I’ll be flying to Chicago in a few hours, helping Wait Wait break in its new permanent home. Despite the added air-time to get my airtime, it’s a move I’m in favor of - doing the show in front of an audience allows me to work in some of my vast mime repetoire, which is often lost on radio listeners.

Another noteworthy new policy is the largely uncelebrated little clause in the latest defense bill that would bar women from “combat support” and “combat service support” in our military. A few years ago moderates and liberals would’ve been raising a ruckus about this regressive return to ol’ fashioned values. Today, it’s just another small leak in a vessel that has already has a few noticeable torpedo holes to worry about.

It’s worth mentioning though, if only because we’re at war, our armed forces are missing their recruiting goals to an alarming degree, and suddenly we’re telling Rosie to pick up her rivets and go home. And, um, rivet from someplace safe. Write inspirational letters to our boys at the front. I don’t know - tie a yellow ribbon or something - we’re trying to fight a war here for godsakes.

Actually, in some ways it might be a brilliant strategy. We’re fighting an ideology that more than almost anything else objects to our insistence on treating women as equals in all ways. Once we correct that, they’ll have one less reason to want to kill us. Soon, al Qaeda may look at us and say, “Hey, they’ve curtailed personal freedoms, they’re increasingly intolerant of sexuality in their media, they consider their government to be founded upon religion, and now they’ve started to limit the role of women in their society! They’re just like us! Let’s go and attack the French…”

So not only will this protect our women, it’ll help win the war. Or at least end it. See, ladies? It all works out. And thanks for all the help. Now go cover up - you’re embarrassing us in front of our new friends.