Has Mike Barnicle Plagiarized Again?; The "New" Rudy Takes a Powder; Michael Wolff is Wrong on Marvin; Jared Paul Stern Can Go to Hell

You be the judge. On April 29, in Newsday, Jimmy Breslin wrote the following: "New York is a city that wakens itself and plunges into another day without being urged by anybody. It is a city that needs no mayor, except in time of election to provide some excitement. It runs by itself and needs no grubby hand of a politician to disturb everything. You have this huge collection of small neighborhoods, with new people and old people, with some satisfied and with others gambling with the hours of their lives for money; a city of so many with everything and so many with nothing. But it always goes through a day on its own. The last thing that makes the place work is a mayor, no matter how zealous, how overly busy at posing and mayoring."

And now Barnicle: "So I stroll along, keeping track of where I am by Catholic parish and eyesight. I stop to sit on a stoop and realize suddenly I could be in Santo Domingo. I get up, march on and walk across invisible straits to Puerto Rico where bodegas are next to Chinese restaurants where the floors are being sanded and polished by a crew of Vietnamese.

"I have a cup of coffee with Greeks and watch as Armenians gamble at the curb while a Pakistani goes past us in a cab, nearly hitting a Romanian guy driving a livery car. All of them are New Yorkers, tossed together in a Cuisinart of mutual interests.

"And I always wonder how many of them really need a mayor or even a senator to get through their day. I see the suburban commuters being hurled from the bowels of Grand Central Terminal, and I know none of them needs Giuliani. He is a tabloid diversion in their lives rather than a basic necessity, and because of short memories and smaller attention spans we have forgotten what the torn fabric of the big town was like when Rudolph Giuliani first swore to be mayor of all the people."

Perhaps this isn't outright theft. But it comes close. Closer than Barnicle, who seems like the tourist he is in that column, possibly knowing that it was a Romanian driving that livery car. Then again, that was another area of trouble for this washed-up hack in Boston: he invented anecdotes for his Globe columns.

Ask the Boston Phoenix's Dan Kennedy, that city's leading expert on Barnicle's journalistic indiscretions: e-mail him at dkennedy@phx.com.

The "New" Rudy Takes a Powder I've had my fill of Rudy Giuliani's private life, how about you? Before examining the atrocious press coverage of the Mayor's withdrawal from New York's Senate race, let's get one thing straight: Giuliani didn't want to quit. In the trite parlance of this Sopranos/Godfather-obsessed stinker, he was forced out of the race by the Republican Family: like Paulie in The Pope of Greenwich Village, his superiors knocked him around, then cut a finger off as a reminder. I'm not privy to the cabal's exact roster, but they did what was necessary: stave off certain defeat in this fall's election against the insufferable Hillary Clinton.

I happened to be working last Friday morning at 3 a.m. when a friend instant e-mailed me: he'd just returned from a night on the town, and was willing to gab. At that point, Rudy was still sending signals that he'd indeed challenge the First Lady; the night before, all-knowing pundits on the plethora of cable shows that I subject myself to were full of "Don't count Rudy out!" predictions. The whole calamitous mess was weird, but the logic seemed so simple: under Giuliani's peculiar set of circumstances and his flight from reality, his was a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose proposition.

The Daily News on Thursday had reported the Mayor might undergo a radical form of cancer treatment for a man his age, one that would give him more energy in the short-term, but could possibly shave years off his life in the future. What consideration for his young children. Given Giuliani's giddy insistence on turning his health and marital difficulties into an embarrassing circus, it was clear that Clinton would best him, and probably handily, in November. That, in turn, would make him Public Enemy Number One with the Republican Family and anybody who cares about dignity in the United States government. Helping elect one of the later 20th century's most loathsome women to the Senate is an unspeakable legacy; providing a forum for a presidential run in 2004 is strictly Rod Serling material. Finally, with all that self-imposed baggage, the Mayor could kiss his hopes for a successful 2002 gubernatorial run goodbye.

