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May 20, 2002 8:45 a.m. Bush knew? “Dr. Win the War.” The Pearl video. And more.

ress-bashing is a right-wing sickness, I know, but, folks, I’m feelin’ sick — so lemme indulge it a little.

Take this business of “Bush Knew.” That was the screaming New York Post headline over the story that there were “warnings” before 9/11. Now, I yield to no one in my delight over the New York Post, God’s tabloid. It is what I read first, of my stack of newspapers (hang on, I can’t admit that — oh, never mind: I’ve already typed it). But that headline was accusatory, misleading, and wrong.

Actually, I first heard — vaguely — about this story before I had a chance to look into it. It seemed absolutely terrible: Bush knew? And failed to act? Why, that’s treasonable, unconscionable, criminal! And why did it take eight months before we found out about these warnings? This “smacked” of cover-up. (That’s the word we use about cover-ups, or covers-up: “smacked.”)

And yet, of course, Bush did not “know.” No one “knew.” We knew that al Qaeda was no friend of the United States, of course. They’d bombed our embassies; they’d attacked the Cole; and they were promising more. There were also general threats of hijacking. But information about 9/11-like atrocities in particular? Something to act on, concretely? Here we are in Pearl Harbor territory. And you remember how the Republicans looked ridiculous about that.

When the “Bush knew” story broke, some reporters rushed to surviving loved ones of the victims, asking, “How do you feel, huh, huh, about the president’s having this information, and sitting on it?” Disgusting, really.

And Mrs. Clinton! Sen. Clinton, I mean. Can you imagine her pointing the finger at Bush, asking the Watergate-like question, “What’d he know, and when’d he know it?” If you were married to Bill Clinton — how’s that for a sentence-beginner? — if you were married to Bill Clinton, wouldn’t you keep a dignified silence on the matter of reacting to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001? Especially given that, in assaulting the Cole and killing our sailors, bin Laden committed an act of war, not merely (“merely”) an act of terror?

I suppose I say about the Clintons what JFK (reputedly) said about Nixon: No class.

There’s no doubt that the U.S. government knew about the threat we faced, generally speaking. It is an astonishing fact that Secretary Rumsfeld was briefing congressmen on terrorist threats on the very morning that the plane slammed into the Pentagon. That’s a far cry, though, from saying, or implying, that the particular crimes of 9/11 could have been prevented.

And am I alone in thinking that the Democrats and liberals are trying to have it both ways? Do they not oppose, as a rule, those measures that might keep us safer, if only marginally? All those things that John Ashcroft at Justice, for example, has been trying to do — those (relatively modest) steps that have gotten him labeled “A. Mitchell Palmer” and “Hoover” (not Herbert)? In other words, if Democrats and liberals really want a tighter defense, are they willing to do the necessary, in the matter of immigration controls, in the matter of a closer eye on the Arab communities in this country, etc.?

Are you kidding?

And, of course, there’s no real “defense” against terrorism — a complete defense, a complete sealing. That, as Rumsfeld says, is why we have to wage war, offensive war, brutally destructive war: not to retaliate, not to seek revenge; to protect ourselves — to kill them, before they kill us, again.

Allow me a quick word on investigations, and calls for investigations — congressional inquiries into U.S. government preparedness pre-9/11. I think of FDR’s phrase: “Dr. Win the War.” He said that, with 12/7/41, “Dr. New Deal” had become “Dr. Win the War.” I am feeling very “Dr. Win the War,” with regard to our present straits. We’ve got a war on — can’t we go ahead and prosecute it and win it? Won’t there be ample time for investigations and recriminations afterward, as there was after WWII, when Republicans and other nuts tried to prove that FDR invited the Japanese attack?

I have to bash on a little. Even worse than the “Bush knew” story was the Bush-photo story. (Wait a minute: On second thought, the “Bush knew” story was worse, in that the accusation was greater, more drastic.) The photo story, of course, is that the Republican party offered pictures of President Bush as part of a fund-raising effort, and one of those pictures showed the president on the phone, aboard Air Force One, talking to Dick Cheney on 9/11.

As with “Bush Knew,” I heard about this story — just a little chatter — before I really knew what was involved. It sounded awful: the exploitation of Sept. 11 for partisan fund-raising. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon, on the radio out in California, was told about it, and he said (roughly), “Yup, sounds bad” — but then he, too, looked into it (or received a phone call from, er, someone) and concluded that this “story” was a non-story.

