Broccoli

            The other day I happened to tune in to Neil Cavuto on Fox News when he had a nutritionist named Rebecca Scritchfield gush profusely over Michelle Obama's new initiative to place 5,000 salad bars in our nation's schools. Cavuto asked Ms. Scritchfield where the government found the constitutional authority to do this. Among the many reasons she gave was this statement that just blew my mind. She said, "Eating broccoli is a matter of national security."

            Are vegetables good for you? Of course they are. But broccoli a matter of national security?

            Here's how Ms. Scritchfield's contortions of logic brought her to her portentous conclusion. Kids who don't eat their vegetables don't grow up healthy. And if they aren't healthy, they can't pass the physical required to enlist in the armed forces. Therefore, eating broccoli is a matter of national security.

            Cavuto could hardly contain himself; but the nutritionist remained impervious to ridicule and common sense. If parents can't get their kids to eat their vegetables, she argued in all seriousness, then it's the government's job to do it for them.

            Has the nanny state gone completely mad?

            I can just picture government agents in school cafeterias redirecting kids with runny noses away from the pizza line and forcing them to cough and sneeze their way along the salad bar to load up their plates with carrots, lettuce, and broccoli. Now that'll make 'em healthy.

            OK. So we don't put Janet Napolitano's agents in school cafeterias. Let's just put a stalk of broccoli on students' desks in the morning and have them pop the broccoli in after the Pledge of Allegiance. "...for Liberty and Justice and Broccoli for all."

            Beyond that, let's have Nanny Napolitano's TSA agents give a stalk of broccoli to every child passenger who gets scanned and groped at the nation's airports.

            Why not have the NSA adopt broccoli as its logo? We could have new posters of Uncle Sam pointing at us and saying, "Keep America safe. Eat broccoli."

            How about a broccoli stamp or a broccoli bumper sticker? Or a National Broccoli for National Security Day?

            President Obama could lead the way by sporting a broccoli lapel pin in place of the American flag pin he is so embarrassed to wear.

            I've got lots of ideas. If Nanny -in-Chief Michelle Obama would only call me, we could get started right away on saving the country from war and pestilence.