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The next phase? Who's Next? The Barber of See-Ville?By Rick Horowitz There's always the chance he was being ironic. On the other hand... The president of these United States, that is. There he was, standing in a bunker at Observation Post Ouellette, just across the demilitarized zone from the head case commonly known as North Korea. An American officer pointed toward a building on the other side and offered up a bit of history from the mid-1970s, a story the president quickly repeated to the reporters accompanying him. "You hear that?" said George W. Bush. "They have a Peace Museum there, and the axes that were used to slaughter two U.S. soldiers are in the Peace Museum. No wonder I think they're evil." Excuse me, but weren't we talking about the axis of evil? Not the axes of evil? Is this some kind of weird DMZ humor? (And did somebody let the commander in chief in on the joke?) Is it simply a bizarre linguistic coincidence? Or is it the start of -- a blast of trumpets, maestro -- Phase 3? Phase 1 was the war in Afghanistan: routing the Taliban, disrupting al Qaeda, helping to install a government that doesn't consider the 14th century the very latest thing. Phase 2 is the hint of an expanded campaign: straightening out not just Afghanistan, but other countries -- Iran, Iraq, North Korea -- that likewise shelter or foster or export terrorism, that tinker with weapons of mass destruction, that make the world just a whole lot scarier and more disgusting than it needs to be. Some people are complaining that Phase 2 would be an overreach, that the president is trying to play GloboCop. His defenders, though, say that he's the man to do what has to be done, that he's on a mission. Fair enough. The question for today, though, is whether he stops at Phase 2 or keeps on going. (Men on missions tend to keep on going.) The question is whether the president's words at Ouellette were a one-time event, or the start of something big -- maybe even a new framework for his entire presidency. F'rinstance? F'rinstance... The president has been trying to push his economic-stimulus package through an unenthusiastic Congress; for some reason, returning big piles of cash to the lucky few who already have big piles of cash just doesn't cut it with the majority of the American people. But what if the president shifted his approach? What if he started campaigning against the "taxes of evil"? That could change everything. The president also prides himself on running a unified administration that speaks with one voice; he hates it when policy disagreements go public. Will he try to crack the whip on leaks to the media? Will he pick a fight with the "faxes of evil"? And how about values? A person who wants to serve as leader of the free world has to set an example for the leaders of tomorrow; should such a person (not naming any names, mind you) really be dropping in on the likes of Arsenio Hall and playing jazz instruments in public? Certainly not. So it may be time to go after the "saxes of evil." Are certain Olympic athletes grabbing an unfair advantage with special high-tech slicky stuff on their skis? Then down with the "waxes of evil"! The "anthraxes of evil"? The president's already working on that one. But why stop there? How about the "flaxes of evil"? The "weevil upheaval"? And whatever happened to Evel Knievel? And furthermore -- Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. (Men on missions tend to keep on going.) So where will it all end? Nobody knows. But it may have just started. Phase 3. You heard it first right here. Posted 2/21/02. Hear
things you don't hear anywhere else, right here at "Rick's"! (There's
a reason for that.)
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Rick Horowitz
