Let the Kids Play Ball!; Conason, Lost in the Funhouse; The Sulzberger Chronicles, Part XXXIV

This is virgin territory for me, so get those nitro tabs ready: Why do so many middle-aged men turn into complete buttwipes the moment they arrive at a Little League field?

Our boys?in different divisions?had back-to-back games last Saturday, a strange morning that was alternately sunny and gloomy with drops of rain, with dust storms kicking up from the diamond so ferociously that I felt like leading a Woody Guthrie hootenanny with songs about the Depression-era flatlands. MUGGER III's contest was a breeze?unlike a week ago, when a woodhead from the opposing team complained that Mrs. M was helping our squad position the ball on the tee?and was a lot of fun to watch, with some 20 six- and seven-year-olds belting a few at the plate but having no clue in the field. My son, a lefty, had his best game yet, with two scorchers down the first-base line and an unassisted putout at second.

Junior's game was a nightmare, competition-wise, and it was evident from the start when the opposing manager, dressed in far too persnickety a fashion for my taste?shirt neatly tucked into designer shorts, cologne reeking from Battery Park to San Francisco?vehemently complained to the umpire about the pitching machine, as if the poor guy was pulling down 100 grand for his efforts. Later, this putz started swearing at his players when their defense fell apart. It was a shame, because this squad was one of the better teams Junior's Indians have faced, with heads-up baserunning and sophisticated cut-off moves in the infield. But once the grownup lost his marbles they went to pieces.

But that was nothing compared to the game's end.

I was standing behind the backstop, having a friendly political debate with two friends about the absurd outcry for sports franchises to change their names?the Indians, Braves, Chiefs, Redskins, etc. The conversation was brought to a humorous conclusion when Steve suggested that "Giants" ought to be jettisoned as well, since it's a slur against those very same short people who berated songwriter Randy Newman back in the 70s.

I brought up a recent story in the news about a Portland, OR, mother who sued the local school system for $2 million, alleging her first-grader daughter had been sexually abused by a boy one year older. One of the woman's lawyers said: "There was oral sex, hands in pants, rubbing on top of one another." A seven-year-old getting his rocks off with oral sex? Granted, puberty has started a year or two earlier in the past generation, but I find the story hard to swallow, so to speak. Sounds like a pair of curious kids playing doctor a little bit too strenuously. But let a lawyer get his mitts on a contingency-based suit and all reason is flushed down the drain. I speculated, with some success, that it was because of the country's prosperity (even with today's temporary recession) and because we're at peace that little things are blown out of proportion. And no, I'm not saying sexual harassment is a minor offense; just that you can't sneeze these days without winding up in court.

(On the subject of ambulance-chasing lawyers, Sunday's Daily News carried a brief report about the $135 million lawsuit filed against the Chelsea club Twilo. Seems a Connecticut man claims he was beaten up by the establishment's bouncers and as a result suffered a broken leg, a collapsed lung and other unspecified injuries. Maybe, maybe not, but where does the $135 million come into the picture?)

Anyway, as the two-hour game neared its conclusion, an Indian was accidentally flattened by the opposing team's infielder, and several parents trotted out to the field to see if he was okay. So there was a short delay, which was far too long for an irascible coach on the other team, and then he body-slammed one of our team's fathers, and all hell broke loose. The ump was probably thinking he'd rather make his living as a cook at Harvard, rather than witness a bunch of men (all on the other team, mind you) act like jackasses, reliving their own past successes or failures on the ballfield through their children. Why would a manager use the word "fuck" in front of his young players? Obviously, it's not Grecian to the kids, but isn't Little League supposed to be about sportsmanship as well as vigorous play and doing your best to win?

I guess it didn't help that the Indians were cruising to a crushing victory. The boys and I bumped into fellow Injun Scott and his parents Bob and Kara not long afterward at the corner of Chambers and W. Broadway, and we had a long postmortem of the game, all of us just incredulous at the behavior of the opposing manager and coaches. All three kids were hopped up over the contretemps, which was more exciting to them than an after-school rumble, and we had to tamp down our disgust lest it become contagious.

Speaking of disgust, that was all my friend Rick (whom I saw earlier that day, when his daughter was playing on the south field) and I could express over the weird micromanaging of Red Sox manager Jimy Williams this past week, not to mention the complete disintegration of last year's superb closer Derek Lowe, who's now lost five games and is clearly heading to the land of Steve Blass, headcase-wise. The Sox possess, once again, a terrific pitching staff and, with the addition of mighty Manny Ramirez and rookie Shea Hillenbrand?even given the absence of superstar Nomar Garciaparra?some punch in their order, but Lowe's baffling performance has kept the Sox battling with the Yanks and Blue Jays for first place. And there are signs that Rolando Arrojo and Rich Garces are about to swoon: the pair almost blew Pedro Martinez's masterful outing against the A's on Sunday night. I wish Williams would send Lowe down to their farm team in Pawtucket for a crash course in confidence, as well as ditch his pets Darren Lewis and Craig Grebeck.

