The AlternaNazi New York Press; Flowers for Knipfel; Enough Baseball; Bush is a Dolt
MUGGER: Not a week goes by that you don't write about visiting Yankee Stadium and feature a picture of a family member in a dumb Boston Red Sox cap. For someone who professes to hate the Yankees, you spend a lot of time at their games. Frankly, who cares?
J. Piano, via Internet
Russ Smith replies: Turn the page.
Essex & Delancey
MUGGER: Great 8/30 column, as ever. When this political silliness is over, why don't you ask readers to report on the scuzziest McDonald's in the world? I can think of several. The Sonoma Way franchise in Oakland, CA, or the Lake St. McDonald's just off I35 in Minneapolis, MN.
Your comment in an earlier piece (8/16) about that Boston rag being a farm club for The New York Times was excellent.
Not long ago, reading another Tanya Richardson phone interview, I felt almost pushed to write in with, "She's slop, and so is..." But her "Maddyfest 2000" ("Music," 8/30) piece: really nice, redeeming. There's a calm life-in-patience-with-art feeling to it.
P.S.: I'd like to see more coverage of Mark Knopfler.
Chris Lurie, Manhattan
Who's That Girl?
That Christian Viveros-Fauné is a shithead. Who does she think she is anyway?
Joe Rodrigue's weekly "Soup Bones" letters seem to be those of a sophisticated, been-there-done-that guy (how much does he get paid?), so I find it hard to believe he really doesn't know anyone who's driven 100 mph, "let alone been dumb enough to be caught at it" ("The Mail," 8/30).
I wouldn't drive 100 mph in, say, New Jersey, where I'd certainly get stopped for it, but in Montana, at least before the forest fires, I think everyone was expected to go over 100. In my 20s, I used to routinely exceed 100 on I-91 through Vermont, reaching a top speed of 117, and cops who saw me do it never pulled me over. That was back in the days of safe tires and huge engines.
But when I had long hair and was driving a very nice car with Connecticut plates through Eau Claire, WI, I was pulled over for going about 75, even though two-thirds of the Wisconsin and Minnesota cars were whizzing past me. My guess is the cop was hoping he'd nailed a stolen car. He put me in county jail overnight for speeding anyway.
So it's not a dumb or not-dumb thing as much as a "regional" thing.
James Webster, Dobbs Ferry
Hot Diggity!
I am falling in love with Jim Knipfel. How do I tell him?
Holly Baker, Clive, IA
Mr. Cabal Wishes He Did
Alan Cabal's reporting on the Democratic convention has been most insightful and entertaining. I must say that I was dead chuffed by his description of the calm, laconic officers of the LAPD.
However, I reprove his reference to Chelsea Clinton as "pig-faced" ("Cirque du Malaise," 8/23). I believe it to be inexcusable bad form, notwithstanding the fact that Miss Clinton is a public figure, in fact encouraged by her parents to be so. But yet again, she is a child, and to be described as "pig-faced" in a publication read round the globe seems somewhat abusive. I assume that Mr. Cabal has the acquaintance of teenage girls, and that he is certainly aware of the hurtfulness of such a cruel expression.
John Carroll III, Richmond, VA
Michael M. Thomas?
Taki states: "If only we had an American Maggie Thatcher in our midst" ("Top Drawer," 8/30).
After so many years of disagreeing with the man, to find that I not only agree with him, but second the notion, is quite unsettling. Funny, though. I can't think of a woman or man who would even be close to representing Lady Thatcher.
Any suggestions?
Patricia Nelson, Minneapolis
Why Us?
I think if people are going to have protests, they should bring guns, lots and lots of guns. Then when the cops come to hassle them, they should open fire (not to kill, but to warn them off). The cops would think twice about fucking with an armed citizenry. Yours in the fight for freedom,
Name Withheld, Royal Oak, MI
Reader's Manuel
MUGGER: If "...murder is murder [and]...terrorism is terrorism..." (8/23), I find it more than slightly ironic that you could "thank God" for George Bush, former CIA thug and author of the ongoing slaughter of Iraqi innocents.
Just a thought.
