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Jewish World Review / Nov. 11, 1998 /22 Mar-Cheshvan, 5759
MUGGER
Send Dowd Down to the Minors
NOT THAT ANYONE AT THE SCHIZOPHRENIC NEW YORK TIMES WILL PAY ATTENTION,
but judging by her output in the past two months, it’d be an excellent
idea if columnist Maureen Dowd would recuse herself from presidential
politics for the next two years.
I’m not ordinarily a gossip, but it
hasn’t escaped the notice of sharp-eyed readers that Dowd, once a fierce
critic of Bill Clinton, has gone soft on the President and turned her
witty wrath on independent counsel Ken Starr. Just last Sunday she wrote
that "Ken Starr’s feet [are] sticking out from under the house like the
Wicked Witch of the East after the tornado."
This started sometime in September; the official explanation, I suppose,
would be that it coincided with the release of Clinton’s four-hour
videotape testimony, where he wasn’t the monster that White House
spinners claimed he’d be. Others who know about such things, however,
claim that it was during that period that Dowd hooked up with an actor,
a Clinton pal, who portrayed a character similar to the First Liar in a recent movie.
Oct. 7: "We couldn’t trouble ourselves with the silly impeachment
hearings. All that fake solemnity and pretense of open-mindedness. Here
is Congress, which has boasted more concupiscent hypocrites pouncing on
more nubile office girls than any institution in history except maybe
Mitsubishi, and they’re ready to string up Bill Clinton over sex?"
Oct. 14: "This great capital, once a place of gravity, has been reduced
to a keyhole. The Starr prosecutors spill all the mud into the street,
and then flatter themselves that they are discreet just because they
black out a few lines here and there... By releasing his secret grand
jury testimony, Newt & Co. have already enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of
seeing Mr. Clinton squirm about sex and cigars on TV for four hours.
They should not also have the sadistic pleasure of holding hearings on
TV for the rest of his tenure. You can’t punish someone twice. This is
still America. I think."
Punish someone twice? Clinton hasn’t been punished yet! Dowd, who
earlier in the year was lumped together as an Irish-Catholic moralist
disgusted by Clinton’s behavior -- along with Chris Matthews, Michael Kelly
and Cokie Roberts -- in a National Journal article by Bill Powers, now
feels sorry for Clinton and is toeing the White House line, if not with
the weasel-like rabidity of Sid Blumenthal, at least in the same league
as Lanny Davis.
Already, in a column last Wednesday, Dowd was trashing the Bush
Brothers, trying, in vain, to link them with all of their father’s
much-lampooned tics: clipped diction, speedboats, pork rinds, "the
vision thing" and horseshoe pits. Poor Maureen, new convert to the
Democratic Party, says, "For Mr. Gore, the best thing might have been a
huge Republican victory last night. Then he could have run for President
on the persuasive platform of Don’t-let-the
lunatics-take-over-every-wing-of-the-asylum."
And in Florida, Jeb Bush successfully courted black Democrats and
smashed his opponent Buddy MacKay. In fact, Florida Rep. Joe
Scarborough, a ’94 GOP rebel, said of the state’s new governor: "In ’98
he sounded like very few Republicans I have ever heard. I heard him talk
to Hispanics and African-Americans, and he was on fire. He came across
better with those groups than middle-class whites."
But Dowd is lazy and reverts to her recollection of the brothers’
father’s campaign: "I have the dread feeling that I have already covered
George W.’s race, even though it hasn’t started. The saga of a Yalie who
became a ‘self-made’ man, a Midland oilman, a bidnessman, a family man
with a short attention span... I feel as if I’ve already lived through
the overstuffed Bush Rolodex and all those fund-raising receptions
thrown by hostesses named Muffie and Buffie where the only hors
d’oeuvres are a slim wedge of brie and a wilted clump of grapes."
So
while her competitors in the media are contemplating George W.’s run,
and actually traveling to Texas to gauge his probable candidacy, Dowd
falls back on cliches like “Muffie” and “Buffie” that disappeared about
the last time someone in America thought that her new hero Bill Clinton
was an honest and loyal man.
This column is a disgusting 800 words of manure that should’ve been
rejected by her editor, Frank Rich, rest easy, you’ve got new company in
your filthy corner of hypocrisy and inanity.
