Shh, don't tell anyone; we're running things
Jon Carroll
Monday, August 18, 2003
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URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/18/DD301973.DTL
People with something to hide usually try to hide that something. Not a remarkable leap of logic, but lots of people are refusing to make it. The Bush administration doesn't have anything to hide, it's just, let's see, behaving prudently, or protecting executive privilege, or refusing to speculate.
That last excuse is used for the question, How much is the occupation of Iraq costing? The Defense Department refuses to speculate. I mean, the Pentagon brass could look at the invoices and the pay stubs and get a rough idea, but they're unwilling to do that.
Why? Because they want to protect the president. Why? Because he has something to hide. He has consistently lied to the American people about how much the war would cost -- and how long it would last, and why we were fighting it, and, gosh, just about everything.
We do know that it must be costing an embarrassing amount because the Pentagon wanted to cut the extra monetary benefits to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to reduce the money drain. Then the news leaked out, and the Pentagon said oh no, it wasn't actually going to reduce the money going to soldiers, it was going to make up for the cuts in imminent danger pay and family separation allowances with compensatory raises in other, uh, somethings. The somethings weren't in the budget sent to Congress, but they were definitely in the plans for the, you know, next thingie.
Soldiers make a great backdrop for presidential speeches, but let's face it, they just eat up money that could be better spent for shiny new weapons systems. And God knows we wouldn't want to raise taxes to pay our soldiers more. No, here's the plan: Increase the deficit and call it a growth package. Also, the soldiers should stop whining to reporters because their tours of duty keep getting extended. Oh, and sorry about the Taliban creeping back into Afghanistan, but we're a little overextended. Hold that line and fight fight fight, and we'll see you when we see you.
I am not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here. Long after George W. Bush has retired to the board of directors of the Carlyle Group, the rest of us will be still wandering around in the great information blackout of aught-three.
The Bush administration is now thoroughly devoted to its black-is-white strategy. We save the forests by cutting down the trees. We preserve the wilderness by building roads into its heart. We keep the air clean by lowering vehicle emissions standards. And we always, always, stay on message.
Here's a problem that people with something to hide always have: The lies get so complicated that they get real hard to keep straight. The solution to that is to say as little as possible. When President Bush was finally embarrassed into holding a news conference, he managed to spend almost an hour saying nothing at all.
He did say that we're all sinners but that gay marriage is a bad idea, which is a hard concept to parse. If we're all sinners, then who the hell are you to tell me which way to sin? It's the old marijuana bad, alcohol good tap- dance. Heterosexual oral sex good, homosexual oral sex bad. The Bible tells us so.
The Bible also tells us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, but never mind that now. You queers wanna get married? Not on my watch.
Meanwhile, Dick Cheney continues to refuse to release the details of his energy policy meetings. He has something to hide. Halliburton and Enron pretty much got the keys to the Treasury handed to them, but if we can't prove it, it didn't happen.
Oh, and joblessness is at an all-time high even though we're just about to turn the corner, and we live in the United States of Insurance Companies, and, and . . . ah well. I'll take the Frappuccino, please, heavy on the nepenthe.
