Trigger-happy Kubya drops da bomb

Somewhere in between playing horsey on his ranch and zapping big bad criminals, Governor W. must have found just enough time to hunker down DKE-style with his Nintendo 64 and a stack of old movies. The Godfather. Wargames. Star Wars. Maybe he got confused and started picturing himself as Luke Skywalker, out to save the universe. His confusion would be understandable, since these movies use big words, like "thermonuclear" and "ewok." They also have exciting action sequences that involve blowing stuff up and zooming around in spaceships. And they're a lot more exciting than taxes or Social Security. Joe Lieberman, CC '64, LAW '67, might even suggest they were exciting enough to delude some impressionable kids into copying what they see on the screen. Too bad one of those impressionable kids happens to be the President of the United States.

COURTESY NEWSMAKERS Last week George W. Bush, DC '68, pulled a page from Daddy's playbook and ordered bombing raids to eliminate Iraqi radar stations.

George W. Bush, DC '68, is playing at president like he'd play at a video game—and he's treating the rest of the world like it's part of his own personal action movie. Maybe Bill Clinton, LAW '73, couldn't keep his dick in his pants, but it looks like Bush might not manage to keep his finger off the button. After just one month of holding office, he's already made great strides toward reviving the Cold War, the Gulf War, and even the Balkan War. He's made enemies with his allies and pushed them into allying with his enemies. And it's looking suspiciously like he may be doing all of this not in the name of freedom, but in the name of loyalty—loyalty to Daddy Bush, of course, but to Goddaddy Ron as well.

No sooner had Dubya posed for his first photo-op as president than he set out to complete Loyalty Task No. 1: revive Goddaddy Ron's disastrous nuclear shield system. The plan was simple. Cleverly repackage "Star Wars" as "National Missile Defense" and pass it off as a peace-keeping device. Vindicate Ron's miserable failures of the '80s and blow shit up at the same time. One problem: there were several excellent reasons for throwing this miserable idea in the toilet 15 years ago. First, it almost certainly wouldn't work. The technology to build a reliable and effective shield against nuclear missiles didn't exist then, it doesn't exist now, and it may never exist. Second, it pissed the hell out of a whole lot of scary and powerful people with scary and powerful weapons then, and it's doing the same now. Only this time, Russia's not only mad, it's got China and most of Europe on its side, not to mention the Middle East. Cold War? Check.

True, but we won the Cold War, and maybe we could do it again. What about the Gulf War? We won that too, but only in the strictest sense of the word. Daddy Bush huffed and puffed, but he never did blow Saddam down. Alas, here was W.'s Loyalty Task No. 2: revive Daddy Bush's futile war with Iraq. Drop some bombs over Baghdad in the name of "standard procedure," piss off Saddam enough so that he'll say some mean stuff that will re-inflame public opinion against his country, and then bring in the troops and finish off the job. Round two, game over, right? Yet America lost support for a tirade against Iraq ages ago. Arab Middle Eastern countries are tired of losing out from the trade embargoes, European countries don't understand the point of the whole thing, Israel's not really in the mood to be bombed again in the middle of its own total breakdown, and Russia and China are, once again, just plain pissed. So who does that leave in the once-great Gulf War alliance? Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Great.

Of course, Dubya did run on a platform of limiting overseas involvement, which seemed to imply at the time that he intended to take troops out of places rather than putting them in. Reversing a clear campaign promise like that one would probably be considered bad form, particularly in light of recent family history. This brings up Loyalty Task No. 3: Operation de-Kosovo. What better way to get revenge on the policy baby of the big bad oaf who knocked Daddy down in 1992 while keeping a campaign promise than to yank American troops from Kosovo and leave it up to the Europeans to figure out their own damn problems? Score! Of course, the Europeans are not enlightened enough to quite see it this way, which is why Secretary of State Colin Powell had to assure grumbling NATO dissenters that Ameri-ca "[is] not cutting and running." Not yet, anyway. But the moment it does, the grumbling—and the fighting—will only get louder. And when it becomes deafening, little George, and his country with him, might finally learn the hard way that not everything works out like it does in the movies—even if you know how to make a good cannoli.

We all knew when we elected him that George W. had his head in the clouds. Even those people who liked him knew this; they just called it endearing while the rest of us called it debilitating. But for all the jokes and the chiding, very few anticipated that this cloudiness would truly become frightening. We had a president who lived in a fantasy world once before. His name was Ronald Reagan. He was old, he was confused, and he could have blown up the world with a single phone call. We can only hope that his godson doesn't follow too closely in his footsteps.

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