Dennis Hastert's Emergence; McCain's the Scoundrel
I had the pleasure of addressing the New York Young Republican Club last Thursday night-an invitation extended by the group's affable president Robert Hornak, an indefatigable foot soldier in Herman Badillo's mayoral campaign-and my libertarian remarks were met with mostly affirmative nods of the head. The only issue on which the audience was dead silent was when I expressed my hope that President Bush would roll the political dice and support stem cell research, which will proceed with or without federal dollars. Unlike most conservatives I'm in the "mushy middle" when it comes to abortion. Translation: I'm pro-choice until a pregnancy reaches the third trimester, at which point I fall in line with the other side.
Democrat pundits, and public officials, are doing their best to give Bush fits about the current controversy, claiming he's in political danger no matter what he decides. Baloney. The President has ample time to recover from any bruised feelings among his core base of voters and the onslaught of attacks-claiming hypocrisy-in the mainstream press. Once again: The midterm elections are in 2002, not this November, and a completely different set of political circumstances will provide the backdrop for those contests. As for 2004, I find it hard to believe that firm opponents of this science-which could possibly yield incalculable advances in the fight against diseases like Parkinson's, diabetes and Alzheimer's-would bypass Bush for Roe v. Wade advocates like John Kerry, John Edwards or Al Gore.
Last week was one of Bush's best this year, with an obvious exception: the scandalous decision of the International Olympic Committee to allow China to host the games in 2008. The United States' neutrality in the selection process was shameful. Although a few legislators put principle above commerce and protested Beijing's lobbying for the Olympics, Bush was silent, and it's by far the worst stain on his still-fledgling presidency. I'm not about to join the ranks of imbecile Hollywood celebrities who question GWB's intelligence, but doesn't the phrase "Berlin in 1936" mean anything to the man who says history is his favorite subject to read about?
There are no excuses: How in the world can this administration justify tightening the trade embargo on Cuba-a small island where communism is on its last legs-and then play footsie with China, a country run by a brutal dictatorship that brooks no quarter for freedom of political or religious dissent? This story isn't over: When China's military cabal flexes its muscle in Taiwan, just as a prelude to future crimes against democracy, Bush will be forced to sacrifice America's business interests in that country and retaliate. But the tactic of not vigorously opposing the Beijing Olympics was ill-advised, and could've easily been avoided.
But that was the bad news. Otherwise, the Bush administration had its strongest performance since the Jeffords turnover blotted out the success of the tax-cut victory. The President's polling results showed an uptick from just two weeks ago, proving that such snapshots are somewhat meaningless (but a welcome jab at The New York Times nonetheless). Saturday night's missile defense test in the Marshall Islands was a success, leading even Sen. Joe Biden, another presidential aspirant, to admit that the visionary plan isn't completely nuts. And last Wednesday, at Ellis Island, Bush gave an inspirational speech about immigration, saying, in part: "Immigration is not a problem to be solved; it is a sign of a confident and successful nation. New arrivals should be greeted not with suspicion and resentment, but with openness and courtesy."
The President's sincerity about opening the borders of the United States to less fortunate men and women from other countries is one reason he was such an attractive candidate last year. Unlike xenophobes in his own party, Bush understands why the U.S. has flourished for the last 225 years: it's still a land of opportunity for those who believe that hard work can lead to a more fulfilling life.
Julian Bond's bigoted remarks about Bush at the NAACP's annual meeting in New Orleans on July 8 had the effect of enraging more sensible black leaders who realize Bond espouses the kind of hate that should've been retired after the 2000 election. If a Republican employed the same sort of inflammatory rhetoric as Bond did in public, he or she would now be in political Siberia. Bond: "This is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. The new administration wants to downsize government. What they really need to do is to downsize their extreme agenda and stop governing as if they won a mandate. They didn't even win a majority... [Bush] has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing, and chose Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."
How considerate of the prematurely brain-dead Bond to suggest that Colin Powell, Rod Paige and Condoleezza Rice hum along to "Dixie" when they huddle in the White House.
The big story of the week was the temporary scuttling of campaign finance reform, a victory for all Americans who believe in the First Amendment. Bush didn't even take a hit from John McCain's defeat: wisely, he didn't threaten a veto of the bill, saying he'd sign whatever the House and Senate compromised on, so when the Shays-Meehan legislation didn't even come up for a vote last Thursday no one could point a finger at Bush. Instead, in a ludicrous reaction from the power-mad media (the one huge entity that would benefit from McCain's self-serving crusade), Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was portrayed as the villain. Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom" chart in its July 23 issue was typical, giving Hastert a thumbs down: "Gutless House speaker kills camp. fin. reform without a vote. What a surprise."
