La mise en scène

Remember Baghdad Bob, or whatever he was called -- Saddam’s spokesman back in 2003:  Who, as our forces closed in -- smoke visible on the horizon, and rumors of war in the rear -- still giddily chattering to the cameras that all was well, the U.S. Army was nowhere near?   It made a kind of sense:   His manner seemed to say, “I have to say these things because otherwise Saddam will have my balls for breakfast;  but I’m saying them in a silly way, so that the victorious occupation forces won’t treat me like a hardliner, but maybe will allow me to become the host of a game show."

Understood.  But why, in the name of all that’s nameable, has the State Department, in these parlous times, chosen a spokeswoman who looks and sounds like an ex-cheerleader (maybe not so ex-, in fact), bubble-headed and unbelievable?  Tonight, defending the Administration’s apparent intention of rolling forward with violent intervention without waiting for the U.N. report (though there is no threat to the homeland, immediate or otherwise) nor for a sorting-out of just who gassed whom when and why,  she sounded like a Barbie doll, or even a Betsy-Wetsy.