Re your 8/16 issue: "Tour Diary" ("Music") with a bunch of greasers? Andrey Slivka shitting on conservatives ("Editorial")? Marc fucking Cooper ("Opinion")? Alexander Cockburn still beating his dead horses? (Okay, I've beaten a few of my own.) A totally aimless music section?
I love you guys, but Jesus?enough with the City Paper/Reader/Voice/AlternaNazi imitation. Bring back full-page music reviews and book reviews, the media criticism column?Slivka was brilliant?and get back in the game.
And John Strausbaugh: Random House's Modern Library is releasing some very cool books under a "Chronicles" title?short histories of art, religions, epochs, etc. You'd like them.
Now get busy.
Mark Gauvreau Judge, Washington, DC
Elegy for the American Political Discourse
Bravo to Petra Dickenson for exposing the Rev. Jesse Jackson as the race-baiting shyster that he is ("Taki's Top Drawer," 8/30). That the Democrats would parade him out at their convention to spew his inane chants while the Republicans put the eloquent Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell on the dais in Philadelphia is just another indication of the vast differences between the two parties in this election. If only the elite national media and liberal intelligentsia would own up to the fact that Jackson is a fraud instead of giving him a bully pulpit on countless third-rate talk shows.
I'd love to see Dickenson do a piece on that other racial demagogue of the left, the other "reverend"?Al Sharpton. The fact that these two dullards have a prominent voice in our nation's political discourse is a sad commentary indeed.
Loyal New York state Democrats who are still disgusted with the White House interloper who shamelessly hijacked Rep. Nita Lowey's senatorial bid can show their contempt for Hillary Clinton by voting on Sept. 12 for Dr. Mark McMahon, who also appears on the New York state Democratic primary ballot.
Nayton Irving, Queens
Deep Six
Did you see the 9/2 New York Post? "Page Six"'s Richard Johnson is "on vacation," and is replaced poorly by Jared Paul Stern, Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson. "Page Six" cartoonist Sean Delonas is also on vacation. Cindy Adams is also on vacation. Liz Smith is also on vacation. Maybe New York Press can find out where all of these people go on vacation? Are they partying with Cynthia Cotts?
Barry Popik, Manhattan
www.nypress.com
Is it possible to read back issues of Matt Zoller Seitz's film reviews online? His insightful opinions are worth keeping available on the Web, in a searchable format. Matt Seitz is one of the best film reviewers anywhere!
Ken Zirkel, Lewiston, ME
Dark Ministry
MUGGER: Saturday's New York Times brought us more gross examples of the shamelessness of the Clintons. First the first couple cuts short a stay at a friend's place when word gets out that the friend owes almost a million in back state taxes. Their publicly professed reason for cutting short their stay? Chelsea is in DC and has a cold and they need to minister to her.
Next, convicted spy and traitor Jonathan Pollard was going to be moved to a rougher part of a federal prison. Hillary, eager to scoop up Jewish votes, calls the White House and?voila?suddenly Pollard's move is blocked.
Gads.
Kevin R. Kosar, Brooklyn
Back 40
Russ Smith: A bit early for a New York Post-style panic, isn't it? Um, do you really think the mainstream press is en bloc pulling for Al Gore this year? Really? Someone who purports to read as much as you do had to have read the hundreds of Gore-in-the-doldrums articles since last spring, the praising of W's convention speech, the consensus after Gore's that his was not one that could turn it around. If you can say one thing about Gore's "bounce" after the convention, it's that it went firmly against what the mainstream press had been telling us to think. Your guy looked like an idiot last week; that's what firmed the bounce.
Also, aren't you just a little embarrassed? Is this year's choice really the starkest in 40 years? More so than 1964, 1972 or 1980? You're losing it, Russ.
One more thing, you wordsmith, you. "Entrepreneurial" and "enterprise" come from the same word. Putting them in the same sentence commits a tautology. You know, like "the inept writer wrote ineptly."
Terry Benoit, Manhattan
The editors reply: Is writing "you're guy" when you really mean "your guy" representative of an inept writer? The same sentence contained a comma splice. Don't worry, Terry, we changed it for you. And just because "entrepreneurial" and "enterprise" have the same roots doesn't mean that they have the same meaning. An "enterprise" is any undertaking; "entrepreneurial" describes an enterprise of a business nature, which is exactly what the editorial wanted to say.
