- There's not much lately that we'd like to import from
China.
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- Certainly not the yummy steamed buns stuffed with shredded
cardboard soaked in a caustic agent used to make soap. Or the tasty toothpaste
laced with an antifreeze ingredient. Or the scrumptious seafood with a
chemical kick. Or those pet foods with kibbles and bits of poison.
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- But there is one thing made in China we could use: mea
culpas of high officials.
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- Zheng Xiaoyu, a top regulator who helped create China's
Food and Drug Administration, accepted $850,000 in bribes from drug companies
and became enmeshed in the mistakes that flooded the market with dangerous
drugs. Before he was executed Tuesday, he wrote a short confession titled
"How I Look on My Mistakes."
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- "Thinking back on what has happened these years,
I start to see the problems clearly," he wrote in prison. "Why
are the friends who gave me money all the bosses of pharmaceutical companies?
Obviously because I was in charge of drug administration.
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- "I am confessing here that I loosened self-discipline,
ignored the bottom line," he said, adding that he had to confess his
mistakes "as an act of saving my soul."
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- We would skip the execution - although perhaps there
should be ranch arrest for W., and Cheney could do community service passing
out condoms at Gay Pride festivals.
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- But it is time for the lethally inept duo running the
country to do some painstaking self-examination and confession. Just as
the Communist Party helped the late Mr. Zheng compose his thoughts, I volunteer
to ghost-write our leaders' self-scrutiny:
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- "How I Look on My Mistakes," by George W. Bush
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- The people trusted me with an important position. I didn't
live up to expectations. I let Dick supersize the executive branch and
cast Democrats as whiners and traitors. Why did I not suspect that Dick
might be power-hungry when he appointed himself vice president? Why did
I let him take over my presidency and fill it up with warmongers? I was
so afraid to be called a wimp, as my father once was, I allowed Dick and
Rummy to turn me into a wimp. I should never have allowed Dick to conspire
with energy lobbyists and steer contracts to Halliburton. A tip-off should
have been when Dick kept giving himself all the same powers that I had.
Or when he outed that pretty lady spy.
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- If only I had kept my promise to go after the thugs who
attacked us on 9/11, because now I've made Osama and Al Qaeda stronger.
I know my false claim about Al Qaeda's ties with Iraq led to Iraq's being
tied down by Al Qaeda. I see now that my bungled war on terror has created
more terror, empowered Iran and made America less secure. Oh, yeah, and
I'm sorry I broke the military.
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- I stained the family honor when I ignored the elders
of the Iraq Study Group. I should not have worried that I would be seen
as kowtowing to my dad's friends. The Oval Office is not the right place
for a teenage rebellion.
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- I should not have picked that dimwit Brownie, and I should
have trusted the gut of anyone besides that goof-off Chertoff to keep the
nation safe. And what was I thinking when I said Harriet Miers should be
a Supreme Court justice? That was loony. I'm sorry I made the surgeon general
mention my name three times on every page of his speeches. That was childish.
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- How could I have let Dick bring in his best friend, Rummy,
my dad's old nemesis? Dummy Rummy let Osama escape at Tora Bora, messed
up the Iraq occupation and aborted a mission to wipe out top Al Qaeda leaders
because he was protecting Musharraf, who was protecting Al Qaeda in the
tribal areas. Even though I promised to get rid of dictators who helped
terrorists, I ended up embracing a Pakistani dictator who helps terrorists.
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- I'm embarrassed that the Iraqi Parliament is taking a
monthlong vacation in the middle of my surge. Could I have set a bad example
when I rode my bike in Crawford while New Orleans drowned?
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- I'm sorry I keep pretending Iraq will get better if we
stay longer. It wasn't very nice of me to push the surge when I knew it
couldn't work. I just wanted to dump the defeat on my successor. I wish
Hillary the best of luck.
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- If I had left the gym long enough to read about Algeria
or even one of T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, then I might have
not gotten bogged down in Iraq and let North Korea, China and Russia slide.
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- Being the Decider is so confusing. I regret stealing
the presidency and wish I could give it back.
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