DESPITE CLEVER PACKAGING, IT'S STILL A FRAUD

When George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency, more than a few people
had the impression that he wasn't quite the brightest bulb on the tree.

In American politics and pop culture, that doesn't hurt. Hollywood often
offers movies where the brilliant but ruthless protagonist suffers a brain
injury or the like and becomes a decent and caring human being, even if
somewhat feeble-minded.

Thus in one major cultural influence, intelligence is often equated with
evil, and our pop culture villains have been geniuses ever since Lex Luthor
first thwarted Superman, and probably long before that. As for politics,
Bush was following eight years of Bill Clinton - and even Clinton's worst
enemies would never accuse of him of being stupid, no matter how many
stupid things he did. Someone who mangled English syntax could look like a
refreshing change.

That said, each day I am more impressed by the cleverness of the Bush
administration in the art of packaging - tying things together, even if
they don't really fit.

In this case, it consists of taking a popular war against al Qaeda, and
packaging it with a failed War on Drugs. The result is a $3.2 million
propaganda campaign that began as Super Bowl commercials and has continued
to infest our airwaves.

The ads tell us that the purchase of illegal substances helps finance
terrorist organizations, and the United States is, of course, at war with
terrorist organizations.

That's not entirely a lie, but as truth goes, it's more like a Clinton
statement, in that it takes a fair amount of contortion to make it even
technically true.

For instance, if you purchase an uncontrollable substance that originated
in Colombia - marijuana or cocaine, say - some of the money might end up in
the hands of the rebels who control part of the country. From what I read,
they're not nice people.

But it's mostly happenstance that drugs are involved, since rebel forces
use whatever they can get their hands on when they need money. Colombia
happens to enjoy the proper climate and soil to produce cocaine and hemp.
But note that a few years ago, some not-so-nice forces in Africa were
financing their dirty work by exporting diamonds since their territory held
some diamond mines.

The drug politics of Afghanistan make this even weirder. According to the
United Nations' drug control program, about 220,000 acres were devoted to
opium poppy growing in 2000. Then the Taliban cracked down; in 2001, that
dropped to less than 9,000 acres. But as the Northern Alliance now gains
territory with our support, farmers are switching back to poppies. The
connection between terrorism and drugs runs precisely opposite what we're
told by our government's drug propaganda ministry.

Further, if it's a global financial network that puts drug money into
terrorist organizations, why are the feds still so rabid in going after
people who grow their own? It's hard to imagine how that could "help a
bomber get a passport," but the Bush administration believes we're stupid
enough to believe such things, especially if they're repeated often enough
in prime time.

This does inspire some speculation. Will we soon see ads that say ""The
next time you turn on, that is, turn on a light switch, you could be
helping finance more Enron shenanigans" or ""When you pay your phone bill,
are you aware that Qwest has supported corrupt enterprises like the Salt
Lake Olympic Organizing Committee?"

And here's the big question - why is there so much money in the drug trade?
Because drugs are illegal. Last I checked - this was long ago, so the
numbers have likely changed - legal cocaine was $5 a gram, and the illegal
stuff was $100.

That $95 difference is what the government says finances all manner of
nastiness, and that $95 difference is also the result of government
actions. If we were serious about taking the immense profits out of drugs,
we'd be trying some other approach.

But the White House hasn't announced any other approaches, just more of the
same Draconian stuff that hasn't worked for the past 30 years and shows no
promise of working during the next 30.

People were catching on. Medical marijuana initiatives passed in many
states, including Colorado. Some elected officials, like New Mexico Gov.
Gary Johnson, became brave enough to utter the truth in public - that the
War on Drugs is a miserable failure, with no prospects for victory, no
matter how many urine samples we take and how many prisons we build.

And of course, those developments had to be thwarted, or else thousands of
snoops, informants, meddlers, counselors and prison guards would lose their
jobs.

So, the Bush administration contrived a new scheme: Package the unpopular
war on drugs with the popular war on terrorists. Such cleverness speaks
well for their intelligence. Believing this swill, though, would not speak
well for ours.