March 30, 2007
After Gloat
Paul Slansky, famous for his quizzes in the New Yorker points out:
Gonzales and Co. could have just said, "We're firing these people because we can," and that would have been that.....Sure, Josh Marshall might still have been all over it, but he would have been just a dismissible left-wing blogger. And sure, John Conyers and Chuck Schumer might still have fulminated about it on C-SPAN, but most House and Senate Democrats are such wusses that nothing would have come of that, either. The White House would have been home free, with the story having vanished from the front pages weeks ago.
But NOOOOOOO! These spiteful sadists, who so revel in causing pain that they can't let a single opportunity pass untaken, had to impugn the fitness of the fired, thus forcing them to defend themselves by attacking their attackers and elevating their dismissals to, as George H.W. Bush was fond of putting it, a media "feeding frenzy." Their "performance" wasn't up to snuff! If there's any finger you would think these overweening incompetents wouldn't dare to point, it's that one, though nothing clouds judgment more thoroughly than a total lack of shame. (And speaking of shamelessness, one would think the hypocrisy of these serial election stealers complaining about insufficiently vigorous prosecution of voter fraud would be eagerly pointed out by hundreds of reporters and pundits. But NOOOOOOO!)....
And then he provides a little known quotation:
In 1967, the Yale Daily News exposed the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity's penchant for branding pledges with red hot wire hangers. The New York Times picked up the story, which featured a former president of the frat, one George W. Bush, dismissing the resulting "insignificant" wound as "only a cigarette burn" that leaves "no scarring mark, physically or mentally." So, Bush's first quote in the national press was a defense of torture.
The essay is entitled "Deep Gloat".
Actually, all of us gloaters here at Dakota are wondering what comes after gloating. We fear it is despair for the irreparable damage that has been done to democracy, the military and the media in this country, to Iraq and Iraqis, and to our environment and good relations with the rest of the world.
The decimation is severe and ongoing. How will we stop the destruction? Is it so deeply embedded that it will be exploding like buried land mines in unexpected places everywhere for years and years to come?
On this note I went out on a bike ride this beautiful spring day, during which I imagined how scholars and curatiors must feel about the looting and destruction of the Baghdad Museum How overjoyed could they be even if they find the missing treasures, which they have preserved fastidiously, in the hands of people who care nothing for them, and have no intention of giving them back intact. People who know nothing of their history or importance. Even if some of the treasures are retrieved intact, the collection is scattered and damaged, and its meaning as a whole is lost. It can never be restored and placed within the same container again.
Destruction, like creation, is a crucial part of the continuum of life and death. Since the midterm elections, we have partially uncovered just how much damage has been done to democracy by its destroyers.
The real question, as we assess the ruins and try to put some controls on the devastators, is what will we create out of the chaos, using our even more passionate desire for liberty and freedom, whetted by near loss.
Addendum: On second thought, perhaps the after gloat comes revenge.
Photo note: The three pagotas in Dali China -- still standing after lots of bad weather and Mao, (China's own devastator) finished with the Cultural Revolution. Tricky way to do the rant with the travel shot, huh?
Posted by Dakota at March 30, 2007 07:27 PM