[My friends, I must ask for some editorial latitude this month. Events have been so fast breaking, varied, and downright irritating, that they have outstripped my supply of antacids. I apologize for both the length of the column and my inability to provide a rational “hook” to the Jewish community. Rather than stretch logic to provide one, I have submitted the column as is. Please accept my apologies].

"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy."
--Nietzsche

I woke up today feeling nineteen again. Not that I felt all that better physically, or that my cerebral plaques were appreciably less dense, but I felt energized and angry in a way I haven't been since 1965. In April of that year our then president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, directed the following remarks to our comparatively innocent nation:

“We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.”

He was of course referring to a watershed event in our history, the war in Vietnam.

Here’s George W. Bush in April of 2004:

"Our resolve is firm, our resolve is unshakable, and we will prevail."

…And a few weeks ago in a campaign speech:

“The stakes are too high for us to leave," [Bush} said on Friday evening at a campaign event in Florida. "This is an historic moment. You see, a free society will be a peaceful society. A free society in the heart of the Middle East will begin to change the world for the better.”

A free society will be a peaceful society. Right. Thanks for the insight, George. Pacification… hmmm… where and when have I heard that word before? LBJ, wasn’t it? Or was it McNamara? Say, Mr. President, should you ever decide to start reading, I refer you to Tacitus, addressing comments to the Roman Legions at Carthage in 97 CE:

"You have made a wasteland, and call it peace."

Vietnam was the sort of mismanaged, heavy-handed event that we swore would never occur again. Then again, we swore during the seventies that we would never again be slaves to gas pumps. Remember gas lines? Odd-even rationing? Fuel-efficient cars? The national 50 mph speed limit? Tips on how to maximize mileage? Our commitment to develop efficient and cheaper forms of energy? Look out the window at what is parked in our driveways. Huge, aren't they? Guess we forgot our promises. Well, never mind all that; I have a solution that will save gas, lives, and still preserve our God-decreed way of life.
Let's forget about ethanol, methane, hydrogen, and all the other possible fuels we like to deceive ourselves we are "developing." I propose instead an all out effort to cut out the middleman and craft an automobile engine that will run on human blood. Instead of sending our sons and daughters halfway around the world to be killed or maimed, a simple once-a-month donation of blood will serve in stead of an obligation to render military service! Then we'd be able to drive our flag-bedecked tanks around the streets without having to worry about the ironic and absurd image we are presenting to the world.

Finally, here’s GWB, speaking to Congress on 12/11/03:

“We realized very clearly that under no circumstances could we allow the enemy the opportunity to strike first into our heart. Nevertheless, the decision in this case to attack Saddam was a very difficult one. When my [opponents] now declare that I would have thought twice before attacking if I had known the strength of the Iraqi adversaries, they show that they do not understand either the situation or me.
“A truly impressive amount of material is now available which confirms that an Iraqi attack was intended… I can only thank the Lord God that He enlightened me in time and has given me the strength to do what must be done.”

Oops! Got my liars mixed up! The preceding was from Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag given on 12/11/1945. Correct your scripts, please. Substitute “The Soviet Union” for “Iraq” and “Saddam.” Scary, huh?

• • • •

“WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR THE LIGHT TO BREAK?” DEPARTMENT

Here’s the irrepressible Donny Rumsfeld at a Pentagon press briefing, 4/6/04:

“We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they are going," he said, adding: "Some things are going well and some things obviously are not going well. You're going to have good days and bad days." On the road to democracy, this is one moment, and there will be other moments. And there will be good moments and there will be less good moments.”

What a glib and insightful wit! I guess when some poor kid’s flesh becomes riddled with hot fragments of metal, and he ceases to exist, that would qualify as a “less good moment.” In that case does he become “less than well” and go into “involuntary non-breathing mode?” Or is he simply “dead” and thus qualified to be spirited into Dover Air Force Base under cover of darkness?
Every single thing the administration calculated would happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. No WMD, a silly and delusional dictator, and instead of flowers of welcome, a fierce and seemingly popular armed resistance to our presence. The war to keep us safe from terrorists has whirled out of control and serves now simply to fuel fundamentalist Islamic recruitment drives.

• • • •

There has been a spate of disturbing reports of late concerning certain attacks on John Kerry. These seem to be coming not only from the usual right-wing media jesters, but from the floor of Congress and the RNC’s web site as well. The ad hominem quality of the attacks from the Republican quarter should surprise no one who lived through the Clinton years, but the nature of the these particular assaults should concern every American, and all Jews in particular. It seems our Republican brethren are attempting to turn the electorate against Kerry by portraying him as a Frenchman. Intriguing, non?

As Dana Milbank writes in an editorial for the Washington Post on March 23:

“Bush pal and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans recently said publicly what his colleagues have long been saying privately: He called President Bush's Democratic opponent a ‘fellow of a different political stripe who looks French.’”

Looks French? What about Kerry looks French? His hair? His eyes? His… no, PLEASE…not AGAIN! They can’t be that historically challenged! Are they going to dust off Adolph’s nose-calipers and apply them to the latest race to have fallen into disfavor among the bestiary of throwbacks who find themselves in power?
To be frank, when I read this a month ago, I thought it amusing at worst. Then enter Tom Delay, House Majority Leader and Republican of Texas. Tom is reported to have started a meeting by saying: "Good morning, or as John Kerry would say, `Bonjour.' "

Now we have a trend!

