“Restoring Honor: A Beginning”

Writer’s Note: 

In the aftermath of Glenn Beck’s Washington rally, I’ve drawn a picture of what “restoring honor” in this country might actually mean, using the example of Colin Powell.  The column, as harsh as it may seem, isn’t intended to sit in judgment of Powell; that’s a matter between him and his Maker.  What he did, however, was public, and the consequences likewise. Moreover, Powell admitted, in a 2005 interview with Barbara Walters, that his performance at the UN was a “blot” on his record, adding that “It was painful.  It’s painful now.”  Clearly, the enormity of the wrong he committed was far more than a “blot,” and it had far greater consequences than marring his personnel record.  

“Honor” is about measuring oneself against a code of conduct.  This column goes beyond that to portray a man confronting his own conscience.  In delivering “his” speech on Glenn Beck’s show, I’ve tried to imagine myself in Powell’s place: a man with intelligence and a conscience confronting the wasteland of his own history.   

* * * * * *

Fox TV host Glenn Beck declared himself “overwhelmed” today by the response to his giant rally calling for the restoration of America’s honor.  His show is already booked through the end of 2011 with Bush administration officials, members of Congress from both parties, executives from major investment firms and pharmaceutical companies, people from the young Obama administration, and other media figures--all eager, Beck said, to confess their roles in tarnishing the nation’s image.

A vast nationwide audience was held rapt by Beck’s first guest, Colin Powell.  Appearing thin and worn, the former Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and four-star general launched the effort to recapture the nation’s honor.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to begin the restoration process,” Powell began.  “As a man with a long military career, and as a soldier who has been awarded at one time or another a Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, a Soldier’s Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, as well as numerous others, I, more than most, might be expected to understand honor--what it consists of, what it means to the individual and to the country he serves, and what a high price one may have to pay to retain it.”

He paused, removed his glasses, and wiped them.  “I have learned that price dearly,” he went on, “because I sold my honor so cheaply--for the title of Secretary of State, for the advancement of my son’s career, for a future of well-paid sinecures on corporate boards, and out of a misguided loyalty to the administration I was a part of.

“I went before the UN Security Council, on February 5, 2003, and with the eyes of the world upon me, made perhaps the most dishonorable speech in the troubled annals of American history.  

“It was dishonorable because it was a panoply of lies, from beginning to end.  It was dishonorable because it betrayed every man and woman serving in our armed forces, dispatching them to fight, suffer, or die under the illusion that they were defending their families and country.  It was dishonorable because it was the major factor in selling an unjust war of aggression to a skeptical American public.  It was dishonorable because it irrevocably destroyed our country’s claim to history’s moral high ground.

“I said, before the UN, that ‘there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce many, many more.’  That was a lie, designed to frighten my country into war.  I said that I had no doubt that Saddam Hussein was gathering materials to produce nuclear weapons.  That too was a lie, designed to justify a war.  I listed seventeen indictments in my speech.  Every one was a lie, intended to propel us into war.

“In another time, and in another culture,” Powell said, “a man who has so dishonored himself and his country would have simply thrown himself on his sword.  In my own way, I have been doing that since I left office.  I am doing it tonight.

“There is no way I can make amends for the suffering and devastation I helped create.  Since my retirement, I spend part of each day visiting VA hospitals, and every depressed, suicidal veteran; every amputee; every brain-damaged victim, is seared into my soul.  I also do my best to visit and comfort the families of more than four thousand men and women in our armed forces whose lives have been needlessly wasted in Iraq.  When I am met with the tears of mothers and fathers, of wives and husbands; when I see the broken lives of families; when I look into the uncomprehending eyes of orphans, I think of myself delivering the words that set the horrific machinery of war in motion.

“But the scale of the suffering caused by the war is beyond any human comprehension, and far beyond anything for which I can make amends.  At least 1.6 million Iraqis have been set adrift as refugees, struggling to survive.  Six hundred thousand civilians have died from illnesses or injuries attributable to the war and occupation.  One fourth of all Iraqi children are chronically undernourished, and two thirds of them have unsafe drinking water.”

He faltered.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “This is so hard.”  He took a deep breath and then continued.  “The Iraqi health care system, their educational system, their transportation system, their water and electrical supply--all the necessities to keep a modern society viable--have been turned into ruins.  

