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October 16, 2002 9:00 a.m. The more the merrier — ha! Who’s un-Montanan? A final cry of disgust. And more.

t’s an old tactic, but a super-annoying one. A candidate is leading in the polls, so he won’t agree to a debate unless all the candidates are able to participate. This lessens the impact of the debate, making it a comic and pathetic festival. In New Jersey, ex-senator Frank Lautenberg won’t debate his Republican challenger unless all candidates are included — every fringe-ist and nut in the state. That means there will be no meaningful debate. And in New York, Gov. Pataki refused to debate the Democratic nominee without a profusion of minor candidates — from the Green and Marijuana Reform parties, among others.

That’s pretty gutless — and it serves the public ill.

I’ve seen the ad against Mike Taylor in Montana, and of course they smeared him. They had some pretty funny ’70s videotape — Taylor in a hair-care ad — and they couldn’t help using it. But they used it in a very slimy and dishonest way. They implied Taylor was gay (he has a family); they implied he was crooked and un-Montanan, in addition to being embarrassingly fruity (“Not the way we do business here in Montana”); and — as I see it — they poked fun at the fact that he worked at an unglamorous job. Taylor isn’t a professional politician; he’s no Sen. Max Baucus, the beneficiary of this smear.

This brings us back to a discussion we’ve been having. In New Mexico, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, John Sanchez, has worked hard for a living: run a roofing business, worked as a flight attendant. The Democrat, Bill Richardson — a creature of the Washington establishment — ridiculed Sanchez in an ad for “serving orange juice at 30,000 feet.” And, of course, Democrats — including, most shamefully, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on foreign soil (Australia) — have gotten their yuks over Tom DeLay, who ran an insect-extermination business.

The anti-Mike Taylor ad in Montana charged that he had engaged in shady business practices. Taylor’s explanation turned out to be completely credible: There had been some snafu in the bureaucracy — some confusion over paperwork — and he had gotten it taken care of.

But that’s just like a professional politician, isn’t it? They never have to deal with a governmental bureaucracy; they simply entangle and bedevil others. It’s good to have in politics, once in a while, someone who’s been on the unhappy end of the government-citizen relationship. I wish Taylor had made it to the Senate — I don’t think the Democrats can be proud of the way they pushed him out.

I’ve written far too much about Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd, star columnists for the New York Times, and after today, I should really stop. But allow me one more expulsion of disgust.

I allude to their columns of last Sunday. (His is here; hers is here.) Friedman writes,

The fact that the president speaks only about Iraq, while his neighbors down the street speak only about the [sniper on the loose], reinforces the sense that this administration is so obsessed with Saddam it has lost touch with the real anxieties of many Americans. Mr. Bush wants to rally the nation to impose gun control on Baghdad, but he won’t lift a finger to impose gun control on Bethesda, six miles from the White House.

Notice that Bush is “obsessed” with Iraq. If you don’t like someone’s interest, or what someone is doing, or someone’s seriousness, call it an “obsession.” Makes it look like a psychological disorder. I suppose Churchill was obsessed with Hitler.

And Bush won’t lift a finger to impose gun control. The American president, of course, isn’t a dictator: He can’t “impose gun control.” And the idea that gun control would have stopped this sniper is ridiculous.

Friedman concludes, “Frankly, I don’t want to hear another word about Iraq right now.” That’s not the writing of a Pulitzer-prize-winning New York Times columnist; that’s the outburst of an unruly, petulant child. “I want to hear that my president and my Congress [I love those mys] are taking the real steps needed in this country — starting with sane gun control and sane economic policy . . .”

A little over a year ago, 3,000 people were murdered in cold blood, very close to where I’m typing now. The president, thank goodness, is taking “real steps” to confront a real problem.

It could be that Friedman has to shower Bush with garbage regularly, to make up for his (general) support of the president’s approach on the war. This way, he keeps his “creds” — is that what the kids say? — in his neck of the woods. In order to breathe a word of criticism of an Arab thug, he has to call Sharon a monster; and in order to breathe a word of approval for President Bush’s policies, he has to say that Bush — certainly in his domestic policies — is . . . well, a monster: someone who’d let his neighbors be gunned down while he was heedlessly sippin’ juleps on the veranda.

And Maureen Dowd? “The White House feigned interest in negotiation while planning for an annexation without representation.” That’s right: It’s the dream of Bush, Cheney, and the rest to annex Iraq. They’re doing this just for kicks — sort of working out their childhood imperial fantasies.

