I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie...
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again.
--"Won't Get Fooled Again," The Who
Now let me get this straight: Saddam Hussein is a deadly threat to American
security, the
worst since Hitler or Stalin. Why, it may take as long as two weeks to
conquer Iraq. So now that
President Junior's returned from a month-long vacation at his Texas ranch,
which he apparently spent
rounding up and branding golf carts, the sky is falling and there's not
a moment to spare.
A Democrat-Gazette headline last week actually quoted Bush stating
"If you want peace, it's necessary to use force."
War is Peace. Where have I heard that before?
"Regime change," the man calls it. Translation: assuming Junior doesn't
get diplomatically
outmaneuvered by the Iraqi strongman (and especially if he DOES), the administration
is determined
to invade a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked or threatened us, kill
thousands of its citizens and
install a dictator more to our liking. Preferably one who sells cheap oil
and buys mass quantities of
American-made weapons to replace the ones we're fixing to blow to smithereens.
Meanwhile, it's everybody's patriotic duty to keep a straight face. That's
why the serious news
broadcasts and the heavyweight pundits ignored Junior's unintentionally
hilarious performance in
Nashville last week. Speaking to one of his preferred audiences of schoolchildren,
Bush told them
Saddam can't be trusted.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee," he began. "I know it's in Texas,
probably in
Tennessee--it says 'fool me once..." A long pause ensued. A befuddled,
then somewhat panicky
_expression appeared on Bush's face. "Shame on...shame on...you." Second
pause. "Fool me...can't
get fooled again," he finally blurted out.
The irony of Bush's channeling The Who's caustic anthem was almost paralyzing.
Written to
satirize Sixties-style hippie utopianism, "Won't Get Fooled Again" all
but took the roof off Madison
Square Garden when they performed it with a backdrop of British and American
flags before cheering
cops and firemen at the 2001 "Concert for New York." Thirty years on, the
song's acid pessimism,
fierce anger and anarchic joy somehow made it the perfect 9/11 elegy.
Meanwhile, studio audiences watching Bush's fumbling recitation on the
Comedy Channel's
"The Daily Show" and NBC's "Tonight Show" hooted derisively. Republicans
counting on this
stage-managed "crisis" to carry them through November's congressional elections
should take heed.
The Washington Post reports that even conservative Republicans say constituent
mail is running
heavily against a U.S.-only first strike against Iraq. CNN reports polls
showing 51% oppose it.
Do voters remember that when Saddam actually used "weapons of mass destruction,"
spraying nerve gas on Iranian soldiers and Kurdish rebels 15 years ago,
the Reagan-Bush
administration reacted by selling him more helicopters? Probably not. Are
they aware that as CEO of
Halliburton until 2000, Dick Cheney used offshore subsidiaries to evade
sanctions and sell $24 million
worth of oilfield equipment to Iraq? The press hasn't exactly emphasized
it.
But everybody knows Pete Townshend's song: "Meet the new boss/ Same as
the old boss."
Only perfervid ideologues like those Bush has surrounded himself with are
convinced that democracy
will flourish around the Persian Gulf after Saddam. To paraphrase Orwell,
only a Washington
chickenhawk (hardly anybody pimping for this war has ever fought one) could
believe something so
absurd. Civil war and chaos loom.
Should Democrats oppose a resolution giving Bush authority to use force
if Saddam fails to
heed the U.N. Security Council? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia
Tucker thinks so. Warning
that "a further destabilized Middle East could become the stage for World
War III," Tucker says that
even if "any Democrat who questions the president's insistence on invading
Iraq will be defeated come
November. I'm still naive enough to believe that there are issues worth
losing an election over."
But this is no time for quixotic gestures. By taking the issue to the U.N.,
Bush did what
Democrats asked. Hence a vote authorizing force if Saddam defies the Security
Council signals
American resolve. It's tactically a vote against war. Unless Saddam's the
megalomaniac Bush claims,
of which there's surprisingly little evidence, he'll fold. Moving against
Iraq with U.N. allies is a far less
dangerous proposition.
Six weeks before an election leaves no time to teach the influential Moron-American
community the distinction between patriotism and flag-waving bombast. Stealing
the presidency gave
the GOP the ability to set the agenda. Handing them Congress would give
Bush virtually unlimited
power to finish wrecking the economy, shredding the social safety net,
and gutting civil liberties. And
the bitter truth is that Junior's apt to get his war either way.