“Shias and Sunnis who once lived together as neighbors and friends have been cast as bitter enemies, murdering and torturing one another, setting off waves of ethnic cleansing.  The Iraqi countryside is strewn with fragments of depleted uranium from armor-piercing shells.  Generations of Iraqis will suffer the agonies of cancers caused by their radiation.

“We have plundered the resources of our own country to pillage another.  We have cheated our youth of education, our elderly of retirement security, our sick of needed care, and our citizens of fundamental rights--all to pursue an unnecessary, useless war.

“That is our world now, and I bear its full weight on my shoulders.  Restoring our nation’s honor will be a task for real heroes.  It will be a colossal task, and it may take decades.  It will demand that we tell the truth, that we confront ourselves at our weakest and worst.  We must take responsibility for our acts.  We must make what reparations we are able.  Tonight is only a beginning.”

Finally, the old general began to weep, tears running freely down his cheeks.  “My guilt,” he said, “is more than I can bear.”

Following the show, Beck was quoted as saying that “This wasn’t quite the direction I had in mind.  But the ratings have been terrific!”

© Tony Russell, 2010

"The Enthusiasm Deficit"

As soon as Janet stepped through the kitchen door, she could hear the sound of crying--deep, gasping, soul-wrenching sobs.  “Oh no,” she sighed to herself.  “Not again.” 

  She put the tea kettle on and then walked over to put her arm around her friend’s shoulders.  “Brenda, honey, what is it?  What’s wrong?”

Brenda kept her head bent, tears pouring down her cheeks, as she stared at the kitchen table.  “It’s Barry,” she finally managed to choke out.  “He and his friends are saying the meanest things about me.”

“What kind of things, Brenda?”

Brenda had temporarily brought her crying under control.  “He accused me of being unfaithful.  He said I didn’t really love him, that I didn’t understand all the things he has to struggle with.  He acted as if I was stupid and ungrateful!”  And she burst into a new round of tears.

Angry on her friend’s behalf, Janet said, “What’s the matter with him?  Why is he saying those things?”

Brenda looked up, distraught.  “I don’t know!  I don’t know!  Oh, I think I’m going to be sick....  She jumped up and raced to the bathroom.

As she pulled two cups from the cupboard, Janet could hear Brenda retching.  “What would be best at a time like this?” she asked herself.  “Mint?  Chamomile?”  Finally she settled on Tension Tamer™.  “When will she ever learn?” she thought.

Brenda finally emerged, looking wan and shaken.  She sat, cuddling the warm teacup with both hands.  “Thanks, Janet,” she whispered.  “You’re such a good friend.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She seemed to settle herself, and then reflected, “He seemed so perfect.  Not just tall, dark, and handsome, but so articulate, so intelligent, so sensitive.  He convinced me that we shared so many hopes, so many dreams.  We were going to walk together into a new world.  And now it’s all gone wrong.”  She raised her eyes, and she had the look of someone staring into an infinite, sucking void.

“It’s not fair!” she screamed, and then burst into a new set of tears, this time hot, scalding tears of rage.  “He betrayed me, he turned his back on me, he acted as if I didn’t even exist!  And now he expects me to be enthusiastic when he turns up at my door.  When I’m not, he accuses me of being unfaithful!  After all the money I gave him, after all the calls I made on his behalf, all the friends I nagged to give him a job!  I walked the streets for him!”  

“You gave him money?  How much money, Brenda?” demanded Janet, shocked.

“I don’t know,” said Brenda despondently.  “A lot.  Sometimes a check.  Sometimes my credit card.  He just always needed a little more.  Every bit was critical, you know.  He kept saying he was desperate.  He depended on me.”

“Brenda, you work in a daycare center.  He’s a lawyer.  And you were giving him money?  When this is all over, he’ll be even richer, and you’ll be no better off than you are now.”

“It was never about me,” Brenda said.  “It was always about making the world a better place.  The common good.”  She looked up.  “You think I’m hopelessly naive, don’t you?  You think I’ve been a sucker for the same old line.  As soon as he was elected, he stopped calling.  He found new friends.  But I just thought that he was really busy getting settled in, that he still cared, that he was still true, that he would keep his promises to me.

