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Sandra Bernhard told the Guardian, “Americans are lazy. They don’t have a concept of how the world interacts . . . It’s a little scary to be in a country so detached from reality and so ready to buy into the propaganda that the enemy is out there lurking, ready to attack us again.” I know it’s silly, silly to engage with Sandra Bernhard — at least about world issues — but just one question: How does she know? That is, how does she know that our enemies (assuming we have them) won’t strike again? As I said — silly.
The White House responded, via a spokesman, “There is a long-held tradition of former presidents’ acting in the national interest, not their own partisan interests. That long-held tradition has served the nation well, and President Bush is looking forward, not backward.” I was perhaps not the only Bush-booster not entirely satisfied with that answer. I understand the desire to look statesmanlike, while getting in your shot at the same time. But slightly more direct and serious engagement can be useful, and “the White House,” that strange person, ought to find a way to bring it off. Also, this “looking forward, not backward” business is a bit of a dodge, though a tempting one. Much of what we do is look backward, and not wrongly — particularly if it aids a present situation. I remember when I had a chance to question Hillary Clinton at a press conference. This was when she announced she was running for Senate. No one else — it had been two years, I think — had ever asked this question, and it seemed such an obvious one: “Do you still attribute the charges against your husband to a ‘vast, right-wing conspiracy’?” She fixed me with a look that was almost inhuman for its coldness and said, “I’m looking forward, not backward,” while jabbing her finger at another questioner. Fine and dandy — and any political counselor would counsel it, probably. But a little thought — a little reflection — and engagement can be so refreshing, and so attractive.
There’s now no Democrat who won’t embrace the DLC — short of Maxine Waters, I guess — and no Democrat whom the DLC won’t embrace back, delightedly. It’s the same old thing, perceivable at most high schools: the lure of popularity. So, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Dick Gregory, for all I know: They’re all DLC-ers, smooching up, and being smooched back. If the group had meaning — and, disputing some, I believe it did — it has lost that meaning now. Principle seems to be invisible, as reduced as Al From himself. Added to this is the spectacle of Joe Lieberman complaining that Al Gore, in 2000, campaigned too far to the left. As I explained in a semi-exhaustive and fully infuriated piece for NR (“Orthodox Democrat: The Fall of Joe Lieberman,” Dec. 31, 2000), the veep nominee was a willing, gleeful, and, in fact, effective participant in this campaign to the left. Now he’s kvetching and backtracking. Too late — except to position himself for ’04. I said, back in that piece, that I — I guess I more implied this — wouldn’t let him get away with it. But get away with it, he almost certainly will. For one thing, who but a few blessed nuts goes through back issues of NR?
In the latter category: “We don’t have democracy in the Middle East, no doubt about it.” Arab leaders may claim they have their own versions of it, but “democracy is democracy. Either you have it or you don’t. We need democracy, and it’s the most important thing. It’s Policy Number One for us. First thing, democracy; second thing, democracy; third thing, democracy.” And, “Really, I’m very enthusiastic to see Libya as an oasis of democracy, a society that respects the environment and human rights and so on, and is a model in the region.” Respects the environment, when there are about 850 other things on a democracy’s list? Ah, he’s learned his talking points well, from someone.
In North Carolina, home state of his potential 2004 opponent John Edwards — a vastly rich trial lawyer — he talked about frivolous lawsuits, lawyer greed, rising health-care costs, and crazy insurance. Now he should talk about it some more — all over.
So I was especially attentive to the story in Monday’s New York Times about the attempt to juice up Mount Vernon a little. Author Stephen Kinzer — who’s better on Washington than he is on Nicaragua — said that “many scholars . . . are in a state of near panic after watching Washington all but disappear from the national consciousness in the space of a single generation.” David W. Saxe, described as “a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University who studies American history textbooks,” says, “When teachers and curriculum planners and textbook authors look at the Founding Fathers today, they see too many white males. [Ugh, what an awful phrase. What’s wrong with ‘men’? Ah, we know.] George Washington is [disappearing] from the textbooks. He’s still mentioned, but you don’t spend a week in February talking about him, doing plays and reciting the Farewell Address. In the interest of being inclusive, material about women and minorities is taking the place of material about the Founders of our country.” Later, another professor, Peter R. Henriques, says, “Let’s face it: He was an 18th-century elitist slaveholder, and that doesn’t fit in well with the modern age. We’re in an age when white male heroes on horseback are not so popular.” Yeah, among whom? They would be popular — to the extent they were admirable — if they were allowed to be, by those controlling education.
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ow,
I wouldn’t be serving you if I didn’t bring you the latest from
Sandra Bernhard, the loudmouth — and not very funny, is she? —
comedienne. (Are you still allowed to say “comedienne,” without
being shot? I know that “actress” is virtually verboten. Phyllis
Diller prefers “comic,” going to great lengths to parse the
distinctions between “comedian/enne,” “comic,” and
“comedic actor.” ) (I must say I’m now more relaxed about
“between” and “among” than I used to be. I used to
adhere rigidly to, “‘Between’ for two — ‘between
you and me’ — and ‘among’ for three or more —
‘among you, me, and the City of Dallas.’” But now I’m
prepared to intone what I once decried as the chant of the linguistic
loser: “Whatever sounds better . . .”) (Are you sick of these
digressions and ready for the column to begin? Okay.)
I see that Bill Clinton is ready to rumble on the corporate scandals.
He told a reporter, “There was corporate malfeasance both before
[George W. Bush] took office and after [a generous admission]. The difference
is, I actually tried to do something about it, and their party stopped
it.” 
