New hope for the inarticulate

AUSTIN, Texas -- The president is a Texan, the governor is an Aggie, God's in His heaven, all's right with the world. And I want it noted for the record that I am doing my dead-level best to be cheerful about this revolting development.

Several reasons for non-Republicans to perk up:

George W. Bush is not stupid.

George W. Bush is not mean.

Most of us non-Republicans didn't vote for him, so no one can blame us. No matter what happens for the next four years, we can say, "It's not our fault; we didn't elect him." This will be especially useful when dealing with persons of the French persuasions.

High entertainment value: The fact that Bush cannot express himself well in the English language is a constant source of delight to us all. In his defense, no matter how badly he mangles it, you can almost always tell what he was trying to say. The Texanism is, "My tongue got caught in my eyeteeth, so I couldn't see what I saw saying."

Is our children learning?

He wants to be the Education President.

He knows that Canada is one of our most important neighbors to the north.

Sometimes he is able to laugh at himself.

50 years later, the tragedy of nuclear tests in Nevada

As golden anniversaries go, it's a somber occasion. In a forlorn expanse of desert scarcely an hour's drive northwest of Las Vegas, on Jan. 27, 1951, the Nevada Test Site went into operation by exploding an atomic bomb.

During more than a decade, mushroom clouds often rose toward the sky. Winds routinely carried radioactive fallout to communities in Utah, Nevada and northern Arizona. Meanwhile, news media dutifully conveyed U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announcements to downwind residents: "There is no danger."

In the region, journalists followed the national media spin and threw in some extra bravado. "'Baby' A-Blast May Provide Facts on Defense Against Atomic Attack," said a headline in the Las Vegas Sun on March 13, 1955.

Different players, same game

Chavez has been cruelly taken from them, but what an immense favor Bush/Cheney did the Democrats by putting up Ashcroft and Norton! It's hard to stir up liberal passions over Powell at the State Department or Rice as National Security Adviser, or even O'Neill at Treasury. How could you be worse than Madeleine Albright or Samuel Berger? And who cares about O'Neill, when the effective ruler of the economy is over at the Fed?

But with Ashcroft scheduled for the Justice Department, there are rich political and fundraising opportunities for the Democrats, lashing the Naderites with "We told you so," and painting lurid scenarios of the Klan Grand Wizard taking up residence in the Department of Justice. Here comes the Beast: Ashcroft, the foe of choice; Ashcroft, the militia-symp; Ashcroft, the racist hero of the old Confederacy. What can you say for the guy, except that he's probably marginally to the left of Eminem, great white hope of the rap crowd and currently in line for four more Grammies.

Whole lotta borking going on

AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, dear. The Borking of Linda Chavez is leading to another round of sulking, hurt feelings and general acrimony, making the upcoming fight over the confirmation of Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft even more festive.

Now everybody's prepared to nurse grudges and hug hurt feelings. The nice thing about dealing with real 5-year-olds is that they're easily distracted and get over their tantrums quickly.

The Chavez situation was simply hopeless, and the first people to realize it were the Bushies, who dropped her like a hot rock. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that Chavez took an illegal immigrant from Guatemala into her home out of the kindness of her heart and paid her a little for housework out of kindness, as well. The trouble is, that's illegal.

Chavez herself is on the record as saying that Zoe Baird was guilty of "harboring an illegal alien" and therefore could not serve in the Cabinet.

There was just no way around it: Chavez's nomination was doomed by what might in fact have been an act of kindness. Makes you think there might be something wrong with that law, doesn't it?

Nature's revenge

The sky is black with cows coming home to roost. In Germany, it's probably the biggest crisis since 1945. Millions of Germans daren't sausage. In France, ranchers and slaughterhouse workers are blocking all roads to Paris, and traffic is backed up 100 kilometers. The reason is mad cow. Last week, the Health Minister for Germany's largest state, Baerbel Hoehn in North-Rhine-Westphalia, told the Cologne Express: ''Whoever wants to be totally certain shouldn't eat beef at the moment.'' Bavaria, where the second mad cow case was confirmed in mid-December, pledges to spend $9.1 million to research how to combat the disease.

