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Jewish World Review /Dec. 31, 1998 / 12 Teves, 5759
Ben and Daniel Wattenberg
Predictions?
Who would have predicted that as the last year of the millennium approaches
a mighty force would hurl fire down on the plains of Babylon, winter
temperatures would rise into the eighties and Lucifer would occupy the White
House? Granted, Heaven's Gate predicted all that and locusts too, but who
would have guessed that they'd be right?
A year ago, who would have predicted Paula and Monica? That the trailer
bunny from Dog Patch would get the nose job and the reportedly Jewish Princess from
Brentwood would give the oral sex? See? You just can't be sure anymore.
Who could have foreseen that the president would angrily deny having sex
with Monica only to be exposed in a lie by a telltale dress from the Gap? Or
that the Gap would target its teen market with a commercial set to the swing
era "The Dirty Boogie" and hit pay dirt, as teens en masse embraced the
music of their grandparents? Or that Pfizer would hit pay dirt with Viagra,
as grandparents en masse embraced the sex and drugs of their teen
grandchildren?
Or that we would embrace our grandparents' sport, baseball, while the sport
of today, NBA basketball, wouldn't be played because Alonzo Mourning can't
make ends meet on $11.2 million a year? Or that Mourning would reject the
resulting popular outcry against the players on the grounds that white
America can't handle a successful African American? Or that Toni Morrison
would reject the popular outcry against "our first black president,"
Clinton, on the grounds that white America can't handle a successful African
American?
Who would have anticipated that our most talked about fiction writer would
be journalist Tom Wolfe and our most talked about journalist would be
fiction writer Matt Drudge? That the New Republic would fire reporter
Stephen Glass for making up stories? That reporters would try to fire
President Clinton for making up stories?
And online bookstore Amazon.com, the year's hottest stock? Who would have
guessed we would all be staying home tonight to do some shopping -- and
going out to a Barnes and Noble superstore to curl up with a mug of cocoa
and a good book?
The government is suing Bill Gates for conspiring to eliminate his rivals
and adversaries one by one and secretly plotting world domination. An
airtight case, but who would have predicted that they would prosecute the
wrong man? The guy conspiring to pick off his rivals and adversaries and
secretly plotting world domination is this Tom DeLay.
Been watching him? Third in line to be Speaker of the House? All who stand
in his way mysteriously fall. Speaker Gingrich? History. His apparent
successor, Bob Livingston? Gone. Clinton? Looking iffy. Stick a black beret
and a false moustache on Tom DeLay and infiltrate him into Ba'ath Party
headquarters. There's your Iraq policy.
Who would have guessed that after seven months of denials, the president
would finally admit the obvious, but deny that what he had denied having was
sex as such? That this would lead to a midterm electoral setback and an
internal challenge to the party leadership -- a Republican setback, a
Republican leadership challenge?
That the Republicans would ignore the "lesson" of the November vote and
return to Washington and impeach the president, and the president would
ignore the first impeachment in 130 years and hold a victory rally on the
South Lawn? And that Wall Street would greet this sobering news with an even
bigger rally?
Who would have predicted that President Clinton, who times U.S. bombing
raids to avoid scheduling conflicts with the nighttime cleaning crews in
targeted buildings, would finally, on the eve of an impeachment vote, reduce
Baghdad to a parking lot to prove his cojones? Just hours before the House
voted to cut them off? And, think, if Hillary had thought of that, none of
this would have happened. None of it! But how was she to know?
And how were we to know that Hollywood would save up the year's lamest
movies for Christmas release? Or that the White House would produce the
season's only hit, "Saddam? You've Got Mail."
Who would have predicted that the Calvinist American public would decide
that what politicians do in their personal lives is their own business --
and that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt would decide that adulterers in
public life must be rooted out and destroyed?
Or that Church of Christ minister's son Ken Starr would be denounced as a
pornographer and pornographer Larry Flynt would be denounced as a sexual
McCarthyite?
And, be honest, who would have predicted that the president of the United
States would argue that, hey, "is" means different things to different
people -- but that the meaning of the Constitution we've been bickering
about for two centuries is unambiguous: stop picking on me.
Predictions for the new year? I don't think
I don't think so
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)IT WON'T BE POSSIBLE to bring you New Year's predictions this year.
Foretelling the future is futile in these uncertain times. Who would have
predicted the events of the past year? Or even the past few weeks?
12/11/98: Better dead than read?
11/25/98: Polling the Pilgrims
11/13/98: The icon and the iconoclast
11/06/98: What happened? Nothing!
10/28/98: Two billion never-borns!
10/22/98: Election pundits know nothing
10/15/98: The too-big-to-fail doctrine
9/29/98: The Jerk Factor at work
9/24/98: American civic engagement thriving
9/16/98: Anatomy of a cover-up
9/09/98: Draft Joe Lieberman!
9/03/98: Get over it, folks
8/28/98: McGwire. Maris. Ruth. Clinton.
8/20/98: Is consuming a Big Mac eating?
Ben Wattenberg is a senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute
and is the moderator of PBS's "Think Tank." He wrote this column together with his son, Daniel, a regular writer for The Weekly
Standard and a contributing editor for George.