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you now?
22″ in which the panicked Colonels Cathcart and Korn find
themselves facing humiliation over an embarrassing error by
bombardier Yossarian that costs the life of one of his crew. While
they debate what to do with Yossarian, Korn hits upon a novel
way to extricate them from the impending public relations
disaster. “Why not give him a medal?” says the sly officer. “You
know that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something
that we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems
to fail.”
It’s good to know at least someone at the White House is reading
the classics. It was, after all, impossible to watch President Bush’s
fiery defense of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld without
Korn's impeccable illogic springing to mind. Sometimes life
imitates art a bit too much.
As everyone knows, Rumsfeld, who’s so used to the hot seat he
must be wearing asbestos underwear by now, has once again
come under fire, this time by a cadre of ex-generals calling for the
embattled secretary’s ouster. Unsurprisingly, the neocon wagons
have begun to circle as the generals’ credibility are already under
attack by the usual crew of Bushbots and flakjobbers. Noted
liberal-bashing blogger/columnist David Limbaugh notes that the
offending officers may “put a big smile on Osama’s face,” while
the Washington Times’ Tony Blankley goes further still calling for
a court of inquiry to determine if the outspoken generals can be
tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Columnist Cal
Thomas accuses them of trying to “embolden America’s
enemies,” and even invokes the name of Iranian President
Ahmadinejad. “One can be sure no Iranian general - active or
retired - will be questioning Ahmadinejad’s politics or theology…”
he remarks.
Iran apparently being an admirable model for the proper conduct
of political discourse in a free society.
Meanwhile, it’s refreshing to see that most Bush apologists, who
spent the Clinton years deriding “interference” and “social
experimentation” in the military ordered by dorks who never wore
a uniform, have suddenly rediscovered “subordination to civilian
authority” as an underpinning of constitutional governance.
Indeed, one hears the phrase so much, you’d swear there must
be tanks crashing through the White House gates as part of a
Pentagon-inspired coup.
But the president’s reaction was more telling still. Bush was visibly
angry during a Tuesday press conference. Saying that Rumsfeld
was “doing a fine job,” Bush heatedly remarked, “I hear the
voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation. But
I'm the decider and I decide what’s best.”
Perhaps, but as moving as it was to watch the decider-in-chief
invoke his “because I say so” defense, one couldn’t help but be
reminded of the similar laudatory boosts given to the
administration’s other sinking ships like FEMA’s Michael “You’re
doing a heckuva job” Brown or Harriet “C’mon, she’s a
conservative, really, we swear” Miers.
Then again, there’s a subtle difference here. Brown and Miers
got flushed faster than quail on a Cheney hunting trip. Rummy,
on the other hand, seems to have a durability that would make
Rasputin envious. Donald Rumsfeld is no ordinary Bush crony.
He has not just the president’s ear but, it would appear, his mind
and heart as well. Since Bush’s second term began, the White
House seems in need of a revolving door to handle all the
departures. But the Secretary of Defense has remained. Besides
the president himself, the most consistently criticized man in
Washington has also had the most consistent staying power.
And this is perhaps what enrages his opponents most and what
has turned Rummy into the crowning illustration of the fascinating
tragicomedy that this administration has become. No other man
so completely symbolizes the credo of loyalty over logistics and
fealty over faculty that has come to define a president who seems
to regard the highest levels of the U.S. government as his own
personal employment agency for defense secretaries who can’t
equip armies, FEMA chiefs who have no disaster planning
experience and Supreme Court nominees who have never been
actual judges. Indeed, Bush’s continuing inability to see any flaws
in a man as mind-bendingly incompetent as Donald Rumsfeld has
made Rummy the lightning rod for critics of the Bush “Now You
Too Can Run A Federal Agency” style of governing.
Like Colonel Korn, President Bush continues to laud
embarrassing failures as great successes and trumpet humiliating
misjudgments as thundering triumphs. Like Colonel Korn, Bush
seems determined to hang shiny medals on his worst mistakes.
But in fact, the real terror may not be in Bush's similarity to Heller’
s cunning officer but rather in the crucial difference between
them. Korn regarded coating shame with praise for what it was, a
ruse to cover the unpleasant stench of failure. But in the insular
bubble of Mr. Bush’s well-padded universe, Korn’s gambit seems
less a tactic to veil reality than a reality all to itself.
Korn at least knew the lie was to hide the truth. One increasingly
wonders whether Bush can distinguish between the two at all.
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