Stateside with Rosalea Barker
Uncle Sam's Waistband
Pardon my delving, but what is going on down there? It would be very nice, thank you, for a nation as well-respected as
New Zealand is by the people of the US not to give the words "proportional representation" a bad name. It is a concept
that will come into its own over the next 20 years here as it becomes increasingly obvious to even older members of the
two main parties that a politically complex internal landscape would enable the United States to understand and deal
better with a politically complex external world. End of pontification.
So, the week that was. It started off with the local news bulletins showing the images they had taken of the peace march
across the Golden Gate Bridge, from the point of view of how it impacted traffic flow. It was shocking to see how many
California Highway Patrol officers had been assigned to cover the march, but I suppose most people just thought it was a
reaction to the terrorism alerts regarding public monuments and the fact that it was going to be the bridge's 65th
birthday on Monday (Memorial Day). Once they were given the amateur video of the girl who was dragged away from the
marchers, all the local news stations used that footage, and lengthy interviews with the girl, her father, and the CHP
were aired.
Was it my imagination or did more newscasters and reporters than usual wear black at the beginning of the week, when the
memorial service for Chandra Levy was held? Whatever you might think about the local Washington intern's life, loves and
death, there is no mistaking the devastation writ large upon the face of her mother and father by her disappearance and
the recent discovery of her remains. These are respectable, decent, honest people who quite clearly feel they've had
their trust betrayed. They look so much like they are fighting against the weight of the whole world that you wonder if
the discovery of their daughter's remains on the very day an interview on 'Oprah' would have aired, combined with the
sheriff's deputy at their door keeping all reporters away, shouldn't have the media visiting Fort Lee, Virginia, to see
if any year-old carparks have been recently dug up and resealed. I mean no disrepect.
Then came all the brouhaha about the FBI and its restructuring, which steadily opened the bureau up to more and more
criticism the more it tried to explain and extricate itself. This morning the director himself, Robert Mueller, appeared
for the first time on a Sunday morning talk show, CBS's 'Face the Nation'. Mueller has George Clooney eyes, a fact which
gives me the uneasy feeling that his personal appearance was being saved for a time when he (and it) would be really,
really needed. He disclosed that he has daily briefings with the President in which he goes over the "threat matrix" and
what's been done to prevent terrorism in the last 12 hours. Prevention is a new goal for the FBI, which previously had
only been on the prosecutory end of the chain. You need someone with George Clooney eyes when you're trying to sell new
powers of undercover investigation for FBI agents, such as attending public meetings and religious services.
Yes, he said "12 hours" and said it again in respect of what the CIA head, George Tenent, reports on to the President as
well. But you get the picture - strong President, eager to protect the American people, meeting in the Oval Office with
the CIA and FBI heads. Separately. CIA first, of course, since it reports directly to the President and National
Security Agency, not to a government department and the Attorney-General. I don't suppose there's any hope of Tenent and
Mueller exchanging any useful intelligence information as they pass in the hallway.
Attorney-General "J for Job" Ashcroft was over on another talk show being browbeaten into giving an assurance that the
FBI whistleblower won't lose her job. The message he really wanted to get across was that the refocusing of the FBI has
a benign - not a malign, anti-civil liberty - goal. "If you destroy people at the rate we did on September 11," he said
of the FBI, then obviously prosecution is not as good a goal as prevention. One gets the sense that the only thing
that's hit the fan so far is some preliminary breaking of wind and judging by the stench from that, it's time to grab
the gas mask and don the wet weather gear.
Which brings us to all this absolute nonsense about India and Pakistan, which the media have fallen for hook, line and
war games scenario. 'This Week' should know better. The only voice of reason was Cokie's quiet pointing out that the two
countries have been less at war since they've both had nuclear capability than at any other time in their troubled
history. Is this just one more example of a beleaguered US administration trying to make itself look good at home by
turning somebody else's pimple into a boil then sending in the lancers? The words of Senator William Fulbright in his
1966 book 'The Arrogance of Power' are as true now as they were then: "Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also
to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the
means as well as the duty to do God's work."
But heck, I've nearly used up all my thousand words and still not told you what Uncle Sam's waistband is or why it
interests me. It's the transcontinental railroad that was built from Sacramento to Chicago during, after, and because of
the Civil War. "Because" because, if the southern states hadn't seceded, the bill to approve government support of using
the middle instead of the southern route for a transcontinental railroad would never have passed. Did you know that the
rails are 4 feet 8 and a half inches apart because President Lincoln decreed they should be? This time next week, I'll
be travelling over them. Free at last.
Lea Barker
California
Sunday, 2 June 2002