A St. Lucia Scorecard; The Lieberman Liability; Ted Sorensen Mouths Off
Democrats Eat Fried Rats: that was the moral of the story.Fine, an explanation is in order. Ten days ago, my wife, two boys and I were riding in a taxi-van from the Jalousie Hilton resort on St. Lucia, on an hour-long trek to visit friends who live in a small village at the southern tip of the island. The streets are extremely narrow, with no guardrails and few lamps, and as you bump along, looking out either window at the bunches of bananas on trees, sealed in blue bags to ripen, every 10 minutes or so you'd see a small girl wandering to nowhere, or an elderly man setting up his bare-bones roadside bar for the day. Junior and MUGGER III, for the first half of the trip, were fascinated by the goats, cows, pigs, chickens and bulls that roamed the fields, for it's not often they see such an array of animals, except when they're processed for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
We segued to the topic of American wars?neither boy could fathom the horrible reality of brothers fighting brothers in the Civil War, but who can??and since we'd just been to Boston and seen the monument commemorating the skirmish at Bunker Hill, I reminded the tykes that it's possible to lose a battle but still win the war. That tidbit came in handy later in the afternoon back at the Jalousie pool, when a group of British and Dutch teenagers sabotaged a raft of foam floats the boys and other little kids had fashioned, nicknamed "Old Rusty." When the yobbo from Manchester completely destroyed the makeshift vessel, Junior cried out, "I can tell you're a Redcoat! We may have lost this battle, but we won't lose the war!"
Probably baffled the mostly European crowd quietly sunning by the pool, but I proudly chuckled, relieved for a moment to ignore an awful book I'm reviewing for The Wall Street Journal in a few weeks.
Junior cited the Nickelodeon poll that shows 60 percent of that station's viewers prefer George W. Bush for president this fall, a statistic that leads him to believe that the Texan has the election wrapped up. Would that it were that simple, but, in any case, I digressed into a long monologue on presidential politics, starting with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and going on to Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting adventures, Woodrow Wilson's overeducated mind and domineering wife and the quiet wisdom of Calvin Coolidge. I gave a grudging nod to FDR's political brilliance and finally wound up with an explanation of Watergate. I told Junior exactly who the Great Communicator was. When he asked about Monica Lewinsky, I veered off into the importance of honesty and being faithful to your family. And that brought me back to my own dad, a man who never belonged to a country club, didn't go to an Ivy League school, inherited no wealth, worked with his hands and still voted Republican every November. Once, after I asked why he voted for Goldwater in '64, he told me that LBJ was a liar who planned to escalate the Vietnam War?and with five sons he wasn't in favor of that Best & Brightest fiasco at all. Then, with a wink, he said, "Besides, Rusty, Democrats eat fried rats!"
Back to the taxi adventure. After a pit stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken?the only fast-food franchise on St. Lucia?and 10 minutes checking out the exotic products at a small supermarket, where I bought several bottles of the soda pop exquisitely called "Chubby," we arrived at Mari's house. True to form, the gals were at work: one sister was sweeping the floors; another was doing the wash and keeping an eye on some grilled fish; two girls were having their hair braided by an older cousin; and Mari's aunt took me for a short tour of the neighborhood. We walked past the local church, school and several disco/bars, but the most amazing sight to me was all the fresh produce above us in the lush greenery. Lined up one after the other were trees bearing coconuts, breadfruit, mangos, grapefruit, avocados, papayas and limes. And the ubiquitous bananas.
Caribbean cuisine generally sucks, especially at hotels, but look hard enough and you'll find a limited range of delicious grub. Each night, while the kids stayed with a sitter, Mrs. M and I walked not far off the Hilton grounds to a joint called Bang, managed by a fellow who, in more plump times, owned all the land that was now the Jalousie. He was there each time we visited, greeting tourists in his tropical suit and fedora, whipping up the jazz/steel band to further frenzy, pouring drinks and appearing for all the world like a lost character out of a Conrad novel.
We ate grilled shrimp, snapper, chicken doused with a fiery pepper sauce, rice & peas, and jerk wings, set off by sides of mostly inedible cole slaw and stewed carrots. Drinking Cokes and Pitons while inspecting the mementos tacked onto the walls of the informal bar, feeling the breeze from the sea, marveling at the Wizard of Oz-like tree that sprouted orange berries?it was a worthwhile hour each evening we went. The boys, who did like that the Disney Channel was available, made do with lousy room service: soggy fries, bagels with crummy cream cheese, perfunctory pasta and half-melted grilled cheese sandwiches.
