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The Pied Piper and Dorian Gray

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Patricia A. Weller

Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is a tale of a handsome young man who, after viewing his commissioned portrait and being mesmerized by his own beauty, sells his soul to the devil in exchange for eternal youth.

As the story unfolds, Dorian develops a penchant for crime and debauchery, and although his appearance remains youthful, his portrait begins to change, taking on the evil of Dorian's sins, subtly at first, then with rapidly advancing ugliness as Dorian plummets into the depths of degradation. Finally, even he cannot bear to look at the horrible portrait which, has become a mirror of his lost soul.

Everyone ages. Some of us age so well that we look better than we did 30 years ago (Sean Connery comes to mind). Some of us use the nip and tuck strategy or botox to disguise the aging process. For the most part though, we take the hand we're dealt because we know that even if we could, we wouldn't do what Dorian Gray did. That's just fiction anyway. Or is it?

The duo of George W. Bush and Karl Rove reminds me of the Dorian Gray story. As the President plays the role of a youthful Pied Piper, playing beautiful, mesmerizing music, while he (1) allows smear campaigns and uses ridicule against opponents, (2) misleads us into war, (3) smothers dissent, (4) funds the rich and bleeds the poor, (5) turns a comfortable surplus into an outrageous deficit, (6) alienates our allies, (7) allows the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, (8) pays journalists to promote his policies or programs, (9) attempts to put discrimination into the Constitution, (10) uses faith based initiatives to buy votes and loyalty, (11) plants phony journalists in the White House press room, (12) attempts to dismantle Social Security, (13) cuts veterans' benefits, and divides the country in every way imaginable -- we follow along, innocent little rodents, being led to God knows where.

At the same time, and it may be my imagination, the President's advisor and confidant, now Deputy White House Chief of Staff for policy, Karl Rove, seem to be aging in, may I suggest, a rather Dorian Gray kind of way. If you compare photographs of Mr. Rove over the years, you can see what is probably a normal aging process, but one that is strangely disturbing, no? Every misleading, strong-armed, arrogant, or manipulative thing the President does seems to manifest itself in Mr. Rove's countenance, as if he were a pseudo-reflection, if you will, of the President.

Extreme caution is suggested. If I remember the Pied Piper story correctly, the rodents (not as innocent as we are perhaps) are led by the beguiling piper into a river where they ultimately drown. This doesn't bode well for us. And from a Dorian Gray point of view, things could get ugly for Karl Rove.

Patricia A. Weller
Emmitsburg, MD

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION