Is it Noonan or is it Not
by Barry Friedman
The Good Americans I have Known.
Terror. Just the word terrorizes me. Thoughts of naked men with unpronounceable names, some hyphenated, being forced to listen to loud music and eat pork. It is so so--so--tough to fathom. What kind of music, how did they look in their nakedness? Did they really mind? Yes, this “torture report” exists. Do I think it’s partisan? Yes, of course. And why? Why?
America is why. Republicans love her--and she is her: curvy, flirtatious, strong, honorable--more than Democrats.
Our people, our way of life, the way we shop and eat outdoors and fall in love. It is so, so tough to remember what men with chin beards did to us on a day when a good and sweet president read a good and sweet book to good and sweet children in a good and sweet part of Florida.
He sat, remember, proud, pursing his lips in thought and contemplation--not always the same thing.
That was torturous, watching him grieve without grieving, cry without crying, act without thinking. I expected him to beat his chest, rip off his shirt, and take charge, but, alas, the children were there watching, thinking, wondering, “Who is this man? How does the story end? What happens to the goat?”
He didn’t disappoint. All worked out well in the end ... for the goat.
A president, a good president, tells iddy biddy fibs like that sometimes. Reagan did and nobody noticed. He’d forget about them as soon as he’d utter them.
That’s leadership. Men who talk large and wear boots and clear brush and use the language in their own special way.
That Bush, the younger, became a man that day. His mom, Barbara, whom I know, was proud--so, so proud. His dad of the same name, whom I know, was proud--so, so proud. When he threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium later that week, Derek Jeter, whom I met (don't really know) was proud--so, so proud.
Should I ever have a child, I will do that, too, name her after me, like the Bushes do.
So now we have a report on torture, a report that mocks the man who read about goats to children while these two enormous towers that the architects didn't like anyway burned.
How we thank the men who brought us through, though. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz. I know them, too. I know and knew others, too. Bob Teeter and Maureen Reagan. All powerful people with a heart for America.
Why? Ahem. Democrats.
Democrats like to emphasize the act; I like to concentrate on what’s inside these good men, these men and women of character who are the children of successful men and women who lived on coasts and have initials in their names and big dogs in the yard who chased frisbees and sticks.
That was the America the Bush Administration wanted to protect, but also the other one, the other America, darker, city-bound, sexually-torrential.
It’s been a season of beheadings and African-originated viruses and congressional gridlock and a Hillary Clinton campaign gone amok. I long for a big man, a wise man who till take hold of me, move me, deposit me, once again, to a better, healthier place … to show me the way ... to tell me the goat will always be safe.
The. Way.
Because, alas, it shouldn’t be a season of terror reports and discussions of waterboarding (I've gotten water up my nose. Not good, but I would do it gladly to stop a brown man on another American flight), but one of parades, of Jesus and Santa on floats, waving to kids, even the Jewish and Atheist ones who came for other reasons.
I weep we think of death and Syrian cabdrivers in burlap hoods being hit by contractors when there is so much love in the malls this time of year and in the hearts of those who protected us.