“But I finally got tired of waiting.  He never had time for me and my friends.  He surrounded himself with the same people I thought we were hoping to replace.  He kept so many of the same policies he attacked during his campaign.  I still gave him the benefit of the doubt.  I told myself I might be exaggerating.  Blowing minor things out of proportion.  So I made myself sit down and put together a list of ways he had changed.  When I finished, I could hardly stand to look at it, it hurt so much. Now he’s in trouble, and he’s angry because I’m not satisfied with the way things are going.  He says that I need to fall in line, that I’m hurting him, and I’m the only hope he has.”

“Oh, Brenda,” said Janet sadly.  “Sweetie, we’ve been through this before.  You’ve got to learn sometime.”

“I don’t know what to do!” shrieked Brenda.  “Why does it always come down to a choice between being assaulted by people whose entire political philosophy revolves around greed and aggression, or being betrayed by people who claim to care about fairness, community, and peace?”

© Tony Russell, 2010

Brenda’s list (admittedly incomplete and a work in progress) :

• Instead of the change he campaigned on, he actually kept Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and Bush’s favorite warrior, Gen. Petraeus, as his leading voices on national security policy.  For all the rhetoric, we are still at war in Iraq, and waging expanded campaigns now in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

• Instead of repudiating Bush’s landmark embrace of  “preemptive war,” Obama used the occasion of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance in Oslo to specifically endorse it as a strategy.  His “Peace Prize” speech was seen over most of the globe as a glorification of militarism.

• After criticizing the Bush administration for its use of torture and promising to comply with a court order to release Pentagon torture photos , Obama moved to block any investigation of the torture, denied the release of the photos, and has worked hard to help cover up this violation of human rights and international law.

• Obama has incorporated the most heinous and undemocratic features of the Bush administration’s police-state policies, including support for “extraordinary rendition,” domestic spying, and the holding of terror suspects indefinitely, without charges.

• Despite campaigning on behalf of the struggling middle class, with its millions of unemployed and underemployed, he has shown none of the urgency his administration demonstrated when Wall Street investment firms, banks, and auto makers were threatened.

• Instead of taking steps to embody the hope he campaigned on, he has done nothing to stop the endless drumroll of home foreclosures.

• Instead of using his “stimulus bill” to drive work on alternative energy expansion, environmental improvement and restoration, or to build permanent social assets, as did the CCC and the WPA, he aimed 90% of the new jobs created toward traditional, existing private businesses.

• During his campaign, Obama championed the public option for health care and opposed forcing people to purchase private insurance; once elected, he ruled out the public option before negotiations on health care even began, and supported mandating the purchase of private insurance.

• During his campaign, Obama promised to negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN; once elected, he negotiated behind closed doors.

• Instead of the change he campaigned on, he turned his economic policy over to Tim Geithner and Larry Summers--the same Wall Street corporate insiders who helped get us into our current mess--and only accelerated the widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

• Obama promised to close Guantánamo within a year; that hasn’t happened.

• During his campaign, Obama supported ending the Cuban embargo; in office, he has ignored the embargo, allowing it to continue.

• During his campaign, Obama promised to reopen negotiations on NAFTA; once in office, he has done nothing, perpetuating the status quo.

• As a Senator and candidate, Obama courted labor and supported the Employee Free Choice Act; since being elected, he has done nothing to secure passage of EFCA, which will be dead in the water once these mid-term elections hand Congress over to the GOP.

“Get Inside the Box”

“I’ve called you all together because we’re facing a major challenge.  Fox News has put four potential presidential nominees on its payroll--four!  We don’t have a single candidate of our own, and something has to be done about it.  Now!”

“What’s the problem, Steve?” asked Jeff, the VP for programming.  “All four of their people are far right Tea Party darlings.   I mean, give me a break.  Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum?  A lineup like that completely undercuts their claim to be ‘fair and balanced.’”

Immediately, the infighting began.  This was a TV network, after all.

