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Just a few months ago, Saddam Hussein was worse than
Hitler,
and President Bush called on Iraqis to
overthrow their tyrant. Kurds revolted in the north.
Shi'ites rose in the south. Saddam's army has crushed both
uprisings with astonishing brutality. The immense U.S.
military force nearby has sat and watched.
This perplexed me, so I called my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
Obviously, you're not aware of the top-secret
psychohistorical analysis of George Bush.
But the man has been lusting after public office most
of his life,
I protested. Certainly he had a record
you could judge, without resorting to that.
Reagan's theories were 'voodoo economics,' and then
George became the head cheerleader. He favored abortion,
then did a turn. The 'environment president' is going to
chainsaw the spotted owl next week. I could go on, but you
don't need to read my lips. There's no predicting George
Bush just from what he says.
But after months of effort,
Ziegler continued,
the psychologists discovered a consistency in the Bush
profile.
And what would that be.
Look carefully at his pet phrase, 'New World Order.'
'Order' is the operative part. Bush believes in a certain
form of order -- that if you come from the right family and
attend the right schools, as he did, then you should be one
of the aristocrats who run the world. He cares about you.
You belong to the club. It's like the Ralph Lauren ad where
the polo player extends a hand to a fallen rival.
Otherwise, he's more interested in his speedboat.
Give me an example.
The easy one is the Gulf War. You can find brutality
and repression anywhere you want to look. But does he care
when the Chinese government commits a massacre in Tianamen
Square? No, because the victims were just students, mostly
from poor backgrounds. Does he care if the people of
Estonia rebel against taking orders from the nomenklatura
in Moscow? No, they're just proletarian rabble. But when a
wealthy, educated, hereditary monarch like the Emir of
Kuwait is dispossessed, George sends in the
Marines.
I tried to extend it. So in the upheaval in the
Soviet Union, he'll take Gorbachev's side?
Of course. Gorbachev went to the right schools, held
the right party jobs. Boris Yeltsin is an electrician or
something, and he's the kind of guy who might belch at a
state dinner, or not know how to use a finger bowl.
Fine,
I conceded. You've explained the past.
Now predict the future.
Easy. Bush isn't ever going to pay any attention to
domestic needs -- that means dealing with mayors who didn't
go to Ivy League schools, or even worse, going out on the
streets and dealing with smelly non-millionaires. If
domestic needs intrude, he'll start a war. In foreign
policy, even if Jordan shafted us every way it could during
the Gulf War, he'll protect King Hussein -- an educated,
affluent, hereditary monarch, and thus one of the club
members who deserve to be running a country. In Iraq,
worse-than-Hitler Saddam is safe from George's wrath -- as
long as only the Iraqi people are against him.
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