Max and I were having a beer at our favourite dive and I asked him what he was hearing from his old comrades in arms about the world situation.

He smiled momentarily and said, “Israeli intel says that Iran will put together a bomb before the end of next year.”

“So it’s going to be high noon around New Year’s of 2011. What do our own people say?”

“Well, you know what our state department says,” Max replied, sneering. “They figure the world can go on spinning with a nuclear Iran and that it can be contained. The Pentagon seems to think that as well and so do the Europeans.”

“Hah!” I cried. “But what do the people who would enjoy the benefits of a delivered bomb think?”

Max took a swig from his glass. “The Israelis, being the ones who would be atomized by such a bomb, don’t share those rosy sentiments. They don’t plan to take the risk. Since the Iranians are looking forward to the Apocalypse and they are led by that barking-mad Ahmadinejad, who thinks he is the Messiah, the Israelis don’t exactly plan to wait around and see the big mushroom cloud. You know what Netanyahu has said, several times in fact?”

“What’s that?” I asked belching behind my hand.

“Old Benyameen says, ‘It’s 1938.”

“I assume he means there won’t be a Holocaust on his watch,” I ventured.

“You got it,” Max muttered. “And when it starts, since Israel is our red-headed step child, we will be right in the middle of it.”

“When you say ‘we,’ I assume you mean the U S of A, and not you and me.”

“Of course,” he replied. “There very few up-sides to being an old coot; not having to fight another war is one of them.”

“Sing loud hosannas,” I exclaimed. To the lady behind the bar, I said, “Miss, two more of the same.”

When I walked in, Max was sitting in his reading chair with the Wall Street Journal in his hands and seemed to be steaming.

“Oh, oh!” I said. “What’s sending you to the moon now?”

“I want you to listen to this,” he said, in the way of explanation. “This is according to that wonderful lady Mary Anatasia O’Grady. The Congressional Research service examined the Honduran thing about kicking Zelaya out of office and, back in August, they wrote this:

‘The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officials of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings.’”

“And the Research Office has filed a report at the Library of Congress based on a rather serious serious legal review of the facts. Let me read you this!”

‘Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system.’”

I laughed and said, “Max, it’s not surprising that they would come to that conclusion in as much as that’s what the Honduran Constitution says. I suppose the Great and Mighty Oz is ignoring the Congressional Research Service finding?”

“Why would he pay any attention to the Honduran Constitution when he ignores our own?” Max asked, shaking his head. “And to boot, Miz Hillary herownself has sanctioned the Honduran independent judiciary. No one will say why but we have to assume it’s because they rejected the Obama/Hugo Chavez effort to make the Hondurans ignore their own Constitution.”

“So dear old Hugo thinks that all socialist dictators should perpetuate themselves in office and apparently, the Great Oz thinks he’s the bee’s knees” I observed.

“That ain’t all,” Max added. “Old Hill rambled on and yanked the U. S. visas held by all fifteen members of the Honduran Supreme Court. Hey, that’ll teach those uppity Honduran judges for not accepting the Barrack Obama/Hugo Chavez interpretation of the Honduran Constitution by golly!”

“So the U. S. is going to insist that what they did was an illegal coup d’etat, even though they replaced Zelaya with a member of his own party and the government kept on humming along.”

“Like Mother Nature, it ain’t nice to fool the Mighty Oz,” Max said, chuckling. “You know, the stupidity of this whole thing reminds me of Bush’s little set-to with the Brazilians. He wanted the Brazilians, as a condition of our giving them a bunch of aid money, to renounce prostitution and in a country where prostitution is legal!”

“And they told us where to shove the money! Well, we actually have interfered with other countries in the past, Max. You’ll recall that we put the Shah on the throne in Iran .”

“Yes, but we were fighting a cold war with the Evil Empire at the time,” Max relied. “We’d have done almost anything to win that one, and we held our noses several times in the deals we made to obstruct the Reds. But by damn, we won!”

“And the world is better off for it,” I said. “What Evil Empire do you suppose Obama is fighting?”

Max and I were going to a discount book store in Dallas and he came by the house and picked me up. When I got in his car, an American-made midsize, he asked me about my current activities.

He said, “I understand you have been regaling some of your Democrat friends with your thoughts on the big health care plan. What did you propose?”