“What you fail to understand, Jeff,” began Monica, the chief operating officer, “is that even though Fox is outrageously biased, you can’t stop them from telling people otherwise.  Trot out all the statistics you want showing how lopsided their coverage is, and it doesn’t faze them.   God could speak in a voice of thunder, calling them liars, and when the thunder finished rolling, Fox would still be plastering their claim on the airwaves, hundreds of times a day.”

Jeff ‘failed to understand’ something Monica clearly understood.  Well played, thought the others around the table

“Right.  Get real, Jeff,” chimed in Arnie, the head of the entertainment section.  “You act as if you don’t understand the power of TV.  No wonder this network is in a tailspin.”

Ouch.  All eyes shifted quickly toward Steve to see if Arnie’s low blow did more damage to Jeff or to Arnie himself.

“We’re getting sidetracked,” said Steve.  “Focus on the real issue.”

“Look, Steve,” piped up Lyle, the head of the sports division, “I don’t see the problem here.  Fox isn’t exactly fielding an all-world team.  Palin was a feisty point guard, but she didn’t even make all-Alaska.  Santorum will mix it up and do the dirty work, but he can’t score.  And Gingrich is a shooter who misfires most of the time.”

Groans and winces.  The usual reactions to Lyle’s contributions.

“Let me spell it out for you, Lyle,” said Steve.  “Fox has contracts with all four potential candidates forbidding them from appearing on any other network.  How do you suggest we cover the presidential race when there’s a boatload of candidates who won’t even appear on our shows?”

Having brushed Lyle aside, Steve moved on.  “Time to get serious, people.  I want us to settle on at least one candidate of our own by the time this meeting is over, and two would be even better.” 

Okay.  Time to shift gears and move on.

“We need somebody who screams ‘not Fox’,” offered Arnie.  “Somebody with a positive vision, somebody who cares about the climate catastrophe facing our planet, somebody who will direct our resources toward our common problems instead of mutually destructive wars....”

“You’re thinking outside the box,” snapped Steve, cutting him short.  “Get inside the box!  There’ve got to be plenty of politicians with bizarre, discredited views who are available and viable presidential candidates.”

Ah, an acceptable direction to move in.

“Steve,” said Rahim tentatively, “what if Fox already has the good ones sewn up?  I mean, crazy is flat-out entertaining, and Fox may have cornered the market.  I’m not sure anybody as wacky as Palin or Gingrich is still available.”

Monica was quick to pounce.  “Well, Steve,” she said, “Christine O’Donnell just jumps out at you.  If she wins Delaware, there’s going to be an enormous amount of buzz about her and a possible presidential bid.”

Wouldn’t you know it?  Got to give Monica credit, she’s a quick study.

“I think she puts Palin in the pale,” she continued--winging it, but sounding good.  “For my money, she’s better looking than Sarah Palin, and she’s even more quotable.  She has a track record of looney, anti-intellectual positions that endears her to right wingers and fascinates the media.  That makes her an ideal candidate to be our candidate.”

A gleam came into Jeff’s eyes.  “Uh, Monica,” he said, “what you fail to understand is the extent of Christine O’Donnell’s history with Fox News--or maybe you were just completely unaware of it.  She’s spouted political commentary for shows like The Live Desk and The O’Reilly Factor.  If she entered the presidential race--God forbid--she’d become Fox’s fifth entry, not our first.”

Silence, as that soaked in.  Monica momentarily stunned.

“Ya know,” mused Lyle, “I’m not sure we ought to put this game on our schedule.”

“What?!” said Steve.  “What the devil are you talking about?”  

“It’s sort of like a football game,” began Lyle.  But then everything was sort of like a football game for Lyle.

“How do you figure?” inquired Monica, recovered and willing to help him hang himself.

“Well, think of the two political parties as teams,” said Lyle.  “And news media are kind of the referees.  They’re supposed to be neutral, see, not favoring one team or the other.  Just call ‘em the way they see ‘em.  But here you have Fox owning a team and paying the players and still pretending they’re gonna referee the game fairly.  So if we buy a team and pay the players, we’d be doing the same thing.  It’s disrespecting the game.”

Talk about being out in left field!  But that’s baseball, not football.  Anyhow, who will set Lyle straight?

