Rat Pack redux

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Wed Dec 5 15:10:15 PST 2001


[I kept waiting for the punchline to Maureen Dowd's NY Times column today -- excerpt follows -- and it never came. At some level, Dowd *is* apparently impressed by the ludicrous swagger of Bush & Co. But she's right about one thing: The Bush crowd "has reversed the arc" of history. The farce that original Hollywood Rat Pack played out seems destined to develop as a deepening tragedy under the new Washington Rat Pack.]

It's endsville for that bum Osama. Time to send him to the big casino. That Clyde can't hide. When that crumb is gone, ring-a-ding.

Forget about Clooney and Pitt mimicking vintage testosterone in the new Rat Pack remake. We've got the real deal right here. Septuagenarian testosterone. The suave swagger of Rummy and Cheney, enhanced by cluster bombs and secure locations instead of martinis and broads.

Who needs the men of "Ocean's 11" when you've got the men of Sept. 11?

At the start of the 60's, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin's Rat Pack was regarded as the epitome of black-tie cool and male camaraderie and assertiveness. By the end of the decade, with the blue-jean social revolution, they were seen as passé figures of misogynistic brio.

This administration has reversed the arc.

President Bush's veterans from the Ford administration started out as macho dinosaurs, threatening to spike the water with arsenic, drill at will, bring back coal mines and revive Star Wars and the cold war with a cocky my-way-or-the-highway attitude toward the world.

But after the terrorist attacks, the macho dinosaurs suddenly seemed like dependable protectors. All that free-floating testosterone found a worthy cause and suited the nation's bellicose mood.

[Full text, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/opinion/05DOWD.html]

Carl

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