A McCain Backlash, Somewhat; Gore Plays That Funky Music

Down to the Wire; Mike Murphy's the New King of Spin

We're live at the MUGGER War Room, ready to play Who Will Be the Next President? The first contestant is Maureen Dowd, the witty op-ed columnist for The New York Times, better known in these parts as The Old Gray Lady, or The Paper of Record. You know, Mo, I almost lost it when you flattened Gov. Bush the other day, in that brilliant column "Hey, Big Spender..." When I read, "W. is in his room, curled up with his feather pillow and video golf game," I thought to myself, no wonder she won a Pulitzer; who else can dream up lines like that.

But enough small talk.

The first question, Mo, for $100, is, "Who is the most honest man in the 2000 presidential campaign?"

A. Sen. John McCain.

B. Vice President Al Gore.

C. McCain strategist Mike Murphy.

D. Pat Buchanan.

"Well, MUGGER, that's almost impossible to answer, given that the subject is politics. But it has to be A, John McCain."

Final answer?

"Yes."

Oh, I'm sorry, Mo. The correct choice was C, Mike Murphy. But as a consolation prize please accept a copy of Gail Sheehy's Hillary's Choice.

?

Candidates and their handlers habitually lie, or "spin," when they're caught in a contradiction; currently, of those men seeking the presidency, Al Gore is the undisputed champion. Honest John McCain, though, came close last week. In the run-up to the Feb. 22 Michigan primary, some voters received phone calls with the following message: "This is a Catholic voter alert. Governor George Bush has campaigned against Senator John McCain by seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views... Bob Jones has made strong anti-Catholic statements, including calling the Pope the antichrist and the Catholic Church a Satanic cult. John McCain, a pro-life senator, has strongly criticized this anti-Catholic bigotry, while Governor Bush has stayed silent."

Before the primary, the McCain staff denied any knowledge of the phone calls. In fact, at a press conference on Feb. 23, McCain said of the calls: "I didn't have anything to do with them to start with." Last Friday however, he told New York Times reporter David Barstow that he "had personally approved the calls," although he strenuously argued that Gov. Bush himself was not called a bigot. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer responded by saying, "This startling revelation undercuts the entire premise of John McCain's campaign?that is, straight talk and that he will never tell a lie."

Last Sunday, on ABC's This Week, McCain dissembled about the phone calls and again denied he intended to label Bush as a bigot. He also defended using the word "gook" to describe his Vietnamese adversaries?a slur that's entirely cricket given the circumstances?but didn't shy away from his nasty joke about Chelsea Clinton being the offspring of Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton. He said: "President McCain will use humor whenever he can. Sometimes it will be poorly done and sometimes it will get President McCain in trouble... But the fact is, I will continue to use humor."

Sounds to me like President McCain is now the candidate measuring the drapes in the White House. As well as pulling a Bob Dole by referring to himself in the third person. Maybe that's the reason he ducked out of a debate on March 2 in Los Angeles, even though his staff is divided on the decision. Spokesman Dan Schnur said it was "definitely a mistake... It gives the inaccurate impression that we're not contesting the state." Another mouthpiece, Howard Opinksy, claimed that the Senator was too busy?he had a campaign rally scheduled in New York that night. But it was a dumb move: Bush, if he's smart, should ask McCain for five more debates in the next two weeks. So what if some reporters will say he's desperate? It aggressively puts the onus on McCain.

Bush finally had to make a statement on the Bob Jones University nightmare, and so last Friday he sent a letter to New York's Cardinal John O'Connor. The letter read, in part: "Some have taken?and mistaken?this visit as a sign that I approve of the anti-Catholic and racially divisive views associated with that school. As you know from a long friendship with my family?and our own meeting last year?this criticism is unfair and unfounded. Such opinions are personally offensive to me, and I want to erase any doubts about my views and values."

How much damage control was achieved by the letter is unknown, but at least Bush's competitors can't claim that he was silent on the matter any longer. But it also gave the Governor another opportunity to slam McCain for his relentless hypocrisy. At a Seattle press conference on Feb. 27, Bush tore into the Senator for the Michigan phone calls. He said, in describing McClinton's, I mean McCain's, slippery explanation of the smear tactics: "That's not plain talk; that's parsed talk. This is a man who said, 'I'm going to tell the truth and run a positive campaign.' If the facts are what they are, it sounds like he might have violated both."

