BBC: Who's hot in Washington?
Sunday, 9 December, 2001, 00:44 GMT
War in Afghanistan: A profit-making opportunity?
By Stephen Sackur
BBC Washington correspondent
For just $39.99 you too can be the proud owner of a complete set of Enduring Freedom trading cards.
Forget baseball, football or pop stars, now you can collect laminated cards portraying all your favourite characters from the war on terrorism.
"Kids need to understand", says the manufacturer, Topps Cards Inc, "that the president and his team will keep them safe and that evil-doers will be punished."
Suddenly, government is cool and the nation's leaders are heroes.
Washington, until recently seen as a cesspit of sleazy politicians and jumped-up bureaucrats, is once again revered as the cradle of American values.
So this Christmas season, Topps Cards is hoping a generation of American kids will forsake Harry Potter paraphernalia in favour of something a little more public-spirited.
"Hey", shouts Junior in this corporate fantasy, "I'll swap you your Colin Powell for my B-52 bomber."
"No way dude", comes the reply, "I'm holding out for a Donald Rumsfeld."
Which of course brings me to the key question - who's hot and who's not in febrile war-time Washington? Whose face best fits the national mood?
The people at Topps have no doubt. George W Bush commands not one but a dozen cards. We see him at Ground Zero, with his war cabinet, with the phone to his ear. He looks resolute, and he looks, well, presidential.
And you can't argue with success. Three months into the conflict he enjoys an astounding 89% approval rating.
The press, which not so long ago portrayed him as a Texan buffoon, is now eating out of his hand.
One of Washington's most respected, hard-bitten White House correspondents wrote this in a recent Newsweek article: "His brillo-like hair is graying and yet he's in the best shape of his life. A fighting machine who's dropped 15 pounds... there's a term for it in horse racing: when a thoroughbred is in peak condition he is 'on the muscle'. That was George Bush last week."
It probably won't last, but for now George Bush's popularity gives him massive clout.
He took office with a questionable mandate. Democrats saw him as a political weakling, they prepared to kick sand in his face. But not any more, this is fast becoming a muscular presidency.
And it's not just the commander-in-chief who is, as Newsweek would put it, a lean, mean fighting machine. Donald Rumsfeld, the 69-year-old secretary of defence, is America's latest cult hero.
Rumsfeld the ringmaster
While contemporaries are hunkered down in retirement homes, "Rummy" is bursting with vigour, his eyes so bright even his spectacles twinkle - and he has a humour as dry as the Afghan desert.
He revels in his role as ringmaster of military operations, beaming with pride when the latest Pentagon video shows an al-Qaeda barracks going up in smoke. He has little time for euphemisms either. Asked to explain the use of cluster bombs on frontline Taleban positions he said: "The aim is to kill as many of 'em as possible."
He's neither cuddly nor compassionate, but he has surely put the fear of God into the Taleban.
The Donald Rumsfeld card in the Enduring Freedom collection is apparently selling well, along with the Colin Powell, the Condoleezza Rice and the Rudy Giuliani. These are the A-list characters kids want in their stockings this year.
It is harder to imagine much demand for a Dick Cheney - the stealth vice president has been so low on the political radar screen as to be almost invisible. His influence on the president is said to be enormous, but with the secret service determined to keep Mr Bush and Mr Cheney apart, the veep's whereabouts are a mystery second only to Osama Bin Laden's.
Collector
There are other cards which will probably be gathering dust in stores long after the military action is over.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has become the hard man of homeland defence, rounding up Arab men and planning military courts for evil-doers, but he has run into trouble from civil libertarians of all political stripes. Mr Ashcroft says his draconian measures are necessary, but to his critics they are dangerously un-American.
Who knows, some kids might be willing to trade an Ashcroft card for a Tony Blair.
Yes, Britain's prime minister gets his own card with the words "staunch ally" provided by way of explanation.
But I suspect the only foreigner who will command serious trading interest is Osama Bin Laden himself.
After all, what is the point collecting all the Washington good guys if you can't compare and contrast them with the ultimate bad guy.
And a Bin Laden card can be used in so many different ways. As one avid collector revealed the other day.
"I smeared my Bin Laden card with peanut butter", he said, "then I fed it to the dog."
George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld would surely approve.
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