Bush, says Dowd, “wants to fail at the U.N. so he can install his own MacArthur as viceroy of Iraq. (Poor Tommy Franks may finally have to leave Tampa.)” Right again: The president lies awake nights dreaming about installing a viceroy in Iraq. That’s why he’s stirring up all this trouble. What else could it be? And Tommy Franks, that coward! Hiding out in Florida, behind old ladies’ skirts!

More Dowd: Bush “wants to . . . turn Baghdad into Houston East, putting a branch of the Petroleum Club at the intersection of the Tigris and the Euphrates.” Blood for oil!

“George Bush, the failed Harken oil executive, and Dick Cheney, the inept Halliburton chairman, will finally get their gusher.”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is too vulgar and outrageous for further words. Dowd will never answer the question, “What would you do? What would you do to counter this threat, if there is one? What would you do, if you were president — if you had to decide?” She can do nothing but pour scorn on Republicans and other conservatives, having — as far as I can tell — absolutely nothing constructive to say about how the United States should behave: not even having an argument. We all love a little mockery now and then — certainly I indulge in it — but, while we’re throwing sucker punches, we have an obligation to articulate a position.

Folks, I will stop writing about these two. Hold me to it (at least for a decent interval). But remember this: They occupy the most precious acreage in American journalism, and between the two of them, they have won four Pulitzer prizes.

As I am now mute, just remember that.

The question has been sort of submerged, but it deserves to be raised, fairly often: Do we have enough? Does the military have enough — enough matériel, enough men (with apologies to Gloria Steinem)? Mark Helprin wrote a thought-provoking and sobering cover story for us in April, titled “Phony War.” His answer, in brief, is No — we do not have enough. The administration assures us that the cupboard is full, or at least sufficient in its supplies (although Bush ran citing military worries in 2000).

In this light, it was interesting to note that the House approved a big defense-spending bill, totaling about $350 billion. I’m no good with Washington numbers (and I’m not especially good with my own, really) — but that seems a fair chunk of change.

Know the name of Chen Ziming (not to be confused with that of Chinese strongman Jiang Zemin — really not to be). Chen Ziming is one of the Tiananmen Square protesters from 1989; he was just released from prison, having served 13 years. He was 37 when he went in. An intellectual, he has much to say about his country’s predicament, but it is not yet clear whether he will be free to speak. Given what he has been through, no one could blame him for never wanting to speak again, on any public issue.

But we should be quite glad to know his name: Chen Ziming, there at the big moment, and a survivor.

A follow-up from yesterday’s Impromptus: The Iranian government — in the person of Mohsen Shabestari, representing the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has issued a fatwa against Jerry Falwell, just as it did against Salman Rushdie, and, presumably, many others. Said Shabestari, “The death of that man [Falwell] is a religious duty.”

So, one makes the same point: If you want to object to the statement that Islam is violent, it would behoove you to find a better way than to vow murder.

(If I seem late in writing about this matter, please forgive me: It is Sunday.)

Back to China for a moment: Three leaders of an underground church have been sentenced to life in prison. That’s the good news. How’s that? They had been sentenced to death, before the regime in Beijing realized that President Bush would bug them about it. The life sentences seem a kind of victory.

The authorities charged the church leaders, absurdly, with rape, among other crimes. It’s not enough for them to say, “We hate you and wish to kill you because you’re Christians, acknowledging another Power than Communist rule.” They have to make the vilest accusations. According to reports, several women named as rape victims have said that they were tortured by police to give the false confessions.

Swell.

After reading Craig S. Smith’s piece in the New York Times, I sort of wanted to take back the liberation of Kuwait. Let me show you a little of what I mean:

Muhammad al-Mulaifi, head of the information department at Kuwait’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs, tried momentarily to suppress a smile, then broke into a broad grin when asked if he supported the terrorist attacks on the United States last year.

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t happy about the attack,” he said. . . . Mr. Mulaifi said that many Kuwaitis were delighted about what had happened to the United States and that he had attended parties held in celebration. . . .

Had enough? If not, read the whole piece — chilling, and infuriating. (Ach, I apologize. I can’t find the piece on the Times’s site. See whether you can.)

