Wait Until October
Here's an idea for the mainstream press: Why not throw a knuckleball from now until Labor Day and replace every political pundit with a film critic? There's no downside, since the majority of op-ed columns, editorials or "news" articles I've seen about the midterm elections?not to mention the 2004 presidential campaign?offer not a clue about the makeup of next year's Congress. (Nicholas Lemann's shameless puff of Sen. John Edwards in the May 8 New Yorker was the worst of the lot: in his rush to claim the dubious distinction of anointing a Democratic nominee, as Sidney Blumenthal and Joe Klein did with Bill Clinton in '92, Lemann ignores the freshman Senator's growing list of liabilities in running against a wartime president.)
I'd rather read The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell or The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern on Sen. Paul Wellstone's reelection bid in Minnesota, say, or the possibility of Elizabeth Dole flaming out in North Carolina, than the phoned-in 1000-word pieces from David Broder, George Will, Michael Barone or Richard Berke.
Who can tell whether California's detestable Gov. Gray Davis can overcome high unfavorability numbers, as well as a budding scandal involving Oracle Corp., in defending the seat against his conservative, pro-life opponent Bill Simon by repeating one word for the next six months: abortion. Even in Maryland, a Democratic monolith, polls showing Kathleen Kennedy Townsend comfortably ahead of GOP Rep. Bob Ehrlich are meaningless. Odds are that Bobby's eldest child will prevail, given her name and nationwide fundraising ability, but she's prone to gaffes and not particularly bright.
Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, writing in the May 6 Roll Call, brings up a point that few in his trade have touched: the impact that the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks will have not only on the general elections but numerous state primaries held at that exact time. As Rothenberg says, the media will saturate both print and tv with lavish, flag-waving retrospectives, making mere campaigns seem grubby by comparison.
Berke, in his role as a compliant foot soldier for The New York Times' agenda, argues in a May 6 article that President Bush's still-high poll numbers won't have much effect on local elections. As an example, he writes: "Republicans still shake their heads over what happened to President Ronald Reagan in the midterm elections of 1986. In a frenzy of campaigning in nine states over seven days?as well as in commercials?Mr. Reagan appealed to voters, saying that voting for Senate Republicans would be their last chance to vote for him. His candidates lost in every case but one."
That's a fatuous comparison. The world of 1986 doesn't remotely resemble that of 2002; in addition, while the elections aren't necessarily a referendum on Bush's presidential performance, his ability to raise money for Republican candidates can't be underestimated.
Also on Monday, a Times editorial, titled "Mumbling Toward November," was an even more blatant blueprint for the Democrats than usual, barely disguising the paper's hope that the economy won't recover anytime soon. An excerpt: "Since the most competitive races are in places that are still struggling economically, Democrats should be pushing harder for more spending on education and a prescription drug program for the elderly that is more generous than the unrealistic Republican plan. They need to make a bigger issue of the environment, including the administration's shaky stewardship of public lands. They also need to be more forthright about the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's economic policies, namely, the tax cut...
"But most of all the party has to do more to level with voters and tell them that Social Security, Medicare and other domestic priorities?not to mention the defense and homeland security buildup?cannot be paid for with borrowed money. Americans are ready to meet their responsibilities in these areas and realize that if the needs are important, revenues will have to be found."
It gives me goosebumps when the Times braintrust, surrounded by yes-men in its well-appointed Manhattan offices, speaks for the country's citizens, as if publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. or editor Howell Raines could possibly identify with people in Arizona, South Carolina, Michigan or Kansas.
Not that Mitchell or Morgenstern would prove more adept at handicapping the November results than the Permanent Government Beltway studs, but at least they might relieve the tedium about a subject that no one, in this most volatile year in American history in decades, can write about without looking like a fool even a month later. It's a plain fact that in 2002 there are no precedents to cite, no way to divine whether the fall contests, which are crucial to both the GOP and Democrats given the near-parity in the House and Senate, will be a wash or a blowout for one of the parties.