It'll be interesting to see how the Gore campaign uses the Bob Jones appearance against Bush in the fall should he be the GOP's nominee. Already, Sen. Joe Biden has said, in a prelude to an inevitable advertising barrage, "I'm offended as a Catholic, I'm offended as a supporter of civil rights, I'm just flat-out offended. It should haunt them. And it will haunt them." Biden, of course, voted to acquit an impeached president who admitted to lying to the nation and in a legal deposition. We'll see whose ad consultant can create the most effective negative tv spots.

And The Economist has this tidbit in its Feb. 26 edition: "The McCain campaign admitted, then denied, telephoning supporters and entering their donations online. Internet experts now question whether the senator's record $4m, raised via his website, resulted from high-tech genius and a spontaneous groundswell of support or just good old-fashioned glad-handing."

Take a ride on the High Road.

Now back to Mike Murphy.

In a Wall Street Journal editorial last Friday, McCain's "megawatt strategist," Murphy, admitted that his campaign has brilliantly used the media to its advantage. The Journal gives Murphy credit, as do I: before this election, the thought of hundreds of liberal reporters sucking up to a conservative pro-life Republican, with some even asking for McCain's autograph, was unimaginable. Describing the surprising McCain victory in Michigan, Murphy told the Journal: "[The Bush team] used their base, the Christian right. So we had every right to use ours, which is the media... We had to give Mr. Bush some of that Falwell baggage. You join the Luchese crime family and you join for life."

Spinning further, Murphy claimed that McCain's nasty, Nixonian "concession" speech after he lost the South Carolina primary on Feb. 19, was "totally calculated," an effort "to put Bush's tactics on trial." I don't quite believe that. Given McCain's temperament, it's almost certain that he was genuinely pissed off. But Murphy, after taking Michigan, a state that most pundits thought Bush would win by at least six or seven points, is permitted to analyze the results any way he desires.

What's even more startling is how Murphy mocks the very reporters and columnists who have propped up his boss' campaign. In a Feb. 24 Washington Post article, Murphy described the multitude of tv political punditry to Howard Kurtz: "I hardly listen to it anymore. I either laugh at how absurd it is or get depressed at how ignorant it is. It's as predictable as a 'Gilligan's Island' episode and equally insightful."

One columnist who hasn't been buffaloed by McCain and Murphy is The Nation's Eric Alterman, who wrote a blistering piece about his colleagues in the March 13 issue. As regular readers know, I find Alterman intolerable. Not only are his extreme left-wing views dangerous, but judging by his tv appearances, he's a rude and nasty man as well. Still, he nailed the "swoon" over McCain, even while drawing the wrong conclusion that the media is not liberal.

He writes: "If the media cared at all about liberalism, then choosing McCain over Bush would be like picking arsenic over cyanide. But ask them to choose between the funny guy who likes to tell dirty jokes over brewskies and one whose campaign is more tightly scripted than Cats (and even more annoying), well, pass me a cold one, dude... McCain has [R.W.] Apple, Al Hunt, Mike Wallace, Jonathan Alter, Michael Lewis, David Nyhan, Jacob Weisberg, Lawrence O'Donnell, Jake Tapper, Mike Isikoff and Bill Press, to name just a few, pulling for him without shame. Can we please put this 'liberal media' bullshit to rest forever, now?"

What Alterman either doesn't realize or won't admit is that every single one of those "journalists" mentioned above will not only vote for Al Gore in the fall, but trash McCain as well, if the Senator can convert his once 100-to-1 shot into the GOP nomination.

Not that McCain and his crew haven't had help from the Bush campaign's astounding number of blunders. Forget about skipping the first debate in New Hampshire and the lackadaisical effort in that primary. After the win in South Carolina, that's history. Also, although Bush has gotten a bum rap on the Bob Jones University flap?Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and Dan Quayle have all made appearances there, and Rep. Lindsey Graham, a leading McCain supporter, accepted an honorary degree from the institution?his team wasn't quick enough to tamp down the controversy. For example, they could've made a big stink that while Bush had disavowed himself from the repellent beliefs of Jones, the media has given a free ride to both Al Gore and Bill Bradley when they both pandered to the racist Al Sharpton. Jones is small fry on the political scene today: yes, he's a troglodyte but he doesn't come close to the divisive views of Sharpton, who's as devious and dangerous a demagogue as anyone in the country today.