“Look,” said Monica dismissively, “it’s simple economics.  “Corporations donate money to campaigns, they buy ads, they lobby, they spend millions to bend politicians to their will.  Then the politicians do what they’re paid to do in Washington.  This just simplifies the process.  You eliminate the middleman by hiring him.”

Lyle couldn’t seem to let it go.  “Let’s say the Constitution is the rule book,” he argued.  “This is a way to get around the rules.  It might not break any rules, but it violates the spirit of the game.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” exploded Steve.  “Think of it as the introduction of the forward pass--something new that changes the nature of the game.  It’s progress!”  

“All progress isn’t progress,” countered Lyle.  “This is more like blue artificial turf.”

© Tony Russell, 2010

"A Form of Civic Education"

Our neighbors, the Whittens, have a foreign exchange student staying with them. I saw him walking toward town yesterday morning, and stopped to offer him a ride.

Once he was in the car, there was an awkward pause, as neither of us quite knew how to make conversation with the other. Finally he said, with some hesitation, “I see you people in Virginia have executed a woman. The first in almost a hundred years.”

“Yep,” I said cheerfully. “That’s progress for you.”

“Progress?” he said, frowning.

“Right. Women’s equality,” I explained. “Equal treatment. Virginia has been executing men by the truckload. Women deserve their fair share, and this is a start. Treat both sexes alike. No discrimination.”

He turned and stared at me. “May I inquire what the rationale for such executions might be? Is it simply vengeance?”

“No, no,” I reassured him. “Vengeance would be barbaric. Executions are a form of civic education. We kill people to teach people that killing people is wrong.”

“You kill people to teach people that killing people is wrong?” he asked, as if he had trouble following simple logic.

“You’ve got it,” I replied. I added, “Even though this woman, Teresa Lewis, didn’t pull the trigger herself, she planned the killings, and two other people working for her did the actual shooting. She could have stopped them, but she let the killings take place. They were premeditated and carried out without remorse.”

He paused again. Then he said, “And your governor, Mr. McDonnell. He didn’t execute her personally?”

“Of course not,” I scoffed. “He has subordinates who do the detailed work and carry out his instructions. He could have stayed the execution or changed Teresa Lewis’s punishment to life imprisonment, but he said he couldn’t see any reason not to execute her. He denied the appeals and gave the go-ahead for the execution to take place. It was carefully premeditated, and was carried out without remorse on his part.”

“Mrs. Lewis,” he said. “Did she remain unrepentant for her responsibility in causing the deaths of others?”

“It’s hard to tell about those things,” I admitted. “Other prisoners and some of the prison chaplains said that over the years she was waiting to be killed she comforted other prisoners, prayed for them, sang for them, and was generally an inspiration.”

“I see,” he said. “And Mr. McDonnell. What will the impact of Mrs. Lewis’s execution be on his political career?”

“Oh, I’m sure he and his staff calculated the potential impact thoroughly,” I said. “No question that the execution was a win-win situation for him. It’s bound to have bolstered his support among conservative Christians, Right-to-Lifers, and get-tough-on-crime hard-liners. So I would imagine, all in all, he’s pretty happy with the results.”

“Then executing Mrs. Lewis profited him politically?” he asked.

“Oh, I would think so,” I said.

“What was Mrs. Lewis’s motive for her crime?” he inquired.

“Money,” I said. “She was hoping to profit by collecting $250,000 in life insurance.”

“That seems truly callous,” he murmured, and I agreed.

But something still seemed to be bothering him. “It is my understanding that every year more and more bills are introduced in your legislature to increase the types of offenses for which people can be executed?”

“That’s right,” I said. “That’s how things work in an advanced nation. The legal system is constantly updated to keep pace with social progress.”

“I’m sorry. One more question. Could you explain to me how Mrs. Lewis was put to death?” he asked somewhat numbly.

“In the most humane way possible,” I assured him. “Fourteen corrections officials strapped her down so she couldn’t move. Then someone injected poison into her veins, and people stood around and watched her die.”

He seemed to be having trouble taking it all in, and we rode on silently for a few blocks. “This is where I get off,” he managed, signaling me to stop. “Thank you for your courtesy in providing me with transportation, as well as for a most memorable conversation.”

