CLOSE CHAVEZ

Bum rap on Chavez, methinks. What did her in was eliding the truth to the Bushies. They hate finding stuff out in the paper. And then her bizarre press conference, which looked like an attack and became a surrender, left everyone confused. The AFL-CIO seems pleased but they won’t do much better next time. Whoever is Bush’s Labor Secretary is going to gut unions’ abuse of member fees for political activities. And I can’t see another Bush appointee backing affirmative action either – or a big jump in the minimum wage for that matter. So it’s a meaningless victory, and yet another depressing payback in the tit-for-tat wars of this small and vicious town. I was particularly struck by the virulence of liberal pundits. They hated Chavez with a passion. Liberal hatchet-man, Tim Noah, was particularly nasty, accusing Chavez of lying and hypocrisy and you name it. Even the usually judicious Hanna Rosin in Slate voiced the following: ‘Finally, the obvious. The ‘politics of personal destruction’? ‘Search and destroy’? Those clichés didn’t exist before [Chavez’s] crowd came along.’ Hanna is too young to remember the Bork wars, which started the recent wave of personal vilification, so maybe she should be forgiven. But after what was done to Clarence Thomas? And after eight years of the war-room, of the character assassinations of every woman Clinton ever abused? Puh-lease. Both sides have become more vicious than ever – and that goes for the Clinton-haters as well. The short-term result is occasional schadenfreude when a rival goes under. The long-term effect is that no-one with any foibles or faults or sex life or back taxes is crazy enough to seek public office any more. I have no water to carry for Chavez. I never warmed to her personally or politically. But the grounds for her demise do not bode well for the future of our politics.