The Dish

In ominous news for George W. Bush, Newsday’s associate editor, James Toedtman confessed to students in a recent talk the following staggering insight: “My personal opinion is that [President Bush] is smarter than he is letting on. I don’t know about his curiosity, but he’s a smart guy. Smart enough to develop a very, very slick strategy … smart enough to know when and how and with whom to pick a fight.” According to the St Augustine Times, the question is one of tone, Toedtman said. “The Democrats are really at sea. They’ve lost the President. They’ve lost the presidency. They don’t seem to have the strength, the power or the force of the veto. They don’t even know what to do in response to the Bush tax cut proposal. They are all over the place.” There’s a real danger, in other words, that at least some of the leading journalists in the country may soon begin to believe that Bush is actually not a moron or a lost preppy or a cretin, robbbing Bush of one of his most potent weapons so far. This is easily the most serious threat yet to his political success. Well, I guess there’s always Frank Rich and Molly Ivins to fall back on.

My gut told me that the Clinton pardons were more than a passing scandal. They obviously have legs. Check out Rick Berke’s astonishing on-the-record piece in today’s New York Times on the extent of the continuing criticism within the party and despondency that inevitably follows. Dozens of you emailed to tell me I was wrong at the time – that the press and the Dems would never, ever turn on Clinton. Sorry, you were wrong. But the best news of the piece is that the Dems also now realize publicly that Al Gore’s campaign was truly wretched. This, in fact, is good news for the Democrats. In order to recuperate, the Dems have to purge the party of Clinton’s personal ethics and Gore’s campaign policies. The selection of Terry McAuliffe is about the worst thing they could have possibly done, but there’s still time to regroup. Joe Lieberman is surely the key player here. He needs to recover his anti-Hollywood voice; and it would be particularly gratifying to hear him condemn the Rich pardon. Coming from a prominent Jew, it would certainly carry weight. He also needs to say publicly that, in retrospect, he was wrong to junk his former positions against racial preferences and experimenting with school vouchers under pressure from Gore and the Congressional Black Caucus. Hard for him to do, I know. But a true purge requires someone deeply implicated in the Gore debacle to say what needs to be said. I say this from England, watching a Tory party that never fully examined the reasons for its collapse in 1997 in the immediate aftermath and so took longer to recover than was necessary. The Dems are in nowhere near the parlous state of the Tories four years ago – but the lesson still holds.

Hereby innovating the natural balance to the Begala award for offensive, excessive, guilt-by-association conservatism: the Derbyshire Award for truly ugly right-wing hyperbole. The run-away favorite so far is John Derbyshire’s breath-taking attack on Chelsea Clinton in the current National Review Online. The sentence, “I hate Chelsea Clinton” appears in it, a statement supported by the fact that she supported her parents during the horrors of the Lewinsky scandal, that she was a few minutes late for a religious service at the National Cathedral, that she offended some Israeli diplomats by talking too much at a social gathering, and that she is studying economics at Oxford, an apparently overly-pecuniary interest for a self-professed liberal. You want to know why President Clinton managed to evade his authentic critics for so long? Because some of his inauthentic critics were as ugly and vile as this. I thought for a while that the piece was a spoof of Clinton-hating, and then, I realized it wasn’t. Here’s a typical passage: “Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past – I’m not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble -recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin’s penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an “enemy of the people”;. The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, “clan liability”. In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished “to the ninth degree”: that is, everyone in the offender’s own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed.” He doesn’t actually call for killing Chelsea, but the sentiment is one of the most truly sickening things I have read in a very long time. Attacking nepotism is one thing – although there is no evidence that Chelsea has benefited from it in any inappropriate way. This kind of material is simply beneath contempt. National Review owes its readers and Chelsea some sort of apology. It makes Mary Eberstadt’s neo-McCarthyism look positively enlightened.

