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Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Put him in the cornfield

Yesterday I was grading papers—honest!—in Penn State’s HUB-Robeson student center when I looked up at one of the ubiquitous CNN feeds and learned that L. Paul Bremer had retracted his February 2001 remarks about the Bush administration’s pre-9/11 inattention to terrorism.  You remember those remarks:

“What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, ‘Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this,”’ said Bremer at a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on terrorism on February 26, 2001.

(By the way, no one seems to have noticed that Bremer was actually quite wrong about this.  On the afternoon of 9/11, they didn’t say, “Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this.” They said, “now, how can we tie this to Saddam Hussein?")

On Sunday, however, Bremer released a statement that said, in part:

“Criticism of the new administration . . . was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal Government’s inaction over the preceding 7 months.

“I regret any suggestion to the contrary. In fact, I have since learned that President Bush had shared some of these frustrations, and had initiated a more direct and comprehensive approach to confronting terrorism consistent with the threats outlined in the National Commission report.

“I am strongly supportive and grateful for the President’s leadership and strategy in combating terrorism and protecting American national security throughout his first term in office.”

And sitting there in the HUB, I thought to myself, where have I seen this show before?  No, not the one with John DiIulio.  The one written by Jerome Bixby and adapted by Rod Serling.  It’s called “It’s a Good Life,” and it involves a young boy (played by Billy Mumy) with psychic powers.  He’s managed to isolate his town of Peaksville, Ohio from the rest of the world, and he demands that the adults entertain him and—at all costs—keep thinking happy good thoughts.  Occasionally an adult will express some alarm about some aspect of the child’s regime, but will be compelled immediately to think good thoughts and tell the child that it was a good thing—a real good thing he done when he took control of the town.  People who fail to toe the line get put “in the cornfield,” and at one point an older man has a bit too much to drink, complains openly about the child, and is transformed into a hideous jack-in-the-box (and then banished to the cornfield).

So I went around the rest of the day thinking happy good thoughts.  It’s a good thing we invaded Iraq—a real good thing.  Richard Clarke is a bad man.  We’re gonna put him in the cornfield with Paul O’Neill and Joseph Wilson.  Paul Bremer better keep thinking happy thoughts or we’re gonna turn him into a jack-in-the-box just like we did with . . . and then it occurred to me, has anyone seen Colin Powell lately?

Posted by Michael on 05/04 at 02:05 AM
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