First, study the picture of the balloon.  In flight it is easy to imagine, even in the absence of a handle-shaped aft section and a lid, that it could be Aladdin's magical lamp and that if you rub it a genie will appear to make all of your wildest dreams come true1.

Once the balloon touches down, however, it merely crumples for lack of the helium, or perhaps the hot air, that has kept it aloft.  Not only was there no genie inside of it, but even that little boy, whose unthinkable plight tugged at our heartstrings for an interminable two hours, was nowhere to be found.  That is, until he popped out of a cardboard box in the garage right back at square one.

A large stack of scarce taxpayer dollars were wasted, meanwhile, pursuing what most Americans now believe was just a cruel, expensive hoax at worst; an ill-conceived publicity stunt gone wrong at best.  Sadly, some of that wasted money could actually have been saved if those who took an oath "to protect and serve" the taxpayers would have made a more exhaustive search at square one while their expensive aircraft chased an alleged runaway balloon.

Next we have the Heenes.  They are the couple who so love being in front of TV cameras that they will go to any length to create a scenario that will preserve their narcissistic reflection in the public image pond.  The balloon, was their idea.

Apparently, Richard Heene (the balloon maker) and his wife Mayumi will go so far as to inflict their selfish agenda on helpless family members and even on the people who, under normal circumstances, would have zero interest in paying them any mind; people who would prefer, instead, to merely allow the 15 minutes of fame these lens lice2 have enjoyed to quietly elapse. 

In the previous sentence, if you replace family members with "fellow Democrats" and the people with "most Americans" it might remind you of another far more famous person who has been ballooning a lot of things lately. 

Unfortunately, that camera hog's 15 minutes could stretch into eight years if those who crave the "unscripted" world of reality TV haven't had their fill now that the phoniest trial balloon in history has burst.  Then again, there are few who still believe that anything he has ever said was unscripted.

As much as they would rather have remained in the public eye, the Heenes have suspended their news and talk show tour as the result of an inconvenient truth.  Their son, balloon boy Falcon Heene, reminded his dad that "You had said that we did this for a show" in answer to the interviewers question about why he remained in hiding during the flight of his father's balloon.

That was followed by the call for a mop during a CNN interview.  Apparently, realizing his father's deception makes the poor kid puke.  There's yet another similarity.  It is similar to the way many of us feel about the Obamacare saga.

1 - "If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true."

       Pedro Sanchez' campaign speech in Napoleon Dynamite.

2 - From the Curtis Sliwa lexicon.  Sliwa has applied the term "lens lice"

    to many notoriety seekers -- including himself.

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