Slate Strikes Out

Like most ordinary people, one guesses, I have difficulty breaking out of routines. Superstitions haunt my workaday life, whether it's dodging black cats, picking up pennies on the sidewalk for good luck or not shaving when the Red Sox are on a losing streak. (Right now, given Boston's total collapse, the gray stubble on my face is the subject of jokes at the house.) There have been strides toward a more liberating lifestyle: I've eliminated Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Eleanor Clift and Paul Begala from my reading, listening and viewing habits. I skim the first paragraph of Paul Krugman's DNC-sponsored Times columns and make a snap decision as to whether a complete read is advisable.

I did greatly enjoy Rick Lyman's July 4 story in the Times about the upcoming Democratic convention. It was mostly about the screeching Al Gore, who endorsed Howard Dean just before the doctor's campaign imploded, and what role, if any, he'll be given in Boston. Lyman reports, "Democratic officials, who have not finished the convention schedule, insist that Mr. Gore will be given due respect, and that if he wants to go medieval on [Bush], that is fine with them." And why not? It'll be less confusing to the delegates than John Kerry explaining his comment last weekend that "life begins at conception"—anathema to the party's base—while still in favor of keeping partial birth abortion legal.

Even Brit Hume, the nation's top news anchor, commands less attention, although when the presidential election winnows down to a few months, I'll be back in the fold. I did, however, watch Ralph Nader on Meet the Press last Sunday, and heartily endorsed his sentiment that Democrats "are afraid of democracy."

For the time being, after a long day I'd rather contemplate the peculiarities of John Thaw's superb portrayal as Inspector Morse on DVDs or, risking total embarrassment here, watching the first season of the nighttime soap Nip/Tuck.

Nevertheless, against better judgment, when the birds chirp in the early morning, or my younger son jostles me awake, I flip the switch of the computer and dutifully read the major dailies and websites, including Slate. As I've written before, there's not much to recommend the Microsoft-financed website, save Jack Shafer's press criticism (the Washington Post ought to can Howard Kurtz's sorry butt and replace him with Shafer), Mickey Kaus, Rob Walker and the occasional essay by the ubiquitous Christopher Hitchens, a writing machine who's more prolific than any journalist today, save the incomparable Mark Steyn.

David Plotz, a DC-based Slate poobah, is marginally more readable than editor Jacob Weisberg or William Saletan, but his output doesn't amount to a substantial body of work. His single best column was written on July 24, 1999, days after John F. Kennedy Jr. perished in a plane wreck. It seems like another era, and actually was, but his sledgehammer evisceration of Douglas Brinkley is still relevant today, given that the University of New Orleans professor and "historian" slavishly promotes the candidacy of John Kerry, which, in the opinion of objective observers, ought to disqualify in the future the validity of any of his books.

Plotz wrote: "Douglas Brinkley is the William Ginsburg [now a candidate for a People "Where Are They Now?" blurb] of the Kennedy death circus. Before the crash, the boyish, gap-toothed Brinkley was known primarily as a Michael Bechloss-in-waiting, a telegenic historian fielding calls from the cable news networks. Now the... professor has parlayed a contributing editorship at George and a friendship with Kennedy into a job as a necropublicist. Between Saturday and Tuesday, Brinkley appeared on MSNBC, Late Edition, Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Dateline, Today (twice) and NPR (twice). He also penned columns about his relationship with Kennedy for Newsweek and the New York Times, and was quoted everywhere else ink touches papers."

It was a splendid moment of truth-telling. What jogged my memory of Plotz's article was a June 16 Brinkley Times book review of Sally Bedell Smith's recent Grace and Power, the gossipy and entertaining portrayal of Jackie Kennedy's brief stint as First Lady. Brinkley begins: "It was a horrific moment now seared into our collective memory. At 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963, three shots rang out from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Two of the bullets pierced President John F. Kennedy, causing a piece of his skull to fly into the air."

Never mind that Kerry's pawn takes the gross liberty of claiming all of the United States was equally distraught at the shocking assassination. I doubt a lot of Southern Democrats, let alone Republican presidential aspirants and Lyndon Johnson, were privately thrown into a coma. What's most offensive is that Brinkley, who may next claim that Pearl Harbor shattered his unborn self, was three years old when the murder took place. How the event was "seared" into his memory is a question that won't make it onto Jeopardy perhaps, but nevertheless is one more example that the pundit/historian is slipping comfortably into a career as a fifth-rate Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

On the other hand, Plotz, who's compiling a series of articles about swing states for Slate, can be inexcusably sloppy in his writing. On July 2, Tennessee was the topic (arguably a swing state, for if Kerry wins its electoral votes, he's the next president), and the headline was "Kerry Can't Win Tennessee. But can Bush lose it?" Plotz uncovers scant anecdotal evidence that the president is in political trouble in Al Gore's semi-home state; the best he can do is find a few voters who opted for Bush in 2000 but are troubled by Iraq, yet still can't stand Kerry.

Seems to me this road trip was a waste of Plotz's time and Slate's largesse. Especially when you consider the author's tenuous grasp at hope for Kerry: "A poll from four months ago—the most recent statewide poll I've seen—found Kerry only four points behind Bush."

You'd think someone at Slate, perhaps the accountant, might've suggested that Plotz spare 30 seconds of his time and log on to the excellent RealClear Politics website, which runs a fairly comprehensive list of the latest polls. He'd have found that in addition to the MTSU survey he referred to from February, that a June 19-21 SUSA poll showed Bush leading Kerry by 10 points; three Zogby polls—conducted in May and June—had Bush up by margins of, progressively, 2.5 percent, 11.7 percent, and 18.8 percent. Scott Rasmussen's May 1-31 poll was right in line, favoring Bush by eight points.

I won't deny Plotz his boondoggle on Slate's dime—Tennessee is a fascinating state—but maybe in the future he'll do his homework first and concentrate on states, like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which, barring a blowout by either candidate, look like legitimate white-knucklers for each campaign.