Current inhabitants of the White House (I include those who reside there and work there) and, perhaps most critically, several politically appointed officials of the country’s national security apparatus possess a mindset that can best be described as masochistic. This should not come as a surprise after Jeremiah Wright’s outing as a card carrying member of the “Americans are bums” club. The whopper of a flop caused by the President’s mishandling of the Guantanamo war criminals trial location, the Miranda-happy government lawyers who raced to make sure the underwear bomber was protected by the Constitution are all indicators that citizens of this country are the ones standing out in the cold in their underwear.
Malcolm X hit the same nail on the head as Rev. Wright did, when, after President Kennedy had been assassinated, claimed that “the chickens have come home to roost”, an allusion that the President’s murder was some sort of national comeuppance the United States had earned over the years.
And what shameful years they had been. Winning WWI, WWII, the Marshall Plan, beating the Communists back until they fell, and providing most of the money to underdeveloped and impoverished nations around the world. Yeah, we sure where (and are) a bunch of bums.
But that is what the apparatchiks in the West Wing, and their henchmen in the national media, would have you believe. Their self flagellation produces crazy interpretations of national security laws, Constitutional rights of Americans, and in general terms, limitations on what we have to do as a nation to protect our families. In football terms it would be described as a “Reverse Cheney”.
Vice President “Big Time” Cheney wasn’t perfect, but he had one thing right – that we need to err on the side of the “one percent” doctrine – that if we let out guards down – even for a second, our enemies will take advantage of our uncertainty, equivocation and self doubt to put the screws to us and our children.
I am now waiting for this administration’s Daniel Ellsberg moment. Ellsberg has a current documentary out in theatres trumpeting his treason during the Vietnam War. He besmirches the reputation of the United States and the screwy logic behind the Vietnam war yet never even pauses to consider what gleeful parties this act created in the bowels of the Kremlin and inside the Forbidden City – message: If you have evidence of our country NOT doing the right thing, don’t hang the dirty laundry out on the clothes line for the neighbors to smell. Man-up and work from within to make the necessary changes. Ellsberg could have accomplished what he set out to do by leaking the Pentagon papers in over a hundred different ways, none of which would have cause our country such pain and aggravation to the supreme pleasure of our enemies. Translation: When you find out your Father is an alcoholic sop, take him for a long ride and check him into a sanitarium a few states away. Don’t strip him naked and tie him across the hood of the family care and race up and down your neighborhood streets.
Well, don’t hold your breath for this crowd to change their stripes. They could care less if we get our guts kicked in again…after all, didn’t the First Lady once remark she had never been proud of her country until her husband had won a few primaries? These people running our country are not proud of the United States. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.
Matt Crow joined Reagan Administration in 1987; worked in both Bush 41 and 43 Administrations; plays to a 19 golf handicap and loves to vacation at the beach with his wife and children.
