BAD
MOM, BAGH-DAD (09.25.2002)
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BY
PETER KURTH
I was all set this week not to mention the Bush administration
and whichever country it is around the
Really, they did.
I looked hard for other news on which to spin a bit of punditry. There's that Bad Mom in Indiana, for example,
Madelyne Toogood, who was filmed punching the lights out of her little girl in
a parking lot. Apparently, Bad Mom was
miffed because she wasn't given a cash refund for a couple of pairs of jeans
she’d bought in the wrong size. I can
understand her frustration, if not her action, but I don't see a whole column
in it. Bad Mom herself has the situation
well in hand.
"I know I hit Martha and I knew I pulled her
hair, and I shouldn't have did either of it," Bad Mom said Monday on CNN's
"American Morning," her very first talk-show appearance. She is "horrified,"
"mortified," "sick to [her] stomach" that such a thing
could have happened. Such a thing has never happened in Bad Mom's family
before. Bad Mom is fully prepared to
take her lumps: "There would be no
excuse in the world why I did it."
Bad Mom has a very smart lawyer. Her lawyer’s so smart that he’s entered a
plea of not guilty with the explanation that it's “just a formality." He's also smart enough to inject a little
multiculturalism into the proceedings, by announcing that his client is a
member of the Irish Travelers, known in the bad old days of prejudice and
stereotyping as "Tinkers."
In the bad old days of prejudice and stereotyping,
the stereotyped image of the Tinkers might well have been compared to the
stereotyped image of the Gypsies. They
are, in any case, a close-knit and itinerant people, and they don't make very
good witnesses in court. This is why Bad
Mom's lawyer needs to add, "I feel very confident that I can reach a plea
bargain with the prosecutor for probation.” One way or another, she won't escape the moral
judgment of a wrathful nation.
Negative
stereotypes: the Irish, the Gypsies, Condoleezza Rice
Unfortunately, this thought brings me right back to
the Bush administration and that particular part of
I leave it to you how you navigate your way around
"full spectrum dominance," a phrase out of Orwell. A new defense document, "Joint Vision
2020," defines this as the ability and the right of the United States—anywhere,
for any reason, with or without provocation—"to conduct prompt, sustained and synchronized operations with
combinations of forces tailored to specific situations, and with access to and
freedom to operate in all domains—space, sea, land, air and information."
"Joint Vision 2020" scared me so much that
I turned to the scandal-plagued Governor of Kentucky, Paul Patton, who last
week "tearfully admitted" at a news conference that he'd had "an
improper relationship with a western Kentucky nursing home operator who is
suing him for sexual harassment," a woman the Governor pointedly calls
"Mrs. Conner." In the South,
it's not always easy to tell the difference between good manners and lying, and
for all I know Gov. Patton, by emphasizing the "Mrs." in Mrs. Conner,
is subtly undermining the reputation of a married woman who was once—well,
for two years—dumb enough to
have sex with him.
Anyhow, I couldn't continue with this thread. Like Bad Mom, the Governor just wants to come
clean. He wants to "apologize to
the people of
Governor
Patton in prayer; Patton and Judi in happier times; Mrs. Conner in full squeal
Well, there I was back again with Bush and what is
now called, with all reverence, the Bush Doctrine—the right to the
"preemptive strike." I hope that isn't classified
information. But it seems to me that the
press used to go "full spectrum loony" on politicians like Gov.
Patton, oily hypocrites with their pants off—whatever. It seems to me that the
full might of corporate media was recently employed in the effort to unseat a
president over a junior-league land deal and some misaimed semen in the
wash. And it seems to me—
But this is where I turned to Samuel Johnson, a kind
of Founding Father for writers. "In
a time of war," Johnson said, "the nation is always of one mind,
eager to hear something good of themselves, and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is
easy; they have nothing to do but to tell that the battle is expected, and
afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether
conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing."
Which is why I didn't want to write about it.
"No
people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election
on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument
[of] the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can
depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything
traditionally American. And nobody will ever say `Heil' to him, nor will they
call him `Führer' or `Duce.' But they will greet him with one great big,
universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of `O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna,
Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'"—Dorothy Thompson, 1935