October 11, 2002

George Bush's Elephant

A BuzzFlash Reader Commentary
by John Williford

Dear Editor:

Years ago when I was still in college, I worked as an assistant to a magician, who was a great fan of Harry Blackstone. He told us the story of how Blackstone had magically produced an elephant on stage, astonishing his audience. The way Blackstone did this was to misdirect the audience's attention, while his assistants simply led the elephant onto the center of the stage, unnoticed by anyone.

As we had no elephant, the magician said that his two assistants (Carole and I) would simply build a six-foot high pyramid of fish bowls, filled with water and goldfish, in plain view of the audience, while he distracted them with misdirection. We were skeptical, but proceeded to stack bowls of water and fish during a show attended by 2,500 people. The magician built a forest of feather flowers at the right side of the stage while we did so. Turning with a flourish and a smoke and flash bomb, the magician "produced" the awesome pyramid of fish bowls, our equivalent of Blackstone's elephant. There was a collective gasp of astonishment from 2,500 people -- none of whom had apparently seen us stacking fish bowls.

Today, coincidentally within hours of Congressional approval of unilateral war powers for GW Bush against Iraq, we find that the administration has a plan to militarily overthrow the Iraqi government, and replace it with a U.S.-run military government, patterned after the postwar government we installed in Japan.

Voila, the ELEPHANT! (We pause for a collective gasp of astonishment).

Regards,

John Williford
Kirkland, WA

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