MAGAZINE REVIEW
Bill Clinton's Teddy Bear
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 5, 1997) -- Conventional wisdom says that President Clinton won re-election last November by hewing to a right- wing strategy that emphasized such traditional Republican concerns as lowering taxes, fighting crime, cutting welfare and balancing the budget.
The New Yorker
In the March 31 issue of the New Yorker, Elsa Walsh makes the surprising claim that, in fact, Clinton won not by disguising himself as a Republican but by championing a traditional liberal agenda "defined and driven by" none other than the senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.The behind-the-scenes relationship between Clinton and Senator Edward M. Kennedy goes back to the 1994 race between Kennedy and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. You might recall that Romney dug himself out from a 20-point deficit in the polls in the summer to a slight lead by the fall. Kennedy called on Clinton -- whose own experience with bouncing back from defeat has been well-chronicled -- for advice, and he credits Clinton with helping him achieve victory.
As it turned out, however, Kennedy's was a Pyrrhic victory, as the 1994 election turned out to be a stunning blow to Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party. With the tables turned, Kennedy became Clinton's adviser as early as December 1994. The rest, as they say, is history.
More than just a piece of political analysis, Walsh's article is a profile of the new Kennedy -- the trimmer, fitter, happily married, '90s version, balanced in his private life and at the peak of his professional powers, a master of the rules of the game on Capitol Hill.
Perhaps the most touching part of the profile is a section about the relationship between Kennedy and his conservative friend Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch relates the story of confronting Kennedy about his problem with alcohol, even though he knew that such a gesture could spell the end of their friendship, as it had for others who tried intervening in such matters. In their case, rather than ending the Hatch-Kennedy friendship, the comment seems to have put into motion the series of changes which have resulted in the new, improved version of Ted Kennedy we see today.
Village Voice
Anyone intending to follow closely the trial of Timothy McVeigh will want to begin by tracking down the March 25 issue of the Village Voice to read James Ridgeway's "Armies of the Right: Timothy McVeigh's Revolutionary Footsteps," a behind the scenes look at the militia movement that spawned the act of terrorism in Oklahoma City with which McVeigh is charged.Ridgeway's article makes clear that the militias are an organized movement responsible for concerted acts of terrorism, and not the "collection of disparate violent acts" that pollyanna types would have us believe. Militia and right-wing groups are behind literally dozens of murders, bombings, bank robberies and acts of malicious terrorism around the country, yet "the feds still see these violent acts as individual crimes," writes Ridgeway. "The Oklahoma City bombing, however, was clearly not a random act of terror. It was, quite simply, a major operation in a growing revolution...."
Ridgeway cites evidence tying McVeigh to militia strongholds and to others accused of militia-style bank robberies. McVeigh, however, is on trial for his individual role in the Oklahoma City bombing. What cannot be allowed to be lost in the process, especially if McVeigh is found guilty, is that McVeigh is just the tip of the iceberg. In any case, the far right will not let us forget it. "With the feds refusing to recognize their existence," writes Ridgeway of the militias, "the attacks by these pockets will only increase in size and strength."
The Christian Century
The March 19-26 issue of the Christian Century leads off with "The view from Bethelehem," [ sic ] an essay by editor James M. Wall, about the proposed Israeli housing project on Har Homa. Wall's piece is riddled with specious arguments and outright distortions of fact. Wall is not the first to get the geography of the situation wrong when he refers to Har Homa as being in East Jerusalem -- a simple look at a map shows that the mountain lies directly south of the city. To acknowledge that, however, would be politically inconvenient for those who hold a brief for Arab sovereignty over all of "East" Jerusalem.Wall visits a Dr. Anati in his home in a refugee camp, noting that Anati's children are inside watching TV -- such squalor, indeed -- because "it was too cold to play outside," as if the weather were some sort of anti-Arab, Zionist plot. Regarding Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's promise to build 3,000 new homes for Arabs, Wall quotes Dr. Anati's mother as saying that "Israel would do nothing for the Palestinians." Anati's mother is identified as an "expert" baker, an odd qualification for political analysis, but presumably good enough for Wall so long as the word "expert" appeared close to her name.
But the real ringer of the piece is the revelation that Dr. Anati's parents "were evicted from Jerusalem's Old City in 1964." Wall never elaborates, letting stand the implication that the Israelis were responsible for the Anati's displacement, even though Israel did not liberate Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation until 1967. Perhaps Wall would like to take up the Anati's longstanding grievance directly with King Hussein next time he visits Amman.
Commentary
In "Marketing the `New Middle East'^" in the April issue of Commentary, Eliyahu Kanovsky paints a bleak picture of the chances that peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors will soon bring about an economic revolution that will benefit the region as a whole. Kanovsky's main argument is that most of the Arab countries in the Middle East are bogged down by autocratic, state-run systems that do not allow for the sort of market-driven forces that peace might unleash, thereby bringing about positive economic change in the Arab world.The Weekly Standard
One of the pleasures of reading the right-wing press is watching conservatives bash each other. This is especially the case in the iconoclastic Weekly Standard edited by William Kristol. Bob Dole took his lickings during the presidential campaign, but Newt Gingrich gets veritably skewered in the March 31 issue. In "Newt Melts," in which various schemes to oust him from his post as Speaker of the House are floated, Gingrich is described variously as "the most powerful liberal in American politics," "a confidant of Jesse Jackson's" and a cheerleader for government funding of the arts.Men's Journal
Those wanting to get psyched early on for Lyle Lovett's appearance at Tanglewood on July 4th will want to check out the March issue of {Men's Journal} with Lovett on the cover, straddled across his motorcycle decked out in full racing regalia. "Lyle Lovett's Lonesome Ride" by Laurence Gonzales offsets talk of Lovett's music career and gossip about his rocky relationship with Julia Roberts with plenty of dish about his hogs. [This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 5, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
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