Michael Kelly, apparently a McCain supporter, given his vicious attacks on Bush, wrote in The Washington Post on Feb. 16: "[S]ome of the Republican behavior has been revolting. But nothing the Republicans have done comes anywhere close?for partisan irresponsibility, for a cynical and really dangerous disregard of the national good, for sheer revulsion factor?to the Democratic pursuit of the love of Al Sharpton."

And although Bush campaigned hard in Michigan, he spent most of his time attacking Clinton and Gore instead of McCain. This was presumptuous?you don't simply win a primary, which happens to resurrect your frontrunner status, and then pretend you're already the nominee. That conveyed an arrogance that was apparent in New Hampshire. You'd have thought Bush chief strategist Karl Rove would've learned that lesson.

It's true that some Democrats were up to mischief in the Michigan primary. I received an e-mail from a longtime buddy in Detroit that said: "Greetings from Michigan! There's still time to get off the George W. bus! Yes, I voted for John McCain yesterday, and yes, I would never vote for him in the fall. Hope all is well with you and the family." Still, Bush didn't have to whine for three days after he lost that race.

The Bush campaign also didn't respond to Jesse Jackson's inflammatory remarks about the Governor at a Chicago press conference on Feb. 23. Jackson said about Bush: "[O]nce you go to South Carolina and wrap yourself in the Confederate flag...and then go back to Texas to execute its 120th person, you become then intentionally morally bankrupt." Jackson, who comforted President Clinton, an admitted perjurer and liar, said nothing about McCain. The Bush campaign should've immediately rebutted his statement by explaining that Bush didn't "wrap himself in the Confederate flag," but instead said it was up to the citizens of South Carolina to settle the issue. And that it was McCain who flip-flopped on the issue, muttering that the flag represented the "heritage" of the South. And that, like Bush, McCain is also a proponent of capital punishment.

And why Bush wasn't campaigning in Virginia this past weekend I have no idea. A Bush loss in that Southern state would elevate McCain to clear frontrunner status in people's minds, despite the upcoming primaries that are skewed in Bush's favor. It's possible the Governor is angling for an upset in Washington, but another tour of Virginia would seem to have been in order.

McCain didn't miss the opportunity, drawing a large crowd in Alexandria, where he continued his cornball shtick, telling the audience at one point: "To quote from a famous movie, I say to the Gilmore-Warner machine: 'Hasta la vista, baby!'" McCain's camp is purposely playing down expectations in Virginia, but they're clearly sniffing an upset. Murphy said on CBS' Face the Nation last Sunday: "No doubt with the Gilmore organization and the Christian right and Pat Robertson kind of waving the blowtorch around, [Bush] has some advantages there. It's going to be a close one. We may catch him; we may not."

Bush has to change the narrative of this campaign; it's not about money anymore, but rather who can defeat Al Gore in November. He has to drive home, again and again, that besides McCain's POW status, the Senator has accomplished almost nothing in Washington in 17 years, as opposed to the fundamental changes Bush has made in Texas in not even two terms as governor.

When Bush comes to New York during the next week he must act like a street warrior, take the subway, and escape from the George Pataki bubble (New York's governor has been useless in this campaign). He should challenge McCain every day, something along the lines of: "Okay Luke Skywalker, Capt. America, Batman, or whatever your nickname is today; let's debate the real issues at Katz's Deli. Let's talk about you claiming to be a Reagan Republican when at the same time you brag that Bill Gates doesn't need a tax cut. Let's put it all out on the table: tell everyone how you're a Democrat in Michigan and then suddenly an ardent conservative in California."

Last Sunday, the New York Post ran an incoherent endorsement of McCain, stressing the Senator's "life story" over his plans for a possible presidency. The editorial wrongly claims that McCain is a tax cutter?his proposal is Clintonesque?and laughably states that he's "one of the most respected voices on Capitol Hill." The Post disagrees with McCain's centerpiece?campaign finance reform?but lets him off the hook by saying, "But an anti-establishment posture is part of McCain's charm." No it's not. It's an assault against the First Amendment.

Obviously, Post owner Rupert Murdoch is covering all bets. If McCain loses to either Bush for the GOP nomination or Gore in the fall, he'll still have McCain in the Senate, where as chair of the powerful Commerce Committee he could return Murdoch the favor. If McCain somehow does win the presidency, Murdoch can expect to spend a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, telling dirty jokes with Honest John.

