The Fig Leaf Departs

Here at Boring Diatribe, we're starting to get a handle on the Bush administration's attitude toward cabinet appointees, and, almost certainly, people in general. People, in the administration's view, are not sentient beings with opinions, needs, desires, ambitions and failings. These are traits shared only in private within the tight circle of those they consider "people". The remainder of the upright populace are merely instruments for the exercise of power.

Which brings us to the recent cabinet resignations. John Ashcroft was useful once as a sop to the American Taliban. (This latter group was once known as the Christian Right, until they expressed dissatisfaction with that label. I hope they enjoy the new nomenclature that we're using in our editorial meetings. But we digress.) Now that Bush the Lesser can't run again for president, Ashcroft's liability as a boob-crazed, ineffective US Attorney General with a morbid fear of calico cats became fully manifest, and with a genuine war criminal available for the Torturer General slot, it was time to show Mr. Ashcroft the door. Unfortunately for this addled product of far too many revival tents, he managed to outlive his usefulness to power.

Can Colin Powell be far behind? The answer is no. And, frankly, good riddance to a good soldier in a position that required a leader. Mr. Powell put his skills, knowledge, credibility and integrity in the service of eradicating the precepts that once made this country admirable. He sat before the United Nations, before the entire world, and regurgitated propaganda concerning phantom weapons programs in Iraq that served to hoodwink the credulous, and appall the informed. Under his watch, the State Department became an appendix to the Department of Defense, and he did nothing tangible to slow his administration's rush to an immoral war on false pretenses. He did his part as a useful tool, a gun with one round. The round was fired, and since then, he has held the status within the administration of an oddly-shaped hammer convenient for offering imperfect lessons to the occasional nail.

Powell's loyalty to his superiors (term used loosely) set askew his moral compass, and it will require years for him to regain his once unimpeachable reputation as a nonpartisan. Powell may begin on the lecture circuit by explaining to bored audiences how he sold his soul so cheaply to the Devil.