WSJ's Christopher Buckley: Sir, the Light Is On . . .

[question everything]

(I read this before the debate and was laughing hard at these paragraphs...)

Sir, the Light Is On . . .

By CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
September 30, 2004; Page A16


(snip)

Tonight's debate is on foreign policy, which since we no longer care what other countries think about us, means Iraq and the Global War on Terror. Mr. Kerry must explain why his foreign policy vis-à-vis (as he might put it) Iraq really does resemble a windsurfer tacking to the tune of a Strauss waltz. For his part, Mr. Bush must explain why 1,000-plus American lives, $200 billion, daily beheadings on al Qaeda TV, along with the estimate of his own intelligence services that civil war may loom in Iraq constitute "progress." If it looks like a mire and quags like a mire -- it might just be a quagmire.

(snip)

Is it too late to rehire Gen. Shinseki, who had the temerity to suggest, before the dogs of war were unleashed on Babylon, that it might just take several hundred thousand of them to occupy -- oops, liberate -- the damn place? (Temerity for which he was promptly sacked.) But wait. All that is in the past, and what this debate is about, my fellow Americans, is the -- future. This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an Ameri . . . Sir, the light is on, but your time is up.

(This time, the light will be mounted on their podiums. Coming in 2008: Electrical current will be passed into the groin of any candidate exceeding his or her allotted time.)

Yet despite the Microsoft-like formatting, this will be must-see TV. Eighty million people will be watching intently, not daring to get up and use the bathroom or fetch another bag of Doritos for fear of missing the big moment when Mr. Bush calls Kim Jong Il "Ding Dong 2" or Mr. Kerry announces that he met the Easter Bunny in Laos in '68. Suspense will build as we wait for the first candidate to pull the Reagan Debate Lever and say, "Ask yourself, are you safer now than you were four years ago?"

(snip)


Mr. Buckley, editor of Forbes FYI, is the author, most recently, of "Florence of Arabia," just published by Random House.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109649854001331868,00.html

[Richardo]

1. Yes, he's conservative, but he's also a great writer. Funny, too.

Unlike, say, P.J. O'Rourke.

[Bunny]

2. P.J. was funny back in the day.

When he was writing for the National Lampoon. He's pretty unfunny these past few years, isn't he?

[Richardo]

3. I agree - his Lampoon work was funny. Now: 'Tiresome'

:hi: bunnyj!

Feelin' better?

[Bunny]

4. Much better, thanks!

:hi:

[pelagius]

5. Chris Buckley makes me laugh...

...just by the way he skewers the shibboleths of Beltway behavior. PJ used to make me laugh, but now he just seems cranky. I liked him better when he was doing drugs.

[question everything]

6. Some years back I read his "the White House Mess"

and it started by Reagan finally taking the helicopter to fly back home and some movies or a show was staged on his behalf, to give him the impression that he finally started a war - to make him happy. This was great.

I was thinking of it when, three years after he left, Bush started his war and wondered whether Reagan was holding a grudge..