by Nora Ephron
But what Condi is really good at is making nice, which is the opposite of being funny. I’ve always believed that women of my generation (and hers) were literally trained to make nice. It wasn’t really important for us to have opinions of our own; instead, we were supposed to preside over dinner parties, and when two men at the table disagreed violently with each other, we were supposed to step in and point out the remarkable similarities between their opposing positions.
Condoleezza Rice’s compulsion to make nice is discussed in the same January Vanity Fair in which the Hitchens piece appears, in an amazing article by David Rose about the neocons and their remorse about the Iraq War. Why this piece hasn’t been on the front page of every newspaper is mystifying. It’s full of jaw-dropping interviews with people like Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, and David Frum, all of them blaming everyone in sight (including themselves) for this mess we’ve made. According to neocon Michael Ledeen, Condi saw her job as “conflict resolution, so that when Powell and Rumsfeld disagreed, which did happen from time to time, she would say to Hadley or whomever, ‘Okay, try to find some middle ground where they can both agree.’ So then it would descend at least one level in the bureaucracy, and people would be asked to draft new memos…. Thousands of hours were wasted by searching for middle ground, which most of the time will not exist.” Ledeen claims that the best way to understand the Bush Administration is to look at who the most powerful people in the White House are: “They are women who are in love with the President: Laura, Condi, Harriet Miers and Karen Hughes.”
I don’t actually believe that we went to war in Iraq because of the women in the White House—if there was ever an episode caused by misplaced testosterone, this was it. And I don’t think you can blame Condoleezza Rice for trying to find a middle ground—after all, that’s part of what politics is. But it’s increasingly clear that the search for a middle ground when it comes to Iraq is fruitless and, what’s more, that all the middle-ground solutions (like waiting to leave until the Iraqi military functions on its own) will simply lead to months and years of quagmire.
Meanwhile, the woman is still with us, more powerful and more disconnected from reality than ever. She apparently still believes there’s no point in talking to Syria and Iran. She still believes that democracy is a feasible goal in Iraq. At the State Department dinner, I watched her speak about the arts. “Arts flourish most when they happen in a democracy,” she said. “The arts give expression to human spirit and give expression to human freedom.”
This remark—coming as it does from a key figure in an administration that’s done more to cut back on funding for the arts than any in recent history—would be funny if it weren’t so serious. As it is, it’s not just “not funny,” it’s “NF.”
—December 9, 2006
On Being Named Person of the Year
IT NEVER CROSSED my mind that when I was finally named Person of the Year by Time magazine, which I seem to have been, I would find it out by reading the morning newspaper on the actual day Time magazine appeared. It never occurred to me that they would be able to assemble an entire article about me without even calling. I was busy this week, it’s true, I had a lot of Christmas shopping, but I could have squeezed them in. But I realize now that this was just part of how brilliant it all is on the part of Time, how fantastically cutting-edge and New Media! Do an article about someone and don’t even call them! It’s so now! It’s so bloggy! Ontology recapitulates phylogeny! If you know what I mean!
Still, I can’t quite believe it. I’m easy to reach. I so have things to say about being Person of the Year. Time might want to know how I manage to Do It All, which I do. They might want my favorite new recipe, for leek bread pudding (although they could copy it out of the December Martha Stewart, where I got it). They might want to know about my favorite new ice cream flavor (Häagen-Dazs caramel cone), although I already mentioned it in a recent blog; God forbid there should be any fact about me that isn’t known to just about everyone. I mean, that’s how it is here in the new digital democracy: we tell everyone everything.
But as I said, they did it without me. The Person of the Year is me. Of course the person of the year is also you. Actually the person of the year is “You,” as in YouTube and MySpace, as in the World Wide Web—“for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game.” Don’t you love it? I especially love the part about “working for nothing”; I especially love the condescension in that phrase, the dead giveaway about how Time magazine really feels about the giant collective unwashed, unpaid You out Here that is nonetheless making life a misery for Them in There—for the Old Media scrambling to figure out What It Means for things like the future of print, the paper business, network television, privacy, and their jobs, for which (it goes without saying) they are paid.
I feel happy of course to be the Person of the Year, and at some point I will celebrate by doing what I always do on Sunday morning. I will make breakfast (What to cook? Biscuits? Waffles? Eggs?) and watch the morning talk shows. The morning talk shows will remind me (not that I need to be reminded) that the world is currently in the midst of a total meltdown, that we have the worst president in current history, that the elation of the recent election has passed to a numbing foreboding that nothing is going to change and that innocent people will continue to die in this hateful, violent episode we’ve unleashed. Less than two weeks ago, the long-awaited Baker Commission report was issued, and it died faster than Snakes on a Plane.
But I am not going to focus on any of these things, because I am the Person of the Year. It’s me, me, me—or, as Time magazine insists on putting it, you, you, you. Last year, Time’s Person of the Year was actually three people—Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bono. I thought they were a brilliant choice, and the selection had a way of focusing the year and making me view the world in a different way, as smart, brave editorial selections sometimes do. “You,” Time tells us, beat out Iran’s president Ahmadinejad, China’s president Hu Jintao, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and my own candidates—the Fab Four: President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice.
