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Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D., S.C.) is back in the news.
He’s one of the senators participating in Enron mania. Just
the other day, he said, “This gentleman, Mr. Lay, bought the
government.” That’s Hollings: wrong, buffoonish, and quotable.
He is, in fact,
one of the most quotable people in Congress, being both blunt and
mean. For a while, he wanted to be president, and a few others (but
too few) wanted him to be president, too. Everyone said he “looked
like a president” — solid, commanding, white-haired. Almost
came from Central Casting. But then he opened his mouth . . . and
he seemed less presidential.
Also, poor
guy, although he’s been in the Senate for about 100 years,
he’s still the junior senator from South Carolina, ’cause
ol’ Strom’s still hangin’ on. (Go, Strom.)
I’d like
to relate a Hollings-mean story. He ran for the Democratic presidential
nomination in 1984, as so many others did. (Ultimately, the “prize”
was taken by another Fritz — Mondale.) One of the field was
Reuben Askew, then the former governor of Florida. Askew had an
eye tic; he would twitch occasionally. In one of the big debates
— moderated by Barbara Walters, as I recall (another was moderated
by Phil Donahue) — Askew said something Hollings didn’t
like; Hollings thought that Askew had misrepresented something he
(Hollings) had said. So ol’ Fritz blurted out — with incredible
venom in that Foghorn Leghorn voice — “Whassa mattuh,
you got a tic in yo’ ea-uh, too?” (“What’s the
matter, you got a tic in your ear, too?”)
Fritz Hollings
can seem cute to people. I guess I long ago gave up thinking of
him as cute.
 Did
you happen to catch Bill Clinton’s latest? He’s unhappy
with President Bush and how he is handling North Korea. At a glam
New York gathering, Clinton said, “I figure I left the next
administration with a big foreign-policy win” on North Korea
— hinting, as the New York Times put it, that the new
president had “squandered” the opportunity.
Yeah, thanks
a lot, big guy. You teed it up real nicely for Bush. The current
president is, in part, having to deal with the consequences of the
former president’s dangerously weak foreign policy, including
the refusal to do anything serious about Khobar Towers, the bombing
of our embassies, the attack on the Cole, etc.
Clinton, if
he remains unrepentant, should at least maintain a dignified silence.
But he just can’t help himself.
One
of the most astonishing things to appear in print recently came
in a
Michael Ignatieff op-ed piece published in the Times.
The piece concerned human rights in foreign policy. Ignatieff said
that Sudan, before 9/11, had been “under attack from a coalition
of liberals and black churches determined to end slavery and stop
Khartoum’s war against the south.”
Say what? That
statement took my breath away. For years, conservatives had
been trying to draw attention to Sudan and its slavery, and no one
cared. No one who “mattered” — who was important,
in a New York Times, Brookings Institution kind of way —
cared. We tried to embarrass the appalling and unembarrassable Randall
Robinson, head of TransAfrica, who refused to lift a finger or utter
a peep about Sudan’s horrors — and he was supposed to
be the great guardian of Africa and of U.S. Africa policy. We tried
to arouse the Left generally on the subject, with no luck. The Sudanese
regime was anti-American, and that was good enough for many, or
at least good enough to earn their indifference.
National
Review screamed, the Wall Street Journal editorial page
screamed, The Weekly Standard screamed, Freedom House screamed
— and, after enough screaming, some of the usual liberal
subjects got the message, and Al Sharpton, for example, flew to
Sudan (for the chief purpose, of course, of upstaging his mentor/rival
Jesse Jackson).
Liberals and
black churches? Gimme a break.
A
story from Texas two days ago said that education secretary Rod
Paige had returned home to Houston to “tout education spending
increases” in the administration’s new budget.
That is amazing,
and amazingly discouraging. George W. Bush ran the most education-reformist
campaign in history. And now his education secretary is going around
bragging about more money — just as any Democrat, any status-quoer
would. Candidate Bush said he wasn’t averse to spending money,
but that the major thing was reform, and that it wasn’t lack
of money that had harmed, if not ruined, the schools.
Where is that
candidate? He was right.
Back
when Judicial Watch was harassing the Clintonites, Larry Klayman
and the boys said they weren’t particularly partisan, they
were just good citizen watchdogs. Everybody snorted, of course.
Now Judicial Watch is harassing the Bushies, particularly on the
matter of energy-policy documents. There is less snorting now, or
should be.
Do
you remember exactly when the gambling people first started referring
to gambling as “gaming”? I can’t give you a date,
but I think it was within the last ten, fifteen years. It seems
that “gaming” is supposed to take the vice, the sin, out
of gambling — sounds like foosball or Pac Man or something:
“gaming.”
The other day,
the lil’ woman had some newscast on, and I heard the anchorlady
say “gaming”: and I knew the gambling industry had won,
at least in that instance. Their euphemism had been bought, repeated
— which is too bad.
“Gaming”
isn’t the most triumphant lexical feat in political history
— “pro-choice” is. But it’s right up there.
