Posthuman Blues

I find it troubling that the mainstream press studiously avoids mentioning George W. Bush and John Kerry's documented involvement with a self-stated "secret society" -- Yale's Skull and Bones. A presidential candidate is judged, we're told, by his honesty and openness; witness the positively obsessive efforts to excavate Bush's exact military history or the nature of Kerry's performance in the Vietnam War.

So one might naturally assume a politician's loyalty to a "secret society" would preclude any politically meaningful form of trust. Yet Bush and Kerry's membership in what is, at the very least, an influential cabal of leaders and industrialists (that, for reasons unknown, chooses to keep its actions cloaked in secrecy) goes forever unremarked. Nothing to see here. Move on. Punch those chads.

The laughter curtain assembled by incompetent conspiracy theorists has apparently scared the mainstream off from investigating and exposing known breaches of public accountability. Most voters don't even know that Skull and Bones exists, let alone have an inkling of what its motives might be.

Unlike so many self-professed political mavens, I hesitate to claim I can fairly assess either of the candidate's motives. Not being a privileged member of the club, I can't tell you what agendas Skull and Bones supports and what issues it chooses to dismiss. But I bet Bush and Kerry might have an idea.

So why haven't they been asked?