I was flicking across the television channels the other night and ran across one of those old Tarzan movies on TCM. Johnny Weissmuller was acting the part of Tarzan (badly) and Maureen O’Sullivan was Jane, who seemed to have but one frantic line no matter what the movie: “Tarzan, what will we do now, Tarzan?”
Tarzan never answered her – he rarely said much of anything — but looked around wild-eyed, leapt onto a tree trunk and gave out with his patented bloodcurdling yodel, then grabbed Jane around the waist as he would a rag-doll, and began swinging on conveniently placed vines, the kind that held the weight of both Tarzan and Jane but nobody ever saw what they were attached to.
Apparently Jane was worried about some horrible looking natives streaked with white paint, carrying spears, probably dipped in poisonous snake venom and were bent on annihilating both her and Tarzan. However Tarzan’s ululating screech, which sounded like a cross between a bellowing lion and Slim Whitman, did the trick.
Thundering through the jungle came a herd of elephants and all the painted natives dropped their spears and fled for their lives. The theater patron never found out what Tarzan was actually conveying when he hollered — but no matter, the elephants knew and all ended happily with Tarzan, Jane and that blithering chimpanzee, Cheetah, arriving safely at their Tree Fort.
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There is a corollary here that smacks of modern media. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reminds me a lot of Tarzan. Wolf Blitzer — whose name is a combo of a WW2 Panzer division commandant and one of Santa’s reindeer– has that same google-eyed stare as the jungle man and his interviewees often sound like they came from the same school of informative language skills as Jane.
(Let’s face it — Jane was no Dian Fossey but couldn’t she have trumped Tarzan’s seeming lack of imagination by coming up with a more original name for their child than Boy?)
Let me reconstruct an example of the answer which pretty much sums up those given by the array of Deputy Ministers and Spokesmen who answer what usually seems to be a simple Wolf Blitzer query.
“Mr. Deputy” — a bureaucrat from an obvious Middle East country – “is it not true that your own president has given a definitive time line for a withdrawal of US troops from your country?”
Answer: “Well Mr. Blitzer, one has to realize that there is an intrinsic estimate of the strength quotient which is libel to hurdle the fine line of dealings that are not only affected by outcomes as they were experienced in the past but are paramount for exigencies to those dealings due to the fact our president, you must remember, has a quotient-based liability factor built in.”
Wolf Blitzer, who never smiles, and never blinks, immediately assumes the Tarzan stereotype and instead of asking what in the world this guy is trying to say with his prevarication and flat-out mumbo-jumbo, simply jumps onto the next, very likely unrelated question much as if he were grabbing a hanging vine.
I get the idea Wolf Blitzer never heard a word the Deputy Minister said. I would be far more interested in Wolf Blitzer’s guests if some of them actually said something. It’s probably not likely but as the old song asks I Can Dream Can’t I? One case in point could involve the Israelis.
Wolf Blitzer is interviewing an Israeli Deputy Minister and asks “Mr. Deputy, within the past couple of weeks Iran has fired rockets with the ability to reach into Israel. Couple that with the fact there is little doubt Iran is working on perfecting a nuclear device. What is Israel’s response to this series of events?”
The Israeli Deputy Minister thinks a moment then says in a firm voice. “If Iran, according to our sources, is harboring the notion of firing a rocket at Israel which, by definition, would cause death and destruction to the Israeli people, the military forces of my country would attack all known Iranian nuclear launch sites as well as all known areas where such weapons are being built and we would do so without asking and very likely not informing a single soul outside of those with a need-to-know capacity.”
Such an answer would in all probability rock Wolf Blitzer on his heels – he may even be seen to blink.
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Seriously, I think the Israeli Deputy Minister would be two things — absolutely correct and absolutely fired. You just can’t say things like that on television – not even to Wolf Blitzer. However the irony lays in the fact that just who or what agency is going to do anything about it if Israel does take things into their own hands should the occasion arise?
I am mindful of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice adamantly stating that the United States would “stand behind” its friends and no greater friend has Israel, than the United States. Whether or not Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would pay a courtesy telephone call to US President George Bush before his planes took off is neither here nor there. Israel has acted on its own before and would have no compunction about doing so again.
Oh but there would be a hue and cry and a lot of frantic dialogue amongst the members of the United Nations Security Council. What else is new? Israel would close its borders, place restrictions on all and sundry wanting to enter or exit the country and hunker down until the storm passed. There would be retribution as there always is but Israel would cope and give as good as it got.
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Somehow I have twisted this piece from Tarzan of the Apes into Israeli kicking the living s*** out of Iran should the latter prove a danger to the Jewish State’s welfare. But look at it this way. That recent display of rocketry by Iran was for show.
And it was unnecessary because nobody wants to bomb Iran, not even George W. Bush and even if he did, Congress who, don’t forget, is the only part of the United States Government that can declare war, would be unlikely to give him the authority, George being lame-duck and all.
No, Iran’s show of strength were mindful of North Korea shooting missiles over Japan into the Pacific. Barrel-chested saber-rattling. Keep in mind President Ahmadinejad, Israel may be a small country but has amassed great power. They can come thundering at you like … well … a herd of elephants.
