Frankenstein

 

 

A photograph sticks in my mind: it sat on a shelf in the home of the father of a friend of mine.  There is the father, decked out in khaki and olive fly fishing garb, smiling bright and wide with a rushing whitewater river in the background - and George Herbert Walker Bush, the US 41^st President, and James “Jimmy” Baker, flanking the father on either side.  Presumably, it was happier times than now.

 

Neither George W. Bush nor my friend are nowhere to be seen in that photograph.  But don’t kid yourself, they know the people in the photograph, and know them well.  Two fathers and one’s best friend and political sidekick.  And with W. Bush now struggling for his political life, and with Iraqis struggling daily for real life, George Herbert Walker Bush, James Addison Baker, and their men have reappeared to help the son.  And yet the son, still evidently struggling to be his own man, exists in a White House handler-induced bubble act of appearing to hold the fatherly advisors with cautious regard so that he can still cling to the illusion that he is in power, and that he himself is responsible for his being in power.

 

What occurs now is just the next chapter in the same psycho-drama that has been the life of George W. Bush since he skipped out on the Vietnam War, failed to develop a career, developed alcoholism, found Jesus Christ, made some funny money, and climbed aboard his father’s coattails to sail into destiny.

 

The Iraq Study Group, headed by Jimmy Baker, has released its report.  Some think it not drastic enough, others are surprised at its sobering tone, stating that Iraq is bad and getting worse, and that time is running out.  But in its essence, the Iraq Study Group represents a rebuke of George W. Bush by those who put him in power – his father and his men.  It represents an official document in part written by a group of Doctor Victor Frankenstein’s anxious to rein in their monster before he does more damage – to their Party, to their friendships, and to the country that has yielded them so much wealth and comfort.  And they may wonder, having made George W. Bush the President, if it’s out of their hands and dependent upon the one thing that they never could have imagined that they would be subservient to: George W. Bush, the son.

 

The Study Group’s document says many things.  But privately, I imagine that the fathers are thinking one thing, and one thing only: we put the son in, and if he doesn’t follow this report – we will not allow him to remain with power.  And I suspect they’re right.  George W. Bush may think he’s in control, but he no longer is.  The only remaining drama is how willingly does he follow.  For the rest of us, that doesn’t really matter.  He was once George Herbert Walker Bush and Jimmy Baker’s problem – and he is now again.

 

Sometimes I think about the fly-fishing photograph, the one in the living room of my friend’s father.  I’ve fallen somewhat out of touch with my friend, as we’ve talked only a few times in the past few years, and briefly at that.  I can’t help but think that George W. Bush’s presidency has taken a toll on our friendship, and in truth, I think it has.  Early on, I spoke up vocally against this President, and my friend didn’t like what I had to say.  The last time I saw the friend and the father together, several years ago, they both told me I should prepare to fight a multi-generational long war against radical Islam.  And yet here is James Baker, their model, producing a report prescribing a standing down of US forces a few years after their admonition to me.  It is no wonder that the nation voted no confidence in the fathers and the sons in the recent mid-term election, and may vote no confidence in them again, as I hope happens until such time as they show that they are capable of reforming their minds and ways.

 

I recently decided to try and catch up with my friend, and did it the modern way – by Googling him.  And, lo and behold, there he was: a new job with a new investment firm, a board position on a non-profit – and, courtesy of one of those campaign finance disclosure sites - a $250 donation to George W. Bush’s 2004 Presidential campaign.  My tally of the waste now stands at hundreds of thousands of lives, $2 trillion - and $250. 

 

One of the men in the photograph, James Addison Baker, scion of a venerable Houston family, descendant of one of the founders of Rice University, one of our nation’s premier institutes of learning, enlightenment, and knowledge, may now act as if the decision is George W. Bush’s.  But all of the men in the photograph – Baker included – know that they, the fathers, as much as anyone, are responsible for what has happened in Iraq.

 

After all, if you read Frankenstein, it’s awfully hard blame the monster.

 

I’m Leo Gold.  This is The New Capital Show.