Mugger: The Berlin-Paris Times

Collecting evidence that the Washington Post is now the United States’ "paper of record" is no more difficult than building a case that Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi dictatorship must be dismantled immediately. The contrast between the Post’s and New York Times’ lead editorials on Jan. 26 couldn’t have been more striking. The Post, disgusted by Hans Blix’s see-no-evil band of inspectors, has concluded that the United Nations’ Security Council has but a few weeks to prove its relevance. This question of the UN’s legitimacy is actually meaningless–any organization that chooses Libya as chairman of its Commission on Human Rights has ceded all credibility–but it’s no small feat for an ocean liner like the Post to alter its traditional course of overt acquiescence to this country’s "allies" like the back-stabbing France and Germany.

The Post wrote: "[I]f inspections are to be continued despite Iraqi noncompliance, the council ought to clearly define what their purpose is. In the end only a unified and determined stand by the council, backed by a readiness for war, has a chance of bringing about necessary change in Iraq by peaceful means. If that fails, council members will have to decide whether to preserve the credibility of the United Nations–or hand over the enforcement of global order to the United States."

The Times, on the other hand, agrees with the politically motivated appeasement of France’s Jacques Chirac and Germany’s Gerhard Schroder (who’ll probably be toppled himself within a year by radical nationalists) that "broad international support" is necessary to justify an invasion of Baghdad. Swell. Let’s wait for Cuba’s blessing before liberating Iraq.

The paper’s editorial is, in the most generous description, disingenuous. "To go it alone, or nearly alone, is to court disaster both domestically and internationally... Mr. Bush has enough support among American voters to undertake the kind of clean, quickly successful military action his father directed in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But every poll, every anecdotal reading of the American mood makes it clear that he has not sold the public on anything difficult or drawn out."

What a bunch of double talk. The Times, of all American newspapers, would like nothing more than if Bush "court[ed] disaster" domestically. All the better for its anointed Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, whether it’s Sen. John Kerry (most likely) or even the oddball Howard Dean. And since when did Howell Raines, or his predecessors, cite "polls" to determine its editorial policy? Bill Clinton’s had more influence on the paper than I’d previously thought. Anyone up for a focus group?

The Times adds that "a desperate Iraq might try to attack Israel..." No kidding. Why do the paper’s editors think that Ariel Sharon is preparing his country for war? Could it be explained by the fact that Saddam a) did attack Israel in ’91 and b) pays up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers?

The timing is perfect for the Post to roll out a national edition, like the Times’, which would be available in all major U.S. cities. Raines and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., seeing their domestic readership shrink, could then concentrate on the "old Europe." Given my druthers, I’d prefer to see the Wall Street Journal transcend its perception as a business newspaper (which could be accomplished by adding a daily sports section), but the relatively balanced Post would be a fine substitute as "the paper of record."

More Codger Mush

You’d think that Anthony Lewis, an effete former New York Times op-ed columnist, would make the most of his waning years and spend his days on the golf course, fishing or perfecting his bridge game. But it isn’t to be. Lewis, who in retrospect appears almost rational in comparison to the Times’ resident Michael Moore-impersonator Paul Krugman, can’t resist the urge to march in lockstep with his former colleagues in the jihad against the current president. As a result, the Bostonian looks as silly as contemporaries like Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

Just read the opening paragraph of Lewis’ review of Bob Woodward’s Bush at War in the Feb. 13 New York Review of Books to get an idea of how the Adlai Stevenson-liberal is desperately trying to keep up with his successors, much as an ancient rock critic attempts to evaluate music made by 20-year-olds.

Lewis writes: "To an extent that we could not at first imagine [speak for yourself, Tony], the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have transformed the politics and policy of the United States. A president of dubious legitimacy, put in office by ballot confusion in Florida and a lawless majority of the Supreme Court, has become a charismatic leader admired by a large majority of Americans. He has used his wartime aura to silence critics, greatly enlarge presidential power, and suppress civil liberties. His administration, once cautious about foreign entanglements, now promises to use its military power aggressively in the world. Without a clear casus belli, the President is using the support he has for a war on terrorism to prepare for war on a different enemy, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq."

Gee, I hadn’t heard that argument before, at least not in the past 24 hours.

