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A Dictator by Any Other Name . . . Barry Farber It didn't start with Wolf Blitzer on CNN calling Fidel Castro "president" of Cuba. Neither did it start a few minutes later on that same network when Lou Dobbs told us that the No. 2 man in the State Department told us that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was a "populist." Both of those little outrages merely reminded me of a lost cause I fought many years ago which is vastly more important today than it was when I first assailed the ramparts with much indignation and too few allies. Actually it was my second reminder. In 1986 I was seated close to a man and a woman in a London pub. Her accent could have come from one and only one city on the East Coast of America. I interrupted with my guesswork. And since I was bullseye correct, they invited me to join them. She was extremely attractive. And when he excused himself to go make a phone call, she quickly explained he was her psychiatrist from back home, and they were by no means a couple, and if good fortune should ever bring me to her city, I should by all means call her. It did.
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Not long afterwards I had a speaking engagement before a religious group in her city. We agreed to meet afterwards and have a late dinner together. When I told her at which house of worship I was going to speak, she changed the plan. "I was poorly referenced in a local magazine which is widely read by members of that congregation," she explained. So, instead of meeting me at the reception inside after my talk, she said she'd be waiting for me in her car in the parking lot. No big deal. My Aunt Margie and her daughter, Judy, happened to live in that town and they made arrangements to come hear me speak. Afterwards, when Cousin Judy saw whose car I was getting into, she said she screamed. The next day Aunt Margie called me in New York and asked, "How well did you know that woman you had dinner with last night?" I related the meeting in the London pub and my James-Bond-clever pickup on her accent which resulted in me knowing her for, maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
"That woman was splayed out across our major local magazine as having slept with almost every husband at our biggest country club," stormed Margie. "And marriages and lives around here are still crashing and burning." Margie was on a tear. "And here you are speaking before a group of her victims while she waits for you in the parking lot! Be thankful Judy is the only one who saw you get into her car. Didn't that woman warn you about any of this?" "Gee, Margie," began my necessarily lame reply. "She just told me she's been ‘poorly referenced‘ in a local magazine and maybe it'd be better for her not to come in." So, that woman didnt really tell me what I deserved to know, did she? And our free-press warriors aren't telling us what we ought to know when they call Fidel Castro a "president" of a "government" while his "populist" friend Hugo Chavez continues to wish him well from Venezuela. The first time I became conscious of dictatorships getting free passes and allowed to enter free media as "presidents" and "governments" came during the 1970s period of "détente" and "peaceful coexistence" as American journalists seemed to be looking for kinder, gentler ways to refer to communist totalitarianism. I remember a newscaster referring to the "Soviet government." That was it. That was all. And that was enough.
Those two words up against each other — Soviet government — felt like sand in my gizzard. The word "government" conjures up a vision of a big beautiful White House connected by a long majestic avenue to an impressive domed building with two wings; one for the Senate and the other for the House of Representatives. Triangularly between that White House and that Capitol building stands the stately tabernacle of the Supreme Court. The checks-and-balances interaction among those immoval objects make up a "government." No one-party dictatorial thugs curled up inside a Kremlin need apply.
Likewise, a "president" is somebody who goes out and tries to marshal support from members of his party in enough states to win presidential primaries and secure his party's nomination. Once that's achieved, he then campaigns nationally in an effort to win a majority or a plurality of the votes in enough states to throw sufficient electoral votes his way to win the office and the title of president.
A violent revolutionary, bearded or clean-shaven, who through armed force succeeds in seizing power in a country and whose administration is interrupted frequently by the sound of firing squads and never by free elections or opposition; he's no president. He's a dictator. For more on this, please read Humberto Fontova's riveting and all-important book, "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," published by Regnery. And he doesn't preside over a "government." It's a "regime."
Venezuela still has the vestiges of a parliament and an opposition. The minute that supine and intimidated parliament grants Hugo Chavez the extraordinary powers he seeks, you can call him "dictator," too. Meanwhile, a fitting title would be "ruler." Using pleasant words as spray-deodorants for wretched realities is usually harmless in our daily personal lives. Once my friend Bernie told me he was "reorganizing" his business. A few days later my father called me and said, "I see where your friend Bernie declared bankruptcy." "What!?" I yelped. "He told me he was getting reorganized!" I thought that meant he was shifting furniture, filing cabinets, and shipping apparatus around and moving the mail room up to the third floor. "I'm branching out," frequently means, "I just got fired." "I'm exploring my options" means "I've just been fired and I have idea how I'll pay my rent."
When a young politician asks an older one for his support and the older one says, "I'll be happy to give you advice," that means, "I've done so many shady deals with your opponent that if he loses we'll both be indicted." I'm remembering a comic strip called "Gasoline Alley" in which the main character, Skeezix, got married and at the honeymoon resort met another couple. His name was Elmer. Skeezix asked Elmer what he did. Elmer said he was a tonsorial artist. Skeezix was impressed until he learned that meant Elmer was a barber. And, by the way: They're called "forgers." Not "extra-legal graphic artists."
There should be discomfort across the land when the man on radio or TV talks about, "President George Bush and President Ahmadinejad exchanged thus-and-sos" and "The American government and the North Korean government continued their what-evers." In a society that considers it a virtue to "call a spade a spade," there's no room for calling a dictator a president or calling a regime a government. There's a government building in Washington with a door that says, "4156. General Services Administraion. Region 3. Public Buildings Service. Management Division. Utility Room. Custodial." And inside there's a — trumpets, please — a broom closet!
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