So
help me, Kiss, the rock group, was in the news. The group’s
“frontman,” Gene Simmons, was interviewed by NPR’s
Terry Gross, and grossed her out. Apparently he hasn’t lost
a step, or lick, or whatever.
Well, that
was the second time in a matter of days that I heard the
name “Kiss.” Alice Cooper was playing in the Pebble Beach
golf tournament, as he does most every year. (The tournament, for
decades, was known as the “Crosby clambake,” and it includes
a pro-am, heavy with celebrities. Now the tourney is the “AT&T”
something-or-other.) Alice had hit it into the gallery, and found
that the lie wasn’t so good. So he quipped to the fans, “Why
didn’t you give me a better lie? You must be Kiss fans.”
Everyone laughed; it was actually a rather sweet moment.
Ah, a Kiss-Alice
Cooper rivalry. Those were the days. And who could have known they
could grow up to be geezers? Well, anyone who thought about it,
I suppose.
Rarely
is high popular literature accorded the analytical attention and
respect it deserves. Not just anyone can sit down and write a Grisham
bestseller — there’s a lot of craft in that, and a large
dose of talent. One Big Critic to recognize this is Janet Maslin,
who wrote
a terrifically revealing, appropriately respectful, and altogether
refreshing review of Grisham’s latest.
Now, I have
never read Grisham — but I’ve read Grisham-like authors,
and they must have something on the ball. Maslin assumes this. And,
once again, she proves herself one stand-up chick. In the last couple
of years, she has shown herself to be an even better book critic
than she was a movie critic. She doesn’t condescend to Grisham;
she isn’t slumming; she’s just giving credit where credit
is due.
I’m
not much for dispensing advice in this column, but since my readers
are so nice — and so tolerant of me — I think I will,
just this once. My word of advice is: Don’t let the Olympic
naysayers get you down.
For the last
many cycles — and maybe forever, for all I know — the
Olympics have had no end of badmouthers: It’s all commercialized.
The amateurism has been taken out. The television coverage is all
mushy and feminized — too much up-close-and-personal. And
so on.
There are many
legitimate criticisms to be made of the Olympics — and I’ve
made several of them — but don’t forget that the Olympics
remain a magical thing, one of the greatest and most inspiring shows
on earth. And television does a superb job of covering them,
all things considered (no, not the NPR program; just “all things
considered”). There are a million ways in which one could televise
the Olympics, and no one way would please everybody. I, for one,
like the personal stories; I also like the little digests, the highlights
reels — the abridgements. This is a way of taking in a huge,
multipart event.
So, there’s
my advice: Don’t let the Olympic grinches get you down, and
don’t become one yourself. Weed out the grousing, weed out
the Mormon bashing, weed out the party poopers — and just see
this magnificent pageant, marveling at its idealism, athleticism,
universalism, humanity (“the thrill of . . ., the agony of
. . .”), and sheer joy.
I
have written before about the efforts of family groups to boycott
Internet portals like Yahoo, for all the porn — including child
porn — available through them, and their general reluctance
to do something about it.
A reader writes
in to ask me, “How nutso do you go about avoiding Yahoo et
al.?” (Nicely phrased.) I have to answer: Not very; in fact,
not at all. I’m lazy. I guess we’re now back into the
whole “Made in China” issue (whether to avoid buying,
etc.). I am not a model human-rights citizen. But I admire extravagantly
those who are.
Another reader
writes: “I think you’ll like this: We were ordering several
new servers, and when my boss mentioned IBM, I (the lowest minion
on the pole) piped in with, ‘I don’t think we should buy
IBM because they are a sponsor of the 2008 Olympics in China, a
most repressive regime.’ Silence. We now have four IBM boxes.
Oh well, I tried.”
And bless him
for it.
In
the last couple of Impromptus, I have offered some precious “H.W.
moments” — instances that show the first Bush to be an
unusual and admirable fellow.
Several readers
wrote in to say that he demonstrated his class — and not the
Walker Point kind — again at the Super Bowl. He and Roger Staubach
were present for the coin toss. The ref (or someone) gave the coin
to the ex-president to toss; but Bush handed it to Staubach, so
the ex-quarterback could do the honors.
We’ve
talked before about praising Person A without knocking Person B.
But let’s knock Person B: A reader says, “I wonder what
Bill Clinton would do given the same opportunity. My bet is he would
play it for self-aggrandizement in any and every way he could —
toss the coin and try to catch it behind his back or something,
followed by a sax solo.”
Another reader
contributes this: “When [H.W.] was vice president, he was the
(very popular) speaker at my graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy.
As part of the introduction of him, his service in WWII was recapped,
a key point being that he survived having two planes shot out from
under him in the Pacific. After the applause died down, he said
(in so many words) that while he was grateful for the introduction
and the response, he wasn’t sure if the accolades were deserved,
considering he had ‘cost the government two good airplanes.’
It was very funny, but I also got the strong impression that there
was a lot of sincerity in it.”
