The Empire Strikes Back

If eyes are the windows to the soul, then Osama bin Laden must have been in constant supply of Visine. Compared to the beady hollows of George W. Bush, I was always confounded by “the evil doer’s” soft brown marbles, and the disarming charisma we now revisit throughout the clips of his passive command. It was almost as if bin Laden had achieved some flawed form of enlightenment, like Darth Vader, and that the Supreme Court (George Lucas) had fatally miscast George W. Bush to play Luke Skywalker, along with Dick Cheney as Obi wan Kenobi, Condoleezza Rice as Princess Leia, Paul Wolfowitz as Yoda, and the common sense of Colin Powell sounding every bit the tongue of Chewbacca. Unfortunately, John Kerry couldn't steal the scene in the sequel, and so as most sequels do, the follow-up bombed so badly that it paved the way for a screenplay we could allegedly believe in -- "Return of the Black Harvard Jedi."

(Sorry W., but Jedi's don't choke on pretzels).

Eyes wide shut, however, and you may observe that the synchronicity between Bush and bin Laden -- the two most impactful men of the new century – is pretty darn good. Sons of privilege and petroleum, both men represented the rotting stereotypes of the American and Arab worlds -- Bush, the crusading cowboy, and bin Laden, the desert tribalism. Both rejected modernity in the name of religion – Bush (stem-cell research), bin Laden (woman’s rights); both perverted a spiritual faith towards leadership and policy; and both men, so mutually catapulted by September 11, were dramatically rebuffed by the still tenuous revolutions of Barack Obama and the “Arab Spring” -- or as the tea party would lump 'em, the Great Muslim Uprising.

In their false theater of good versus evil, Bush and bin Laden would stage a canon of seminal catastrophes, i.e. the Patriot Act, the national surplus turned debt, water-boarding, three-ounce toiletries, two putrid wars and a partridge in a pear tree. And in a suspension of disbelief, we (the people, the press, the Congress) pulled up some popcorn for a blockbuster of tragic reciprocity -- Bush's mistakes and fear mongering validating bin Laden, and bin Laden's temporary success bestowing Bush with his blunderous bounce of leadership.

While their "ORANGE ALERTS" did provide a brilliant subtext for hooking up with girls, this was not the "69" that we ultimately had in mind. Bush and bin Laden were the best thing that ever happened to one another, and the worst thing that ever happened to us.

In the end, it seems, both men had retreated to their suburban compounds, surrounded by some family and final followers. Then, with a made-for-movie bullet, both men were killed -- one literally, and the other figuratively, in the sense that W.'s John Wayne persona was officially buried when a black constitutional law professor with Hussein in his name rolled into town and lassoed the bad guy (no sir, this was not your father’s western).

Hopefully the world will start showing some better films. But for one fine day in May, it was finally time to roll some credits.

Mission Accomplished.