Aragoto or Wagoto?

"Kabuki theatre" is now used so often to describe political discourse that I was forced to look it up. I always have the sneaking suspicion that a term which comes into general usage by the unlettered boobs populating the legislature and pundit class loses its original meaning, and the talking heads employing the word have only a foggy notion of what they are trying to say. It just sounds hip and au courant to say "Kabuki theatre."

Kabuki theatre is a form of highly stylized, traditional Japanese drama, and comes in two varieties, "rough" (aragoto) and "soft" (wagoto). Of the two, aragoto is the more stylized and mannered, using outlandish costumes, exaggerated gestures and histrionics and bombastic forms of speech. Wagoto is more realistic and natural.

My guess is that politicians and the usual experts mean aragoto, if they mean anything at all, and that their implication is that whatever political maneuver they are denigrating was not in good faith and was solely for dramatic effect. So I think I was right: they don't know what they really mean by "Kabuki theatre," and they would be better off borrowing a term, say, from shadow plays from the Czech tradition, or that weird Indonesian puppet thing that I remember from "The Year of Living Dangerously." Some of that, if I recall correctly, involved the shadows of puppets. Now we're getting somewhere.

Rushing to the podium yesterday to discharge his latest load of unbearable anxiety, President Bush accused the Democrats of "political theatre" in passing a military funding bill laden with deadlines and troop-readiness and veterans' care baggage (not to mention spinach and shrimp). Unfortunately, he didn't use the term "Kabuki theatre;" that's disappointing, because I would just love to hear him attempt the Japanese word. What Bush wanted was the money. He was not interested in all these carps and codicils which La Diva Pelosi presented to him after her massive exercise in cat-herding with the Democratic Mob in the House. So Bush engaged in some aragoto of his own, claiming that the Democrats were endangering the troops with their off-Broadway shtick, and that they ought to close after one night.

Face twitching, eyes downcast, upper lip stuck to his front teeth (the surest sign of Bush's anxiety-caused dry mouth), Bush warned that he would never take this $124 billion unless he got it his way, neat and clean, so that he would be free to squander it as he wished. It was his second tantrum in the space of four days. It's comical that Bush cannot control himself for even an hour when he feels thwarted; he has to rush out right now, whereas more artful and effective negotiation requires a sang-froid which is beyond him. What W doesn't get is that thwarting and taunting him is getting to be something of a blood sport among his opponents. They enjoy seeing him bug-eyed, twitchy and spitting his words. It's a fun kind of aragoto.

Especially when he can't do anything about it. Bush demanded that the Democrats reverse course and give him his $100 billion with no strings attached, so the troops will have the resources they need to roll around Baghdad and Anbar until they hit a roadside bomb and die. The Democrats aren't going to do that. Bush's veto means that he will decline to accept the money that would keep him rolling in war-cash until September 2008, nearly the end of his era of misrule, but that's not good enough for W. War Profiteering 'R Us in Bushland. Do we all realize that every time Bush demands another $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan that he is asking for another 3.3% of the entire $3 trillion federal budget? Well, he is.

Bush now faces this awful prospect. His duty as the Commander in Chief means that he has to plan for the safe and orderly extraction of the American military from Iraq with the money on hand. Bush never plans anything. He just does the next stupid thing and then asks for more money to keep the stupid thing going. That was another curious feature of Bush's appearance at the podium yesterday, backlit with the beatific smiles of the military mannequins behind him. He showed absolutely no cognizance of the reality that this Iraq madness has already been underway for four solid years, and that all the reasons for the dumb thing have proved nonexistent. Yet not a flicker of shame or remorse in those haunted, angry eyes. In some ways, a bravura piece of aragoto all in itself.