Crushed again
You know, it's tough sometimes being a Pisces. We tend to be emotional, heart-on-the-sleeve kinds of people, always bleeding for the world, and hoping for the best, and optimistic for the future. We were the perfect Flower Children, astrologically hardwired to be quick with a hug, a sympathetic ear, a sudden burst of tears, a naive belief that we could convince those around us to make a better world.
Of course, that's what always made the disappointments just that much more devastating.
Still, that down side of our ordained Zodiac sign has never prevented us from coming right back for more, whatever the potential trauma ahead. So it was with a genuine sense of satisfaction that I welcomed early reports regarding the President's Thursday meeting with former Secretaries of State and Defense, a truly bi-partisan group of "wise men" who'd served in some respectable Administrations.
Maybe, I thought, George did spend some time in thoughtful introspection over the Chris-... er, Holi-... oh, f#%k it, winter break in Crawford. Maybe he secretly read Team of Rivals in the wee hours of the morning after Laura had drifted off to sleep. Maybe he channeled some of the deserved criticism of his isolation and plain ol' pig-headedness, and resolved on New Year's Eve to make a change for the good of the nation...
Damn. Crushed again.
The revelation that these 13 experienced, knowledgeable individuals were actually given a total of only 10 minutes to ask questions of, and offer personal insight to, Mr. Bush before being shuffled off to a PR photo session - well, it's a real heartbreaker. A betrayal of the American people. A tragic waste of potentially vital advice from some of the best and brightest who've served the nation in equally troubled, complex eras.
And a slap in the face to Pisces everywhere.
What was Georgie thinking? Where did he have to go in such a rush that could have possibly been more important? When are the citizens of this country, both blue and red, going to grow tired of a man who's obviously just playing President?
Regaining some of the incisive wit that's recently been absent from her writing, Maureen Dowd fires this broadside at our Poser in Chief, and takes an educated guess at what these 13 statesmen might have had a chance to say in their allotted 30 seconds apiece. And Patrick Martin of the World Socialist Web Site (what, you got a problem with that?) launches this barrage at the President and the attendees themselves. OK, a little over the top, perhaps, but Mr. Martin makes some excellent and accurate observations nevertheless.
Don't worry. We Pisces are tough, too, in the sense that we've learned how to get over it. It was nice for a moment, a fleeting ray of hope in five long years of Bush Administration darkness. And I'm sure we'll glimpse another one soon, right?
If you believe that, kids, then spark up, join hands, and repeat after me: "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."
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(NOTE: For those of you who are not yet subscribers to the NYT's "Times Select", Ms. Dowd's article is reprinted in the comments section below. Click "add your opinion" to access the full editorial.
Click here for details on purchasing "Times Select", and obtaining a 14-day free trial.)
Of course, that's what always made the disappointments just that much more devastating.
Still, that down side of our ordained Zodiac sign has never prevented us from coming right back for more, whatever the potential trauma ahead. So it was with a genuine sense of satisfaction that I welcomed early reports regarding the President's Thursday meeting with former Secretaries of State and Defense, a truly bi-partisan group of "wise men" who'd served in some respectable Administrations.
Maybe, I thought, George did spend some time in thoughtful introspection over the Chris-... er, Holi-... oh, f#%k it, winter break in Crawford. Maybe he secretly read Team of Rivals in the wee hours of the morning after Laura had drifted off to sleep. Maybe he channeled some of the deserved criticism of his isolation and plain ol' pig-headedness, and resolved on New Year's Eve to make a change for the good of the nation...
Damn. Crushed again.
The revelation that these 13 experienced, knowledgeable individuals were actually given a total of only 10 minutes to ask questions of, and offer personal insight to, Mr. Bush before being shuffled off to a PR photo session - well, it's a real heartbreaker. A betrayal of the American people. A tragic waste of potentially vital advice from some of the best and brightest who've served the nation in equally troubled, complex eras.
And a slap in the face to Pisces everywhere.
What was Georgie thinking? Where did he have to go in such a rush that could have possibly been more important? When are the citizens of this country, both blue and red, going to grow tired of a man who's obviously just playing President?
Regaining some of the incisive wit that's recently been absent from her writing, Maureen Dowd fires this broadside at our Poser in Chief, and takes an educated guess at what these 13 statesmen might have had a chance to say in their allotted 30 seconds apiece. And Patrick Martin of the World Socialist Web Site (what, you got a problem with that?) launches this barrage at the President and the attendees themselves. OK, a little over the top, perhaps, but Mr. Martin makes some excellent and accurate observations nevertheless.
Don't worry. We Pisces are tough, too, in the sense that we've learned how to get over it. It was nice for a moment, a fleeting ray of hope in five long years of Bush Administration darkness. And I'm sure we'll glimpse another one soon, right?
