Who Let the Dogs In? (54 page)

The long, festering problem of Quebecois separatism has taken a remarkable turn recently. One Jean Charest, head of the Progressive Conservative Party, turns out to be the one Quebecois leader capable of stemming the separatist forces. So, he has just agreed to leave his national post and return to Quebec as leader of the Liberal Party (don’t ask me how these things get arranged—Canada is sometimes mysterious), thus saving the country and destroying his own promising career. Although there is a general approbation for M. Charest for having made this sacrifice, there is also a widespread sentiment that as a decent citizen he really had no choice and so too much of a fuss shouldn’t be made over him!

Should one have a Clintonian Moment on the foreign soil of Canada and actually utter something vaguely critical about one’s own nation (say, referring to Our Nation’s Capitol as “stark, raving bonkers”), Canadians immediately rush to console the distressed American by reflecting that they, too, have been known to have peculiar things happen in their political life. Uh. Well, there was this senator quite notorious for spending a lot of time in Mexico and not attending to business at all. Quite Shocking. But after some citizens showed up at the Capitol to lampoon the fellow by wearing sombreros and playing mariachi music, he naturally had the decency to resign.

My question is this: Is there any way we could put Canadianism into pill form so Americans could take it regularly? The pacific, benevolent effects of regular doses of Canadianism cannot be overestimated. We would unquestionably be a better people for it. And now I’m headed back to Texas, where no one ever, ever worries if perhaps we might be slightly dull compared with our neighbors.

April 1998

Tom DeLay III

W
HAT
I LIKE ABOUT
the new radical, right-wing Republican take-over of this country is how easily they blow past all our defenses against déjà-vu, they-all-do-it cynicism.

There you are—thinking you’re way too old and have been around this block too many times to suddenly up and evince moral outrage over a little callousness here or a dollop of favoritism there. Suddenly, you find yourself whomperjawed, outraged, stupefied with disbelief. A Girl Scout again, after all these years. It’s enough to make me believe in that nutty fundamentalist theory about “secondary virginity,” which claims you can become a virgin again even if you’re not a virgin. I swan to goodness, these folks can indeed produce miracles.

My latest walking-on-water moment came while I was reading an
Austin American-Statesman
article about Brother Tom DeLay, now the second-most powerful man in America, right after Dick Cheney. It was a familiar story to those of us who follow DeLay (who is, he has said, hell-bent to “stand up for a biblical worldview in everything I do and everywhere I am”).

Brother Tom is given both to preaching holy propriety and running a political machine so shameless it would make Boss Tweed blush. Those who were privileged to see him in action during the last days of the peculiarly hideous process of redistricting the state of Texas know that ruthlessness and Christianity can be combined, no matter what Jesus had to say on the subject.

Among those newly startled by DeLay’s tactics last week were, according to the
American-Statesman,
“Four House Judiciary Committee members who protested after an article in the Capitol Hill newspaper
Roll Call
reported that DeLay planned to slip an amendment revising U.S. trade statutes into the annual defense authorization bill.”

Now, you may think that revising trade statutes by way of a defense-authorization bill is procedurally unusual—and such was the content of the protest: “The amendment had not been properly vetted by the judiciary panel, which is supposed to oversee trademark law.” Still not in a stew over this, eh?

The amendment itself is a little charmer designed to help the Bacardi rum folks (vague memories of many good tropical drinks are stirred) with a trademark problem they have with one of the world’s oldest rum labels, Havana Club. Not being an expert on fundamentalist theology, I have no idea whether assisting a rum company fits into a biblical worldview, but I can tell you that Bacardi-Martini Inc. is a Bermuda-based company run by a family of prominent Cuban exiles who happen to be very generous, very large campaign donors. They have been especially generous to Tom DeLay for several years now.

This li’l ol’ amendment of DeLay’s carries some history. In 1998, then-senator Connie Mack, a Florida Republican, inserted an obscure amendment called Section 211 into a bill that was four thousand pages long. Turns out 211 gave Bacardi a way to win its long-running lawsuit over Havana Club, a label also claimed by Pernod-Ricard, the French company that now sells that brand name in partnership with the Cuban government.

Oops, this touched off a major international stink. France complained to the World Trade Organization, which ruled the United States had violated treaty obligations to protect copyrights. The WTO has given the United States until the end of the year to revise the law.

So what DeLay is trying to do here is fix 211 to bring it into technical compliance with the WTO ruling, while continuing to give Bacardi the edge. According to the
Statesman:
“Critics charge the ‘fix’ would still violate U.S. treaty obligations going back to the 1930s. Several major corporations have joined in asking Congress to repeal Section 211 altogether to avoid possible retaliation by the Castro government against their own trademarks.”

Citizens Against Government Waste, a conservative watchdog group, opposes special treatment for Bacardi. “We think it has an adverse influence on the taxpayers, on consumers, and on the economy,” said the group. (Note: In the now-defensive, formerly liberal media—“Oh God forbid anyone should ever call us part of the Liberal Media”—we are pleased to have an actual conservative group protesting along with us here, because if it were just liberals, who would care? A connection between special legislation for Bacardi and huge campaign contributions? What are you, a commie?)

OK, now that you have been fully prepped on this deal, I give you the Outrage Moment. One Jonathan Grella, spokesman for Tom DeLay, when asked about all this, said, “It’s wrong and unethical to link legislative activities to campaign contributions.”

Let’s make sure we all understand what is being said here. Grella asserts that there is no conflict of interest between a public official using his power to change the law in exchange for a hefty campaign contribution—the immorality occurs when the press and/or public interest groups point out this connection. That’s when I went slack-jawed.

October 2003

John Ashcroft I

W
ITH
ALL
DUE
respect, of course, and God Bless America too, has anyone considered the possibility that the attorney general is becoming unhinged?

Poor John Ashcroft is under a lot of strain here. Is it possible his mind has started to give under the weight of responsibility, what with having to stop terrorism between innings against doctors trying to help the dying in Oregon and California? Why not take a Valium, sir, and go track down some nice domestic nut with access to anthrax, OK?

Not content with the noxious USA PATRIOT bill (for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act—urp), which was bad enough, Ashcroft has steadily moved from bad to worse. Now he wants to bring back FBI surveillance of domestic religious and political groups.

For those who remember COINTELPRO, this is glorious news. Back in the day, Fearless Fibbies, cleverly disguised in their wingtips and burr haircuts, used to infiltrate such dangerous groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Business Executives Against the War in Vietnam. This had the usual comedic fallout, along with killing a few innocent people, and was so berserk there was a standing rule on the left—anyone who proposed breaking any law was automatically assumed to be an FBI agent.

Let’s see, who might the Federal Fosdicks spy upon today? Columnist Tom Friedman of
The New York Times
recently reported from Pakistan that hateful Taliban types are teaching in the religious schools. “The faithful shall enter paradise, and the unbelievers shall be condemned to eternal hellfire.” Frightful! Put the Baptists on the list.

Those who agitate against the government, constantly denigrating and opposing it? Add Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, and Rush Limbaugh to the list.

Following the J. Edgar Hoover Rule (anyone who criticized Hoover or the FBI was automatically targeted as suspect), we need to add the FBI alumni association. According to
The Washington Times:
“A half-dozen former FBI top guns, including once-Director William Webster, have voiced their dismay at Ashcroft’s strategy of detention and interview rather than prolonged investigation and surveillance of those suspected of terrorism. They contend the new plan will fail to eliminate terrorist networks and cells, leaving the roots to carry on. The harsh criticism seems calculated to take advantage of growing concerns in Congress about Ashcroft’s overall anti-terrorism approach.”

Harsh criticism? Put the ex–FBI agents on the list. Come to that, “growing concerns”? Put Congress on the list.

I cannot commend too strongly those hardy, tough-minded citizens ready to sacrifice all our civil rights in the fight against terrorism. It’s clear to them anyone speaking up for civil liberties is on the side of the terrorists, and that’s the kind of thinking that has earned syllogism the reputation it enjoys today.

Some of us are making lists and checking them twice to see who stood with us on this particular St. Crispin’s Day. And when next we see you Federalist Society types at some debate over, say, strict construction, we’ll be happy to remind you how much you really care when the chips are down. With the honorable exception of the libertarian right (William Safire, Represen-tative Bob Barr), the entire conservative movement is missing in action, and so are a lot of pious liberals.

And what could be better than the insouciance with which the attorney general himself approaches the Constitution? During his six years in the Senate, he proposed no fewer than seven constitutional amendments. Since we’ve only managed to amend it seventeen times in the last two hundred years (that’s leaving out the Bill of Rights), it’s an impressive record. Of course, one of John Ashcroft’s proposed amendments was to make it easier to amend. Another was the always helpful flag-burning amendment, which had it been in effect, would have done so much to prevent the terrorist attacks.

Yep, if we had a constitution largely rewritten by John Ashcroft, as opposed to the one we’re stuck with by such picayune minds as Madison, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, etc., we’d be a lot safer today.

Wouldn’t we? How? you ask. Well, for example, uh . . . And there’s . . . uh. Well at least we could have had a better visa system. So that has nothing to do with the Constitution: picky, picky.