Michael Chertoff's announcement of a "gut feeling" or "feeling in his gut" that the U.S. may be struck again by Al Qaeda terrorists should be commended and not subject to criticism by knit picking, hair splitting, cuff scoffing journalists. After all, sometimes the FBI, CIA, NSA and other undercover intelligence agencies paid big bucks for their collective information do slip up. Remember: "Didn't connect the dots..."
Unlike a weather vane, thermometer, or finger spit to the wind, our Homeland is now more secure with the added - gut - feelings of Mr. Chertoff. Congress might further recognize this man's innate services by canceling the billion dollar budgets paid for Homeland Security, and instead feed Chertoff a Big Mac once a month.
Maybe two.
Guts have long been incorporated into life's mainstream for a variety of uses since the beginning of time: sling shots, contraceptives, violins, pianos, sausages, salami and baloney. Sometimes the - gut - term is disguised with the phrase: intestinal fortitude. Rambo has guts. Jane Goodall has intestinal fortitude.
Though one does not use intestinal fortitude while cooking, Giada De Laurentiis of the Food Network prepares a meat roast wrapped in tripe, (gourmet term for gut). There is also a tripe soup, more elegantly known as Menudo. Menudo has often been used as a Sunday morning hangover cure for Saturday night revelry, celebration, wipe out, intoxication, etc.
No one appears to be criticizing the NSA for failing to connect the dots and allowing 9/11 to spawn; or that the FBI and CIA who were so incompatible they were unwilling to share information about twentieth hijacker Zacarias Moussaai; or that the CIA mistakenly begot, 'Slam dunk WMD in Iraq' and sent the nation into a pointless war. So maybe the Chertoff - gut - is a wise and useful tool against terrorism.
And if Mr. Chertoff's - gut - feelings prove to be a failure, and there are no terrorist attacks on the Homeland, and the nation was mistakenly driven into a state of fear, plastered with paranoia producing indigestion, the people can take comfort by ordering up a bowl of Menudo.
Maybe two.
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