Although I'm not a beach kind of guy?too much sand and obnoxious swingin' singles who speak too loudly, especially after getting looped on their first 11 a.m. frozen drink?it was a pretty swell vacation. Mrs. M sat by the Caribbean for the majority of the week, polishing off seven or eight books; the kids went for outings under the auspices of the Learning Center, feeding fish, taking a trip on a glass-bottom boat, playing soccer and looking for insects; and I read magazines and three-day-old Wall Street Journals and messed around with my laptop. One thing about St. Lucia, it's not very computer-friendly. One sway of a palm tree, let alone a sudden thundershower, and the AOL crashes instantly. The boys also spent a lot of time in the pool, although Junior picked up a nasty sunburn on his face, especially his lips, and didn't care at all for his trip to the hotel's nurse.
We took a couple more trips outside the 325-acre compound, although you really could keep occupied within the grounds. For example, the morning after we arrived?after a grueling 18-hour Air Jamaica ordeal?our grumpiness from the trip melted away upon our first venturing outside the cottage. There, right in front of our faces was the Gros Piton mountain, a vertical slab, sister to the Petit Piton, and a welcome salve from the brutal journey the day before. There's also a spa, tennis courts, parasailing, snorkeling, a fitness center and most everything for the aggressively athletic. Me, I like to read on the terrace, look at lizards and thumbnail-size frogs, take zoom-lens photos, examine plants I've never seen before and figure out how to dissuade armies of ants from invading the inside living quarters. And I was able to keep up on the GOP convention via CNN. Pretty civilized.
(I prefer Nevis and Barbados, but certainly recommend St. Lucia as a vacation spot. Just don't fly Air Jamaica. Once we arrived at Montego Bay, it was a zoo, with flights canceled and delayed for no discernible reason, and the airport filled with angry customers, some who'd been there for almost a day, others just sodden after too many Red Stripes. Even the first-class lounge was a wreck, resembling a disaster relief center after a hurricane.)
One Sunday the boys and I took a cab to the nearby town, Soufriere, where the annual carnival was taking place. I'd assumed it'd be a few hours of rides, fire-eaters, cotton candy and carnies looking to make a buck on rigged games of chance. That was naive. Instead it was a local Mardi Gras?with a somewhat hostile adult crowd, already bombed at 3 in the afternoon, and a makeshift parade that no one paid much attention to. We stopped at one bar, where the music was so loud MUGGER III covered his ears, and they were all out of Cokes; the roughshod man behind the counter asked if we wanted three Heinekens instead. No joke.
The streets were filthy, the stores were closed, the popcorn was stale and the boys, sweltering in the heat, grew crankier by the minute. Actually, it was the kind of event I'd have loved 25 years ago, but it's no fun being trailed by hustlers when you've got two children in tow. We stopped in a church park for a breather and an ersatz, drugged-out Rastaman caught up with us. He laid some slurred schmooze on me, about how beautiful the boys were, etc., and then went for the sale. He'd carved some calabash shells, which I'm sure took about a minute apiece, and was convinced that Junior and MUGGER III would just kill to have one of them upon their shelves. I wanted to get rid of the guy, especially noticing the 8-inch knife in his pouch, so I played the game: he wanted 25 Eastern Caribbean dollars (about $9 U.S.) apiece. We dickered back and forth and I finally forked over $10 E.C. for one; he was pissed, but at least left us alone.
Another day, the four of us went to see Mount Soufriere, a natural complex of craters, dormant volcanoes, bubbling mud and waterfalls. Most significantly, and as the place's name should have warned us, the entire area is imbued with the malodorous scent of sulfur. Now, it's said that such a wonder is a tonic for the sinuses, but to the four of us it just smelled really, really bad. In fact, in the midst of our tour, after dodging more hostile hucksters selling exorbitantly priced souvenirs, Junior started coughing and then deposited his breakfast in a nearby patch of grass. The tour guide was nonplused and kept to her script; no doubt she's seen it all before. Mrs. M had to steel herself against the same reaction, and wound up with a headache that didn't abate for six hours.
