Blessings and Bombings

                              By MAUREEN DOWD of the New York Times

                               November 21, 2001

 

            WASHINGTON -- In "The Crack-Up," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that

          "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed

            ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to

            function."

 

            So now we know for sure that George W. Bush has a first-rate

            intelligence.

 

            The president, his team and the rest of us have been juggling a lot

            of contradictory notions since Sept. 11.

 

            Many who came of age during the Vietnam War, wincing at America's

            overweening military stance in the world, are now surprised to find

            themselves lustily rooting for the overwhelming display of force

            against the Taliban.

 

            Over the years the country's ethos had gone from John Wayne to Jerry

            Springer, from gunfighter nation to anger-management nation, rugged

            frontier mentality to designer lifestyle mentality.

 

            Once we prided ourselves on being strong and silent. Then we got

            weak and chatty. And now we seem to be evolving to strong and                                       chatty.

 

            We are pulverizing our enemies even as we try to show them a little

            compassion, crushing our foes even as we try to understand and

            address some of their grievances against us.

 

            We are functioning holding opposing ideas, new ones every day.

            The president invited 52 Muslim diplomats to a traditional lamb and

            rice dinner at the White House Monday to wish them "a blessed

            Ramadan," even as the U.S. bombed Muslims in Afghanistan over

            Ramadan.

 

            The president urged Americans to travel and act normally as they

            celebrated the holiday season, even as the White House and the

            Capitol were closed to public tours, and the audience for the

            lighting of the national Christmas tree was limited to ticket

            holders for the first time.

 

            George Bush was rooting out Osama bin Laden from underground even as

            Dick Cheney was burrowing underground.

 

            The president continued to cozy up to the Saudis and protect them

            with American forces, even though the Saudis were educating,

            exporting and financing terrorists.

 

            Administration officials made the argument that the Saudis are bad

            rulers but great allies, even as their bad rule threatened us more

            than their allied behavior helped us.

 

            The president told aides not to press the Saudis to change the

            strict Islamic teaching in schools that encourages young men to die

            for Allah and hate Western infidels. "We didn't go to the American

            Methodists about Tim McVeigh," Mr. Bush said to aides. This even as

            the president told the Muslim diplomats dining at the White House

            that the holidays were "a good time for people of different faiths

            to learn more about each other."

 

            Condoleezza Rice urged that women be included in the post-Taliban

            government in Afghanistan and have equal rights. "When women are

            fully incorporated, a country is better off for it," she said. This

            even as our allies, the Northern Alliance, did not let any women

            into the reopened 600-seat movie theater in Kabul to see the Afghan

            film "Uruj," about three mujahedeen heroes who fought the Soviet

            invasion of Afghanistan. (No date movies or chick flicks for these

            guys.)

 

            The president christened the Justice Department building for the

            antiwar presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, even as the U.S. was

            waging a war. John Ashcroft sought to link his assault on terrorism,

            with its heightened surveillance and wiretaps, with his Democratic

            predecessor's assault on organized crime. But Kerry Kennedy Cuomo

            declared publicly yesterday that her father would never have

            swallowed the restrictions on civil liberties that the Bush attorney

            general is pushing.

 

            The president continued to espouse the conservative orthodoxy of

            keeping the federal government from growing, even as he breathed a

            sigh of relief when Congress voted to turn airport screeners into

            federal employees, thus saving the Republicans a political beating

            on the issue.

 

            After Sept. 11, Mr. Bush promised $20 billion to New York for

            reconstruction, but the White House says the city has gotten enough

            for now, though only about half of it may be in hand. No bailouts

            for big business was a Bush principle, but the White House speedily

            funneled money to the airlines and limited payouts for insurance

            companies, both politically powerful industries.

 

            Mr. Bush definitely has a talent for holding opposed ideas in his

            mind. But then, he did start as a compassionate conservative.