as awareness of abuses at abu ghurayb prison spreads, the public chorus calling for defense secretary donald rumsfeld to resign has grown louder and more emphatic to the point where its difficult to tell the content of a news broadcast from those 'gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now' bladder medication commercials.
i can certainly understand the outrage--i've been very critical of rumsfeld since he was first appointed--but this is a moment in history when it behooves us to forego reflexive responses in favor of rationality. to choose any other course would be doing a great injustice to donald rumsfeld and the administration that elevated him to his current office. more importantly, we'd be doing an injustice to ourselves.
telling this donald "you're fired" might satisfy our impulsive need for immediate gratification but isn't that just a tad too convenient? when the going gets tough, why do we so often permit those who act tough to get going?
perhaps an example will illustrate my point more clearly.
if you or i were to stuff 15lbs of what the current president's father once referred to as 'doo doo' into a 1mil plastic bag with a 10lb maximum load rating, bring the sack into the house, attach it to a ceiling fan using a length of 2lb test fishing line of questionable quality and then activate the fan, is it likely we could simply resign and leave the resulting mess to be cleaned up by the next person who occupies the room?
throughout the past several years, rumsfeld has exhorted us to bite the bullet, chided us for being faint of heart, admonished us to never give up and snidely smirked at those who seemed overly cautious. his confidence in our collective resolve has been constant. doesn't he deserve the same from us. i'll admit that im motivated in some small part by the thrill of seeing don in his finest hour, drawing upon every ounce of his strength in order to make himself appear contrite and concerned. i don't think id easily tire of seeing this magnificent warrior in action, facing down the might of the us senate, triumphantly forcing them to concur that life is, indeed, full of surprises.
i'm not so foolish to believe that what works for me is going to be nearly adequate for the rest of the world. a harsh word from the president...even an apology is unlikely to suffice. rumsfeld will likely have to 'do' something to convince his detractors that he gets it.
this administration is peerless when it comes to bridging the bog of substance with images, symbols and colors so im sure they don't need my modest suggestions. still, i would be less than who i for withholding it in this time of crisis.
so here goes:
like the president, this concept derives power from simplicity. rumsfeld agrees to spend a few nights in a detention cell. ideally, it would be a cell in iraq but i guess the lincoln dungeon would work as well. the important thing is he be photographed wearing a hood, preferably naked, possibly wired to a couple 1.5v batteries and someone should scrawl a message like 'shock and ow!' on his arm using a marker. to make it appear authentic, he'll have to let the mps take their best shot at him. instead of lynndie england for the female guard role, i'd propose karen hughes as a pinch-hitter to keep things from spinning out of control. along that line, i don't think anyone wants to see don masturbating.
if any of this seems excessive, please keep something in mind: it's critical the people of iraq finally see our system (which we want them to adopt as their system) is really based on all of us being equal under the law.
theres one additional benefit which ill go into should anyone express interest...the images that are captured during this event will lend themselves to an incredible series of 30-second spots to support the upcoming re-election campaign.
(here's a sneak preview:
spot opens with the president disembarking from chopper one without tripping.
voice over: i'm george bush and i approved this message...)