I rarely agree with Weekly Standard senior editor David Brooks?his adoption of Bill Kristol's John McCain fetish is just one indication of the prolific writer's suck-up tendencies?but his Standard website piece of May 3, "Foreign Policy Is King," was one of the best current analyses of the midterm elections. Brooks said, in debunking the Democratic hope that domestic issues will dominate in November: "[I]t has been seven months and foreign policy is still front and center. And we haven't even gone to war with Iraq yet... Foreign policy is really interesting these days. It's not all trade deals and economics, the way we thought it was becoming in the 1990s. It is about fundamental moral and political values. Fundamental clashes of ideas, not only between us and the Islamists, but between us and the Europeans and the Chinese. We really are different from other people around the globe, and those differences are the stuff of conflict and passion."
Small wonder, then, that both the Senate and House passed perfunctory resolutions last week in support of Israel. Never mind that such transparent political grandstanding might interfere with Bush's complicated Middle East negotiations; almost every elected official in the United States wants to establish his or her bona-fides on behalf of Ariel Sharon. Not that I disagree with the sentiment: the U.S. has the responsibility of supporting our democratic ally in that region and ought to seek the eventual expulsion of murderer Yasir Arafat. But the spectacle of congressmen from both parties choosing photo-ops over caution only leads to increased cynicism, if that's possible, about their motives.
Finally, leave it to The Nation to intentionally publish anti-Bush propaganda even when they have no facts to back it up. In a May 13 editorial, the fringe-left weekly said: "The ineffable good luck of George W. Bush seems to be faltering at last. The man became President by an electoral accident that resembled theft... Recent events, especially the terrible bloodshed in the Middle East, have uncovered the original truth widely understood about Bush's stature. Underneath the cowboy lingo, the man is light in substance, weak on strategy and quite willing to cut and run from principled position if he feels a chill wind from politics... Bush made a reluctant foray, then meekly retreated before Sharon's belligerence, hailing him as 'a man of peace' while the UN envoy described Sharon's accomplishments in the West Bank as 'horrific and shocking beyond belief.'"
Hey, why not just name the morally bankrupt Kofi Annan as president of the entire world!
This line is particularly misleading, suggesting that the affluent, white owners and editors of The Nation might want to read publications other than their own: "Domestically, as his inflated poll ratings shrink like an over-valued tech stock, Bush's presidency is naturally altered."
A New York Times/CBS poll published on May 3 showed Bush has a 73-percent approval rating, as well as 60 percent agreeing with his handling of the Middle East crisis.
A May 2 USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll puts Bush at 77 percent approval; in addition, 70 percent of those surveyed said that the President deserves to be reelected.
Even in California, where Al Gore creamed Bush in 2000, a Field poll conducted in late April shows that in a hypothetical 2004 rematch, Bush would defeat Gore by a margin of 48-41 percent.
Call Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel at 212-209-5400 and ask her what "over-valued tech stock" she had in mind. Right now, it looks like a blue-chip to me.
At the same time, Mayor Bloomberg acknowledged that crime has decreased since last year in those areas.
I have no qualms about being repetitious: Kelly and Bloomberg have much larger concerns about the "quality of life" in the city than a few more hookers making a buck. Besides the fact that prostitution, like gambling and marijuana use, ought to be legal?not only on moral grounds, but to unclog the jails?with Penn and Grand Central Stations virtually security-free, this is a severe misallocation of city resources. So while five cops set up a sting to bust a dozen young women roaming the streets, a suitcase-bomb is detonated in a midtown subway station; Ground Zero Two is created for the sake of apprehending a few hustlers.
Keep the Tube On
It was the bottom of the second inning at Junior's Downtown Little League game, and while several other parents and I were watching the Indians roll over the White Sox, a mom piped up, "Did anybody pay attention to "TV-Turnoff Week"? Complete silence for a moment, and then everyone said at once: "No way."
Three cheers for common sense.