None of it made any sense.

Later that Friday afternoon, I took a brief nap, despite my understandable pique upon reading Editor & Publisher's cover story of May 8, which honored The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger Jr. as "Publisher of the Year," complete with cover photo. Journalism awards are rigged, as any sentient person in the business understands, but it still rankled me to read Sulzberger, who's made a bad newspaper even worse during his eight-year tenure, described by his Washington Post competitor Donald Graham as "a five-star publisher."

Bottom-feeder Dean Singleton, president/CEO of MediaNews Group (I have nothing against scavengers, by the way: Singleton's JOA between his Denver Post and rival Rocky Mountain News was brilliant), was even worse: "[Sulzberger] took a great newspaper and made it even greater... His strategy to go national has proved brilliant. It's just an outstanding company, and you have to give most of the credit to Arthur because he's leading it."

I accept at face value that Sulzberger has been an effective publisher on the financial end, exploiting the boom economy for record-setting profits. That his newspaper was so outrageously hypocritical in chastising the Los Angeles Times for its flagrant sale of editorial content last year?as if The New York Times doesn't indulge in the same sleazy practices, although slightly more subtly?is beyond the pale. I have no problem with Sulzberger getting credit for an ability to crunch numbers, but the Beltway gospel that the Times, which is the Democratic Party's unofficial newsletter, has improved on his watch is a joke.

In any case, I awoke an hour later and heard the news that Giuliani would soon hold a press conference to announce his exit from the Senate campaign. Only the Times?on its webpage, with a "Late News" story?could interpret the upcoming events in the following partisan way. The article by Daniel J. Wakin and Adam Nagourney (Hillary's court jester) claimed: "Beset by cancer and marital strife, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said today he would drop out of the race for United States Senate, clearing an obstacle for Hillary Rodham Clinton and setting off a scramble by the Republican Party for a substitute."

Talk about propaganda. First, far from "clearing an obstacle" for the woman who has Alzheimer's when it's convenient, Giuliani's sayonara has presented an entirely new set of hurdles to overcome if she's to win the contest this fall. And second, there was no "scramble" by the GOP for a candidate by Friday: Rep. Rick Lazio's anointment by the Republican machine was blessed before Giuliani was forced by the bosses to withdraw.

As I've written before, Lazio's not my first choice to oppose Clinton: his boorish performance last summer in an attempt to force the Mayor's hand (and set himself up for challenging Chuck Schumer in 2004) was obnoxious at best, and, at the time, seemed almost self-destructive. What right did this snot-nosed kid from Suffolk County have to mess with Rudy in his prime? That kind of naked ambition doesn't sit well after eight years of Clinton. You could just imagine the teenaged Lazio pulling a stunt similar to the President's, when the latter jumped the line at that famous photo-op with John F. Kennedy because he saw the camera and a future campaign ad.

But no matter. Lazio's the man and he has an excellent chance at succeeding the overrated Pat Moynihan in the Senate. (Although I must point out that Moynihan is finishing his career in agreement with George W. Bush on his hardly "risky" plan to modernize, and thus save, Social Security. At least that partially exonerates Moynihan from his cowardly vote to acquit Bill Clinton on the House's impeachment articles last year.) Pundits are putting far too much stock in a Quinnipiac poll from last week?pre-Giuliani withdrawal?that showed Lazio trailing Clinton by a 50-31 margin. Guess what? Those numbers will close up almost immediately now that voters finally have a concrete choice to contemplate. Already, just a day after Lazio announced his candidacy, a John Zogby poll conducted for Post/FOX 5 News showed that the gap had narrowed to a Clinton lead of 45.7 percent-32.2 percent, with 17.4 percent of voters undecided.

