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 ometimes
people say I haven’t been able to “move on” from Clinton. That’s
nothing: I haven’t been able to move on from the Kennedys!
Folks, I am
in a state about the naming of the Justice Department Building
after RFK. I mean, gimme a break: Granted the man was murdered,
in a despicable crime, inflicted on a family that had already suffered
much . . . but was the renaming of the building . . . right?
Kennedy wasn’t
a particularly distinguished attorney general. I mean, certainly
no more distinguished than William French Smith, after whom no one’s
going to name anything. Smith was not self-seeking; he just did
a quietly good job. He was a public servant who didn’t have to be
a star, in a Hollywood sense.
And then there
was what Bobby became. He was a moralist, who wasn’t especially
. . . um, moral. And there is little so distasteful as the immoral
moralist. He was also the archetypal — maybe the prototypical
— politician of “I care.” You know: “I care about the
Indians, I care about the blacks, I care about the Okies” —
and you other slobs don’t. He was a master of the politics of posing,
whereby mouthing sentiments or demanding the spending of other people’s
money is the ultimate in human compassion.
I have a little
theory about why Bush did what he did. I think he wanted to feel
good: about calling Ethel and saying, “Guess what we goin’ do?”;
about how the Kennedys in particular, and the Democrats in general,
would respond. In this way, it was an act of ego (is what I’m guessing).
Maybe it’s not right to rename this building after RFK, instead
of after any other attorney general, or any other American, but
damn, it’ll feel good.
He might have
thought it would buy him some good will, too. His father was a master
reacher-out. You remember that he reached out, literally, at his
inauguration (his “inaugural,” as modern dummies would say) —
reached out to Speaker Jim Wright, who, of course, would bite that
hand off. The senior Bush, sometime early in his administration,
invited the Kennedy family to the residential quarters of the White
House. It was the first time the family had been there, I believe,
since 1963. Not through Johnson, not through Nixon, not through
Ford, not through Carter, not through Reagan. But Bush did the thoughtful,
the magnanimous, thing.
And Teddy,
of course, along with George Mitchell, did everything he could to
make the Bush presidency fail.
The Bushian
instincts are dear, dear, dear. But sometimes their “reaching out”
isn’t so wise. It was a Kennedy — John — who said, “Sometimes
party loyalty demands too much.” And sometimes non-partisan magnanimity
demands too much.
If we had to
name the Justice Building after a Democratic attorney general, why
not Griffin Bell?
Oh, one more
thing: Why do we have to name everything after anyone? Shouldn’t
the Justice Department Building be sort of neutral? You wanna call
the Supreme Court Building the Earl Warren Building, or the Antonin
Scalia Building? You wanna call the Pentagon the Harold Brown Building,
or the Cap Weinberger Building (I’d be in favor of the latter)?
Just sayin’.
 Many
Democrats and liberal pundits are in a state over John Ashcroft’s
overriding the State of Oregon in its suicide law: states’ rights,
they say. Really, they sound like Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus.
Remember when serious liberals insisted on the precedence of federal
law over iniquitous, narrow state law? They were better then —
the liberals.
And look, if
they want to change the law — the federal law — they should
simply demand that Congress do so. That’s nice ’n’ democratic.
I
was home in Michigan — southeastern Michigan — for Thanksgiving,
and therefore subjected to the Detroit press. They are a little
. . . well, they’re not too keen on the whole question-the-Arabs
thing, nosirree.
I couldn’t
help thinking of President Kennedy (you’ll think I have Kennedys
on the brain). Time was, liberals loved to quote, “Ask not
what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
But not now.
Oh, no. The idea that Arabs in this country should step up and make
a contribution to our national well-being is repellent. Remember
that, on Sept. 11, we were attacked from within: All of the terrorists
had been within these borders. We find ourselves in a new and extremely
frightening situation (though, in the end, we will win this war).
And in these new circumstances, we — we collectively —
could use some help.
And those who
can give it, should be happy to give it. Besides which, any police
questioning from us wouldn’t be like back in the Middle East, that’s
for sure. Anyone complaining of Ashcroft’s America as a police state
should be forced to live in one (or, in the case of Arabs, to live
again in one).
As we’ve said
before, this is a Time for Choosing — another such time. And
the clearest truth that anyone has spoken since 9/11 came from President
Bush: Either you’re for us or you’re against us. Life is gray, we
are told. And sometimes — I might even give you most of the
time — it is. But now?
Let
me say a word for a military dictator — it’s so rare. Rather,
let me have Fouad Ajami, the brilliant and indispensable Middle
East scholar, say a word for a military dictator (this from Ajami’s
truly wonderful and inspired essay for the 11/26 U.S. News &
World Report):
Close to
the fire, and implicated and directly endangered by this war as
no Arab leader or regime was, the stoic leader of Pakistan, Gen.
Pervez Musharraf, held back the tide and stood up to the fundamentalists
and the agitators. In the clear light of day, Musharraf chose
modernity and order for his country and spared it pariah status
in the world of nations. It would have been easier for him to
blink and scurry for cover. He had excuses aplenty: Kashmir, the
preference shown India in American diplomacy. He could have pointed
to the throngs in Islamabad and Karachi as a splendid alibi for
a wholly different policy from the one he opted for. He could
have used legitimate Pakistani concerns about the Northern Alliance
and its ties to India, Russia, and Iran. In other words, he could
have chosen the Arab way. But he didn’t.
