Clarke in the cornfield

While pondering the Clarke controversy, samsara struck me: We’re living in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Submitted for your approval: The story of an all-powerful spoiled brat -- call him Georgie -- who thinks all reality should conform to his whim. When someone says something he does not want to hear, he throws a fit. “You’re a bad man! A very bad man! Into the cornfield!”

And everyone around him proclaims: “That was a good thing you did, Georgie. That was a very good thing.” They know that if they don’t feed the kid’s fantasies, if they allow themselves a single independent thought, they too might end up in the cornfield.

That’s why the G.O.P. attack machine gets away with so many illogical, contradictory, and deceitful accusations against Richard Clarke. Clarke’s a Kerry-loving partisan, the smear-mongers say -- even though he’s a registered Republican, and a hawk. Clarke’s a softie who wanted to “arrest” terrorists, they say -- even though he’d been screaming for years before 911 about the need to chuck bombs at Osama Bin Laden and sic the CIA on Al Qaeda. Clarke didn’t make his concerns known to the administration, they say -- and never mind the fact that he practically shouted for attention, only to be ignored. It would have been a mistake to do as Clarke suggested, some administration sources say. We did everything he suggested, other sources say. Clarke was out of the loop before 911, Cheney says. No, other Bushites say, he was the guy in charge of counter-terrorism during 911, and he therefore deserves all blame for what went wrong that day.

The smears don’t have to make sense. The G.O.P.’s thoughtcrime enforcement patrols keep much of the electorate afraid of any reality other than the Georgie-approved reality. Richard Clarke is a bad man. He’s a VERY bad man. That’s all you need to know.

If George W. Bush had spent the entire State of the Union address chanting “Hail Satan!” while masturbating, Jay Leno’s monologue would have switched the subject to Monica Lewinsky. And millions of good Republicans would have gone to bed thinking: That was a GOOD thing you did, Georgie. A very good thing.