The Daily News' Bill Madden had an interesting piece last Sunday, suggesting that with several teams drawing crowds in the mere thousands, perhaps Major League Baseball ought to reduce its number of teams from 30 to 28. I doubt that'll happen?the economics don't make sense?but the two Florida teams, the Devil Rays and Marlins, ought to be moved to cities where the local populace would give them fan support. I'd add the Montreal Expos to that mix, and next season open up play in Mexico City, San Juan and maybe Santo Domingo.

And I still insist?despite that the Bush administration continues the dated trade embargo against Cuba, when it should bypass the aged Castro and encourage the rebirth of capitalism there?that Havana will have a Major League team in the near future. I don't agree with the intractable U.S. stance toward the tiny and impoverished island. It's not as if Castro's aging revolutionaries pose the threat that a vigorous China does. The dictator's day is done. Yes, he's outlasted eight U.S. presidents, but the tough guy won't live forever any more than Strom Thurmond will, and if the United States would simply acknowledge the fragile hold he has on power, the exiled Cubans in vote-rich Florida notwithstanding, we'd have an exuberant trading partner. Conde Nast editors would no longer boast about their contraband Cuban cigars and the island's people might put more than scraps of food on their tables, while those 1950s U.S. cars would head either to museums or junk heaps.

 

Lost in the Funhouse

Light a candle for Salon contributor Joe Conason. He got them old blues, soldier, 'cuz nobody, I mean nobody, wants to know the Clinton propagandist when he's down and out.

Writing in the May 7 New York Observer, Conason lamented what he alleged was the favorable coverage George W. Bush has received from the media. Conason used as an example the benign White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 28, where the President was lightly roasted and spared the "reliably obnoxious personal disparagement" that the Clintons received at the annual event in the Golden Years of 1993-2000. Conason digs deep to support his theory, quoting the Chicago Tribune's James Warren on the subject: "We have been effectively emasculated... It's a natural tendency of people, including reporters, to want to be liked, and that, combined with some pretty impressive early discipline from the Bush people, means that he is having a great honeymoon. So far, we've made a virtue out of his shortcomings."

As one who nearly plotzed last year upon seeing a howling press corps yukking it up while watching Clinton's home video of him riding a bicycle in the White House and fetching Hillary's lunch while she prepared for a day of campaigning, not to mention the former President making jokes about the cover-up being worse than the crime, I think Conason is just out of sorts because he doesn't have access to the Oval Office anymore.

And last week's complete, and deserved, humiliation of his buddy Sid Blumenthal, who dropped his multimillion-dollar suit against Internet pioneer Matt Drudge?actually having to fork over $2500 to Drudge lawyers for travel expenses?must've been the straw that broke this donkey's back. As Michael Leeden wrote for National Review Online last Friday: "The suit against Drudge was never about 'damage' to the Blumenthals' reputation; the accusation that Sidney beat his wife was quickly withdrawn, accompanied by a full apology (a lot better than most public figures get under like circumstances). The Blumenthal/Drudge skirmish was part of the Clinton campaign to intimidate administration critics by any and all means. It goes under the name of the politics of personal destruction."

Conason, poor fella, advertises his state of denial?it's as if he's testifying at an AA meeting?when he blames the current state of political commentary on "the powerful rightward tilt of the American media in recent years." The following excuse is not to be believed: "While the influence of network newscasts and newspaper editorial pages shrinks, most political discussion is relegated to cable television [where Conason frequently appears], an environment where Mr. Bush benefits from an unprecedented ideological advantage... The 'Democrats' and 'liberals' who offer their commentary on cable, strangely enough, often tend to be Bush admirers who reserve their harshest remarks for their own party."

Let me set the record straight. The sad truth is that The New York Times, a cultural embarrassment, is still the most influential newspaper in the United States. Its editorials, op-ed columnists (and remember that William Safire's not a huge fan of Bush) and "objective" news articles are incoherently anti-Bush. The Washington Post, second in line in terms of political clout, is almost as biased in favor of the Democratic Party and its 1960s agenda. Ditto for the Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker. As for television, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC are all in the tank for Democrats like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt.

