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The American dingbat is an unusual animal. It may have been discovered before the great situational comedy of the 1970’s, All in the Family, but Archie Bunker, the patriarch of the family of note, certainly made the animal most popular. The first American dingbat I can remember was Edith Bunker, Archie’s loyal wife.

Archie was always telling her to “stifle it” and treated her as if she had no sense, when, in reality, if she was able to get a word in edge-wise, her words seemed to be more intelligent than his. Still, he made the American dingbat a popular animal as he belittled poor Edith.

I got to thinking, since Edith has gone on to Glory, no doubt, who has taken over the coveted appellation of America’s dingbat. It should not be a matter of gender, but usually, the dingbat is female. Now, before you accuse me of the dreaded label of misogyny, let me go on record as saying, if the dingbat is female, the male version would be “dingbattier!”

With tongue in cheek, I looked up The American Dingbat. There was not unanimity. In other words, there were more choices than one. There was Nancy Pelosi, but she is old news. I was looking for the most current version of The American dingbat and was not surprised to see the picture of California’s Representative to the House of Representatives from that state’s 43rd District, Mad Maxine Waters!

Congresswoman Waters was looking as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as your best dingbat could. I noticed that she was married and I couldn’t help but recall the 1963 pop song by Jimmy Soul, “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife.” Remember, this is tongue in cheek; nothing personal.

Ms. Waters’ job, as of late, seems to be stirring the pot in Minnesota, as if that pot needed to be stirred with greater gusto. For the last year, the city of Minneapolis has been a tinderbox just needing a small firecracker of any kind to set it off. Welcome Representative Waters.

The battle against The Blue, Law Enforcement Officers, is an irony that goes beyond my thinking. In a nation that borders on anarchism and chaos, a major line of defense is a well-trained and diligent corpse of cops. There are no perfect professions and neither is law enforcement, but I know of no other choice than to fund them generously and appropriately and offer them the best training available. Even then, there will be mistakes, but we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

If any sort of firecracker might set off a tinderbox, what might a dingbat cherry bomb do? We can see in real time with Congresswoman Waters’ visit to Minnesota. With police defunding on the table, she travels from Washington to Minneapolis with the message, “Stay in the streets and get more confrontational.” In other words, “Raise more cane!”

At the same time that Ms. Waters was calling for more confrontation, a funny thing happened on the way to Minneapolis. According to a Townhall report by Katie Pavlich, the Congresswoman asked for a protective police escort from the Minneapolis Police Department.

I would not want the job of Chief of Police in any city, much less Minneapolis these days, but I might like to answer Ms. Waters’ request.

“Thank you, Congresswoman, for your latest request for a police escort,” I might say. “At this time, however, because of the defunding of our department, your request is denied. Perhaps you can call on your friends, those who are rioting, to protect you. Have a good day you dingbat and enjoy our chaotic city!”