Veto, veto, veto. Shun the NAACP. Gimme a West Wing! And more

July 13, 2001 11:40 a.m.

ampaign-finance reform is a-coming, and I have a message to the president: Actually, before I give that message, I’d like to say that it is always somewhat painful to type those words, “campaign-finance reform” — so benign-sounding, so pure-seeming. Practically unassailable. “Reform” is one of the most golden words in the English political vocabulary, and to oppose “reform” is to be…well, anti-reform, which is no good.

I have already complained in this space that only the campaign-finance restrictionists get to be called “reformers.” Mitch McConnell (for example) is a reformer — he advocates raising limits and the like — but he never gets called a reformer, because the kind of reform he favors is opposed by those who do most of the commenting on the issue. McConnell is as much a reformer (or would-be reformer) as his nemesis, John McCain — but only one of them is blessed with the golden name, for obvious reasons. Language is absolutely critical in this debate, as it is in most areas of life. If McCain-style reform — restrictionism — were known popularly as, say, “a clampdown on political speech,” perhaps it wouldn’t be so popular.

Anyway, that message to the president: Show some sac, baby! Veto this awful bill. Don’t hope that the courts will strike it down. If you know it’s wrong — and you should — strike it down yourself, with your veto pen. Let the political chips fall where they may. The press will holler like crazy, McCain will holler like crazy — and he may even use your veto as an excuse to run against you in 2004. But you always said, during the 2000 campaign, that you were “runnin’ for a reason” — namely, to do the right thing while in office. Here is a fine opportunity. And if you explain yourself, you could come out ahead, politically — which is, of course, secondary.

As I was studying the restrictionist bills — their prohibitions on ads; their exemptions for media companies; the harsh regulatory controls they impose; their chilling effect (remember that one?) generally — a word came to me, completely unbidden. It is a word I have never used, to my knowledge, except in discussion about the McCarthy period. It is a radioactive word, one that we are taught never, ever to use (except, again, in the context of McCarthyism): It is the U-word, “un-American.” I choke to utter this forbidden word, but it seems appropriate: This clampdown on political speech has an un-American smell, as it cuts against the spirit (at a minimum) of American politics.

And the kicker, of course, is that the restrictionists present themselves as super-patriots, always implying — and sometimes outright saying — that we who disagree with them are not patriotic, having something other than the best interests of the country at heart.

Gloves off, y’all: If the anti-restrictionists were as forceful, brazen, and unabashed in their rhetoric and tactics as the restrictionists, this contest would be won in a walk. The weird thing is, the anti-restrictionists — the pro-speechers, if you will — are on the defensive. And they have no need to be. Let the amenders of the First Amendment be the ones who are defensive, who tremble.

I am aware of doing something in the above item that I usually disdain: addressing someone not present, or listening, in the second person, as in, “Mr. President, you need to…” Walter Mondale did this all through the 1984 campaign, and it grated on me. Mr. President, Mondale would say, this country wasn’t built on your weapons of war. It was built on the sweat of working people (or something like that). At every stop, he twanged in that Minnesota accent — or at least it seemed to me a kind of twang — “Mr. President, Mr. President”: and then he’d dare him to do something, or not do something. And Reagan wouldn’t respond, of course, because he wasn’t there, so he seemed a little cowardly, or incapable of answering. I always thought this a cheap and unmanly rhetorical device.

But now that I’m in the habit: Mr. President, next time you turn down an invitation from the NAACP, please don’t mumble something about a scheduling conflict. Just say, “No, you’re a hate group, and that’s why I’m not addressing you. The president doesn’t speak to hate groups, except to condemn them.” Okay, maybe you can’t say just that, but you can make it clear that the NAACP no longer does any good. It’s bad enough that the group is wrong on the issues: wrong on education, “the family,” taxation, and “right on down the line” (as congressmen like to say). Their positions tend to impede the progress of black Americans, and therefore of all Americans.

But that’s not their worst fault, to be dead wrong on the issues: No, as they proved in the last campaign, they are haters, and deserve to be seen as such, and to be banished to the fringes of our politics. To tell the NAACP to get lost would be to clear the air. And it would give a gust of encouragement to those Americans, both black and white, but especially black, who long for an honest discussion, and for the progress such intercommunication can bring.

So, next time, don’t say, “I’m busy,” say, “No.” Just say no, as a Lady once said.

President Bush (I am back to a proper voice) had a nifty event at Ellis Island the other day, with such immigrants as Mel Martinez, Elaine Chao, and Viet Dinh standing next to him. He also had the New York senators, but this event was hard to mar. In his remarks, Bush said, “Immigration is not a problem to be solved. It is a sign of a confident and successful nation.” And newcomers “should be met in that spirit by representatives of our government.”

Leave aside, for a moment, the debate over immigration policy, and indulge me in a flashback of mine: I accompany a friend (Indian-born) to an INS center in Detroit, where he is to take a step (or two) in obtaining his citizenship. In fact, I think his purpose that day was to complete the final step of the entire process.

In the building were bright, hopeful immigrants, would-be Americans, in their Sunday best, some clutching flags, with several generations of the family, all very nervous, of course — and the women behind the glass (I’m talking about the American clerks) were all beastly to them. For an hour I observed this, and it was disgusting. The clerks were beyond snappish and rude; they were mean and snarling, alternately ignoring and yelling at the immigrants. The immigrants were jittery and shaken — sometimes a little teary — wanting to do the right thing. When the immigrants could get the clerks’ attention, those clerks would mumble something, behind that glass. The immigrants wouldn’t be able to understand them, of course — I, with my native English, couldn’t understand them — and they said, meekly, “Pardon?” And then the clerks would scream at them, as incomprehensibly as they had mumbled. The immigrants were in a state of confusion and fear. The clerks seemed to hold so much power over them, and they were full of hate, just brutalizing those people — who had arrived so eager and happy.

I wanted to cry, to aid the immigrants, to apologize to them, to curse and report the “Americans” who were mistreating them. If I were the type to be ashamed to be an American, I would have been. It was one of the most disgusting — I return to that word — most disgusting, most repellent spectacles I have ever witnessed.

My friend and I simply left. He would try another day, elsewhere, I think — Chicago, maybe. The inhospitality, cruelty, and — here I go again — un-Americanness of it all was too much to bear, and I cringe to remember it even now.

At the time of the Clinton pardons scandal — I mean, when people were interested in it — many of the headlines read, “Isn’t It Rich?” (you remember Denise). Well, isn’t it rich that prominent Senate Democrats have expressed concern for the military because of the Bush tax cut? You see, that irresponsible commander-in-chief cut taxes for the rich and greedy, so now our military just may be underfunded. Tsk-tsk. You know those hawks like Carl Levin: always looking out for the mad bombers in the Pentagon.

As New York tabloidists sometimes write: Puh-leeze.

I may be the last right-wing bloviator in America not to comment on the TV series West Wing (for which you can thank me). That is because I haven’t seen it; or hadn’t seen it, because I caught a snippet — about five minutes — the other night when the missus had it on. What I saw, and heard, simply stunned me. I was prepared for something bad, from all that I had read; but I was not prepared for what the show apparently is.

Here is my comment (and I will make it short): I had to despair a little, because, no matter how many National Reviews and Weekly Standards and Wall Street Journals we publish, how can we compete with that television show? How? The propagandizing power of that hour has to be enormous. The Democratic National Committee couldn’t possibly ask for better. I would trade all of our piddly yet noble organs for a television show of that sort — hell, Bob Dornan could be elected president in such an atmosphere.

Speaking of unusual candidates: It is bruited about in Michigan that one Michael Skupin, once a contestant on Survivor, will be the Republican nominee against Sen. Levin next year. Before you laugh, or sigh, let me report that a friend of mine heard Skupin speak the other day, in a church. He said Skupin had great appeal, being handsome, plainspoken, and compelling. He could catch on, my friend mused, with a grassroots, regular-guy, Jesse Ventura-like campaign. (Now, I realize there’s not much regular about Jesse, with his feather boa and jewelry and all, but you know what I mean.)

Hang on, has anyone made this point? They must’ve: What is it with our politicians named Jesse (Helms, Ventura, Jackson, in descending order of greatness)? Is there an ordinary politician named Jesse? Can’t think of one — and out West, there was that Jesse James.

No, the Wagnerian tenor Jess Thomas doesn’t count, if that’s what you’re thinking.

Hang on again, please: When I first met my marvelous colleague Mike Potemra, way back in academic-grove days, he propounded the “Jacksonian theory of the Democratic party”: that it had gone from Andrew Jackson to Scoop Jackson to Jesse Jackson. I have never forgotten that, as one usually does not, when Mr. P. has spoken.

Y’all saw, via Drudge, probably, that the Communist Party, U.S.A., held its annual convention in Milwaukee — and that the city’s mayor sent a letter to the delegates. This letter, according to the local paper, “touted Milwaukee’s socialist history.” Wrote Mayor John O. Norquist, “In that sense, we share many things in common with the long history of the Communist Party and all those engaged in the fight for a decent life for working people.” The letter was read by an aide. The Communists gave the mayor a standing ovation, in absentia.

This is funny, of course, but it is not funny, considering the damage that ignorance of Communism has done to us. About a year ago, a mayor in California apologized to a PRC consulate for approving a local “Falun Gong Day” — not realizing that the viciously persecuted sect is “controversial.” If there were a Mayors Hall of Shame, I could supply two candidates, easy.

In a recent (and excellent) New York Times piece about the Russian writer Isaac Babel, the word “Stalinist” was used quite a bit: Stalinist terror, the Stalinist secret police, Stalinist policy, etc. This put me in mind of a pet point: “Stalinist” — and “Maoist” — can amount to a lexical and moral dodge. Now, I fully appreciate the horrible specialness of Stalin’s Communism, as I do the horrible specialness of Mao’s. But in my experience, “Stalinist” and “Maoist” are often used by those who are loath to acknowledge the general awfulness of Communism, tout court. “Stalinism” has long been used by people who want to imply a sharp departure from the Soviet Communism launched by Lenin. “Stalinist” and “Maoist” are often fallback words for those practicing some kind of apologetics for Communism. That is why I, when in school, liked to avoid those terms, sometimes mischievously; I was reluctant to draw responsibility away from Communism and its supporters and enforcers, and to separate Stalin and Mao and their rules from Communism at large. Those two men, certainly, thought of themselves as very incarnations of Communism.

So, the “Stalinists” and “Maoists”? Communists all, remember — insist on it, when you think it is right.

Since the End of the Cold War, whole months have gone by when the average right-winger has forgotten to hate the U.N. But I remembered — I was jolted awake — when the U.N. lied about that videotape from southern Lebanon, then refused to cough it up to the Israelis who could use it to find and rescue their kidnapped men. The United Nations remains — hey, this might make a title for a book — a dangerous place.

I mentioned mischief a moment ago; let me offer a little more. The Department of Justice is apparently set to say that it believes the Second Amendment applies to individuals, not merely to state militias (you didn’t know the question was open?). Here is my mischief: When speaking of gun rights, you may want to mention “the Bill of Rights.” There is a glorious phrase — almost as golden and unassailable as “campaign-finance reform.” Your opponents will tag you as a “gun nut”; you will reply that you are but the humble upholder of the Bill of Rights. The last thing an anti-gun nut wants to think of is that gun ownership is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, for heaven’s sake. “Bill of Rights” does even better than “the Second Amendment” or “the Constitution.” Ear- and psyche-wise, it is very potent.

As I admitted, a bit of mischief.

For some time, I have been noticing that writers — particularly political journalists — overdo, and misuse, “self-interest.” We are apt to read the sentence, “It is in his self-interest.” There is no need for that “self-”: It is in his interest. (The man’s interest, naturally, is a self-interest; that’s why it’s his.) Often, we read a worse sentence: “It is in his own self-interest.” That’s really driving the point home! This is a sloppy and annoying way of writing, and speaking; the “self-interest” weed has spread too far. Remember: You may praise a man who eschews self-interest, but you certainly understand when he acts on his interest — no need for the tic of “self-.”

Stay with language for a sec: When you write “W.,” as in our president, not his father, the former president, do you use the period or not? I noticed the other day that the Wall Street Journal does not (as in its headline, over an editorial on Bush’s immigration stance, “Citizen W”). I say: Use the period. It is helpful in denoting that this is the president’s middle initial. It preserves the feeling of that initial. Kissinger is sometimes referred to as “K” — no period. But if the old diplomat went by his middle initial, à la W., we would, or should, refer to him as “A.” — with that period.

I am very much for retaining the period in the president’s nickname — a nickname that happens to be indispensable in the writing we do — but the tide is the other way. Making me a period piece, I guess.

A little trouble in the golf world, down under. When Tiger Woods goes abroad — for some chump event — he does it for big money, known in the business as “appearance money.” That’s money for just showing up, forgetting what prize money you (meaning Tiger) might win.

Well, the New Zealanders have paid Tiger $2 million to appear next year in its Open, and the price of a weeklong ticket to the event has gone from a modest $20.50 to an immodest $205. As a result, New Zealand golf star Michael Campbell is threatening to boycott the event, in solidarity with his homeboys, particularly the more penurious among them. He called the ticket hike a “gross insult” to fans.

Tige (pronounced with a hard “g,” of course) is in a bit of a bind here: He is obeying the law of market economics, but he is set up to look like a Scrooge, denying urchins a chance to see him. Of course, New Zealanders may show up in huge, unprecedented numbers, for the rare chance of seeing the greatest golfer of all time. Tournament organizers paid Woods $2 million for a reason; they surely know their interests. In my view, Campbell should stop sniffing and playing to the gallery, and kiss Tiger’s feet for making his game wildly more popular than ever, which has led to immensely larger purses for all golfers, including one Michael Campbell, hero of the Common Kiwi.

Because the missus is one of New York’s leading restaurant and food columnists, I have to go to a lot of swank restaurants, to be force-fed multi-course meals, which take hours, which makes your body sore because (in addition to the overeating) the chairs get uncomfortable.

But that’s not what I want to complain about (although I thank you for your sympathy). In fact, I don’t want to complain at all, but to observe something: Even in the very swankest restaurants, the bathrooms have signs that say, “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work” (or some such thing). (By the way, the bathrooms in swank restaurants are, of course, commensurately swank — some of them look like they could belong to the Gabor sisters.) I got to thinking about those signs the other night. I might understand such a reminder in a Burger King or Denny’s (although isn’t this kind of classist?); but in these posh and elegant places? Shouldn’t we worry a little about a restaurant that has to admonish its employees publicly to wash their hands after using the facilities? Couldn’t that — you know — kinda go without saying?

Which made me wonder whether these signs have to be posted, by regulation. They are probably meant to be reassuring — but they’re not, necessarily. And they must be a humiliation to the employees.

Peace out.