It's true that Lazio isn't well-known, but he will be by November: the GOP will pour money and manpower into this campaign. Also, like Giuliani, he's a somewhat moderate Republican, pro-choice save partial-birth abortions and even favors moderate gun control, as well as (shudder) affirmative action. What should really have Democrats worried is that the city's turnout of minority voters, especially with the lackluster Al Gore at the top of the ticket, just won't be the same without that demon Rudy to vote against. And with Clinton's negative ratings so prohibitively high?vs. Lazio's blank slate?this is an election that will be too close to call. Yes, Democrats will tar Lazio as a Gingrich Republican, but that will be hard to make stick. And Hillary's already complaining: On Sunday, in Albany, the First Lady said, "I'm sorry my opponent couldn't even get through his announcement without going on the attack." But the smart money has to be on Lazio.

In fact, one ultraliberal journalist, to whom I lost $100 on a bet that Clinton wouldn't run, won't give me a chance to reclaim that C-note in the general election.

Demagogues like Al Sharpton and David Dinkins (a lot of gall he has in even commenting about New York City after his nightmare tenure as mayor) were quick to dismiss Giuliani's "humanizing" conversion. In a way, I don't blame them, since I find it hard to believe myself. Still, you know that a huckster like Sharpton soiled his ample drawers upon the Mayor's exit from the race. He's now a man with no country?all Sharpton could feebly say after Giuliani's press conference was, "As a minister, I've seen a lot of people come down the aisle and join the church, and two weeks later, they were missing in the pew."

Frankly, I don't quite know where to begin in discussing the media's nonstop coverage of the Mayor's willful soap opera that he's played at full tilt in the last three weeks. (I'm not minimizing his cancer at all, just the theatrics that followed that unfortunate diagnosis. A more circumspect person would've immediately, and more gracefully, departed the political arena and concentrated on his health, for his own sake and his family's.)

But let's start with the New York Post, a potentially important newspaper that has steadily deteriorated in the past year?the wall-to-wall McCain endorsements you can understand; they were in owner Rupert Murdoch's financial interest?mostly because the tabloid that condescending press critics like The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg like to call "feisty" hasn't had the good sense to gut most of its staff and become a respectable conservative organ. Andrea Peyser, one of the paper's weakest links, was typical in her praise of Giuliani's half-hanky press conference last Friday. She wrote on May 20: "Health. Family. Friends. City. All these things are far more important than pulverizing Hillary. And so it was that when Hillary appeared, just a few minutes later, at her own hastily called press conference, she looked pinched, uncomfortable. For perhaps the first time in her life, she couldn't wait to get off the stage.

"Class, you see, is a tough act to follow."

To paraphrase a famous quote from the original Woodstock festival, watch out for the brown acid, Andi, it's poison. "Class" is not a word that can possibly be used in conjunction with either Giuliani or Clinton. Yes, I think it was proper that Rudy expressed regret last Thursday night, on an NBC show with Andrea Mitchell, for his conduct after Patrick Dorismond's tragic death. Funny how he didn't also apologize for the lives he literally ruined back in the 80s, when as a prosecutor he was hell-bent on indicting, often without grounds, Wall Street professionals in a naked attempt to grab headlines. If Giuliani is truly a changed man, closer to God, he'd provide somehow not only for the family of Dorismond, but Timothy Tabor as well. But of course that wouldn't play with the media: Tabor, a white man, got what was coming to him for working his butt off in the financial sector and, unlike the First Lady, "playing by the rules."

A Post editorial on May 18 revealed that Giuliani's strange behavior is contagious. At least he has an excuse: all those meds have reduced the Mayor to a puddle of his former self. The hunt and peck geniuses at the Post wrote: "In the end, however, there must be a race. The GOP will field a candidate?but it is inconceivable that the party can find a more suitable standard-bearer than Rudolph W. Giuliani... Giuliani is obviously keeping his own counsel. But if his health is the paramount issue, there is no reason why he can't first announce his intention to run?and then say he's taking the next six weeks off to tend to a full recovery... Run, Rudy, run? Maybe not quite yet. Walk, Rudy, walk? You bet."

