And why not boot tongue-tied press secretary Ari Fleischer upstairs or downstairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and replace him with a more nimble spokesman?
It’s time Bush took a cold shower and faced up to harsh political realities. "Changing the tone" of Washington was gauzy, feel-good window-dressing, and served its purpose while Bill Clinton hogged the limelight with his disgraceful exit from office, but that period is over. Tom Daschle, Chuck Schumer and Teddy Kennedy are not allies and it’s folly to pretend otherwise.
Bush’s pledge to veto the trial lawyers’ Patients’ Bill of Rights isn’t convincing; already he’s agreed to compromises proposed by timid Republicans in the House. It’s not an idle fear that he’ll slide even further into legislative mush, acquiescing to the opposition in the mistaken belief that voters will punish the GOP next year if no bill is passed. Guess what? A majority of citizens, even some of those who support the Kennedy-McCain-Edwards travesty, would respect Bush if, when presented with the HMO hodgepodge, he simply said: "Go back to work, folks. I refuse to sign a bill that will further the culture of litigation in this country and leave even more Americans without health insurance."
And of course that’s Bush’s current problem: a lack of respect. His conservative base is by and large satisfied, but the rest of his potential supporters don’t have a clear idea of what Bush’s long-term agenda is. Only the "disenfranchised" zealots or ill-informed still believe the media stereotype of Bush as a moron, but that’s no longer the point. The President, despite a gifted speechwriting team, hasn’t taken advantage of his unique position, one that dwarfs those of Daschle and John McCain, the men currently dominating the headlines. Why Bush hasn’t appeared on television at least once a month I don’t understand: when a president wants to connect with citizens, nothing compares to that tight televised shot of him in the Oval Office.
Bush squandered an opportunity to explain his significant tax cut victory to the public at the end of May. Instead of putzing around with the Jeffords switch, the President could’ve seized the initiative to detail how his fiscal philosophy will help all Americans. It was also the appropriate moment to promote his visionary Social Security partial-privatization goal, as well as to call for a capital-gains tax cut in the near future. Democrats would squawk at such an address, but recent history shows that when investors and entrepreneurs are unburdened by outrageous taxes, more jobs are created and additional revenue flows to the U.S. Treasury.
There’s been a blitzkrieg of new analyses and editorials from the mainstream media–mostly, but not exclusively, confined to the hypocritical liberal posse, which professes "concern" that Bush’s presidency is in trouble. One recent example was an editorial in Sunday’s New York Times that read: "For more than three decades, Americans have demonstrated a commitment to environmental values that transcends party and ideology. History shows that politicians who threaten these values usually pay a stiff political price, as Newt Gingrich and the Contract-With-America Republicans learned when they tried to rewrite the country’s basic clean air and clean water laws in 1995. President Bush is now paying such a price for ignoring this history and underestimating the importance of environmental issues... There is time for Mr. Bush to turn things around. But first he must recognize the seriousness of his miscalculation, and he must follow that up with more than cosmetic changes in policy."
Pardon my Chinese, but that’s bullshit.
A duplicitous newspaper like the Times has seized upon the environment as a weapon to derail Bush’s presidency. The paper ignores the plain truth that Gingrich’s ’94 takeover of the House has withstood three subsequent elections, and absurdly implies that Americans have been consumed by conservation matters for three decades. That’s a fleeting issue, and when gas prices stabilize and eco-terrorists destroy even more property, this flimsy gambit will boomerang on the Democrats.
The White House must block out the print and electronic distractions and concentrate instead on its own self-inflicted wounds. It’s important to put Bush’s so-so public approval ratings in context: at a similar point in Clinton’s first term, the summer of ’93, he’d blundered enough that conservatives were already smelling the blood of a one-termer. And this was before HillaryCare was introduced to the public. In fact, when Clinton and his wife unveiled their plan to socialize the health industry that fall, it was met with a lot of hoopla: Hillary became a temporary star during her appearances before Congress, and most Republicans seemed resigned to the fact that the economy-busting legislation would become law. As it turned out, GOP strategists punctured that particular boondoggle with such success that it led to the historic Republican electoral victory of 1994.
The lesson for Bush is that the political landscape a year from now is unknown. There are so many unforeseen events that will shape the midterm elections that it’d be counterproductive to react to every single setback with short-term band-aids. After all, he’s been in office for six months–it’s far too early to predict the success or failure of his administration.
However, it’s clearly time to take stock of what’s worked and what hasn’t since Jan. 20. I think Bush’s current position is analogous to Al Gore’s in the six weeks after the inexplicably successful Democratic convention last summer: the President’s campaign was complacent, flabby and unable to counteract Gore’s sudden adoration by the media with a crisp message of its own. It wasn’t until the then-Vice President’s fibs, arrogance and poor debate performances that Bush regained momentum.
So, a few suggestions.
The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol went overboard in his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the spy plane incident in China last April: the United States certainly wasn’t "humiliated" by its actions to secure the release of the hostages. But strip away the hyperbole and there’s much to recommend in his commentary.
Bush ought to address the nation and make his stand on China unmistakably clear. It’s not acceptable for the United States to extend normal diplomatic relations to the Communist country while even one American is imprisoned there. The detention of Prof. Li Shaomin, among others, all victims of kangaroo justice, is proof that the splintered regime, nominally led by Jiang Zemin, is not to be trusted. Until the release of these U.S. citizens, and the cessation of China’s belligerent tone, not to mention its persecution of Christians and advocates of democracy, Bush should be resolute in his position. There can be no support for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, period. The world doesn’t need a repeat of Hitler’s propaganda for the Third Reich back in 1936, years before most people understood, or believed, the full extent of his apocalyptic dictatorship.
The U.S. has agreed to sell Taiwan arms: Bush must let Zemin know more could be on the way. Finally, and by far the most controversial measure, the President must be prepared to call China’s bluff and reassess the U.S.’s trading partnership with that country. Obviously, such a stand would be a departure from Bush’s admirable free-trade beliefs, but he cannot condone the actions of a rogue state. U.S. business chieftains should be put on notice that their commerce with China is in jeopardy; if Rupert Murdoch’s carefully crafted relationships with his counterparts in China are scuttled, so be it.
Not only is this an unequivocal moral doctrine, it has political rewards as well. Sure, Tom Daschle can make Times editorialists gleeful with his destructive blocking of this administration’s judicial nominees, but that’s small potatoes compared to Bush facing down the corrupt Chinese government. He’d be a leader and Americans will respond favorably.
Now that Bush has made a successful first European foray, he ought to lay off the excessive back-slapping and schmoozing of our putative allies. Fine, his examination of Vladimir Putin’s soul made for a new round of jokes, but the President’s cordial tone did serve a one-time purpose. The results of that trip–an inspirational speech in Warsaw, his firm resolve on the U.S.’s intent to proceed with missile defense, a clear denunciation of the bogus Kyoto pact and his intention to consign the dated ABM treaty to history’s dustbin–were almost all positive. Unfortunately, Bush didn’t report on his summit directly to his constituents. As a result, a hostile media was able to take advantage of the administration and put a self-interested spin on the trip.
Bush’s unstated embrace of unilateralism is nothing to be ashamed of. When European leaders get their noses back in joint–Britain’s malleable Tony Blair is almost on board–they’ll realize that a powerful United States is to their benefit. It may take time, as William Safire notes in his July 2 Times column. He wrote: "Europe’s march toward interdependence, combined with the needful embrace of interdependence by dependent nations elsewhere, has led to a distrust of America’s national independence. That accounts for the eager espousal of ‘multilateralism,’ the consensus of the lowest and slowest common denominator. The fall from fashion of independence also accounts for the condemnation of ‘unilateralism’ by those envious of American success or worried about U.S. free competition, or by Americans [like Safire’s superiors at the Times] uneasy about sole-superpower status who find surcease from shame in self-flagellation."
The next step is more delicate, but crucial to the success of Bush’s presidency. Now that Dick Cheney has had his third heart scare since November, it’s time for him to reconsider his role in the administration. Cheney, whose stoic demeanor can’t defeat genetics, can be just as valuable to Bush and the country in a different role, say counselor to the President. It would be an unorthodox swap, but Cheney’s heart difficulties, which increasingly cause alarm among both his supporters and those who’d just as soon see him keel over, have reached the point where they cloud every decision he makes with questions about his health.
