And another thing …

Cleaner cars, safer country. We’ve noted the benefits of stricter standards for fuel mileage and emissions for automobiles, and now security hawks are highlighting another reason: terrorism.

“We are funding terrorism with our petrodollars,” says Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan. “Ideally, President Bush would use his bully pulpit to help Americans appreciate that driving efficient vehicles is a way to support the war.”

Gaffney is now president of the Center for Security Policy, and his recent call for reducing the nation’s oil dependence was echoed by former Reaganites Robert McFarlane, who was national security adviser, and Adm. James Woolsey, who was head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

They’ve presented a plan to Congress that calls for more efficient vehicles and an expansion of alternative fuels. They say such steps would reduce U.S. oil imports by 50 percent.

That’s NOT the ticket. The son-in-law of former Spokane County Prosecutor Donald Brockett received a traffic ticket for defective tail lights. Brockett thought the ticket was unfair, so he called Spokane Police Chief Roger Bragdon, who erased the infraction.

It doesn’t matter whether the ticket was questionable. Brockett’s son-in-law could’ve contested it in court, just like everyone else. What matters is that the chief and the former prosecutor saw nothing wrong with their actions.

The avenue Brockett took isn’t available to the average citizen, and that’s the problem. It’s special treatment, and it conjurs images of a hayseed hamlet run by cronies.