Bush's Hits and Misses; Flight 587's Crash Was Mighty Suspicious; Bravo, Wieseltier; The Times Gives Me a Headache

Bush's Hits & Misses

The news of the world has accelerated at such a rapid pace that not only are the daily papers usually outdated by the time they're printed, but even 24-hour cable stations have to interrupt regular programming with "special alerts." My mind's filled with conflicting headlines and overseas dispatches?What are the true intentions of Northern Alliance leaders? for example?so please pardon the Hopalong Cassidy nature of this week's column.

Peggy Noonan wrote a splendid op-ed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal, comparing President Bush to Harry Truman. The former Reagan speechwriter was abundant in her praise, almost to the point of hyperbole, but mostly the essay was on the mark. Noonan's deep religious faith can sometimes inadvertently clutter her prose, but not this time around.

She wrote: "Harry Truman was a great man. And I believe we are seeing the makings of a similar greatness in George W. Bush, the bantamy, plain-spoken, originally uninspiring man who through a good heart and good head, through gut and character, simple well-meaningness and love of country is, in his own noncompelling way, doing the right tough things at a terrible time... In the early days of the current struggle [Bush] immediately understood the situation?'We are at war'?but did not immediately strike back. He seemed, at first, in the day after Sept. 11, to have been as shocked by history as Harry Truman?the moon and the stars had fallen upon him.

"He was eight months into a new presidency, and now all the facts of the world changed. But he righted himself as Truman did, and he made his plans. There were no showy and meaningless kabooms with our missiles hitting aspirin factories in the desert. Instead Mr. Bush prepared, pushed, waited and struck?and now the Taliban are on the run and Afghanistan is teetering on something that whatever it is will surely be better than what it had been. Al Qaeda is not done, but as Mr. Bush said again yesterday in his news conference with President Vladimir Putin, we will not rest until it is."

Left unsaid is that if Bush is to become a "great" president, he won't "rest" until Saddam Hussein is overthrown, Saudi Arabia is cut off from its one-sided "friendship" with the U.S., Yasir Arafat is held accountable for his war crimes against Israel and domestic terrorists are wiped out. Supposedly, European leaders have no stomach for a war with Iraq (with the exception of Britain's Tony Blair, who's bound to overcome internal protests), but that timidity is fraught with peril. There's no point in conducting a piecemeal fight for modern civilization; all scores need to be settled, one right after the other. Nothing less is acceptable. Sure, the administration will be criticized at times?the current media outcry over Bush's courageous decision to implement military tribunals is just one example?but if the defense team is steadfast, and refuses to deviate from the mission, the ostriches will follow.

Last year I wrote that the 2000 presidential election would be the United States' most significant since JFK eked out a victory against Richard Nixon in '60?can you imagine the results if that contest had been scrutinized for fraud and thuggery at polling places like the Bush-Gore battle was? That was probably an understatement. (Maybe poll workers should be on the government's payroll to ensure that every vote counts. Oops, conflict of interest for the unions, so nix that idea.) Bush is hitting most of the fastballs and curves, although he's yet to master the knuckleball: making a stink out of penny-ante environmental regulations last spring was a public-relations goof; letting Democrats railroad him on the issue of school vouchers was another.

I can't fault Bush for folding on the federalization of airport personnel: it's a dumb idea?it's not as if unions are known for a strict work ethic?but citizens are in such a frenzy over flying right now that a protracted logjam on Capitol Hill would cause the President more headaches than it's worth. So when not a damn thing changes upon the implementation of this new system, let the Democrats explain that to their constituents.

Are security personnel going to be more vigilant just because they're paid more? That's open to debate. In Saturday's Times there was an interesting comment from a current worker. Sam Howe Verhovek wrote: "While airport security companies are in an uproar about the Congressional bill that would put them out of business, many of the 28,000 workers in the industry think the bill is not a bad idea at all if it means they can get rehired as better-compensated federal employees. 'Benefits. It would be really nice to get some benefits,' Stanley Reeves, a 38-year-old luggage screener at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, said today in explaining his support of the measure..."

