The Columnist Manifesto

I'm back home and am happy to say I survived La Guardia Airport in an "orange alert." We took the subway to the bus --again -- and got there extra early. So of course the lines were no longer than usual. The liquid and gel ban caused a bit of consternation, in the form of excessive water consumption in the departure lounge, followed by excessive need to pee once on the plane. The second round of baggage screening was haphazard. The ticket taker asked if your bag had been checked by a gate-screener, and she took your word for it when you said "yes." Oh, and they let people board who arrived at the gate less than 10 minutes before push-off.

How easy would it be to trump up this most recent terrorist "attack"? Remember the alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago earlier this year? Have we heard anything about that since?

In any event, the zombie voters will, for now, swing back to the Republicans because of this one, right?

Travel posts from New York to follow, this weekend.