As has been usual for a while now, my brother Rob Roy and my nephew Jason dropped by at eleven on Saturday and I proceeded give Jason his weekly cooking lesson. The lad’s been picking it up quite well, I must say. Last week, for example, he made mayonnaise from scratch, using organic eggs, yellow Umbrian olive and Dordogne walnut oils, juice from fresh, hand squeezed lemons, Dijon dry mustard, Himalayan Jurassic sea salt, still German mineral water and dried cayenne from my herb garden. If you’ve never tasted fresh, real mayonnaise, by the way, please do so – you’ll never buy that stuff in a jar again.
This week, it finally being August, I figured it was time for some grilled and smoked meats out on the barbecue. So we did those. Next week, of course, we’ll do grilled seafood, however, my instincts told me to grill meat first. My instincts were correct, the cookout was fine and Rob Roy was in high spirits, since, as regular readers of this Web log know, he and Jason don’t get any meat at home. But, after we cleaned up, and the dishwasher was humming away while we enjoyed cold drinks on the deck, Jason took me aside and asked my avuncular advice about Man’s oldest conundrum – Woman.
“Paisley and I had a fight,” he confided.
“Excuse me,” Rob Roy immediately responded, “I think I’ve heard all I can stand about that.” He abruptly took his leave, headed inside on a bee line for my wide screen HDTV. Jason watched his father’s retreat with a certain despair. “I don’t think Dad’s a very good listener,” he commented.
“It’s said to be a widespread male trait,” I observed. “I don’t think it’s your fault or anything.”
Jason nodded sagaciously – and why not? When I was his age, I thought I knew pretty much everything that mattered, too. Nevertheless, I could readily appreciate the fact that he was displaying sufficient maturity to ask for advice from a presumably more experienced individual.
“I met her earlier this year, you know – at your suggestion,” I reminded him. “She seems like a pretty level headed young lady, so I’m kind of curious to know what in the world you two could get into an argument about.”
Jason took another sip of his Coke and shook his head in disbelief. “I was, like, totally amazed. You’d think she’s learned enough by now to see what’s right, but no – she’s got her mind made up, you know? Doesn’t want to be confused by any facts that might come along!”
“I hear you,” I replied in my best noncommittal tone, “but why don’t you tell me what you were fighting over?”
“Barack Obama’s nuclear weapons policy – or perhaps I should say his lack of it,” Jason declared with an intensity that, truth be told, completely floored me. Here, after all, is a guy who, prior to his relationship with Paisley, had never mentioned politics.
“You mean when he put his foot in his mouth responding to an Associated Press reporter’s questions on Thursday?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jason confirmed, “that’s what started it.”
“Well,” I related, “as I recall, Obama first said that we should never use nuclear weapons, then amended that to ‘never use nuclear weapons on civilians,’ after which he tried to retract his entire statement.”
“Right!” Jason exclaimed. “How can he expect to become president of the United States when he can’t even structure a consistent policy statement on our use of nuclear weapons?”
“I think folks ought to cut him some slack, actually,” I opined. “I mean, think about it – he’s out there day after day, making chin music all the time, dawn until midnight, about every damn thing anybody can think of to ask him, and then, he slips up once…”
“Once is all it takes!” Jason protested. “Look what happened to Howard Dean!”
“Well, Jason, I hardly think that ‘YEEAAAAGGH’ counts as a verbal miscalculation. Everybody read that as a sign of mental instability, which isn’t the same as being confused about whether or not it’s a good idea to drop nuclear weapons on terrorist bases in Pakistan built out of cinder blocks and equipped with middle school jungle gym bars and a stable of stinking camels.”
“So you don’t think we should use tactical nuclear weapons against Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan if Pervez Musharraf doesn’t react appropriately to actionable intelligence concerning their whereabouts?” Jason stared at me intently, his glass of Coke and ice poised just below his lips, dripping condensation in the soaking Washington summer heat.
“Jason,” I smiled, “I’m just damn proud to have a teenage nephew who can phrase a question like that. And, as far as my opinion goes, I can assure you that use of any kind of nuclear weapon, even tactical, against an Al Qaeda installation anywhere in the world is pure, undiluted lunacy.”
“Okay,” Jason allowed, “they why is Hillary Clinton getting so much mileage out of ragging on Obama about what he said?”
“Ah, another good question. You see, Jason, we Americans have a special relationship with The Bomb.”