That doesn't explain the preoccupation of Murdoch's Weekly Standard with McCain?he's on the cover again this week?but my respect for editor Bill Kristol forbids me from thinking ungenerous thoughts. Kristol has gone out on a limb for McCain; if he's the next president, rewards will be doled out. In a Bush administration?it's known in Washington that there's bad blood between Kristol and the Bush family?he's a goner.

It's About Time

Here's an unexpected twist: there are smoke signals, albeit still in the distance, that John McCain's honeymoon?hell, blissful marriage?with the media is getting rocky. Slate's Jacob Weisberg, on McCain's team for months now, offered a flash of reality in his Feb. 26 dispatch. He wrote: "To summarize the ethics of the race so far: in New Hampshire, [McCain and Bush] ran largely honorable, decent campaigns. In South Carolina, Bush ran dirtier. In Michigan, McCain ran dirtier. The score is now tied. Future claims of moral superiority by either side should be taken with several grains of salt."

And in Sunday's Boston Globe, the liberal columnist Ellen Goodman, despairing of Democrats praising and voting for McCain, wrote the following: "Maybe it's the economy [that's making us] stupid... We are lulled by the idea that policy doesn't matter, that all we need in the White House is a man to respect. McCain has given us a good story and a good sense of humor. But Johnny, we hardly know ye. Before Super Tuesday, we need to call an intervention with the Moonstruck Democrats. Yo, you are powerless before a higher power with a good biography. Dude, read the fine print on the prenup agreement. Buddy, John McCain could turn out to be the Rick Rockwell of the primary pageant. Quick. Snap out of it."

Steve Chapman, in last Sunday's Chicago Tribune, was downright disdainful of McCain's constant reminders of the torture he endured a generation ago. He wrote: "Ever wonder what John McCain did before he went to Washington? I didn't think so. Listen to the Arizona senator for more than 90 seconds and you will be reminded that he was a fighter pilot, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and an authentic military hero... But the whole point of McCain's campaign is that he is above such shameless pandering and self-promotion. And because no one wants to challenge a guy who had the fortitude to survive five years of torture and deprivation, he can get away with boasts (accurate though they may be) that coming from anyone else, would strike most people as downright embarrassing."

While others in the media are busy comparing McCain to Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt, Chapman has another president in mind: "Ulysses S. Grant proved definitively that being a war hero doesn't mean you'll be a good president... McCain ought to be recognized for his heroism, but the demands of leading a democratic nation requires feats of fortitude and self-sacrifice that may be more than he can manage."

On Friday's Washington Post op-ed page, there was a sublime pairing of opinions about McCain. First, Charles Krauthammer, who really ought to know better, wrote: "He suffered for our sins. He did not die for them, though he came very close... That war experience sets him apart from other politicians, others of his generation, and other contenders for the presidency?most starkly from George W. Bush." Now, that's a cheap shot. Was Bill Bradley's stateside service any different from Bush's? Of course not.

But then William Raspberry derides McCain's "readiness to engage in truly negative campaigning." And the capper: "McCain remains unusually accessible and personable, and he's an authentic war hero. But isn't the presidency about a bit more than this?"

Lars-Erik Nelson, who's written at least half a dozen scathing columns about Bush, nonetheless scolded his colleagues about their chumminess with McCain. Asked recently by C-SPAN's Brian Lamb if he'd been on the Senator's Straight Talk Express, the Daily News writer responded: "I have not yet. He invited me to go, I couldn't do it. I'm not sure I would at this point. I like McCain, and I think what he's doing is really in a way excellent. But I really have misgivings about the press being on that bus all the time and becoming kind of a sounding-board and a chorus and a laugh track for his jokes... But I think the role of the press as being sort of the cheerleaders there, which is what they turn out to be, I think that's wrong. I think we ought to keep our distance."

My favorite "straight talk" comes from one of my least favorite writers: Michael Kinsley. The Slate editor is plainly disgusted with McCain's never-ending self-promotion, which always concentrates on his heroism rather than legislative feats in the Senate, mainly because he hasn't done much in Washington. Indeed, on the front page of the Feb. 27 New York Times was a McCain puff piece, headlined "P.O.W. to Power Broker, A Chapter Most Telling," that jumped to a full page of text inside. Reporter Nicholas D. Kristof, aping McCain's just-coincidentally-released- last-year memoir Faith of My Fathers, never does get to the "power broker" part. He stops at McCain's election to Congress in 1982.