Rich himself, last Saturday, continued his war against the nation’s
pundits, claiming, "In this election, the American people once again
thumbed their noses at the talking heads who have pontificated
incorrectly all year about the ‘the American people.’" Uh, Frank, aren’t
you one of those condescending pundits yourself? Besides, the press
wasn’t on the ballot on Election Day: Rich is simply using his latest
hobbyhorse to explain why Democrats performed far better than expected
last Tuesday. In fact, it was really a status-quo election, with almost
99 percent of House incumbents reelected and only a few senators
defeated. When the economy ticks along, voters aren’t too angry about
anything. As The Nation editorialized this week, "One exit poll result
was intriguing. Voters who said their financial situation had improved
voted Democratic by a 57-42 margin. Those who believed they have slipped
favored Republicans 58-32."
I’ll bet that if the election were held a
month ago, when the stock market was on a roller coaster, the results
would’ve been different.
Why, he even upbraids David Broder—and mind you, I carry no water for
the "dean" of American columnists for incorrectly predicting that
D’Amato would defeat Schumer. So what? Pundits are wrong in almost every
election: Rich’s own paper ran a poll predicting that Bob Dole would
lose to Clinton by 16 points in the ’96 election; the actual number was
eight. And, I wonder, how many journalists, Rich included, were accurate
with their speculation about the ’94 election? Not many.
"The voters have chosen the lovers over the haters. The meanies with the
jangly names—Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Lauch Faircloth, Fob James,
‘B-1’ Bob Dornan—are toast. So are the guys like Al D’Amato, who sneered
and jeered and used ethnic and anatomical epithets. So are the Christian
zealots. And obsessive special prosecutors. The Democratic lover boys,
like Bill Clinton, and the Republican preachers of compassion, like the
Bush boys, are being embraced."
She continues with this stupid paragraph: "The moral of the Gingrich
fall is this: When politicians behave like wrestlers, caricature
villains who are only out to destroy their opponents, then the voters
might as well get the real thing. Even If Governor Ventura makes a mess
in Minnesota, he can’t possibly rival the mess the G.O.P. House
leadership has made in Washington."
As I wrote above, the Republican-led
Congress has nothing to crow about in its last session, but they’ve
hardly made a "mess" of things. Anti-tobacco legislation was scuttled,
campaign finance reform died, welfare reform was passed (even if Clinton
took credit for it) and an impeachment inquiry was correctly initiated.
Remember, although this Congress failed in its promise to lower taxes,
and did capitulate to a compromised Clinton far too often, it basically
clung to the notion that less federal government is better for the
nation. That’s why the Republican governors fared so well in last
Tuesday’s elections.
"I’d have missed my hunting trip
this weekend if I would have ran with him," Hrbek told the A.P. "Or, I
would have gone anyway, and I would have gotten off on the wrong foot on
that job. I’m happy the way it turned out. I thought it was great. But
I’m not a politician. Then again, neither is
On Sept. 9 she wrote: "It is very sad and very strange to watch Mr.
Clinton give speeches. His words twang with unintended ironies and
double-entendres. You wonder how he can get through a day without
shattering from the pressure of watching his Presidency melt. No one,
except the hard-core Clinton foes, is getting any pleasure out of seeing
a President who started with so many dreams live through so much
censure."
Is Starr really out of control?
It’s clear that Dowd didn’t pay much attention to the gubernatorial
campaigns of George W. and Jeb Bush. In Texas, where George Bush
captured 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, mainly due to his attention to
education and health issues as well as cutting taxes, not many people
think he’s a "lunatic." In fact, a liberal newspaperman I know in Texas
told me: "Bush is the best, most effective governor since I’ve lived
here. He’s been a notably bipartisan leader."
George W.
Dowd did no better last Sunday. In a column that was laced with overt or
implied references to films --The Wizard of Oz, Terms of Endearment,
Pleasantville, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- she raced through the
obligatory obit of Newt Gingrich and her take on the new mood in
Washington. "Hey, baby, we’re talking about love power," she writes.
Newtie
By the way, with all the fascination with Jesse Ventura’s win in
Minnesota, few picked up on an Associated Press report about his first
pick for running mate: former Minnesota Twins star Kent Hrbek. The
ballplayer declined Ventura’s offer because it would have interfered
with his fishing, hunting and bowling.
Ventura on election night
JWR contributor "Mugger" is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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