“Basically, what I’ve been advocating all along,” I replied. “With an eye to keeping the cost from going astronomical, I suggested building on the state by state insurance pools proposed by Bush back in 2006 to provide affordable insurance for the non-insurable, those with pre-existing conditions that made their premiums look like the hotel bill for a sheik’s holiday weekend in Dubai . Of course, Bush didn’t really push the thing and it was voluntary so it had a limited success. But since the pools would have to be subsidized anyway, it is a cost-control method.”

“How about the poor folks, the ones that can’t afford any kind of premium?”

“I suggested setting up a voucher system and allowing them to exercise their own choice and buy the coverage they prefer from the market. Of course, we’d have to tear down the competitive barriers between the states and let people actually shop for coverage.”

“Worthy ideas,” Max said. “At least it would save an industry that employs a hell of a lot of people. How much of a chance does either of them have?”

“Slim to nada I would expect. On one side of the debate we have those who want total control of everything and a single-payer system and on the other side are those who won’t buy into anything that resembles socialized medicine. There’s a vast chasm between those two.

“We already have socialized medicine,” Max observed with a hint of sarcasm. “How about Medicare and Medicaid?”

“True enough,” I replied. “And Medicare is in deep kimchee already. In 1966, Medicare cost something like $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee and LBJ figured that by 1990 it would cost $12 billion adjusted for inflation. Do you remember what it actually cost in 1990?”

“Good grief no,” Max answered.

“It topped $107 billion,” I said. The cost for Medicare this year comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off.”

“So much for estimates by the White House and Congress is what you’re saying.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Max. And the Chinese, who are holding our paper for all this emergency spending we’re doing, are getting very nervous. It seems they are watching the printing presses run off scads of greenbacks at record rates.”

“What happens if they call in the loans?”

“I have no idea, Max. How do you foreclose on a whole country?

It appears the good ol’ Us of A is coming up on the wrong side of history down in South America ,” Max said.

“How’s that, Max?” I asked.

“The Honduran thing,” he replied, sitting back in his chair. “The rest of the world is getting back to normal as far as Honduras is concerned, and Obama is still trying to get that idiot Zelaya reinstated. Fortunately, the Hondurans themselves have other ideas and are going about their business. A member of Zelaya’s own party replaced him, so it didn’t stir up a revolution or anything like that.”

“Has Hugo Chavez got his bowels back to normal?”

“I suppose you could say that. His little attempt to get Zelaya set up as dictator didn’t pan out.” Max picked up a paper and leafed to a story. “On the first of the month he said that he had given up hope of returning Zelaya to office. But he added that, and very bravely, I’m sure, ‘ Honduras will keep up the fight.’”

I laughed out loud at that. “All five or six of them, huh? Zelaya got his own butt kicked out by trying to unilaterally change the constitution and, for crying out loud Max, if Chavez has given up, what in hell is holding up the USA ?”

Max chuckled. “To all appearances our current administration has a soft spot in its heart for Socialist dictators.”

“I wonder why?” I mused out loud.

“Don’t be facetious!” Max said. “And by the way, it appears that the European Union isn’t going to impose trade sanctions on Honduras as it had threatened at first. Apparently, those guys know where their interests lie. And just Thursday, the International Monetary Fund announced it would extend a $150 million loan to Honduras .”

“Hey, that’s a big one eighty! Good for them! For a change,” I added under my breath.

“And guess what,” Max snickered. “On Thursday, Zellaya gave a speech at George Washington University .”

“Getoutahere! You’re pulling my leg!”

“Fair dinkum,” Max crowed. “Good ol’ academe still believes in free speech as long as the right person is doing the speechifying. In his speech, Zelaya said that the election he tried to call was ‘necessary to the legislature and the constitution.’"

“Boy, that takes nerve doesn’t it?”

Max said, “When our intrepid congress returns to work on Tuesday, I hope someone with the required huevos has the decency to ask why we are giving the Hondurans a bunch of crap for defending and upholding their own constitution.”

“I hope so too,” I responded, but I’ll make a bet with you. Since upholding the constitution has gone out of style hereabouts, if someone does say such a thing, ABC and CCN won’t mention it.”

“You won’t find any takers for that bet in my house,” Max snorted.