Kinsley, on the other hand, has a different take. He opens his Feb. 21 piece with a dig: "No man is more entitled to preen about his honor and heroism than John McCain. But honor has its limits, both as a campaign strategy and as a governing philosophy." Granted, Kinsley, a former New Republic editor who remains close to Al Gore's closest media mentor, TNR owner Marty Peretz, has his own agenda. But that doesn't mean, in this instance, he's not funny. Kinsley likens McCain's tiresome self-deprecation and "talk about honor" to the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. He writes: "Yes, senator, fine, you're Luke Skywalker. Now, can we drop it?"

And the Gore supporter clearly was disgusted by McCain twice upbraiding Alan Keyes in debates when the latter questioned his pro-life credentials. McCain told Keyes, "I've seen enough killing in my life, a lot more than you have...and I will not listen to your lectures about how I should treat this very important issue." Kinsley's now on a roll: "Oh, please. McCain cheapens his own heroism when he tries to use five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp as a rhetorical get-out-of-jail-free card."

Gore Plays Funky Music, White Man

I'll credit the reptilian Al Gore with one thing: extraordinary luck. Perhaps it was the result of prayer, for the Vice President has suddenly become a devout Christian during this campaign, but just six months ago, who would've thought that Gore would hold such a commanding lead over the lethargic Bill Bradley? Gore got all the bad press and gaffes out of the way before the primaries actually began; in addition, he never could've expected the McCain phenomenon to black out coverage of his quest for the Democratic nomination. Which suits him just fine.

Lost in the Bush-McCain 15-rounder was the Democratic debate at the Apollo Theater on Feb. 21. It was a strange spectacle, starting with the woefully inarticulate Spike Lee, a Bradley booster, being interviewed before the debate and unable to say anything of substance in favor of the former senator.

Read the following exchange between Bradley and Gore, after a question from Time's Karen Tumulty and you tell me who the condescending creep is.

Tumulty: Senator Bradley: Clearly, in delving 10 and sometimes 20 years back into the Vice President's record, you are trying to raise questions of his leadership and questions of his character. If you feel the need to raise those questions, don't you feel you have the responsibility to tell us what you think the answer is?

Bradley: I have told you what the answer is. And it's to nominate me as the Democratic nominee of this party. That's what I told you. You know, me calling attention to the fact that [Gore] was a conservative Democrat before he was Bill Clinton's vice president is simply truth-telling... It's not embroidering the facts. And laying out much bolder proposals on health care and on education than the Vice President does is not embroidering anything. It's proposing a new future. As an example in this campaign, he proposes increasing defense expenditures more than he proposes increasing education expenditures.

Gore: That's not true either. Not true. That's not true either. Let me respond to this. You know, we've had basically the same-length career in Congress. And over the course of that time I'm proud that I have a better COPE voting record measured by the support of working men and women and organized labor than Senator Bradley. I compiled that better record in a state in the South where it was not always that easy, compared to New Jersey.

I am the one who has been endorsed by the leading pro-choice group. I have been endorsed by organized labor. I have been endorsed by Senator Ted Kennedy and by virtually the entire Congressional Black Caucus. Now, do you think that they all have such poor judgment, Senator Bradley?

Bradley: What I think is they don't know your record as a conservative Democrat. They don't know that you voted five times over three years for tax exemption for schools that discriminate on the basis of race. It's in the record. The Black Caucus stated so.

Gore: You know what? In my experience, the Black Caucus is pretty savvy, they know a lot more than you think they know. You know, the Congressional Black Caucus is not out there being led around. They know what the score is and they also know that their brothers and sisters in New Jersey said you were never for them walking the walk, just talking the talk.

Amazing. Gore really does like black people. And some of them are smart. Blacks support Gore because he walks the walk. I have no idea why the black community is lining up behind this buffoon; the condescension in the above remarks is simply revolting. It should've been the lead story in every daily across the country. "Gore: Blacks Can Be Savvy."

