Recently, I have read items from a couple of books about current events and culture that were written either before September 11, 2001, or just after George W. Bush took office but before the Iraq war. I would love to call these writers and have lengthy conversations about how they now view what they wrote then, given what we've all been through. Because what they wrote then makes no sense now. It's like watching a movie or tv show filmed before 9/11 in which anyone can walk through the automatic sliding doors of the airport and right up to the gate, ticketed or not. Remember those days, when you could wait for you loved ones' airplane to pull up to the gate in the chairs usually reserved for passengers, instead of on the cold tile next to the baggage carousel? It may be such a little thing, but it reminds us of how much has changed in these 7 and 1/2 years.
One of these books I've been perusing is "Partly Cloudy Patriot" by Sarah Vowell. One of the reviewers uses the word 'droll' to describe the book, and droll she is. She has a lengthy chapter about the election in 2000, and her comments meld with the chapter about Al Gore to contrast the bumbling foolishness of the president we got with the egghead president we actually elected. This chapter was written just after Bush's inauguration, and she couldn't possibly have guessed what would ensue. In any case, this was all put in the context of the horrors of high school, in which the jocks rule the school and the nerds get teased and ridiculed for their inability to do pull-ups in gym class. Sarah pined for the day that nerds would run the world.
Now they do. And as much as our country has changed from the beginning of Bush's presidency to the end, it has changed doubly in the month since then. A country run by propeller-heads - if they can fix what's wrong, we may never go back to brush-cutting plain-talkers again. I shudder to think about what could happen if we get this wrong.
