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May
2, 2002 9:20 a.m. |
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orry I’ve been AWOL for the last week or so, guys: I’ve been
knee-deep in Carter. How’s that? Well, our 39th president has been
in the news lately, sounding off about the Middle East — obnoxiously,
and fallaciously — and preparing for a “historic” trip
(his word) to Castro’s Cuba. (That trip will take place from May
12 to May 17.) To say that well-wishers of democracy and human rights
are nervous is an understatement. We’re sweating bullets: Carter
tends to go all melty in the presence of dictators, despite his reputation
as a human-rights campaigner.
Anyway, I have a piece on the subject of Jimmy Carter in the forthcoming NR (“There He Goes Again”), and I believe that I’ll devote all of tomorrow’s — Friday’s — Impromptus to some Carter dribs and drabs that didn’t quite make it into that piece. It’ll be a Carterpalooza. Be there if you dare (and all of this is contingent, mind you, on whether I have the stomach and heart — and the time, of course — to write the thing).
I
have a Quote of the Month. Actually, it’s the quote of last
month, and it comes from Prof. Bernard Lewis, dean of Middle East scholars.
He said, “Asking Arafat to give up terrorism would be like asking
Tiger Woods to give up golf.”
He uttered this line to Charlie Rose on the latter’s PBS show, April 18. The entire interview is priceless, a lesson, or series of lessons, from one of our great teachers. But I about fainted at the Tiger Woods mot: Here is an octogenarian British scholar of immense distinction — a man the very thought of whom causes you to sit up straighter — and he reaches for none other than Tiger to make his point. And it is a perfect point.
You
may remember my mentioning that, on April 4, the New York Times
ran an editorial entitled “Latin America’s Muzzled Press.”
That is a very good subject. The Times discussed Venezuela, Colombia,
Peru, and even Haiti (which is not normally considered a Latin American
country). But it did not mention Cuba. This is an example of the indifference
to the plight of the Cuban people that is an ongoing wonder.
Anyway, very inconveniently for the Times, one would think, Freedom House came out with its annual report on press freedom around the world. The group rates countries as “Free,” “Partially Free,” and “Not Free.” Wouldn’t you know? The only country in the whole of Latin America that is flat “Not Free” is Cuba. Yet that Communist-ruled island didn’t make it into a New York Times editorial addressed to “Latin America’s Muzzled Press.”
One could despair on, but there’s a ray of hope: yesterday’s Washington Post editorial on Cuba and its Varela Project, which is a petition drive to force a referendum on whether the government — in power now for 43 years, without a real election — should continue. This is the means by which Chileans got rid of Pinochet in 1988 (remember how the whole civilized world was for that?). The Cubans have more than the required number of signatures, but the Castro regime, naturally, is harassing those who signed and intimidating those who might sign.
Anyway, the perception and compassion of this other Bigfoot newspaper provides some hope.
An
article on Karen Hughes and her departure from the White House mentioned
that she is known as a “control freak.” But Hughes herself replied,
“As my husband says, ‘If you’re such a control freak, why
don’t you do a better job with the golden retriever and the cat?’”
A nice line. It reminded me — and probably others — of a famous bon mot of Bess Truman. The president, of course, called her “the Boss,” which irritated her no end. She would say, “If I’m ‘the Boss,’ how come I can’t get him to stop calling me ‘the Boss’?”
With that, one cannot argue.
Care
for a personal note (like you have a choice, I realize)? Tuesday night
at Carnegie Hall, I sat behind . . . Leonard Nimoy. Now, I have a couple
things to say about this. First, the man is utterly fit, looking just
like himself. He has every follicle of hair he ever had, which
is astonishing. It is close-cropped, as usual. Also, he has . . . rather
pointy ears. I’m sorry to say so, but it’s true, and a handsome
star like that shouldn’t mind someone’s pointing it out (he
said hopefully). Nimoy had his coat rather draped over me, inadvertently,
and when I asked whether he would move it, he said, cordially — in
that famous voice — “Oh, sure.”
Letterman used to have a segment called “Brush with Greatness” — I suppose that is what I am now offering you.
A little more? Once, in a green room, I had the opportunity to talk to William Shatner (that’s “Bill” to me) at some length about something he knows well: the phenomenon of Star Trek fandom. He was, of course, very intelligent, and articulate, and even touching on the subject.
