Blessings and Bombings
November 21, 2001
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON -- In "The Crack-Up," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote
that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability
to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and
still retain the ability to function."
So now we know for sure that George W. Bush has a
first-rate intelligence.
The president, his team and the rest of us have been
juggling a lot of contradictory notions since Sept. 11.
Many who came of age during the Vietnam War, wincing at
America's overweening military stance in the world, are now
surprised to find themselves lustily rooting for the
overwhelming display of force against the Taliban.
Over the years the country's ethos had gone from John Wayne
to Jerry Springer, from gunfighter nation to
anger-management nation, rugged frontier mentality to
designer lifestyle mentality.
Once we prided ourselves on being strong and silent. Then
we got weak and chatty. And now we seem to be evolving to
strong and chatty.
We are pulverizing our enemies even as we try to show them
a little compassion, crushing our foes even as we try to
understand and address some of their grievances against us.
We are functioning holding opposing ideas, new ones every
day.
The president invited 52 Muslim diplomats to a traditional
lamb and rice dinner at the White House Monday to wish them
"a blessed Ramadan," even as the U.S. bombed Muslims in
Afghanistan over Ramadan.
The president urged Americans to travel and act normally as
they celebrated the holiday season, even as the White House
and the Capitol were closed to public tours, and the
audience for the lighting of the national Christmas tree
was limited to ticket holders for the first time.
George Bush was rooting out Osama bin Laden from
underground even as Dick Cheney was burrowing underground.
The president continued to cozy up to the Saudis and
protect them with American forces, even though the Saudis
were educating, exporting and financing terrorists.
Administration officials made the argument that the Saudis
are bad rulers but great allies, even as their bad rule
threatened us more than their allied behavior helped us.
The president told aides not to press the Saudis to change
the strict Islamic teaching in schools that encourages
young men to die for Allah and hate Western infidels. "We
didn't go to the American Methodists about Tim McVeigh,"
Mr. Bush said to aides. This even as the president told the
Muslim diplomats dining at the White House that the
holidays were "a good time for people of different faiths
to learn more about each other."
Condoleezza Rice urged that women be included in the
post-Taliban government in Afghanistan and have equal
rights. "When women are fully incorporated, a country is
better off for it," she said. This even as our allies, the
Northern Alliance, did not let any women into the reopened
600-seat movie theater in Kabul to see the Afghan film
"Uruj," about three mujahedeen heroes who fought the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. (No date movies or chick flicks
for these guys.)
The president christened the Justice Department building
for the antiwar presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, even
as the U.S. was waging a war. John Ashcroft sought to link
his assault on terrorism, with its heightened surveillance
and wiretaps, with his Democratic predecessor's assault on
organized crime. But Kerry Kennedy Cuomo declared publicly
yesterday that her father would never have swallowed the
restrictions on civil liberties that the Bush attorney
general is pushing.
The president continued to espouse the conservative
orthodoxy of keeping the federal government from growing,
even as he breathed a sigh of relief when Congress voted to
turn airport screeners into federal employees, thus saving
the Republicans a political beating on the issue.
After Sept. 11, Mr. Bush promised $20 billion to New York
for reconstruction, but the White House says the city has
gotten enough for now, though only about half of it may be
in hand. No bailouts for big business was a Bush principle,
but the White House speedily funneled money to the airlines
and limited payouts for insurance companies, both
politically powerful industries.
Mr. Bush definitely has a talent for holding opposed ideas
in his mind. But then, he did start as a compassionate
conservative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/opinion/21DOWD.html?ex=1007365641&ei=1&en=df555a823503d200
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