I’m proud of me. I’m proud of “You.” I’m proud of us. But like all people who stand before you holding a trophy, I feel compelled to say that I can’t help thinking a mistake has been made, and unlike most of the people who utter those bromidic words, I actually believe them.
—December 17, 2006
Condi’s Diary
WHAT A WEEK! First of all, Harriet’s gone! Yay! A big victory pour moi. They forced her out. Goodbye, Harriet, good riddance to you and your royal blue suit! Now if only I could just get rid of that Karen. She left once, in 2002, and do you know what she said when she resigned? She said she needed to spend more time with her family. Was that a dig at me, Dear Diary? Of course it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I do. (Two years later, when Karen insisted on coming back, I was worried she would retake her place in the P.’s heart, so I suggested she go on a never-ending mission to make people in the Middle East love America. Ha ha ha ha ha.)
But what a week! We had lots and lots o’ meetings. What should we do? Should we do less? Should we do more? Less? More? Less? More? No one knew. So this is a quagmire! You hear about quagmires but until you’re in one you just have no idea! And here’s the best thing about those meetings: no Laura. Ever since I accidentally called her husband “my husband,” things have been a little bit sticky between me and Laura. A couple of months ago she was asked if she thought I should be president, and do you know what she said? She said: “Dr. Rice, who I think would be a really good candidate, is not interested. Probably because she is single, her parents are no longer living, she’s an only child. You need a very supportive family and supportive friends to have this job.” Was that a dig at me, Dear Diary? Of course it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I do.
But back to what I was saying: quelle s
emaine! The P. spoke in the library. It was so cute, him standing against the background of the books and stuff. Then, the very next day, I got to defend him. And it was hard, it was sooooo hard, but I did it! I saw myself on television later, and I was all hunched over like I expected everyone to hit me. And they did hit me. But I didn’t care because I was defending the P. and his new policy, which I forgot to mention we finally decided on—the More option, not the Less option. When my testimony was over, all I could think was, I hope the P. was watching me. I hope he knows I’d do anything for him, absolutely anything, and that includes you know what. (I know he’s never going to leave her, but a girl can’t help hoping!)
Then I got back to the office afterward, and there were all these messages from the White House. I was sure they were calling to tell me how much the P. loved my testimony. But it turned out he hadn’t seen any of it—he’d spent the entire day on the treadmill watching the World Series of Poker on the TiVo.
But Tony Snow and Karl Rove had seen me, and they were calling to ask about what Barbara Boxer said to me at the hearing. I felt so dumb, Dear Diary. It turned out she had really insulted me, but I was so busy wrinkling my forehead I hadn’t really clocked it. She’d been asking me about the war, and she’d said to me: “The issue is who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”
Karl and Tony said: “How does that make you feel? Doesn’t it make you feel terrible?”
“Not as terrible as Chuck Hagel made me feel,” I said. “Chuck Hagel actually insulted our policy! He insulted the P.!”
“Never mind that,” Karl Rove said. “Barbara Boxer insulted you.”
“Not really,” I said. “All she was saying was that the war was being conducted by people with nothing to lose.”
But Karl and Tony disagreed. “What’s more,” said Tony Snow, “it’s a setback for feminism.”
“Feminism?” I said. “Do we care about feminism?”
“We do,” said Tony Snow. “Now we do.”
“No one told me,” I said.
I got so irritated I almost lost my temper. I mean, guys, just tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it! But I can’t say it if you don’t tell me!!!!!
The next day I told the New York Times that I’d been insulted by Barbara Boxer. I said it was a setback for feminism. “I thought it was okay to be single,” I said. “I thought it was okay to not have children and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children.”
I hope the P. sees what I said. I doubt if he will, though, because he doesn’t read the papers. But still, I’m glad I struck back at that Senator Boxer. Was that a dig at me, Dear Diary? Of course it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I do.
—January 14, 2007
Some People
SOME PEOPLE” ARE saying that Katie Couric went too far on 60 Minutes. I don’t actually know who those people are, because I haven’t done any reporting on it. Why bother? “Some people” must be saying it. “Some people” will say anything. And there’s no real need to mention their names, because I can just say that “some people” are saying it and get away with it.
Last night on 60 Minutes, Katie Couric kept referring to “some people.” She said that “some” were saying the Edwardses were courageous, and “others” were saying they were callous and ambitious. She said that some people were wondering how someone could be president if he was “distracted” by his wife’s health. (This question, in a year when there are two presidential candidates who are themselves cancer survivors, seemed particularly disingenuous.) (And never mind that it was being asked by someone who managed to keep working while dealing with her own husband’s terminal illness.)