A pity, then, that someone who has never really seen Star Trek (although I did see the fascinating documentary Trekkies) should have had a chance to encounter both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy within a couple of years. And to think that I’ve never had a chance to meet Mickey Lolich! Nor did I ever see Redd Foxx!
As
I’m just slightly nostalgic, I should tell you that I was talking
to someone the other day about Reagan: and about how he irritated me deeply
when he ran for president in 1980. I was appalled by the idea that a vacuous
B-movie actor, as I was taught to regard him, would even have the
audacity to try to be president.
After the debate with Carter, as Reagan was leaving the hall, Sam Donaldson, I believe, asked the Californian, “How did it feel to be on the same stage as the president of the United States?” And Reagan answered, “Oh, for heaven’s sake: I’ve been on the same stage as John Wayne.”
I remember the outrage I felt: that this clown should equate a simple-minded, jingoistic actor in westerns with our brainy and compassionate Democratic president. No, not equate, elevate him over!
And now, of course, I think that Reagan’s comment was one of the coolest I’ve ever heard.
Know
who Mickey Hart is? I didn’t either. He was a drummer for the Grateful
Dead, and just recently he got back from Cuba. Hart was part of the Parade
of Celebrities (and semi-celebrities) down there to sup with, and extol,
the dictator.
So, how’d it feel to be with the Great Man? Unbelievably awesome, dude: “exhilarating and emotional.” Castro was “funny, serious, engaging, and charismatic.” He was, said Hart, “a great hang” (meaning someone immensely pleasurable to spend time with).
Hart said, “The arts are what’s going to break this embargo and allow people to understand each other.” This man is an artist, you see — a percussionist, after all! At a typical Castro dinner/lovefest that lasted until 4 a.m., Hart “didn’t play, but we talked music. In my presentation to him, I talked about Pythagoras and Confucius, and he stopped me on Confucius [I’m not making this up] and wanted to know more about music.”
Confucius say: People who love dictator cruel or nuts.
Hart — who had accompanied California senator Barbara Boxer to see Castro — extracted a promise from the dictator to have a set of Castro-style fatigues made for him. But Hart didn’t want the generalissimo star: “My wife might not like that.”
Laugh or cry, folks. Or — option 3 — try to find some way to make these oppression-lovin’ cretins accountable for their actions.
Did
you hear what Philadelphia mayor John Street had to say to a recent meeting
of the NAACP? Here ’tis, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer
(and as noted in the next National Review): “The brothers
and sisters are running this city. Running it! Don’t you let nobody
fool you: We are in charge of the City of Brotherly Love. We are in charge!”
I hope to live to see the day when most Americans — including black Americans — find this sickening, as I do. But I’m not holding my breath.
Lemme
back up a second. I should’ve ended my Fidel Castro/Mickey Hart item
with, “I’ll be Grateful when they’re Dead.”
Do you remember the ol’ Louis Armstrong hit, “I’ll Be Glad When You Dead, You Rascal, You”? The words so harsh, the song so jolly.
As
regular Impromptus-ites know, I love it when politicians are accidentally
blunt. Last week, outgoing Massachusetts governor Jane Swift — she
who’d been pregnant, as gov, and had to give up her position to Mitt
Romney (in unrelated events) — announced that she would campaign
for GOP candidates across the country. Why? Well, “obviously,”
she said, “my political and professional future are enhanced to the
degree that I continue to have a role in Republican politics and a voice
on issues like education. I envision contributing to the party.”
Here’s how it works: A guy in a backroom says, “You’ve got to do this, Jane, if you want to maintain any status in the party.” And you’re supposed to go out and say, “I believe in these issues, I believe in these candidates, I believe in the future of my country,” or some such BS. But you’re not supposed to say, “Obviously, my political and professional future are enhanced . . .”
We are really in “Message: I care” territory now!
You
may recall that when Robert Caro published the second volume of his LBJ
biography, Democrats and liberals were furious, because Caro portrayed
Johnson as ruthless, dishonest, unprincipled, crude, power-hungry, and
several other things that he actually was. Critics howled and howled at
this clear-eyed view of their man (or one of them). They were unnerved.
Now that Caro has published his third volume — Master of the Senate — liberals like him a little better: Caro, that is. I loved a particular passage from Jill Abramson’s review in the New York Times . Abramson is a very partisan liberal Democrat, which is, of course, why she gets to be Washington bureau chief of the New York Times. Notions such as the separation of reporting and editorializing are hopelessly square.