A deft move would be to persuade former Sen. Connie Mack to take the VP slot. The political benefits would be enormous: Mack is a popular Floridian, well-respected in Congress, not identified as an oil man, and a pro-life advocate who nonetheless is in favor of stem-cell research, a position that Bush will have to support. Sure, the Gary Bauers of the world will whine, but there’s not a lot of downside for Bush on this issue. Even abortion foes are split on the question, realizing that the potential medical benefits are so enormous that it makes sense to proceed with exploration. With pro-lifers like Orrin Hatch and Tommy Thompson in favor of the science, not to mention a majority of Catholic voters, Bush has sufficient political cover. It also takes a huge advantage away from the Democrats, who’d hammer Bush as a captive of the far-right if he refuses to become a champion of this research that could save countless lives. The President’s advisers have to be realistic: the Democrats will demagogue Bush on race and class warfare as it is, so there’s no reason to give them more ammunition.
Finally, Bush ought to invite New Jersey’s Bret Schundler to Camp David for a weekend. Schundler, who defeated centrist Bob Franks in last week’s GOP gubernatorial primary and smashed his party’s machine in the process, has a legitimate chance of defeating Democrat Jim McGreevey in this fall’s election. Because New Jersey overwhelmingly voted for Al Gore last year, Schundler, a charismatic conservative who just completed three terms as the popular mayor of Jersey City, is currently an underdog in the race. He can expect blistering attacks from the influential New York Times, which has already distorted his candidacy as one that’s primarily devoted to his pro-life and anti-gun-control views. The day after Schundler’s win, a Times editorial incorrectly stated the turnout was "low," when, in fact, it was the highest primary participation in New Jersey in the last 20 years.
Schundler’s a man of principle who’s consistently confounded the political gurus and left-wing journalists. Even John Judis, an unrepentant liberal, wrote in this week’s New Republic: "Generally, moderate Republicans make stronger general-election candidates than conservatives do… But Schundler may be an exception. For one thing, he’s a big-city mayor with a track record of helping the poor, which makes him difficult to caricature as coldhearted. For another, he’s associated himself with sentiments that usually resonate in New Jersey: hostility to Trenton and affection for cars."
I believe Bush has guts and core convictions as well, but he’s taken the Democratic bait too often in these first six months of his presidency. A pep talk from the Reaganesque Schundler, possibly the next star in the GOP hierarchy, might do wonders for the young President’s resolve, and help him put his priorities in order.
Take Me to the River
It’s them lazy, soupy, hazy, not-so-sweaty, crazy days of summer and I feel fine! In fact, it’s time to incur the wrath of Journalism Czar Jimmy Breslin of the Long Island Newsday newspaper and plug a few advertisers! True, that’s not so satisfying as slurring an entire continent–Australia–as demento Jimbo does with alarming frequency these days; and it’s not quite so blatant as producing a four-page advertorial for pissed-off supermarket chains like the Daily News newspaper did a few weeks ago, but that’s the extent of my arsenal. Maybe I’ll offend "people of color," just because that euphemism is one of the stupidest phrases that’s currently in vogue among lazy, soupy, sweathog, certifiably crazy left-wing writers. Sambo! White Nigger! Jap! Slope! Uncle Tom! Spic! Wetback! Beaner!
No, I can’t get no satisfaction there. Just feel like an extra at a Florida Civil Rights Commission meeting or one of Rep. Dick Gephardt’s butlers at some crass, soft-money, cash-bar wingding in St. Louis or Dupont Circle.
Here’s to Jim Hanley’s comic store at 5th and 33rd in Manhattan! The boys and I shopped there last Saturday for half an hour or so, then, after finding the HMV on 6th Ave., just a block away, shuttered for good, picked up three Game Boy Advance cartridges at Software, certainly the pick of the litter when it comes to all your kiddie electronic needs. That’s not to slight Tribeca’s Game Park (wink, wink: can I get you a deal for an eighth-page advertisement?), the small store where Junior and MUGGER III usually go for Mario and Luigi and Tony Hawk adventures. Jim Hanley’s is a virtual supermarket of comics, t-shirts, action figures, pop culture books, wind-up robots (made by Chinks!), talking South Park dolls and collected editions of Al Capp’s masterpieces, Little Lulu, Gasoline Alley, Li’l Abner and Donald Duck. Junior bought two of the latest Simpsons comic books and his brother, after his patented hem-and-haw routine, settled on a multipart Japanese war hero that he put together all by himself. Good thing too, since I haven’t a clue–never did–or the patience to assemble even the simplest snap-together toy.
Unfortunately, there were no bound, first-edition rarities by world-famous illustrator Danny Hellman to be found. Must’ve been all sold out. So I had to settle for the June issue of Comics Journal, in which Herr Hellman is quoted in a sloppily reported article about the octogenarian cartoonist Kaz’s departure from these very pages. Man-oh-man. Danny, who’s got the memory of a toad–does Ted Rall’s lawsuit ring a bell?–told Michael Dean: "Smith is such a figurehead of the Press. His Mugger is an appallingly Republican rich guy’s column about how he took his family to expensive restaurants last weekend and flew in a Concorde."
I’ve told Danny to cut down on the Snapple: too many lost brain cells. He used to illustrate this column, before the graphic element was switched to photos, and produced some of the nastiest (and gosh-darned funny, too) caricatures of Bill Clinton and his wife, not to mention the hapless Al Gore. When the perpetually out-in-the-swamps Rall took frivolous legal action against Hellman–hmm, tell the truth, Ted’s strip is looking mighty good these days–People’s Park Danny didn’t seem to mind the support he was given by his friends at New York Press. But that’s what happens when you get hooked on Lipton Soup: wake up one day and forget about "Free Dirty Danny" benefits on your behalf and the front-page illustrations that brought you work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and other high-paying publications. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the wish-I-were-hip art directors at those mainstream mags first saw Comrade Dan’s work in Screw.
It’s all so, well, appalling!
But all’s not lost. Just went down to Morgan’s Deli on Hudson St. for a coffee and picked up a penny on the street. That must make me an honorary kike! I’ll put it in my Dr. Seuss piggy bank and save up for another ride on the Concorde when Air France can make a convincing case that the supersonic jet is once more safe for humans and poodles.
Two Saturdays ago, Mrs. M, the boys and I felt like soggy canines twice within three hours as the monsoons hit Manhattan. It was the last Little League game for each of the gap-toothed scoundrels–trophy day!–and we excitedly made the 10-minute walk to the ballfield for MUGGER III’s t-ball contest that morning, only to be thoroughly drenched after just half an inning. The prizes were given out under cover of a shed, and we all went home to hot showers. Three hours later, Junior’s Indians were poised to gain revenge on the White Sox and the sun was shining: so bright, in fact, I was pissed I didn’t bring my designer shades, so much the better to hide my Republican eyes when dumping on mayoral candidate Mark Green in conversation with other parents while watching the kids. The first batter was at the plate when Lower Manhattan turned black as a winter day in Berlin: the pitching machine was on the fritz, the puddles by third base resembled the Chesapeake and our second sets of clothing for the day clung to our thin, fair-skinned Irish bodies. Game called, season over.
As was our trip to Boston, scheduled for later that night. I couldn’t blame La Guardia, which often closes when an errant snowflake falls, for the canceled shuttle up north, but it was disappointing since we’d snagged sold-out tickets for two Red Sox nail-biters at Fenway, and I’d had a hankering for some fried clams for the better part of three months. No tour of Paul Revere’s house for this family; instead, with the cable gone kablooey, the boys watched videos, Mrs. M snuggled up with a book about physics and I set about paying some bills and whittling down the stack of magazines piled up just two feet from my iMac. Not much doing in ESPN that week–it’s a crummy weekly by any standard, anyway–but I found solace reading Mark Steyn, Taki and Bruce Anderson in three back issues of London’s Spectator.
I’ll try not to get started on the bad fortune of the Bosox, except to say that the mythical World Series between the Cubs and Sox ain’t gonna happen. Not when Boston loses a player a day to the disabled list; not when manager Jimy Williams and his nemesis, GM Dan Duquette, can’t get it together to purge the team of Pete Schourek and maybe preempt George Steinbrenner from buying Jason Giambi from the miles-behind-the-Mariners Oakland A’s.
I was following the Sox-Blue Jays game on the telegraph-like America Online sports ticker last Friday night–while chuckling at the genius of ex-Suck.com Joey Anuff’s newest venture, the parody site called Mediawhoresonline.com–but when the Jays unloaded on Bryce Florie I turned off the machine, prayed for John Rocker, ordered takeout from GingerTy and listened to the purring narration of Marlene Dietrich in the 1962 Hitler film Black Fox.
Later, I fell asleep while reading The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait scolding William F. Buckley for plagiarism; the irony of a TNR writer tapping out such a piece was so ludicrous that I almost woke my wife. Two hours later, I jolted upright, magazine in my lap, victimized by a series of dreams about wolves, bottles of sour Dr Pepper, Kaz’s hairy ass and Chinese warplanes bombing the daylights out of Nation heiress Katrina vanden Heuvel’s Harlem townhouse. A fascinating reverie, no doubt, but the stiff neck I got in the bargain just wasn’t worth the black-and-white carnage of my visions of anti-American journalists living in this very city. Call tobacco-prohibitionist Hank Waxman for a congressional investigation–those’re the last words I’ll have to say on that subject.
The night before, Mrs. M and I went to an expensive restaurant–the exemplary Periyali on 20th St., where the anchovies, feta cheese and grilled onions make me feel alive, dude–and then reported to the Green Door to attend a book party for New York Press editor John Strausbaugh’s brilliant Rock Til You Drop. It was my kind of event: no air conditioning and a room packed with friends I hadn’t seen in many months.
Like Jimmy Seraphine, a North Baltimore boy who’s now working in the New York offices of the Chicago Sun-Times; Sam Schulman, with whom I compared the media recessions of this year and 1991, when he was trying to sell advertising space for Wigwag; Washington City Paper associate editor Rich Byrne, whose paper’s ground-breaking work on the Chandra Levy mystery has typically been ignored by that city’s No. 34-with-a-bullet hack Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post; and my longtime friends Paul and Sharon Abrams, whose delightful demeanor is always a tonic for the trivial but nonetheless omnipresent atrocities of city life, like encountering the growing number of bums on the street, scam artists who’ve returned from Miami now that Giuliani is about to surrender the mayor’s office to some destined-for-failure Democrat.
But on to the boldface names: T-Bone O’Connell, Danny Fields, Legs McNeil, Carolyn Nash, Bob Gruen, Mimmo Sinisca, Don Gilbert, Diane Ramo, Mary Gaitskill, Lisa LeeKing, Giselle de Vera, Jeff Koyen, Lisa Kearns, Don MacLeod, Daria Vaisman, Priya Ramratan, Chris Carbone, Eva Neuberg, Lauri Bortz, Ken Swezey, Laura Lindgren, Adam Heimlich, Phil and Trish from the swank saloon Dusk, George and Wendy Tabb, Giorgio Gomelsky, John Sinclair, Jonathan Ames, Bill Bryk, Tanya Richardson, Kevin Montgomery and Tony Trachta.
Rock Til You Drop, available at bookstores around July 12, or perhaps more accessible at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble’s website, is Strausbaugh at his best. The book, which evolved from a New York Press article on the 30th anniversary of Rolling Stone (robust two years ago, but the current issue is a mere 60 pages, with Paul Alexander replacing P.J. O’Rourke as political correspondent, debuting with a very timely article on the defection of "maverick" Vermonter Jim Jeffords to the clutches of Tom Daschle), is an absorbing read. It’s filled with scathing insights from my friend John about old geezers like Mick reneging on long-ago pledges not to sing their hits from the 60s when they turned 60, not to mention the music critics who flowered in the Summer of Love and subsequently did nothing else of importance with their careers.
Not that I mind a bit revisiting the anthems of my youth. We have a couple of tapes in the car (a Mercedes, of course), filled with songs by groups who for maybe a period of a year produced music that was blessed by their youth, touched by inspiration that would vanish all too shortly. Could the Hollies ever top "Bus Stop"? The Talking Heads, in that year of the Big Suit, were larger than life with "Girlfriend is Better"; ditto for the Allman Brothers’ "Whipping Post"; Billy Bragg’s "Levi Stubbs’ Tears"; the Smiths’ "What She Said"; Fairport Convention’s "Tam Lin"; the Cure’s "Disintegration"; Smashing Pumpkins’ "Today"; Tim Buckley’s "Once I Was"; the Stones’ "Gimme Shelter"; Buffalo Springfield’s "Expecting to Fly"; Steely Dan’s "Dirty Work"; Elvis Costello’s "Accidents Will Happen"; the Clash’s "London Calling" and the Beach Boys’ "Good Vibrations."
That’s all for this week! Leavin’ on a jet plane for Bermuda. Dirty Danny: Expect a postcard.
July 2
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