Advocates of human rights and dignity in Cuba are in pain over Barbara Walters’s interview last week with Fidel Castro. I wish I could convey to my readers the depth of that pain — mixed with anger and despair. Funny thing is, Cubans aren’t used to being abused by Western liberals, after 40 years. It still hurts every time it happens. I, myself, couldn’t bear to watch the interview, or read a transcript of it — I could have written it before it came out — but the entire Cuban human-rights community exploded in grief and outrage. I’m glad they don’t turn away from such things; some of us are too weary — or too lazy or too mesmerized by a sense of futility — to do the same.

A piece by Yossi Klein Halevi in a recent New Republic quoted an Israeli leftist thus: “It’s the only way I can think of to outmaneuver our enemies and motivate them to come to the table.” I was struck by his use of two words: “our enemies.” Do our leftists — American leftists, Western leftists in general — talk that way? And, no, the man wasn’t referring to Likud.

In its annual report on religious freedom around the world, the State Department rapped Israel for its policy of “closures,” preventing sheiks and others from getting to mosques. A recent news bulletin said, “Israel curbed access to mosques on Temple Mount, a week after Muslim worshipers stoned police guarding an adjacent plaza.”

This is the kind of thing Israel has to deal with, and, as a result, it has to make some hard and unpopular decisions. The State Department, in its wisdom, should take the whole picture into account.

Some feminists were upset that Rep. Bob Erlich addressed his opponent, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, as “ma’am” during their recent gubernatorial debate in Maryland. An Erlich spokeswoman explained, “He was raised to say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am.’ Besides, I think that ‘Lieutenant Governor Kennedy Townsend’ is a little wordy.”

Nice!

You know, I’d thought of Tony Sanchez, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Texas — not to be confused with John Sanchez, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in New Mexico — as a man of the people, close to the barrio. He may well be. But then I read that he has spent $53 million of his own money trying to defeat incumbent governor Rick Perry.

That’s kind of a lot of cash, isn’t it? Corzine level.

Just sayin’.

Bruce Anderson, political writer for The (London) Spectator, has written a line — actually, several — I absolutely love:

Until this week, I was unconvinced of Theresa May’s merits. No longer. On Monday, she gave the best performance of her career. Were she an athlete, she would undoubtedly have been dope-tested, so whatever they are putting in her feed, give her more. [Gosh, I wish I’d written that.]

But she went too far [in what she said at the Conservative party conference]. By describing her own party as “the nasty party,” she not only incited Norman Tebbit, she also annoyed a lot of people in the hall, who have given decades of effort to the Tory party, in between running meals-on-wheels and doing the church flowers. [Such a marvelous line.] They are not at all nasty; they were hurt to be described as such, and a lot of them are now grumbling about why they should go on working for a leadership which insults them. Mrs. May ought to choose her words more carefully.

She — and others — should also remember that the electorate does not consist only of minorities. Majorities also have votes. [Ah, fabulous.] There is nothing wrong with reaching out to minorities, but the Tories will never again win a majority until they can convince decent, hard-working, white, two-parent families trying to bring up three children on £30,000-35,000 that this is the party for them.

Nor should Tories be afraid of sounding tough from time to time. This week, David Blunkett tried to spin the Tory conference out of the headlines by talking about asylum. A lot of people want a government which will stand up for them, and for Britain. Though the Tories must not sound nasty, they cannot rely on the nice vote.

That, folks, is political writing. For the entire piece (although I’ve given you the choicest bits), go here.

For a while, it seemed that the mayor of Moscow would succeed in his desire to re-erect a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Cheka founder, in Lubyanka Square. But the Kremlin put that off. Now a member of the Russian parliament is pushing to erect a statue of Czar Nicholas II, to remind one and all of the Soviet crimes against the royal family (to begin with). I say, even better: Put up a statue of the little prince.

Life does funny things. For years, Beverly Sills — singing at the New York City Opera, chiefly — was “dissed” by the Metropolitan Opera, whose general manager, Rudolph Bing, couldn’t stand her, for Bing-ish reasons (which were often weird). By the time she got to the Met, she was almost finished, with her career. Last week, she was appointed chairman of the Met (mainly a fundraising position, I gather — this is one of Sills’s many skills).

Indeed, life does funny things. Barred, practically. Now chairman. Sort of like Kim Dae Jung.

Finally, I noticed something in a photo — something that dated the photo, and an era. There was an obit for Ben Eastman, who died at 91. He had been the world record-holder in the 400 meters, 440 yards, 500 meters, 600 yards, 800 meters, and 880 yards. They showed a picture of him, from 1932: He was wearing eyeglasses. Eyeglasses. When’s the last time you saw a sprinter in eyeglasses?

Sort of cool.