Last Friday's New York Times editorial on McCain's setback was hysterical-quite a feat considering the thousands of sanctimonious and poisonous words that the Democratic Party's unofficial newsletter has issued this year alone. Headlined "Mr. Hastert's Debacle," the writer thundered: "After hours of bluster and threats, the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, resorted yesterday to the old-fashioned way of trying to kill campaign finance reform. Unable to get his way on the parliamentary ground rules for considering the Shays-Meehan bill, he simply abandoned his promise of a fair vote and yanked it from the floor. There is no telling when, or if, the speaker might allow it to come before the House again. Now the supporters of reform have no choice but to mount a loud protest against Mr. Hastert's thuggish tactics and demand immediate action next week on the bill."
What a joke. Arcane congressional rules are exercised with regularity: I don't recall the Times protesting the Senate Democrats' staving off of the inevitable vote on Bush's tax-cut bill by proposing amendment after amendment. Nor have the Times' Howell Raines and Arthur Sulzberger Jr. seemed at all concerned by Tom Daschle's and Chuck Schumer's threats to hold Bush's judicial nominees-as well as those to other administration posts that badly need to be filled-hostage until they extract Big Government wampum from the President.
The Times put forth the propaganda that the CFR defeat was a political loss for Hastert, writing: "It is usually considered anathema for a member of Congress to defy his or her party's leadership on a parliamentary issue. Yet Representative Christopher Shays and 18 other courageous Republicans did just that, joining with the Democrats to reject Mr. Hastert's bullying tactics."
The implication is that those few Republicans in favor of Shays-Meehan are going to block Hastert from advancing the President's agenda in the House by retaliating with Daschle-like obstruction of their own. Sure. Lindsey Graham, for example, who was one of the 18 "courageous Republicans"-not that the Times considered the South Carolina Congressman such a statesman when he performed as nobly in the impeachment battle against Clinton-isn't going to buck his leadership. Yes, as an ally of McCain on this one issue, Graham wanted CFR to pass. But with his Senate race next year to replace the retiring Strom Thurmond, Graham isn't going to alienate Bush, whom he supports on most issues.
The plain fact is that Hastert, as opposed to so many wishy-washy GOP leaders (with notable exceptions such as Sens. Phil Gramm and Mitch McConnell), did the dirty work, took some flak, but is an American hero for helping to preserve the constitutional rights that arrogant elitists like Raines and Sulzberger would like to abridge.
The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial of July 16 was to the point: "We'll admit to having underestimated House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Who'd have thought he could induce the supporters of campaign-finance reform to kill their own bill? Yet this is precisely what happened last week, notwithstanding crocodile outrage afterward from John McCain, Dick Gephardt, GOP Congressman Christopher Shays and the New York Times. They sound like O.J. Simpson promising to search the countryside for the real killer. Rather than risk a vote they might have lost, supporters chose to defeat the House 'rule' for controlling the amendments and terms of debate on their own bill. They slit their own throats... Speaker Hastert earned his pay last week. Now if he can scuttle the lawyers' right to bill, sometimes called the Patients' Bill of Rights, we'll really be impressed."
A simple errand late last Friday afternoon, walking down to lower Manhattan's Borders to buy Now 7-a hideous collection of current pop singles-for Junior, turned into an absorbing two-hour historical audio/video adventure for this pack-rat columnist. I struck out in the hunt for that particular CD, but while at the bookstore got waylaid by the stacks of new releases and picked up Bill Buckley's new novel Elvis in the Morning, Vincent J. Cannato's study of John Lindsay (The Ungovernable City) and Mark Kram's much-maligned Ghosts of Manila, an unapologetic and critical examination of Muhammad Ali. I haven't yet finished Kram's masterful book, but it's a welcome antidote in this summer that's produced more silly and tiresome media tributes to Cal Ripken Jr. than I can stomach.