The guy was on the phone, for heaven’s sake! This is an innocuous photo, and the use of it entirely defensible. Any Republican or White House backing off from it is unwarranted. The fund-raisers, as they went about their fund-raising, were trying to celebrate Bush’s first year in office — a year that included the war, and Bush’s war-making. What were they supposed to do? Air-brush the war and Bush-as-commander-in-chief out of the first year? Unreasonable.

Presidents and other pols get the blame for what’s bad in their performance, and they should get credit for what’s good in it. Clinton is right to claim credit for submitting to Republican welfare reform, and for bucking his party on NAFTA (how’s that for careful and partisan writing?). This is completely normal, and unobnoxious.

What if the Republicans had used a photo of Bush at Ground Zero, with that bullhorn, and that fireman? That, I think, would have marched up to the line — but not crossed it. And what the GOP-ers in fact used was a picture of the man, in shirtsleeves, on the phone. Nothing dizzying. Nothing to carve into Rushmore, or place on the Mall.

Gimme a break. This is the phoniest story — even forgetting the hypocrisy of Terry McAuliffe et al. — this is the phoniest story since RATS. Remember that one? When the Democrats — and the New York Times, and all the other folks — charged that a Republican TV ad lingered over the last four letters in “Democrats”? Peter Jennings gave something like five minutes to that absurd story at the top of his half-hour.

The photo story is just as nonsensical, in my view. And yet, as Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz has pointed out, the press isn’t wrong to report it — what they’re doing, really, is reporting Democrats’ hyperventilation on the matter. That is the story.

My dear readers, you know I’m perfectly straight with you. Why, if I had a bus, we’d call it . . . never mind. So I know you’ll believe me when I say that, in searching for a real offense — a genuine usurpation or wrongful exploitation of a national symbol, one that should be beyond the reach of politics — I thought of a few things, including the seizure of Betsy Ross’s original, hand-sewn flag. But the thought that came to me most strongly was: Lincoln Bedroom. Suppose you rented out the Lincoln Bedroom.

I mean, I wasn’t trying to bash Clinton (for once). The thought simply occurred to me (because it was in the air, no doubt).

Because memories are eensy-beensy, Democrats are able to pretend that Republicans are fund-raising unethically. But it seems to me that a Democrat with a sense of shame — given the Chinese Communists, the “coffees,” the Lincoln Bedroom, and all that other stuff that John Glenn wouldn’t let Fred Thompson investigate fully — it seems to me that such a Democrat wouldn’t say a word about shady fund-raising, ever. Unless out of an experience of Paul-like conversion.

I’d like to make a brief comment about the Daniel Pearl video (CBS’s broadcast of). Like many others, I’ve been of two minds about this (although one mind wins out, I suppose). First, one’s natural instinct — if “one” is me, or the likes of me — is to oppose CBS and Dan Rather. We oppose them even as we oppose the French: If the French foreign minister says something, we’re prepared to disagree. Second, one must feel for the Pearl family’s inflamed grief and outrage. Third, this is a form of terrorist’s pornography, unabidable on its face. And fourth: The best argument I have heard (on NRO, as it happens) against such airing is that it might inspire copycat murders, on tape: Make a dramatic film — a terrorist “snuff” film — and have it broadcast all over the United States!

And yet, I like the reminder of the nature of the enemy we’re facing. Memories fade; war fever subsides. It’s been a long time since 9/11, a long time since those initial pictures, of people jumping off towers, grasping each other’s hand for comfort and courage. Maureen Dowd (New York Times) writes a mocking column, and she loves to mock Bush & Co. for saying “evildoers,” in reference to bin Laden and his band. When she says, or quotes, “evildoers,” you get the distinct impression that she disagrees that they are, in fact, evildoers.

Further, I think it’s high time — “past time,” as political speechwriters love to write — for the “American people” (sorry for yet more political rhetoric) to be treated as grown-ups, when it comes to Muslim extremism. For too many years we were sheltered from all this: the vicious hatred, the neo-Nazism, the sadistic criminality. Even today we’re hardly aware of what’s printed in the Arab press, even in the official Arab press. If not for MEMRI . . .

So, every reminder of the savagery and evil of these beasts is to the good. If I may write immodestly — but honestly — I do not need such reminders (and neither, I know, do the bulk of my readers). But I’m eager for others to have such reminders, because they may need it. I tend to say the same about Holocaust movies: I don’t need to see one, ever. I’ve read my Hilberg, I’ve read my Davidowicz, I’ve read my Martin Gilbert, I’ve read (and seen, documentary-wise) a lot. I don’t need Schindler’s List, Au revoir, les enfants, Sunshine, and all the others. But I’m glad they exist, for other people.

