Helen Thomas, leftist style, heroes of anti-porn, &c.

January 7, 2002 8:50 a.m.

’ve talked a lot about unfavorites in this column, but have I ever mentioned Helen Thomas, known as the “dean of the Washington press corps”? I have observed her for what amounts to most of my life. I always wanted some White House spokesman — Jim Brady, Larry Speakes, Marlin Fitzwater — or even a president himself to say to her, “Look, lady, you may be old and a woman, but you’re an insulting, unthinking, harshly partisan so-and-so, and I’m not going to deal with your nonsense anymore.“ But, alas: the same old deference. No way she could get away with it if she were a) biased in a conservative direction and b) a man. Not even advanced years would help her then.

Anyway, she writes a column now, and I happened to see one, and it reminded me of this burning question: What’s the most egregious use of the Martin Niemoller quote you know? You know the quote: “First they came for the Communists, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. . . . Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”

It’s a very powerful statement, of course: but it has been cheapened over the years by endless abuses of it. Thomas, in that recent column, contributed a doozy of an abuse: She used it to imply that people generally were being cowards in the face of the Bush/Ashcroft reign of terror!

Ah, “our” Helen.

Before I leave the subject — of her — one quick story. I remember it well. The date was April 15, 1986. I was in a dorm room, doing my taxes, and Reagan was bombing Libya for the terror it had committed. (This is genuine terror, not the Helen Thomas kind.) Immediately after the strikes, Reagan appeared in the pressroom and made a brief statement. Then secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger came on to answer as many questions as he could. Helen Thomas wanted to know about collateral damage. How bad had it been? Weinberger responded that there hadn’t been time to assess, as the raid had literally just concluded. Then Thomas said — sort of under her breath, but audibly — “Do you care?”

All right, flash forward several years. I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel (I forget which one) . . . and there, perfectly replicated, is that same scene! The same deal: a raid by a president, defense secretary comes on, some woman in the press corps asks that question and utters those words.

I thought: Holy . . . ! Clancy saw and noticed that too — and used it. And now I have, too, I guess — though in so less glorious a way (no offense, readers: I’m grateful to you, even if I’m a lowly non-Clancy).

You may not have noticed, but Mother Jones magazine is selling “Bowlshevik” bowling shirts: In red and black, they feature V. I. Lenin with a bowling ball in hand; the name of the magazine is on the back. An ad for the shirts says, “A legacy of an actual, if short-lived Mother Jones bowling team that is remembered for whipping the arch-capitalists of Goldman Sachs.”

Isn’t that the cutest? You know what would be really cool? Pol Pot bongs. Get it? Huh, huh?

In the previous Impromptus, I mentioned pornographic e-mail spam, and how I hated it. I said that this spam had a particular predilection for pedophilia, incest, and bestiality. I also praised the anti-porn activists, who come in for so much abuse: They’re called prudes and killjoys; anti-Constitutionalists and enemies of the Bill of Rights. I also pointed out that their work is often lonely, because the subject is so disgusting — especially where young children are concerned — that most people would rather turn away, would rather not know about it, much less try to do anything about it. (Incidentally, I explored this subject at length in a piece titled “Getting Aroused” in the Nov. 19 National Review).

The item provoked a torrent of e-mail, much of which said, “I would like to help — who are the people laboring in this vineyard?” There are many, I’m happy to say, and they’re truly doing the Lord’s work, and not just the Lord’s, but ours: In a significant way, they’re doing it in our stead. It’s the kind of work most of us would like to see done, but we lack either the time or the will to do it.

Let me mention a few workers in the field: There’s Pat Trueman of the American Family Association. There’s Jan LaRue at the Family Research Council, and Miriam Moore of that same organization. There’s Bruce Taylor, president of the National Law Center for Children and Families. There are Phil and Vickie Burress at Citizens for Community Values. There’s Jay Sekulow at the American Center for Law and Justice. There’s a marvelous California group called Enough is Enough (in which Donna Rice — of Gary Hart scandal fame — has participated). There is Morality in Media. And so on.

I’m sure I’m forgetting important ones, to my shame. But at least I’ve presented a few for the honor roll.

Let me repeat one thing I’ve learned in studying this issue (particularly in preparation for that magazine piece I mentioned): It is one of the pornographers’ best allies, most potent weapons, that so many people think that nothing can be done about the worst of the porn, that American law and American values tie our hands — that we just have to abide it, else we hate Thomas Jefferson.

It’s not true, y’all. Not true at all. Get aroused, if you dare.

Note this interesting letter from a reader:

“A couple of years ago, I wrote a book on networking. In the chapter on domain-name service, I wanted to give an example of an Internet domain name that was objectionable but not yet used. It was very hard to find one: boyrape.com, kidsex.com (registered to one Lee Myun Jong), boysex.com (registered to a company in Switzerland), and so on are all real domains that are open for business. When we’re finished with the terrorists, I hope we have a few daisy cutters left for these bastards.”

And how about the following?

