IT TAKES A COMIC

'Why Are We in Iraq?': Meet Norman Mailer, Third Cousin of the Rational Op-Ed. (DENNIS MILLER, May 5, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

His basic contention is that we went to war with Iraq because with the dominance of white American men in the boxing ring, the office and the home front eroded, George W. Bush thought they needed to know they were still good at something. Mr. Mailer has a degree in aeronautical engineering from Harvard so he had to know that argument wouldn't fly. But then again, maybe this claptrap is just a grand put-on. The fact that I and many others can't differentiate anymore does not auger well for Norm's legend.

You know something, the only "race" that really occurred to me during the war was our Army's sprint to Baghdad. Conversely, Mr. Mailer appears to see just race in our armed forces, right down to the "Super-Marines," as he calls them. It seems that Mr. Mailer notices color in people even when they're wearing camouflage. He then goes on to speak about racial subsets in the world of sports. Now, when I watch baseball, football and basketball, I see uniforms and skills. Mr. Mailer evidently sees races and nationalities. He's like a Casey Stengel/William Shockley hybrid. "Why'd you send the rook' back to Triple A, Skip?" "Well, he was gettin' around on the fast ball but he still couldn't hit the bell curve."

Ironically, Mr. Mailer seems to see everything in the world in terms of black and white, except of course, good and evil.

The column isn't that funny, it's actually better making the serious point above, but it is hilarious that the Journal decided Norman Mailer only deserved a rebuttal from a comic. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2003 7:12 AM