The Bush White House's foreign policy contingent is a lot like a rag-tag group of comic superheros. Thanks to W., they even have nicknames!
Donald Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense. Formerly a member of the Ford Administration (a short lived '70s comic book that was more comic than its illustrator would have hoped), Rumsfeld is an expert in ballooning the Pentagon's budget, bumbling foreign affairs with respect to China and the Middle East and playing tough against Russia. While he has no superpowers, his ability to return to the role of Secretary of Defense 25 years after his stint in the Ford Administration is a force to be reckoned with. Because of his involvement with Ford, W. has nicknamed him "Model R."
Gen. Colin Powell is the Secretary of State. Powell, who valiantly served in Vietnam (a comic book that never should have been published and W. never read), also commanded forces in the Gulf War (a comic book that was really about something else). In the short lived Gulf War series, Powell decided to let the bad guy (the wily Saddam Hussein) go instead of using an enormous army to bring him to justice. Apparently Powell wanted out of the Gulf War strip, however, his decision to retreat shortened the comic by only one issue. W., who knows only what his father has told him about the Gulf War series, and has no idea where the war was fought or what the region's geographic features are, has nicknamed Powell "Fjord."
Paul Wolfowitz is Undersecretary of Defense. In the comic strip Gipper, a successful strip that toyed with the farcical idea of electing a silly old man with great communicative skills to the presidency, Wolfowitz played many key roles. He was such a popular character, he appeared in the spin-off series Good Old Bush. Like Rumsfeld and other Defense Department cronies, Wolfowitz is an expert at spending outrageous amounts of money on screwdrivers and toilet seats. Like his boss, Wolfowitz likes to keep to himself and not interact with foreigners unless there are natural resources at stake. W. has no idea what Wolfowitz does or who he is, so his nickname is "Slugger."
Condoleezza Rice, who appeared in the popular but consistently second-ranked Stanford comic, has a prime role as the National Security Advisor. She speaks Russian. She has studied Russian diplomacy at a scholarly level for decades. She can spell every communist leader's name backwards. And even though she witnessed the end of the Cold War graphic novel, she still insists that we need to protect ourselves from a cartoon that is so poor and so unorganized that it is being drawn in pencil by an old and crazy homeless woman in a babushka in a corner of Red Square. She requested the nickname "glasnos," but is frequently referred to as "Nos glassos," which W. contrived after a long weekend of speaking Spanish while driving on a Maine highway.
Overseeing these four soldiers for justice is Dick Cheney. Cheney OK'd Powell's retreat in the Gulf War, arguing that it would be better to fight another day than to win. Cheney supports the creation of a device called the "missile shield" which would be able to stop enemies from attacking the United States. It was an idea cooked up in the Gipper series, but has recently gained attention and support. His nickname is M.I., and unfortunately that does not stand for Missile Impossible.
Together, they form the Clueless Crusaders!
Like a bad Batman movie there are lots of big names, campy dialogue and a plot that you know you've heard before. But unlike a Batman movie, the characters in this strip are trying their damnedest to resurrect an old enemy. It is the equivalent to pushing a random guy into toxic chemicals to make another Joker.
The biggest problem these superheros face is the fact that they do not have a clear enemy. In their previous comic books, all these characters squared off against Commie, an evil villain from the East who threatened peace and prosperity for all people, plants and animals (or something like that; the propaganda was bigger than the skirmish). After criticizing and defeating the G-Men and their robotic leader LockBox for having an ad hoc approach to fighting evil, the new team has decided it had better make a villain fast, else it will fall into the same ad hoc-ery. Hence they are pursuing the construction of M.I.'s missile shield, which is sure to turn that old woman in a babushka into a lean, mean fighting machine.
While it is premature to say what specifically will happen with the Clueless Crusaders and their attempts at creating a gigantic missile shield, we can expect it to dramatically reshape the balance of power in the civilized world. Also, there are other plot-lines involving Hussein, Fidel Castro and China. Stay tuned for their future adventures!
Martin Barna is a Trinity junior and editorial page editor of The Chronicle.
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