Mr. Clean

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Tuesday, September 16 2003, 10:07AM

Almost a year ago, the world came to know Charles Moose as the straight-talking black police chief at the center of the sniper investigation in Maryland. Now Moose is back with a shaved head and a new book out today. The picture of Moose reminded me of Mr. Clean, the bald-headed cartoon figure who hawks the household cleaning product of the same name. But not everything is as clean is it looks.

Moose has faced criticism over his decision to write his book, Three Weeks In October, from those who think a police chief should not profit from his job. To write the book, he had to quit his job. Moose writes about the decision to quit in the book.

"It's the story of how I went from being lionized for helping bring the snipers to justice to being vilified for writing a book about it," the former Montgomery County police chief explains in the book's introduction.

I'm not sure what the problem is. As long as he's not revealing any confidential secrets, why shouldn't he make a buck off the wrenching experience he had to deal with? And I hate to pull out the old race card, but it seems appropriate here. We all know that white people have been profiting off of their experiences for years without anyone worrying about it.

Did anyone question Mark Fuhrman when he wrote his book about the O.J. Simpson trial? Did they question George Stephanopoulos when he wrote his book about the Clinton White House? Well, actually some Clinton loyalists did question Stephanopoulos, but he went on to make millions of dollars and host his own ABC TV show.

Anyway, I'm not the least bit troubled by Chief Moose's decision to quit his job and write a book. Can't a black man make some money?

I am troubled by another story I read this morning about our habits of cleanliness. A new study found disturbing evidence that many of us don't wash our hands after we use the bathroom.

Although 95 percent of people told pollsters they always wash their hands after using public bathrooms, researchers hung out in actual bathrooms and observed only 78 percent actually did so. That means two things. First, people lie. And second, we know we're doing something wrong when we don't wash up in the bathroom. Otherwise, we wouldn't lie about it.

I can't tell you how many times I've left a public bathroom in disgust after noticing a man leave the toilet and walk right past the sink to the door. That's why I don't like bathrooms that use blowers instead of paper towels. I need a paper towel to hold the dirty handle when I open the door.

When I see men failing to wash up at restaurant bathrooms, some times I want to find their dates and warn them that their man is nasty. But men aren't the only offenders.

On average, women (83 percent) were more likely to wash their hands than men (74 percent), but the numbers varied from location to location. In heavily gay San Francisco, 80 percent of men washed their hands but only 59 percent of women washed theirs. Meanwhile back at the ranch, at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, 92 percent of women washed their hands, but only 69 percent of men did.

Maybe that explains why George Bush doesn't understand the meaning of clean hands. It's not bad enough that his hands are dirty with the war and the deficit, but now he wants to dirty up the environment too.

Speaking at a power plant in Michigan yesterday, Bush said he wants to protect the environment by giving companies more freedom to pollute. Listen to this line from the president's speech and tell me if it makes any sense. Bush said: "Regulations intended to enhance air quality made it really difficult for companies to do that which is necessary, to not only produce more energy, but to do it in a cleaner way." If polluters can just make more money then they will clean up the environment on their own, Bush says.

And this guy is president? It seems to me we should worry more about George Bush helping his wealthy corporate friends pollute the environment than about Chief Moose making a few dollars selling a book.

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