The Asbestos President

By MAUREEN DOWD

ASHINGTON — Being witty about poisoned drinking water isn't easy. It requires a certain obtuse savoir-faire.

Our president gave it a go Thursday night at a press dinner here.

"As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water," he told the crowd of radio and TV correspondents at the Washington Hilton. "To base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we needed to test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating."

I guess a guy who can yuk it up about a woman he has executed in Texas can yuk it up about anything.

But it was a creepy moment.

It worked for Erin Brockovich to joke about the carcinogens in the water enviro-villains were sipping because she wanted to get the poison out. W. wants to keep the poison in — to help the enviro-villains who contributed to his campaign.

Forgive me, Al Gore.

I used to think you were striving too geekily to be Millennial Man. The Palm Pilot on your belt. The Blackberry. The Earth-cam you dreamed of. Citing "Futurama" as your favorite show. The obsessions about global warming and the information highway. Boldly choosing the first Jewish running mate.

But now I'm going hungry for a shred of modernity. Bush II has reeled backward so fast, economically, environmentally, globally, culturally, it's redolent of Dorothy clicking her way from the shimmering spires of Oz to a depressed black-and-white Kansas.

With the guidance of his regents, the Duke of Halliburton and Cardinal Rumsfeld, W. has set off the specter of a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and "China Syndrome" fears, rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women's rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the cold war.

The son has become what the father used to privately deride as an "extra- chromosome" conservative.

W.'s press conference on Thursday boiled down to one exhortation: "Let's hear it for corporations!"

This administration is so hawkish that Colin Powell is cast as a sandals- and-beads peacenik. And John Ashcroft threatens to fry the F.B.I. spy.

The Clinton team wrestled with the messy grays of a post-cold-war world. The Bush team decided it was easier to bring back the cold war.

"These guys are linear," says a top official from Bush I. "They have to have black and white. They have to have bogeymen."

One veteran cold warrior who served under several presidents told me he was shocked that Bush II had refrozen the cold war.

"They've turned the clock back to 1983," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to slap the Russians around. They're already on their knees. We don't have to humiliate them. We need to use some finesse, to allow them some dignity.

"The thing I always hated about Clinton foreign policy was they seemed to be making it up as they went along. But these guys seem to be doing that, too. They are negative toward old policies, without coming up with anything positive."

The regents moved quickly to cast the administration in the gray-flannel image of their salad days. (One Republican says that Henry Kissinger once called Mr. Rumsfeld the most ruthless man he knew, all global despots included.)

Not satisfied with smacking around the Russians, humiliating Christie Whitman, downsizing Condi Rice and brushing back Colin Powell, the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has no patience for the plaints of health-conscious yuppies, either.

You can just hear Rummy, slugging back a Scotch with Cheney in the Oval after they've put the Kid to bed, grousing about the gazillion dollars' worth of investments he has to sell to avoid a conflict, and growling: "Real men can drink twice that much arsenic. And how soon can we get some lead back in the lousy paint?"

What's next? Asbestos, DDT, bomb shelters, filterless cigarettes? Patti Page? Rummy griping that Laura Bush is too assertive?

W. never seemed happier than he did on Friday at the White House, surrounded by the old-timers from the Baseball Hall of Fame, basking in memories of his beloved 50's.

He is only our second boomer president, but his White House needs Geritol. He seems older than his sprite of a father. He goes to bed early and, except for sports, is oddly disconnected from the culture. He seems to have no engagement with contemporary America, except by virtue of being the president of the United States.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), April 03, 2001

Answers

"is oddly disconnected from the culture. He seems to have no engagement with contemporary America, except by virtue of being the president of the United States."

Mabe disconnected from the culture of New York, Boston, Washingto, Chicago, L.A. Seattle...

but all those states in the middle, you know all those states Al Gore lost? you know the states where America lives? He fits right in with those people.

These elitists think they are America but W knows where the people are who matter most.

-- W is better than Al (nana@nana.booboo), April 03, 2001.

but all those states in the middle, you know all those states Al Gore lost? you know the states where America lives? He fits right in with those people.

Oh, yeah...the hillbilly, redneck, beer-swilling, banjo-playing, barefoot and toothless, trailer-trash masses. The place where the great authors, artists, statesmen, philosophers and other deep-thinkers originate. Silly me.

-- blah (blah@scum.com), April 03, 2001.

Faulkner and Whelty were from Mississippi.

-- uradumbass (idiot@is.u), April 03, 2001.

I guess "blah (blah@scum.com" beliefs would make him a racist as most African Americans have their roots in those states.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 03, 2001.

Are you seriously claiming that Faulkner and Welty would have voted for Bush?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 03, 2001.

"The place where the great authors, artists, statesmen, philosophers and other deep-thinkers originate."

Just responding to that.

-- Tiger Woods (hgf @uih . jioij), April 03, 2001.

"Are you seriously claiming that Faulkner and Welty would have voted for Bush? "

Are you seriously claiming that they would have voted for algore?!!

Maybe Nader, but certainly not the wooden dorkmeister.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 03, 2001.