Who Am I?

Admiral Loy

I'm Adm. James Loy, head of the federal Transporation Security Administration . Don't confuse me with a bit player in yet another local production of The Caine Mutiny, though I have to admit to my own personal Capt. Queeg moments every now and then.

Besides keeping track of a possible Al Qaeda operative crisscrossing the country in a luxury RV while posing as a cable chat show hostess and other threats to transportation, I oversee the security at the nation's airports and am working damn hard "to balance world class customer service with the need for world class security." All you nursing mothers out there should think of me the next time you don't have to drink your own breast milk just to get on a plane.

And all you regular passengers out there should think of me the next time something happens in midair and there's no air marshal on board. Despite doing our best to hire more and more people—even allegedly lowering hiring standards just to meet staffing quotas—and to misrepresent the number of marshals who have quit the TSA, we're still sinking like the Edmund Fitzgerald.

If this sort of press keeps up, there's no doubt I'll soon be following my predecessor to the bureaucrat's version of Davy Jones' Locker.