My kids watch a lot of tv: The Simpsons, Zoids, MTV, SpongeBob, Brit Hume's 6 p.m. Fox news, if I can coax them into it, and even on occasion South Park. They also play sports, read, draw, immediately do their homework after school, log computer time, take swimming and guitar lessons and play war games in the living room. It's what I'd call normal.
Although I grew up pre-cable, there was plenty on the tube to keep my attention, whether it was reruns of Donna Reed, Dragnet, I Love Lucy, Twilight Zone, Our Gang and Betty Boop or the now frowned-upon Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons made during World War II that lampooned Japs and krauts. Sometimes, during summer vacation, my mother would kick me out of the house for some physical activity; if there was nothing doing in the neighborhood, I'd walk a block over to Tony Donino's and watch a Mets or Yanks game on their color tv, a then-expensive luxury that hadn't yet made it into the Smith family den.
I have little patience for these weeklong boycotts, usually organized by elite, Liberals-Know-Best ad-hoc groups from Manhattan, California or Vermont. In the spring of '73, as a high school senior, I remember a "No Meat" week that I reluctantly participated in. As part of the campaign, our history class went to a McDonald's for lunch one day, and everyone opted for the filet o' fish, except for the teacher, Mr. Paulsen, an Archie Bunker type who moonlighted as a bartender, who taunted everyone by eating two Big Macs.
Geoffrey Norman, writing in The Wall Street Journal on April 26, had a lucid take on the tv turn-off "movement." He wrote: "The entire anti-TV enterprise, then, seems a little sanctimonious and didactic. One anti-TV Web site helpfully suggests some books to read instead of watching the box. Among the (few) titles are works by Abbie Hoffman (honest) and Noam Chomsky, as well as Susan Faludi's 'Backlash.' ...According to a man who knew William Faulkner fairly well, the great novelist had a rule, near the end of his life, that he was not to be disturbed when his favorite show was on the TV. That show was 'Car 54 Where Are You?' ...Now that is the proper response to the supposed ravages of television. You acknowledge that it is junk, and then you make distinctions between the good junk and the bad junk and limit yourself as you can. 'Car 54 Where Are You?' was, as the author of 'Absalom, Absalom' realized, good junk."
Back on the baseball diamond. There's nothing more painful to watch than a young player striking out in consecutive at-bats. All the pats on the back and encouragement like, "You got a lot of good swings," don't make a bit of difference. It's even worse if the boy or girl is tubby or simply unathletic, and only there to please a parent. A couple of weeks ago at a t-ball game, I rooted for a tyke who obviously liked donuts more than baseball, and was thrilled when he cleanly fielded a grounder and threw successfully to first base. The look of wonder on his face?"How did I do that?"?was something to behold.
As a kid, I was a pretty good ballplayer?the only sport about which I can make that boast?but I remember one awful June day in '67 when our team was in the playoffs and I batted cleanup, and was also the starting pitcher. Never mind that I had no command of my fastball that day: a friend named Buffy Bowen (now there's an excellent baseball name), the opposing hurler, had my number, and I whiffed four times in a row. Making matters worse was that my four brothers and a bunch of friends were in the stands for what was expected to be an easy win. After the game, I waited until we got to the station wagon and then broke down in tears; even a trip to Sam Goody's for $1.99 albums couldn't dent the sheer embarrassment and feeling of failure.
I never read Bob Morris' fatuous nightlife articles in the "Styles" section of the Sunday Times, but on April 21 he wrote a minor gem about the horrors that still haunt grown men. Morris was in Westchester, taking his nephew to his first Little League game (the parents were unable to attend), and the coach asked him to toss the pill around. He writes: "'What? Me?' I thought to myself. 'I throw parties, not baseballs.' Well, never mind. A line of eager boys had formed. I threw a few grounders before one of the team's four supereager volunteer dads stepped in, to my relief."
