Obvious solutions - just ignore history

Rove and others from the Bush II era have been weighing in on the Bin Ladin thing all week.  If you lined up comments end to end it would appear we tumbled to Bin Ladin's million dollar mud hut sometime about 20 years ago and that all manner of folks pitched in and pooled their info to get him and Obama was just the lucky guy who got to fire the gun but all the hard work was done before...not that we wanted to of course...because he was marginalized when he lived in a cave in a place where he wasn't...well heck, I can't figure out what they are saying so I can hardly put it in any order or coherence.  Nonsense is word that means non (no) sense and all the yapping going on lately is purely that. Nonsense.

Rove, this morning in the WSJ,  called the folks on Flight 93 the first Navy Seals fighting back and looped that to the recent Navy Seal raid in Pakistan.  It is an obtuse attempt to link the raid to something that happened under his watch; namely 9-11. The fog and din of history acts just like a blanket; a crazy quilt you pull up at night to cover both your head and the facts.  Rove is a master at that.  His world is a canvas and he owns the only paint.

In the l980s I got stuck in a cramped car driving from Kiev out to see Chernobyl. It was hot and just crazy - half a dozen folks in a bicycle built for two.  My hosts were partly academic types and partly political types from the Ministry of Health.  The scientists were very nervous about the trip. So where the political types who knew what the scientists knew but would never ever admit to it.

We got to the first warning barrier complete with guards and the need for "papers please". My passport is, of course, at the hotel and my friends produced their official papers but we were asked to get out of the car until our official visit could be confirmed. It was irritating to a point and I noted the irony of me being the only non-local present who didn't have papers to present and was not "questioned as to why I was there".  The Ukraine and Russian folks were embarrassed because this "papers please" stuff was an indignity - think Arizona.

When finally allowed back in the car we just waited and waited for something - I don't know what.  Not keeping my mouth shut and having reached the tip-top of my limits of uncomfortableness, I let fly with a Soviet joke.

Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Gorbachev were on a train - sitting in proletariat splendor - but noticing that hours were passing and the train was still in the station...not moving an inch.  Marx leaped to his feet and said that he would go have a talk with the conductor and get things going.  He came back a bit later and said, "All fixed. We will be moving in just a minute".  What did you say to him? "I reminded him of the worker's paradise he toiled in and his responsibility to his fellow passengers to move the train".  Aha.

An hour later the train was still where it was.  Lenin said he would go and talk to him which he did. On his return, Lenin explained that the passengers were growing restless with the lack of movement and it would be wise for him to get a move on or there could be trouble".  Hours passed and the train still was where it was.

Gorbachev made the move and was gone for what seemed days.  He returned with a broad smile and reported that the conductor promised to move the train if "he would only stop talking".   But, like the results of the others, the train stayed put.

Stalin, now visibly angry,  gruffly announced "my turn" and went to give it a try.  He returned to his seat just in time as the train nearly leaped from the tracks and was in high gear in seconds.  The others were stunned at the success and at their own failures.  Papa Joe?, asked Gorbachev, how did you succeed when we, the greatest leaders and philosophers of communist thought, have failed?

Joe just smile and said, "The solution was obvious. I just shot the conductor - his assistant obviously understood".