Life is too short to bother reading about Condi massaging her "legacy," so instead let's let Tom Tomorrow show that it's been a fiendish Dem plot

It's a good morning, and a great kickoff for the long weekend, with the sun, breezes blowing, and for once my morning paper neither (a) undelivered or (b) stolen. What's more, the shiny new digs the NYT boys and girls have moved into seem to have inspired them with a sense of humor--even on the front page!

Right there above the fold today is a head for a DIPLOMATIC MEMO by Helen Cooper which reads:

"As Her Star Wanes, Rice Tries to Reshape Legacy"

I laughed, then laughed some more. Condi? Suddenly worried about her legacy? What was she thinking about all those years while she acted as cheerleader-stooge-enabler for Cheney, Rummy, and the Chimp? Okay, we like to be open-minded here at DWT, let's take a stab at it:

* On Condi's watch the percentage of Americans who can find Iraq on a map has risen from "unmeasurable" to 2.6 percent. This is pretty good when you consider that apparently 70 percent of Americans can't find America on a map, meaning that at most 30 percent can. (Okay, the numbers are made up. At least the "2.6 percent." I do remember hearing somewhere that something like 70 percent of Americans can't find America on a map.)

* It might all have been ever so slightly worse if our Condi hadn't been on the inside, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, to say, "I don't think we--" (before being cut off by Cheney or Rummy). If it's going to be her "legacy," however, it would be nice to have a shred of evidence for the proposition, like even a single "for instance."

You know, since Condi is reputed to be an excellent amateur pianist, and therefore presumably someone with some wider exposure to classical music, it's a shame she didn't think, when she began pondering her legacy, about the scene in Verdi's Don Carlos where the Marquis of Posa throws every argument he can think of into trying to persuade the Hapsburg (and Catholic) King Philip II of Spain to end the infernal bloodbath he has been inflicting on (Protestant) Flanders.

We should talk about this amazing scene sometime. It cost Verdi enormous anguish; he rewrote it three times. But in the end he nailed it. In the context of legacy-buffing, the line that leaps to mind is Rodrigo's "O King, don't let history ever say of you: 'He was Nero.'" ("Il fut Neron" in the original French--or "Ei fu Neron" in the more commonly performed Italian translation--is set as a series of B's, just below middle C, comfortably below the vocal "break" and so likely to be manageable by the baritone the way the composer asks for it: ppp, or very, very softly.

To be honest, I can't tell you any more about how our Condi hopes to spruce up her legacy. I didn't read any more. I took the headline belly laugh and ran. If I were advising her, though, I would incline in the direction of trying to explain it all via a conspiracy of the sort that Tom Tomorrow has been conjuring up. (Thanks to my friend Paul for passing these glorious strips on--I just forget to check for my weekly Tom T fix.) Don't forget that you can click anywhere on the strips to enlarge them.