examiner.com
Publication date: 09/25/2002
W., the Little Corporal
BY DEBBY MORSE
Of The Examiner Staff
FORGET the West Wing. I keep trying to imagine what things are like in the East Wing. You know, the other side of the White House, where Laura Bush and her staff have offices.
I can picture Civil Service employees tiptoeing around the fax and the water cooler, giving each other silent grimaces and rolled eyes.
"You tell her!" one of them hisses.
"No, you!" another whispers. "I tried talking to her already. She won't listen."
Somebody or other, sometime, is going to have to break the news to the first lady that her husband ... has gone ... completely ... bonkers!
Al Gore says Bush is acting like a "cowboy," but squint your eyes and imagine W. in a funny hat -- something like a black oversized cowboy hat, come to think of it, but worn sideways with the brim flipped up tightly in front and back.
He thinks he's Napoleon! He's behaving exactly like a corrupt, warmongering megalomaniacal totalitarian. All he needs now is one hand stuffed inside a snappy red, white and blue military jacket. I'm kind of afraid to look in his closet.
The only difference between George W. Bush and Napoleon Bonaparte is 10 inches. Napoleon was said to have an inferiority complex about his height; at 6 feet tall, W. can't complain.
So what's driving him to try to take over the world?
Like Napoleon, who faced alarm and resistance from the rest of Europe over his wars of aggression and conquest, Bush has drummed up little worldwide support for his planned attack on Iraq. But he soldiers on, the United Nations be damned, in his single-minded quest to oust Saddam Hussein.
Like Napoleon, who rearranged the whole map of Europe (he even invented the kingdoms of Holland and Westphalia), Bush wants to turn the Middle East into Texastan, Oklahomabad and Saudi Alaskia -- his own personal filling stations.
"Check your oil, sir?"
"Oh, no need to. I own all the oil."
Like Napoleon, who slowly but surely stripped the constitution of the French Empire of its liberal provisions, Bush wants to -- oh, that's right, he's already doing that here in the United States. At least Napoleon had the good manners to wait until he had himself proclaimed emperor. Bush, well, he has already proclaimed himself Napoleon, so he thinks he gets to do whatever he wants.
It's got me wondering whether his closet holds classic Napoleonic waistcoasts or classic, go-with-everything straitjackets.
What's worse, being evil or being plumb crazy?
And how far is this madness going to go? Once Napoleon became emperor, he installed three of his brothers as kings of various European countries. Bush's brother Jeb is already king of Florida and lord of all elections, but maybe there are plans to crown frat-boy brother Neil potentate of some place or other -- he was already seen poking around in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, earlier this year. I don't know, king of Petroladesh, maybe?
Bush doesn't have a third brother, but perhaps he has plans for daughters Jenna and Barbara. The twins haven't shown much predilection for politics, though, so he'd have to create a commission of cocktails or a parliament of parties for them to preside over.
Oh, and it doesn't have to stay all in the family. Napoleon unleashed a ruthless police chief, Joseph FouchÈ, whose mission was to suppress all opposition. Bush has given us Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose mission is to suppress all opposition and to cancel basic rights.
Do you suppose Bush calls Laura "Josephine"? She seems to have such a sane head on her; surely she doesn't have a closet full of high-waisted, low-necked empire gowns. The original Josephine was quite the, ah, hussy, what with her legendary dalliances with other men. Mrs. Bush definitely doesn't strike me as a gadabout.
No, I suppose she pretty much stays out of W.'s hallucinations when it comes to world domination.
Like Napoleon, the president feels more comfortable making war plans with his marshals: Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld. In true historical fashion, one marshal, Secretary of State Colin Powell, is not quite falling under Bush's Napoleonic requirement to execute his orders "without hesitation, discussion or personal opinion," to quote one scholar of the French Empire. No doubt Bush's marshals are undergoing the same jealousies and rivalries as Napoleon's marshals did.
Napoleon is credited with inventing modern mass warfare; in fact, he had a gross willingness to expend troops in his military adventures. Sometimes it worked. That's the part of history Bush seems to remember. That's creepy.
Then there was that Waterloo business. Not everything went swimmingly for the Little Corporal, despite his zealotry, and he was shamefully defeated, as much by arrogance as by Lord Wellington.
Bush's Waterloo may come in the form of a regime change -- and it might be his own, not Saddam's. Oh well, we have a nice island all picked out for him in the Gulf of Mexico.
They say that great people stand on the shoulders of all those who came before them. Why did Bush have to choose such a short guy?
E-mail: dmorse@sfexaminer.com
Debby Morse's column appears every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in TheExaminer. |
