Jenna, Dan Gable, William Hague & more

June 8, 2001 1:00 p.m.

e’re all saying that Jenna is old enough to drink: but isn’t she old enough not to be an idiot, too? I mean, imagine: walking into a local bar and presenting a false ID — when your father is president of the United States (and not exactly the darling of the national media, either). Shouldn’t you think just a little? The law may be an ass, but the breaker of the law can be one, too. “Kids will be kids,” people say. Well, which is it? Are kids kids, or are they “mature, responsible adults”? Presenting a false ID is not very nice, no matter how you slice it. And the thirst for a margarita must be very, very strong if you will break the law and risk a national scandal just to get one. Maybe the anti-alcohol people have a point; maybe there’s something a teeny, tiny bit demonic about rum, if you will go to such lengths to swallow it. “Obey your thirst,” says a slogan on television (I think it’s for a soft drink). But there are other things to be obeyed, too: like restraint and dignity and modesty and self-control, and a decent regard for one’s parents.

A Bush should be especially mindful; she is a Republican, after all (or at least the relative of Republicans). A Clinton or Gore child could get away with practically anything. One of them could ax-murder four nuns in church, and only Drudge or Fox would report it. Joe Lockhart, up at the press-room podium, would say, “I’m not going to respond to any trash coming from these sources. You people ought to be embarrassed to associate yourself with such trash. Are you responsible journalists or aren’t you?” A Bush is a Bush, baby, and they will be watched like a hawk’s prey.

So, whine all you want about laws prohibiting drinking — but remember that the Bush daughters have some say in their conduct, too. They’re old enough, you know.

I have been writing lately about local gods who run for office. There’s Phyllis George in Kentucky (she’s a Texan, and also a New Yorker, but she sojourned there for a while as first lady, while her former husband was governor), and now there’s Dan Gable in Iowa. Who’s Dan Gable? Ah, you don’t know anything, or care anything, about wrestling (I mean, real wrestling, not the TV kind). Dan Gable’s importance to the sport of wrestling cannot be overstated; neither can his importance in the state of Iowa, which is the home of wrestling (along, you could argue, with Oklahoma, whose universities also excel in the sport). Gable is wrestling’s dominant figure, more dominant than Ruth in baseball, Mark Spitz in swimming, or Ali in boxing. Ali, for example, has Louis, Frazier, Foreman, and others for competitors; Gable has no real competitors. In every phase of his career — high school, college, the Olympics, coaching — he has stood alone.

And now he is thinking about running for governor of Iowa. This is intriguing. Gable is one hard-nosed, disciplined, fanatical (you might say) s.o.b. I’m not sure he has the political temperament, at least the American democratic political temperament. He has told the press that he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat; that he has always voted “the man.” I have a feeling, though, that he hasn’t voted Democratic at the presidential level since 1976.

Jim Ryun, another hard-nosed athlete, is already in Congress (from Kansas). Tom Osborne, the old football coach from Nebraska, is also there. You lose something, though, if you're a god and run for office: You’re bound to disappoint some people, to forfeit some fans, especially those in the other party. Isn’t it better to remain a god? Another way to ask this is, Why be a congressman, or a governor, if you can be that (unless you’re a real nutcase, believing in public service, the greater good, etc.)?

Some of you may have been following the saga of Steve Kelley, the political cartoonist long based at the San Diego Union-Tribune. Well, he isn’t based there any longer: The paper fired him. Kelley is one of the finest right-leaning cartoonists in the country, and he was always out of sync with the Union-Tribune brass. He was canned for the silliest of reasons: He drew a cartoon that his editors judged in poor taste. (It involved a couple of teenagers in low-riding, top-of-the-butt-exposing pants, and a crack — pardon the expression — about plumbers.) An argument ensued. The paper seized on its chance to get rid of Kelley.

I bring this to your attention because Steve Kelley is one of the sharpest arrows in the conservative quiver. I hope that he will remain syndicated, if unavailable in San Diego, the country's fairest city, deserving of one of the country's fairest cartoonists. Wherever you are, watch for Kelley cartoons. The man is a diamond.

I have said it more times than my colleagues care to count: Usually, people in a democracy get what they deserve. Never did I feel this more strongly than after the 1992 and 1996 elections. My Republican friends like to say, “Well, President Bush was terrible, and Bob Dole was even worse, so what you do expect?” I expect that sober-minded people will choose either of those men over Bill Clinton, for reasons too obvious to repeat. The people — my apologies, populists — but the people are sometimes to blame. And the people are really to blame for reelecting Tony Blair over the worthy William Hague. The demerits of Hague are endlessly harped on; he is supposed to be odd-looking, uninspiring, and so on. Well, that’s absurd: Hague is not odd-looking, he is normal-looking, and certainly no worse in this department than his rival. As for uninspiring, uninspiring to whom? He is inspiring to all those who are open to that kind of inspiration, and he would have been a good — a very sound — prime minister. He is an excellent speaker, an excellent debater, and an excellent thinker. It’s hard to do better than that — and he still got shellacked by the British electorate.

I don’t blame the candidate; as in America, after the elections of the '90s, I blame the voters. You and I aren’t politicians; we don’t have to smooch the backsides of the masses; why not call it like it is? As my colleague David Pryce-Jones says, the problem is that the British people aren’t the British people anymore. As they piss away their sovereignty to the overlords in Brussels (for example), they are still people living in Britain, but they are no longer the British people, in the meaningful sense. This sounds extreme; I have long resisted it; but now I am (mostly) convinced.

Hague lost huge — but he deserved to win. So did George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole. If you can’t fault the people now and then, why be a conservative at all?

And, oh yeah, one more thing: President George W. Bush knows this too. Throughout the last campaign, he would say, “I saw a good man lose in 1992.” Here is a guy with his head on his shoulders.

The media, as I have noted before, are full of Powell-love: Colin is best, Colin knows better, Colin is the only decent, moderate, humane, thinking thing in this entire, idiotic, wicked, extremist administration. I get a little kick out of asking the Powell-besotted: Now who, again, appointed this paragon? What president did that? I can’t quite remember the name. Those who adore the secretary of state might pause for a moment to credit the man who placed him in that position.

My colleague Jaime Sneider brings to my attention the following lead in a Reuters bulletin: “Six months after his state delivered the White House to brother George W. Bush, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced on Friday he will run for re-election next year…” A curious way for a wire service to begin such a report, don’t you think?