There’s a first time for everything, but that doesn’t explain why Ananias Ziegler called me last week. As you may recall, he’s the media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America. After the usual pleasantries, he explained that he was on a public-relations offensive to dampen any elation over the departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
“You have some connections with the Biased Liberal Media,” Ziegler said. “So can you put the word out?”
“What word?” I wondered.
“The word that we have an inexhaustible supply of partisan hacks who can find legal justifications for the denial of habeas corpus, the use of torture in interrogation, the indefinite detention of people without filing charges, the deployment of federal prosecutors for political purposes, the establishment of religion and the gathering of information without getting warrants. I don’t want to see you guys getting egg on your face by celebrating the departure of Gonzales and acting as though some era has ended. There are a lot of other people who can do the same important job just as well, and we have every confidence that President Bush will find one of them.”
I assured him that I would do so, then asked about the president’s recent speeches to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.
“What about those speeches?” Ziegler asked.
“It seemed to me he was drumming up war with Iran,” I said, then quoted Bush: “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces. … Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons. … The attacks on our bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased….”
Ziegler cut me off. “I see your point,” he said. “It’s what we call a pre-pre-emptive strike.”
“A what?” I wondered.
“Consider the president’s situation. He’s so unpopular that Republican candidates for office won’t be seen with him, unless it’s at a fundraiser where only the beneficiaries of his tax cuts are allowed in. His closest associates are leaving his administration. His power is shrinking by the moment, but he has one hope of turning that around. He can start another war and then the country will rally for a while – preferably until November of 2008.”
“So Bush is laying the groundwork now, and then he can pull Iran out of his hat when the time is right?”
“You got it,” Ziegler said. “Lots of talk about how Iran is exporting explosives, seeking nuclear weapons and aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan – you know the drill.”
“But the president said that ‘We always enter wars reluctantly,”‘ I pointed out.
“That’s just the usual appeal to American mythology,” Ziegler said. “We like to think of ourselves as a peace-loving nation that does not respond unless severely provoked.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “But we had to generate some provocation for the Mexican War in 1846 by marching an army into disputed territory so that our flag would be fired upon. And we had to park a battleship in the Havana harbor in 1898 to inspire the Spanish-American War. Seems to me sometimes we go looking for trouble.”
“Exactly,” Ziegler interrupted. “It proves once again that our glorious leader is a true conservative and an enthusiastic practitioner of the traditional American way.”
“I suppose,” I agreed. “So the president is laying the groundwork for war with Iran. And if his ratings continue to slip, he will give us even more warnings about the dangers we face from Iranian extremists.”
“More than just warnings,” Ziegler said. “You don’t have the security clearance you’d need for me to tell you any more. But if we keep pushing the Iranians, eventually they’ll push back, and then the president can go on TV to explain how America has been attacked, and we had to strike back to preserve stability in the Middle East and our nation’s credibility. Bingo, he’s a great leader again.”
“But suppose nobody believes him,” I said. “After all, we never found any WMDs in Iraq, and that’s one reason he said we had to invade. Despite that banner on the aircraft carrier in 1993, the mission hasn’t been accomplished. He’s got some credibility problems. How are you going to handle that?”
“Simple, Quillen,” Ziegler concluded. “With or without the Patriot Act and with or without Alberto Gonzales, we can just round up people like you who bring up such topics, and put them away.”
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
