Bush’s RFK caper, “asking not,” credit to a dictator, &c.

November 30, 2001 9:40 a.m.

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.