By Jim Hoover
If not for fools and narcissists in our public scene, what would the media have to fill hours of news programs? Celebrities, politicians, sports figures, and megalomaniacs dominate media attention, some annoying and some amusing, but when put in positions of power and authority, potentially dangerous.
Dick Cheney’s new book, In My Time, is already being hyped by Cheney himself before talk show hosts like Jamie Gangel on NBC. We find that most of the mere mortals he worked with during the Bush presidency paled in comparison to Cheney.
In reporting on the book’s contents, Keith Olbermann on Current TV’s “Countdown” asked, “Is there a country that Dick Cheney doesn’t want to bomb?” He was reacting to the news revealed in the pre-released Cheney book interview that he wanted to bomb Syria and Iran during his 8 years as Vice President under George W. Bush.
Cheney also suggested in his book that he would have been better qualified to deal with the aftermath of 9/11 than President Bush. Furthermore, Condoleeza Rice was naïve, trying to negotiate with North Korea, and he characterized her as emotional and dependent on his knowledge and wisdom.
John Dean, a frequent Countdown visitor, depicted Cheney as an “authoritarian personality” and in his book, Conscience of a Conservative, as having “upward mobility and downward performance.”
Muammar Gaddafi has always been characterized as a megalomaniac, but items left behind when rebels took his Libyan compound saw his characterization veer toward narcissistic buffoon. A photo album with many pictures of Condoleeza Rice and love letters to her: “I support my darling black African woman…Leezza, Leeza, Leeza…I love her very much.”
When referring to Gaddafi’s outfits during his nearly 42 years in power, Keith Olbermann asked if there was a shortage of drape material in Libya, considering how many outfits were found that appeared rather “drapish” when rebels captured his compound.
Then there was Rick Perry, Texas Governor and candidate for president. In his first book, On My Honor, he drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism: In effect, stopping homosexual acts is like stopping drinking alcohol. His second book, Fed Up argues that everything from child labor laws to the “Clean Air Act,” to Medicare violates the Constitution. The latter, troublesome for a presidential candidate, he is trying to back off from.
Then the gaffes by Michele Bachmann do tend to entertain. The serial killer John Wayne Gacy lived in Waterloo, Iowa not John Wayne, her claim in Waterloo, Iowa last June. During a March trip in New Hampshire, she said the Revolutionary War began in New Hampshire in the cities of Lexington and Concord (actually began in Massachusetts in those cities). The media makes fun, probably because it would appear that she is too ignorant about history or too unwilling to do research.
In this day of God intervening for presidential candidates like Rick Perry, who claims that God wants him to run and stages a political national day of prayer for peace, perhaps someone should construct a prayer that offers global protection from fools and narcissists.
