My Politics: Federal Government (sigh)

Remember the good old days? Bush 2 is inaugurated. (Okay, in his mind the word means "crowned." He's not a dictionary kind of guy.) Promises Washington the "corporate presidency." Despite the dot-com collapse-a-thon, there's still vestigial respect on the street for the "corporate approach." Enron's in the future. Maybe corporations DO have some secret mojo. Yay, Bush, Mr. President CEO. Then comes the meteor. 9/11. My goodness. Everything changes. They need to deliver, be clever, have a plan. Not a freeze-dried plan, either. Something cool they've just dreamed up based on the ways things really are. My heartmate and I stand on our gravel driveway, in farm country at night. For a week no blinking lights transit the sky. No UFOs dare show their jukebox lights and mysterious ways. Life has changed. We thought. But it turns out, no one read the small print. This is the OLD corporate model in the White House. The BIG BRAIN model. The BIG BRAIN at the top. "I'll have all the ideas, thank you." Only this time replaced by a front man, a bunch of big egos, and an ideologically-tainted agenda some would say divorced from the facts and chillingly inflexible. At least when Thelma and Louise drive off the cliff, they don't pretend they're taking the shortest route to the next town over. Bless you, Bob Woodward. You've chronicled this freak show. I once thought it was rhetorical extravagance to say that any idiot could be president. No more.