Conason says no liberals (or worse) appear on cable political shows? What about these regulars: James Carville, Paul Begala, E.J. Dionne, Robert Reich, Bill Press, Al Hunt, Eleanor Clift, James Warren, Clarence Page, Geraldo, Lawrence O'Donnell, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jonathan Alter, Howard Fineman, Thomas Friedman, Bill Schneider, Margaret Carlson, Jake Tapper, Michelle Cottle, Alan Colmes, Howard Kurtz and Peter Beinart? Just because the stench of Jesse Jackson has finally started to turn off tv programmers, which means he has to explain his tax and mistress problems to rallies that number about five attendees, it's absurd to say that the above-mentioned media luminaries "tend to be Bush admirers."

While it's true that talk radio, led by Rush Limbaugh, remains the province of conservative hosts, the American media is largely dominated by an elite group of affluent men and women who intermarry, frequent the same Washington, Manhattan and Los Angeles soirees and tut-tut the state of public education while they send their own progeny to private schools.

Conason's distress seems to be rooted in the fact that his cronies (at least most of them) are no longer focusing on the Florida recount and have decided that Bush isn't as mentally challenged as they once believed. I pity this man, who's lost in time, when he writes: "There is no real majority backing this president?and now it is past time for someone to stand up and declare the honeymoon over."

Gene Lyons, Conason's co-author of the Clinton whitewash The Hunting of the President, is, not surprisingly, of the same mind. On May 2, Lyons wrote in the otherwise respectable Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "So yeah, things are quieter in Washington. The GOP smear machine has shut down. What's amazing is that something so obvious needs saying. With a Republican of impeccable social pedigree in the White House, reporters act as deferential as butlers. If only they'd spare us the bit about Bush's wonderful 'family values.' Show us a rich, handsome playboy who drank heavily until age 40, and we'll show you somebody with a lot of secrets. Lucky for him, there appear to be no Democratic operatives willing to pay for them."

That's tellin' 'em! The "butlers" in the media didn't dog Bush and every known acquaintance of his from the time he was in his mother's womb to find evidence of a cocaine problem? The GOP candidate wasn't the object of more preelection scrutiny?led by The New York Times?than any other presidential aspirant in modern times? If the press had subjected Bill Clinton to the same level of dirt-digging as they did Bush, the narcissist from Arkansas never would've been elected back in '92.

William Powers, writing in the May 4 National Journal, has a more dispassionate view of the frustrations that myopic pundits like Conason face in these trying times. He cites The Washington Post's Richard Cohen (on the liberal side) and the irritating David Brooks (representing the conservatives) for their remarks about how dull Bush is. Dullness is a character flaw that those hard-living Beltway live wires, who thrilled to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac and Judy Collins back in the good old days, just can't abide.

Powers, in setting up his deft analysis of Bush's "triangulation" of the media, writes: "This sort of thinking is everywhere, and it's understandable. If Presidents were foreign countries, Bill Clinton would be Brazil: a place where the party never stops, everyone wears a thong, and nothing is embarrassing except embarrassment. Bush feels more like Belgium, maybe even Canada. After eight years of carnival, we woke up in a clean, quite place where rules are respected and people are nice to each other. For journalists, we're talking major hardship post.

"But in letting ourselves spiral downward, I think we're missing something important. Think about it. The White House has convinced the media that the President of the United States is boring. The most powerful of all humans, an individual whose every utterance can affect people around the world, the guy who could push 'The Button.' Dull, empty, a so-so story best relegated to inside pages.

"Pulling this off wasn't easy for the Bush people. It required tremendous skill, and a pitch-perfect understanding of the cultural climate and the media. Which is why Bush's boringness isn't boring at all, or shouldn't be to alert journalists. It's an extremely interesting boringness, much more interesting, ultimately, than the nonstop, out-there excitement of the previous regime. Because it's subtle, hidden, not obvious. And because it's working."

Joe Conason, despite his descent into Clinton-defending purgatory, is not a stupid man, although I have my doubts about his friend Gene Lyons. But he's an example of the snookered journalist whom Powers writes so convincingly about. Devastated by Gore's loss, Conason and his ilk have spent so much time on the "disenfranchisement" of minority voters?never mind that the Missouri Democratic machine did its best to defeat Bush on Election Day, and succeeding in knocking off former Sen. John Ashcroft?and the supposed "rollback" of Clinton's pristine environmental record (another myth), that they're blind to the Bush administration's strategy.

So who's the "moron"?

 

The Sulzberger Chronicles, Part XXXIV

I offer no apology to readers who complain that this column dedicates too much space to the appalling opinions of The Beijing, pardon me, The New York Times. Ira Stoll, whose smartertimes.com is an invaluable website, takes on the faltering "upmarket" broadsheet on a daily basis; unfortunately, the Times' power in American politics continues, to my astonishment, virtually without being criticized. It's no easy task to slog through the rampaging hypocrisy of this "objective" mainstay in contemporary journalism. And I applaud the paper's management for so successfully duping hundreds of thousands of subscribers year after year. It's gotten to the point where I just grow numb when the Times' repulsive commercials air on cable television. I almost believe that the only thing I enjoy more than doing the crossword puzzle is actually finishing it!

