Finally, a group of white guys catch a break.

Thanks to continued global warming hysteria, the polar bear has been designated as a “threatened” species, even though it is not, at the moment, actually threatened. There are more than 25,000 of them living the good life in the Artic. One study says the polar bear population is threatened more by hunters’ rifles than by melting sea ice, the latter being the motivation for according the big fellas code-orange status.

Item: Sen. Arlen Specter remains suspicious of Patriots.

Why does a politician from a state hammered by job loss and struggling through the current economic downturn (Pennsylvania) obsess about the extent to which a football team from Massachusetts (the New England Patriots) might have spied on its opponents’ practice sessions. Specter this week met with the guy, a former team employee, who recently turned over some of the “goods” on the Pats.

Joe McCarthy might have been a whack job, but at least he was worried about real spies.

Item: Another Tony Romo fumble?

First, the Dallas Cowboys QB made headlines in 2007 when mishandling a point-after snap that led to a playoff game loss. Last week, Romo demonstrated he can’t hold a note when belting out “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

Now, the celebrity press is abuzz that Romo is on the verge of dropping his gorgeous squeeze, Jessica Simpson. Fuuummmmmbbbbuuuulllllllll!

Item: Here’s Johnny.

Former Presidential hopeful and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards of North Carolina endorsed Barack Obama on Wednesday.

Edwards lives on a 102-acre piece of property in a home occupying 28,000 square feet. Perhaps Obama will be invited down to the Carolina mansion to ponder what he should do about the bitter, gun-owning rednecks who live in the more modest of the two Americas about which Edwards always drones on. Heck, if Edwards had endorsed before now Obama could have used a guest “wing” to hide Jeremiah Wright for a few weeks.

Item: Teary eyed in an undisclosed location.

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney did not attend the wedding of First Daughter Jenna Bush last Saturday at the Presidential Ranch in Crawford, Texas, according to Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael Sneed.

Can you blame the Bushes for being cautious? Last time Cheney was invited for a weekend at a Texas ranch he shot a guy.

As United Airlines spirals toward another bankruptcy, I mostly feel sorry for the aging former standard bearer. What can any airline do to stem the rising tsunami of jet fuel costs?

Everywhere you turn, there are signs of an empire in decline, crumbling. United’s decision several years back to re-paint its fleet and switch to a cleaner, blue-white skin has saddled the carrier with an identity crisis. Some planes look fresh and new (though we know better), while others are tired and decrepit in their old, gray skin. More often than not, the white all-caps lettering is chipped and shabby on those still awaiting fresh paint jobs.

Perhaps they are all crazy for overspending on elaborate exteriors, but there is no question that an airline’s image is enhanced when its planes are pleasing to the eye. Frontier and its stunning wildlife images comes to mind. Or US Airways, which is painting the tails of Airbus aircraft in the logos of now-defunct carriers it has absorbed over the years, such as Allegheny and PSA. Seeing those old brands takes you back to an era of commercial aviation that was far superior and perhaps gone forever.

More observations about United during a quick weekend trip to Washington, D.C.:

In the Red Carpet Club at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport the cups and saucers have been removed from the shelves of the various coffee stations. Only Styrofoam cups remain. Some bean counter must have decided too much money was being wasted washing the china.

Conversely, and oddly, real knives are back in the first-class meal service. So I guess we are not all suspects, after all.

At check-in at Washington-Reagan Airport, signs direct fliers with elite frequent-flier status to special lines but most bear an ominous secondary sign indicating, Position Closed. This is not at 6 a.m. This is at 4 p.m. on a busy Sunday afternoon. After using the automated kiosk to check-in, receive boarding cards and request baggage tags, the two agents in charge of so-called “elite status” passengers ignore me for 10 minutes while staring into computer monitors. United desperately wants all of us to be self-sufficient in the airports, but can’t manage to close the deal by tagging bags efficiently for its top customers.

Aboard UA 627 to Chicago on Sunday, there is no effort to greet arriving passengers cordially as we board the aircraft to find our upgraded seats (remember, passengers pay for these upgrade segments, either with real cash or by logging tens of thousands of annual air miles). No attendant appears with an offer to place a jacket over a hanger. A request by a fellow passenger for a pre-flight beer is declined. Only water and orange juice in plastic cups. What a joke.

