W.R. Marshall -- An Elephant in Wolfowitz Clothing

AN ELEPHANT IN WOLFOWITZ CLOTHING

by Dr. W.R. Marshall, Ph.D
September 2, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

So Russian President Putin plants a Russian flag on the sea bottom of the North Pole, laying claim to vast supplies of icy oil and�wait for it�the Cold War is back? Maybe, except Putin isn�t a Communist aggressor, he�s a venture capitalist�with the emphasis on venture. (Hell, he�s probably already cut a deal with Cheney.)

Russia gave Communism the heave-ho during Daddy Bush�s regime. (1988-1992 was also known as Cheney I. Of course we all know it was that valiant Cold Warrior and Conservative demigod Ronald Regan that brought them Commies low. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Premier at the time and did the actually dismantling was, just some Ruskie with a birthmark who happened to be there. Talk about dumb luck.)

Where�d all those Red Devils go when the wall fell�there were millions of them and you can�t think they just packed up the Volga, took a chunk of The Berlin Wall for a souvenir, and got teaching jobs at the Kennedy School of Government.

They didn�t. They went underground, read �People,� watched �Oprah,� drank half-caf, skim-milk mocha lattes and realized there was no future in bad suits and long lines for potatoes and toilet paper. Then, when the time was right at the close of the millennium, when the world was worried about Y2K and the rise of the Terminators, the Commies came back�with a brand neo-look.

They call themselves the new Conservatives, the Neo-Cons, but over the past seven years they look about as conservative as Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table.

How�s this for conservative:

Our Fearless Leader just got a survellince law the K.G.B. would have loved�it�s called �Bug �Em All and Let Dick Sort It Out.� Just like the old Politburo, they were doing it any way and decided to pass the law after the fact. I thought conservatives want less government interference.

If that doesn�t make you feel like you�re back in U.S.S.R.; we�re in a protracted war in the very same region, in the very same country where the old Soviet Union was in a protracted war (which they lost). In fact, we�re making Afghanistan look just like it did when it was at war with the Commies�smells like a do over to me.

Our army is underfunded, so underecruited it�s accepting less than �the best,� and rumors of a draft are again swirling about. For you kids who weren�t paying attention in school, a draft is involuntary conscription into the Army, done last go round by a lottery, and when you won, you didn�t to quit your job at the cement factory and buy a new truck.

This Commservative government is so corrupt and so invasive it makes Roosevelt�s New Deal look positively Liberatarian. The only limits it has are on health care and FEMA, and while we have lower taxes�well I don�t, but Minister of Evil Cheney sure caught a break�the latest Five Year plan has us in red ink again.

They dump habeas corpus, ignore the Constitution, chuck the Geneva Conventions, build secret prisons, lie about pretty much everything, and have next to nothing in common with the people they rule�note I did not say the people who elected them.

My brother, a paranoid old lefty, is certain Uncle George didn�t win the first election, stole the second one, and compared Premier Dubya (sounds Ruskie to me) to Stalin. At the time, I thought that a bit much, but�and any of you conspiracy theorists jump in�why make Condoleezza Rice, an expert in Soviet Affairs, head of the NSA, then Secretary of State, a good fifteen years after the Soviet Union fell.

Recently, Minister of Propaganda Rove stepped down. A master of the big lie, he told it loud and long, just like his spiritual mentor, J Geobbels. A third of you still believe it. Part of the Minister�s plan was Conservative single party hegemony, which looked like it had failed after the �06 mid-terms. But history reminds us there was no such thing as loyal opposition in the good old days of the Hammer and Sickle, and based on what we�ve seen from the Congress lately, there still isn�t.

Back in the �50�s Joe McCarthy, a drunk and a reprobate, shouted about Communists under everyone�s bed. I can�t believe he was right, and I can�t stop wondering how they hid the elephant.

W. R. Marshall is a syndicated columnist and novelist. His column, 'A Dull Ache'(tm) is read in over one hundred markets arouund the world. He also has a PhD, an M.F.A., and three singularly unimpressed children. His wife has been known to say, �Hey, Pynchon, do the dishes.