Mugger: Muddled Times

The New York Times ended an embarrassing year–one that history will record as a period when the self-described objective "paper of record" was belatedly recognized by the mainstream media as a vicious cauldron of bias–with a dilly of an editorial about Republicans and race. In an attempt to keep Trent Lott’s series of blunders alive, the Times last Sunday gave advice to

President Bush on how he can repair the incalculable damage the paper reckons the imbroglio cost his administration. Obviously, executive editor Howell Raines is horrified by the prospect of Bush’s reelection, which is his perogative, but the sheer dishonesty of the editorial is eyebrow-raising nonetheless.

Emphasizing Bush’s poor electoral performance with black voters in 2000, the Times claims party leaders realize "they [have] essentially maxed out on four decades of pandering to angry white males." Especially "disgruntled whites" in the South. Have white men really been "angry" for 40 years? Maybe that explains LBJ’s landslide victory in 1964, Jimmy Carter’s defeat of Gerald Ford in ’76 and Bill Clinton’s two successful White House campaigns. And is it any accident that practical Democrats hope to nominate a Southerner to oppose Bush less than two years from now?

Furthermore, it’s not only Southern states that’ve embraced the GOP. Maybe it’s news to Raines and his puppets, but New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire and Rhode Island all elected Republican governors on Nov. 5. New York City, which is no exemplar of racial harmony, is on its third term of a Republican mayor (although one could convincingly argue that Michael Bloomberg is in elephant drag).

In the real world, Bush is facing his "obsession with Iraq," a weak economy, an inevitable showdown with North Korea, the threat of more homeland terrorist attacks and turmoil in the Middle East–all factors, if mishandled, that could lead to his defeat in 2004. But the Times is apparently more concerned that he denounce an entire region of the country, endorse affirmative action, pass "hate" crime legislation and nominate judges that’ll pass muster with Ralph Neas, Al Sharpton, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer.

Raines’ insistence on reparations for descendants of slaves is bound to come next.

The editorial concludes: "A record of specific deeds–some GOP walk to follow all the talk–would help him direct not only his party but also the flow of American history beyond the shabby era of the Southern strategy." I think Bush has his own ideas about the "flow of American history," and they don’t include much on the Times’ and Democratic Party’s agenda.

The paper’s editorial stance, not surprisingly, spills into the news columns, where, also on Dec. 29, David Firestone wrote an article headlined "The Republicans Try to Redefine Civil Rights." He says: "As Bill Frist spoke last week of ‘healing the wounds of division’ caused by Trent Lott’s racially divisive remarks, several of his colleagues said the doctor-senator should translate the medical metaphors he loves into something more solid. Many Republicans of various stripes say Mr. Frist should unveil a significant civil rights gesture next week, after he takes over as majority leader." Firestone names exactly one of Frist’s Republican colleagues who made such a statement: Maine’s Olympia Snowe.

Meanwhile, the paper’s been silent about Democratic Sen. Patty Murray’s dimwitted statement on Dec. 18 to high school students in Washington that Osama bin Laden is "so popular around the world" because of all his alleged good deeds, such as building schools, roads and daycare facilities in impoverished nations. Ignoring the amount of foreign aid the United States has funneled overseas, and not training terrorists, Murray continued: "We haven’t done that. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them...rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan."

Suppose, for the sake of argument, a Republican senator, say Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, had made such a remark. Is there any doubt that Howell Defarge would call for his resignation?

By contrast, Britain’s Financial Times named Bush as its "man of the year." While conceding that the President is hardly a shoo-in come 2004, the paper editorialized on Dec. 27: "Mr. Bush has many critics but even they must concede that the under-estimated president has confounded the expectations of those who thought him unequal to the task of leading a nation defined by its military and economic superiority. As he looks ahead to 2003, Mr. Bush has the makings of a monumental Republican president. He will have a like-minded Congress, an international community focused on the priorities of US foreign policy, a new economic team and a Democratic opposition in sorry disarray."

Gross Negligence

Michael Gross, who writes the Sunday Daily News’ gossip column "The Word," ought to get his nose out of fashion/ celebrity/shelter magazines if he’s going to pass judgment on publications devoted to politics. On Dec. 14, he wrote: "Freedom of the press, A.J. Liebling once said, belongs to the man who owns one. [Now that’s an original lede.] Which, to stretch the point a bit, is why Taki Theodoracopulos, publisher of a new chicken hawk mag, The American Conservative, will be invited to Chuck Pfeifer’s next annual Christmas lunch and Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove will not."