Anyway, Abramson wrote, “Johnson could be crass and cruel. He urinated in the Congressional parking lot. He cheated on Lady Bird. He would find someone’s weak spot like a heat-seeking missile, once snapping at a recently divorced secretary: ‘No wonder you couldn’t keep your husband. You can’t even make coffee.’ But in ‘Master of the Senate,’ Mr. Caro tempers these repulsive qualities with humorous disbelief rather than condemnation.”
Oh, lovely: humorous disbelief rather than condemnation. Would Jill Abramson be this generous with, say, Richard Nixon or some other right-winger (even Reagan)? Would she fault 18 million Nixon biographers and judges with being condemnatory rather than humorously disbelieving?
I react, of course, strictly with humorous disbelief.
(P.S. The Abramson review is beautifully written — let us not leave off points for style.)
In
the
previous Impromptus, I wrote about the charges that Arabs and Europeans
habitually fling against Israel. They say, for example, that Israel commits
“terrorism” and is even responsible for “holocaust.”
They steal other Jewish-associated terms such as “diaspora”
and “right of return.”
I asked, “What do the shrinks call this? Transference? Projection?”
Two separate readers wrote in to say, “No, silly: hijacking.”
Perfect. Too perfect.
We
have also been discussing the “lexicon of racial cruelty.” Non-radical
or integrationist blacks are called “Uncle Tom,” etc. From the
feminists, we had “Aunt Tom.” From radical Indians, we had “Uncle
Tomahawk,” or “apple” (red on the outside, white on the
inside). From La Raza-type Hispanics, we have “coconut” or “vendido”
(sell-out).
Readers have contributed yet more. Asian Americans deemed insufficiently “ethnic” are called “bananas” or “Twinkies” (yellow on the outside . . .). A white guy dating an Asian-American woman is called — by Asian Americans who disapprove of such a practice — a “rice daddy.” Blacks who are thought to be “in denial” about their “blackness” are said to be “going incognegro” (clever, I’ll grant).
Could anything be worse than America the Racial? Here we are, a country where one is supposed to drop ethnic, racial, and ancestral baggage, and simply live as a free man, a child of God, equal and honored. It seems, however, that we’re getting more biological and nasty by the day (and, please, readers, no history lessons: I have had them, amply, and could give them — and have, actually).
You
remember that the Minneapolis Star Tribune won’t call the
Cleveland Indians the Cleveland Indians — the paper, by policy, must
refer to the Indians as “the Cleveland baseball team” (or “club,”
I guess). Also — and it stands to reason — the paper won’t
call suicide bombers terrorists (even though these bombers target civilians,
almost exclusively). (At least the Star Tribune doesn’t refer
to the terrorists as martyrs, al-Jazeera-style — as far as I know.)
Well, I have a letter from a Scandinavian American objecting to the paper’s use of “Vikings” to refer to the Minnesota football team, and . . . well, ’nough said.
“As
an Ann Arbor native, you are surely familiar with the annual April ‘Hash
Bash’ that takes place on the University of Michigan diag. [This
is a marijuana-fest in that campus’s central square, sort of.] There
is another April tradition, about 15 years old: the ‘Naked Mile,’
held on the last day of classes. The city has been trying to discourage
these events in recent years by banning vendors of any kind at the Hash
Bash and arresting runners for indecent exposure at the Naked Mile. These
efforts have been successful — the turnout at this year’s Hash
Bash was insignificant and the few runners at the Naked Mile wore underwear.
“Here comes the beauty part: The Ann Arbor News, on April 18, quoted a student as saying, ‘You saw what they did to the Hash Bash. Now, they are trying to kill the Naked Mile. They are trying to take away our heritage.’”
Yes, our heritage. ’fraid so.
“This
is trivia, but I had to write and thank you for your mention of the Queen
Mother’s favorite song, ‘I’ll Be Seeing You.’ Since
it is also my favorite, I bought the CD you recommended [‘Classical
Cabaret,’ with Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano].
“In 1943, I was a young soldier, much in love and away from home. She worked in her father’s ice-cream café, across the street from the park. To us, ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ was much more than just another love song. The rendition by Jo Stafford was the most popular then.
“She died 25 years ago, after 34 years of marriage. The song still brings tears to my eyes.
“Thanks again.”
That is not trivia.