In France, there were 18 cases of mad cow disease in the first three months of last year compared with 30 in all of 1999. Cow intestines, traditionally used to make sausages and other charcuterie, have been banned, owing to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) fears. In October, BSE-infected meat reached three major hypermarket chains, sparking a 40 percent fall in consumption. In November, beef ribs were outlawed, unless cut differently.

Ashcroft and racism: breaking the code

A surreal mixup disrupted CNN programming for a few moments on Jan. 17 when the network switched to live coverage of Colin Powell. While the retired general appeared on the screen, the audio was the voice of Sen. Edward Kennedy at another Senate hearing -- as the senior senator from Massachusetts railed against John Ashcroft's record of opposing civil rights.

Suddenly, a rattled CNN anchor was apologizing for the technical difficulty. And viewers were left to ponder the unintended juxtaposition of media images.

We're told that the new administration has embraced the concept of diversity based on merit, with a prime example being the choice of Powell as secretary of state. But the most important domestic policy job is attorney general. And the Ashcroft nomination has sparked a firestorm of resistance for many reasons, including his racial history.

Testifying, Ashcroft did not lack for requisite sound bites: "I believe that racism is wrong... I deplore racism and I always will." His wording was always careful. At one point he said, "I condemn those things that are condemnable."

No columnists in the cabinet

AUSTIN, Texas -- Worst idea of 2001 so far: naming a newspaper columnist to the U.S. Cabinet. You really don't want columnists running the government. As any newspaper reporter can tell you, all newspaper columnists work maybe two hours a day and spend the rest of their time drinking martinis and misbehaving.

In addition to this deplorable professional life, Linda Chavez brings some truly unwelcome baggage to the position of labor secretary.

What is it about people who are drawn to one political extreme and then flip to the other? Chavez started out as a member of the Young People's Socialist League and now is on the conservative extreme of the Republican Party. You notice that many of the neo-conservatives have similar backgrounds -- there seems to be some personality affinity for true believership.

In the Bible, Job says he wishes that his enemy had written a book. A newspaper column works just as well.

As one of Chavez's admirers put it, "She embodies the term 'movement conservative.'" That's another way of saying "self-righteous zealot."

Energy policy

AUSTIN, Texas -- George W. Bush is threatening to give us an energy policy that marches militantly in exactly the wrong direction.

Bush's views on energy are still those of a West Texas oilman. He once ran for Congress from Midland because he thought Jimmy Carter was leading us toward "European-style socialism.'' What oilmen want for energy policy is Drill More.

At one point during a debate with Al Gore, Bush suggested we encourage drilling in Mexico to lessen our dependence on "foreign'' oil. Startled the Mexicans.

In addition to Bush, who took three oil companies into financial trouble, the new administration boasts Dick Cheney, CEO of Halliburton; Commerce Secretary Don Evans, chairman of Tom Brown oil; and Condoleezza Rice, a director of Chevron. Two of Bush's biggest donors are Ken Lay of Enron and energy player Sam Wyly, who put up the money for the phony ad praising Bush's environmental record.

Confirmation path greased for Ashcroft? Not so fast!

We've come a long way in this country since the 19th century -- but not so long that an admirer of the Confederacy can't be nominated to run the Justice Department of the United States. The president of the Confederate government, Jefferson Davis, is a hero to Sen. John Ashcroft, the man selected to become the next attorney general.

Ashcroft told the Southern Partisan quarterly in a 1998 interview: "Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda."

Evidently, Ashcroft can't abide the idea that preservation of slavery was a "perverted agenda."

No honeymoon

MARATHON, Texas -- So far out in West Texas, there's only God and country on the radio. Along with endless sky and no cellphones. Drive across the Rio Grande in your pickup for lunch and say, "Oh, good, the War on Drugs is bound to work eventually, because there's only 27 trucks waiting on the other side."

In the odd way that the detachment of distant places seems to reinforce reality, it becomes ever clearer that the Republicans in Washington are in an impossible bind.

President-elect George W. Bush seems to have made the odd choice of governing as if he had a mandate in a country where the hot new bumper sticker is "Re-elect Gore." One watches the Republicans in the Senate seal their own doom -- no power sharing, no committee chairmanships. And what do they think the Democrats are going to do when the D's take power?

It's like writing election law -- if you try to bend it in your favor one time, it will come around and bite you on the behind the next.

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