Small Favors
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins The Great International Blink-Off What a great month it was for veracity, credibility, and integrity on the part of the only government we've got. There was the swap...
...ferred form of exercise has been rapid blinking, so I am in excellent trim to explain all this...
...Bush held a memorable press conference as, with dictionary in hand, he attempted to prove that "in shame" and "in vain" mean the same thing...
...A bad deal...
...Instead of the traditional blinking goal—shutting the eyes faster and harder than the competition— the Reagan Administration announced that the new object was not to blink...
...Right...
...Believe me, blinking can be strenuous, so the Administration introduced a simple but far-reaching innovation that changed the objective of the game...
...It began with a iittle-noted episode during the 1984 campaign, right after George Bush (who had nothing to do with the Cuban-American veteran of the CIA who had nothing to do with being the head of the secret air-supply operation that lost the C-123 cargo plane that we had nothing to do with) debated Geraldine Ferraro...
...Of course, he wasn't talking about secret, illegal arms shipments to the contras...
...It was right there on the front page of The New York Times, October 13: "Initial Congressional reaction tonight to the failure of President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev to reach agreement on nuclear arms control was mixed...
...Officials began looking for new forms of testosterone testing and virility vying, but when your main man is seventy-five, this gets a little dicey, which is obviously why they decided to enter Reagan only in pee-offs and blinking contests...
...The New York Times called it "appalling...
...The right sport for Ronald Reagan...
...Because if we gave up what we don't have and we both know we don't have and won't have any time soon and that won't work when we do get it in exchange for half of what they have right now that we know they have right now and that we can go and check to see that they give it up right now, then it wouldn't cost us a dime...
...This is the traditional way it's done, of course, but the statement caused unseemly glee in the press corps, and thereafter whenever Bush said farewell with his preferred expression, "So long," the reporters would chorus after him in disbelief, "How long...
...There was the swap that wasn't a swap, the deal that wasn't a deal, the disinformation campaign that wasn't a disinformation campaign, and the C-123 cargo plane we had nothing to do with...
...The president of the Associated Press said it was "highly objectionable...
...But they were all off base, because the President denied there was any disinformation campaign and said he challenged the "veracity" of The Washington Post...
...Just as with yoga, in order to truly excel at not blinking, you must begin by letting your mind become perfectly empty...
...The editor of The Los Angeles Times found it "pretty disgusting...
...Everybody knows it's okay to lie about a guy if he's a zit...
...consular access to the surviving crew member of the plane we had nothing to do with...
...Mondale later snapped, "He doesn't have the manhood to apologize...
...For many years, my preMolly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, appears in this space every month...
...The Philadelphia Inquirer said "deplorable...
...You don't get the same aerobic effect under the new rules, but it has a sort of yogic elegance...
...The Administration is also concerned because schoolchildren are not being taught ethics...
...But Mondale actually said the Marines died in vain...
...Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams said of that affair, "This is an outrageous violation of international law...
...Perhaps the high point of recent events was the lying about the disinformation campaign...
...During the course of that debate, Bush claimed that Walter Mondale had said our Marines in Lebanon died in shame...
...They wanted to try him in competitive napping as well, but it's not recognized by the International Olympic Committee...
...When informed of this observation, Bush took umbrage and said, "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time...
...Besides, they blinked first...
...It was a good thing that Bernard Kalb resigned over the disinformation campaign...
...And then, having gotten us all into practice, President Reagan explained after Reykjavik that Mikhail Gorbachev screwed up chances for an arms-control agreement by offering to give up half of something they've got right now, and that we know they've got, in return for something that we don't have and that they know we don't have and that we both know we aren't about to have any time soon and that won't work when we get it...
...he saved himself the pain of having to lie about the C-123...
...Clearly, the Reagan Administration was more troubled by this skepticism on the part of the press than we realized at the time...
...The press was pretty put out about it at first...
...Many of you have been wondering, I know, about the ophthalmological machismo that has lately dominated international relations and how it came to replace the better-known forms of cojones competition...
...Unfortunately, Secretary of State George Shultz explained, "Frankly, I don't have any problems with a little psychological warfare against Gadhafi...
...We also had nothing to do with the people who flew the plane we had nothing to do with, nor the company that owned the plane we had nothing to do with, nor the airport off from which the plane we had nothing to do with took, nor the arms aboard the plane we had nothing to do with, nor the people who set up the operation involving the plane we had nothing to do with...
...The President did not blink,' said Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana...
...he was talking about the Nicara^ guan government's temporary delay in allowing U.S...
Vol. 50 • December 1986 • No. 12