“Remember ‘sin’ taxes on alcohol and tobacco? Why not apply them to pornography? Say at the rate of 100-1,000 % of gross billing. Subject financial intermediaries to, oh, a 20 % tax on their top line even if only one single dollar was derived from that industry. And of course, dedicate 100 % of the tax revenue to fund health care for the children. As a side benefit, after a little tinkering, this tax could be true payback to the Hollywood crowd.”

That’s using the old noggin.

I complained both about the awful phrase “Person of the Year,” in place of “Man of the Year,” or “Woman of the Year,” and about Time magazine’s snub of George W. Bush for this honor. A reader in Spain informs me that El Mundo gave its “Personage of the Year” (much better than “Person”) to W., and good for it. Of course, Bush in his own mind is very much an hombre (and in mine too, frankly).

Got much mail about that “Indian” with the tear streaming down his cheek, in that long-ago environmentalist propaganda commercial. Readers were dying to emphasize that the Indian was played by an Italian-American actor named Espera DiCorti, born in Gueydan, Louisiana. What a country, what a country.

I also received many letters of the following, interesting flavor:

“I just wanted to pass on a true personal tidbit about the myth of the Native American as Environmentalist. This past summer, my wife and I went to the Knife River Indian Village historic site about 60 miles northwest of Bismarck. This is the site of a large Mandan Indian lodge village. The lodges no longer exist, but you can see circles in the earth where they were located, and of course there are maps and drawings of what it probably looked like.

”A Native American flute player, popular in this area, was entertaining. He was in Indian garb, and between numbers he would gab about how it was in the old times, and how in particular the Native Americans respected nature and the land — they didn’t leave any garbage around.

“Right after that performance, my wife and I walked down the trail to the site of one of the villages and could see the circles of earth in a field. We read the interpretive signage put up by the National Park Service, which manages the site. The signage explained that the circles of earth around where the lodges were located were created by garbage piled around the lodges.”

Shhh, don’t tell.

Also in the previous Impromptus, I had a section on Ali, lamenting, among other things, that he gave rise to the “trash talking” in sports, to vulgarization and ungentlemanliness generally. (This is a complicated subject — Ali — and the man has many facets.) In that same column, I had an item on the Dan Issel scandal: He was the Denver Nuggets coach who got into a “verbal altercation” with a drunken fan. As the coach was walking off the court, the fan hollered, “F*** you, Issel!” or some such thing. Issel responded, “Go on and have another beer, you drunken Mexican piece of sh**!” That got the PC posse on him, and Issel soon paid with his job — which I think is a travesty.

Several readers wrote in to say, essentially, “How can you condemn Ali and excuse Issel? If you want ‘the gentleman’ back in sports, musn’t you condemn them both, equally?”

A fine question. First, I don’t excuse Issel — I just say that his wasn’t a hanging offense, and perfectly normal in sports. Second, what’s done is done. Ali-ism, I believe, has triumphed: The gentleman ain’t coming back, at least as a common type — maybe as a freak or nerd. Third, men are often provoked, as Issel was, and this should be allowed for, if not condoned. Fourth, I mainly wanted to decry the PC nature of the response to l’affaire Issel. The coach had said “you Mexican piece of sh**.” That was the source of his problem. He easily could have said “you dumb piece of sh**” or “you fat piece of sh**,” and no one would have cared, much. It’s just that we’re all ethnic-crazy: “Mexican,” in our day, is worse — far worse — than “dumb” or “fat,” and I wanted to say, Isn’t this kind of inane? They didn’t get him for Ali-style vulgarity or bragging or taunting; they got him for “Mexican.”

A reader contributed the following: “Yes, Virginia, you can insult fat people: I recall Jim Schoenfeld, then coach of the Buffalo Sabres (NHL), furious about a penalty call against his team in the playoffs, shouting at the referee, ‘Go have another donut!!!’ I thought it was hilarious.”

A reader took issue with what I had to say about the Secret Service agent/American Airlines controversy. I thought others would enjoy his note:

“I don’t know what happened between American Airlines personnel and this agent. It is, however, more believable that the airline people were the hostile ones. I am a conservative, and I, too, think we are too thin-skinned when it comes to ethnicity. Here is my point, though: The airlines are unbelievably and consistently hostile to their customers. That to me is the underlying issue and the one to be taken on. I am not advocating air rage, but can anyone who travels in the air not understand that the behavior of the airlines and their personnel toward their paying customers brings it on? Why is their no ‘hotel rage’ or ‘Wal-Mart rage’ or ‘restaurant rage’? Because, generally, those people treat their customers with respect and appreciation.

“I am an easy customer. Polite, respectful, sometimes even deferential to those helping me. Despite that, I have almost never been treated well in an airport or on an airplane. They are hostile to most of their customers, even since 9/11 and the taxpayer bail-out. Please make sure this point is not lost.”