Bradley is stumped at his lack of black support, but is typically, and probably fatally, philosophical. He told Boston Globe reporter Bob Hohler over the weekend in Seattle: "It's disappointing because I think everybody should be able to see the depth of my convictions. But that's not always the way it works in life. Those things you hold most dear are not always recognized in the context of the times in which you live, and it's very difficult."

I was surprised?almost shattered?when I read that Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown had actually endorsed Gore. Brown, as I've written before, is one of the true political visionaries of the last half-century. I don't agree with much of his philosophy, but he's not an automaton. He's an original thinker who isn't afraid of advocating unique ideas. When he praised Gore as man who "cares about those who are falling between the cracks" and has a "philosophy of equality, a philosophy of economic justice," I nearly wept. Brown is the man who first exposed Bill Clinton as a corrupt hypocrite back in the campaign of 1992; he's the politician who slept on friends' couches while on the stump instead of in pricey hotels. That he can now embrace Gore, who was complicit in the White House's illegal fundraising in '96, who is a creature of Washington and everything he fought against in '92, is truly disheartening.

Less bothersome was Jann Wenner's puffball interview with Gore in the March 16 Rolling Stone. Always a starfucker, Wenner bided his time, and figured out that Gore would be the nominee; if Bradley were ahead right now, he'd be talking politics with the former senator. The interview was devoid of content, and exemplified by the vacuous Wenner's first question: "What kind of music do you listen to now?" Uh, Jann, who gives a shit?

Will Dana, Wenner's lackey along for the interview, was even more of a simpleton in his "Postcard From the Bubble" column that served as an introduction to the issue. Dana was wowed by Gore's motorcade, the phalanx of Secret Service agents and the opportunity to take a tour of Air Force Two. Dana writes: "If this is second best, imagine the top job. No wonder people put themselves through the ordeal of a presidential campaign. It's not simply the chance to change the world. It's the service."

Now that is revolting. Especially since this schoolboy tripe appeared in a publication that redefined the coverage of presidential campaigns back in 1972. Hunter S. Thompson, at the peak of his writing skills during that stretch, put Rolling Stone on the map with a demographic that Wenner hadn't yet tapped: Washington, DC. In the unlikely event that Thompson even looks at Rolling Stone anymore, reading Dana's crap might drive the poor guy to drink.

Idle Chit-Chat

Mrs. M and I were having dinner two weeks ago at Periyali, the superb Greek restaurant on W. 20th St., with John Strausbaugh and his wife Diane Ramo, when the subject of Talk came up. John and I despaired of our former colleague Sam Sifton's article in the March issue on "Yetties," supposedly the '00 version of yuppies. The piece wasn't helped by an atrocious layout, one that you'd have seen in Wired three years ago, or the headline "Meet the Yetties: Young. Entrepreneurial. Tech-based. They're the future." Just like Lucinda Franks' report last month about teenagers having sex, this is Talk at its most prescient. I'm still of the opinion that the monthly closes up shop pretty soon.

John wasn't so hasty. His claim is that newly installed editor Robert Wallace has gone the Maxim route and tarted up the glossy with more than a smattering of t&a, which I suppose explains Jennifer Lopez on the cover this month. He might have a point, but I've got to believe that readers looking for such titillation will go for the real thing, which is available in abundance.

Like Gear, Maxim, Stuff, Details, not to mention any number of hardcore skin mags. The Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz, in a Feb. 17 piece on the competition between men's magazines, called Gear the latest winner, because Bob Guccione Jr.'s monthly featured particularly racy photos of tv star Jessica Biel. Jurkowitz, as I've noted before, is not only a poor writer, but a prime example of the bloated editorial staffs of most mainstream publications. His article, called "Flesh Wars," includes this stunning insight: "This glossy battle of pulchritude is not about the models and actresses who adorn the magazines' pages, however. It's about the young men who stare at them. In April 1997, a British import called Maxim came ashore here, changing the face of both publishing and pop culture." I fully realize that Boston is one of the most provincial cities in the country, but surely its dominant newspaper could hire a media critic who can detect industry trends at a faster clip.

The following is an excerpt of the "defense," a series of sentences that makes you wonder if Guccione, who's a bright guy, hasn't lost his mind. "In his defenseless humanity, Clinton personifies our adolescence. He embodies the inherent pathologies of our time. He reminds us that only a child would want to be president... He is the hero of a mythic moral tale who, by fateful example, acts out the answers to the most poignant questions that affect his people. Despite all expectations?maybe despite himself?Bill Clinton became such a [great] president, building a legacy out of his flaws. He transcended politics through sex."

Indeed.

On the more serious side of the newsstand, Vanity Fair's newest section, "Fanfair," introduced in the March issue, was enormously embarrassing. I'm as big a fan of gossip hack Jared Paul Stern as the next guy, but who needs to see a picture of him "canoodling" with Cameron Richardson at Elaine's while George Plimpton stares at the camera? There's a very dumb new feature called "Calendar Boy," in which we find out that March 27 is "The 15th anniversary of the last time Sharon Stone had a moment of self-doubt" and on the 25th "One of the morning shows features a diet expert." This is funny?

Much of the old "Vanities" section has been folded into "Fanfair," but there's the completely serious debut of another section, probably purloined from a Talk editorial meeting at some restaurant, the "Out & In" list. Wow. You'd think that high-budget magazines had completely given up, scared by the Internet into feeding consumers 90s nostalgia that just isn't ready to be recycled.

Graydon Carter really does know better. The Bible told me so. In a related development, Carter has apparently picked off Jim Windolf, a longtime editor at the flailing New York Observer, for a similar post at Vanity Fair. I've never cared for Windolf's cutesy writing and when he noted at the end of his "Off the Record" column some years back that he was on "paternity leave," I nearly retched.

More significantly, it looks like NYO editor Peter Kaplan can't keep his staff together. While it's true the weekly never attained a sizable readership?it's a willfully "inside baseball" publication?once upon a time you actually heard people talking about its articles each Wednesday. The Observer had a buzz about it in the mid-90s, but instead of looking at the future, its management coasted and believed that the 10021 ZIP code fans would continue to relish its mixture of gossip, frothy media minutiae, questionable business coverage and diverse political writing. Even the NYO regulars appear tired: Ron Rosenbaum writes less frequently; Terry Golway's in a rut; the new "Off the Record" columnist, Gabriel Snyder, is a joke; and Joe Conason, now that he's helped vanquish Kenneth Starr, is just marking time and collecting a paycheck. (His work in other publications, even the vile Salon, is far superior.)

Keith Kelly and Jared Paul Stern reported in the New York Post last Friday that Conrad Black, whose attempt to buy the Observer last summer fizzled close to consummation (one imagines that performing due diligence at the Observer must be a nightmare), is close to buying The American Spectator. (Not to quibble, but Kelly, if not Stern, ought to know the Spectator is not a weekly, but a monthly.) Such an acquisition, especially if John O'Sullivan, late of the National Review and currently of "Taki's Top Drawer" in this paper, replaces the bombastic founder R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. as editor-in-chief, would be excellent news. The Spectator, ever since it compromised itself by overzealousness in its jihad against Bill Clinton (hard to believe, but that can actually happen if you run too many loosely researched stories), has become a less important periodical. If Black does purchase the Spectator, I expect it'll compete on even footing with the National Review and Weekly Standard, a most welcome development.

Still in the conservative world, the Daily News' Celia McGee speculated on Feb. 18 that the excellent Amity Shlaes, currently at The Wall Street Journal, is the leading candidate for editorial page editor at the New York Post. After John Podhoretz's schizophrenic reign in that position?he continues to embarrass himself and the Post with his twice-weekly column?what a splendid relief it would be to have a grownup run the city's most conservative newspaper. I've often touted Rich Lowry, the National Review's top-flight editor, for the position, but Shlaes is just as worthy a choice.

If she does sign on with Rupert Murdoch, I expect she'll clean house almost immediately: see ya later, Pod, and you too, Rod Dreher, the dreadful movie reviewer turned even worse political columnist. And maybe, finally, someone will have the balls to tell Rupert that Steve Dunleavy, a legend in more than his own mind, is ripe for retirement. If he were a better writer, he could stand alongside Taki in London's Spectator and hold forth with the "Low Life" column that died along with its author, the wicked and wonderful Jeffrey Bernard.

I'm sure the magazine will suck, but Conde Nast's newest publication, reportedly set to compete with InStyle, has the best name I've heard in at least a decade: Lucky. CN editorial director James Truman has devoted oodles of his valuable time to the start-up, which is bad news; on the flipside, Kim France will edit the young woman-skewed pub, and her credentials aren't shabby at all.