On the other hand, Bush hasn't pushed hard enough to move a meaningful economic package through Congress. Both the GOP and the Democratic plans are flawed?the former contains excessive corporate tax giveaways, the latter is more class-warfare posturing?but surely in this environment a compromise could've been hashed out by now. It's a joke that Congress has left Washington for an extended furlough with such a scant list of accomplishments. Bush ought to have insisted, publicly, that senators and representatives stay in Washington until the end of the year, and backed it up by having his own Thanksgiving at the White House. When the rest of the country is working, why the extra-long holiday for elected officials, especially during wartime?

Though I think it's inexcusable that Bush, or his surrogates, didn't find time to campaign for losing gubernatorial candidates Mark Earley in Virginia and Bret Schundler in New Jersey?the former, in particular, could've defeated Republican-in-drag Mark Warner with a massive advertising blitz from the GOP coffers, as well as a rally headed by Dick Cheney, who somehow found the time to go hunting recently?pure politics hasn't been entirely ignored by the bipartisan president.

Karl Rove's meeting with Hollywood executives on Nov. 11 was smart: not only did he enlist the industry to produce public service announcements on behalf of the war effort, but he also made it clear that artistic content wasn't on the agenda. That's in stark contrast to nags like Sens. Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton, who want to clamp down on the product that's released by the film, music and video game companies. Bush might not cotton to the sex and violence that saturates today's entertainment, but unlike many Democrats, who collect huge wads of campaign cash from the Malibu crowd even as they propose censorship dressed up as "responsibility," he has no interest in waging that battle. With California's Gov. Gray Davis looking vulnerable in next year's election, any partnership with the vocal Hollywood lobby is bound to help the Republican Party.

The real strategic political coup of the last week was Bush's decision to name the Justice Dept. headquarters after Bobby Kennedy on Nov. 20, anniversary of his birth. It's true that the President is a softie for symbolic measures, and it's claimed that he and Sen. Teddy Kennedy have developed a warm rapport, but it's still a win-win gesture. On Nov. 16, Dick Gephardt was atwitter, saying: "I'm appreciative of the President's wonderful act of bipartisanship. Bobby Kennedy was a role model to us all. He was a shining example of a strong leader who stood for justice and righteousness... By naming the Justice Department after Bobby Kennedy our country will have an enduring reminder of the values and ideals that make the Department one of the great institutions in our democracy."

So while Democrats bask in Kennedy Glory, John Ashcroft can reinforce his stringent wartime policies by recalling RFK's own take-no-prisoners regime as his brother's attorney general. (Wiretaps, anyone?) Ashcroft remarked in a recent speech, "Kennedy, it is said, would arrest a mobster for spitting on the streets if it would help in the fight against organized crime. In the war on terror, it is our policy, it is the policy of this Department of Justice to be equally aggressive."

Meanwhile, Ashcroft could lighten the load of the police if he decriminalized some of the country's sillier offenses. Cops who are now fighting terrorism shouldn't be bothered with arresting prostitutes, gamblers and recreational pot-smokers. These are victimless "crimes": hauling offenders before judges is a waste of time and just clogs a notoriously lethargic legal system. In addition, why not release from prison all those who've been convicted of such minor transgressions? By all means, pursue bin Laden's disciples, the mob, ruthless drug-dealers, anthrax-hoaxers and homicidal maniacs, but as for the person who grows marijuana in his or her backyard, let it go. Legal authorities have more important work to perform.

I'm no conspiracy buff?aside from the belief that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone in John F. Kennedy's assassination?but the sudden destruction of American Airlines Flight 587, minutes after take-off from JFK Intl. on Nov. 12, is pretty fishy. While the Federal Aviation Administration conducts its investigation, scratching out possible causes for the "accident" almost daily, it's hard to believe just two months after Sept. 11 that this wasn't the work of terrorists. This was a huge and sturdy plane, one that should've withstood a flock of pelicans or turbulence. Rockaway resident Rod McHale, who lives near the new "Ground Zero," was quoted in Steve Dunleavy's Nov. 14 New York Post column: "I keep on hearing people or authorities talk about an engine falling off the plane and an explosion. That's not what I heard and saw. There was an explosion, and then the engine fell off. I am not an expert, but I am convinced it's terrorism."

