It's going to be a short one today, folks. Since Congress is on yet another one of its week-long vacations, politically it has been a pretty slow week. Even the mainstream media is left fanning the flames of the airport security foofaroo in a desperate attempt to fill their allotted timeslots, in the absence of any real news out of Washington. Well, actually, even if there were such news coming out of Washington, the media would likely still be distracted by the shiniest object in their (quite limited) ability to perceive these things.

But, media-bashing aside, all we've got for you today is a series of unconnected musings, which of course leads us to the altar at which Herb Caen worshipped: Three-Dot Journalism. So without further ado (and with lots of ellipses... of course), we bring you the following random thoughts...

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[With apologies, of course, to Dean Jonathan Swift.]

The Transportation Safety Administration (T.S.A.) is now finding out what it is like to be caught as the bad guy in a viral video. Corporations now take this sort of thing seriously, ever since an airline smashed a flier's guitar and got lambasted for it in an online video (which turned out to be wildly popular). But the T.S.A. is a government agency, meaning that the normal corporate defenses (a vast P.R. campaign, for starters) are not likely to do much good. The People (well, some of them...) are absolutely fed up, and they're demanding change, after all. However, the fickle nature of public opinion means that if security is loosened and a plane blows up as a direct result, The People will then be screaming "Why didn't you keep us safe?!?" It seems an unsolvable problem, which is why I write today in the hopes of offering a constructive new idea to the debate.

A quick review of the problem is necessary to understand all the complexities involved. In the early days of aviation, Americans who flew commercial flights did not have to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights in order to do so. They were not searched in any way. This all changed in the 1970s, with a wave of hijackings. Some people, knowing they wouldn't be searched, carried weapons onto planes and then threatened to use these weapons in order to hold the plane hostage. These people hijacked planes for various reasons -- some political, some merely monetary (collecting a ransom to let everyone go, for the most part).

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Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I thought that was a pretty good week for Democrats.

Maybe it's just the subject matter I've been tackling this week, that could contribute to my spirit of optimism, I suppose. I began the week examining the increasing and interesting struggle for power between the Tea Party Republicans and the entrenched-establishment Republicans, which is always both fascinating and amusing. Tuesday, I reflected on heroism as President Obama awarded the first Medal of Honor that went to a living recipient since the Vietnam War -- an uplifting subject matter if there ever was one. Wednesday, I got to interview the chairman of the Populist Caucus, Representative Bruce Braley, who was a little-noticed success story for Democrats in the midterm election (he had millions in outside anonymous donor money spent against him in some vicious attack ads, but instead of retreating from being a Democrat he proudly stood up for Democrats' recent achievements in his campaign -- and he won re-election as a result). And yesterday I wrote what could be read as a preamble to today's column, about Democrats and the lame duck session of Congress (more on this in a bit). [You can read any of these at my site, as I didn't want to over-link this paragraph with all the individual article citations.]

All in all, pretty positive subject matter all around. Of course, there were a few disappointments, but on the whole what I would call a pretty good week for Democrats -- something they haven't enjoyed in a while.

But mostly the optimism centers around what could happen, and not what actually has happened yet. Meaning that, once again, I have gotten my hopes up a bit. Perhaps this is naive and they will come crashing down to reality by New Year's Day, but that's the risk you always take when quaffing from the eternal spring waters of Hope.

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This duck may be lame, but rumors of its demise are apparently premature.

Or, to put it another way: will the lame duck Congress actually get some things accomplished in the next few weeks? Conventional wisdom has held for the past few weeks that nothing much would happen in the lame duck, other than a giant fight over extending the Bush tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Everything else, this narrative prophesied, would get swept under the carpet, either (1.) because there won't be time to deal with anything else, (2.) because the Democrats didn't have the stomach for any other fights after the midterm election, or (3.) because it would just be easier to kick the can down the road to the next Congress. This conventional wisdom -- like much inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom, I should point out -- could turn out to be wrong, at least if the past day's news is any indication.

Democrats seem to be eager to fight a few battles before the sun sets on the 111th Congress. Strong statements have come from the most unlikely people. Votes are being scheduled on some very contentious issues. This push seems coordinated between the White House, the Senate, the House, and even the Pentagon. Meaning that the lame duck session might be a lot more productive than generally assumed, in the end.

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Representative Bruce Braley, from Iowa's First District, returned to the House of Representatives this week, after surviving a very brutal re-election campaign in which millions of dollars of outside money from anonymous right-wing donors were spent against him. His campaign was an interesting one, because rather than try to distance himself from his own party or from what Democrats have accomplished in the past few years, Braley instead embraced his own record, and proudly defended it to his voters.

