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Op-Ed Columnist: Purity of the Powells
February 5, 2004
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON � Washington is in the virtue business
this week.
Center stage is a riveting father-son drama. (No, not that
one.)
At the Federal Communications Commission, Michael Powell is
trying to save America's virtue, while over at the State
Department, his father, Colin, is trying to save his own
virtue.
They are both obsessing about something that should have
been there, but suddenly wasn't.
The son demanded an explanation for Janet Jackson's missing
material, while the father wrestled with an explanation for
Saddam Hussein's missing mat�riel.
The son opened an inquiry into something everyone had
already seen, as the father defended his speech making the
case for war based on something nobody has seen.
(Who could have guessed that Saddam's W.M.D. would be less
scary than Ms. Jackson's pierced metal sunburst, a Weapon
of Mammary Destruction aimed at the CBS chairman, Les
Moonves? Or, as Jon Stewart points out, that a government
so reluctant to investigate intelligence lapses is so eager
to investigate a breast lapse?)
Asked in a Washington Post interview on Monday whether he
would have recommended an invasion if he'd known that Iraq
had no weapons, the secretary of state replied, "I don't
know," adding that the "absence of a stockpile changes the
political calculus; it changes the answer you get."
But the words had barely left his mouth before furious
White House aides forced Mr. Powell to eat them. Just as
Janet Jackson had to repent for revealing too much, so did
the top diplomat. Secretary Powell had to go out and
clarify his remarks to reporters, telling them the war was
justified even if weapons are never found.
Rummy stuck to his Orwellian guns, telling Congress
yesterday that just because we don't find the weapons
doesn't mean they're not there. Or, as postmodern
professors say, absence is presence. (At least Ms. Jackson,
like David Kay, had the grace to say, "Unfortunately, the
whole thing went wrong in the end.")
Once more, Colin Powell was left trying to square being a
good soldier with preserving what's left of his reputation.
His twin concerns - wanting everyone to think he is a man
of purity and not wanting to fight a battle he might lose -
have come into fatal conflict because of Iraq.
The younger Powell failed to appreciate the consequences of
not curbing big media companies gobbling up rivals. Colin
Powell failed to appreciate the consequences of not curbing
Dick Cheney, Rummy and Wolfie as they gobbled up foreign
policy.
The son vowed in 2001 that he would be patient with
cultural excesses: "I don't want the government as my
nanny. I still have never understood why something as
simple as turning it off is not part of the answer."
But here he is, the biggest nanny in government since
William Bennett, starting a little culture war to improve
his ratings. The F.C.C. asked CBS for a Super Bowl halftime
tape to determine whether standards were violated. What,
the F.C.C. can't pop for a TiVo? Next, the F.C.C. will ask
the C.I.A. to provide satellite photography of the rogue
bustier.
The Janet and Justin show was unbelievably tawdry, but also
unbelievably banal - another rehearsed pseudoshock that the
media, and now the government, gladly play along with.
Isn't the power of social opprobrium in a free society
enough?
It's already out of control. Ms. Jackson lost her spot as a
presenter at the Grammys. And NBC's affiliates forced the
network to take out a scene from tonight's episode of
"E.R." because a breast was exposed for a second and a
half. It was the breast of an 80-year-old woman dying of a
heart attack. Sizzle, sizzle.
Besides, should all the indignation be about a "wardrobe
malfunction" when there were all those icky ads - financing
our annual festival of testosterone - about erectile
dysfunction? (One father I know tried telling his curious
10-year-old son the ads were about "electile dysfunction.")
Michael Powell should stop interfering where he doesn't
belong. Colin Powell should start interfering where he does
belong. The secretary should get off the sidelines where
the vice president and Pentagon banished him and stop
waiting for them to fail so he can be vindicated. He should
get more involved in rescuing Iraq from chaos.
The hawks' war to make Iraq free and secure is slowly
descending into anarchy and ethnic conflict. That's
indecent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/opinion/05DOWD.html?ex=1077016122&ei=1&en=97b6aa293d589826
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