Much to my wife's chagrin, before we left MUGGER III and I stocked up on tacky trinkets?he's got a world-class key-chain collection?at the hotel's gift shops. A few magnets here, several hot mama dolls there, some bottles of hot sauce, fudge made in St. Lucia and, the bane of Mrs. M's interior design scheme for our loft, two more piggy banks for my office. I'm a pack rat by nature, and so is our younger son, while Junior and his mother like a neat, orderly environment, free of clutter. So solly, Cholly, I tell her, and receive a raised eyebrow for my good humor.
Where to next? Junior's lobbying heavily for Chicago, so he can see Wrigley Field and Slammin' Sammy; Mrs. M wants to go farther into the Caribbean to Trinidad; MUGGER III says Coney Island would suit him fine (a fiscal genius already, just before his sixth birthday); and for all the delays in travel we had landing at St. Lucia, I'd just as soon slip the kids a mickey and get back to the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, the finest resort in the world, at least in my somewhat varied travel experiences.
Let Us Now Pray
As the days?not weeks?roll by it's clear that Al Gore's choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman as his runningmate was not a smart one. My instantaneous reaction to the news was that the Vice President had dodged the Sen. John Kerry bullet and instead picked a man who was the first Democrat to publicly criticize Bill Clinton's scandalous behavior during the Monica Lewinsky saga. That he was an Orthodox Jew was a bonus: another political barrier, albeit a rather minor one, broken down. Not that it helped Fritz Mondale one iota in '84 when he ran with Gerry Ferraro, but still.
Frankly, I believe that Gore was boxed into tapping Lieberman after Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell said on Aug. 5 that if Lieberman were Episcopalian he'd be "a slam dunk" as Gore's number two. As it happens, a Gore source of mine was seated near Rendell at a fundraiser two weekends ago and the DNC chairman didn't mention Lieberman as a realistic possibility: "It was Edwards, Edwards, Edwards." After Rendell's remarks caused a stir, the unlucky Gore faced the real possibility that Jews, a key component of his base, would rebel if Lieberman were bypassed.
Anyway, after the surprise wore off, Lieberman revealed himself to be a fraud of biblical proportions. In his Nashville speech on Aug. 8, the Connecticut Senator was hyperbolic to the point of offense. He said: "Dear Lord, maker of all miracles, I thank you for bringing me to this extraordinary moment in my life. And Al Gore, I thank you for making this miracle possible for me and breaking this barrier for the rest of America forever. God bless you and thank you."
I can't understand how Lieberman, a devoutly religious man, could trivialize the workings of the God he worships. The Senator's possible career advancement is not a "miracle": to say so demeans the very word. A cure for Alzheimer's disease or obesity would be a miracle; so would the elimination of drug addiction; and ridding America of immoral and corrupt elected officials, trial lawyers, race-baiting demagogues and sanctimonious first ladies, preachers, rabbis, union leaders and businessmen would certainly qualify as a miracle. But Joe Lieberman's ascension to the Democratic ticket as vice presidential nominee, even if he's the first Jew to attain that honor, is a miracle? I don't think so.
Much has been made by the elite media of Lieberman's reputation as the "conscience of the Senate." Jiminy Cricket should be cryin' in his beer. Already, Lieberman has flip-flopped on issues in order to be compatible with Gore. The man who once favored school vouchers and the modernization of Social Security has now retreated from those sensible stances. And isn't all the exultation over Lieberman's religion tremendously condescending to American Jews? You'd think the Senator was chosen because he could be an able president should the occasion arise; the fact that he's Jewish is not an earth-shattering qualification. In fact, it's tokenism that harms Jews and the country as a whole. Joe Lieberman is no Jackie Robinson.
Another troubling thought: How can Mr. Morality, who's been lauded by conservatives for his speech about Clinton's conduct and his campaign against the sex and violence that pours out of Hollywood every day, reconcile being aligned with Gore with his beliefs? The Vice President showed no guts at all when Clinton disgraced the nation; instead he called his boss one of the "greatest presidents" in American history. And Lieberman now says that judgment of the President's perjury and immorality is best left to historians. As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in the Aug. 14 Wall Street Journal: "Most Americans, and their dogs and their cats, know perfectly well whether Bill Clinton is the equal of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. They know Mr. Lieberman knows it too."
And what about all the money that Gore has taken from the entertainment moguls Lieberman holds responsible for the degradation of modern culture?
