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“I just returned from a speech given by the CEO of Frito-Lay Corporation. During the Q&A, a person rose to ask, ‘What is your company’s approach to hiring diverse people?’ The question was answered as follows: ‘We hire many diverse people. I am very proud of our record of hiring diverse people. Fifty percent of the people we hire are diverse.’ So, this word has acquired a new meaning: non-white.” Great.
For once, I’m really at a loss for words. So, see Kathleen Willey (was that her name?), Paula Jones, and about a million other people. You can also see Terry Lenzner, that other Clinton dick (meaning, private eye), with the Italian name (can’t think of it offhand), Sidney Blumenthal, and many, many more.
But Glenn said something really amusing and refreshing the other day. Pronouncing on John Kerry’s newly formed presidential exploratory committee, he said, “My personal belief is that he’s pretty well explored that. I don’t know why he needs a committee.”
So, I make it a point never to be around him: never to interview him, never to be at an event in which he participates, etc. I know of one journalist, prominent in New York, who says, “I will have no social interaction with him. I don’t want to be in a TV green room with him. Don’t want to shake his hand. Don’t want to have to pretend that he’s a normal, acceptable human being, who hasn’t done his best to make life worse for many, many people.” Problem is, the guy is amusing, which is one of the reasons he’s dangerous, seductive. Last week, he disputed the idea that Bill Clinton was the “first black president.” He was too moderate for that, implied Sharpton. “He was the first beige president. If I run, I will be the first black president.” See, there I go, quoting him — breaking my rule. Succumbing, a little bit, to that which should not be succumbed to. (For a comprehensive look at Sharpton, you may like to go here.)
Well, it’s like the government, or General Motors, or U.S. Steel (in former days), or your mother or something: They have to let you in. They have to be nice to you. They’re too big not to. The Times has a special responsibility to report very carefully, to include all views, and not to go off on nutty crusades, such as the one it’s presently embarked on (and I’m not talking about the effort to undermine Bush’s war policy). If the Times is going to be the nation’s paper, it must keep the nation in mind. It must leave — to borrow annoying Bushian language — “no child behind.” I mean, if they want to go nuts — that’s what the editorial page is for. And aren’t they embarrassed at having about the most undiverse op-ed page in world history? Geez, National Review looks like a free-for-all by comparison. Sometimes people say to me, “Oh, Jay, the New York Times is no big deal. You just harp on it because you live there and run in those circles. Here in Green Bay [or wherever], no one reads the New York Times. Will you get off it?” But such thinking is completely wrong. It is ill informed. Even if no one in Green Bay reads the New York Times . . . it influences terrifically what everyone in Green Bay does read, or watches on television. If you want to take it a step further, the Times even gets into the movies, into popular music, into the schools — everywhere. Because all the media take their cues from the Times. Every journalist borrows from it, relies on it, holds it up as a standard. Every editor keeps an eye on it, adhering to it, more or less: He doesn’t want to get too far ahead of it, and he doesn’t want to lag too far behind it. The television people often set their agendas to it. Etc. You may think you’re New York Times-free: but don’t kid yourself. If you are not directly influenced by this great and absurdly important paper, you’re influenced by people who are. Believe me. The Times must be big enough to accept, say, Andrew Sullivan’s criticisms and still let the guy in. It’s very encouraging that the Times’s leadership is losing the confidence of “the building,” which is to say, the mass of employees who work there. Brent Bozell and I can yell all we want. Doesn’t make a bit of difference. But when Timesmen and other liberals begin to be embarrassed . . . we may get somewhere.