Inside magazine reports that Vanity Fair’s editor, Graydon Carter, was part of a gaggle of glamour-pusses cozying up to Fidel Castro last week. Conversation at a lengthy lunch apparently revolved around Castro’s cigar habit, and the hair-style of one Hollywood producer, Brian Grazer. Along for the ride: CBS television president, Leslie Moonves, and two MTV honchos. Maybe the MTV heads could offer Eminem videos as propaganda for Castro’s continuing persecution of gays. The only comment from these toadies to a dictator was, “It was just a lark.” Tell that to the countless political prisoners, torture victims, and exiles from Castro’s thuggery. Memo to Carter: any chance you’ll be taking Saddam to lunch any time soon? Or isn’t he “hip” enough for you?

POLITICS AS THEATER: Spent yesterday afternoon at the House of Commons. I’d forgotten what a great Victorian pile of drama it is. Everything is made to look ancient, although the building is considerably newer than the Congress: pre-Raphaelite murals of St George and St Andrew, huge Arts-And-Crafts lamps hanging pendulously from the ceilings, stain-glassed windows, and on and on. The Victorians understood that politics is partly theater and the building echoes with that knowledge. The Commons Chamber itself is relatively tiny – far smaller than it appears on C-Span – about the size of fifty ADA-approved restrooms. I’ve been there several times before, but this time I was able to get in on the ground floor of the bear-pit. Dress codes are tight. “Where’s your jacket?” yelled an officious officer in white tie and tails. Good question. My chaperone was Lord Coe, better known as Sebastian Coe, the Olympic gold medallist runner who is one of William Hague’s closest confidants, and he helped smooth the way. The chamber itself is only forty years old or so. Hitler bombed the last one. Churchill designed the new building so that it would deliberately be unable to fit all the members of parliament. This supremely irrational idea was actually inspired. It meant that on big occasions – major debates, Prime Minister’s Question Time – the place would be crammed, standing room only. The only reason is drama. In comparison, my visits to the Senate and House resembled touring a morgue. As Blair and Hague sparred, the yelling is even more deafening than on television. And the design – also Churchillian – means that one side is literally facing right at the other, pointing fingers, laughing, braying, and uttering that weird, deep “here, here, here,” that signifies approval. Huge fun. The Greeks understood that politics is part-drama. And the English do too. Bored and amused hacks and hackettes peer ironically down at the scene from the press gallery, scribbling their daily “sketches” of parliamentary debate that are as much a staple of British newspapers as the obits. Good-government types lament the ‘trivialization’ of politics into this sort of sitcom. But it’s deeply revealing of character and, in the hands of a master-debater like Hague, can elicit more revealing answers than a Presidential press conference. Blair, although he’s perfectly adequate at his task, clearly hates it all. Before him, Prime Ministers went to the Commons twice a week for a grilling. He cut that to once a week (an unwritten Constitution lets him get away with it) and would much rather be listening to a focus group than facing a bear-pit of rabble-rousers. But Hague equally clearly loves it. Not that the public seems to notice. These are quiet times here, and drama seems somewhat out of place. But I had a blast nonetheless.

I should have added to my “Butter and Butter” item below a word about spending. My support for a plan to keep tax cuts conditional on continuing surpluses after two years obviously includes spending restraints. Well, not ‘obviously,’ or else I wouldn’t be writing this item. Any proposal lacking such restraints would simply encourage politicians to spend the surpluses away before tax-payers got a look in. Something along the lines of the spending caps initiated in the mid-1990s would work. Or at least a commitment to keep government spending increases no greater than the rate of consumer price inflation. Put all that together and you have a centrist program that cuts taxes immediately, restrains spending, and reassures voters that further tax cuts won’t be damaging to national solvency. A political winner, I think. Thanks to all of you who had a cow about this omission. You’re right, of course.

