What new position in the FBI is every male college freshman qualified to handle?

Answer: A spot on the adult anti-obscenity squad – or as it’s also known, the “Porn Squad.”

That’s right. The FBI is putting together a crack team whose urgent mission is to protect Americans from pornography. Not the kind that exploits children, mind you, but the kind that is made by – and for – consenting adults.

A supervisor, eight agents and assorted support staff will be put together – presumably taken from other projects – to go after “manufacturers and purveyors” of porn. And who better to work on that support staff (I’ll leave the pun to you) than the people who know pornography best?

The Porn Squad will join the FBI’s new committees to investigate civil rights violations, white collar crimes, significant violent crimes and post-Katrina gas price-gouging. But wait, the FBI doesn’t have those new committees, just one to investigate porn.

Although stemming from an attorney general mandate and funded by congress, the Porn Squad has met with some resentment. “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” one anonymous FBI agent sarcastically told the Washington Post. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”

As the agent’s comments suggest, the squad is just the latest sign of a growing divide between the priorities of the government and the needs of everyday American citizens – a divide reflected in the sagging poll numbers for the Bush administration.

The latest AP-Ipsos poll provides further evidence of this chasm. After the president’s speech to the nation calling for more than $200 billion (yes, with a ‘b’) in government spending to rebuild New Orleans, 42 percent of Americans favor cutting spending in Iraq to pay for it. Twenty-nine percent want to postpone or cancel Republican tax cuts.

How does that signal a growing divide? Because the president hasn’t offered either of these options. More than 70 percent of Americans favor plans that haven’t even been mentioned by the White House.

Instead, the White House is proposing cutting government spending on programs like education, transportation and health care, and adding to the $333 billion deficit. Only 11 percent of those surveyed favor cutting spending, and 14 percent favor adding to the deficit.

Although White House spokesman Scott McClellan claims the president is acting on the public’s “priority issues,” fewer than half of the poll respondents approved of Bush’s handling of Katrina. Less than a third – the number that many pollsters agree would support the president no matter what – gave him good marks on gas prices. With gas prices predicted by some to reach $5 per gallon if Hurricane Rita hits Texas oil refineries, it’s no wonder.

Even on the president’s signature issue, Iraq, he’s facing an increasingly skeptical public. Two-thirds of poll respondents think we’re spending too much money in Iraq; two-thirds also believe this money is not being spent wisely.

With American casualties in Iraq just topping 1,900, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows that only 32 percent of Americans approve of Bush’s handling of the war. Sixty-three percent say they want to see some or all of our troops out of Iraq.

And they aren’t afraid to speak up. This weekend in Washington, organizers expect more than 100,000 people to turn out for an anti-war protest outside the White House.

As important as it is to keep pornography away from children, our government should have other priorities at the moment. Paying for hurricane relief, finding solutions for our troops in Iraq and solving our escalating fuel crisis should all have precedence. The Porn Squad only highlights the divide between the ideologies of the government and the needs of its people.

And that’s all I have time for. My roommate needs the computer now for some “urgent FBI investigating.”

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily