After seeing Sgt. Norwood's brave mother embrace the courageous Iraqi democracy advocate and patriot Safia Taleb al-Suhail, it was jarring to watch "Scarborough and Reagan After Hours" and hear Willie Brown say the following: "With the number of women who end up being the major beneficiary of the social security system, I think the President is on very dangerous ground toying around with this system."

Help me understand, Mayor Brown. Are women too stupid to be able to understand the changes, or too stupid to be able to manage their own money? (Good thing Harvard President Larry Summers didn't let forth with this gem.)

Frankly, after what they've confronted, I would trust women like Mrs. Norwood or Safia Taleb al-Suhail to be able to deal with the prospect of change in our retirement system -- and, if it came right down to it, I'd trust them a thousand times more to manage their own money (or mine, for that matter) than I'd trust bureaucrat types like Willie Brown. And the same goes for the millions of American women to whom Mayor Brown mindlessly condescended.