Braley's victory was a narrow one -- 49.5 percent to 47.5 percent -- but this didn't make it any less satisfying for Democratic election-watchers looking for trends during this year's midterms. Braley holds the district in Iowa which stretches north and west from the "Quad Cities" area, which he won as part of the Democratic takeover in 2006. In 2008, he won his first re-election fight with a whopping 65 percent of the vote. But this year, the headwind of the Republican resurgence was a tough obstacle to overcome for any Democrat elected to the House in the past four years. Braley's victory certainly gives hope to those in the Democratic Party who have been calling on Democrats to refuse to apologize for who they are and what their party stands for.

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For the first time since the Vietnam War, a Medal of Honor has been awarded to a living serviceman. The Medal of Honor is the highest military award America bestows, and not very many of them are handed out, so this is indeed news. There have been other Medal of Honor recipients since Vietnam, but all of them have been awarded posthumously -- a telling statement on the type of bravery it takes to earn this medal. And, inevitably, the word "hero" is used to describe the recipient.

But I've noticed something profoundly basic over the years -- heroes never call themselves heroes. Or, at least, not the ones I've ever seen or heard of. I really don't know why this is, maybe it is subjective on my part. Maybe I'm only noticing the ones who reject the label. But Army Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta, today's Medal of Honor recipient, seems to conform to this perception -- he really gets almost insulted that he's getting an award when other people around him aren't. Giunta voices this feeling in a stunning video which was shot by an embedded reporter.

The basic question of who, exactly, is a "hero" has always kind of interested me in a philosophical way. At times, the word gets bandied about in situations I would say just don't qualify (a "sports hero," for instance). But when we are at war, this sort of broadening of the scope of the term seems to shrink back considerably, so as not to cheapen the word when we have soldiers in the field.

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Republicans in Congress are going to be interesting to watch for the next two years, as they try to cope with the influx of the Tea Party Republicans who have just been elected to office. Some of these skirmishes are happening already, as both parties prepare to hold their official party caucus meetings this week, where they will vote on their leadership positions and on their policies for the next Congress. The Tea Party Republicans failed to elevate Representative Michele Bachmann to the lowest rung of the House leadership positions, causing her to withdraw her candidacy last week. But just today, the Tea Partiers seem to have won a policy battle over in the Senate, as the establishment Republican leader Mitch McConnell just announced that he has seen the light on banning earmarks -- a dramatic reversal of his position up to this point.

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Send in the clowns!

No, that's not a statement on Congress returning to Washington next week. Although if you choose to read it that way, I certainly can't stop you, can I? Ahem.

But for anyone who thinks that American voters just elected a bunch of clowns to represent them in Washington, I humbly draw your attention to Brazil, where they just elected a real clown to their Congress.

Francisco Silva, better known as "Tiririca" (or "Grumpy the Clown"), not only won his recent election in Brazil, but he received almost twice as many votes as any other candidate. Voters sent their message loud and clear -- We want the clown! The Brazilian political establishment is apparently not amused, as they are reportedly forcing Silva to take a literacy test before they'll allow him to serve.

In other clowning around, the media were quick to pounce on President Obama's use of "Slurpee" in his rambling "car in a ditch" metaphor, when the press corps decided to call the upcoming meeting of Obama and the new congressional leaders a "Slurpee Summit." What is it with this president and beverage-themed summitry? Sigh. The 7-Eleven corporation, naturally, took this metaphor and ran with it, to make a few bucks. Hey, if they can mine the media's idiocy for profits, then "more power to them" is what I say.

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I realize that today of all days I should be writing about veterans, and their contributions, and honoring their memory. If I had done so, I likely would have written about the organization Patriots' Pride, who is organizing marches and rallies today to call attention to the reality of gay veterans who have served our country's military in the past; or perhaps I would draw attention to the letter which appeared on the Get Equal site from the first gay Marine to be discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. I mention this not in any disrespect to all the other veterans who have served their country, but because "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is currently coming to a political showdown in the next few weeks.

But others will write such articles today, so I merely mention the subject in passing -- while wishing everyone a happy Veterans' Day, of course.

Instead, I'd like to address an issue of national security. An issue which also has enormous geopolitical and economic repercussions as well. But I'm going to take a roundabout way of getting to the point, I should warn everyone. Hey, by all rights, I shouldn't even be writing a column on a holiday, so you'll have to bear with me, I guess.

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President Obama conveniently scheduled a trip to Asia immediately after this year's midterm elections. This has worked, so far, as designed -- it removed Obama from the political scene in Washington, while serious jockeying for position takes place among both major American political parties (leadership elections will be one of the first things the lame duck Congress will do when it reconvenes next week). This also has allowed Obama a pause to consider exactly what his next political steps are going to be, now that he faces two years of a politically-divided Congress (with Republicans in charge of the House, and Democrats still nominally in charge of the Senate).

Once Obama returns to the banks of the Potomac, however, he's going to have to chart a new way forward for his administration. And before he even considers what to do about the 112th Congress, he's going to have some more immediate choices to make. These initial choices will be Obama's first steps towards which way he's going to turn in his "midcourse correction." Obama will first have the opportunity to reshape his administration's makeup, and then he will have all sorts of opportunities over the next two months with the lame duck Congress.

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