Skip to main contentThe Nose ain't a chai-sipping peacenik.
He believes passionately in the value of an occasional swift kick in the ass.
And while he's convinced that Marilyn TooGood ought to be sterilized, he's not foolish enough to think that kids should never, ever be spanked.
But the Nose has got to tell you--he's buffaloed by the war talk about Iraq.
It isn't just Georgie Bush who is rattling the sabers. There doesn't even seem to be a Democrat in office who raises real concerns about going to Baghdad. Even Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, the salmon-loving tree-hugger who is running against U.S. Senator Gordon Smith, has come out in favor of military intervention, saying he believes "a strong case has been made that we must hold Saddam Hussein accountable to the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, even if it requires use of military force."
What a weenie.
Apparently, running for office is more important than exercising any common sense, which is at least what Al Gore exhibited last week when he gave a speech questioning Bush's strategy.
Albert Gore Jr. doesn't get much respect these days. But Gore's speech had so much wisdom and was so devoid of Washington intrigue that the guts of what he said bears repeating:
* A war against Iraq and a war on terrorism are not the same.
* A war against Iraq--at this time--could adversely affect the war on terrorism, which is far more pressing at the moment.
* Even a successful war against Iraq might increase the instability of the region.
* And, finally, what will a preemptive strike do to the hearts and minds of young Muslims like Mohamud Abi, the subject of this week's cover story, who already harbor a less-than-positive view of America's moral and spiritual worth?
The Nose would add a fifth point, which is that all this talk about invading Iraq is ravaging his retirement portfilio.
Frankly, the Nose is puzzled.
Don't get him wrong--he disagrees with George Bush on a number of things. It's just that the Nose understands the reasons for those disagreements.
The Nose opposes much of the Bush environmental policy, but chalks it up to the fact that Georgie slept through science class and doesn't really understand the concept of global warming.
The Nose takes issue with Bush's opposition to physician-assisted suicide, but attributes Bush's views to his recently found Christianity.
The Nose dislikes Bush's views on gun control, but thinks that the President's position is more of a sop to the still-powerful NRA than it is a genuinely held philosophy.
What the Nose simply can't get his brain around is the reasons to invade Iraq--now.
The argument that Bush is doing this purely for political purposes strikes the Nose as unfair and wrongheaded. The belief that Bush knows something about Iraq that we don't also seems without any support. The view that going to war is something that Bush has decided he is good at (as opposed to fixing the economy, narrowing the gap between rich and poor or solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) seems to ignore the real tears the president has shed over the deaths of
Americans at the hands of foreign enemies. The opinion that Bush is simply avenging his daddy seems too, well, Freudian.
Nope, there's real confusion here at the Nose's house. It just doesn't compute.
Or maybe that's the answer: Neither does our president.
WWeek 2015