13 February 2003

This morning North Korea announced that it could strike American targets anywhere on earth. Great way to start the morning. The Koreans obviously were watching the testimony of CIA Director George Tenet and DIA Director L. E. "Jake" Jacoby before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. The Television coverage was great. One of the Senators asked the Director if the North could hit America with a nuke. There was a Kodak moment in the big hall that they use for open testimony as the Director turned around and asked the horse-holders behind him if he could answer the question in that forum. Jake looked at him sideways, interested at how the Agency was gong to respond. There was some mumbling and nodding and George got a short answer and he turned around and said "The unclassified answer is "Yes."

So that little exchange bounced off a satellite and down into the Hermit Kingdom in North Korea and they saw they opportunity and they took it. The Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang coordinated their response and launched a verbal missile and that became part of the morning cavalcade of news this morning.

I'm a good citizen. I vote when I remember, at least in the Presidential elections. I was watching "Ed" last night, getting ready for the West Wing..

Ed is the attorney who television sent back to the mythical town of Stuckyville to establish a legal practice in a bowling alley. It is a great show, one that grows on you. I got hooked on the show when I was directing a budget staff, a gray organization in a gray building in town. One of my senior analysts, one of the few smart guys who actually understood how it all worked, told me how well it was written. I tuned in and it got under my skin.

So Wednesdays are a pretty good day to stay in, if you have an Orange terror alert and you have kids in college. Ed leads up to The West Wing, which is where my morning was focused in what passes for my version of reality. Which is offset by a hundred yards in the big Victorian granite pile across the elegant alley from the Wing.

It was a good morning. We were not testifying in front of a panel of Senators in their big room in between the Hart and the Dirksen Buildings. And I go one of those marvelous moments, a good one, a meeting with a junior Military officer, who by virtue of assignment will never be the same again. He is working in the West Wing, and he is just like the young Navy officer who the Deputy Political Advisor's secretary has a crush on in the television show. Weird. And I had to make him happy, and he, knowing that he will back in the Service after this magical tour, called me "Sir."

And I, knowing that he will be a general some day, smiled. And kissed his ass.

Bizarre.

In the TV world, Ed is in the process of falling in love with a new woman. He was in love with another woman last season, a cute one that looked like someone I know. It meant a lot more last year. Now it doesn't seem that important somehow.

But one thing did, a moment in TV babble that was quite extraordinary. You remember Tim Matheson? He was the really cute young guy who will be forever associated with the movie "Animal House." He played the Delta house President, locked in a double-secret probation conflict with Farber College Dean Vernon Wormer. I could quote you most of his lines from that film. We didn't have much else to do that summer except watch the movie over and over since we were orbiting in a small patch of the Northern Arabian Sea. "Animal House" was the latest and best thing to hit the Fleet film distribution system. That was when there were actual films and projectors, before video, and when you had to qualify to run the projector.

Our squadron won the lottery and was the first to get to show the film on the ship. But the premier was delayed because one of our airplanes had a hydraulic failure and had one wheel down and one wheel up and could not get back safely on deck safely. "Big Bucks" Campbell and "Chief" Gallagher were stuck up in the air, trying to figure out a way to resolve the problem. There wasn't one, though it took some refueling and time to work through all the options. In the end they had to point the airplane away from the carrier. "Chief" pulled the handle on his ejection seat and left the airplane with a helicopter standing by to retrieve him. That worked, though it is a harder thing to do than it is to write it, and "Big Bucks" took the airplane around again and pulled his handle just at the right time and he went out and the seat separated and the chute deployed and he got in the water and the swimmer jumped out of the helo and snagged him and they all got back safe and sound. Except for a colorful moment when the drag on the one deployed wheel brought the gray fighter around and it looked for a moment like the airplane was going to come back and head for the carrier and the missile cruiser with us thought he was going to have to shoot it down. When Bucks and Chief walked into the Ready Room, still dripping, they killed the lights and started the film.

So that summer we spent a lot of time with Tim Matheson.

But that is another story.

The point is that in Ed last night, a handsomely aged Tim was playing a ne'er-do-well artist who was involved with the sister of last-year's girlfriend. He was leaving town to do some important art scam. He had some contract business to do with Ed after the bowling alley closed. He stopped by while Ed was contemplating the nature of life and romance. He looked up at Tim, a little distracted, sitting on the counter where you rent the parti-colored bowling shoes.

He said: "I think I can help you with the contract and let you do what you want to do. But you have been married three times. Are you happy?"

Tim said: "I don't think that matters." He spread his hands wide and said "This is eternity." Then he snapped his fingers and said "That is life."

Ed looked at him, not understanding, and Tim slowed down for him. He spread his hands wide again and said "This is Picasso." Ed's wonderfully expressive eyes opened wide, getting it.

"But suppose you didn't have the talent that he had?" Tim just snapped his fingers, and he smiled and left, exit stage right.

A snap of the fingers ago Tim and I were young and Animal House was new. Then things transitioned to the fake White House and Wednesday went into history. The earnest staff of the West Wing were recalled to deal with crisis in an upbeat and educational way. Just like the real folks in the real White House might have been recalled last night to deal with the press release from Pynogyang that they can drop something awful out of the sky on us.

In the snap of a finger.

Copyright 2003 Vic Socotra