Shortly after the election, incoming House Speaker John Boehner burnished his common-man cred by pledging to fly commercial, instead of using the private military plane afforded him. Nice. But he'll still be able to bypass the TSA's molestation routine.

In case you haven't heard, airplane passengers are now required to either take naked photographs for the Gizmodo blog to post or be fisted by a TSA employee before boarding an aircraft. Only now, after the Internet has converted this latest annoying security ramp-up into a meme about leaving someone's "junk" alone, are more Americans realizing that the panicky way we've responded to every terrorist scare since 9/11 has been pathetic and unsustainable.

But where were we again? Oh yes: John Boehner doesn't have to get photographed naked or fisted before boarding airplanes:

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate. Mr. Boehner, who was wearing a casual yellow sweater and tan slacks, carried his own bags and smiled pleasantly at passengers who were leaving the security checkpoint inside the airport terminal. It was unclear whether any passengers waiting in the security line, including Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who lost his re-election bid, saw Mr. Boehner.

Why do they assume that John Boehner isn't a terrorist? If you have rich orange skin, shouldn't that be rounded up to "brown," which automatically requires 20 minutes of violent fisting? What a world.

[Image via AP]