It's distressing that the editorial board of a major metropolitan newspaper actually believes a prostate cancer victim can attain a "full recovery" in six weeks. In addition, how could anyone with any sense at the Post really believe that as late as last Thursday Giuliani, a man who personifies the phrase "damaged goods," was the best GOP candidate?

Perhaps former editorial page chief John Podhoretz still sticks his nose into the paper's policy decisions. Judging by two successive columns last week, equally ignorant, Johnny Pod must exert some influence at the tabloid. On Friday, commenting on Giuliani's televised "town meeting" (when will those two words be retired from the dictionary of politics? One more Clinton legacy) at the 92nd Street Y with NBC's Mitchell, Podhoretz let his imagination?without the aid of hallucinogenics, to give him the benefit of the doubt?go where few have traveled before. He begins: "Last night...Rudy Giuliani put to rest the notion floated over the past week that somebody else might make a better Republican candidate in the race against Hillary Clinton. It's hard to recall a more dazzling performance by any candidate for any office?ever."

I watched the show. Rudy was uncharacteristically humble and cracked a few jokes. It was a game performance under difficult circumstances. But the most "dazzling" political "performance" ever? Please. Let me rattle off just five, off the top my head, that blow Giuliani's touchy-feely act away: Bobby Kennedy at the '64 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City; Ronald Reagan smashing Jimmy Carter in their one campaign debate of 1980; Jerry Brown at midtown's Sheraton, speaking at a rally during the '92 primary campaign and explaining the Banana Republic of Arkansas that Clinton came from; John F. Kennedy's inaugural address of 1961; and, for sheer chutzpah, and fraudulence, under extreme pressure, Bill Clinton's wag-the-finger denial of sexual involvement with Monica Lewinsky back in 1998.

J. Pod concluded his delusional column with this whopper: "Even if the treatment for [Giuliani's] cancer leaves him at 50 percent strength, the man who melted Andrea Mitchell last night is still 10 times stronger a candidate than anybody would be."

Apparently, not cognizant that his Friday column will rank right up there with any of the Times' Frank Rich for sheer idiocy, J.P. gave advice to substitute candidate Lazio the very next day. He cited the bogus Quinnipiac poll showing the Long Island House member 19 points behind?even a copyboy at the Post had to realize that those were fleeting numbers?and concluded that Lazio has to run a mad-dog campaign. He wrote: "So Lazio has no choice but to go on the attack. And that's where the hope comes in. If Lazio and [Mike Murphy, John McCain's media man] can figure out an effective way to discuss Hillary's checkered White House career and her central involvement in Clinton sleaze, they will succeed where conservative editorialists and columnists (like me) and the impeachers so sadly failed."

I'm on the same side as The Pod, so I don't feel any particular glee in lambasting his incredibly moronic take on politics. But the plain facts are these: Hillary Clinton is now the issue in the Senate campaign. Lazio's a bit player, an earnest, if self-aggrandizing, House member who can proudly point to his accomplishments for his Suffolk Country district, his legislative experience?where Clinton has none?and the fact that he's actually a New Yorker. Of course a part of Lazio's campaign will be to point out the key role the First Lady played in her husband's scandalous administration; of course he can point with pride that he voted for Bill Clinton's impeachment. However, when the hubbub settles down, you'll find a dead heat in the polls, since so many residents of this state just can't abide the idea of Sen. Hillary.

I'm not a fan of the Daily News' Lars-Erik Nelson, a McCain suck-up who paradoxically is tied to paleoliberal principles, but he has the Senate race in proper perspective, even though I'm sure he prefers Hillary. While acknowledging that Lazio was a "team player" for Gingrich, Nelson's one of the few pundits who admits that the Congressman?who's even worked with Andrew Cuomo on legislation?is a political moderate. On Sunday he concluded: "Lazio is a relative unknown in the state. He may not have much support yet, but he also does not suffer from that ceiling [the fact that Clinton has never risen above 50 percent in any poll]. He will benefit from the national hate-Hillary crusade that poured millions into Giuliani's campaign. Giuliani's biggest drawback?and Hillary's biggest asset?was Giuliani. Whatever other problems Lazio may have, he doesn't have that one."

