This was just a blip, just a nothing in the political landscape. But of blips, of dust, of infinite private moments of wonder and discomfort is the world made…
Such things nearly pass for dreaming.
It was May of this year. I had heard that, in the run-up to handing over Iraq “politically” to Iraqis, in late June, the president of the United States of America would deliver a live speech weekly, to explain the administration’s thoughts.
Five Monday night speeches in five weeks. For an old newspaper delivery boy and later AP editor-reporter such as I, that was like what hearing of a surprise slew of off-season Monday Night Football playoff games must be to a football addict. That first Monday found me sitting down to dinner before the TV at promptly two minutes before 8 o’clock, ready to listen.
I must explain. I am not an aficionado of this current president. But I am mesmerized by his speaking genius. I confess to a lifelong funereal fascination with leaders who mean very little good for their people and who speak absolute insanity that passes in the minds of enough of the populace as inspired, defensible, godly, more than propaganda. I study carefully the pronouncements, daydreamy metaphors and money-printing abilities of administrators like Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il and Turkmenistan’s “Great Leader” Saparmurat Niyazov. With a similar gusto I await word from the “Leader of the Free World,” U.S. President George W. Bush.
How do such people rise to such power? Is politics the only profession in which the truly mad stand a chance at a grand and successful career?
That first Monday offered little more than mutters, stumbled attempts at awe and the promise of further speeches to come. On the second Monday, I cancelled plans I had in order to stay home and be before the radio at 8:00 sharp. No luck. The NPR airwaves returned to music after the Dow and Nasdaq numbers.
Well, there was much news that Monday, and it was also a holiday, so I thought the president must be otherwise occupied.
Week three came. And again, with the radio and television on and IMing with my friend Bill…nothing…no president, no speech. Was I awake, or politically dreaming?
Months passed, and after searching around a bit online for what I had missed, I gave up on the speeches. Did I hear right? Anyone I asked didn’t know of them.
So all summer I scratched my head in dreamy wonder like a sleeper just awoken. What happened?
Then, to my delight, last week, The New Yorker, in its great humor and righteousness, published its regularly appearing absurdist (but too true) quiz on the administration, this installation titled “The Thirteen Hundred Days: The Quiz.” (This is where, faithful readers, your present writer had a AP wire story appear last June, a blip about the president-candidate describing his wife as “the lump in the bed next to me.”)
It’s a compendium of administration faux pas. “Quiz” question No. 11 ran:
In May, the White House announced that George W. Bush would deliver five weekly speeches intended to shore up support for his Iraq policies. How many of the five did he deliver before abandoning the effort?
The correct answer: “(a), One.” Dreamers, awake.
--E.K. (Got comments? Write me at ekblog@yahoo.com)
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