“No problem,” I responded, not wanting to make too much of it. I knew foreigners are often overwhelmed by Americans’ kindness and generosity. As I told Patty afterward, “He speaks surprisingly good English, and he seems pretty well informed. But he doesn’t have a clue about how a civilized country operates.”

For an instant, an expression flickered across Patty’s face. The one that hurts--compassion. “Oh, Ace,” she began, “sometimes you’re so....” Then she stopped, turned, and walked out of the kitchen without finishing.

I love that woman.

© Tony Russell, 2010

"All Available Means of Persuasion"

I had a chance yesterday to talk with an old buddy of mine, Vern Gosworth, who works for a public relations firm. We met for lunch at Eppie’s. Vern hemmed and hawed and finally ordered the Wednesday special, hot tamales, but I stuck with the jerk chicken.

While we were sitting at the table, waiting for our names to be called, I asked him about the news this week that a Washington lobbying group hired by a coal industry consortium, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), had sent forged letters opposing clean air legislation to several members of Congress.

The letters were supposedly from organizations such as the NAACP and the American Association of University Women, but were actually written on fake letterheads.

“Boy, coal companies must be really angry that somebody they hired would try to deceive members of Congress into voting against the clean energy bill,” I said.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Vern. “They’ve issued a statement that they have ‘always maintained high ethical and professional standards,’ but then something like this happens and makes people wonder. I couldn’t blame them if they were furious.”

“Why are they so opposed to the clean energy bill?” I wondered.

“Are you kidding? It could end up costing them billions. Coal is the dirtiest energy out there. They shoveled out almost $11.8 million lobbying against this clean energy bill in the past three months, so you know it’s a huge issue for them.”

“If it’s that important, and they spent that kind of dough, they must have hired the best,” I reflected.

“For sure,” said Vern. “My outfit wanted the job, but we didn’t stand a chance with the Hawthorn Group in the hunt.”

“I think I know what you were up against,” I sympathized. “I was just checking them out on line. Their website says that they approach an ‘advocacy challenge’ with ‘all available means of persuasion.’ They must mean it; they run the phrase three times in three paragraphs on their home page. Your company probably didn’t stand a chance against one that was willing to use ‘all available means of persuasion.’ I hate to ask, but when they say ‘all available means of persuasion,’ do you suppose they mean ‘all available means of persuasion’?”

“You’re reading too much into that, Ace. What they really mean is ‘all available means of persuasion that are legal, ethical, responsible, and morally exemplary.’ They just keep it short because spelling that out would be too cumbersome,” Vern said.

““You’re probably right, I expect. But don’t you think there’s a danger that somebody reading their mission statement would think the Hawthorn Group is willing to do whatever it takes to sell whatever somebody is paying them to pitch?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” said Vern. “It’s already a given that these campaigns will operate on the highest moral and ethical plane; that’s the only way these companies will do business.”

“I see,” I nodded. “But if coal companies are shelling out millions of dollars to oppose the clean energy bill, don’t you thing they would spend some time with their PR firm laying out some guidelines for what they want, and then review ideas the firm comes up with before they okay them?”

“Oh heck no,” said Vern. “That’s not the way the big boys do it, Ace. It’s carte blanche. They just give us a budget, tell us to come up with something, and then forget about it. They trust us to do quality work.”

“And this unnamed employee who created the phony letters--is that the way these things normally operate? I mean, you’ve got a top-drawer client spending huge sums of money, and some employee, all on his own, without even talking with anybody else in the firm, without clearing his idea with some kind of boss or superior, takes it on himself to forge letters to members of Congress?”

“Incredible, isn’t it, Ace? We’ve got so much freedom in the PR business you wouldn’t believe it. We never clear anything with anybody before we put it into effect.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed, “not even something that important, involving so much money and the Federal government? The level of trust in your business is fantastic!.”

“Well,” he said modestly, “we’ve earned that level of confidence. That’s what they pay us for.”

“I was looking at the Bonner & Associates website too,” I went on. “They say that they have ‘a 25 year track record of extensive, winning experience in all levels of government,’ with ‘hands-on experience in winning tough fights.’”

“Uh huh,” Vern said.”

“So evidently this is a veteran outfit that doesn’t mind mixing it up if you pay them enough,” I surmised.

