WEB EXCLUSIVE! Best Wishes for 2002! Now, on to Business...

Best wishes for 2002, one and all?including the left-wing opportunists like Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild who claim a new strain of McCarthyism has scuttled the First Amendment?and I'll offer just two predictions before getting down to work.

The November midterm elections, which will hinge on the economy and continuing war, are likely to produce little change, contrary to historical results in a president's first term. Both the Senate and House are up for grabs: my bet is the Democrats pick up a seat in the former (although Paul Wellstone is chucked out of office) and the GOP slightly expands its majority in the latter. If that comes to pass, one can only hope that Dick Gephardt, his dream of ascending to speaker of the House evaporated, will challenge President Bush in 2004. That would be even better than John Kerry. Bush will have to abandon his nonpartisan throne in the coming year and use his current popularity to stump for Republican candidates.

The Boston Red Sox, under new ownership, will at least clinch a playoff berth, with Manny Ramirez busting out with a MVP-season and Johnny Damon stealing 50 bases. The Yanks, despite pitching woes, can be counted upon to win the World Series.

1. Home Comforts. Like most sane New Yorkers, I didn't get near Times Square on New Year's Eve. Instead, while Mrs. M and MUGGER III were sound asleep by 9 p.m., I spent an insufferable two hours watching MTV's insipid ball-dropping celebration with Junior. He insisted we both wear corny hats, eat lots of junk food and switch to South Park reruns during commercials; so his enthusiasm was contagious. My son was excited when Sum 41 played three songs. I tried to explain that the popular Canadian band is a so-so knock-off of Green Day, the Clash and the Who, but he wasn't interested in the musical musings of a 46-year-old who was dozing off in the easy chair.

The next day I viewed The Falcon and the Snowman, that fine 1985 film that should've been a superstar-launch for Timothy Hutton, who instead, for whatever reasons, frittered away his career. Sean Penn, playing a sniveling druggie opposite Hutton's intelligent-if-confused protagonist, was excellent, although proving as a young man that he's as repugnant onscreen as in real life. More than two decades later, Penn's boorish public declarations continue. As Mitchell Fink reported in the Jan. 2 Daily News, the nutso actor spews a load of crap in the upcoming Talk.

Penn says: "I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the Bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution... I'd like to trade O'Reilly for Bin Laden... This is not a man sitting on the toilet with a smile on his face. He's a grumpy, self-loathing joke. There's a long history of people capitalizing on the lowest common denominator of people's impulses, Adolf Hitler being one of them... These guys?Joe McCarthy, Bill O'Reilly?die like everyone else. And when they do, their legacy is one of damaging the spirit of good things, and they become rather broken, pathetic figures. And that is going to happen to [O'Reilly]."

I happen to believe Fox's O'Reilly has become too big for his britches?and his self-portrayal as a "common man" doesn't compute anymore, not with a well-earned enormous salary and astonishing tv ratings?but the newsman/pundit has done more for the American public than Penn ever will. O'Reilly's relentless pursuit of the Sept. 11 charities that have delayed payments to the families of victims is heroic, even though the mainstream press doesn't dare give him credit. Likewise, his ongoing investigation of Jesse Jackson's financial scams is a noble service; another topic that the elite media won't touch for fear of the pitiful preacher's reprisals.

2. Friedman's Fog. Before the massacres at the World Trade Center and Pentagon last September, The New York Times' Thomas Friedman was an annoying fixture on the paper's op-ed page, word-processing Democratic talking points twice weekly. Since then, engaged in the progress of the war, Friedman's output isn't nearly as worthless, since he actually has something to write about. For example, he appears to have an open mind about military tribunals.

His Jan. 2 effort, however, is a howler. Friedman begins: "All hail to President Bush for how he has conducted the war against Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bush has emerged a far better commander in chief than anyone [in the columnist's social circles, at least] predicted. In the war on terrorism he has shown steely resolve, imagination, leadership and creativity. Thank you, Mr. Bush. And now, I wish Al Gore were president."

Well, that's quite a leap. Friedman's reason for this preposterous desire is that Bush is exploiting "the tremendous upsurge in patriotism" to "drive a narrow, right-wing agenda from Sept. 10 into a Sept. 12 world. It's wrong. It won't work. It sells the country short and it will ultimately sell the Bush presidency short." The foreign-relations guru repeats the outdated notion that the war is about oil, Saudi Arabia's in particular. He calls for "a program for energy independence, based on developing renewable resources, domestic production [not that he recommends drilling in ANWR] and energy efficiency. Not only would every kid in America be excited by such a project, but it also would be Mr. Bush's equivalent of Richard Nixon going to China?the Texas oilman weaning America off its dependence on Middle East oil. That would be a political coup!"

Oh yes, another benefit: "It would also be Mr. Bush's best response to foreigners who are enraged by America's refusal to join the Kyoto treaty to stop global warming."

You tell me: Who's living in a Sept. 10 world?

First, the Kyoto treaty is almost as dead as the ABM. And who cares about the foreigners who are allegedly still "enraged" by Bush's wise decision to not join hands with Gore-like Europeans who bleat that the Earth isn't balanced?

Second, Friedman writes as if the war is over, rather than just beginning. Bin Laden's still at large, Afghanistan is predictably unstable and, more importantly, Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat are still in power. I agree that Saudi Arabia's government is corrupt, but Bush's burgeoning alliance with Vladimir Putin?and the Russian oil that'll be available to the U.S.?will eventually force the Saudi rulers to play by American rules.

As for Bush usurping patriotism for an ideological agenda, Friedman sounds as dumb as those hopeful commentators who think that Tom DeLay's likely promotion to majority leader next year will demonize the Republican Party. DeLay, a wily legislator, cannot possibly be vilified by Democratic fundraisers more than he already has been.

And what exactly is Bush's "right-wing" program? Letting Teddy Kennedy craft an expensive education bill that doesn't include school vouchers? Appointing a well-meaning but politically tone-deaf treasury secretary who hasn't pounded his lectern for immediate, across-the-board tax relief? Allowing the Democrats to expand their donor base by demanding that airport security personnel become union members?

As many Democrats have privately conceded, it's fortunate that Al Gore isn't president. The thought of his foreign policy, a let's-all-get-along global seminar, with George Mitchell heading up probably a dozen task forces, is a real nightmare. And while noblesse oblige columnists like Friedman (and his employers) wince when Bush speaks in blunt, common language that most of the country identifies with, can you even imagine the goo-goo wooden rhetoric that Gore would've put the nation to sleep with in the midst of its gravest crisis since World War II?

Jan. 2

Send comments to [MUG1988@aol.com](mailto:mug1988@aol.com) or fax to 244-9864.