Lewis, while confessing admiration for Woodward’s reporting skills, preaches to the well-heeled NYRB audience that the veteran Washington Post icon is not much of an historian. He complains that while Woodward had extraordinary access to some administration officials, including George W. Bush, he squandered it by not providing any opinions of the administration’s first 100 days after 9/11.

I have no idea if the doddering Timesman is trying to settle a score with Woodward, but the latter’s intent in Bush at War was not to provide a definitive history of that tumultuous period. Woodward’s a prolific writer, but he’s emphatically not an historian: rather, his books are a bridge between daily journalism and the analytical books that will be written at least several years from now.

Woodward’s hardly a toady for Bush and his cabinet. But anything short of a complete hit-job just isn’t sufficient for this pathetic pundit who’s apparently still trying to curry favor, and party invites, from his former employers.

Sloppy Obits

The year was 1969 and I was in Chicago visiting an older brother who was climbing the ladder in the advertising business, gaining experience in the Midwest before landing on Madison Ave. It was my first airplane flight and first trip west of Philadelphia: Mom bought me a tie at Marshall Field’s, we ate real steak and just missed baseball’s opening day by a couple of weeks.

The highlight, though, was a venture to Chicago’s Old Town, that city’s equivalent of the East Village, filled with bookstores, newsstands, head shops, boutiques with the ridiculous fashions of the era and a slew of independent record stores. It was in a tiny place that I first saw the newly released Odessa, the Bee Gees’ fourth album, a double album that was distinguished by its ersatz-velvet red cover. Although the Bee Gees weren’t in my first tier of rock heroes–Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, the Byrds, the Kinks and Buffalo Springfield owned that territory–they were just a rung below, an inventive band that produced maybe 20 near-classic songs before they faded in the early 70s, only to reach instant fame several years later with the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.

In the scads of obituaries for Maurice Gibb, who died a few weeks ago at 53–another boomer pop star biting the dust prematurely–the Bee Gees’ disco days dominated the articles, with scant attention given to Odessa, which was the band’s finest achievement. Disco was fun for about three weeks: I liked "Night Fever," "Stayin’ Alive" and "If I Can’t Have You," but never bought the record. Subsequently, the Bee Gees became sort of a joke, trapped in a time capsule when punk exploded at the same time. The group would never restore any kind of credibility. And, as far as I know, they didn’t deserve it.

In the late 60s, the group really made a splash, beginning with the single "New York Mining Disaster 1941," which was leaked early to WNEW-FM DJs, who teased listeners with the explanation that the song was a "mystery" tape, and quite possibly the latest single from the Beatles, who were about to release Sgt. Pepper’s. They sure sounded like the pre-Rubber Soul Beatles, but soon enough Bee Gees 1st was in record bins and featured a number of gems, songs like "Holiday," "I Can’t See Nobody," "To Love Somebody" and "Cucumber Castle." Their next two albums, Horizontal and Idea, were less impressive but included "World," "The Change Is Made," "Daytime Girl," "Lemons Never Forget," "I Started a Joke" and "Idea." Not too bad for radio fare, which was increasingly dominated by the likes of the Lemon Pipers, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap and 1910 Fruitgum Co.

But it was the now-forgotten Odessa that represented the Bee Gees’ creative peak. From the seven-minute title track, a song about the missing ship Veronica in 1899, to "Black Diamond," "Whisper Whisper," "Lamplight," "Sound of Love" and the minor hit "First of May" this was a theme album that lacked the commercial appeal, maybe because it was Australian/British-related, to keep the band atop the charts. It would be several years before "Jive Talkin’, a sub-par effort compared to any of Odessa’s tracks, that revived the Bee Gees’ career, mostly for the worse.

I lost interest in the band after their string of Saturday Night Fever blockbusters–with the lone exception of the Barry Gibb-Barbra Streisand single "Guilty"–but still play, on occasion, those first four Bee Gees albums with much pleasure. Does "I Started a Joke" rank up there with, say, "Monkey Man," "Fixin’ a Hole" or "Dear Landlord," the contemporary songs by the Stones, Beatles and Dylan? No. But the late-60s Bee Gees were a solid band that, with the death of Maurice Gibb, deserved far better critical appreciation than they received.

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