State Dept.
How ironic that the New Dark Age is brought to us by our so-called liberal brethren ("Wild Justice," 8/23). The further to the left one gets, the more totalitarian the state becomes. Right and left are the same. The Democratic convention was mostly malcontents and union goons ready to give us eight more years of centrist rule. You know the end is near when the police fire on fellow citizens in defense of despots.
William Bryk: Thank you for "Old Smoke" and these little footnotes in history from our nation's past. I enjoy them so much.
Gregory Taft, Edgewood, WA
Soup Bones
"You're Not the Incumbent, George W." was a great editorial (8/30). I am puzzled by George W. Bush's muted campaign. He should be able to win handily against this opponent, but he's as timid as a mouse. When is he going to get his ass in gear?
If Bush doesn't respond aggressively to Gore's trademark distortions (such as characterizing tax cuts as "spending the surplus"), he's going to lose. That in itself is a full-time job.
And why doesn't he stress school vouchers, which is an issue on which the Democrats are obviously out of step with minority constituencies? No amount of Jesse Jackson doubletalk will save Gore here.
The editorial also mentions the Microsoft antitrust litigation as part of an attack on entrepreneurs. I can't figure out why so many conservatives march in lockstep on this issue. Where is the sympathy for the smaller entrepreneurs that were shafted by Microsoft?
It's not that Bush has to earn the job first. He's already done that by winning the nomination. Now it's down to either Bush or Gore. Bush is not my perfect candidate, but it is no contest choosing between him and a lying liberal criminal. I would vote for just about any honest person if the alternative were Gore.
Joe Rodrigue, New Haven
Alex Doesn't Live Here Anymore
In his 8/23 column, Taki refers to "Alex Amundsen, a wonderful boy and skier and great-grandson of the great Norwegian explorer and first man to reach the South Pole."
He must be mistaken; Roald Amundsen never married and had no children. Alex Amundsen must be a great-grandnephew of the famous explorer.
Wanda Sherratt, Wellesley, MA
Taki replies: Funny, I've always introduced Alex as Roald's great-grandson, and he's never corrected me.
So Does Amir's Falafel
Sometimes the headlines you put on letters are extremely clever. Sometimes they indicate you are at a loss to come up with a decent retort, but futilely struggle to do so anyway.
Not to drag this out, but in last week's "Mail," I responded to yet another New York Press dis of the Upper West Side with a fairly coherent and somewhat detailed list of the merits of the area and your apparent outdated misconceptions about it. The headline you put on my letter was "The Abbey Pub Rules."
The Abbey Pub? What did that have to do with anything I was talking about? If you think the Abbey Pub is somehow emblematic of the Upper West Side, then my original point about your lack of recent familiarity with the neighborhood is heavily underscored. No one I know has ever even been in the Abbey Pub.
Next time, instead of coming up with a lame, unclever, disdainful rejoinder that has nothing to do with anything, why not a headline like "You Know, Alex, You're So Correct"?
Thanks. Now, we can both go about our business.
Alex Cecarelli, Manhattan
The editors reply: All right, so it wasn't a witty title, but it was an honest one. The Abbey Pub really is one of the Upper West Side's best bars. What do Cecarelli and his friends have against it?
Pericles of Austin
C'mon, Russ Smith, stop with the dumb cliches. Your 8/30 editorial about W is absurd, and your support for the emptiest suit in presidential history is obnoxious. Christopher Caldwell is a conservative and even he recognizes what you are incapable of detecting: Bush is a moron.
Please do your readers a favor and list 10 specific things about Bush that prove him to be a brilliant leader. (Don't fall back on anything that contrasts him with Clinton and Gore. This isn't about the lesser of two evils.) You genuinely think Bush isn't a moron and a liar! You genuinely think this doofus is worthy of holding the most powerful position on Earth! Most of us recognize that Bush and Gore are both scumbags only interested in prestige?the main reason most politicians run for office?but you aren't telling people to vote for Bush because he's better than Gore, but rather because "Bush is Great!"
Ideally, you'd be telling people to not vote for either of these creeps, so I think you owe us an explanation of your love for W. And remember, no falling back on W's own rhetoric. Don't cite his own dubious record, as according to him. Texas is a mess according to most neutral stats.
Why is so much of your writing nothing but stupid cliches? For example, what's with that "Big Government" talk? If Bush says it, then you buy it? According to all stats, Bush is the number-one proponent of Big Government and I'll give you one simple example to prove this: Despite enormous amounts of evidence that our judicial system is broken (what's the latest number of innocent men taken off death row, 85?), Bush went right ahead and trusted this same horrendous government to end people's lives without questioning this Big Government. And he executed more people than anyone else in the U.S., because he had a greater trust of this Big Government than anyone else, never mind that darned evidence stuff raising serious doubts about the validity of our judicial process. An ethical man would've doubted the government to begin with. (I'm pro-death penalty, by the way, but I'm smart enough to know that our government railroads innocent men every day of the week.)
Tell us, Russ, will Bush end the Drug War? Or will he maintain our Big Government? (It's worse than that: the drug war is an undisputed failure, so if he maintains it, he's not only pro-Big Government, he's pro-stupid Big Government.)
Your editorial made many other incredible points that wouldn't have made it into your final draft if you even had half the knowledge of the average American. Clinton bombed nations for domestic political gain? Everyone (but you) knows that Reagan and Bush did the exact same thing! Bush understands "the strategic importance of trade and interaction with Latin America"? Maybe just like his daddy did. We called it "the Iran-Contra scandal," and Daddy sure as heck knew that America was supporting murderers and drug dealers behind closed doors.
"Bush can gently remind voters that he'll restore dignity to the Oval Office"? Where do you come up with these fantasies? Bush can't even demonstrate dignity in his campaign! (Maybe you think the 90 million bucks he's spent demonstrates fiscal conservatism, too?)
What dignity are you talking about? The rest of the world laughed at us when we elected a ditzy actor to lead us in 1980. (And then they got scared when he went on a nutso weapons-building spree.) Maybe you were proud of Bush senior when he vomited on the Japanese prime minister? Surely most foreigners looked up to Bush senior as a classy and brilliant man, right? He's still admired around the world, right? ("Such dignity he had," they say.)
Your frat-house analogy is also tired and absurd. Even people who hate Clinton/Gore (like myself) will concede that these guys were doing their homework when Bush was breaking the furniture and snorting the white lady. (Heck, even now that he's a presidential contender, Bush hasn't done his homework. Once he gets the gig, he'll have even less reason to give a damn about anything substantive.)
Lastly, let me counter your foolish argument?the same tired cliches we hear from every conservative?about private school versus public school. I have plenty of friends who've attended both types and guess what?there is no definable difference. I've got stupid friends who went to private schools and genius friends who went to public schools. In fact, the conservatives' argument is quite ironic, because they sound like bleeding-heart liberals who believe, for example, that, if only every child didn't live in poverty, we wouldn't have crime. You right-wingers say this is b.s., and that it's up to the Individual, and has little to do with any scapegoating of how they were raised. But then, you right-wingers are always caught up in your hypocrisies, aren't you?
If Bush is so great, then get him to debate Ralph Nader one-on-one. (Bush will get free tv time to show us how great he is! Surely he'll jump at the chance, no?)
Face the facts: Bush is a stupid, lying hack.
Vote Green Party.
James Carpio, Manhattan
Winston Lite
MUGGER: Just to prove a point, let us examine what we know about the Candidates. (By the way, this is not a detailed and exact comparison, just based on what I've found reading the assorted biographies.)
His father was a successful politician. His grades in school weren't the best?in fact, he had to take the entrance exam three times in order to get into the college his father wanted him to enter. He shows signs of either a speech impediment or dyslexia. He used his father's friends to get a commission in a Guard unit. He was judged a failure by age 40. Indeed, his career would have been ruined without help from his father's friends. He was widely known as an alcoholic (and a boorish one at that!). His work habits are questionable?in a crisis situation he has been known to take a nap. He has been criticized for his belief that the communists are a threat to the West, and that the military should be built up. He has been an advocate of "supply side" economics.
