Dan

Calabrese

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November 19, 2007

Halloween Horror! Julie Myers and the Latest Scandal About Nothing

Do you ever feel like the shallowest people in America are the ones running the show? Now we have proof. Just ask Julie Myers.

I have no idea how good or bad a job Julie Myers has done in two years as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. But her actual performance appears to be a non-issue in the U.S. Senate, where she needs confirmation to stay in the job she received via a 2005 recess appointment by President Bush.

What matters is what she does at Halloween parties. After two years of battling charges that she was unqualified for the job, Myers by all accounts had positioned herself for confirmation . . . when scandal erupted!

It seems that Myers and other top agency officials hosted an employee Halloween party at which the costume judged “most original” was of an escaped prisoner sporting dreadlocks and darkened skin. That’s it. That’s the scandal. Sorry if you were expecting graft, corruption, embezzlement and sex.

I remember this one time, at a Halloween party, when this fat guy showed up in just a diaper. I still have nightmares . . . Oh, sorry. My personal traumas are not your problem. The personal traumas of U.S. senators, on the other hand, afflict us all.

The luminaries are bailing by the boatload on Myers because, as one-time supporter Kit Bond explains, they want a “non-controversial” director. And Myers is now controversial because silly things that happen at Halloween parties are highly relevant to American governance and national security.

I’m not sure this applies to typical Americans, but America’s political and chattering classes pay so much attention to trivial “scandals” and “controversial remarks,” I’m not sure they would know substance if it took the form of a truck and ran them over.

We have a multi-leveled scandal here. The costume-wearer’s skin was darkened. Ooh. Racism. The reveler was portraying an escaped prisoner. Oh no. Law enforcement is serious. It’s serious! You – stop laughing.

And dreadlocks. Dreadlocks! Does Eddy Grant know about this? He will be much too upset now to rock down to Electric Avenue ever again.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but who cares about this Halloween party or this costume? Who cares if Julie Myers thought the costume was “original”? Sounds like it was to me. If I’d been at the party, I would have thought it was hilarious. So would you, unless you’re a humorless schlump.

Indeed, even the people who are supposed to be upset by this don’t appear to care. The National Association of African-Americans in the Department of Homeland Security (you had no idea that existed, did you?) has sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praising Myers and her commitment to black employees in the department.

The National Association of Dreadlock-Adorned Escaped Prisoners has yet to weigh in, but it’s only a matter of time.

None of this makes any difference, of course. Once a scandal, imbroglio, kerfuffle or brouhaha erupts, it matters not that the whole thing is pointless and irrelevant.

Myers even went so far as to offer a completely unnecessary and quite silly apology, declaring herself “shocked and horrified” that the costumed employee had altered his skin color. If the guy ever dressed up as the Incredible Hulk, Myers may lose it for good.

Would it be too much to ask that we stop going bananas every time someone makes a comment or takes part in an incident that might raise an eyebrow in the cold light of day? Could we recognize that people attend parties, have slips of the tongue and sometimes say things that they regret – and that this is no reason to end careers and throw the leadership of public agencies into chaos?

Now I’m being silly. Of course it’s too much to ask. If we stop obsessing over trivial nonsense, we’ll actually have to pay attention to substance. You haven’t seen shocked and horrified until you make official Washington do that.

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