The FAA puzzles about how the tail of the airbus fell off, while I'm wondering why the government so quickly dismissed?within hours of the incident?the possibility of sabotage as "highly unlikely." It's understandable that news of another attack would've further panicked the nation, not to mention New Yorkers, but in the long run, confidence in airline security is probably more damaged by a mechanical failure than another premeditated act of mass murder. That's why the United States is at war: to eliminate the fanatics who are trying to destroy this country. One hopes and assumes that goal will be achieved, but the airline industry is a vital component of our transportation system and economy, and inexplicable crashes are frightening.

Maybe I missed it in the barrage of news coverage, but you'd think that every person who touched that American plane before it took off would be interrogated. There are so many airport employees who could've planted an explosive: the catering crew, baggage handlers, sanitation workers and mechanics, just to name a few.

By the way, although it's clear the airline and hotel industries are going to suffer a disastrous fourth quarter, I'd be surprised if retailers take a similar drubbing, the predictions of economists notwithstanding. With fewer people traveling during the holidays, they're apt to take some of their savings and spend, spend, spend at the local mall. Last Saturday, I took MUGGER III to the opening of the new Toys R Us at Times Square and was amazed at the crowds. We had to wait on line for 45 minutes just to enter the store, and then another 15 simply to make a purchase. With New York City feeling the recession more acutely than other parts of the country, it was gratifying to see shoppers?and not just in the Times Square district?loaded up with merchandise like it was the day after Thanksgiving.

Instant "Culture"

Normally, I just skip Leon Wieseltier's ponderous essays in The New Republic, but since Sept. 11 he's been one of the country's most fierce and concise press critics. (By the way, my favorite media scold, James Bowman, eviscerates the Times' horrific Michiko Kakutani in November's New Criterion. Space doesn't permit a salute to his writing, but you can read Bowman's comments at www.jamesbowman.net.) Wieseltier had no peer in trashing The New Yorker's roster of delicate wordsmiths who immediately weighed in on the WTC massacre, belittling John Updike and Adam Gopnik with particular disgust.

In TNR's Nov. 26 issue, Wieseltier nailed the Times' Herbert Muschamp for attempting to find cultural significance in the WTC's destruction. He begins by quoting Muschamp: "'The bending, folding, curving shapes of the World Trade Center wreckage echo the neo-Baroque contortions of blob architecture as practiced by Greg Lynn, Ben van Berkel and others.' What luck! Or so I must believe from [Muschamp's] comforting declaration, in The New York Times on November 11, that what he beheld at ground zero falls smoothly in line with the latest thinking about 'the idea of the architectural fragment.' Will sense be conferred upon the smoking senselessness of Liberty Plaza by blobism? I am not familiar with the work of Greg Lynn, Ben van Berkel, and others, and so I do not know. The grieving families can hope."

He then makes the important point that the "ruins" of the WTC aren't at all like those of Rome, Luxor or Angkor Wat, which are traditional destinations for historians, poets, tourists and the like. The difference, Wieseltier points out, is that in the case of those ancient sites, "The agony of the ruination had been felt by others long ago. Nobody is nostalgic for their own extinction. So with ruins, too, distance is the father of beauty. These are not the exotic and mysterious ruins of the past; these are the unexotic and unmysterious ruins of us."

The TNR literary editor concludes by recounting his own visit to Ground Zero: "I watched the cranes scoop up soil from the pit, and then I grasped that it was not soil. There was no soil in this place. What they were moving was the substance that was formed out of the dissolution of everything and everybody that had been crushed and incinerated: a deathloam... I shivered and moved away. And when I left it was not culture that was restored immediately to my consciousness. It was politics; policy; American action."

