WASHINGTON — Being witty about poisoned drinking water isn't easy. It requires a certain obtuse savoir-faire.

Our president gave it a go Thursday night at a press dinner here.

"As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water," he told the crowd of radio and TV correspondents at the Washington Hilton. "To base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we needed to test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating."

I guess a guy who can yuk it up about a woman he has executed in Texas can yuk it up about anything.

But it was a creepy moment.

It worked for Erin Brockovich to joke about the carcinogens in the water enviro-villains were sipping because she wanted to get the poison out. W. wants to keep the poison in — to help the enviro-villains who contributed to his campaign.

Forgive me, Al Gore. I used to think you were striving too geekily to be Millennial Man. But now I'm going hungry for a shred of modernity. Bush II has reeled backward so fast, economically, environmentally, globally, culturally, it's redolent of Dorothy clicking her way from the shimmering spires of Oz to a depressed black-and-white Kansas.

With the guidance of his regents, the Duke of Halliburton and Cardinal Rumsfeld, W. has set off the specter of a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and "China Syndrome" fears, rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women's rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the Cold War.

The Clinton team wrestled with the messy grays of a post-Cold War world. The Bush team decided it was easier to bring back the Cold War.

One veteran Cold Warrior who served under several presidents told me he was shocked that Bush II had refrozen the Cold War.

"They've turned the clock back to 1983," he said.

"The thing I always hated about Clinton foreign policy was they seemed to be making it up as they went along. But these guys seem to be doing that, too. They are negative toward old policies, without coming up with anything positive."

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Not satisfied with smacking around the Russians, humiliating Christie Whitman, downsizing Condi Rice and brushing back Colin Powell, the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has no patience for the plaints of health-conscious yuppies, either.

You can just hear Rummy, slugging back a scotch with Cheney in the Oval after they've put the Kid to bed: "Real men can drink twice that much arsenic. And how soon can we get some lead back in the lousy paint?"

Bush is only our second boomer president, but his White House needs Geritol. He seems older than his sprite of a father. He seems to have no engagement with contemporary America, except by virtue of being the president of the United States.


New York Times News Service

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