One could almost predict the desperately "current" New York Times
editor/columnist Frank Rich would devote his Sunday column to try and
make Balloon Boy an anti-Republican symbol of something or other, and
he doesn't disappoint.
The result, "
In Defense of the ‘Balloon Boy' Dad,"
is even more silly than Rich's usual fare, playing devil's advocate for
storm-chasing father Richard Heene. Rich found "some poignancy in
[Heene's] determination to grab what he and many others see as among
the last accessible scraps of the American dream....If Heene's balloon
was empty, so were the toxic financial instruments, inflated by the
thin air of unsupported debt, that cratered the economy he inhabits."
Rich is being serious.
Certainly the "balloon boy" incident is a reflection of
our time -- much as the radio-induced "War of the Worlds" panic
dramatized America's jitters on the eve of World War II, or the
national preoccupation with the now-forgotten Congressman Gary Condit
signaled America's pre-9/11 drift into escapism and complacency in the
summer of 2001. But to see what "balloon boy" says about 2009, you have
to look past the sentimental moral absolutes. You have to muster some
sympathy for the devil of the piece, the Bad Dad.
Nine months into Obama's presidency, everything is still officially about Bush:
Next to the other hoaxes and fantasies that have
been abetted by the news media in recent years, both the "balloon boy"
and Chamber of Commerce ruses are benign. The Colorado balloon may have
led to the rerouting of flights and the wasteful deployment of law
enforcement resources. But at least it didn't lead the country into
fiasco the way George W. Bush's flyboy spectacle on an aircraft carrier
helped beguile most of the Beltway press and too much of the public
into believing that the mission had been accomplished in Iraq.
....
None of this absolves Heene of blame for the damage he may have
inflicted on the children he grotesquely used as a supporting cast in
his schemes. But stupid he's not. He knew how easy it would be to float
"balloon boy" when the demarcation between truth and fiction has been
obliterated.
There's also some poignancy in his determination to
grab what he and many others see as among the last accessible scraps of
the American dream. As a freelance construction worker and handyman, he
couldn't find much employment in an economy where construction is
frozen and homeowners are more worried about losing their homes than
fixing them. Once his appetite had been whetted by two histrionic
appearances on "Wife Swap," an ABC reality program, it's easy to see
why Heene would turn his life and that of his family into a nonstop
audition for more turns in the big tent of the reality media circus.
....
If Heene's balloon was empty, so were the toxic financial
instruments, inflated by the thin air of unsupported debt, that
cratered the economy he inhabits. The press hyped both scams, and
the public eagerly bought both. But between the bogus balloon and the
banks' bubble, there's no contest as to which did the most damage to
the country. The ultimate joke is that Heene, unlike the reckless
gamblers at the top of Citigroup and A.I.G., may be the one with a
serious shot at ending up behind bars.
— Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times.