Ambition always rules: for the glory of running with Al Gore, Lieberman has willingly developed a case of amnesia. The illegal fundraising of the '96 Clinton-Gore campaign didn't exist. Monica Lewinsky? Hmm, can't place that name. Last Sunday, on CNN's Late Edition, the Senator commented on Clinton's nauseating "apology" for his personal mistakes before 4500 ministers in Chicago last week: "I thought the President was being very sincere. To me, the timing seems coincidental." On the same day, Lieberman told Meet the Press' Tim Russert that the Republicans are exploiting Clinton's scandals only because his "record is so great."
If Lieberman really is as virtuous as his supporters claim, he'd have said, "No thank you, Mr. Vice President," when Gore made his offer.
And in stark political terms, Gore has goofed again. Lieberman doesn't help coalesce the Democratic base of voters, a chore that Gore, at this late date, still hasn't achieved. In fact, he's liable to solidify Ralph Nader's support among the most left-wing members of the party. As Robert Scheer wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week: "What a gutless wonder Al Gore is turning out to be... [Lieberman] has attempted to outdo his ally, William Bennett, in the culture wars that have censorship as their end game. That was Lieberman's message when he rose to denounce Clinton in the Senate, employing the same arguments as the Christian right moralizers that the president's transgressions were part of a national moral decay brought on by the right's favorite scapegoat, Hollywood... Gore did not need another prude at his side. He already had Tipper."
If Gore had wanted to make a statement by choosing a Jew, why not Sens. Paul Wellstone or Russ Feingold, two men from usually reliable Democratic states where George W. Bush is currently leading in the polls? The Vice President said last spring that campaign finance reform would be his number-one priority when elected?we'll let it slide for the moment that he's had about 18 "number-one" priorities?which was a naked grab for McCain voters. On the off chance that Gore was telling the truth, Feingold, who teamed up with McCain on that First Amendment-busting issue in the Senate, would've been a magnificent choice.
Once again, I'll say that the veep candidate who most worried me as a Bush supporter was Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the schoolmarmish lieutenant governor of Maryland. KKT would've been a hell of a lot more effective than Lieberman in rallying the troops. Just imagine all those Kennedys, spread out across the country, invoking JFK, JFK Jr. and RFK. And there'd be in play the idea that Townsend, who's not yet 50, would have a real chance at becoming the United States' first woman president. That would've been the bold choice. As for her limited experience, that's nonsense: once in office, she'd become familiar with the job, and it's not as if she doesn't have about 100 Camelot tutors to call upon. I think KKT would've been more than a weeklong story; in fact, she might've put Gore in the White House. But her selection was too "risky."
Time, in its Aug. 21 issue, once again disgraced its legendary founder Henry Luce with this predictable headline that accompanied a cover photo of Lieberman and Gore: "Chutzpah!" That silliness reminded me of a comment I read in Neil Steinberg's Aug. 10 Chicago Sun-Times column: "First of all, it certainly is a huge, honking deal to Jews. I know when I heard the news, the tight knot of contempt and distaste I felt for Gore magically melted away. Sincerely. It was amazing. One moment I was resigned to probably voting for him, holding my nose, and the next I was imagining myself leading a torchlight parade for Gore down Michigan Avenue, wearing his face on a big button shaped like a sunflower."
Holy smokes. If that's the reaction a craggy senator who happens to be Jewish can elicit from a journalist, you have to wonder why Gore didn't set his sights higher. Just imagine how his poll numbers would've soared had he chosen Brad Pitt, Regis Philbin or Julia Roberts.
Jonathan Alter, writing in the Aug. 21 Newsweek, was more unbearable than usual, with an essay called "Post-Seinfeld America." By the end of the piece the reader feels as if he's gone to Hebrew school with Alter, such is the exuberance the author displays for Lieberman. I'll let Alter's absurd contention that Yiddish expressions seemed "on the verge of extinction a generation ago" go and leave you with just one distasteful morsel. He writes: "[I]f Gore wins, Clean Joe Lieberman will be seen as Gore's air freshener, his inoculation against Clinton Sleaze Syndrome. There's an irony in those medical metaphors. Nazi propaganda harped on the dirty Jew, infecting Aryan purity. Now, an American Jew is seen as a disinfectant."
Really, Uncle Jon? Next time, could you tell us about that man named Adolf Hitler?