But back to the trenches. This past weekend, the Times was in rare form, blasting the Bush administration in a May 5 editorial for being voted off the United Nations' Human Rights Commission. Frankly, I think it's a badge of honor, considering the models of democracy that the United States will no longer enjoy the company of: Pakistan, China, Cuba, Libya, Syria, Togo and Sudan. If it weren't for the economic benefits that New York City reaps from having the UN building here, I'd say we ought to withdraw from the wacky, and powerless, organization and let the headquarters move to Paris. Better to endure UN insanity, I guess, in hopes that the collected group of motley countries might someday negotiate a path to reason.

The Times has an opposing point of view. In its editorial, the paper defied belief and wrote: "But the administration's failure to detect and defeat the brewing rebellion among other nations was only one element of an embarrassing defeat. Even more important was the rising resentment abroad about America's often patronizing treatment of the U.N. and Washington's disdain for international compacts on issues ranging from the environment to the use of land mines."

Let's take off the gloves. The Times, the reactionary newspaper equivalent of dinosaurs like Tom Daschle, will never forgive George W. Bush for refusing to be a caretaker president. That was his duty, in the Times' warped world, for losing the popular vote to Al Gore and not caving in to the Democrats' lawyer-driven attempt to steal Florida from Bush last November. That Bush has unleashed a string of far-reaching and bold reform initiatives?whether they succeed or not is anybody's guess, but they're not about school uniforms or midnight basketball?isn't kosher according to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his pawns.

Look at the record so far. Bush wins on tax reform. Even if his initial plan is back-loaded, it's a general election promise kept and I suspect just the beginning of a plan to keep cutting taxes and limiting government spending. One of the centerpieces of his campaign was partial-privatization of Social Security?an idea so sensible that only wealthy liberals can disagree. And so last week his unveiling of a 16-member commission to study the idea, with its report due in the fall, proves he wasn't fooling around. He won't touch the subject, but why not also push the retirement age to 70? It's not as if workers are dying at the same age they were in FDR's day. Bush last week pushed for the missile defense shield, and for scrapping the anachronistic ABM treaty, and that, too, is dismissed as a loony idea because it couldn't be successfully deployed today.

(This isn't exactly on-message, but I loved the lead of Steve Dunleavy's New York Post May 7 column, which in a roundabout way supported missile defense. He wrote: "Liberals who turn pale at the sight of a gun have me more confused than a fur-coat salesman in a nudist colony.")

It's true that Bush's education package, which included the key element of vouchers, was eviscerated by the Democrats, and has to be counted as a defeat. He compromised too early, and now just a few shreds of his accountability standards remain, even while more money will be wasted on failed public schools and the union-protected teachers who work there. Better luck next year.

And the Times is so distraught over the House's refusal to rubber-stamp John McCain's undemocratic campaign finance "reform" victory in the Senate that it's a wonder they just don't close shop for a week and join Taki in Europe. Not that my friend would ever be seen with the likes of Sulzberger, but the boomer publisher would profit from such an experience.

Finally, op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd's sad public nervous breakdown has reached a crisis point. Why she hasn't been sent to a sanitarium is anybody's guess, but maybe the Times' health-insurance policy doesn't cover the cost. Writing last Sunday, Dowd, in an infantile pasting of Bush for his Saturday radio address in Spanish (uh, Mo, it's political, hon; as in wooing Hispanic voters), the poor lady resorted to using capital letters to make whatever point she was trying to get across.

Dowd was annoyed that Bush hosted the Yankees at the White House to commemorate their World Series win last year. She writes: "Some days, it's fun to be the boy toy of the military-industrial complex [now there's a phrase she dusted off for the occasion]. As the president fiddled, I burned. Doesn't W. realize that EVERYBODY in the world HATES us? Not Mexico. Maybe not Monaco. But EVERYBODY ELSE! Even the Swedes can't stand us, for Pete's sake."

I doubt that Israel and Taiwan would agree with the addled Dowd, but why inject reality into her self-induced psychosis?

But this is the capper: "At a Georgetown cocktail party last week, Robert McNamara, the mastermind behind our most despicable Asian policy, told other guests W. had botched relations with Beijing so badly we could end up at war with China in the next decade. He should know."

Of course, JFK and LBJ had nothing to do with the Vietnam War. Those Democrats were too busy, respectively, screwing starlets or lecturing reporters from the toilet, so "Mack the Knife" called the shots.

Speaking of which, why doesn't someone just hand Maureen a pistol and let her pump 41 bullets into her Swiss-cheese brain and get it over with? After all, to use a phrase from Dowd's celebrity-studded world, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

 

May 7

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