Jack Newfield was the most sensible columnist at the Post. On May 16, the old dog got it right: "Rudy Giuliani, the moralist with a mistress, is in no shape to continue his campaign for Senate." Newfield, a cultural conservative (as he's wont to point out again and again), who says he voted for Giuliani twice, correctly whips the Mayor for the public humiliation of his estranged wife, Donna Hanover. That was refreshing to read after all this nonsense from the likes of imbeciles like George Stephanopoulos that New York is like France in that its citizens don't give a hoot about moral hypocrisy.

Where I depart from Newfield, who was hoping that Pete King, the GOP traitor who refused to vote for Clinton's impeachment and then this year stabbed George W. Bush in the back, is with his assessment of the Lazio-Clinton race. Newfield's all wet on this prediction: "Lazio has no experience on the brutal stage of statewide politics with its negative research experts and constant media pressure. Going from one rural Long Island congressional district to running against the first lady is like going from playing against Seton Hall to playing against the Miami Heat."

Jack, Jack, Jack, come back to planet Earth: Duke Snider would approve. Hillary Clinton has never even held elective office; at least Lazio has succumbed to the judgment of voters before, memorably knocking off Al Gore's buddy Tom Downey in 1992. And why in the world would anyone suggest that Clinton, who has yet to issue anything but mushy platitudes, and puts people to sleep once they get over her celebrity, is such a strong candidate? She shares many of her husband's characteristics?being a dreadful, narcissistic human being, convinced that she's smarter than "the people" she's trying to con?but none of his political savvy. Bill Clinton would win this race with his eyes closed?he's that successful at fleecing voters of their cash and dignity. But Hillary's a dud on the stump and also a bit deranged, as proved by her "vast right-wing conspiracy" charge two years ago while the President was making a fool of her and their daughter.

Finally?on the Post: I appeal to Murdoch once more, this time with a new idea. Buy the National Review (it matters little that NR competes with your own Weekly Standard; it's New York and DC, different as jelly and jam) and forge a semi-merger of the staffs. NR has by far the best political online operation going today, making up for its biweekly print schedule with frequent daily news and opinion dispatches.

Over at Newsday, Ellis Henican proved twice more in the past week why he's the no-hit, no-field political columnist at the tabloid. On May 16, he wrote: "God, I hope Rudy runs. Not to win, of course. Just to place or show... Rudy vs. Hillary was always going to be a riveting campaign [thanks for the heads-up, El]. Add an illness, an impending divorce and some flaunted promiscuity to the Republican side of the seesaw. All I can say is 'Let the games begin!'" I wonder if Henican would be so giddy if there were disease and marital strife in his household?

After Giuliani dropped out, Henican, in a hasty toss-off, wrote on May 21: "Rudy's bad news was my bad news too. And not because I love the guy. I too wanted something from him. For months, I had been salivating at the prospect and then the reality of Rudy vs. Hillary, the championship bout. This was going to be the most fun any of us ever had with our clothes on, even before all the craziness of the past two weeks. These two dreadful people, clawing each other's eyes out."

Granted, Henican's last sentence is entirely accurate. But how to respond to the cliche about "the most fun with our clothes on"? How about: Henican is the Mother of All Lazy, Barely Literate Columnists? Or: I'm shocked, shocked, that a journalist would take pleasure in the undeniable pain that the Giuliani children are in right now?

The New York Times' Frank Rich, on May 20, made a feeble attempt to present Giuliani's caddish behavior as comparable to Bill Clinton's. He wrote: "How many moralists can dance on the head of a pin? The more the merrier... But none topped the spirited tap-dancing of Clinton-bashers as they labored to draw fine distinctions between White House and Gracie Mansion infidelities."

