Goodbye Blue Sky

Hill staffers and policy flacks were told to drop everything and run today in Washington DC when the news broke that a small plane had violated the no-fly zone. The footage on Aaron Brown tonight and the story of Nancy Pelosi being lifted from her shoes and carried away by her security detail - well, it certainly seems a little funny now that we know it was a pilot who couldn't reckon the transponders.

I'm a former resident in that town, and I have friends and loved ones who live there today. There's a lie-awake-at-night factor that stirs at the base of the cranium and becomes aroused in situations like this. Eight years elapsed between the first attack on the World Trade Center and the time terrorists returned to their target. And we all understand that Flight 93 ended in a field in Pennsylvania instead of the Capitol Building or the White House.

In these security situations we should remember this is our government, these are our institutions, our people - regardless of whatever schmuck happens to be the president at the time. I expect to see political 'hit editorials' tomorrow from the usual suspects about how this might have been handled better by the Bush administration. But I'm convinced national security would be a lose-lose situation after 9/11 regardless of who is in power.

Pick one: Convenience or safety. It's a difficult choice, but there's no reasonable way to completely secure both objectives.