A few facts are in order. Taki counts Pfeifer as one of his closest friends and has written about him for years in any number of periodicals. More significantly, The American Conservative is hardly a "chicken hawk" magazine: in fact, editor Pat Buchanan is an isolationist (and xenophobe) who is less enthusiastic about invading Iraq than is Ralph Nader or Michael Moore. Granted, it must rankle Gross, recalling his days with John McCain, Bob Kerrey and Chuck Hagel in the Vietnam War, but the failed presidential candidate has nothing in common with the dreaded "neocons" like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, who are labeled "chicken hawks" because they’ve never served in the military. Never mind that they’re correct.

But Gross needn’t take my word. Buchanan, in his syndicated column of Dec. 23, concluded: "First, we invade, overrun, occupy and disarm Iraq, then shift the carriers, bombers and ground divisions to the vicinity of North Korea, order Pyongyang to shut down its nuclear facilities and allow inspections. If North Korea refuses, we prepare a pre-emptive strike that would surely trigger a second Korean War.

"Sixty percent of the American people do not believe President Bush has yet made the case for war on Iraq. Have they any idea that the War Party, which has the president’s ear, is planning even more wars in the years ahead–in their name? Happy New Year."

Is Buchanan anti-Semitic? Yes. Homophobic? Yes. But an interventionist? No. As Max Boot writes in the Dec. 30 Wall Street Journal, Buchanan’s brand of conservatism is "nativist, protectionist, isolationist," and has more in common with Father Charles Coughlin than Rush Limbaugh.

The Constitution’s Best Buddy

On the subject of gossips, no one’s really sure who writes Liz Smith’s column. Not a month goes by when I don’t receive an anonymous e-mail or letter claiming that the aged publicist spends her time at tony restaurants uptown while letting a "friend" produce the daily chronicle of celebrities under her name.

But regardless of the author, I do get a kick when the column deviates from movie premieres, Oprah, Tina Brown, Michael Douglas and a preview of an upcoming Vanity Fair to venture onto political turf. In Smith’s Dec. 22 entry, this paragraph caught my eye, in reference to washed-up novelist Jay McInerney’s comment that Richard Johnson’s "Page Six" "leans right and Liz Smith leans left."

The response: "Hmmm–I, Liz, lean left? Just because I believe in not subverting the Constitution, in free speech, in Social Security being shored up and made impregnable, in health insurance for everyone, would like to protect the environment, fight for literacy for the nation, think a woman has the right to choose, opt for the separation of church and state, and don’t think big business deserves so many breaks over ordinary people, etc.

"Yeah–I’m practically a Trotskyite."

Almost, Liz. Not that she provides any evidence of the Constitution being "subverted," free speech being stifled, a plot to destroy Social Security or how exactly she "fight[s] for literacy for the nation." Maybe Liz and her ghostwriters could tutor a batch of kids from one of New York’s wretched public schools over lunch at Le Cirque and explain who Paul Revere and Patrick Henry were, how Joseph Kennedy was a bootlegger who believed Hitler should be appeased and why anti-Semitism is spreading at America’s most elite universities.

Now, That’s Factchecking

As a media story, the sale of New York Press on Dec. 23 wouldn’t rate much ink, even in a nonholiday week. A few articles did appear, however, and with the exception of Matthew Sweeney’s piece in The New York Sun, they were fairly perfunctory. The New York Times, in a no-byline, four-paragraph short, managed to botch the item most completely, citing a source "who had seen the sale documents" with a purchase price, which was inaccurate.

More rankling was the incomplete characterization of this column, which was described as "long on invective against figures like former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg." Had the writer, who made no attempt to contact me, been more honest, he or she would’ve recognized that "MUGGER," which began in 1988, has probably devoted more "invective" against the Times itself than even Clinton.

But what can you expect from a daily that’s caught in a time warp? For example, last Sunday Caroline F. Campion, in a piece about New Year’s Eve parties, demonstrated an enviable command of the current cultural climate in New York. She wrote: "One celebration will unfold behind the bright red door of a brick town house on Bank Street in the West Village. The other will take place in a third-floor walk-up on a shadowy stretch of Bushwick Avenue in the hipster badlands [emphasis mine] of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn."