SCOOP REVISITED: My first ever editor in journalism was a wonderful man, William Deedes, then editor of the Daily Telegraph, where I was recruited the day I left college as a summer intern. Deedes – then in his 70s, and now 87 – was the model for William Boot, the hero of Evelyn Waugh’s classic spoof of journalism, “Scoop.” Deedes is a legend over here – and rightly so. Funny, decent, tireless, he still routinely refers to male colleagues as “old cock” and female acquaintances as “darling.” Amazingly, he’s still at it. His latest assignment was covering the earthquake in Gujarat, where, after a few exhausting days in the cholera-ridden horror, he came down with a mild stroke. He’s recovering now in a Kent hospital. But the funniest tidbit of his recent travel is the expense report. Some things never change, it seems. In “Scoop,” young Boot went to Abyssinia, and took with him a collapsible canoe, an astrolabe, a humidor, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, 12 cleft sticks, and a Christmas hamper with a Santa Claus outfit. All expensed, of course. In Gujarat, Deedes took a flying tour of the disaster area in a helicopter. The Times reports today that his editors had assumed that he had caught a ride from a U.N. chopper or shared a pool reporter helicopter to make his rounds. Nope. Deedes rented a helicopter himself, and just submitted an expense sheet – from his hospital bed – with a $7000 bill for a short ride. Some things simply don’t change. I hope Bill gets better soon. At 88, he has a long career still ahead of him. And his proprietor, Conrad Black, will just have to deal with it.

Good question. (See “London Calling” two items down.) I had a chat today with a London friend, Danny Finkelstein, big Tory macher, about just that, over a luke-warm steak and kidney pie. A reader directs me to a British slang directory that says that a wally is an idiot. Not bad. Not quite a gumby or a wanker; or even a tosser. Something less effectual than a berk. All clear now?

MTV recently ran a day-long program on the spiraling hate crime crisis in America. The Human Rights Campaign, aka the Democratic Party’s gay front organization, has made a hate crimes law a top priority in spending the millions it rakes in from well-meaning gay voters and philanthropists. Even the Log Cabin Republicans back this pointless and illiberal law. But the evidence for the last decade is damning: there is no hate crime epidemic, as I pointed out last year in my New York Times Magazine cover-story, “What’s So Bad about Hate?”. (The essay is included in “The Best American Essays 2000.”) Today, the FBI released the latest stats and they tell the same story. To listen to all the hoopla over Matthew Shepard’s awful murder, you’d think gay people were being killed on a daily basis for their orientation. Nuh-huh. In 1999, with over 12,000 law enforcement bodies on the look-out, a grand total of around 8,000 ‘hate crimes’ of all types were recorded in the entire country and three – yes, three – gay hate crime murders. Assume conservatively that gays represent about 3 percent of a total population 280 million. That’s 3 murders per 8.4 million a year. That’s three murders too many of course – but each is already illegal and subject in many states to the death penalty. And this is HRC’s top priority. Don’t you think more gay lives would be saved if HRC campaigned for tougher enforcement of seat-belt laws or safer airplanes or spent more money on an unbreakable condom? But then they wouldn’t be able to unleash the thought police on the country and use the tragic case of Matthew Shepard for more shameless fund-raising.

I’m amazed at Newsweek’s poll showing 67 percent favoring Bush’s tax cut. It confirms my long-held view that people rarely tell pollsters that they want tax cuts before an election, but vote for them anyway. We feel guilty because we’ve been lectured for years that spending our own money – rather than handing it over to politicians – is somehow mean-spirited or selfish. (Of course, it can be mean-spirited or selfish if all you do is buy yourself a new Blackberry.) But I also like David Broder’s idea for rolling tax cuts consonant with a gradual reduction in the national debt. I don’t think it’s in the country’s interest – or the Republicans’ interest, for that matter – to associate economic freedom with national insolvency; and if supply-siders really believe that this is a non-issue, isn’t this the best and most secure way of proving it? I think Bush should stick to his long term goal – no broken tax promises – but after two years, he should peg continued tax cuts to continued debt reduction. I can’t think of a better way to prove he’s a new kind of conservative. Or a better way to get a true bipartisan tax plan out of Washington.