“The media’s kind of weird these days,” says Al Gore. Nice, huh? All he meant, of course, was that there are a few more conservative voices getting through, depriving liberals of the monopoly, or near-monopoly, they’ve always enjoyed. If you’re a conservative, it’s hard to get too choked up about left-wing charges of right-wing media bias. The former vice president even called Fox News, Drudge, the Washington Times, and some others a “fifth column” — that’s extremely telling. Traitorous. Dangerous. The beast within. This is the kind of thinking — more like paranoia — that results from the loss of monopoly, or the threatened loss. Outsiders have now made a dent in the media monopoly; its longtime beneficiaries think that the order of nature has been overturned, that a cosmic injustice has been done. And I know you heard Daschle on Rush (that is, about Rush — I’m not sure the senator would have the cojones or confidence to speak with Rush, on his show). It is the tactic of Daschle and suchlike to paint Limbaugh and his fans as “extremists.” Surely everyone knows that conservatives are, to begin with, racist. And radio is the home of right-wing racism and militaristic fever. Liberals have long been frustrated at the failure of left-wing radio to catch on: Mario Cuomo flopped; Jim Hightower, the twangin’ Bolshevik from Texas, was supposed to be a superstar, but he faded fast. Perhaps conservative talk radio does well because it is alternative media, and why should liberals need Rushes of their own when, courtesy the taxpayers, they have NPR? Then there’s the huffing about Fox. This network has been a bee in the Democrats’ bonnets for years now. Fox is leading — no, crushing — all cable competitors in the ratings. And it is damned by liberals as having a heavy right-wing bias. Now, we can debate this until the cows come home. And I guess that Fox has a conservative — or, maybe more precisely, non-liberal — undertone. But the fact is that this unusual network must look positively Neanderthal to liberals, accustomed as they are to television that is dominantly liberal. When Peter Jennings and West Wing are your world, Brit Hume must seem revolutionary (or reactionary). National Review must seem like Martian talk. As we’ve discussed in this column before, there are those at the University of Chicago, Claremont-McKenna, and other allegedly conservative schools who say, “It’s not that these places are conservative: The Left is still the majority, trust us. It’s that conservatives constitute more than a token minority, making the campus look right-wing, in comparison with others.” This likely applies to the media. And remember something that applies to many departments of life: If you “own” 90 percent of something, or if you get your way on 90 percent of matters — the 10 percent looms awfully large. Simply because it is so different. Sometimes even mocking and annoying.
Bill Clinton seems to be mighty unpopular in Huey Long’s state. How do I judge this — on the fact that the Democratic candidate hasn’t asked him to come down and campaign for her? No: on the fact that, in its radio ads, the GOP is using a Clinton vocal impersonator, who is heaping praise on the Democratic nominee. Now that’s insulting — the sort of thing a Democrat could’ve done (probably did) with Nixon.
But mark my words: This statement, made repeatedly, will come back to bite Bush and the Republicans. How about when Bush shows up to campaign for some Republican in a state whose other senator is also a Republican? The Democrats will just run a tape of Bush saying, “It makes sense . . . if you want to get something done.” Or maybe it’ll go unnoticed. Who knows?
Of course.
“I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council that are the enemies of Israel. [Same goes for Mexico — says Koch.] “I will not support National Public Radio in any way. NPR’s reporters and management delight in unfairly attacking Israel. “I will not watch ABC’s World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians. Also, the BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel, and I will shun it completely. “Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works.” How you like them apples?
Well, I noted that a New York Times article (an excellent one) on the new mayor of Athens, Dora Bakoyanni, described her as “able, forceful, and photogenic.” Of course! (Photogenic/telegenic: same diff.)
Many, many people — most from Texas, or the Confederate South — wrote me to say that “y’all” is singular: If you want plural, it’s “all y’all.” And the plural possessive is, “all y’all’s,” as in, “Is that all y’all’s new truck?” Ah, English (especially American English): The greatest language ever formed, I feel.
“It’s odd. Twenty-five years ago I wouldn’t have opened up your right-wing trash magazine, except for the cultural coverage. And I certainly would have been embarrassed to have anyone know that I read it at all, or to have my name associated with it. “Now I’m thrilled that you cited my suggestion for the greatest opening line ever (the first line of the Official Rules of Baseball), and I’m just disappointed that my name wasn’t mentioned. [Oops, there I go again!] “So a quarter of a century ago your magazine was just reactionary junk and now I like a great deal of it. The conclusion is obvious: National Review has learned a lot during that time.” Indeed! |
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almost never begin with a letter, but you should get a load of this:
Yes,
he said it, he really said it: “They have a destruction machine;
we don’t.” That was Bill Clinton speaking of the Republican
party.