To Tell the Truth /> Here’s a cliche: What I know about film is less than my friends Armond White and Matt Seitz have forgotten. Man, that feels good! When you follow politics closely and are subjected to the same phrases over and over–Bush’s speeches are always "bellicose," and "this is not your father’s (fill in the blank)"–why not pull a switcheroo?

Anyway, I don’t have a clue about the machinations that go into picking the Golden Globe awards, or the Oscars, but no doubt it’s not much different from the Pulitzer Prizes. Still, for my moolah, there wasn’t a better movie in 2002 than Road to Perdition, the (literally) dark gangster vehicle for Tom Hanks and, to a lesser degree, Paul Newman, that was released last summer. I saw Road with Junior and left the theater with the willies, while explaining to my son that he ought not tell his younger brother the film’s plot, that for a while at least we’d keep it our secret.

Best actor? Gene Hackman, in The Royal Tenenbaums, hands-down. (Never mind that it was released at the end of 2001.) The Wes Anderson film was flawed in plot, probably because it was too short, Gwyneth Paltrow was a bust and Ben Stiller is my least favorite actor, even more grating that Sylvester Stallone in Rocky XXV. But Anjelica Huston was spectacular once again: although her finest performance was opposite John Cusack in The Grifters more than a decade ago, she continues to get better and better as she ages. The woman will own Hollywood when she turns 150.

The Two Towers was three hours of torture. Not only was it incomprehensible to me, but the Battery Park theater we saw it in was about 40 degrees on Christmas Eve and I was forced to get up five times and wash my face and hands with hot water just to ward off frostbite.

Why critics are creaming over About Schmidt I just don’t get. Aside from the hilarious Kathy Bates, this was one more stinker for Jack Nicholson, and he’ll probably win an Oscar for his performance as a retired, dull Midwestern insurance salesman pondering, and pondering, his existence.

As for the competing Leonardo DiCaprio movies out this Christmas, I preferred Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York for its apocalyptic vision of mid-19th-century downtown and Daniel Day-Lewis chopping up pigs in his butcher’s lair. DiCaprio’s a decent actor, but he should never be in a movie where an accent is required; his Irish brogue was a travesty, a miscasting as severe as Sofia Coppola in the disappointing Godfather III.

On the other hand, Catch Me if You Can, which featured yet another fine performance from the doughy Tom Hanks, was more DiCaprio’s speed. It’s a stylish 60s setting with contrived but cool credits, a winning supporting-actor turn by Christopher Walken and yet another film that could’ve been even longer, despite the odious presence of Martin Sheen.

He Fought the ’77-’82 War /> Pop music, at least pre-’93, is more my turf and Joe Strummer’s premature death at 50 on Dec. 22 was an unwelcome jolt. During the second British invasion of the late 1970s, if the Sex Pistols were a volcanic three-song comet, then the Clash played the Stones to Elvis Costello’s Beatles. Throw in Graham Parker as the Kinks and the Jam as the Who and history was repeating itself. Costello was a brilliant and venomous songwriter, with instant classics like "No Action," "Lipstick Vogue," "Two Little Hitlers" and "Accidents Will Happen," but it was the Clash who were magnificently audacious, from the cover of London Calling to the slogan "The Only Band That Matters."

One difference between the bands was the songs they covered; while Costello fooled around, fairly convincingly, with Burt Bacharach and George Jones schmaltz, the Clash were far more eclectic, peppering releases with "Police and Thieves," "I Fought the Law," "Police on My Back," "Armagideon Time" and "Justice Tonight."

In the numerous obits that were printed last week, left-wingers claimed Strummer as their sole possession but that’s nonsense. One of the best rock critics in the punk/new-wave era was John Buckley (nephew of William F. Buckley), who wrote for the Soho News and later worked for Jack Kemp. Songs like "Something About England," "Somebody Got Murdered," "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," "I’m So Bored with the U.S.A," "Career Opportunities," "Train in Vain," "Straight to Hell," "Janie Jones," "London Calling" and "Spanish Bombs" were often political, but rock ’n’ roll usually transcends partisanship. Nation readers must’ve been shocked to learn that Strummer, at least in middle age, was a regular reader of the Tory Daily Telegraph, but the band’s frontman was never predictable.

Will Blender allow Rolling Stone to put Strummer on its next cover? Don’t count on it.

Send comments to [MUG1988@aol.com](mailto:MUG1988@aol.com)