If you believe that, kids, then spark up, join hands, and repeat after me: "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."
- - - - -
(NOTE: For those of you who are not yet subscribers to the NYT's "Times Select", Ms. Dowd's article is reprinted in the comments section below. Click "add your opinion" to access the full editorial.
Click here for details on purchasing "Times Select", and obtaining a 14-day free trial.)
posted by Bob P @ 3:00 AM
1 Comments:
REACH OUT AND TOUCH NO ONE
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 7, 2006
Doing the math, you've got to figure that the 12 wise men and one wise woman had about 30 seconds apiece to say their piece to the president about Iraq, where vicious assaults this week have killed almost 200 and raised U.S. troop fatalities to at least 2,189.
It must have been like a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which boils down the great plays and books to their essence. Proust is "I like cookies." Othello raps that he left Desdemona "all alona, didn't telephona." "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" condense into "The Idiodity." "Henry V" is "A king's gotta do what a king's gotta do," and "Antony and Cleopatra" is "Never get involved in Middle Eastern affairs."
Beyond taking a class picture ringed around Mr. Bush's bizarrely empty desk - a mesmerizing blend of "Sunset Boulevard," "The Last Supper" and a "Sopranos" ad - the former secretaries of state and defense had to make the most of their brief colloquy with W.
The spectral Robert McNamara might have enlightened on Vietnam: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the opposition. Didn't know when to get out." If he was a fast talker, he could have added: "It's the dominoes. If Iraq falls, then Syria falls, then Lebanon falls, and before you know it, all of Southeast Asia - I mean, the Middle East - will fall."
Melvin Laird only needed to add: "Ditto."
Al Haig's summation would have been a cinch: "I resign. I'm in charge here. I resign - again."
Instead of his good-soldier silence, Colin Powell could have redeemed himself with four words: "I should have resigned."
Madeleine Albright might have succinctly imparted some wisdom from Somalia and Rwanda: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the threat. Didn't know when to get in."
James Baker, Svengali and Sphinx, must have been thinking: "I told your dad not to let you in here. I could tell you how to get of Iraq in 10 minutes, but you're too under the sway of that nutball Cheney to listen."
George Shultz only needed to say: "I have a tiger tattooed on my fanny," and Lawrence Eagleburger could have abridged his thoughts to "I need a smoke. Bad."
It may seem disturbing at first, that with several hundreds of years' worth of foreign policy at his elbows, and a bloody, thorny mess in Iraq, Mr. Bush would devote mere moments to letting some fresh air into his House of Pain.
Sure, he has A.D.D. But he just spent six straight days mountain-biking and brush clearing in Crawford. He couldn't devote 60 minutes to getting our kids home rather than just a few for a "Message: I Care" photo-op faking sincerity?
"We all went into the bubble and came out," one of the wise men noted.
Mr. Eagleburger explained their role as props, saying it was hard to volubly express yourself with a president. "There was some criticism, but it was basically 'You haven't talked to the American people enough.' " Lighting a cigarette on the way out - he'd thrown one in the bushes on the way in - he added the world-weary coda: "We're all has-beens anyway."
Mr. Eagleburger knows the truth. If W. had wanted to really reach out, rather than just pretend to reach out so that his poll numbers would go up, he would have sought advice outside his warped inner circle long ago - including from his own father.
Because W.'s mind is so closed to anybody except yes-men who tell him his policies and wars are slam-dunks, uneasy seasoned mandarins are forced to make a noisy stink. Brent Scowcroft, one of Bush Senior's closest friends, had to resort to the pages of The New Yorker to voice his objections. He ominously said Dick Cheney, his old colleague, was someone he no longer recognized.
You wonder whether the other contemporaries of Cheney and Rummy from Ford, Reagan and Bush I days were thinking the same thing at Thursday's meeting: Why have these guys gone so kooky?
W. is drunk on Cheney Kool-Aid. So he got testy when Ms. Albright pointed out that North Korea and Iran were going nuclear while the U.S. was bogged down in Baghdad. Then, after a quick photo in the Oval, he shooed the old-timers out, letting anyone who wanted to stay talk to the security factotum Stephen Hadley.
Still busy spreading fog over the war, W., Cheney, Rummy and Condi had no time to hear McNamara expound on the fog of war. In the picture, as Ms. Albright cringes, Mr. McNamara looks haunted, unable to escape second-guessing over Vietnam.
The only thing that would have made the photo even more utterly phony was the presence of that vintage warmonger, Henry the K.
©2005 The New York Times
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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Hue and Cry has no affiliation with the originator of this article nor is The Hue and Cry endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
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