007: Live and Let Die

Maureen Dowd had the Bush crowd figured out even before they got into the White House. The latest video images circulating show the Bush Administration's preparations for Hurricane Katrina -- footage that reminds me of the President sitting around like a deer caught in the headlights during the 9/11 attacks. What more do we really need to know? What part of stupid and evil do we not understand? Seriously, read a handful of sample columns from Dowd's biting 2004 collection Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk or, if you have enough of a pulse, look around. They're creeps and most of us know it by now. A rump state of hardcore loyalists and predatory opportunists will stick with these birds until the bitter end no matter how badly they botch things. No cognitive dissonance working in their heads, apparently. Very much like the scenes (from the excellent film Downfall) of Hitler diehards roaming around like thugs, the saner people trapped in Berlin and the Bunker realizing that their Leader is going completely off the deep end and will drag them down with him unless they can escape.

Barring miracles or happy surprise endings, we're stuck in Bushworld at least until early 2009. My poor dear readers! Without parlimentary procedures for bringing down the government with votes of no confidence, the formation of new coalitions, and the calling for new elections, what else is there to do? If we're to remain within the confines of the existing system, nothing can stop them. Impeachment is a dream and a Nixon-like resignation unlikely (understatement).

Besides, Bushworld people will always be around. We've got to live with them -- and (ha ha) they've got to live with us.

On a lighter note, Daniel Craig is the new James Bond. There is some whining about it, but what's the big deal? He'll do fine. My vote will always go with Sean Connery, anyway. The literary Bond character is brutal and lucky, and Connery played the part perfectly. Roger Moore turned Bond into more of a Simon Templar deal, and the films got goofier, but he was fine as were all the actors who've played him. Roger Moore began his run with Live and Let Die (1973), set partly in New Orleans and involving a touch of the voodoo. Little did the creators know that thirty years later in Bushworld, "Live and Let Die" would be the basic ethos. Iraq? New Orleans? Scandals? Who the hell cares in Bushworld, as long as they can go hunting, bumble around the Crawford "ranch," and do whatever they damned well please? Perhaps the new incarnation of Bond can save us. . . . .

Meanwhile, here's a fun 007 website: http://www.ianfleming.org/index.shtml

Signing off for now, Corregidor . . . . .