How Safe is Your Dot? by Jim Culleny Is it just me, or is there anybody else tired of hearing talking heads go on and on about connecting the dots in the war on terror? One thing you can say about Washington and Pop News is, they sure know how to beat a figure of speech to death. Every pundit with half a brain is talking about connecting the dots. Those hamstrung with whole brains, are just gazing into space, dazed, with spots dancing in front of their eyes. Maybe they’re wondering if the conservative Supremes who gave away the store back during that Florida thing are now taking turns flagellating each other for not disconnecting those really right-wing ideo-dots while they were still just little black holes. Now that they’ve accumulated the off-the-scale gravity of war-hoop approval ratings it may be too late to put the toothpaste back into the constitution, as John Haldeman sort of said to another out-of-control Commander-in-Chief. The truth is, I don’t like spewing cliché's, but as Paul Simon sang, "Who am I to blow against the wind?" They wanna connect dots? Lets connect some dots. A few months ago the biggest dot on the world scene was Osama Bin Laden. He may now be a dead dot but no one knows for sure. We chased him all over Afghanistan, surgically blowing up civilians as we went (not that there‘s anything wrong with that), but we haven’t the slightest idea if we bagged him or not. But that’s ok because we have other dots to erase. Saddam Dot for instance. Even though Osama himself may be history, down on Desolation Row, scurrying among the impressive buildings that dot the Potomac like whited sepulchers, the dogs of war are still busy chewing on the Mad-Osama dot. They’re mauling the bejeezus out of it, pushing and pulling, trying to yank it over and hook it onto the Big Baghdad Dot. Though they’ve been laboring for months, bringing all the powers of the United States intelligence apparatus to bear, turning over dot after dot, they’ve yet to uncover a visible line between those two dots. So now they’re saying there must be, like, a virtual connection. A dotted line maybe. A slim filament to be sure, but in just the right light, with the help of night vision goggles and the right politics...Yup, there it is! If only Trent Lott still had control of the Senate --he can see the &%#@!! connection! A few days ago the big story was that the Head War Guy was doing his best to connect a few more dots. But an agrieved Senator Daschel got all inflamed and suddenly went uncharacteristically ballistic on him. It was good to see a Democrat with passion. But I digress. Starting a little further back the story is that all 9/11 ad hoc Terrorist Air Force dots have been irrefutably connected. But everybody knows they were not Iraqi dots, they were Saudi Arabian dots. The problem is, you’re not going to catch anybody running around the White House trying to connect those dots. Why? Because Saudi Arabia’s one undemocratic, oppressive, oil-logged monarchy we just love to live with. Cheap gas. But that’s old news. The part that’s new is: even though nobody came right out and said the Democrats were, in fact, "dots", there was a clear insinuation of dot-ness as the president declared that Democrats were not really interested in "the security of the American people". Since it’s understood the president surely is (interested), and since it’s now doctrine that if you’re not with the president, you’re against him... well... you don‘t have to be Condoleeza Rice to connect the dots. Go ahead, try it: Democrats . . . don’t agree . . . un-patriots . . . terrorists . . .Saddam Hussein. See? We’ll see alright. With an all-but-signed-off congressional resolution giving him carte blanche in the war powers-department, a Secretary of Defense who’s raised condescension to high art, an Attorney General with the attitude of a theocratic generalissimo, and poll ratings making him Mother Teresa with fire power, who knows whose dots the president will connect with whose as his homeland security needs evolve? What you have to ask yourself is: If Bush comes to shove, how safe will your dot be? If you’re an unconnected dot without a definite answer to this question you’d better get on the horn and harrass your representative dots. What I’m doing is calling on all ordinary, financially impotent dots! Please connect with as many other ordinary dots as possible and do everything you can to make a lot of noise before something bad gets enacted. Otherwise mum may eventually be the national word ...period.