Word: bogeyman
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...they neglect the fact that Japanese children watch more TV than American kids and that Japanese TV is often more inane than the American fare. Why engage in complex soul-searching to find the roots of the breakdown in American education when you can pin it on the TV bogeyman...
Those not content with the bogeyman view of current events still find Saddam difficult -- devilishly difficult -- to understand. The simplest solution may be that proposed by a Saudi prince: "We always thought he was possessed of a pure criminal mentality, but now he is going crazy." The madman theory seems a bit more respectable, intellectually, than simply calling the Iraqi a monster. Long-distance psychoanalyzing of Saddam has been going on for some time, particularly in the U.S. and Israel, with not very helpful results. He suffers from malignant narcissism. He craves challenges. He is paranoid, distrustful of everyone...
...mountains of ice cream, looks at the forbidden photos in Playboy ("No clothes on anybody. Sickening"). His excitement wanes with the daylight, however, all the more so since most of the neighbors on his affluent block have also gone away for the holidays. What most scares a child? The bogeyman, of course, and Hughes supplies two comical would-be burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), one of whom has posed as a policeman to find out when the family would be gone. By the time they arrive, Kevin has decided that he is too old to be afraid...
...these right-wing doves, the only justification for risking American lives and treasure is a direct threat to a vital U.S. interest. During the cold war, such challenges were easier to identify. But the collapse of communism has left the right without a sufficiently menacing bogeyman to battle against. "These folks were all for our actions overseas as long as there was a communist target," says Richard Murphy, senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations and former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. "When it's not a communist target, it's not worth...
...time, anyway. Most nations seemed to realize that if the superpowers were no longer going to police the world, a global Neighborhood Watch had better develop -- at least to counter this particular bogeyman. As extraordinary as the harmony of world reaction was, the circumstances that created it were equally improbable. It is not often that the world produces a dictator who so blatantly disregards the laws of civility to commit such an overt, unambiguous act of aggression against a peaceful neighbor that poses no security threat whatsoever. It is rare that a victim's fortunes are so directly tied...