The party-page columnist then revisits his own youth. "Since childhood, my brother and I have been insecure about our athletic abilities. And although schools these days are toning down the cruelty of picking teams, and camps are eliminating color wars, we know things haven't changed that much. Unathletic boys can still feel marginalized... That's why parents are making sports a priority right now [Hey, Bob, have the freebie cosmopolitans clouded your memory? Sports were a far more integral part of school culture three decades ago], and with every expert emphasizing that dads should be participating too, there's nowhere for those like my brother or even for overinvolved uncles like me to hide. Many successful men with scary-gym-teacher issues are revisiting them."
No doubt once the wave of pedophile priests is prosecuted, trial lawyers will move on to retired phys-ed instructors who yelled at now-litigious adults who suddenly "remember" mental abuse from years ago.
But Morris has a cheery conclusion to his piece. "Anyway, despite Ian's genetics, he has become a little sports nut who makes us feel he has a rogue gene... In fact, he wanted to practice throwing and catching all afternoon. And as my arm started to ache, with my brother on deck to relieve me, I realized that we got what we deserved, Jockenstein. Children can teach you all kinds of lessons. Sometimes they can even teach you how to read the sports pages."
On the other hand, there was an hilarious line in Jay Jennings' Jan. 11 Wall Street Journal article that argues, convincingly, that some parents take their offspring's on-field activities way too seriously. He writes: "The moral of this tale is, if your investment guru is managing more T-ball than T-bills, if he speaks about bonding issues more than bond issues, maybe you want to find somebody else to handle your money. It may be blasphemous to say so, but there are times when work should take precedence over family.
"As usual, advertisers seek to exploit the anxiety in parents who are working long hours, who aren't present for their progeny's first step and every one thereafter. If a father takes a minute for himself and camps on the couch to watch a game on television, he will see a parade of commercials playing on the guilt he should feel for being in a full Homer Simpson position instead of videotaping his son's latest kickboxing lesson."
Clinton for an Emmy!
On my honor, I will tell the truth: How fantastic would it be if Bill Clinton eventually did succumb to vanity and bucks and hosted a talk show? After a week of feverish speculation from the media on the subject?far more sexy than the fraudulent Arab claim of a massacre in Jenin?Clinton's handlers nixed the idea for a full-bore Oprah/Larry King/Aaron Brown horn-in, but didn't deny that the painfully shy ex-president might be enticed into some sort of "town meeting" format for tv or radio. That's a start; because after the initial high ratings tank, when Clinton causes viewers to nod off with his patter about the vagaries of economic policy in Peru, he'd wander off the reservation and fall back on the good stuff like "feelings," self-empowerment and Sports Ilustrated's swimsuit issue. Why, he might even sign off each day or night?Dan Rather-like?with a motto from his personal reverend, Jesse Jackson, like the classic, "God didn't create no junk."
Last Friday The Washington Post ran a nasty editorial on the subject, headlined "The Next Oprah?" I'll ignore for now the Post's shameful behavior during Clinton's impeachment proceedings and dwell on a rare positive from that paper's editorial page. The writer conceded that ex-presidents?busybody Jimmy Carter comes to mind?no longer follow Harry Truman's example of going home and playing bridge once their term has expired, but I agree (I'm reading between the lines here) that Clinton's post-presidency is setting new records for avarice, sanctimony and seamy plays for attention.
One snippet: "At first the news seems ludicrous?you ask yourself, is this, even this, possible??and then you think, yes, God help us, of course it is. Not only possible but inevitable. This, after all, is the man who turned all of American politics into a talk show, with his trademark town meetings, his fervid emoting, his scandals, his denials, his tears, the lower lip... As for real guests, what a range he could command. Kathleen Willey! Yasser Arafat! He could get Al Gore on; they could make up; cry; have a no-holds-barred discussion about male grooming and, if there was time left, the 2004 ticket."
But also on May 3, The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan made the best argument about why Clinton's entry into gutter tv journalism will never happen. One reason: Hillary won't let him.
May 6
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