I couldn’t
have said it better myself (which is why I didn’t). All that Ajami
says here is a fact. Musharraf is a military dictator who, in many,
crucial ways, stood tall.
And before
we go back to jumping all over the Paks, we should acknowledge that.
Musharraf could have imitated the characteristic Arab spinelessness
— the world would have understood, all too readily — “but
he didn’t.”
Recall that
the late King Hussein of Jordan was beloved in this country: suave,
debonair, English-speaking, married to the beautiful Arab-American
girl Lisa Halaby (Queen Noor). And he never displayed a vertebra
of spine, as compared with Pervez Musharraf. He was, indeed, “the
Little King,” as William Safire dubbed him, and not merely in physical
stature.
Readers
may recall my writing about René Montes de Oca Martija, the
Cuban dissident who has endured years of harassment and prison cells.
I was able to interview him, by phone, after he escaped last April
(he was quickly recaptured). Among the things he told me was, “There
are many brave people in Cuba, both men and women. We Cubans
have always been faithful: a faithful community, a faithful people.
We take our strength from the Bible. We believe in love, justice,
and peace, and we bear it in mind not to go with what is wrong.
We take God’s truth to the darkest and loneliest places of human
existence: like the prisons.”
Montes de Oca
is being held in the provincial jail of Ciego de Avila, known as
“Canaleta.” We now have word that he is to be tried — again
— as “Case No. 84 of 2001.” René Montes de Oca is one
of the best people I have ever encountered.
My
colleague Emmy Chang pointed out to me an utterly delicious, almost
unbelievable correction in the Yale Daily News, college paper
of Yale University, once edited by the founder of our magazine (I
forget his name). I must quote it in full, inviting you to savor
it:
Wednesday’s
front-page article incorrectly stated that former Yale professor
Jonathan Weinberg was fired from the University, that he accused
Yale of discrimination, and that he claimed he was fired for being
gay. He was not fired from Yale; he just was not given tenure.
He has never accused Yale of discrimination in any legal capacity,
and he did not say that he was fired for being gay.
Also, the
article incorrectly stated that most of Weinberg’s friends at
Fieldston School were gay. He said none of them were gay.
Well, what
does that leave as true?!
And
now a word from Strunk & White: The distinction between “alternate”
and “alternative” is an important one (or used to be): “The Sewing
Club meets on alternate Thursdays; they gather at Mrs. Smith’s and
Mrs. Jones’s, alternately. Sometimes they get sick of sewing, and
canasta is their alternative. Their conversations are alternately
gossipy and warm.”
The New
York Times recently referred to military tribunals as an “alternate
system of justice”: That would mean that one day we’d have civilian
trials, and the next military. They should have said “alternative
system of justice.”
Worse —
or more conspicuous — they put over a Paul Krugman column the
headline “An Alternate Reality.” Given the content of the column,
you could stretch that, possibly — but “Alternative Reality”
would have been much better.
One more thing:
If you really want to be pedantic, you can have only one
“alternative” to something — not two or three or ten. There
is the thing and its (sole) alternative. Other possibilities are
“options” (for example).
But we’re not
so old-fashioned as that.
A
reader from Bryan, Texas, writes, “Enjoyed your piece on pornography.
You are right about ‘doing something.’ In our own little town,
some guy thought we needed a ‘girlie show’ on Phil Gramm Ave.
Thanks to the vigilance of Judge Rick Davis, the ‘bidness’
failed to meet our civic requirements. Yes, we can shut these people
down. We just have to make a decision.”
I just adore
that: The thought of a “girlie show” on Phil Gramm Ave.! I imagine
he would too, sort of.
In
my previous Impromptus, I mentioned the fuss in New York over “I
[heart] NY” buttons manufactured in Mexico (which I think is just
great, for reasons that need not be elaborated here). I was touched
by a reader’s letter, which went, “I’ll buy anything from Mexico.
I’ll buy anything from any country where people get to choose their
governing officials, no matter how poor they are, or how little
they’re paid. Because in the end, they still have the right to choose
the course of their collective life.
“This is why,
weeks ago, when it became absolutely necessary to purchase a lamp,
I drove all over desperately trying to find one that wasn’t made
in China. I finally found one made in Mexico. It was more expensive
than I wanted, and it’s ugly, but it was made by a free man, not
an imprisoned member of the Falun Gong.”
I was not only
touched, but shamed by that letter. I sometimes, sorta, not-really
try not to buy China (Laogai). But it’s almost impossible. And I
let it slide.
Last,
I recently praised Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, for
his stand-up and stirring conduct in this war, and not least for
saying, “Europe knows how much it owes to America. We have to remember
not to forget.” I noted how much I loved that phrase: “to remember
not to forget.”
A reader wrote
to remind me of a breathtaking and heartbreaking Irving Berlin lyric:
“You promised that you’d forget me not / But you forgot to remember.”
Simple, yet
devastatingly perfect, like so much of Berlin.
A final anecdote:
Story goes, a student in a group of students asks Berlin, “Which,
of all the songs you’ve written, is your favorite?” Berlin answers,
“‘Always.’” Student has the gumption to say (and here’s where
I find the story unbelievable, but bear with me), “But Mr. Berlin:
That’s such a simple song. Anyone could have written it.” Berlin
says, “I know — but I did.”
As I say, I
have trouble with the student’s audacity before this venerable and
great man. But, on the whole, the thing sounds true. And I’ll never
stop quoting it — it’s good for so many occasions.
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