“Oh, I’d definitely say so,” agreed Vern.

“And yet something like this happened,” I pointed out. “You have a top PR firm, and a savvy insider firm that traffics in using grassroots organizations, both promoting themselves as delivering wins, and yet somehow you end up with a dirty, crooked stunt like this.”

“Ace, these things happen,” said Vern. “It was all the work of one person, a rogue temporary employee far down the food chain. Nobody higher up had any clue what that person was thinking of, squirreled away in some lonely cubbyhole. Now that it’s come to light, everybody’s embarrassed.”

“Do you suppose the employee was ‘temporary’ before news of the forgeries broke?”

“I couldn’t speculate on that, Ace.”

“It’s too bad the forgeries came to light after the vote on the bill, since a couple of congresspeople who got the letters actually voted against the clean energy bill.”

“The timing was unfortunate,” he agreed.

“The odd thing is that ACCCE, the consortium of coal companies, says that Bonner and Associates told them about the forgeries before the bill was voted on and before the news came out in the papers. They say that Bonner told them it had contacted the organizations whose names they used on the forged letters, as well as the congressional offices who got the letters, to clear everything up. Now the coal consortium is just shocked to learn that didn’t actually happen.”

“There you go. Somebody at Bonner dropped the ball. Probably got too busy in the hurly-burly of the campaign to follow up on that piece,” said Vern.

“It looks as if somebody at the coal consortium dropped the same ball,” I pointed out. “You wonder why they didn’t address the matter themselves, instead of leaving it to Bonner. And once they’d passed the buck--or bucks--you’d think they’d want to keep on top of the potential scandal, making sure it was taken care of, given their concern to see that “everyone involved in the public policy dialogue lives up to the highest ethical standards.”

“Hindsight is 20-20, Ace.”

“Hindsight is 11.8 million, Vern.”

© Tony Russell, 2009

"Not a Pretty Sight"

Lead sentence in CNN article: “The more Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.”

Third paragraph: “White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified--more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it.”

Patty and I were sitting in Wendy’s, quietly working our way through our combo meals. The ladies behind us were working their way through their friends.

“What kind of Christian does she think she is?” scoffed one. “Supporting terrorists by saying we shouldn’t torture them.”

“I know,” said another. “I always thought better of her than that.”

“She may have a lot of people fooled with that sweet smile and soft voice,” said the first, “but God knows what’s in her heart, and you can bet it’s not a pretty sight.”

“She actually pointed at her ‘What Would Jesus Do?”’ wristlet when she was talking to Wilma and told her that she didn’t believe Jesus would waterboard someone, or strip him naked and sic a dog on him,” tossed in a third. “Can you believe it?”

“I heard that too,” said a fourth. “Wilma told me she couldn’t believe her ears. She was just shocked.”

“Not as much as those thugs at Guantanamo when we hooked them up to electrodes,” joked the second woman.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Gladys,” one of them reprimanded her. “We’re talking about someone whose patriotism is so shaky her immortal soul is in danger.”

“I tried to talk some faith into her,” said the third woman. “Jane,” I said, “Jesus never said a word forbidding torture. Search the New Testament from beginning to end, and he never says a word against torturing your enemies.”

“You’re right, of course,” said the first woman. “I hope that gave her something to think about.”

“To tell the truth, she didn’t think much about it at all,” said the third woman. “She just quoted Matthew, chapter 5, from the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ’ She claimed that Jesus was very clear about how we were supposed to treat our enemies, and torture sure didn’t fit in the picture Jesus was drawing.”

There was a pause. Patty and I looked at each other, ears perked, waiting.

Finally, the first woman sighed. “I hate to say it,” she said, “but sometimes Jesus could be awfully unrealistic.”

“I know what you mean,” said the second woman. “Those are great ideals, but we live in the real world, with suicide bombers and people flying planes into buildings.”

“Right,” said the third woman, “Jesus did have enemies, you know, and he didn’t torture them or kill them. But look what happened to him.”

I glanced around. They were all absentmindedly fingering their crosses while they gave that some thought.

“My gosh, look at the time!” said the first woman suddenly. “We’re going to be late for prayer meeting if we don’t get a move on.”

© Tony Russell, May 12, 2009