A 19th-Century Pundit Pouts

Cheer up, George Will. I don't blame you for being in a dither these days: with baseball in its contraction crisis, Cal Ripken Jr. newly retired, your media colleagues bollixing up coverage of the war and Geraldo Rivera turning into one of the good guys, it's all too much. I'm pissed off about Bud Selig's plans as well: rather than eliminating two teams (especially the Twins), it makes more sense to move the franchises to more appreciative locales. For example, why not the San Juan Expos? Guaranteed sellouts.

I happen to think Mexico City is an ideal location for a Major League Baseball team, but if that's too much a stretch while we're waiting for Havana to turn democratic, why not bring a club to Brooklyn? A stadium would have to be privately financed, but there're any number of New Yorkers who crave the ego-gratification of returning the American pastime to the borough. And nuts to the idea of giving Washington, DC, a third chance to prove that residents would give a hoot about one more version of the Senators.

Still, your Nov. 16 Washington Post column was terribly Grinch-like. You cheer the Harry Potter phenomenon for its positive effect on kids' reading habits, including this terrific thought: "At one point, J.K. Rowling's first three Harry Potter novels occupied the top three spots on the New York Times hardback fiction bestseller list. This caused such heartburn among the literati that a bestseller list of children's books was created so that Rowling's books could be banished to it, making the old list safe for adult fare such as Danielle Steel novels."

But then you moan about the competition between Microsoft and Nintendo, which last week introduced their new video-game systems, Xbox and GameCube, respectively. Preteen and adolescent reading routines are up in flames, you fret. I don't believe this: a motivated kid can read, worship at the Nintendo or PlayStation shrine, watch any of 101 tv stations, play sports and still get straight A's at school. You might've had the same concern about youngsters being waylaid by computers, but in reality one of the benefits of these modern times is that people are learning how to type at an earlier age. Why do you think so many men and women above the age of, say, 55, are loath to join the e-mail revolution? It's because they can't type. So George, to paraphrase that awful 70s band Pink Floyd, leave the kids alone.

Pass the Aspirin

Here's a doozy from Saturday's Times: "New York Post Picks Briton for a Top Job in Newsroom." I do love the quaint description of Colin Myler as a "Briton," but Times scrub Jayson Blair ought to be horse-whipped for following company line in his description of Post editor Col Allan. He writes: "[Allan] has occasionally been lampooned for being out of touch with New Yorkers, and Americans for that matter, but Post officials point out that circulation has continued to rise steadily under his leadership."

You tell me: Which paper is "out of touch"? On Nov. 19 the Times ran an editorial?"The Specter of Nuclear Terror"?that focused on Russia, "where poorly protected nuclear bombs and materials remain vulnerable to theft." The writer cites Osama bin Laden as a possible obtainee of Russia's nukes, a scenario that grows less likely daily, but doesn't even mention the more probable terrorist, Saddam Hussein. The piece ends with a slap at President Bush for not doing enough to "upgrade security at Russian nuclear facilities."

On the same day, another editorial reprises the Times' tiresome crusade for campaign finance reform. Once again the paper is condescending to the Congressional Black Caucus, "who think soft money helps their interests, when the opposite is the case." The real whopper is the claim that "most Americans want" such "reform." As consistently demonstrated by polling, voters never put the issue very high on their list of concerns; after Sept. 11, it fell off the radar.

In the Times' predictable Nov. 16 editorial about Bush's military tribunals?"A Travesty of Justice"?there's a pair of sentences that no satirist could make up. "The law already limits the reach of the Bill of Rights overseas. American troops need not show a warrant before entering a cave in Afghanistan for their findings to be admissible at trial in the United States." When a U.S. or British soldier enters an Afghan cave, I thought the objective was to kill the enemy.

But, as Charles Krauthammer wrote in this week's Time, ridiculing the daily's rampant anti-Americanism: "Such are the Upper West Side's concessions to war."

 

Nov. 19

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