Bill Clinton, Anna Kournikova, Peter Jennings, &c

July 6, 2001 10:00 a.m.

ill Clinton is perpetually on the prowl, going from party to party, event to event, being seen, being hugged, being thanked (for his terms in office, if you can believe it), soaking up the love that is the oxygen he needs to live. He sorely misses being president (or “the president,” as dear W. would say). One touching thing about Clinton — or disgusting, depending on how you choose to look at it — is that he is completely open about how much he misses the White House. There is nothing disguised about this ache; he started bemoaning his departure long before the blessed date of January 20, 2001, rolled around. And this is one reason, of course, he never should have been president in the first place: He wanted it too much, needed it too much. And that can be a dangerous thing in a republic like ours.

I could give you a hundred revealing Clinton quotes, but chew on this one: The other week, talking to a group of graduating high-schoolers, he said, “I’d take a chance on not getting to be president again just to be 35 or 40 years younger.” I loved that not getting to be president. Even if you think that, can you imagine saying it — for all the world to hear? Oh, give me a man who regards the presidency as a democratic burden to shoulder, not one who loves it and craves it as one might a blow-up doll. I’m all for “happy warriors” in politics; but not for giddy, crazed co-dependents like Clinton.

Conservatives are always carrying on about the huge contrast between Clinton and Ronald Reagan. Well, I’m one of those conservatives, so forgive me. I remember something that impressed me about Reagan in 1980, when he was on the campaign trail. I was not entirely a Reagan fan at the time, but I very much liked this: Interviewer: “Why do you want to be president?” Reagan (and I will paraphrase here): “I’m running in order to get some things done, some things that need doing. I’m not running in order to live in the White House, or work in the Oval Office, or ride around on Air Force One, or hear ‘Hail to the Chief’ played when I walk into a room. I’ve had a wonderful life already, a life beyond my fondest dreams. No, I have my hat in the ring because I think the nation is in trouble, and I believe I can do something about it. If someone else wanted to do it, fine; but I am equipped and ready, and I offer my candidacy.”

You may say that Reagan’s ego shouldn’t be underestimated, and it shouldn’t. But he was a far cry from Clinton.

How far? Several weeks ago, I had the treat of touring the Reagan ranch near Santa Barbara. In the course of her narration, the guide pointed out that Reagan was careful to feed his horses with his own, privately bought hay, while the Secret Service agents’ horses were fed with “public,” taxpayer-bought hay. That’s how scrupulous, how conscientious he was. One of us couldn’t help blurting out, “Oh, Clinton would have done the same thing.” Everyone chuckled — but it was sort of sad, too.

By the way, one of the most attractive things about the current president, for my money, is that, like Reagan, he doesn’t seem to need the presidency, for any kind of personal fulfillment. He seems almost to be able to take it or leave it. Again: Deliver us from the man who has to be president.

I had always opposed the Twenty-second Amendment, limiting a president to only two terms; I always regarded it as a misguided Republican revenge on FDR; I was with Reagan, that it ought to be repealed. But maybe those old Republicans of the 1950s knew what they were doing: There isn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind that Clinton would have been reelected to a third term. Did Americans have a right to him? I dunno. That is probably too philosophical a question for this breezy lil’ column.

It seems now that Robert Mueller will, indeed, be FBI director. He had been the almost-designee before, but the word got out that President Bush wasn’t completely satisfied, that he wanted more “options.” My thought was: The administration has to do things more quietly than it has been, in order to spare personal feelings (such as those of Mueller, before he was tapped for sure). Ex-senator Dan Coats had kind of a lousy thing happen to him: He was set to be secretary of defense, but then he had a meeting with the president-elect, and it became known that W., for whatever reason (theories vary), wasn’t pleased. So Coats lost out — and was semi-humiliated in the process. Something similar happened to Frank Keating, down in Oklahoma, who was thought to have a bead on the attorney general’s job, but who was rejected, in a cloud of ethical accusations. If things can be done just a little more quietly — they should be. But then, my interests as a journalist clash with my (very unsolicited, believe me) advice to the White House.

Wimbledon time brings thoughts of…Anna Kournikova (no sniggering). For several years now, I have been fascinated with the extreme resentment of her, not only from her fellow players but from journalists and others who comment on her. She is a bombshell — blonde at that — and so gets endorsements and attention that she wouldn't receive otherwise. Everyone likes to point out that she stinks — that she has never won a major tournament and ranks only Number 11 in the world.

I love that: only Number 11. What a hack, Anna Kournikova! Geez, of all the women in the world — how many are there, about 3 billion? — this chick is merely the eleventh-best tennis player.

Whine about Anna’s commercial success all you like, but do you realize how good eleventh-best is? Yes, Kournikova is famous because of her looks. But life isn’t fair, not least in the looks’ department. So deal with it, baby — and people who can barely get out of their chair have no business knocking Kournikova’s tennis.

There has been a confession, of sorts, from Peter Jennings. In an interview up in Boston, he said, “Those of us who went into journalism in the ’50s or ’60s — it was sort of a liberal thing to do. Save the world. Conservative voices in the U.S. have not been as present as they might have been and should have been in the media.”

A couple of thoughts here: It’s always nice when one of the heavy hitters acknowledges liberal bias in the media, as Jennings has sort of done here. What most irritates people like me is denial: There is no liberal bias. The second-most-irritating thing is: Yes, the media are dominated by liberal human beings, but that doesn’t mean there is a liberal bias expressed. What I greatly prefer — indeed, welcome — is: Yes, there is a liberal bias, and there ought to be, dammit. Years ago, Barbara Walters acknowledged that liberals dominate the media because “we care about the human condition.” Insulting as that might have been, the candor was utterly refreshing. Walter Cronkite has said similar things: that mainstream American journalists are liberal, and for good reason — long may it wave.

Notice that Jennings said, “Save the world” — liberals were (are?) interested in saving the world. We say back to him: Not only you, our dapper Canadian friend. Not only you.

Last Sunday, I turned on the television, looking for the final round of the U.S. Senior Open (Nicklaus was in the hunt, but then “threw up all over himself,” to use the pros’ expression, but that is another story, and rant). What I came across was an interview with Norman Podhoretz on C-SPAN’s books program, recorded last January. The interview turned out to be three hours’ long, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was simply impossible to stop watching, and listening. Here was an intellectual and verbal tour de force, with Podhoretz answering every manner of question, matching his astonishingly wide-ranging mind. He discoursed about socialism, capitalism, D. H. Lawrence, Jeremiah — you name it. He has read everything, thought about everything, and experienced almost everything. The world — certainly the spheres of politics and literature — is his oyster.

Podhoretz is one of the great talkers of our time. Not every writer — even every great writer — can talk. But Podhoretz talks as well as he writes, and much as he writes: He talks in long, beautiful, learned, masterly paragraphs, and pages. This C-SPAN interview is one of the great displays of erudition and heart and humor that I have ever witnessed. At midnight that night, when the show was re-aired, I taped it, for posterity. I urge anyone interested in the life of the mind, or the controversies of the 20th century, to get hold, somehow — perhaps by contacting the network — of that performance. You’d buy a ticket, trust me.

I suppose readers ought to know that “N. Pod.” is a friend of mine. They should know, too, that I thought as highly of him before I ever had the privilege of meeting him.

Finally, I understand that three hours of WFB have been done, on that same program. These are three hours I have not yet been able to see — but one can imagine.

Want a little good news? Elliott Abrams has gone into the administration. (I’m a little Podhoretz-crazy at the moment: Abrams is one of Norman’s sons-in-law, part of a large and almost gaudily talented family.) Elliott Abrams was one of the bright lights of the Reagan administration, a young assistant secretary of state, a great cold warrior, especially as it concerned Latin America. (Another way to say “cold warrior” is “crusader for human rights.”) Abrams got a very, very raw deal in the Walsh prosecution; news reports have been depicting him as an Iran-contra figure; what he was was a principled, honorable, and invaluable man.

Now he has joined the National Security Council staff, directing the division of human rights, democracy, and international operations. It’s hard to think of a better marriage of portfolio and man. Frankly, one of the most encouraging things I know about George W. Bush, and about his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, is that they wanted Elliott Abrams to work alongside them. They also want John Negroponte for the United Nations, Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere (essentially Abrams’s old job), and Roger Noriega, Jesse Helms’s chief aide on Latin America, as ambassador to the OAS.

Some said that it wouldn’t make any difference whether Bush or Gore won. Oh, it makes a difference — as Democrats would emphatically and fumingly agree.

It’s amazing, the New York mayoral race: There’s no one to root for. Absolutely no one. It’s not even worth following the news. The Democrats are all terrible, and in roughly the same ways; each threatens to reverse the progress that Rudolph Giuliani has made, seeming not even to grasp what that progress has been. The likely Republican nominee, Michael Bloomberg, has been a Republican for about two seconds, having switched parties in order to avail himself of a (more or less) sure nomination. He has working for him at least one of the most appalling left-wing politicos in this city. Some choice.

It is not only amazing but depressing to be in a city with a huge race going on: and to have no one — no one plausible, sadly — to root for. It is not only amazing and depressing; it is strangely disorienting, as though you loved a sport but no team or individual player in it.

One of the great tricks of Cuban Communists and their (many) supporters in the United States is this: They claim that Castro’s political prisoners are old baddies from the Batista days. Sometimes this reaches comical proportions, if any humor can be found in despicable lies. Recently, I wrote about the struggles of several Cuban dissidents, including one, René Montes de Oca, whom I interviewed. Montes de Oca is now in one of Castro’s dungeons; no one knows where; it cannot even be confirmed that he is still alive.

Here is the obscenity: Pro-Castroites, on their websites, have speculated that Montes de Oca was a thug from the Batista dictatorship, deserving of whatever torture Castro cares to mete out. Montes de Oca is 38 years old. He was born in 1963, four years after the present dictator and his band came to power. When will the Castroite Left stop saying that Cuba’s political prisoners — if those prisoners indeed exist, ha ha — are old Batista partisans? Never, that’s when: The lie is too ingrained, too reflexive, to die.

Far be it from me to cry for Slobodan Milosevic, but, as he was hauled off to The Hague, I remembered this: The central term of his giving himself up, to Yugoslav authorities, was that he would not be subjected to international prosecution. Should even brutal, murdering dictators be double-crossed? Fine with me, but…it’s a question.

Speaking of Milosevic, I have a point about language: In many papers, he is being described as a “butcher.” Mark Helprin, I know, is one who insists on “butcherer”: Butchers are those nice men who give you lamb chops at the meat market; butcherers are monsters like “Slobbo” (as the ever-entertaining New York Post dubs Milosevic). This is a distinction, or so it would seem, that has faded away.

Helprin fans — and if you are not one, you ought to get busy — shouldn’t miss the interview he gave with The American Enterprise, an interview that only confirms the greatness and largeness of spirit of this most rare author.

Another quick point on language: The other day, my wife received a note from a left-liberal associate of hers that mentioned me, her “spouse.” She was sort of amused to see that: “spouse.” This may shock some readers, but in certain circles — circles of which I used to be very much a part — the words “husband” and “wife” are verboten, considered grossly incorrect (meaning, politically so). Only “spouse” is accepted.

When my wife showed me this note, I smiled and had a flashback to college years: A dorm-mate of mine returned “home” one day and announced, with tremendous pride, “I said, ‘The president and his spouse,’ today, and I wasn’t even trying. I mean, I wasn’t even conscious of it. It just came out naturally!” He was beaming, delighted to have been successfully programmed.

Before you say “husband” or “wife” — better watch who’s around.

I saw a headline today that read: “Bush to Meet with Portillo.” I was confused, because Michael Portillo is in the running to replace William Hague as head of the Conservative party in Britain. But the Portillo in question was the president of Guatemala. Ah, these nations of immigrants! Think of it: “Portillo,” a Briton; “Fujimori,” a Peruvian (or is he an ex-Peruvian now? certainly an exiled one); “Menem,” an Argentine; “Seaga,” a Jamaican. France had a prime minister — a prime minister — not long ago whose father was born in Ukraine, I believe.

We’re not the only ones, sports fans.

The world continues to turn topsy-turvy: The Lascaux paintings are no longer old; engravings have been found, also in western France, that are 10,000 years older. Roger Maris no longer holds the home-run record, asterisk or not. Lou Gehrig did not play in the most consecutive games. Some kid from California named Tiger Woods has won four majors in a row. The world as I know it, or knew it, is simply spinning out of control.

The Pyramids will endure, uniquely, won’t they?

In previous installments, I dilated on frequently misspelled words, and mentioned that I myself have always had trouble with vacuum (to go with raccoon and accommodate and occurred and other words where doubling is a concern). A reader wrote, “Your column reminded me of a spelling test I had once in college, and the word was vacuum. I first wrote ‘vaccuum,’ scribbled it out, wrote ‘vaccum,’ scribbled it out, and then wrote ‘sweeper.’ The teacher checked it wrong, then scribbled out the check mark and wrote, ‘I’ll give you the point. Just don’t tell anybody in the class.’”

Nice.

Finally, also in a previous installment, I wrote about Fox News and the big question of whether it has a conservative tilt. This led to the point that the University of Chicago and Claremont McKenna College are often thought of as right-wing bastions, though majorities there are surely on the left: Balance, or even something that approaches it, can seem like bias when we are accustomed to a monopoly.

A reader, wanting to go beyond Chicago and Claremont McKenna, contributed the following:

“Having recently graduated from Pepperdine Law, I can attest to [the phenomenon you describe] from direct experience. It often seems to me that the entire country believes Pepperdine is some right-wing training camp for young brown shirts (an old lefty friend once asked me how I liked the ‘ideologically purer air’ there, for instance). My own experience was rather different. As an undergrad, I attended a private university followed by a state one; Pepperdine’s environment was certainly more balanced than either. But to call it right-wing is utterly inaccurate: I had more professors [at Pepperdine] who were Democrats than Republicans, more who believed in the ‘living document’ theory of constitutional interpretation than in any form of strict constructionism, and more who clearly felt that using the courts to accomplish social ends is perfectly legitimate than believed that such matters are best left to legislatures and tradition. The difference, really, was that the conservative view was well enough represented that most students got a fair accounting of it.”

(John) O’Sullivan’s Law is, “Any organization that is not explicitly right-wing will become left-wing over time.” Another law might be: Any news outlet or university that is balanced, or has more than token conservative representation, will appear right-wing (and be criticized accordingly).

Have a nice day, homies!