The Money Wars
“United we stand,” is the battle cry of George W. as he hurls himself into the war effort! “God Bless America,” shouts Dick Cheney as he girds himself for the hand-to-hand combat he’ll be doing in the days ahead!
Are the president and the veep actually going to the front lines in the battle against the terrorism? Not exactly. Instead they are engaged in the political fundraising wars here on the home front. Now that the unregulated, unlimited “soft money” is about to be banned, both the Republican and Democratic parties are mounting all-out pushes to raise as much of this corrupting special-interest money as they can get their fat little fingers around before the ban goes into effect.
Bush has already hit North Carolina for a million-dollar fat-cat lunch, and then he raided Minnesota for a $2 million strike. The commander-in-chief’s war plan calls for him to headline two fundraising events every week for the next few months. Asked if he thought using his war popularity for such a crass political purpose as sacking up campaign cash was appropriate, he smirked and said: “Yes, I do.”
Vice-President Cheney also has no moral qualms about dragging his sack around the country. The elusive vp, rarely seen in public these days, is surfacing to do two forays a week in the fundraising wars. Also on the front lines of the Republican money grab is Rudy Giuliani. The former Big Apple mayor is shamelessly using the September 11 attack as a fundraising stage by headlining a “Salute to America’s Heroes,” expected to haul off at least $5 million in the soon-to-be-banned soft money.
Democrats are out there, too. As a spokeswoman for the party told The New York Times, “One of the few things the parties have in common is we’re making a huge, huge push on fundraising.”
Isn’t it good to know that bipartisanship is alive and well in Washington? And politicians wonder why there’s such deep and wide cynicism about the two-party system.
The Axis of Money
By Gollies, Dick Cheney is nothing if not tough on terrorists. In his speeches and regular appearances on the Sunday morning yakkity-yak shows, the vice-president, formerly of Halliburton Inc., practically growls when he squints his eyes, curls his upper lip and spits out his contempt for terrorism’s “axis of evil,” reserving his fiercest scowl for that scalawag Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
But, wait a minute, is it possible that Dick is a Hussein hypocrite, that while he postures politically, he has previously profited from playing corporate footsie with the country that he now brands a terrorist state? Yes. In fact, did Cheney, the former oil equipment executive, help rebuild Saddam’s economic machine that now stands accused of sponsoring terrorism? Yes.
“No, no,” retorted Cheney during the 2000 election when ABC’s Sam Donaldson asked him directly if his Halliburton firm, through subsidiaries, was actually doing business with Hussein’s government. “I had a firm policy that I wouldn’t do anything in Iraq — even arrangements that were supposedly legal,” protested the vp-to-be.
He lied. Indeed, just before election day 2000, the estimable Financial Times of London discovered that two Halliburton-owned subsidiaries sold more oil field technologies and equipment to Ol’ Mr. Evil Saddam than any other U.S. corporation, pocketing some $24 million in sales. These deals helped Hussein restore his oil-production capabilities, which are used to finance the militaristic adventures that Cheney now labels “evil.”
Technically, Cheney’s sales to Saddam were legal, even though they were against official U.S. policy. The trick was that he ran the deals through Halliburton’s foreign subsidiaries, thus appearing to be politically clean while raking in dirty money.
To learn more, check the little Web site that surfaced the Financial Times story: www.gwbush.com
It Means ‘Pass Time’
Major League Baseball has joined with an Internet service called RealNetworks Inc. to record and digitalize a typical three-hour game then zap it onto your computer screen so you can watch it in under 30 minutes.
They don’t simply hit the fast-forward button to make the game zip along in herky-jerky fashion. Instead, they whack about two-and-a-half hours from each game, showing you only what they refer to as the “meaningful parts.” Baseball’s honcho for “interactive media” gushes that this condensed game-in-a-pill approach offers “geographically or time-displaced fans an alternate way to enjoy baseball.”
Sheesh, how can a guy who speaks such gobbledygook be in charge of showing the game? OK, I admit that there are a lot of pausing, stalling, jockeying, and other maneuvering that take place between plays, but hey, baseball is slow. Get over it. That’s the way it’s supposed to be — an evolving drama with nuance, color, deliberate pacing, and bursts of action that take you away from the helter-skelter of our otherwise rush-rush worlds. It’s not called the national pastime for nothing. Let a little time pass, and enjoy the moment.
With a 30-minute condensation on your PC, you’re not really getting the joy of the game. You won’t even get through your bag of hot nuts, much less your second beer. That’s no fun.
By reducing the pleasure of baseball to warp-speed highlights, you’re speeding up your life. Then you’re dead. And who’s in a rush to get there?
Jim Hightower is a speaker and author. To book Jim, visit www.jimhightower.com. To subscribe to his monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, send $15, your name, and address to: Lowdown, PO Box 20596, New York, NY 10011
This article appears in March 22 • 2002.