[Dialogue] No Guts, No Grace

Fri Aug 4 10:09:01 EST 2006

AlterNet

No Guts, No Grace

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on August 3, 2006, Printed on August 4, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39884/

Do you think the Bush administration is going after the press? The San
Francisco Chronicle says on the front page this morning, "Cameraman Jailed
for Not Yielding Tape," whereas The New York Times is reporting, "U.S. Wins
Access to Reporter Phone Records." I'm feeling like a bunny trying to outrun
a pack of wolfhounds.

Sometimes the press enjoys scaring itself or pretending it is about to be
made into a bunch of martyrs. This is not one of those times. We are under
full attack now, and it is time to fight. I am not infuriated by the
performance of the press so far, but I am disgusted.

Bob Novak is the most notable traitor, but others are leaping for political
favors as they rush to insist The New York Times shouldn't print the news
(and occasionally, quite old news at that). I fail to see how Fox News and
other right-wing outlets have so little imagination they cannot picture
themselves in the same corner come a Democratic administration.

What goes around comes around and all that good stuff, but to set it up so
that payback is hell for yourself is tragically, deeply dumb. I have watched
the D.C. press corps play courtier to Bush since he openly insulted Helen
Thomas, who is not only a first-rate journalist, but a lady as well. Shame
on you all. No principle, no guts, no grace.

On another topic, I was talking to a guy named Andy the other night when he
observed that unlike President Bush, he had learned first-hand that
diplomacy works with skunks. He was speaking of skunks, the striped,
tail-up-bad-sign kind, but they seem a perfect metaphor for the rest of what
he laughingly calls Bush's diplomatic strategery -- at which point the
proper response is to ask, "What diplomatic strategery?"

Has anyone seen a foreign policy lately? Does anyone still know what
containment means? These are, after all, the people who were against arms
control because Bill Clinton was for it.

One feels like Casey Stengel looking at the early Mets: "Doesn't anybody
here know how to play this game?" In the most contemptible act of
irresponsibility imaginable, the neo-cons who pulled together to start this
war now reject any responsibility for it. Mr. Wolfowitz is busy running the
World Bank; it's no longer his business.

The rest of this crew of moral pygmies are too frightened of Dick Cheney to
point out that this entire war is a disaster, or a FIASCO as Thomas E.
Ricks, author of the new book "Fiasco" puts it. I think the Bush foreign
policy -- when in doubt, send Condi Rice home -- is a public relations ploy
to keep the Israeli-Lebanese war going long enough so that Americans won't
notice Iraq has completely collapsed in the meantime. And it has collapsed.
I suggest our military figure out how to get out of there before they lose
an entire effing army on the way.

In Washington, the sophomore wienies who now staff the administration are
far too terrified of Cheney to speak up, even if they had enough sense to
notice it's going rather badly. Oh, for heaven's sake -- send Cheney back to
south Texas so he can shoot at caged birds there. The Wizard of Oz had more
credibility.

I think they're running around the Middle East looking for a red heifer.
(For those of you who don't read your news straight from the Book of
Revelations, a red heifer is needed to set off the Rapture. We're working on
it.)

Well, if you can't get any global action from this outfit, how about some
plain old legislation? Nope. The Republicans' latest effort was to pass a
callous imitation of a minimum wage increase ($2.10 an hour over two years)
after 10 years with no raise. They may fall over in gratitude.

And, in the same bill mind you, this crew of crazed philanthropists insisted
on another multibillion-dollar cut in the estate tax. For really, really
rich people. Rep. Zach Wamp gloatingly told the Democrats, "We have outfoxed
you." Outfoxed? A tiny increase in the minimum wage and a huge tax cut for
multimillionaires. Does this make any sense? Does this even make politics?

In a splendid display of incompetence, the Republicans went on to make hay
of pension reform plans.

Meanwhile, I have yet another complaint to lodge against George W. Bush.
"The man is a moron!" is not political debate. Not helpful. Not even
prudent, as his old man would say. But that is precisely what he leaves us
saying: "But, he is a complete moron." Someone needs to pick up this
discussion and point out that at least he's our moron and say something
encouraging like someday maybe he'll learn to pronounce nuclear. We can
count on him not to change his mind about stem cell research no matter what
people learn. And, the only foreign leader he's necked with is female. 

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings. 

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