Okay. But the Secret Service agent, with his lawyer and his publicist and his ethnic mob, is an unbelievably selfish piece of work, isn’t he? There’s a war on. Our enemies have killed thousands of us, and they’re vowing to kill thousands or millions more. So the guy suffered a personal insult; he had to get off the plane, which humiliated him. Big effin’ deal: at least he’s not dead. We’re told that “after 9/11, everything changed.” No, it didn’t: It’s still PC and “me, me, me,” just as it’s always been, or long been — and that stinks. President Bush has said, “Go back to normal.” Well, not in every respect, I would hope.

Again, there’s a war on — and too many are acting as though there weren’t. Take a later plane, dude. Get your paperwork together. Don’t try to go retrieve something on a plane, especially when you’re armed. The airlines are being super-cautious, for good reason — particularly when there’s an armed Arab about whom there’s a problem! I’m sorry the guy happened to work for the Secret Service. He’s now an ethnic martyr and all. But, you know? We’ve got bigger problems — like trying to prevent al Qaeda and its friends from murdering us.

Screw you, honcho (meaning, the Secret Service agent, not my dear letter writer).

Writes another dear letter writer:

“Just after 9/11, I suggested that all airlines should now include a box-cutter with the air-sickness bag. The hijackers stand up with theirs . . . we stand up with ours. End of hijacking.

“This, of course, would outrage Box-Cutter Control Inc. Just goes to show that if it ain’t guns, it’s bows and arrows. If it ain’t bows and arrows, it’s box-cutters. If it ain’t box-cutters, it rocks. The technology doesn’t matter. The principle is the same.”

I mentioned that Mike Tyson — who was just visiting Cuba, causing a ruckus in a Havana hotel — had had Che Guevara tattooed on his abdomen. Several readers wrote in to say that “Iron Mike” has long had a tattoo of Mao Tse-tung on his bicep. Given the boxer’s bulk, I would say he still has room for Castro, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler — with maybe a Kim Il Sung on his backside.

(Notice how I wrote up there “Mao Tse-tung” instead of “Mao Zedong”? Felt good. If you don’t understand why, I’ll try to explain in a future column.)

I had thought the date of the Ali-Spinks rematch was 9/15/80 — was going from memory. Well, as many readers informed me, I got the 9/15 right — but the year was ’78. Nineteen eighty was the year of the disastrous Ali-Holmes fight — disastrous for Muhammad, that is. He had gone on too long, as so many do.

Several wrote to say, “It’s La-Z-Boy,” not “Laz-Y-Boy,” as I’d written. ’kay den.

A few wrote to chastise me for saying — the context doesn’t really matter — “as teenage girls — and me — write.” To these readers, I can only say: Look, ear is ear, and when I mean to write colloquially or casually or “incorrectly” — in order to write correctly, from an ear/literary/musical point of view — I mean to.

I really shouldn’t do this, but I can’t resist repeating my favorite Buckley answer to a reader: Many years ago, someone sent a hostile letter, ending, “Besides which, your syntax is lousy.” Buckley penned a perfectly stinging response, which concluded, “By the way, if you had my syntax, you’d be rich.”

In that previous Impromptus I’ve been mentioning ad nauseam, I had a little riff on contemporary liberalism as the thought- or feelings-world of children. A correspondent wrote, “When I was growing up, they always told me that conservatives were opposed to change. Now that I am one, I’ve been noticing more and more that this is a better description of the liberals, in many ways.” This applies to school policy and a million other things. It happens to be a pet point of mine, too: the Republican party as the progressive party of today, the Democratic party as the conservative, intransigent, fossilized, reform-resistant party. Subject of a future essay (promises, promises).

Another reader wrote in to say, basically, that he’d been “right from the beginning” (the many-meaninged title of Pat Buchanan’s memoir — a quite beautiful book, by the way): “By the time I was 15, I had already been listening to and agreeing with Rush Limbaugh for years. I haven’t laughed at a Mark Russell PBS special since I was 10, and I haven’t been able to tolerate Doonesbury since I got old enough to know what Trudeau was talking about.”

I love that.

Finally, I said the last time — have I mentioned that column? — that it had been days since Rudy Giuliani left office and I hadn’t yet been mugged. Several readers wrote of very recent dicey experiences in New York, wondering whether night just may be starting to fall. Here is one note:

“My wife and I were in the City for dinner on New Year’s Eve but tried to get a train back to Princeton just before midnight to get back to our dogs at home. We missed the train and had to wait 45 minutes or so in the Penn Station waiting area (ticket-holders only, allegedly) until the next departure. A woman, self-described as ‘pregnant,’ sat in the row across from us and . . .“ — well, it’s a sad, Dinkins-like, racial, ugly story. The reader continues, “We walked up to the agent at the entrance of the waiting area to ask for assistance. He looked at me and said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’”

That’s the old futility — the very un-Rudyesque futility. “I don’t know if the new mayor had been sworn in yet, but I did know that the Giuliani era was over. Best of luck with the new administration, and let me know when you decide to relocate to the suburbs.”

Ach. Fingers crossed, bub.