And The New York Times' Bernard Weinraub and Elisabeth Bumiller ought to be boxed off to the paper's farm team, The Boston Globe, for the following lead paragraph in their Aug. 14 story on Lieberman. Wince with me: "Maybe Jackie Mason should worry. After all, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee seems to enjoy using Yiddish words like 'chutzpah' and Jewish-style phrases that have not often been heard on the national campaign trail."
Two more notes: Andrew Sullivan, former editor of Marty Peretz's Gore tip-sheet The New Republic, has huge balls. It was just last week that Sullivan's return to the magazine, where he'll write the "TRB" column every week, was announced. Yet in the Aug. 13 Sunday Times of London, Sullivan wrote, under the headline "Jewish gamble may cost votes": "It's a Jew! The ethnic hyperventilation in America last week reached new, cringe-inducing heights. In a country whose mass media are not known for their complex descriptions of public figures, the Jewishness of Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate, was the beginning, middle and end of the story... Gore himself talked about bringing down walls of division with this one stroke of ethnic genius. Lieberman, for his part, mentioned God 13 times in 90 seconds. And these are new Democrats?men for whom ethnic bean-counting is supposed to be anathema."
Finally, National Review's John J. Miller had a smart bit in his Aug. 10 online dispatch. He recounted a joke that Bill Maher, host of Politically Incorrect and a Bill Clinton buddy, made on Aug. 7. The "joke" went like this: "This Gore-Lieberman ticket is working because Bush, you know, the little Bush kid running for president, he had a 19-point lead the other day. It is now down to 2. Wow. Whatever. But this is the first time in history a Jew has knocked 80 percent off."
Miller's rejoinder: "What if Pat Buchanan had said that on Crossfire?"
All the Old Dudes
It's a sobering thought that Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's young and invaluable aide, is now 72. More sobering still is to realize that when a person reaches that age he or she sometimes cannot escape the past, and winds up reliving ancient glories, endlessly fighting the same battles. So I give Sorensen half a bye for his nostalgic op-ed piece in The New York Times on Aug. 12, a horrid article that belittled Gov. George W. Bush in a vain attempt to keep the author's vision of Camelot alive.
While delusional Democrats cling to the daft notion that this fall's election will be a rerun of the 1988 face-off between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, the more correct analogy?as much as any election can be compared to one from another era?is to Kennedy vs. Nixon in 1960. Unsurprisingly, Sorensen, appalled that Bush is cast in the JFK role, wants to be heard from the old folks' peanut gallery.
A few highlights. He writes: "Both men delivered vigorous acceptance addresses in mostly moderate tones, at ease on both television and the hustings. But Kennedy, having never veered from the center during the primaries, had no need to backpedal at the convention or to conceal his party's record in Congress. He waged a campaign of ideas, not vague applause lines..."
Surely Sorensen realizes that when Kennedy ran for president, he didn't even announce officially until the calendar year of the election. Although JFK was the favorite going into the Los Angeles Democratic convention that year, his nomination wasn't a mere formality. And not only has Bush criticized the GOP-controlled Congress, a bold move for a Republican candidate, but despite Sorensen's dismissiveness, the Texas Governor provided a great deal of substance, as did JFK, at his convention. Forty years have passed; Bush intends to modernize the FDR New Deal legacy that was still working on at least three cylinders in '60; he's intent on creating a missile defense system which, if successful, will be of far more benefit than Kennedy's adventurous promise to send a man to the moon. And, like Kennedy, Bush is a tax-cutter.
Sorensen says of his boss, "Respectful of the presidency, Kennedy criticized the incumbent administration only on policy grounds, never personal ones." If the onetime whiz kid fratboy can't tell the difference between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bill Clinton, he has no business writing articles for any newspaper, even The New York Times.
The craziest comments in Sorensen's piece were that Kennedy was "beholden to no one" and needed to adopt "neither his father's policies nor his advisers." It's plain history that Joe Kennedy ran and financed his son's campaign, cut deals with the mob and dictated Robert F. Kennedy's appointment as attorney general. It's also well-known that JFK was indeed beholden to a powerful government official: J. Edgar Hoover. So, Ted, cut the purity crap.
Also, there weren't many of Joe Kennedy's advisers that JFK would've wanted: remember, the former ambassador to England had advocated appeasement with Hitler. That's a far cry from George W. Bush taking counsel from the likes of Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice.