AUSTIN
-- Seems like every year at the end of summer there's this sense of coming
back from somewhere, whether we've gone anywhere or not. Whatever the
summer pattern is -- a swim, the kids, a stroll --- it's as though we
sort of blink and there's the world again, still there. Very much still
there.
I suppose if you're George W. Bush, the world never does go away no matter
how long you spend on vacation; it just sort of camps at the end of your
driveway like Cindy Sheehan. Those of us who study politics and the media
got to watch Cindy Sheehan being slimed by the right-wing attack machine
-- hey, no free passes just because you're a mom whose kid was killed
in Iraq. We also get to watch left-wing PR people exploit her grief, because
you can't even be for peace without public relations anymore. This is
The World, after all.
Check back in on the world and find the same people making the same arguments
about Iraq -- glass is half-empty, glass is half-full; things are better,
things are worse; is not, is so. Meantime, the odometer of war keeps clicking
higher no matter who makes the arguments or who hears them -- 1,800 dead
Americans, uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqis. Odd glimpses in the
rearview mirror of reporting, "attacks on U.S. forces back up to
over 70 a day . . . ," "the growing violence of recent weeks
. . . ." Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska, counts "more
dead, more wounded, less electricity in Iraq, less oil being pumped in
Iraq, more insurgency attacks, more insurgents coming across the border,
more corruption in government."
President Bush says the best way to honor the dead is by getting more
of them killed for the same cause, whatever it is. Democracy in Iraq,
I think. Oops. Except for women. Women didn't come out too well in the
new Iraqi constitution. I'm really sorry, I know only a feminist would
bring up an awkward subject like this, and I understand being a feminist
is just so passe, and absolutely no one cares about women's issues anymore,
and if I would just bother to keep up I wouldn't embarrass myself by being
so pitifully old hat, so not the bee's knees, as these young people say
today. On the other hand, moving the age of consent for marriage back
to 9 is sort of twenty-three skiddoo itself. Iraqi women have had full
civil, legal and property rights for 25 years now. Nine years old. Not
a step in the right direction. Really.
Afghanistan seems to be going south, too. Guess they're getting a little
tired of being occupied.
Little things are still discouraging in the world: The papers report,
"A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive
contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday
for what the Army called poor job performance."
Fortunately for us all, a boffo display of high comedy is being provided
by our new ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Charm John Bolton. Many
of us had high hopes for Bolton from the beginning, since what could be
more rife with antic possibilities than appointing a tactless, rude, mean,
angry, clumsy s.o.b. who ticks off everyone he deals with to be ambassador?
Even better, make this mannerless churl ambassador to a world body that
runs on endless delicatesse and ever-so-solicitous concern for the cultural
sensitivities of absolutely everybody. At first, this promising laff riot
couldn't get off the ground. Bolton was such an obvious disaster as U.N.
ambassador that even the Senate refused to confirm him, so Bush had to
wait until Congress left town to make a "recess appointment,"
good only until a new Congress in January 2007. Meantime, Bolton is already
tearing up the pea-patch.
Britain is leading a reform effort already endorsed by 175 other countries.
Britain, which used to be our ally, has put forth a concise document containing
a plan for reforming the U.N. and carrying forward with its goals to eradicate
poverty. Bolton has proposed 750 changes in Britain's 36-page draft plan.
One of his proposals is to delete the phrase "respect for nature"
from a set of core values that supposedly unites the nations of the world:
respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance, multilateralism
and respect for nature. The phrase "respect for nature" does
not commit the U.S. to any legal or financial obligation. Bolton just
doesn't like it.
I say, let's put it to a vote, a national referendum. Are we, the American
people, in favor of "respect for nature" -- as long as it doesn't
put any legal or financial obligations on us -- or not? Katrina?