Yes, Ripken owns The Streak-not that the dodo knows much about the Yankee whose record he broke, the truly heroic Lou Gehrig-and so he deserves a spot in Cooperstown. But spare me the hagiography: Ripken's never been known in Baltimore as a mensch. His enthusiasm as a player was infectious back in the days when Earl Weaver's spirit energized the Orioles (Weaver managed Ripken for just a few seasons), but in the last decade Ripken's been a sullen, spoiled and mediocre athlete. Maybe the odious O's owner Peter Angelos just saps the humanity out of anyone he comes into contact with, but that doesn't explain Ripken's private limos, separate hotels and indifference toward his teammates.
The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell, a once-gifted sportswriter who ought to hang 'em up along with Ripken, wrote a good example of the near-unanimous praise of the revered Oriole's decision. On June 19, Boswell wrote: "Cal may need time to say goodbye to baseball. But not nearly as much as we need to say goodbye to him. If anybody deserves to be told-every day for the rest of the season-what he has meant to the sport, it is Ripken. There have been better players, though not many. But the game has never had a finer representative."
Where have you gone, Brooks Robinson?
Last week, after Ripken hit a homer in the All Star Game in Seattle, Boswell was even more effusive: "Some accomplishments go beyond athletic deeds and speak to the core of a person as he is experienced by others. As he prepares to leave, Ripken has reached that point. The Oriole symbolizes not just a way of playing baseball or perfecting his craft. He has come to stand for an unusual synthesis in any profession."
Anyway, I hoofed over to the J&R complex on Park Row, with the simple intention of buying that darned Now 7. Instead, completely confused when I climbed up to the second level of the music store-it's been remodeled to store just oldies-my watch stopped. I frequent the Tower and Virgin outlets, but J&R is hands-down the best one-stop shopping mecca in the city. Two weeks earlier, I'd acquired the fine Rhino box set of 72 folk tunes from 1950-'70, Washington Square Memoirs, and after listening to the three discs almost exclusively for that period, I went hunting for other collections of songs I hadn't thought about for years.
WSM features a remarkable hodgepodge of artists, most of them forgotten today, and likely to be scorned by kids reared on Radiohead and the Dave Matthews Band. But for an old-timer, hearing David Blue's "These 23 Days in September" and the late Fred Neil's "The Dolphins" again was like opening a time capsule. Sure, a lot of the "poetic" lyrics are laughable (Loudon Wainwright III's 1970 "School Days" stands out as particularly dopey-"I was Keats, I was Blake") and the political content is mostly irrelevant today, except as history. Actually, Vince Martin's & Neil's "Tear Down the Walls" now stands as an eerie precursor to President Reagan's legendary, and more substantive, admonition to Mikhail Gorbachev 23 years later, and while I never tire of Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore," you do have to take his youthful, change-the-world gusto with a grain of salt. Really, does this make sense: "For I marched to the battles of the German trench/In a war that was bound to end all wars/Oh I must have killed a million men/And now they want me back again/But I ain't marchin' anymore."
Likewise, Peter, Paul & Mary's cover of "Blowin' in the Wind" was a grand anthem in 1963, but unlike Bob Dylan's, the group's music seems so tame now-not unlike Walter Isaacson taking over CNN's news group; that beleaguered station, already a joke, will surely become as puffy as an Archies' song-that it's almost unlistenable. Also, after reading David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street, an inexplicably praised book about the early 60s folk scene, I've had more than my fill of Richard Farina, a musical (and literary) footnote. I skip right over his and wife Mimi's "Pack Up Your Sorrows." On the other hand, Judy Roderick's husky "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" bears up after repeated plays.
But back to my basket full of now-moldy recordings at J&R. In an hour's time, I plucked the following: The Best of Broadside 1962-1988 (89 songs, with artists like Peter LaFarge, Happy Traum, Malvina Reynolds, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tom Paxton and the Fugs); The Best of Sandy Denny (with the incomparable "Tam Lin," recorded with Fairport Convention); Van Dyke Parks' still-stupendous Song Cycle; the Kinks' groundbreaking Village Green Preservation Society (just another album I had years ago that's since disappeared); Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation and Volunteers; a collection of '57-'60 Everly Bros. songs; a Woody Guthrie box set; a couple of Rhino "British Invasion" discs; and even Joan Baez: The First Ten Years. The latter is worth the price just for her cover of "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word," one of Dylan's most affecting early songs that for some reason he never recorded himself.
