I liked Bozo the Clown as a child in Chicago. He seemed eternally happy, upbeat, and fun. George Costanza, a Baby Boomer, extolled the virtue of Bozo to a clown at a birthday party who felt inferior to Bozo on a Seinfeld episode. George ran from a kitchen fire and knocked over women and children while the clown at the party put the fire out with his big shoe. When my family moved to Southern Illinois, I was sad there was no Bozo on television.

Kramer of Seinfeld was afraid of clowns. I can relate. After Bozo, no clown measured up. What was going on behind the Grease Paint? What evil lurked just beyond the lapel flower that squirted you with water? What did the clowns talk about when they were off duty?

Politicians wear the big red noses of Clown College, the makeup, the wide painted-on smile in our time. Their happy yet malevolent countenance fools a lot of folks. They want to increase affordability, bring down prices, and keep us out of foreign wars. They are for the Little People. ‘Give us a chance, and you will not be sorry; you will get tired of winning,’ Politicians say.

Clowns are tricky. Just about the time they have worked hard and stayed on the straight and narrow, a Clown Car comes along, and they run to jump in.