Memo To
Washington: We Can Handle The Truth I already miss the straight talk of 2001.
When the subject was Osama bin Laden and the Taliban,
President Bush and his hard-nosed posse couldn't have been more forthright.
There was no sugarcoated spinning or pantywaisted parsing of words. They told
it like it was: "Lives will be lost" and "Anyone who thinks you
can have an antiseptic war is wrong."
But now that Enron has bombed Tora Bora off the front
pages, their language has gone all mushy. Team Bush is suddenly working from
the Bill Clinton playbook on equivocation.
And the president is leading the pack. Kenneth Lay is
no longer "Kenny Boy," the man behind half-a-million dollars in Bush
donations, who slept at the White House when George I was in office, and has
boasted of spending "quality time with George W." Now he is
dismissed by the president as merely "a supporter" -- just some guy
wearing a Bush button at the inaugural, to which, as it happens, he and his
company donated $300,000. As it also happens the president's parents had
arrived courtesy of Enron's corporate jet.
The president was particularly Clintonesque when a
reporter asked him when he had last spoken to Lay. Choosing his words
carefully, Bush responded that he last "saw" Lay in the spring in
Houston, at a fundraiser for literacy sponsored by his mother. Was this also
the last time they spoke?
Or does it all depend on what the meaning of
"spoke" is?
Not surprisingly, all the president's men are
dutifully playing follow the leader.
Chief among them is Commerce Secretary Don Evans, who
has shown such a proclivity for verbal gymnastics that any day now we should
be getting word that the president has transferred him from Commerce to the
Ministry of Propaganda.
Witness the Texas two-step Evans performed recently
on CNBC. Asked about a phone call he had received from Lay seeking help in
preventing the downgrading of Enron's bonds to "junk" status, the
Secretary stressed that at no point did Lay ask him to call anyone on Enron's
behalf. Instead, according to Evans, Lay said: "If there's any kind of
support you could give us, we would welcome that." Oh, I see. That is
different.
It's the kind of linguistic hair-splitting that would
do Tony Soprano proud: "I'm not asking you to whack the guy, but if he
should somehow turn up dead, we wouldn't be displeased."
But Evans really hit his obfuscating stride this past
Sunday on "Meet the Press." No matter how many different ways Tim
Russert tried to pin him down on the multitude of connections between Enron
and the Bush administration, Evans always managed to dance around the
question. He was the Fred Astaire of evasiveness. He tap-danced, did a time
step, and spun like a top.
When pressed about the massive amounts of money Lay
and Enron had contributed to the president, Evans, Bush's former campaign
manager, launched into a long, rambling non-answer in which he claimed that
whenever he asked people for a donation, he always let them know that there
would be no quid pro quo: "For this contribution," he would tell
them, "you're going to get good government, you're going to get a
president that has a great mind, a big heart and an extraordinary leader this
whole world can trust. And if you're looking for anything else, you got the
wrong candidate."
Evans failed to mention if the big buck contributors
he said this to waited until he was finished with his spiel before they burst
out laughing.
By the time Evans was finished, it was all I could do
to keep from shouting at the TV, making like Jack Nicholson in "A Few
Good Men:" "Come on, Mr. Secretary, we can handle the truth!"
Meanwhile, over on "This Week," Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill couldn't, for the life of him, understand what all the
fuss was about. He shrugged off the fact that Lay had called him sniffing
around for help, and acted like he got such calls -- at home, on a Sunday,
from a major contributor whose gargantuan company was about to go under -- all
the time. O'Neill added that he never informed the president about these calls
because "I'm a big boy. I've got responsibility, and I'm not going to
spend endless hours running across the street to tell the president about
phone calls."
He must think we're morons.
Watching these guys was driving me nuts. I couldn't
help but think: there's got to be a better way to get to the truth. But what?
The answer came to me like a sleazy bolt out of the
blue later that night when I happened across the premiere of "The
Chamber," Fox's new game show. Contestants are strapped inside a
high-tech torture chamber and must answer a barrage of rapid-fire questions
while being subjected to "distractions" such as 150 degree heat,
earthquake-level vibrations, hurricane force winds, and intermittent zaps of
electricity. Imagine "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" with Regis
replaced by the Marquis de Sade.
It was a loathsome display. The contestant I saw, a
massage therapist named Christina, was obviously in pain as she was tossed
about, flames licking at her legs, electronic muscle contractors grabbing at
her back. At one point, she cried out: "That hurts like hell!"
That's entertainment? It reminded me of nothing so much as how the Taliban
tried to turn public executions into fun-for-the-whole-family-outings.
My first instinct was to mount a letter writing
campaign to get this garbage yanked from the air. Then it hit me: the show
didn't need to be canceled.
It just needed to be retooled -- its sicker-than-thou
concept put to a higher calling.
Why not move the show to Sunday morning and roll our
political leaders into "The Chamber," forcing them to answer not
silly game show questions but questions vital to our democracy?
Can't you picture Don Evans or Paul O'Neill strapped
into "The Chamber's" wildly undulating chair, blasts of scorching
wind pelting their face, fire singeing the hair on their legs, sweat dripping
off their brow as the temperature soars past Death Valley levels, all while
being peppered with pointed questions and knowing that they must answer
forthrightly or be subjected to ever-greater torments? Cokie Roberts could
host, in a leather corset and a riding crop:
COKIE: Secretary Evans, true or false, Big Money has
turned Washington into an ethical sewer?
EVANS: Absolutely false, Cokie.
[EXCRUCIATING SCREAMS ARE HEARD AS EVANS IS ZAPPED
AND THE CHAMBER'S FLAMES ROAR HIGHER]
EVANS: My butt is on fire! Oh, dear god, yes! Yes, of
course, it's true! Money buys access, and access buys influence. Our whole
system is nothing but a corrupt cesspool of legalized bribery!
Now that would be a show worth watching. Is back to 'normal' the best we can do?President Bush wants us to take our kids to Disney World. The secretary of transportation, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, and former presidents Clinton and Bush all took commercial flights recently in the hope of encouraging travel-leery Americans to return to the formerly friendly skies. And the president, who usually prefers a quick bite at home and an early bedtime, made it a point to have dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Virginia in order to set a good example of eating out. But our pre-Sept. 11 lives weren't just about fun, flying and fajitas. There were other things going on to which it's also important to return our attention. So, in the same patriotic spirit, I'd like to remind us of a few of them: The so-called missile defense shield. We need to return to vigorously fighting the development of this pricey boondoggle. It was a lousy idea on Sept. 10, and it's a lousy idea now. It's a shame that, in the name of "unity," Democratic leaders are now rolling over on this issue. They've already backed away from a sensible provision requiring the White House to get congressional approval for any activities that would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and are ready to hand Bush nearly all of the $8.3 billion he requested to develop the shield. We should also waste no time reaffirming our loyal opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The horrors we saw in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania shouldn't serve as a convenient political excuse for giving away this pristine national treasure to the over-eager oil industry. Especially since the drilling will in no way lessen America's dependence on foreign oil: The refuge contains only enough oil to meet about six months of our nation's needs, and it won't even be available for use for another 10 years. A far more effective - and immediate - plan would be to raise the fuel-efficiency standards of new cars and trucks. But given that the profit would be cleaner air, rather than oil industry dollars, it's not going to happen unless we demand it. Surely the many choruses of "America the Beautiful" we've heard in the last month should reinforce in the national psyche how essential our wilderness is to the very notion of America. If "purple mountain majesties" are worth fighting for in Afghanistan, then they are worth fighting for at home. Another cause we need to return to is the battle for gun control. The terrorist attacks have ignited a nationwide surge in gun sales, with firearms dealers reporting jumps in business of up to 70 percent. It in no way minimizes the horrific toll of Sept. 11 to point out that 33,000 Americans fall victim every year to gun violence. Just as we have declared war against international terror, we should also redouble our efforts to put an end to the homegrown bloodshed that continues to stain America's inner cities. If new Cabinet member Tom Ridge really wants to increase homeland security, he should add this threat to his portfolio. And, as fast as we can, we should return to the battle to put an end to business-as-usual in Washington. We must in particular ensure that emergency measures are not merely the same old pork barrel decked out in newly fashionable red, white and blue. Because, emboldened by the $15 billion government bailout of the airline industry, lobbyists are bellying up to the congressional bailout bar, hoping to be included in the current funding Happy Hour. Even groups not directly affected by the attacks - particularly the energy industry - have tried to recast their plight in light of 9-11. Same with the congressional snake-oil salesmen pushing, once again, their capital gains tax cut and corporate income tax reduction panaceas. "The fun has just begun," says Sen. John McCain. "There's no train that leaves this station that they don't want to climb on." If returning to the mall with a wad of cash is now considered an act of patriotism, isn't it even more patriotic to get back to the work of strengthening civil society and preventing critical domestic issues from being buried under the avalanche of bin Laden coverage? Returning with renewed vigor to whatever causes we were working on before Sept. 11 is much more important to the vital interests and values of our country than going out to restaurants or taking our kids to visit Mickey Mouse. Yes, we should get back to our normal lives. But why stop there? Why not commit ourselves to larger goals and a greater purpose - to living not merely normal lives, but better ones?
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