Why don’t the avid environmentalists, the goofy folks who still believe that Mother Earth is heating up at an alarming rate and that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, ever show up at the White House and picket Obama, the guy whose massive ego is only exceeded by his carbon footprint?

We already know that all it takes is for Barack to sniff a couple of campaign dollars lurking in the far reaches of Hawaii and he has Air Force One warming up on the tarmac. But, according to an item I read in Townhall magazine, the Obamas also insist on flying their personal trainer, Cornell McLellan, in from Chicago every week. The Washington Examiner’s J.P. Freire claims that little presidential perk results in 50,000 pounds of carbon emissions in a typical year. While I don’t know who is footing the bill or why the Obamas can’t make do with a personal trainer within walking distance of the White House, I would have thought that Barack was getting more than enough exercise just from lifting the national deficit to record heights while simultaneously kicking spending cuts down the road.

Speaking of the Exerciser-in-Chief, I recently re-read Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Purloined Letter.” It was Poe’s notion that the cleverest place to conceal something wasn’t in any of the usual hidey holes where the police would be certain to search, but, rather, in plain sight, where the unimaginative would never think to look for it. After reading the tale, it occurred to me that we’ve been looking for a tall, skinny, bearded Arab named Osama bin Laden for the better part of the past decade. It was a short time after 9/11 that a tall, skinny, clean-shaven Arab named Barack Obama came out of nowhere to become a Chicago politician, a U.S. Senator and the President of the United States. Is it merely a coincidence or is it, rather, a case of the purloined presidency?

Some people have taken me to task for always referring to the union demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin, and elsewhere as thugs. It is certainly not my wish to offend anyone’s tender sensibilities, so I will try in the future to refer to them as goons.

I’ve noticed that every few years Hollywood makes a film about a caveman who is discovered preserved in ice. Although there are those inevitable little glitches along the way as the guy becomes acclimated to modern life, which generally involve pop-up toasters, escalators and glow-in-the-dark condoms, it generally only takes a little thawing out and a haircut before he becomes civilized, or at least as civilized as any movie character is likely to be who winds up locking lips with Jennifer Aniston or Drew Barrymore. Isn’t it a shame that we can’t civilize Arabs, Muslims and liberals, that easily in real life?

I don’t suppose that Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the new head of the DNC, is any ditzier than any of her predecessors, one of whom was the clown prince of Cuckooland, Howard Dean. But, then, the truth is, it would be next to impossible to be that goofy unless you were competing in a contest and there was big money riding on the outcome. Still, every time I look at Ms. Wasserman-Schultz, I’m reminded of that little androgynous persona that master ventriloquist Senor Wences used to create by drawing a face with lipstick on his fist and adorning it with a tiny little blonde wig.

Inasmuch as we’re already strolling down Nostalgia Lane, has anybody ever figured out why Superman wore a cape? I mean, okay, I understand the tights. If you’re flying at mach speed, you want to be as aerodynamic as possible. But if speed is what it’s all about, why slow yourself down with that silly cape? We’ll leave the question of the red underpants worn outside the tights for another day. Still, perhaps we’ve inadvertently answered that decades-old question: Why didn’t Clark Kent ever pop the question to Lois Lane?

Finally, I realize that even if it keeps me up nights, Superman’s cape isn’t the biggest mystery of the age. That, obviously, would be why, in spite of flip-flopping on virtually every pledge he made as a campaigner, the Left continues to treat Obama with the same degree of adoration that Christians display towards their messiah, that Muslims display towards Mohammed and that Nancy Pelosi displays towards, well, Nancy Pelosi.