“What?” Jason skeptically inquired. “Nuclear bombs are just another kind of weapon, aren’t they? I mean, sure, they’re really powerful, and there’s fallout, maybe, from some of them, but otherwise, where the big deal with using nukes?”
“Okay,” I admitted, “I’ve never actually seen a nuclear weapon detonate in person. And I’m certainly not a nuclear physicist. But damn it, Jason, you have to realize that those suckers are huge. Everybody’s seen the film footage – those trees whipping back and forth…”
“That stupid house blowing to bits,” Jason interjected.
“Yeah, all that stuff. It’s part of our social iconography, practically. We even use shots of the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb blast in commercials – hell, I’ve even seen it used as a visual punch line in televised comedy shows. The Bomb is special to us, Jason. There’s just no getting around it.”
“So that means we have to say we will always be ready to use it?”
“Not exactly – we have to be ready never to say we won’t use it, no matter where, who or what is involved.”
“So why the hell is that?” Jason demanded.
“Because we invented it, so far we are the only ones who ever used it, and consequently that keeps the rest of the world scared of us.”
“And Obama broke that unwritten rule?”
“That’s exactly what he did.”
“So Clinton gets to crucify him for it?”
“She might as well – he was twenty points behind her in the polls yesterday.”
“Seems a lot like kicking somebody when they’re down,” Jason noted.
“Well, one thing you need to remember about Americans is that they make a big deal about having a fair fight – until they get into one. Then, they are more likely than anyone else to kick somebody when they are down, or… ah, elsewhere… before that, even.”
Jason considered my advice for a moment. “You know, that goes right to the argument that I made to Paisley about Clinton – she’s mean, like some kind of man-hating bull dyke. She’s nasty and butch and fights dirty. Who wants a president like that?”
“Well,” I countered, “Nixon was nasty and butch and fought dirty and he got elected twice.”
“Yeah, okay, you got me there,” Jason agreed, “but wouldn’t it be better to have someone who you can tell really cares about people? Someone who has new ideas and new approaches to things?”
“Yes, Jason, it would. But the problem with new approaches is that, if you don’t think them out very, very carefully beforehand, some smarmy Associated Press reporter might get you to go off half cocked and make a complete fool of yourself in front of the entire nation. But I still don’t exactly understand. What, specifically, were you and Paisley arguing about?”
“Well, we both support Obama. But then he said he wouldn’t use nukes on Al Qaeda or civilians in Pakistan, and I said that was pussy. Paisley says no way that’s pussy, pretending we would use nukes anytime, anywhere on anybody – that’s pussy. So then we argued about what’s pussy in foreign policy and what’s not.”
“Any common ground on that?”
“Well, we agreed that trade embargoes are pussy.”
“They seldom work, anyway.”
“Pulling out of the Olympics is pussy.”
“Well, the entire Carter Administration was kind of pussy, really.”
“Blaming your allies for your mistakes is pussy.”
“So pussy, my cat is insulted.”
“Dumping on the French for disagreeing with us is pussy.”
“Mai oui, mon neveu; très grand pussy.”
“Building a fence to keep Mexicans out is pussy.”
“Pussy as a Tijuana donkey show.”
“Knuckling under to Microsoft, Hollywood and the RIAA, ignoring human rights abuses and consumer safety issues in our trade with China so those bastards can get concessions on Chinese intellectual property infractions is pussy.”
“The best pussy K Street lobbyists can buy.”
“Giving Israel boatloads of money to persecute Palestinians is pussy.”
“Pussy as a Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion of the Christ.’”
“Not standing up for Tibet is pussy.”
“Pussy as Shanghai basketball shoes from Wal Mart.”
“Paying mercenaries to depose elected foreign leaders we don’t like is pussy.”
“Pussy as the Organization of American States.”
“Only helping those underdeveloped countries that have oil is pussy.”
“Pussy as Dick Cheney.”
“Sending the Marines to invade places like Haiti or Grenada is pussy.”
“Granted, but you had better never use the words ‘pussy’ and ‘Marines’ in the same sentence in public; not if you value your health.”
“The Monroe Doctrine is pussy.”
“It’s pussy now, that’s for sure – just like men wearing wigs, silk stockings and satin pants is pussy.”
“Treating war as a tool of diplomacy is pussy.”
“Pussy as Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz.”
“Treating diplomacy as a tool of war is pussy.”
