Young George in Love

AS THE 9/11 commission releases its final report this week, one thing I keep pondering is: Are George W. Bush and Prince Bandar more than just friends? You see, if we were to use the Republican logic regarding men who touch one another in public, then we'd have to conclude that W. is getting it on big time with the men of the Saudi royal family. For those among you who just refuse to believe that Bush and company have been soft on the Saudis because of their business interests, which they also thought would benefit from their invasion of Iraq—Michael Moore's critique, even some of the most "liberal" critics say, is crass and simplistic—then maybe it would make more sense to believe that Bush and Bandar are simply in love. Schoolgirls with crushes.

That, after all, seems to be the conservative-hack explanation for why John Kerry and John Edwards touch a lot in public. It was pretty laughable when right-wing pundits began a campaign two weeks ago to demonize men who touch one another. Those Northern-elite Democrats are wusses who like to fondle one another, was the subtext, as opposed to Dick "go fuck yourself" Cheney and rancher-wannabe Bush. Like their male colleagues, women in politics hug and kiss in public all the time—including Republican women, like Liddy Dole, who likes getting real close with Bush when she can. But men who touch, according to the latest right-wing smear, must either be carrying on something more during their off time or are using back-patting and forearm-grabbing for political reasons.

"These buff and manly Johns are only following instructions to demonstrate warmth—cuddly warmth though it may be—to contrast with the chilly Republican images projected by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who keep their legs crossed and their hands to themselves at all times," wrote Wesley Pruden, editor of the homo-hating, Moonie-owned Washington Times. "No one imagines George W. inspecting Dick Cheney's cheek for razor burn in anticipation of a friendly kiss to greet the day. The president, after all, is the scion of generations of reserved and genteel WASP breeding, and the veep is a man from Wyoming, where the wrong kind of familiarity can invite a swift and fatal case of lead poisoning."

It was the often-wrong cyber-gossip Matt Drudge—from whom right-wing pundits, including one at this newspaper, often get their talking points from, and who in turn seems to get his talking points straight from Karl Rove—who began all this talk about the candidates getting physical, showing photos on his website of them being affectionate and citing unnamed sources in the media who were marveling at the supposed caressing. Drudge obviously has a problem with men touching one another in public—he'd rather they do it private, behind closet doors—and was therefore open to furthering the claim. As usual, Drudge and the conservative pundits—from Sean Hannity to Tony Snow, who implored Kerry and Edwards to "get a room"—inserted the insinuation pretty far in the lazy, sensation-driven media, landing it on CNN, and in turn on late-night comedy shows. The larger intent of Republican operatives, beyond alleging that Kerry and Edwards are cynically using physical contact as a political tactic, is to imply that the Democratic contenders are nancy boys—effeminate and weak, including on terrorism—and maybe even offer a reason as to why they're not harder on same-sex marriage, which supposed macho-guy Bush has railed against.

But if hand-holding, shoulder-grasping and cheek-to-cheek kissing are indicative of something sinister, then what are we to make of all of Bush's physical moments with the Saudi potentates? There he is on the cover of Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah. And thanks to Moore, we witness a montage of shots in Fahrenheit 9/11 showing W. and Daddy Bush getting mighty physical with those soft-on-terrorism Saudi leaders.

So if we're not to believe that all of this affection—and the fact that Prince Bandar was at the White House for an intimate dinner days after several of his countrymen flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and after members of the bin Laden family jetted out of the U.S. to safety—is not because of the Bush family's business interests, then it's got to be love. And maybe blind love, and not the oil business, caused the Bushies to lie about WMD and take us into war.

The 9/11 commission, in its final report this week, says there may have been a collaborative relationship between al Qaeda and Iran, and the commission's co-chair, Thomas Keene, says that the connections between bin Laden's terrorist group and Iranian and Pakistani officials are much more evident than any imagined connection to Saddam Hussein. Reports surfaced over last weekend that several of the 9/11 hijackers got through both Iran and Saudi Arabia en route from the terror camps in Afghanistan without having their passports stamped. Funny how the response of the Bush administration wasn't to crack down on Saudi Arabia, but rather to go after Saddam Hussein in oil-rich Iraq, where the Bushies and the Saudis could coincidentally expand their joint business interests. I guess that's how love works. Isn't the nuzzling and caressing between Bush and Bandar a lot more dangerous than any supposed political strategy of warm feelings and physical contact on the part of Kerry and Edwards? o