High Masculine Tones

The urban legend goes that Tom Lehrer quit performing when Henry Kissinger was given the Nobel Peace Prize, because the award had rendered political satire obsolete. That bit of apocrypha came to mind last week when America's most beloved war criminal was appointed to lead an 'independent' inquiry into the September 11th attacks. Though the decision makes sense given the administration's understandable desire for an investigation more whitewash than Whitewater, it also suggests that there are some folks inside the White House with a keen and malicious sense of irony. Sam Heldman describes it as 'a grotesque triumphant dance of the currently-powerful, designed largely to make the opposition feel marginalized and disheartened.'


Let's not forget some of the other sardonic appointments served up as delicious black comedy. Liar and drug trafficker John Poindexter has been charged with building a data mining superapplication that they hope will track our every electronically-recorded move. An inspired and audacious choice to run the program, and have you seen his office's logo? If that doesn't get the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy nuts foaming at the mouth, nothing will. Then there's Elliot Abrams, another Iran/Contra hack who actively covered up human rights atrocities by the Contras. He's been appointed to head up -- this is gonna kill you -- the Office for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Relations. Toss in John Negroponte and Otto Reich, whose own blood-soaked exploits engage an amusing aesthetic tension with their current positions of eminence.


I eagerly await the next triumph of the wit. Their artistic imperatives demand that each act top the last for sheer daring. But how? Perhaps they'll nominate Kenneth Starr for the Supreme Court. Or G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to head up the FBI and CIA. Michael Milken to run the SEC. Maybe David Duke can chair a Presidential Panel on Race Relations.


None of these speculations are likely to come to pass. The minds at work in Washington are too brilliantly fiendish for a mere admirer such as myself to anticipate their next masterwork. Their genius for outrage is far too profound.


::Image clipped from Get Your War On
::Stephen Thompson, The Onion AV Club: Interview with Tom Lehrer
::David Corn, The Nation: Kissinger's Back...As 9/11 Truth-Seeker
::Project Censored: Bush Appoints Former Criminals to Key Government Roles
::Electronic Privacy Information Center: Total Information Awareness Page