I’m
fond of a coinage that a reader has come up with. I had remarked
about a particularly embarrassing headline for Mike Bloomberg in
the New York Times. It was tartly, mischievously worded.
The reader said, “That’s not a headline: Let’s call
them ‘hitlines.’”
And
— speaking of Olympians — a stray comment about Cathy
Rigby brought this: “In the early ’80s, some friends and
I were bowling at a local [Louisiana] alley, and we noticed that
a few lanes over Cathy Rigby was bowling. The funny part is, she
was terrible — lots of gutter balls. Now, I understand that
just because one excels in one sport, one doesn’t necessarily
excel in another, vastly different one. Still, it was sort of funny
to watch an Olympic athlete struggling with a relatively low-skill
sport. [No mail, please — I didn’t say it. This is the
letter-writer, and a bowler himself. I love — revere —
Earl “The Pearl” Anthony. And Chris Schenkel. Please,
no mail.] I actually found it sort of charming.”
So do I.
A
column ago, I had an item concerning abortion lexical politics:
“unborn child,” and so on. A reader points out that not
only have pro-choice forces triumphed with “pro-choice,”
they call their opponents “anti-choice.” Pro-lifers call
themselves pro-lifers, but they don’t call their opponents
“anti-life” — that I have heard, anyway.
Another
good point: about The Great Breast (the one featured in photos with
John Ashcroft, and that Justice — the department, not the woman
— wanted to drape): “Just wondering if anyone has come
up with any published photos that showed Reno and The Breast. Or
is just Republican AGs who require such an angle of photography?”
I don’t
remember any. A good, Bozellian, splendid point.
Meant
to relate this to you before: Back when we were discussing honorifics,
status, professions, etc., someone sent me the following, delightful
note: “I have a colleague in the [astronomical] observatory
where I work. When he gets on an airplane, and doesn’t want
to talk to the person sitting next to him, when asked what he does,
he says, ‘I’m an astrophysicist.’ When he does
want to talk, he says, ‘I’m an astronomer.’”
Last,
I’m going to do something unusual — I think unprecedented.
I want to print verbatim an item from the
Castro Lobby Watch, part of the Cuban-American National Foundation:
“A Canadian
Woman Celebrates Cuba’s ‘Child Prostitution Chic’
“In what
may be the most brazen celebration of the exploitation of Cuban
women by a female writer yet, Robyn Swanson of the Vancouver, British
Columbia, North Shore News embarks on a completely unabashed celebration
of prostitution in Cuba. In her appalling puff piece, ‘Unraveling
the Layers of Cuban Culture,’ based on a recent jaunt to the
island with her husband, Swanson dismisses the systemic tragedy
of child prostitution in Cuba with a wink and a nod. ‘We may
be in communist Cuba,’ she says, ‘but boys will be boys.’
“According
to this starry-eyed traveler, ‘a trip to Havana promises a
multitude of sensual stimuli that shouldn’t be missed.’
After droning on endlessly about 50s Chevys and ‘faded elegance,’
Swanson [describes] Havana’s version of nightlife:
“‘Gorgeous
young women stare doe-eyed at their puffy, Caucasian dates enjoying
their mid-life crises and all the pretty company that money can
buy.’
“Isn’t
that just charming! Oh, and they’re young! How young, you ask?
“According
to Julia O’Connell Davidson, in her 1999 book Prostitution,
Power and Freedom: ‘We interviewed a fourteen-year-old child
in Cuba who had migrated from a rural village to a tourist area
because she so desperately wanted to own a pair of shoes and had
heard it was possible to make money by “going with” tourists.’
“Not young
enough for you?
“Well
then maybe you should talk to Aktham Zuhair Salem Madanat, international
child trafficker and pimp, who, in London’s Sunday Mirror newsmagazine
of January 6, had this ringing endorsement [of] his ‘product’:
“‘I
can bring over seven girls right now from Cuba . . . There are two
young girls — one is eleven. They are farm girls, very simple
and easily controlled.’
“Doe-eyed
AND easily controlled? What a country!
“But wait,
its gets better . . . because according to Robyn Swanson, Cuban
child prostitutes are also chic! ‘There’s no doubt the
Cubans have an enviable sense of sensuality evident in their wardrobe
style and colour. Few other women can wear hot pink Lycra pants
with the same panache and look good.’
“Quick,
somebody call Gucci! But first let’s get some platforms for
that 14-year-old!
“Fortunately,
for the Cubans, Swanson says they bear a ‘joyous disposition
that bears no signs of bitterness or cynicism at their lot in life.’
“Is that
so? Well I guess that explains why we hear so little in the Canadian
media about torture in the Cuban Gulag!
“Thank
you Mrs. Swanson, for explaining it to us all so well.”
You will forgive
me if I repeat myself (this is Jay again): The betrayal of the Cuban
people by free people elsewhere is one of the most grotesque phenomena
of our time. Maybe we can’t bestir ourselves to do anything
to help the Cubans — but we can at least not rub their noses
in their defilement and misery.
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