Permission/authority is nothing you need, it's what you grant yourself.

"We have permission to land there," was all the Air Force needed to touch down at the little Las Cruces, NM "International Airport" in August 2004 with three enormous planes the runway was never designed to handle.

Despite the Air Force's claim it had been cleared, it never bothered to cite exactly by whose authority. But this is standard SOP for the Bush administration, isn't it? "We have the authority," is always their claim, whether it be some Rumsfeld esoteric order to torture, a Rove circumvention of legal established executive channels, or a Bush signing statement.

As a result, three Air Force planes landed on runway pavement softened by August heat. A fully loaded C-17 Globemaster III transporting all the armored vehicles and bullet-proof paraphernalia needed to protect the world's foremost terrorist during his reelection campaign stopover did the most damage.

The good news I am reporting today however is, that after almost three years since Bush's "drop in," the runway at the Las Cruces airport is about to finally reopen. Damages originally estimated at $2 million were partially financed by the Air Force kicking in $603,754 of taxpayers money for a job done on the cheap at a cost of $1.25 million (i.e., the quality of repair is controversial). The other half, I suspect, was paid for by--who else?--us the taxpayers.

And while you won't hear it from president Bush, I'll take this opportunity to thank all American taxpayers for repairing the damage to the Las Cruces runway his big planes caused as part of his "reelection" in 2004.

This minor airport incident that ended up costing us all over a $1 million so locals could attend a pep rally for the president is no big deal. Just like a few billion unaccounted for in Iraq, or billions porked to missile defense systems that don't work or war contractors that don't work either yet get paid anyway for services not performed. But eventually billions add up to trillions and I imagine, at some point, we begin to talk about real money.

Las Cruces is a nice metaphor for the nation and what happens when you have a president who doesn't need our permission and a congress that has surrendered its responsibility to hold a president accountable. Fortunately, it only took the city of Las Cruces three years and a $ million-two to recover.

But for the nation, the prognosis isn't so good. Because there, we're talking $ trillions or "real money" and that's something we don't have enough of to placate the emperor's whims.

No problem, "Let the grandkids pay."