I’m always relieved when reality lives up to stereotype. Since I’ve gotten to London, it’s done nothing but rain. Sideways, downwards, upwards, everywhere. I’m impressed by how many Londoners walk around in what feels like a freezing, torrential downpour with nothing on their heads. I’ve had a classic few cabbies as well. Most of them assume I’m American and it always amuses me to ask them about the city as we drive around. Last time I was here, I was being driven through the West End and inquired about some of the buildings. “Oh, yeah, mate,” one said. “Some of these buildings ‘ave bin ‘ere fah faaazands of years.” Today, I gently inquired of a cabbie what he thought of William Hague, the Tory leader and subject of my assignment. “‘E’s a prick, innee?” he said. “‘Course they all are, innit? I don’t really care much for politics meself, guv. Booze, football and birds. That’s all I give a tosser about.” I’m not making this up. A recent poll in the Daily Telegraph had as one question, “Do you think that William Hague is a bit of a wally?” A hefty plurality agreed. They don’t call it Cruel Britannia for nothing.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “If there had been no so-called scandals, does anyone doubt who would be sitting in the Oval Office today?” This piece of wisdom comes from Bob Shrum, a lovely man whose politics seem stuck somewhere around 1976. Read the quote again. What on earth can it mean? Is he saying there were no real scandals under Bill Clinton? And if there weren’t, why did they cost Gore the election? Does Shrum think the voters are idiots? Or were there actual scandals worthy of the name? (And if lying under oath – which even Bill Clinton now almost concedes he did – isn’t a scandal, then what is? Spilling your DNA on an intern’s dress in the Oval Office? Or was that “so-called” DNA as well?) Well, at least Shrum isn’t pretending, like some others, that Gore actually did win the election. All this to divert attention from the fact that Shrummy helped Gore run possibly one of the worst campaigns in living memory. Actually, make that a “so-called” campaign.

THE THAW: I’ve always had a soft spot for David Horowitz. He has guts. He was also one of the very first converts from the Left to the Right to see that the gay world was not monolithically left-wing or bitter or angry or opposed to family values or economic freedom. I will always remember that. While he’s right to attack some of the extremism of the gay left, he has never tarred all of us with the same brush, as so many conservatives sadly have done. So it’s a real delight to see his magazine, Front Page, feature a truly smart article by a lesbian writer I’m ashamed to say I’ve never heard of: Beth Elliott. It’s called “How Gays And Conservatives Can Work Together.” You’ll recognize some of the themes if you’re a regular here, but they are written with passion and intelligence. It’s also such a relief to find a lesbian saying these things. For some reason, groupthink seems even more entrenched among lesbians than gay men. The exceptions are, of course, glittering: Camille Paglia and Fran Lebowitz are my faves. There’s also a terrific young lesbian writer called Norah Vincent you’ll be reading much more about in the future. Anyway, enjoy. It’s the kind of intellectually refreshing, honest, and brave piece about gay politics that you’d never find in, say, the Weekly Standard.

No, I’m not bitter. Honest. You can read the same themes in the last chapter of my book, Love Undetectable, which was not written after a break-up. Anyway, I still have my beagle (although she’s not here with me in London. Sniff.) A reader sends in the following passages from a book by Philip Slater, called The Pursuit of Loneliness. I think they’re right on the mark: “I like to think of romantic love as a rather glamorous disease like tuberculosis, that often turns ugly in its terminal stages. Its pathology is betrayed by its rigidity: a single act can be lethal to it. This is because it’s based on dreams, and dreams are fragile. With people who simply love each other as people, one event is rarely destructive or final or unforgivable. But in romantic love, one can do it, since there’s no flexibility when people are trying to force reality into a fantasy … Since romantic love thrives on absence, one is forced to conclude that it’s fundamentally unrelated to the character of the loved one, but derives its meaning from some prior relationship. ‘Love at first sight’ can only be transferred love, since there’s nothing else to base it on.” Amen, brother. Then there’s this fascinating insight: “Romantic love is rare in primitive communities simply because the bond between child and parent is more casual. The child tends to have many caretakers, and to be sensitive to the fact that there are many alternative suppliers of love. The middle-class American child, brought up in a small detached household, usually doesn’t have this sense of many options. His emotional life is heavily bound up in a single person, and spreading this involvement over other people as he grows up is more difficult. Americans must make a life task out of what happens effortlessly in many societies.” Makes complete sense to me. Happy Valentine’s Day on Wednesday.