Daddy, I want an F-105 for Christmas

 

Here's a gem. Tom Ricks writes: "Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) apparently has introduced an amendment to order the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson to turn over a plane, an F-105, to someone else, an individual who wants to restore it and fly it around. The Air Force 'loaned' the plane to the museum in 1984, but now, more than 25 years later, Inhofe is going to have a law passed ordering the Air Force to tell the museum to yield it to this 'private entity.' Must be nice to be able to give orders like that. Or to have buddies in the U.S. Senate." No kidding. Bob Collins, CEO and Chief Pilot for the Collins Foundation is the "private entity" in question. I wonder how big a check Mr. Collins wrote to Sen. Inhofe during his last election. This, boys and girls, is how politics and patronage really works. And it lends credence to what historian Edward Gibbon observed: "Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty."