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Several months had passed since I last spoke with my best inside Washington source, Lt. Col. Ananias Ziegler (ret), media relations director of the Committee That Really Runs America.
Part of the problem was that the Committee had apparently hired the same telecommunications consultant as the one who installed the system in the Park County government offices in Fairplay, and getting through to him required more patience than I had in order to punch through all the voice-mail menus.
But finally I had an afternoon free, so that I could ask Ziegler about why I kept reading stuff about Bill Clinton when he's been out of office for nearly two months.
For one thing, he was our first supermarket tabloid
President,
Ziegler explained. Put him on the cover
with an alien or a bimbo, and you sell a lot of papers.
You think they're going to give up on something that
profitable just because he's not in the White House any
more?
But surely the Committee could do something about that?
We have a First Amendment in this country, remember?
And besides, he's the best fund-raiser in Republican
history.
I had known Clinton could rake in the bucks for his own party, but for the Republicans? This was taking bipartisanship past all common sense.
Not directly,
Ziegler said. But if you want
to raise funds for Republicans, all you need to do is say
that you need money to fight off the effects of eight years
of Clintonism, plus you need a war chest to defeat Hillary
when she runs for president. They don't have commies to
run against any more, even some elected Republicans are
questioning the War on Drugs -- so you take your enemies
where you can find them when you're hustling money.
But why all the focus on Clinton's last-minute pardons?
Because if the sheep in this country are busy looking
at a possible relationship between contributions to the
Clinton Library and the pardons he issued, then they won't
notice the relationship between coal-industry contributions
to President Bush's campaign and how he reversed his
position on carbon-dioxide emissions last week.
Sort of like the misdirection that stage magicians use?
You got it,
Ziegler agreed. The more
attention that people pay to various Clintons, the less
they notice about what's really going on.
Like the proposal to reduce taxes for our oppressed billionaires, even if there may not be enough federal surplus available?
I don't know where you got the idea that there was
anything wrong with a huge federal debt,
Ziegler said,
unless you actually took one of Ronald Reagan's campaign
speeches seriously 20-odd years ago.
The people that collect the interest are the holders
of treasury bills and notes -- people of means. The people
who pay the interest are the people that get it deducted
from their paychecks. The bigger the debt, the more that
gets transferred from the undeserving to the deserving.
The Committee is all for doubling or tripling the national
debt, especially if it also involves a tax break for our
supporters.
But aren't they hurt when the stock market goes into the tank?
That looks like bad news at first,
Ziegler said,
but it solves a lot of problems.
How could that be?
A year ago, when the markets were soaring, you had
all these irreverent 20-something multi-millionaires with
tattoos and nose rings, right? Do you know what that could
have done to the social order in this country if it had
continued, this trend of putting money into the hands of
the wrong sort of people? It means that Americans might
have lost their traditional deference to wealth.
It would be a different country if the rich didn't get their proper respect, I agreed.
And the labor market was getting really tight last
year,
he continued.
Which might lead to inflation?
No real signs of that,
Ziegler said. But it
was leading to uppity workers -- they wanted respect and
some control over their lives, privileges that most people
are really not entitled to. Our entire social order was in
danger of being upset.
So the Committee is behind this economic slowdown?
I wouldn't put it that way,
Ziegler cautioned.
I'd say it's more a matter of spin. You see, if there's
a recession right at the start of W's term, and if the
former president is the news, then it's the
Clinton-Gore-Clinton Downturn.
But there will be a recovery, won't there?
Of course. And as soon as it starts, the Committee
will issue orders to drop the pardon investigations. We'll
want people to focus on the current president, so that it
will be known as the Bush Recovery.
Ziegler sighed. These things are so simple. I don't
know why I have to explain them to you.
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