April Fool’s Day seems like the perfect day for this columnist to reevaluate the Bush search for WMD’s in Iraq, charges of war crimes, rigged elections, and/or offshore oil drilling.
Yevgeny Zamyatin fans will recognize this column’s headline. Republicans who have never heard of We, which George Orwell credited as being his inspiration for writing 1984, probably won’t bother to read that obscure Russian novel, nor this column either.
Conservative trolls don’t like it when pundits compare George W. Bush to "Big Brother," so maybe we can duck the avalanche of "tinfoil hat" comments if we cut out the middle man and compare Dubya to "the Benefactor" and hip some folks to the story of OneState.
Zamyatin saw that one people, one state, and one leader would eliminate the need for bipartisanship. Does anyone want to don their tinfoil hat and asset that having two constantly bickering groups helps a country find the way to national unity?
Posting a column on April Fool’s Day asserting that the search for WMD’s was a gigantic college frat boy’s prank might be inappropriate. Denigrating the invasion of various countries in the Middle East is an insult to Bush loyalist because it insinuates (usually without any reputable source for the idea) that it was a blunder and it also simultaneously besmirches President Obama because it makes the next surge seem like a fool’s errand.
Those who want to vigorously attack President Bush’s record as being lifted from the pages of 1984 would do well to reread that book and note that in the last paragraph Winston Smith confesses to a change of heart (change is good) and adds his voice to the chorus expressing their love of the leader known as "Big Brother."
(Here comes another spoiler.) Zamyatin, Orwell, and Glen Beck all have the same philosophy: "The following day I, D-503, reported to the Benefactor and told him all I knew about the enemies of happiness."
Sooner or later all liberal pundits will come to love President Obama’s agenda. Thus we will endorse continuing the war in Afghanistan, offshore oil drilling, and scraping any war crimes investigations.
In We, Zamyatin wrote (Penguin paperback page 132): "It goes without saying that this has no resemblance to the disorderly, unorganized elections in ancient times, when – it’s hard to say this with a straight face – they couldn’t even tell before the election how it would come out." (Note: On the morning of the 2000 Presidential election, CBS Radio’s World New Roundup reported that the number of newsvans outside the Bush home was much greater than the few waiting at Al Gore’s residence. Nyuck, nyuck. Why pay people to stand around at the loser’s home?)
Now the disk jockey will play the Rolling Stones song that has the line about "I’m a lonely school boy – just got into town" (can’t use the actual song title), "I hate Mondays," and (a favorite with a certain inmate in Corcoran State Prison) "Helter Skelter." We have to go search for the enemies of happiness. Have an "I pity the fool" type week.