Dowd Fumes at Un-Starstruck Bush; Go Nine Rounds with Conason, MUGGER; Mazmanian the Errant Namedropper; Taki the Great/Poor Little Geek Boy; More Noise About the Quiet Beatle; Right on, Signorile, You SOB; More

Scorned Beef

Ms. Dowd knew Clinton was an arrested adolescent during the Lewinsky scandal and went after him with scorn?until Ken Starr got too close in September 1998; she looked with dread at the drearily dull Al Gore taking over the reins of power after impeachment. Better a rogue with celebrity connections to cover for Maureen than a bore. No doubt she would love to become the Times' celebrity gossip columnist if only Hollywood would relocate itself somewhere nearby, like Ann Arundel County (moving out to L.A. is just too far removed from the paper's NY-DC power nexus, you know).

Bush has more charisma than Gore (he's breathing, isn't he?), but the celebrities he hangs with are people like Bobby Valentine or Yogi Berra?baseball people. Covering Rob Reiner's or Martin Sheen's latest visit to Washington was one thing; they're film stars, they're hip, there with it. Unless Derek Jeter shows up with Mariah Carey at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., covering the famous visitors to DC now is more of a job for Bob Ryan or Mike Lupica than it is for Dowd, and she's not happy about it.

Plus, look at the scandal deficit W has managed to build compared with Clinton's first 11 months in office. By December 1993 we'd already had two failed attorney-general nominees over nanny problems; one dead White House adviser; seven fired travel office workers with a relative and a Tinseltown producer looking to cash in on the business; a haircut on the LAX tarmac and the beginning of the battle over the closed-door HillaryCare meetings. Just literally tons of stuff to keep a DC columnist from ever having to put fingers to keyboard and churn out 900 words about the revisions to SB 1413 in conference committee.

Bush's big scandal? Judging by the media, it's John Ashcroft, though his opponents apparently haven't quite yet figured out what they are in favor of as an alternative, except that they're against whatever Ashcroft is for. Plus the AG has all the charisma of a senior loan officer at a small-town bank, which makes it tough to convince America that this is the face of domestic civil-rights repression. That still may be enough to get Pat Leahy foaming at the mouth, but I think Maureen's froth is from another angle?she's not mad at Ashcroft so much as she's mad at having to cover Ashcroft.

O, for the days when Babs was in the Lincoln Bedroom and Monica was in the hallway.

David Ferguson, Waco, TX

Ball-Less

Jim Knipfel's 12/5 "Daily Billboard" piece, featuring his thoughts on Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Larry King, was great. Throw in Geraldo while you're at it. They're all a bunch of sissies. The problem with these "giants of journalism" is that all of them think they are the show. They remind me of bad umpires.

Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX

He Already Knows

MUGGER: If you and Joe Conason were real men you'd settle your differences in the boxing ring at the gym ("The Mail," 12/5). Since you are street fighters, why don't you offer Joe a chance to write an article for New York Press? It would impress on him that you are a publisher and he is a lowly writer.

Brian R. Higgins, Manhattan

Kumpf's Harrumph

Re "Jihad 101" (11/28). Was Adam Mazmanian trying to mislead or simply confuse people further? The piece lacked the clarity implied by the title. His blatant, if well-meant, misrepresentation of Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations suggests that Adam committed the work to his coffee table rather than to his mind. Huntington goes out of his way to point out that since the Cold War, the world has become much more complicated than an "inherent conflict between Western rationalism and the tribalism of the developing world." As a journalist, Adam Mazmanian should be above superfluous and errant namedropping.

Sadly, Mark Juergensmeyer adds to the murk with the outlandish suggestion that religious nationalism was due to a "lost faith in the Enlightenment principles that undergirded the idea of a nation state." Even a cursory knowledge of history makes it obvious that the peoples currently waging jihad against the West were not party to the "age of Reason" and so therefore cannot rightly be accused of abandoning that faith. They also never really embraced the idea of a secular nation state to begin with. Would Mark accuse the Germans of having lost sight of their Confucian heritage? Doubtful, but no less absurd.

I can't believe that any of this was intentional, I merely suggest that it was sloppiness?a trait that, being men of letters, they can ill afford. Please give Prof. Huntington a chance to refute this slander and give Mr. Juergensmeyer a map.

Justin Kumpf, Brooklyn

Gimlet Breath, Too

Viva Taki. Charming, knowledgeable, gimlet-eyed and amusingly unforgiving to the unforgivable, all in the name of a greater Decency. And of course, refreshingly, he is infallible! That always helps.

Aren't we lucky to be at table.

Sean Sculley, Manhattan

The Great Mistake

Re Taki's "The Dodgy Dinner" ("Taki's Top Drawer," 12/5). Thanks for that fascinating story about Alexander the Great. But here's an angle on Alexander you might not have considered.

What if Alexander made a tragic mistake? What if, instead of wasting his time trying to conquer and civilize the people to the East, he had focused his energies to the West? That would almost certainly have saved the ancient world the disaster of the Roman Empire, whose only contribution to science was the destruction of the Alexandrian library. By the first century BC, the Alexandrian civilization was on the threshold of modernity. They actually had a working steam engine, and very sophisticated metal fabrication technology?almost everything required for an industrial revolution?1500 years before it happened. Then along came the Roman Empire, and nipped it in the bud.

