Tag Archives: Washington Post

Some Sanity on Michael Phelp’s Bong Hits

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The oft-crazy columnist Kathleen Parker offers a sane response to photographs of Michael Phelps hitting a bong, taking on at the same time the senselessness of our marijuana laws.

Understandably, parents worry that their kids will emulate their idol, but the problem isn’t Phelps, who is, in fact, an adult. The problem is our laws — and our lies.

Obviously, children shouldn’t smoke anything, legal or otherwise. Nor should they drink alcoholic beverages, even though their parents might.

There are good reasons for substance restrictions for children that need not apply to adults.

That’s the real drug message that should inform our children and our laws, rather than the nonsense that currently passes for drug information.

Today’s anti-drug campaigns are slightly wonkier than yesterday’s “Reefer Madness,” but equally likely to become party hits rather than drug deterrents. One recent ad produced by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says: “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.” Whoa, dude, except maybe, like, president of the United States.

Bush Epitomizes the “Bad Boss”

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I’m not familiar with the work of Bob Woodward. I’m know the Watergate myth. I was dismayed to read of the hagiography of his early Bush books, and I’m happy to hear his access has turned to more critical ends, but I haven’t read anything he’s written.

That aside, Woodward’s most recent book excerpt in the Washington Post establishes the President as a clueless, petulant bullier who wouldn’t be qualified to manage an Arby’s night shift. He is the embodiment of the bad boss, the personification of someone with the keys to lead but no idea where to drive except into a brick wall.

David Satterfield, a senior diplomat known as “the Human Talking Point,” had watched the president up close for several years from his vantage point as Iraq coordinator for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Satterfield had reached some highly critical conclusions not shared by Rice: If Bush believed something was right, he believed it would succeed. Its very rightness ensured ultimate success. Democracy and freedom were right. Therefore, they would ultimately win out.

Bush, Satterfield observed, tolerated no doubt. His words and actions constantly reminded those around him that he was in charge. He was the decider. As a result, he often made biting jokes or asides to colleagues that Satterfield found deeply wounding and cutting.

Bush had little patience for briefings. “Speed it up. This isn’t my first rodeo,” he would often say to those making presentations. It was difficult to brief him because he would interject his own narrative, questions or off-putting jokes. Discussions rarely unfolded in a logical, comprehensive fashion.

“Speed it up. This isn’t my first rodeo.” I imagine it was the same tone as, “All right. You’ve covered your ass now.“

Our Diminished Democracy

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In his White House Watch column for the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin does a good job of summing up the Bush administration’s disastrous response to September 11. In doing so, though, he also  summarizes how these actions reflect not just a response to difficult circumstances, but rather a conscious power grab on the part of Cheney and his advisors.

Froomkin’s daily column remains a valuable resource for following the misdeeds of the current administration. Every installment raises a painful question: why isn’t the media more interested in exposing this lawbreaking?

Continue reading Our Diminished Democracy →

Putting Out The Unwelcome Mat

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Blanche DuBois would have a tough time (well, an even tougher time) in modern America, as kindness to strangers doesn’t seem to be much of a motivating factor for anyone anymore. As the New York Times reports, an Italian man coming to the United States to visit his girlfriend received the common Customs response of being treated like a criminal for no reason:

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon — eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

Continue reading Putting Out The Unwelcome Mat →