Rich's defense of Bill Clinton is utterly predictable and narrow-minded. I've no interest in communicating with Arthur Sulzberger's pet columnist, but in the event such a disagreeable encounter took place, I'd recommend that Rich turn off the Broadway show tunes and read the following paragraph that Bill Bennett wrote in the May 19 Wall Street Journal.

For those of you behind the curve, this is what America's Virtues Secretary chipped in: "But it must be said that while what Mr. Giuliani did was loutish, the mayor has not been cited for contempt of court, as has Mr. Clinton. Nor has Mr. Giuliani lied under oath in a civil deposition, provided false and misleading testimony to a grand jury, obstructed justice, or sent his aides to spread lies about, and destroy, the reputations of women with whom he is alleged to have had affairs. Nor has he agreed to pay more than three-quarters of a million dollars to a woman in return for her dropping a sexual harassment lawsuit. Nor has Mr. Giuliani been credibly accused of rape. So there are crucial differences between the two. Mr. Giuliani is no gentleman?but neither is he Bill Clinton."

And lastly, this doesn't happen often but I'm in half-agreement with the Times' Bob Herbert in his assessment of the Giuliani saga. I think Rudy's been an outstanding mayor; he's just a rat's ass of a person. Herbert wrote on May 22: "But with all due respect, [Giuliani] comes a little late to the table of fair play and brotherhood. Too late. This instantaneous conversion from the man who wielded the whip to the tender and ultra-sensitive soul concerned about the blacks and the downtrodden, the people without health insurance, and those who have to face the dark night of grave illness alone?well, it's a little tough to take seriously. This sudden abstract embrace of all things humane is conveniently timed to cast a helpful glow on Mr. Giuliani's image of himself as he does battle with his own grave illness. In other words, it's all about him."

Just like Bill Clinton.

Boot Up Again, Michael I happen to think New York's Michael Wolff is a fine media critic, leagues ahead, for example, of the vastly overrated Howard Kurtz, who writes for The Washington Post often about matters so picayune you'd think he was auditioning for The New York Observer's "Off the Record" column. But Wolff was way off, as he often is when switching topics to politics, with his May 22 piece about Rudy Giuliani. I applaud the writer's attempt to bring something new to the story, and that he did by comparing Donna Hanover to Bootsie Mandel, the wife of Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel. Bootsie refused to leave the couple's executive mansion in 1973 when her husband took up with another woman. Wolff writes: "Needless to say, the standoff was a jolly media occasion, which ruined the forgotten governor's career."

Needless to say, Wolff is entirely wrong about Marvin Mandel, and I imagine that New York's research department just doesn't consider Maryland an important enough province to check out the facts. What really happened?and I was there, Michael?was that Mandel was reelected by an overwhelming margin in 1974, despite his divorce and remarriage in August of that very year. What finally kayoed Marvin was a time-honored tradition in the Land of Pleasant Living: a few years after that smashing victory, he was nailed by the feds, under the RICO statute, for accepting $350,000 in gifts in exchange for his intervention on behalf of friends in a racetrack deal. The conviction was ultimately overturned on a technicality, and Mandel is currently practicing law in Annapolis. Far from being "forgotten," the pipe-smoking icon of Maryland politics was (and is) a beloved figure in that idiosyncratic state. Hell, I'll always remember Mandel fondly for lining up his machine to orchestrate Jerry Brown's astounding defeat of Jimmy Carter in the '76 Maryland presidential primary.

Brown was incidental, of course: Marvin just had no taste for the pious Georgian, who evened the score when he became president by refusing to grant Mandel a pardon.

Sittin' on a Fence It's a pointless exercise, I fully understand, but on occasion even MUGGER must defend himself from those who slime him. For example, I present Jared Paul Stern, the not-so-young word processor who came to New York with dreams of riding high atop Vanity Fair's masthead. In his ambition, the often funny writer produced copy for countless publications (including New York Press) in a short period of time, so furiously, so indiscriminately, that he indeed could be the '98 character of Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards' classic 60s tune "Ride On Baby." Yeah, I'm thinking of the line "By the time you're 30, gonna look 65, you won't look pretty and your friends will have kissed you goodbye."

