Remember the last days of Carter presidency? How could we forget? We were reminded daily of his hostage crisis in Iran. Remember…."This is day 399 and they are still holding Americans." It got up to 424 and each day it bannered across our TV screens like the beat-beat-beat of a tom-tom. Finally Reagan was elected and on his inauguration day the hostages were miraculously released.
The big scandal of Reagan's presidency was his oh so clever trading of arms for hostages and then getting Iran's ayatollah to use his ill-gotten arms sale profits to fund the Nicaraguan Contras…illegally. Was there a connection? But that's another story.
If our so-called liberal media were consistent, they would start each news program today with the banner headline: "This is day 476 and Osama is still on the loose." (New Year's Day 2003 was 476 days after Sept. 11, 2001.) Dubya's popularity surge began when he insisted he would bring "Osama to justish or we will bring justish to Osama. Or it was "Osama dead or alive." Or "he can run but he can't hide and when he stops running, we'll git him." Our commander-in-chief hasn't mentioned Osama in months. When he realized he couldn't catch Osama quickly, he was downgraded faster than a telecom stock.
Why has the media not reminded us of Dubya's commitment to the American people with the same haunting refrain that bedeviled Carter's last days? Maybe they, like the rest of us, are afraid of being labeled unpatriotic by Rumsfeld and Cheney. Or maybe it's because they are afraid of getting hauled before one of those new "kangaroo" military courts by John Ashcroft without a lawyer.
Dubya's popularity surge has ebbed since Osama has gotten away. To keep it up, we now have as Gore Vidal suggests: "Perpetual war for perpetual peace." In last year's State of the Union speech, Dubya called Iraq, North Korea, and Iran the axis of evil. Nobody dreamed then that he was preparing to take them on one at a time. First it's going to be Iraq because it poses according to the "chicken hawks" an immediate threat to the United States. But now North Korea has admitted having at least two bombs and is building more. It has kicked out its weapons inspectors. Maybe we should attack North Korea first, then Iraq and then Iran. Or maybe…Libya or..
When Bush declared war on Osama and terrorism, we were all behind him. He should focus his attention on that war and forget about all these other ventures. We know that our president has difficulty concentrating on two things at the same time like eating pretzels and watching football. So Dubya, stick to the War on terrorism, you do well with that.