I guess we’re supposed to deduce that John Kerry (a volunteer, three purple hearts, a bronze star, and a silver star) is unpatriotic. This stunning leap of logic to be accomplished by linking him to France, a nation that dared to oppose the meat grinder we find ourselves enmeshed in at present in Iraq. I guess that makes the French unpatriotic as well; after all they’re not a sovereign state, and certainly not entitled to act in what they consider their self interest.

The fact that Kerry went to boarding school in Switzerland seems to bother the simian set as well. This makes him an intellectual, privileged, and out of touch with the American people. Let’s see… who else based their propaganda on anti intellectualism? (Hint: Their national colors were red white and black).
Anyone who witnessed the embarrassing press conference Bush presided over a few weeks ago will be able to provide first-hand and informed testimony as to his illiterate mediocrity, the self-inflicted and ongoing results of which we are reaping on a daily basis. Anyone, that is, except Dan Rather, who called Bush’s performance "steady, competent and forceful." This is the same Rather who, in 1988, asked then V.P. G.H.W. Bush about his role in Iran Contra: “You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world! How could you sign on to such a policy?" Guess Dan has since either graduated from the Britt Hume School of journalism, or become delusional. The only thing Rather got right was calling the chilling display a “performance,” which my dictionary defines as a “presentation, especially a theatrical one, before an audience.”

Toward the end of the news conference, Bush was asked what lessons he had taken away from events since the Sept. 11 attacks. He vapor locked, and then came up empty:

"I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer," he said. "But it hasn't yet."

Thank you Mr. President. But all that proves is that you cannot think clearly under pressure. No problem there, right? That’s not part of the job description I guess.
In your world, words like “leadership” and “integrity” seem to hold a prominent, if ill-defined, place of importance. Fair enough, let’s examine your leadership and integrity…
A leader accepts responsibility for what goes wrong in his organization, not only what goes right. He does not send subordinates to temporize and cloud issues in front of committees he himself has appointed, while he hides out in Texas watching the embarrassing display on television with his wife. A leader would sit there, in full public view, under oath, and answer the questions himself. In his opening statement he might accept responsibility for the debacle. He would make it clear that while not wholly his fault, he nevertheless takes full responsibility for the abysmal inattention to explicit warnings, and all the inaccurate intelligence that drove his inadequate responses to them. He might offer that since 9/11 changed America, It “certainly changed me.” What is really important, he might say, is that we fix the problems, not the blame. In short, admit your failings and move on. And as in the case of Clinton, we would have forgiven him and focused on the future.
As it is however, all we have to look forward to is the spectacle of our president sneaking in and out of a secret session of the committee accompanied by his handler-in-chief, Dick Cheney. Every cop in the world knows that if you want a straight story, never interview the principals in the same room at the same time. Perhaps the session will be videotaped and later released to the public without the Executive’s approval, as was Clinton’s grand jury testimony. How sweet would that be?

The question and answer session might be a bit stickier for our boy, assuming the committee asks the right questions:

• Why, after all the dire and specific warnings about an attack on America, specifically in NYC using planes, did you spend the month of August in Texas clearing brush and pondering the issue of stem cell research? You say the reports were not actionable, that no specific time and date was given. Very well, since the hijackers were not considerate enough to supply an exact date and address, why not stay in Washington, call your subordinates and cabinet officers into session, and demand that they spend night and day investigating each lead and every single bit of intelligence. It was at that point that “Heaven and Earth” should have been moved. Demand that your senior staff give you daily detailed briefings on the progress of their efforts. Stay on top of the issue. In short, lights on in the White House, 24/7 until the intelligence becomes actionable. How do you reconcile your stated need for a time and place of attack with your remarks in Albuquerque on 3/26/04:

"I made a choice to defend the security of the country. You can't see what you think is a threat and hope it goes away. You used to could (sic) when the oceans protected us. But the lesson of September the 11th is, is when the president sees a threat we (sic) must deal with it before it comes to fruition, through death, on our own soils, for example.”

• Mr. President, If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor entitled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," (he did not) and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader? [Note: This thanks to James Pinkerton writing in NY Newsday, 4/10/04].

• Why was Prince Bandar shown a plan of attack for Iraq even before your Secretary of State was? Bandar is a Saudi. You knew at the time that the person responsible was Bin Laden, a Saudi. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. The report was marked NOFORN (no foreign nationals). This bordered on treason. (Hell, it was treason!) Why were planeloads of Saudis (including 24 members of the Bin Laden family) allowed to leave the U.S. immediately after the attacks and in disregard of the blanket ban on all but military flights? Why was this done before the FBI could interview them? Because of the longstanding business relationship between your family and the House of Saud, Mr. President, could it be possible that you turned a blind eye to the departure of the Saudis?

• How do you explain the $700 million illegally diverted from funds appropriated by Congress to fund the war in Afghanistan and used by your administration to pay for the Iraq war? Is this not unconstitutional, as well as a misuse of the office of the president, and as such an impeachable offense?

I guess I could go on and on, but my five minutes are up, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you once again my Gantseh Megillah family for your indulgence. Stay well! I welcome your comments.