I take my political comentary wherever I can find it these days. Patly that is because I find comedians and political cartoonists to have some of the best insight. Partly it's because I have always found odd connections among things that no one else seems to think are connected. But this time I've outdone myself. I'm tking political advice from Sesame Street.[1]

The episode I'm thinking of probably aired over 20 years ago. Ernie walks into the room and sees Bert[2] standing there with a bananna in his ear.

Bert, why do you have a bananna in your ear?

It's to keep the aligators away.


Bert, we don't have any aligators around here.


See ... it's working.

Though they didn't show it, I'll bet I know who convinced Bert that he needed protection from aligators. A bananna salesman.

So what does this all have to do with politics? Look at the responses to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Some politicians are already trying to sell us banannas. Look around at all the ones who have been campaigning for restrictions on personal encryption. For increased federal oversight and surveillence of the internet. For tighter controls on export of certain computer technologies. For mandated standards for all electronic equipment. All in the name of national security, of course.

Note how many of these, in their official responses to the attacks, take the opportunity to claim that advancement of their agendas would have averted the tragedy. Or at least, will prevent possible future ones. It won't matter how disconnected their agenda is from the actual methods employed in the attacks. It won't matter how little their "solution" has to do with any real problems. All that matters is they have a soapbox, and they plan to use it.

I'm going to use this metaphor in every conversation I have about these proposed "remedies." I'm going to compare every over-reaching, unneccesary, ineffective, counterproductive power grab as a bananna in the public's ear. With any kind of luck, political cartoonists will start to pick up the metaphor. I can already see the cartoons where the bloated senators are trying desparately to jam fruit in the ears of a distracted public, all the while saying, "If it saves just one life ... for the children ... safety and security ... blah blah blah ..."



[1] If you've never seen it, Sesame Street is a children's show populated with a mix of puppets and people.

[2] Bert and Ernie are thinly-disguised puppet versions of Abbot and Costello.