As time has progressed, not-so-young Jared, who looks just a little foolish these days with his model friends and corny clothing, where it once was a decent yearlong get-up, has settled in at the New York Post, hanging up his jockstrap in the locker room there with the paper's greats like John Podhoretz, Rod Dreher, Steve Dunleavy and Dick Morris. It's a dead-end career, but I'm sure the Post pays $3/word, so who's to judge?

In any case, Stern found the current issue of Conde Nast's House & Garden, in which my family's loft is anonymously pictured, as a sublime target for ridicule. Apparently, once Jared is finished with holding an ashtray for Richard Johnson at media parties, he's allowed a few crumbs, such as writing for "Page Six." And so his entry last Sunday: "New York Press owner Russ Smith is a man of the people in his 'Mugger' column. He regularly derides media self-love, vanity and egotism." He then describes the H&G article, claiming I "couldn't resist" having it featured. "Smith's name isn't in the article, probably because he didn't want his underpaid minions at the low-budget freebie weekly to see him disporting in luxury..."

Jared must've flunked reading at university (I'm an Anglophile too!). I doubt many MUGGER readers, pro or con, would describe my persona as "a man of the people." Unlike Stern, I write honestly, and if my columns about high-priced hotels, Republican politics and the convenience of the Concorde (there I go again!) represent those "of the people," well, to recall the song Sam Cooke made famous before Stern was born, "What a wonderful world this would be."

In fact, having my family's apartment displayed in a glossy magazine wasn't my idea, isn't my style, but I gladly relented to H&G's request so that the work of Michael Formica, one of the city's most talented designers, could be featured. And, as Stern writes, our walls are filled with the fine paintings of Michael Gentile, who until recently worked as New York Press' art director. Another fact that Stern manages to get right (so he bats .175) is that Gentile was let go from the paper after many, many years of excellent work.

That's the real world, Jared. Which perhaps you'll find out when you grow up. After all, your 40s are just 100 velvet ropes away.

It's All Too Much On the subject of populists, I found a letter to the editor in New York's May 8 issue particularly obnoxious. Paige West, in reacting to Alex Williams' April 17 article "Washed Up at 35," a piece about jaded young New Yorkers who are loaded with cash, sits up from her armchair in horror. Actually, Williams' piece was a throwaway, New York at its standard smarmy and dated norm, and most readers I would imagine passed it by. But not West.

She concludes a smug letter by saying: "The new New York, the one in which anything under $150,000 cannot buy you a decent place to live, is all about scary, self-constructed notions of entitlement. I am 30 years old, make under $20,000 a year, am happily married, have good friends, know the last few good bars in this city, laugh a lot, and don't take life too seriously, and I feel young when I read articles like this one. But reading it reminded me that we live in a world where notions of entitlement, engendered by race and class privilege, go unquestioned."

Fine. West is today's Norman Cousins, it seems, and when she's hit with cancer in 25 or 30 years from now, she'll wish it away by watching Scooby Doo cartoons and old Brady Bunch reruns. However, lest New York readers believe that West is a mere wage slave, she's obliged to sign the letter: Dr. Paige West, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University. Ah, an academic populist who knows the last "good bars in the city." Do tell, Dr. West, and say amen!

College campuses aren't too different from Disneyland: everybody, including the teachers, gets to play the part of Peter Pan; in this case, I guess West could be cast as Goofy. There's just nothing more pathetic than a pretentious academic getting down with the people, and actually believing he/she has anything in common with other workers who earn less than $20,000 a year. If West has progressed to a position where she can ostentatiously add "Dr." to her name, I imagine she's had other options in life, unlike most of those whom she pretends to identify with?people who probably don't "laugh a lot" and perhaps do take life seriously.

May 22

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