From this point of view, Alexander the Great's career was probably the single greatest wasted opportunity in history!

Craig I. Willis, Toronto

Ancient Geeks

It seems Taki's Geek?I mean Greek?uncle taught him many things: how to be a racist; how to be an asshole (a Taki specialty); how to live in his Geek past because his Geek present is so pathetic; how to pretend to be superior when in fact he is inferior.

And best of all how to pack a stuffed grapeleaf up his souvlaki highway.

Larry Deyab, Brooklyn

Taxing the Man

MUGGER: Why try to intellectualize a death (12/5)? There are deaths that mean something, and there are deaths that do not. The test is how you felt when you first saw the words "Ex-Beatle George Harrison Dead." If you really felt so little, then I'm sorry for you, because you clearly didn't experience the same Beatles I did. I'm 45. I think it was in third grade when, during a birthday party, the class was to vote on hearing either a Beatles album (mine?Rubber Soul, I think) or Herman's Hermits. Overwhelmingly, the class chose Herman's Hermits. I stood and shouted at them, "What, are you people crazy? No one's going to remember Herman's Hermits (okay, so I was wrong), but the Beatles will live forever!"

A sharp 10-year-old boy? Hardly. It was the Beatles. And how could you have forgotten "Do You Want to Know a Secret," one of the truly great early Beatles songs, as good as "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." (Like you, I've never thought much of "Something," the most non-Beatles song they ever produced.)

By the way, Ariel Sharon's a monster.

Name Withheld, via e-mail

Russ Smith replies: Of course I thought George Harrison's premature death was sad. The point of my piece was the silliness of baby boomers' reaction to the news; that they figured out they're not immortal. By the way, the songs I included on my list of favorites were all written by Harrison; "Do You Want to Know a Secret" was not.

Finally, the world could use more "monsters" like Ariel Sharon.

Where's Cubby?

Regarding the assertion by Ned Vizzini ("Since When," 12/5) that Pat Benatar's retro hipness means "A Britney Spears cover can't be far off," the limited Ms. Spears has been quoted as saying she recorded her version of "I Love Rock & Roll" because she loves Pat Benatar.

Once a Mouseketeer...

Kathleen Warnock, manhattan

Bin Laffin

It is a treat to see Lynda Barry's wonderful strip revived by New York Press. It is the Village Voice's loss. And, by all means keep Neal Pollack! His stories, totally fictitious, are hysterical. My favorite is Pollack's "interview" with Osama bin Laden ("One Against the Taliban," 10/10), wherein Pollack opened the interview by calling bin Laden a "scumbag." How true, and much worse.

Joe Mazza, Manhattan

We're Fond of Him Ourselves

You once carried Scott McConnell's columns, but I haven't see him on your site in a long time. Can you tell me what he's up to these days? He was a favorite of mine when he was at the New York Post, and I was happy to see your site carrying him. But he seems to have disappeared from sight.

Bill Ruetsch, Woodbridge, NJ

The editors reply: McConnell appeared in last week's issue. He's still a regular, though his column rotates with other "Taki's Top Drawer" contributors.

Hmmm... A Wartella Cover, You Say?

As a 63-year-old Manhattanite (since 1949), New York Press is my weekly point of reference for deciding where I eat, travel to, entertainment, etc. I pick it up every week. I hold it in higher esteem than the Voice.

I'm a UFO enthusiast/researcher and Bible researcher and enjoyed Alan Cabal's review of Lure of the Sinister ("Books," 11/14). As much as I liked the review, what made it a treat for me was the accompanying illustration by M. Wartella. UFO, Moses, tablet all formed a pleasing scenario highlighted by the look on Moses' face, a true wildman!

You ought to have Mr. Wartella do a cover, if he hasn't already. As you know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and illustrations such as the above speak volumes. Please thank him for me and give him a raise!

Edward Lopez, Manhattan

Dope Addict

On Dec. 5, I grabbed your paper from one of the green boxes, here in Manhattan. And, as I always do, I turned to the table of contents to find my favorite feature: Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope" column. But it wasn't there. What's going on? This is the third time in the last few months that the column has been MIA from your paper. Has "Uncle Cecil" been remiss about meeting his deadlines? Or, perhaps, was the column on a subject a tad uncomfortable for MUGGER's tastes? I'd understand, if it happened once or twice in a year, but, this is getting semi-regular. What is wrong? Should I try to find some other way of getting my weekly "Straight Dope" fix?

Ron Finkelstein, via e-mail

The editors reply: Why on Earth would MUGGER care what Cecil explicates in any given week?

We'll Take Your Word for It

Jim Knipfel: Re the "The W. 10th St. Enigma" ("New York City," 12/5). Yep, some of these projects seem to come out of nowhere. However, if NYC is like some other places out here, there is some kind of reinvestment zone, or improvement authority, that is taking a cut of property and possibly sales taxes generated in the zon