Two floors down, in J&R's spectacular video department (which was as mobbed as a World Series game), I lost track of time once more. After buying DVDs of Ghostbusters, Rocky and Monkeybone for the kids, I snared Billy Liar, a collection of JFK's speeches, documentaries on Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman, and the MPI series of 20th-century America, with volumes, separated into decades, from 1910-1970. The MPI commentary is fairly rudimentary, but the footage is priceless, especially the segments on Prohibition, the Great Depression and Churchill's leadership in England during World War II. By this time, I had too much stuff to carry, so I reluctantly passed on a bunch of old Bonanza tv shows.
Not surprisingly, once outside on Park Row, my paper bags started tearing and I couldn't land a cab even if I waved a $100 bill in front of off-duty drivers. So I walked home, occasionally dropping books or CDs, looking like a goofball with my slippers and Bermuda shorts, but once back in my lair, I logged onto the Drudge Report, playing each of the four discs in the new Buffalo Springfield box set. Then I happily moved to the living room to watch David Cone, Rich Garces, Rod Beck and Derek Lowe shut down the Mets while the Florida Marlins were pounding the Yanks.
Saturday wasn't as brilliant as the previous day, with the equivalent of a six-hour thunderstorm leaving me grumpy, crotchety and pissed off. The boys were squabbling more than usual in the morning-even a session of cap-gun fights on our terrace didn't erase the tension between them over who had rights to the PlayStation setup. Junior and MUGGER III are-as most parents would boast of their own, I'm sure-wonderful kids and extremely close, but just as I remember inconsequential feuds with my four brothers growing up, the two of them can get worked up into meltdown lathers over the slightest things. Like who has dibs on the last yogurt in the fridge, or whether they'd rather see Shrek again or Final Fantasy. Beats me. Mrs. M and I try to be as patient as possible, but sometimes the sheer noise of their arguments can grate on our nerves.
Let me say this: Shea Stadium is one of the worst ballparks in these United States. As I've written before, the retro-theme stadiums, like the complexes that are home to the Orioles, Rangers and Indians, just for starters-with their scores of restaurants, waterfalls, exploding scoreboards, petting zoos and overabundance of souvenir stands-rub me the wrong way. I'll take the two-inning waits on concession lines at Yankee Stadium or the omnipresent filth of Fenway Park over these anything-but-baseball monuments to short attention spans.
But Shea, which opened to mass jubilation in 1964 in conjunction with the adjacent World Fair, needs to be torn down. Not only has the poorly constructed stadium gotten shabby, but it's hard to find a seat where you won't develop a neck injury. There are too many ushers and security guards roaming around, often obscuring a decent view of the game. Junior and I went to Saturday's Mets-Sox game-a nightmare in and of itself, with Trot Nixon producing the lone Boston hit (a bunt single, at that) in a dispiriting 2-0 loss-and I can't recall a more unpleasant baseball experience.
We had, on paper, excellent field box seats, but unfortunately they were on the rail next to a ramp: the constant stream of spectators blocking our line of vision, especially for my son, was unsettling enough, especially as they returned with smelly trays of monster fries covered with chili and cheese; then a clutch of ushers, with nothing to do after the second inning, congregated right in front of us. I didn't mind their yakking-it has to be a fairly boring job-but jeez, when you shell out plenty of dough to see Manny Ramirez, it'd be nice to actually see him at bat even if he is in a slump.
At my advanced age, I don't really care about the food at ballparks-a bag of peanuts and a Coke or two is sufficient-but for a kid under 10, the popcorn, dogs and cotton candy are an integral part of the game. Just before the contest started, we waited on line for an eternity (to be fair, Shea is usually far superior to Yankee Stadium in this regard), and arrived at our seats with the most disgusting hotdogs I've ever had at a sporting event. The rolls were oversized and doughy, holding a fat tubesteak that must've been made exclusively from pig ears, so foul was the aroma wafting from our trays. I tossed mine after one bite; Junior made the mistake of finishing half of his and was so nauseated that he swore off food for the rest of the day, fearing he'd blow chunks in the middle of the night.
With the Sox utterly dominated by the suddenly indomitable Glendon Rusch, we left in the seventh, and took a cab back home, figuring that one long ride on the 7 train was enough for one day.