“Pussy as Henry Alfred Kissinger.”
“It’s pussy to throw our weight around, strong arm our allies into signing a treaty and then change our minds and not sign it ourselves.”
“Pussy as the League of Nations and the Kyoto Accords.”
“It’s pussy for us not to pay our United Nations fees when we don’t like something the UN does.”
“Pussy as the John Birch Society.”
“It’s pussy for us to use the United Nations as a whipping boy for our foreign policy failures.”
“Pussy as John Bolton.”
“And sending confrontational, ham-handed douche bags like John Bolton to represent us at the United Nations is pussy, too.”
“Pussy as John Bolton’s moustache.”
“Keeping our own State Department out of the loop on foreign policy is totally pussy.”
“Pussy as every half-pint Napoleon crawling around the White House like a demented cockroach.”
“Care to name any names?”
“No, that would be pussy. What else you got?”
“Well, recruiting mostly snotty, arrogant, upper class Ivy League twits for our Foreign Service is pussy.”
“Pussy as the Skull and Bones Club.”
“Appointing unqualified cronies and rich campaign contributors to key diplomatic posts, like our embassies in major European capitals, is completely pussy.”
“Pussy as a United States Ambassador who isn’t even fluent in the host country’s language.”
“It’s pussy to prop up dictators and autocratic monarchies just because they serve our overseas business interests.”
“Pussy as a Saudi Arabian sheik in a pink Rolls Royce.”
“It’s pussy to call genocide something else because calling it genocide would require us to live up to our international obligations.”
“Pussy as ‘ethnic cleansing.’”
“Backing fake rebel groups who really work for rich landowners to overthrow popular revolutions in small, impoverished agrarian countries is pussy.”
“Pussy as Ronald Wilson Reagan.”
“Using the CIA to sell dope to finance secret foreign operations off the books is pussy.”
“Nothing pussier, in my humble opinion – ten out of ten.”
“Trading arms for hostages is pussy.”
“I’d give that a nine.”
“Lying to the public and Congress to start an unnecessary war is pussy.”
“Right – I’d give the Johnson Administration a seven, the Bush 41 Administration a five and the Bush 43 Administration a ten on that.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Jason snapped, “didn’t the Bush 43 Administration pay you big bucks to help them be the best bunch of lying, prevaricating pussies as potentially possible?”
“Sure, Jason, that’s why I gave them a ten. Without me, they wouldn’t have rated more than an eight.”
Jason savored the content of our discussion while finishing off his Coke. “So, you, Paisley and I all agree all that stuff is pussy. But I say Obama was pussy for taking nukes off the table, Paisley says he’s not pussy for taking nukes off the table, and you say he’s is pussy, but not for taking nukes off the table. You say he’s pussy for not refraining to take nukes off the table.”
“That’s extremely perceptive, Jason, and also very accurately expressed.” I leaned forward, in my best avuncular advice mode. “You see, Jason, you’re wrong for the right reasons, Paisley is right for the wrong reasons, and I’m right for the right reasons. The United States can never take nukes off the table, even if we are up against a bunch of Neolithic bozos with spears and arrows. Obama failed to realize that, and now Clinton has him by the balls.”
“Oh, crap,” Jason spit out, disgusted. “Does this mean Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination? Honest to God, Uncle Tom, that woman is creepy. On the other hand, I’d rather drink Drano than vote for some Republican fascist who would keep running the country like Bush does now. What should I do?”
“Well, first of all, Jason, you can stop calling me ‘Uncle Tom.’”
“Ah, okay, yeah… I see what you mean. Sorry.”
“No problem. Just don’t let it happen again. Now, let me assure you, Jason, that the nomination of Hillary Clinton for president is something that every loyal Republican prays for on a daily basis. Given the job they have done over the last seven years, they know she’s the only Democratic candidate a Republican could defeat.”
“Oh.”
“As for your tiff with Paisley, I’d suggest you tell her you’ve thought about it and that you realize you were wrong. Note that’s not the same thing as saying she was right. Then don’t bring it up anymore. After all, look at all the stuff you two agree on.”
Jason contemplated his empty glass of Coke for a moment, then looked at me. “Yeah, that’s what I should do.” Rising from his seat, he made for the kitchen and, I presumed, more soda from the refrigerator. “Thanks, Unc,” he said brightly.
“Hey!” I admonished him, “don’t call me ‘Unc,’ either!”