I love peanut butter. I mean, I really LOVE peanut butter. I like it in all its forms. I even look forward to my nightly Jenny Craig sort-of-peanut-butter-flavored nutritional bar, which really bears very little resemblance to pureed peanuts.
Lots of people see chocolate as the ultimate, indispensable indulgence. I like dark chocolate quite a bit, but if I had to I could live the rest of my life without another bite ever melting in my mouth. But a life without peanut butter is too gruesome to contemplate.
So for the sake of my taste buds, I was glad to hear that the FDA and Justice have launched an investigation into the Georgia peanut processing plant that made the products involved in the mammoth current recall. But the prospect of the world being made safe for peanut products was not sufficient to cause the irrational exuberance I felt at hearing that news.
No, it wasn't the peanut-butter-lover in me that literally shouted for joy upon hearing the radio report through the open car window while I pumped gas; it was the politics junkie in me. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say it was the American citizen in me.
When Clinton's "3 AM phone call" commercial aired last spring, I remember being amused at how badly it missed the mark in its effort to make me afraid of an Obama presidency. When I reflected on how I would feel about Obama being the one to answer that phone call, I knew that for the first time in my adult life, I would be at peace about that situation, knowing that whatever challenge or dilemma the phone call presented would be handled by a mature, responsible, competent, moral human being whose values bore some resemblance to my own.
It was a really strange feeling -- imagining what it would feel like to actually TRUST the person in the White House. Not to believe that I would agree with every decision he made, but to believe that at least decisions were being made for intelligent reasons, based on decent values, and rooted in constitutional principles. So much more than we had gotten from previous administrations.
That's akin to the feeling I had when I heard about the investigation of the peanut processing plant. It was wonder mixed with relief and joy. "Are you kidding me?? The first major news we're hearing about Eric Holder's Justice Department is that they will be taking the side of the American public against the despicable profit-over-people culture that has reigned supreme in corporate America for longer than I care to remember? Wow."
A few fist pumps and hip-wiggles and toothy grins later, I hopped back in the car and headed home from work. As I was driving, I started dreaming big: you think they'll start enforcing the employment laws? Maybe even resurrect the defunct ancient concept of antitrust law before we are down to one bank, one airline company, and one internet search provider? Yeah, I know, silly dreams. But nothing seems impossible on this magical night.
An investigation, by two different federal agencies working in concert, seeking the truth on behalf of consumers, and possibly even leading to punishment of those who ignored known facts about toxins in the food products they were selling us?
What will that crazy Obama administration do next?