CRAB APPLE

Stupid Isn't as Stupid Doesn't

Every Sunday I get up to watch "Meet the Press". Now, I fully understand that I don't have to "get up" anymore to watch the show, since it is both re-broadcast at various times or could be “TiVo'd” for viewing when it fits in with my schedule (after all, Vladimir Putin is coming for morning tea today and so I really should be making sure the servants are tidying things up correctly…). However, I still try to maintain some procedures which predate technological remedies, if for no reason other than to demonstrate for myself that I haven’t been forced to fully conform to the upside-down material-based time in which we now live.

During the first segment of the show, the guest is invariably a high-ranking government official or a member of Congress who also serves the country as the chairperson for this or that committee overseeing or investigating this piece of legislation or that egregious scandal. Regardless of the guest or even the subject of the interview, a reference is usually made which subordinates or justifies this or that point by couching it on something “the President wants”, or something “the President intends to do”, or something “in the President’s plan”. And why not? Ultimately, it is the President who runs the show, having been elected, fair and square as far as we know, by a respectable majority of the American people.

So from these statements it is logical to surmise that our current President, George W. Bush, has both developed and communicated specifics of his myriad plans, intentions and desires to his venerable cabinet and perhaps directly to some or all of the members of the Congress. He would have had to, otherwise the statements of his hand being behind the directives of the United States government would derive from a cluster of hardly known, appointed (rather than elected) officials. And that’s just not how things are done in our great Democracy.

I can usually brush away this notion the first time or two the statements are casually raised. Yet after a few instances, I customarily realize that my attention has all but completely drifted from the show, settling rather on a contemplation of how this might actually occur: these times that the President advises the cabinet on his agenda. After all, we are talking about a man who, by his own admission, has a “…tendency to mangle the English language…”; a man who seems to have great difficulty speaking a complete, scripted sentence without pausing a half dozen times; a man whose on the cuff remarks are more akin to an over-the-hill stand up truck-stop comedian than the leader of the free world.

“How does it really happen?”, I wonder…

January 2, 2005, the now-former Secretary of State Colin Powell was on the show. At one point, Powell stated:

“It's not my foreign policy and it's not Don Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney's foreign policy. It's the President's foreign policy, and he develops his foreign policy in a manner that he believes is consistent with the mandate he's been given by the American people.”

Good point. Well spoken. Now I conjure up a holographic movie of how the George W. Bush I “know” (the one that’s carefully presented to me by the White House’s crack PR staff) actually might be handling the task of coming up with a Foreign Policy:

INTERIOR: The Oval Office. 7:30am, A Saturday morning. The President is alone. A pair of desk chairs are positioned under the handles of the two doors that lead in and out of the office, so that they cannot be opened from the outside.

George

(slouched at the desk, one hand propping up his head while the elbow of the same arm is on the desk pointing to the far wall. He’s looking at the Rand McNally Atlas of the World which is open on the desk.)

Hmmm… let’s see now… we’re over here… and they’re over there. We want them to stay over there… while we stay over here. It’s just that simple!

(long pause)

Now what? Oh! I know… we’ll… shucks, I lost it (I hate when that happens!). Oh well. OK… OK… now…

(He rises up from the desk, and takes a deep breath.)

Now, I have been given a mandate from the American people and…

(slaps himself in the stomach, like he’s just had his fill of pancakes)

…boy howdy, I know just what they want! They want to be safe and happy. They want to go to work… and to school… and to the movies… without fear! They want to worship in the church of their choice… and… they-want-their-borders-100%-secure.”

(Stands up, straightens his red tie, walks over to one of the desk chairs at the door and removes it. Swaggers back to the desk and pushes a small button on the phone.)

Jeanie? It’s me… George Dub-ya. Get Colin, Rummy and Dick out here right away! Tell ‘em I got another policy to lay on ‘em. And Jeanie… call Laura and see if she’s got any of them fine biscuits left.”

My projection is jarred by a “deep water explorer” Kerr-McGee ad and an abrupt return to consciousness. Could that really be how the President comes up with his policies? While being somewhat oversimplified, I seriously think it is much closer to the truth than not. After all, the shit hits the policy fan like clockwork in this administration, and when questioned out of the blue at a speaking opportunity at a fundraiser somewhere, the President not-so-deftly defers to his lieutenants and they in turn go on shows like “Meet the Press” and fill in a whole lot of blanks in well-crafted, long-winded explanations (complete with several three- and four-syllable words) that typically define very little (even when asked twice) and are based around something we have all come not to know but to love anyway, the President’s policies.

And so it goes… politics as usual, and Sunday morning is just a few hours away.

Some Things Never Change

In between the on-going tragedies in Asia and the Middle East, you may have noticed some mentions of a human travesty that occurred sixty-three years ago, when a sweet, mildly retarded young woman was barbarically and irreversably mutilated by order of her very own father, for reasons of pomp and circumstance.

In 1918, Rosemary Kennedy was born into a family that would spawn a beloved president and two impassioned senators. A family that in many ways would come to define American decency and hope, intelligence and mission, honor and duty, fortitude and compassion.  Into this fertile setting came a wonderful cherub of a child who played and laughed and enjoyed the fruits of peaceful privilege.  For a life marred only by a mild form of mental retardation, this was indeed a stroke of merciful Fate.

As she grew into a tender young woman, the patriarch of the family became increasingly concerned that sometime, somewhere down the road, cruel Fate might step in, bringing forth an unwanted pregnancy or venereal disease or some other potentially scandalous situation.  For the youthful spirit had, on occasion, escaped from the convent in which she had been cloistered, for romps in nearby towns or explorations of the world away from the order.

A permanent solution was offered by the medical intelligentsia of the time: stamp out all possibility for this innocent soul to inadvertently bring public scrutiny into the fold by scraping away the frontal lobes of her brain. By doing this, the famous patriarch explained to his family, young Rosie would remain the same lovely spirit who delighted at tea dances and long walks in flowered meadows, but without the burden of sexual impulses that could, however innocently or naturally conjured, bring dishonor and innuendo into their lives.

And so, Rosie's frontal lobes were scraped away.  The result was hardly what had been described, as this sweet, thriving and trusting young woman was irreversibly transformed into a blabbering adult infant, unable to do anything on her own other than breathe and stare mindlessy at a blank wall.

This travesty, and the history around it, can be read in lurid detail in author Laurence Leamer's biography entitled "The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family".

Rosemary Kennedy died this past Friday in the private institution she had been kept for the remaining sixty-three years of her life.  While the obituaries mention this horrible scenario, many focus not on Rosie herself and the inhuman tragedy which fell upon her due to the possible remaifications caused by unfavorable press, but rather on how the rest of the family coped with their understandable shame... by creating some of the most revered programs for the handicapped, including the Special Olympics.  For sure, these efforts have been of immeasurable value to millions of people throughout the world, and the extended Kennedy family should receive the praise and respect they truly deserve.

Through their publicist, the family itself released the following saccharine statement:

"Rosemary was a lifelong jewel to every member of our family," the statement said. "From her earliest years, her mental retardation was a continuing inspiration to each of us and a powerful source of our family's commitment to do all we can to help all persons with disabilities live full and productive lives."

Some things never change.