Metro Pulse/Commentary/Dark Matters

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Exploring the mysterious Bush universe

by Scott McNutt

An article in this month's issue of Discover explains that 96 percent of the universe is composed of dark matter, stuff whose existence can only be inferred indirectly from rather esoteric evidence. Politics is like this. From all the lip service paid to them, for instance, ethics can be inferred to exist in politics. But has anyone ever observed any ethics in political action?

Come to think of it, perhaps ethics and politics are more like matter and antimatter. Should they ever come into contact, the universe will be destroyed. Or maybe that's already happened. Maybe the positive universe has ceased to exist and we've all merged with our antimatter selves. That could explain George W. Bush.

Speaking of. However murky the normal political universe may be, discerning the heart of political matters in the Bush administration cosmos is nigh impossible. Try this experiment (remember to wear your protective gloves): Conjure up President Bush's statement, made Sept. 25, 2001: "We're not into nation-building, we're focused on justice." Now, while holding that thought in your own gray matter, simultaneously contemplate current events in Iraq. Impossible to reconcile rhetoric with reality, isn't it?

Not in the Bush universe, apparently. Paradoxes go poof with the delivery of another speech, and scary, unresolved threats to the nation magically disappear when they no longer retain Bush's attention. For example, President Bush vowed Dec. 28, 2001, that Osama bin Laden "will not escape us," dead or alive. Two years later bin Laden still escapes us. But Iraq and Saddam Hussein have replaced him in the presidential rhetoric.

So one might rightly ask, "Does Osama bin Laden exist in the Bush universe?" The answer would appear to be that, if bin Laden is in the Dubya dimension, he's either been transmogrified into Saddam Hussein or he's made of dark matter and therefore invisible to the media's naked eye. (Of course, thanks be unto the right revered'un John Ashcroft, probably there are no naked eyes, or naked anything elses, in the BushLight Zone.)

A deficit going supernova, a vice president whose orbit includes questionable flybys with Enron and Haliburton, a president whose memory mysteriously accelerated through the years between 1970 and 1984—all of these are known to exist, but, despite telescopic media scrutiny, scant details of them are ever seen. So it must all be dark matter. And that's a lot of dark matter concentrated in one administration. It's a wonder the whole thing doesn't collapse into a black hole of political liability.

Think it impossible that so much of the Bushco universe is unseen? Then try this experiment: First, reach deep into the misty recesses of your memory, all the way back to July 2003. Dredge up the very serious—possibly treasonous—incident in which a top Bush administration aide told conservative columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, which Novak subsequently blabbed to the entire world. (Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, the guy who busted the Bush administration's chops for some of the shoddy intelligence it used to justify the invasion of Iraq.)

Now, bear this in mind: Revealing Wilson's wife as a secret agent was a serious breach of national security. It doesn't matter if Wilson was on Bush's blacklist. Whoever did it did President Bush and this nation no favors. Besides, Bush vowed total cooperation with the investigation into the leak and also promised to fire the leaker. But two months later, after much hemming and hawing and relatively little of what could be deemed cooperation, Team Bush has leaked no leakers.

So here's the experiment: Imagine this same situation in the real world. Say you're the CEO of a big corporation, and you learn that one of your top assistants leaked critical information to a rival company, one that has threatened you with a hostile takeover. Would that aide still work for you two months later? Heck, would he still work for you two minutes later?

Bush could easily resolve this. He could summon his top aides and say, "I want to know who did this." If no one 'fesses up, he could say, "Get Robert Novak on the phone. He is going to tell me which one of you leaked this top-secret information." And Novak would comply. And the pathological leaker would trickle away. Problem solved.

For those who would argue that it's not that simple, I have a word. The word is, "pish." Oh pish, this is not, excuse the phrase, quantum physics. In the real world, if a CEO learns that one of his intimate advisors is leaking critical information, he would find out who fast and plug that little leaker where the sun don't shine. But in the Bushco cosmos, he who leaked the name of Plame remains invisible, just like dark matter. These are dark, dark matters indeed.