Before take-off, an arrogant flight attendant announces over the PA that the “safety video” will be re-played because too many passengers ignored it the first time. Give me a break. If there is an emergency, all of the flight attendants will be in the back of the aircraft on cell phones, talking to their union reps about personal damage claims.

And, in flight, passengers are scolded on UA 627 about not sitting down when the Fasten Seat Belts indicators are illuminated. They are reminded by the stern toned flight attendant that it is “an FAA regulation”. Is this not the same FAA that recently was charged with allowing more than 100 aircraft inspection directives to be ignored by the airlines? What semi-intelligent commercial aviation passenger regards the FAA as a legitimate entity toward which we must bow in reverence?

I doubt even the novice flier is intimidated by the looming consequences of ignoring the hypocritical FAA. Everyone knows the Fasten Seat Belts indicators are primarily used to keep passengers out of the aisles, allowing wide-girthed flight attendants an unimpeded path as they march, eyes forward, to their galley hide-outs.

The bottom line is, I can’t wait for upstart Virgin America to begin its Chicago service. I am willing to bet that an airline with British DNA never will serve its tea and coffee in Styrofoam, and likely will go easy on the FAA intimidation tactics. I hear the plane’s interiors have mood lighting, which will most certainly be an improvement over the bad moods inside United’s planes.

As Mother’s Day approaches, I am thankful for my mother, for her enduring, positive influence on my life and on countless other people of all ages over the decades. I am thankful that, at 77, she remains a pre-school teacher in a school owned by an equally healthy 78-year-old woman and family friend. It is comforting to know that Mom is infusing these little guys and gals with love, happiness and human decency, qualities they will carry with them unknowingly in the years to come.

I am thankful and blessed to have a mother to wrap my arms around on Sunday, a mother with whom to bicker about preparing the feast and doing the dishes.

And I am really, really thankful for all of the people my dear, sweet mother is not. That she is not:

Nancy Pelosi (left). Hillary Rodham Clinton. Jane Fonda. Barbara Walters. Dianne Feinstein. Gloria Steinham. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Arianna Huffington. Now there’s a roster from hell if I’ve ever seen one.

I am most certain many of the aforementioned have children who love and adore them, who share my gratitude this Mother’s Day. But that’s part of the problem. They have children and grandchildren who might very well some day aspire to be them! So the cycle of femi-liberal madness will go on unabated.

Dennis Miller on his brilliant talk radio show this morning expressed surprise and dismay that the attractive, intelligent Chelsea Clinton is still up there on the campaign stump with her mom, Hillary, even as Sen. Clinton rambles on about electibility and experience and her connection to the downtrodden. “I would have thought she might get it more than she does,” Miller remarked.

And then Miller’s hilarious sidekick, Sal, suggested maybe Chelsea had been brainwashed at birth, and can be placed in campaign zombie, wave-and-smile mode merely by the snap of a finger or the utterance of a secret word.

Chelsea can rightly argue that she did not ask to be the daughter of the President of the United States — and it’s a wonder she is, given that Bill Clinton might have easily never gotten around to a night of passion with Hillary, for both the obvious reason and because he was probably “overbooked” most nights as his state trooper convoy snaked its way in and around Little Rock diners and hotels. Chelsea might say she did not ask to be the daughter of a political animal like Hillary Clinton, whose thirst for power knows no bounds.

But despite all of that, Chelsea might feel obligated to forgive Dad and lend moral and emotional support to Mom. (And, the way it’s going, after the Clintons blow through their $104 million, Chels may be hit up for financial support, as well).

And that’s the scariest part. We all know how it feels to love your Mom. You don’t agree on everything, you don’t want to hang out with her all day, every day. But no matter what is simmering inside you, no matter how significantly your values and beliefs and aspirations might run counter to hers, you go along and get along because Mom deserves it, at the very least. Human nature being what it is, many adult children never tell Moms (and Dads) what they need to hear, never challenge their ideas or decisions, because, well, it’s too hard. Chelsea Clinton might think her Mom’s candidacy is becoming a joke, but Hillary will never hear it pass through her daughter’s lips.

On Mother’s Day, if your Mom is with you, in body or spirit, pause to be thankful. Especially if she is a woman who put her family ahead of all else, who taught her children how to be decent human beings, who did not wallow in self pity because of the world’s gender inequalities, who did not look to government and entitlement programs to get her through life, who did not contemplate ever, not for one day, membership in a labor union, who did not lean against feminism’s crutch.

That’s the kind of Mom the world never will stop needing. And, hopefully, cherishing.