The Original Passive (Lazy?) Version of Bring It On

Marcy at NextHurrah has a great find here. I'm just home from enjoying a very fine (but lengthy) performance of "Stuff Happens," a great exposition by Brit David Hare about the runup to, and fallout from that Unprovoked War Thing. In this case the production, directed by Victor Pappas, is at ACT Theatre in Seattle. I know not if it is in production anywhere else at this point. I was especially taken by the Bush, Powell, and Blix characters. Fascinating production in the round, with a magic rubic-cube stage that I kept expecting to morph into the Twin Towers.

But I highly recommend it, even for those who are dutiful actual news-gatherers, i.e., blogosphere residents, as compared to news-sufferers, those deluded that they are dealing with "news" by way of the daily paper, the Today show, and a bit of the old six-o'clock. Even it is familiar stuff I believe it is well worth experiencing in an "arts" medium. I have to give the whole bunch credit for a pretty even hand - there were numerous chances for polemicizing (especially with a Seattle audience!) that went unexploited. Thanks to sis- and bro-in-law Karen and Craig for the birthday tix! Decent Shiraz too.

Anyway, back to the esteemed Ms. Wheeler:

James Fallows repeats a fascinating story Gary Hart and Lee Hamilton told him about the Hart-Rudman Commission.

Early in 2001, the commission presented a report to the incoming G.W. Bush administration warning that terrorism would be the nation's greatest national security problem, and saying that unless the United States took proper protective measures a terrorist attack was likely within its borders. Neither the president nor the vice president nor any other senior official from the new administration took time to meet with the commission members or hear about their findings.

The commission had 14 members, split 7-7, Republican and Democrat, as is de rigeur for bodies of this type. Today Hart told me that in the first few meetings, commission members would go around the room and volunteer their ideas about the nation's greatest vulnerabilities, most urgent needs, and so on.

At the first meeting, one Republican woman on the commission said that the overwhelming threat was from China. Sooner or later the U.S. would end up in a military showdown with the Chinese Communists. There was no avoiding it, and we would only make ourselves weaker by waiting. No one else spoke up in support.

The same thing happened at the second meeting -- discussion from other commissioners about terrorism, nuclear proliferation, anarchy of failed states, etc, and then this one woman warning about the looming Chinese menace. And the third meeting too. Perhaps more.

Finally, in frustration, this woman left the commission.

"Her name was Lynne Cheney," Hart said. "I am convinced that if it had not been for 9/11, we would be in a military showdown with China today." Not because of what China was doing, threatening, or intending, he made clear, but because of the assumptions the Administration brought with it when taking office. (My impression is that Chinese leaders know this too, which is why there are relatively few complaints from China about the Iraq war. They know that it got the U.S. off China's back!) [my emphasis]

The story deserves wide exposure for two reasons. First, Bush and Cheney refused to meet with the Commission because they didn't want a warning that would distract them from their mission: preventing China from ostensibly accruing as much power as the United States. (In other words, remaining the dominant empire in the world.) I never realized, though, that Lynne Cheney was sitting in on the early meetings. How does Bush get to claim plausible deniability about Hart-Rudman when Cheney's wife was part of the Commission? Lynne was in the bunker on 9/11, after all--she's the one who could have alerted the Administration to their myopia, and instead she shirked her duty.

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