It's A Pod Person, Get Used To It

Right about now I think what should be on everyone's mind is the question, what did the aliens do with the real Gil Kerlikowske, and why?

Last week, something that looked like Gil Kerlikowske and, even more incredible, calling itself Gil Kerlikowske, said it is not going to use the expression "war on drugs" anymore, adding, "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them. We're not at war with people in this country." It then stared directly into cameras, stuck out its tongue, and said, "SKREEEEEEE!"

When the real Gil Kerlikowske was picked by Obama to go from being Seattle's Chief of Police to head of the Office of National Drug Policy, my immediate reaction was "Wuh?" followed by something naughty I shouldn't write here. That's because I had thought that Obama intended to crank down the war on drugs and substitute a focus on treatment, and Gil Kerlikowske had never to my knowledge objected to the war on drugs before, whether or not it wound up being a war on people. In fact, Mr. Kerlikowske had always been a big fan of SWAT teams and busting in doors without knocking.

When the real Kerlikowske has talked about not pursuing enforcement in the past, it wasn't from an objection to the drug war itself. It was just an admission that police resources weren't up to it.

I don't even understand why we're filling a policy position with a police officer. Is there some confusion about the words? "Policy" sounds like "police"? For a policy position you want someone with a record that shows well thought out positions on the policies in question. Now, if it's policies on policing we're talking about, it makes sense to pick a policeman. But the Office of National Drug Policy should be about more than policing, I thought.

Well, I did manage to find a likely reason why Kerlikowske was picked. Seems he had a job once in DC administering a Clinton program. Knowing that, mystery solved. What he's done in the decade or so since probably didn't receive a whole lot of weight, comparatively. But would the Clintons recognize their former pet now, now that he's been implanted or switched out with a pod?

My Mother would have known what to do in a case like this, because she read a lot of cheap books. "Well, what's done is done, no use crying over spilt milk, blah, blah, it's a pod person and that's that, get used to it," is what Mom would have said. OK, Mom, but WHY is he here and who's next? Mom's long gone but I think I know what she would have said. Mom would have said, "It's trying to allay our fears. It wants us to relax and go to sleep, and everything will be just fine in the morning, because you're next, that's who." Then Mom would have said, "So that's all it is, so shut up and go to bed."

So let's summarize. The current Drug Czar, or "Caesar" of US Drug policy, wants us to think we are all safe. The last thing it wants is to stir up panic with talk about wars on this and wars on them. It doesn't want us to find the central pod warehouse and burn it to the ground. "We have not come to wage war," it says. "I mean, me, I, Gil Kerlikowske have not. There is no we. Forget we said that."

Therefore, no matter how many Americans continue to still be incarcerated for various and sundry and mostly nonviolent drug offenses, and no matter how much that undermines our communities and our economic base and our social fabric and corrupts our institutions, the Office of National Drug Policy will no longer call it war.

So, what should it be called, then? Pacification? The Putting to Bed, Permanently, of America?