[Mb-civic] How's This for Satire? - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Tue Mar 14 04:03:52 PST 2006
How's This for Satire?
By Richard Cohen
The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A19
The movie version of Christopher Buckley's book "Thank You for Smoking"
opens Friday and in conjunction with that, Buckley was interviewed on
National Public Radio. Buckley mentioned the difficulty of writing
satire in Washington, where the most outrageous idea is trumped by the
next day's headline. I heard the interview just as I was reading in the
newspaper that Republicans were "distressed by the White House's
performance since President Bush's reelection." As the old saying goes,
can you top that, Chris?
Republicans were not "distressed," mind you, by the war in Iraq, which
turns out to have been waged for no good reason. Republicans were not
distressed by the massive intelligence failure that preceded the war.
Republicans were not distressed, either, by the intelligence failure
that produced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than seven
months after our MBA president took over as CEO of the federal government.
Republicans were not distressed by a war plan that envisioned an
enthusiastic welcome for U.S. troops by the people of Iraq. They were
not distressed by a faulty battle plan that relied on too few troops and
enabled the sacking and vandalizing of Baghdad by the local barbarians.
They were not distressed by a war that has gone on two years past the
point where George W. Bush pronounced it substantially over. Republicans
are a cheerful bunch.
Republicans are not distressed by a war that is costing many billions of
dollars more than estimated. They are not distressed by what that has
done to the federal budget, the deficit and the debt, and how we as a
nation are in hock to China and Japan, not to mention the odd
billionaire in Dubai. They are not distressed by General Motors and Ford
sinking into a witch's brew of ineptitude, greed, pension obligations
and high costs. This is distressing, but mostly if you happen to be an
autoworker. Most of them are not Republicans anyway.
Republicans are not distressed by the deaths of more than 2,300
Americans in Iraq, many of whom ( most of whom) lost their lives
needlessly fighting a war that should have been over long ago.
Republicans are not distressed by the wounded or the widowed or the
orphaned or the merely haunted who will, on account of combat, never get
another good night's sleep.
No. Republicans are distressed because Bush suddenly has made their
lives a tad more difficult. His ratings are down. Their elections are
coming up. Oy, what distress!
Lest you think I am a partisan hack, let me tell you what distresses the
Democrats: an innocuous port deal that lent itself to demagogic
mischief. This reprehensible exercise in Arab-bashing was led by New
York's two senators, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, both of whom
revealed themselves to be ill-suited to fill the Senate seats once
occupied by the likes of Jacob Javits, Pat Moynihan, Bobby Kennedy,
Herbert Lehman and Robert Wagner. They wound up taking the same side as
Bill Frist, the Senate's most nimble opportunist, a physician who took
one look at a videotape of Terri Schiavo and rendered a medical opinion
so wrong and so irresponsible that he violated the physician's paramount
obligation to "First do no harm" by simply getting out of bed that
morning. If Frist is your doctor, seek a second opinion.
Truly, we -- you and I -- should be the ones distressed. This country
has a bunch of fools for leaders. Almost daily, they flock to one press
availability or another, yakking spin at us all. They hurl press
releases back and forth, like kids throwing spitballs at one another,
trudging from one photo-op to another and never neglecting to invoke
"the American people" to justify their own selfish interests. If the
fraudulent phrase, "Frankly I don't think the American people . . . "
was banned in Washington, the town would fall mute and long-extinct
birds would return. Just banning "frankly" alone would do wonders.
Buckley, take note. The other day, a spokesman for the military in Iraq
refused to confirm the identity of the Abu Ghraib prisoner photographed
wearing a hood with his arms extended by electrical wiring. The
spokesman said it would violate the Geneva Conventions to identify the
guy. These are the very Geneva Conventions that the current attorney
general, Alberto Gonzales, had characterized as "obsolete." I guess it
was once considered okay to abuse the prisoner and scare him half (or
three-quarters) to death but not to identify him.
You cannot top this, Chris -- which is why, frankly, I'm distressed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301484.html?nav=hcmodule
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