[OilsNotWell]

then fight to save her...

Hollow Dummies by Bill Bonner (The Daily Reckoning)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')ecently, we traveled by train from Poitiers and Paris and found ourselves seated next to Robert Hue, head of the French communist party and a senator representing Val d'Oise. He sat down and pulled out a travel magazine, just as any other traveler would. Aside from one Bolshevik manqué who stopped by to say hello, no one paid any attention. A friend reports that he was on the same train a few months ago with the Prime Minister, Pierre Raffarin, who was accompanied by only a single aide.

Many years ago, when the country was still a modest republic, American presidents were available to almost anyone who wanted to shoot them. Thomas Jefferson went for a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, alone, and spoke to anyone who came up to him. John Adams used to swim naked in the Potomac. A woman reporter got him to talk to her by sitting on his clothes and refusing to budge.

But now anyone who wants to see the president must have his background checked and pass through a metal detector. The White House staff must approve a reporter before he is allowed into press conferences. And when he travels, America's head of state does so in imperial style; that is, he moves around protected by hundreds of praetorian guards, sharpshooters on rooftops, and thousands of local centurions. When President Clinton went to China in 1998, he took with him his family, plus "5 Cabinet secretaries, 6 members of Congress, 86 senior aides, 150 civilian staff (doctors, lawyers, secretaries, valets, hairdressers, and so on), 150 military staff (drivers, baggage handlers, snipers, and so on), 150 security personnel, several bomb-sniffing dogs, and many tons of equipment, including 10 armored limousines and the 'blue goose,' Clinton's bulletproof lectern.

"To get the presidential entourage and its vast array of equipment to China and back, the Air Force flew 36 airlift missions using Boeing 747, C-141, and C-5 (the largest transport, with a capacity of 145 tons of cargo) aircraft. The cost to DOD of the China trip was $14 million. Indeed, operating Air Force One alone costs over $34,000 an hour. ...