Is that a horrible thing to say? Maybe, but it’s true. (Incidentally, breaking my rule, I went to see Life Is Beautiful, when it was out, mainly — entirely — because the friends with whom I was going to see a movie that night wanted to see it. I’m sorry I did — I was angry and depressed for a long while after. But I’m glad that the movie was made, for other people, especially as the years stretch on from 1945.) (I remember, too — long as I’m on the subject — that I stopped watching The Comedian Harmonists — whose music-making I’ve always loved, including as imitated by the King’s Singers — as soon as the Nazi night began to fall.)

The question arises, What about Politically Incorrect? It is due to expire at the end of the year, canceled by ABC, for the usual reason: lack of ratings. (In television, of course, ratings are always king. I remember the late Brandon Tartikoff, chief of NBC programming, trying to explain this to people. The way he did it was to say that he had to cancel his very favorite show: Buffalo Bill, starring the redoubtable Dabney Coleman. That was his personal favorite. And, in a way, “he” didn’t cancel it — the public did, by not watching it, or watching it in insufficient numbers.)

Was I talking about something? Oh, yeah: PI. A lot of conservatives dislike this show, or what they think they know about it, and not entirely without reason. Conservatives often don’t get a fair shake on it — but at least they’re invited. I liked the show, approved of it, appeared on it. It was — has been, I should say, for it’s not dead yet — a weird and wonderful show. The unlikeliest people are thrown together. You may get William Shatner — Cap’n Kirk — and me. Or Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (or former Duchess of York — I don’t keep up with royal doings, post-Diana), and me. Bill Maher and his crew were always happy to have conservatives on — in fact, sought them out, insisted that they come. A producer once told me, “You have to sit in the Nazi chair” (meaning, the chair designated for the conservative, the villain, the fall guy). That’s okay: better than to leave such a slot unfilled, most of the time. Who knows? You may get off a decent point, and reach someone. Show, at a minimum, that conservatives don’t (necessarily) have horns and a tail, or worse.

As I was talking about the estate tax with “Bill” Shatner, and about anti-smoking ordinances or whatever with Fergie, I’d think, “What a weird country. But what a wonderful country, too, in which such a thing could take place.”

You may hum “America the Beautiful” now.

A couple of quick notes. The New York Times had an excellent piece on Zora Neale Hurston by Stephen Kinzer. Kinzer was not much use as a Nicaragua correspondent — he was there, doing his worst, during Sandinista time — but he makes for a dandy Hurston writer. I read a lot of Hurston in my time. She was a “conservative,” in that she wasn’t a racial radical, so she took a lot of abuse from the black Left, who called her, essentially, a Tom (they always do). Kinzer records that Richard Wright (Black Boy, Native Son — I was assigned them maybe ten times) said that Hurston’s characters “swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live, between laughter and tears.” (He could write, Wright, the Communist s.o.b.)

Kinzer goes on, “Hurston scorned such criticism, saying she did not belong to ‘that sobbing school of Negrohood’ whose members ‘hold that nature has somehow given them a lowdown dirty deal.’”

I had never encountered that phrase, the “sobbing school of Negrohood” — so cutting, so devastating, so perfect. Hurston, too, could write — and think.

Finally, you have heard me praise and brag about Roger Kimball, managing editor of The New Criterion. He is an intellectual, philosopher, journalist, critic, essayist, and about a thousand other things. He writes (and thinks) as water flows. And he does so with weirdly consistent brilliance. Because he’s my friend, and my editor, you may not want to take my word for it — but if you read him for yourself, you’ll see that “brilliant” is the least one can say. You can read him every month in The New Criterion (and if you’re not, why aren’t you?). You can also read him in a variety of other places, including National Review, in whose current issue Roger has a piece on the Renaissance tapestries now being exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum.

It is merely a sideline of Roger’s that he is an art critic. This is like saying that cello-playing is merely a sideline of Rostropovich’s (and, given his busy career as a conductor, it almost is). Kimball is a formidable, unusual, bracing, and fearless critic. Again, care to see for yourself? That’s the point of this note: to say that Roger Kimball’s latest book is Art’s Prospect, a collection available from Cybereditions, the brainchild and project of the estimable Denis Dutton, who also runs the invaluable Arts & Letters Daily. He does a lot of good, Denis Dutton.

On the subject of art critics: I would say that Kimball is easily the best art critic I know, but, problem is, he works, at The New Criterion, with that journal’s founder and editor Hilton Kramer, former chief art critic of the New York Times and the man from whom I’ve learned most of what I know about art (that’s true). Kramer and Kimball at the same magazine: It’s almost too much, almost unfair to other magazines.

But screw ’em.