Compare his opponent: His father was a successful politician. He was educated in the finest schools with good grades. He spent a number of years in the lower House. He was responsible for a initiative of "reinventing " government. He was involved with changing the welfare system. He believes that negotiations are preferable to conflict. He's considered to be somewhat of a "policy wonk." He's considered to be a warm and caring man in private, but seems to lack charisma when speaking to the public.
Based on the above, I have to wonder why anyone would vote for Winston Churchill over Neville Chamberlain! (Who did you think I was talking about?)
David Darnell, Clarksville, MO
Bottom-Dealer
MUGGER: Are you still willing to take bets on the outcome of our upcoming presidential election?
Bush and Cheney just haven't a clue as to what they are talking about. I do not particularly like Gore, but at least his aides don't have to spend the next hour or so after his talks re-explaining just what exactly their leader was talking about. And Cheney not only looked like a blowhard putting out a lame ill-thought-out argument about the military's not having good morale or being prepared to fight another Gulf War?he also came out looking like a smooth-talking slave to corporate interests by not being up-front about his company taking home a nice pay packet with all of these military missions. Could it be that the poor service his company is providing has led to the low morale Team Bush-Cheney is so insistent upon?
And how on earth can either Democrat or Republican candidate justify giving more money to the military? Where's a candidate who says we need to actually review our extremely outdated troop commitments to NATO and in South Korea? One who says the NMD is a fantasy that is nothing more than a jobs program for scientists and companies that aren't aware that the Cold War is over?
A thorough audit of the Dept. of Defense, along with a sincere review of existing troop deployments and weapons programs, would most certainly free up billions of taxpayer dollars. Dollars that could be used to, say, pay off the national debt and quite possibly have a little something left over for public transportation, Social Security or even a tax cut! (Oh my!) When the presidential candidates debate (and let's hope Buchanan and Ralph are on that stage), I would be willing to wager a side bet, MUGGER, that W comes off better than Stockdale or even Quayle.
Lastly, their desire to be racially inclusive. Since the convention, has either Bush or Cheney met with an organization or audience that serves a "minority" community? If they had, I am sure it would have made the papers.
Blood is in the water, and it's not coming from the Democratic ticket.
Marc Safman, Queens
Smoking a Dubya
Russ Smith must be living in a dream world if he thinks that Dubya can win by saying that he will restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office. The fact is that even a supporter of Bush?Jay Nordlinger of the National Review?referred to Bush on the program Reliable Sources as a "stumble bum." There is also a video of Bush in 1992 at a wedding, acting sloshed?which was six years after he said he gave up drinking.
The fact is that until Bush got a sweetheart deal to buy into the Texas Rangers, he was a ne'er-do-well bum losing millions of dollars for friends of his father in failed business deals. Bush has as much credibility about restoring honor and dignity to the Oval Office as Madonna has talking about the virtues of virginity!
Reba Shimansky, Brooklyn
Democratic Deform
Now that the United States press has become the vanguard of the State Dept.'s anti-Yugoslav foreign policy, it is a pleasure to read a journalist (George Szamuely, "Taki's Top Drawer," 8/23) who gets it right. Perhaps the most direct statement of Washington's aims in the Balkans was expressed by that eminent Russophobe, Zbigniew Brzezinski, when he stated in a New York Times op-ed piece on May 31 of this year: "Under Mr. Clinton's leadership, NATO was enlarged eastward, and the administration has pledged to continue that expansion, including the Baltic States." Yugoslavia remains the only country that stands in the way of NATO's expansion all the way up to the borders of the former Soviet Union. It is not "humanism," it is not "democratic reform", it is not even George Soros and global capitalism that motivate NATO. It is old-fashioned imperialism.
In a previous generation, this push toward the East was called "Drang nach Osten." Now it is euphemized as "democratization." It is in the best interests of the American people, the people of the Balkans and the entire globe, if the expansion of democratic institutions (which is a noble goal) is accomplished through diplomacy and commercial initiative rather than through military aggression (as in Yugoslavia, and upcoming in Colombia), or through an alliance with narcoterrorists (as in Kosovo).
Phillip Corwin, Manhattan