I kept waiting for John or Elizabeth Edwards to ask her who “some people” were exactly, but they didn’t. They cheerfully answered her questions. Elizabeth Edwards said, “We’re all going to die.” And: “I pretty much know what I’m going to die of now.” She said that on hearing that her cancer had recurred, she realized she had a choice—to go on living her life, or begin dying. She said she had chosen to go on living her life. Katie Couric looked at her as if someone had set off a stink-bomb in the room and then asked another “some people” question, this one about whether the Edwardses were “in denial.”
I don’t know what some people think, but I myself think it’s weird to question the Edwardses as if there’s some right way to deal with cancer. There’s no real way to know how one is going to deal with such things until they happen, and even then, there’s no way to apply the way one person chooses to deal with mortal illness to another. And I disagree with Elizabeth Edwards when she says that there are only two choices—to go on living, or begin dying. What I believe instead is that at a certain point in life, whether or not you’ve been diagnosed with illness, you enter into a conscious, ongoing, unending, eternal, puzzling, confusing negotiation between the two. Some days one of them wins, and some days the other. This negotiation often includes decisions as trivial as whether to eat a second piece of pie, and as important as whether to have medical treatment that may or may not prolong your life.
I also believe that nothing anyone says in such circumstances means anything except at that very moment—and even then, perhaps not. These decisions are private in the most serious sense of the word, which is not to say that they are nobody’s business—if you run for president everything you do is somebody’s business—but that they reside in an area where things change, where people are not bound to whatever course of action they committed to the day before yesterday. It’s a zone of privacy that’s like no other and is therefore (or should be) virtually immune to judgment.
Last night on 60 Minutes, Katie Couric quoted John Edwards’s remark earlier in the week—that he was in the race “for the duration”—and asked him, “How can you say that, Senator Edwards, with such certainty? If, God forbid, Elizabeth doesn’t respond to whatever treatment is recommended, if her health deteriorates, would you really say that?” Thank you, Katie. Thank you for asking that question. The world could not have survived had you not asked it. Of course, “some people” were undoubtedly thinking it. And it would have been a tragedy not to have given voice to that thought, wouldn’t it? Or would it?
—March 26, 2007
What Did You Do in the War?
ONE OF THE things I’ve always wondered about was what it was like to live in the United States during World War II. It was one of the things I’d have most wanted to ask my parents about if they were still alive—my own particular “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” question.
I don’t literally want to know what my parents did during the war. I know. My father had flat feet, so he was 4F. But what I truly wondered was what they knew and when they knew it—about the Holocaust, for example, and the Japanese internment camps. It was a complete mystery to me. I read a half-dozen books on the subject of the United States and the Holocaust and I could never imagine how so many people could have known what they knew and done nothing. Did my parents know? Probably they did. Did they do anything? Probably they didn’t. And why not?
In any case, I don’t much wonder about this anymore, because I know the answer. I know because Guantánamo prison is now more than five years old, five years of our holding and torturing prisoners without bail and without the rights of habeus corpus. Of the 385 men detained at Guantánamo, only ten have been charged. How is this possible? In the United States of America? You can blame Bush/Cheney if you want; you can blame our justice system, which moves sluggishly through the Guantánamo cases, deferring to the legislative branch, which then does nothing. But what about us? What are we doing about Guantánamo? Nothing, just as my parents did nothing about the injustices they knew about. And why not? It’s simple. We’re
too busy.
The news in this morning’s paper that thirteen Guantánamo prisoners have started a hunger strike and are being force-fed is heartbreaking, because these prisoners are assuming that somewhere out there is a way of reaching the American people, triggering a sense of injustice, and eventually causing a wave of international opprobrium to smack into the White House and somehow affect the war criminals who are running the country. This, of course, will never come to pass: the only good thing that’s happened to George Bush since the glory days of 9/11 is that the terrorists haven’t attacked us again here in America, and the reason they haven’t (in the Bush/Cheney scenario) is that we’ve managed to lock them all up on an island no one can get to. This was a brilliant move, by the way, and you have to hand it to the guys who thought it up: the prisoners can’t be seen (by us or by the press) and most of them are faceless and stateless.
On Friday night we went downtown to see the writer Lawrence Wright, the author of The Looming Tower, perform his one-man show called My Trip to Al-Qaeda. It’s a completely riveting evening, and it begins with Wright’s story about The Siege, a Denzel Washington movie about terrorism that Wright wrote and which some blamed for inciting a terrorist act that resulted in the death of one person and the crippling of another. It was a stupid, mindless act on the part of the terrorists, obviously, but Wright understands that if he hadn’t written the movie, it might never have happened. It led him to write his brilliant book, and then, to write and perform his play about terrorism and torture and his own response to what he’s learned. The evening is full of chilling observations about the enemy. “Perhaps Al-Qaeda can best be understood as an engine that runs on the despair of the Muslim world, especially its young men, whose lives are so futile and unexpressed,” Wright says. “Al-Qaeda offers them a chance to make history. All they have to do is die.” But it’s equally chilling about us—the evening ends with an image of Abu Ghraib projected on a screen onstage, of American soldiers threatening a naked, blindfolded prisoner with a wild dog.