Frankly, like egomaniac GOP mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat in drag, I, too, consider taxis "mass transit." But I'm not a candidate for office and can make that true statement even if it's considered arrogant. Just another example of what a crummy politician Bloomberg is: if the man possessed any scruples, he'd bow out and let Herman Badillo, an admirable public servant, carry the Republican fight against whichever hack Democrat wins the September primary (and subsequent runoff). Say it's Badillo vs. Mark Green: odds are that the ex-Nader disciple would win handily, as the Democrat/Republican ratio in the city makes Badillo an overwhelming longshot, but wouldn't it be swell if instead of a creep like Green or Peter Vallone New York elected its first Hispanic mayor? Along with a Bret Schundler gubernatorial victory in Jersey, that would make for an extraordinary November, and would shut up compromised and weary pundits like Joe Conason with their fictional columns about how the GOP is moving to the center, pilfering Democratic ideas.
It was a smooth ride, with a very pleasant driver, until we hit Canal St., where the anguish of hearing the game's final two innings on the radio was only exacerbated by horrendous traffic. Junior, disappointed by the Sox's lack of hits and his gustatory nightmare, was getting peckish and I hardly blamed him.
Mrs. M and MUGGER III were off at a birthday party, so we had the apartment to ourselves, and, after an afternoon of irritation, finally relaxed. My son read a collection of Calvin and Hobbes Sunday comics-he's nutso for "Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles" and "Maakies" in New York Press, but I figured a G-rated bunch of strips wouldn't do him any harm-and I scanned The New Republic's July 23 editorial, suggesting that Gary Condit resign, with delight. It made me wonder why the GOP can't shut up Rep. Bob Barr, who was the first congressman to demand Condit step down. Politically, the Republicans ought to remain quiet: as the California legislator's career rapidly goes down the drain, there's no reason for a hate-magnet like Barr to lobby for headlines. It may be that the off-putting man from Georgia is a Mensa champ like the Clintons, but he's also just as obnoxious. I wish he'd relinquish his safe GOP seat to someone with better manners, and go open a fast-food franchise or car dealership.
And who's the next to go public for a Condit resignation? None other than Sen. Trent Lott, as ineffective a Republican leader as I can remember, a guy who compromised away the courageous work of the House Managers during the Clinton-impeachment proceedings, and was stupid enough to call the recent defection of Vermont flake Jim Jeffords a "coup of one." Nice p.r. skills there, Trent. When will the GOP Senate bigwigs finally topple the pork-stuffed cheerleader from Mississippi and replace him with someone of substance, say Bill Frist?
The sad probability is that Chandra Levy is as dead as Jimmy Hoffa, which makes Condit's lawyer Abbe Lowell's scolding of the media indescribably reprehensible. (The Weekly Standard, in its July 23 issue, calls Lowell "[T]he Democrats' top ambulance chaser.") Lowell doesn't give a hoot about the Levy family; he's just swimming upstream to save his client's ass, self-righteously bragging about the ginned-up polygraph test the Congressman took. Why Lowell, a man whom two or three people in Washington actually respect, even took this case is proof that many lawyers are even scummier than the sad-sacks who comprise the bulk of the mainstream press. I just can't imagine consenting to defend a man who put his career and secret life of philandering ahead of the fate of a woman he recently shared a bed with. It takes a powerful argument to dissuade me from proclaiming Alan Dershowitz as the most venal and repulsive human currently masquerading as an American attorney, but Lowell is certainly in competition.
The night wore on, and I lethargically watched CNN's Capital Gang and Take 5. On the latter program Time's Jay Carney was delightfully combative, arguing that the family of John Kennedy Jr.'s wife didn't deserve a nickel-the Bessettes bagged $15 million in a settlement with his estate-since the accident fell under the marriage vow of "for better or worse." Litigation-happy Jake Tapper (Take 5's cohost who writes for the $.14/share Salon.com) seemed gleeful that the Kennedys were so grossly victimized.
God only knows why, I then bought the bulldog edition of Sunday's New York Times and slogged through most of David Barstow and Don Van Natta Jr.'s interminable article about last fall's Florida recount, which added absolutely nothing to the already-overflowing stack of inconclusive studies about the historic election. This six-month investigation ("How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote"), which alleged no illegal acts on the part of Bush's campaign team, was an utter embarrassment.
The nonstory is further evidence that the Times has now completely broken faith with readers who look to it for high-quality information. Years ago, the paper was reasonably adept at hiding its bias/agenda; now it's nakedly on display and just ugly. Call your broker today: this is the stock to short.
July 16
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