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Alter’s
Embarrassment
“Jim
Jeffords was having trouble sleeping at night, muttering over and
over, ‘The children, the children.’”
May 30, 2001 2:05 p.m.
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  im
Jeffords was having trouble sleeping at night, muttering over and
over, `The children, the children.' His
conscience
was bothering
him like it always does when he is confronted by evil: The billions
of dollars of new education funding in the Bush budget just wasn't
enough. `When I had nightmares about kids being left behind, that
was just the breaking point for me,' Jeffords told Newsweek
in his soft voice, gentle and serene like a pristine Vermont stream.
It was then that Jeffords — who is kind to children and small animals,
but has a black belt in tae kwon do; who likes poetry and walks
on the beach, but is comfortable in Washington's corridors of power;
who is shy and shuns the spotlight, but has a magnetic pull on the
ladies; who is the ying and yang, the Alpha and Omega of American
politics — first made his resolve: He would just have to kick some
right-wing butt."
This was not
the lede in Jonathan Alter's Newsweek piece this week on
Jim Jeffords, but it might as well have been. Alter delivered the
most embarrassing suck-up imaginable, a piece that could have been
drafted by Jeffords's press secretary, that is, if he or she didn't
have any shame. Alter opens with an anecdote about Jeffords waking
up at night screaming, "Watch out! The machine guns are firing!"
This nightmare was not a flashback, but a dream about the Republican
impeachment of Bill Clinton! Alter then goes on to catalogue how
Jeffords has always been Erin Brockovich, Ralph Nader, and John
McCain rolled into one, a paladin of political virtue not seen since
Solon. Alter never bothers to square Jeffords's long-running ideological
estrangement from the GOP with the idea that his switch represents
a specific problem with the Bush White House, but why should
he? It might distract him from his long recitation of tendentious
clichés.
Amazingly,
Alter barely even mentions the minor matter of Jeffords apparently
securing a committee chairmanship in exchange for his act of high
principle. He deals with it only obliquely and dismissively: "The
White House is spreading the word that Jeffords's decision was about
committee perks. That spin wasn't playing, because it doesn't square
with the senator's reputation." But it's not just "spin."
Tom Daschle has pointedly refused to deny that Jeffords will get
the Environment and Public Works Committee chairmanship, and the
fact has been widely reported elsewhere. But Alter prefers to ignore
it, lest it detract the least bit from his St. Jim storyline. Then,
he takes John McCain's assertion that the GOP needs to "grow
up" as an established fact. "But will it?" Alter
asks, in his probing, no-rock-will-be-left-unturned way. He obviously
doesn't think so. Alter has some gall, because the only word to
describe his credulous, unimaginative, and utterly predictable piece
is "juvenile."
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