I have mixed feelings about David Remnick's rendition of The New Yorker?its left-wing window dressing rubs me the wrong way?but I'll admit that it's one of the few magazines I look forward to receiving each week. The 75th anniversary issue (Feb. 21 & 28) was stunning: a subdued celebration of its storied history, beefed up with half a dozen articles worthy of attention. I don't normally like anything about Wendy Wasserstein?her Upper West Side boomer mentality is long past self-parody?but her piece "Annals of Motherhood" was extremely moving. Wasserstein decided at a relatively late age to have a child. When she did become pregnant, at 48, after years of trying, going through all the current scientific hoops, her daughter was born premature. It was a touch-and-go situation, but happily little Lucy survived and is healthy. Wasserstein's description of the traumas she endured in the hospital is finely detailed, and much more poignant than her vapid playwriting.

Likewise, I despise Roger Angell's semiannual baseball essays in The New Yorker, overwrought prose about "gladiators" on the field who are magnified, for no reason, to Homeric proportions. His glorification of today's spoiled athletes makes fellow purist George Will's occasional prose about the game look like the work of a regular Joe. I've long recommended that Angell be retired from the beat, if only to save himself and The New Yorker from further derision.

However, his article in the anniversary issue, "The King of the Forest," about his New York youth and demanding father, was by far the finest piece of writing I've read in The New Yorker in at least a year. Angell is almost 80 and so remembers the Great Depression well; soon, the Americans who lived through that historic time will be gone. His description of the city in the early 30s is extraordinarily precise and heartfelt.

Angell writes: "These are hard times, all the same. The Great Depression is deepening, and some of Father's friends who come for dinner have lost their jobs and are silent with anxiety; now and then we take in a frayed banker or architect friend for a week or two, a man who has lost his house or apartment and his savings as well, and has sent his family off somewhere while he stays in the city and looks for work. New York has taken on a shriveled appearance; nothing is painted or shined, and the people one passes on the sidewalk move slowly, with a stunned look on their faces. Our house is mortgaged, and the time comes when Father tells Edmonde and Joseph that he's sorry, but he can no longer keep them on. They have no place to go, though, and so they stay on and, for the time being, agree to work for nothing. (Later on, he paid them back.)"

After digesting such terrific prose, it's easier to excuse Remnick's lapses: his reliance on political hack journalists Joe Klein and Jane Mayer; the kneejerk Jan. 17 cover by Barry Blitt, which portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. attempting, in vain, to hail a cab; and Hendrik Hertzberg's wrongheaded takes on the media.

Remnick appeared on the Feb. 15 airing of Hardball?one of the few occasions where Chris Matthews eschewed his hero of the season, John McCain?and had extremely smart comments about New York's Senate race. His remarks mirror what I've heard from friends who always vote Democratic, but plan to sit this election out?they just can't stand Hillary.

Remnick: "I live in what may be called the People's Republic of the Upper West Side... But [Hillary Clinton] is not sweeping this neighborhood automatically. You get the sense that there are a lot of voters that are undecided who even privately?they're afraid to admit it almost?maybe had their first Republican vote voting for Rudy either the first or the second time, and they saw crime rates plunge and they saw other quality of life things get better in recent years. Now whether that's due to Rudy or/and the economic boom you can argue out, but it happened. It didn't happen in public education, and he's also been extremely hostile to minority communities, and all the rest. But for a lot of voters, they are deeply torn... I think it's a very volatile race. So far, I think you'd have to make him the favorite."

So Hillary's having trouble with the Zabar's vote. How in the world, if New York City doesn't provide the votes a Democrat can normally count on, can Mrs. Clinton possibly win the Senate race? I invite Joe Conason to explain just exactly how she's going to defeat Giuliani.

Finally, if anyone needs further details on just why Salon is the joke of the Internet, read Sean Elder's ridiculous suck-up to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz from Feb. 16.

Elder: "When [Kurtz] says something stinks, it's time to open a window. His investigation into the McCain question, however, left him concluding that though reporters tend to like any candidate who gives them lots of access, there was scant evidence that the media was giving the senator a free ride."

Oh, okay, Sean, I'll take Kurtz's word as gospel. Because you say so. Despite the fact that everyone on the planet, including McCain and his aides, know that Kurtz is dead wrong.

February 28

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