Jeffery Goldberg has spent the past couple of years demonstrating (for himself, apparently) what an utter joke the TSA’s system has become.  And I’m not just talking about simple little things – like the small blade I usually carry, or the fact that I’ve decided to just leave the liquids in my bag – but things that would make even me think there might be an actual threat:

During one secondary inspection, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, I was wearing under my shirt a spectacular, only-in-America device called a “Beerbelly,” a neoprene sling that holds a polyurethane bladder and drinking tube. The Beerbelly, designed originally to sneak alcohol—up to 80 ounces—into football games, can quite obviously be used to sneak up to 80 ounces of liquid through airport security. (The company that manufactures the Beerbelly also makes something called a “Winerack,” a bra that holds up to 25 ounces of booze and is recommended, according to the company’s Web site, for PTA meetings.) My Beerbelly, which fit comfortably over my beer belly, contained two cans’ worth of Bud Light at the time of the inspection. It went undetected. The eight-ounce bottle of water in my carry-on bag, however, was seized by the federal government.

If the Presidential candidates are looking for a budget to cut?  Start at the TSA.  I don’t need someone spending this amount of money to simply (try to) make me feel better.