Sore Loser

The sign at the end of the MSP airport security line clearly states EMPLOYEE AND CREW ENTRANCE. But the skinny white man in a denim jacket, with the little white goatee and mustache, looking like General Lee if he'd become a bitter alcoholic, pushed right in front of me.

"Excuse me, sir," I said. "Are you an employee?"

He stared --I should say, glared-- straight ahead. I smelled RNC, but decided that was my prejudice coming through. In this new age of Unity, I should suspend all old prejudices. Maybe, like myself, the gentleman had bad hearing and bad eyesight.

"Sir, this line is for employees and crew only," I said. I held up my security badge. "You can't get through without a badge."

His high-cheeked head turned on his tight, thin neck. Ice chip blue eyes fixed on my Obama Biden cap. His head swiveled away.

A tall pilot standing behind the man said, "Didn't you hear her? This is for employees and crew only."

Bitter General Lee glared at me. He said, in a Southern accent, "Ugly b*tch." He shoved his way past the pilot, snapping as he went, "F*** Obama."

The pilot, whose profession forces him to endure all kinds of jerks and maniacs while trying not to get them, and himself, killed, rolled his eyes.

Attacking a woman's physical appearance, for lack of wit to attack her ideas, is a commonplace thing. Now, I can take an insult. I'm not sexy or pretty. I'm not even cute. It's become quite clear to me that, if a man found anything attractive about me at all, it'd be my mind.

But it's a sorry, pathetic thing to insult a man who's earned what he's won, and not without paying a price. (Of course, insulting a person's appearance is pathetic as well.) I think that "gentleman" and those like him may be why McCain conceded so early and with such apparent relief. McCain may well have seen what was crawling out from under rocks to give him their support. Having endured the worst of human cruelty in his younger days, McCain may have felt the expectations of such a person weren't the expectations he wanted put upon him.

I hope Bitter General Lee wasn't on that pilot's flight.