Transcendent joke

From Dave Chappelle show:

Question: Why is President Bush so sure Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?

Answer: He has the receipt.

That just KILLS me and I'll probably tell it to people, even though I don't believe it. (We really never sold chemical weapons to Iraq. American companies sold precursor and dual use chemicals during the 1980s, but that's not the same thing as weapons)

Yet though I don't believe the underlying theory of the joke I adore it as a joke. That's why humor is so powerful in politics... It doesn't have to be true, merely plausible... compatible with our perceptions of a person. That's also why Leno and Letterman will do more to decide this election than the NYT.

Kerry needs to continue being as boring as possible. Keep that 'Kerry's a boring elitist' thing alive so it doesn't drift to something damaging. People afraid of the future and looking for competence won't reject a candidate for being a boring snob. (It's said that Clinton didn't do a thing to downplay or avoid the fat jokes, or even the womanizer jokes, throughout 1992 because they were largely neutral or even positive caricatures.)

the selling of WMD to Iraq by the US in the 80s is no joke and well documented. A quick search online shouldn't take you more than 45 seconds.

you might want to actually READ what the web will disgorge in 45 seconds. My flat statement stands. Precursors and dual use, yes. Chemical weapons, no.

The classic article on this from 1993 is by Russ W. Baker and appeared in Columbia Journalism Review. It does start out:

"Much of what Saddam received from the West was not arms per se, but so-called dual-use technology -- ultra sophisticated computers, armored ambulances, helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military applications. We've learned by now that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and abroad, eagerly fed the Iraqi war machine right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait."

But it goes on to state:

"Eventually, it would turn out that elements of the U.S. government almost certainly knew that Drogoul was funneling U.S.-backed loans -- intended for the purchase of agricultural products, machinery, trucks, and other U.S. goods -- into dual-use technology and outright military technology. And that the British government was fully aware of the operations of Matrix Churchill, a British firm with an Ohio branch, which was not only at the center of the Iraqi procurement network but was also funded by BNL Atlanta.

<snip>

"Meanwhile, The Village Voice published a major investigation by free-lancer Murray Waas in its December 18, 1990, issue. Under the headline GULFGATE: HOW THE U.S. SECRETLY ARMED IRAQ, Waas pulled together a massive amount of information, ranging from senior White House officials' accounts that George Bush was a behind-the-scenes advocate of a pro-Iraq tilt, to an accounting of U.S. trade with Iraq that had a potential military application. 'That American troops could be killed or maimed because of a covert decision to arm Iraq," Waas wrote, "is the most serious consequence of a U.S. foreign policy formulated and executed in secret, without the advice and consent of the American public.' "

http://archives.cjr.org/year/93/2/iraqgate.asp

There's a lot of even weirder stuff associated with this story that involves Wackenhut and a shady character named Ihsan Barbouti. See, for example, http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/octopus.html (and then Google those names for more, if you're intrigued.)

for setting the record straight.