A Medal for Michele Bachmann

Years ago, a drug-addicted employee used a passkey while I was away and stole stuff from my apartment, including a Purple Heart. That feeling of violation comes back as Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party comrades, after shutting down government, strike poses and remove barricades for veterans at Washington’s war memorials.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson said about such hypocrites in the eighteenth century. Nothing has changed. GOP poseurs are willing to take food from the mouths of children of furloughed employees but won’t stand for obstruction in parks that celebrate sacrifice for the good of country.

I yield to no veteran on patriotism, but I insist that the park police do their duty, including a few whacks on the backsides of those barricade breakers.

Then they can go back to Capitol Hill and award themselves Purple Heart for injuries suffered in the line of duty.