Gore's Next Move? Arm-Wrestling with Arafat
Gore's Next Move?
It appears clear that George W. Bush, ahead in every major poll right now, is headed to a close victory over a broken-down Al Gore. If you look carefully at the demographic minutiae in the surveys, it seems a sweeping movement in white Middle America is taking place, all to the Governor's benefit. But since that snapshot could look different in a flash?the Oct. 17 debate and Mideast crisis are just two examples of volatile factors that could change things?I'll limit the political commentary in this column, and wait until Thursday, when another installment of "MUGGER" will be posted at nypress.com. So, while I seethe upon reading journalist after journalist using the phrase "big-time," thinking the allusion to Dick Cheney is original, the following is just a Paul Harvey-style grab bag of observations.
About a week ago, a well-dressed man, about 30, stopped and asked me for some spare change so that he could grab a bite to eat. As the number of bums has increased since Rudy Giuliani gave the finger to the city?saying, in effect, I'm sick of being blamed for every isolated incident when New York has never been so prosperous and safe?I told the guy to move along. He was polite, issued the standard, "God bless you," and then went across the street to the Reade Street Pub. My curiosity aroused, I waited a minute, and then peered through the window of the joint and saw Mr. "I Need a Bite to Eat" smoking a cigarette, drinking a pint of beer and having a jolly chat with the bartender.
From my station outside the deli I can see the awning of Tribeca Prime, a steakhouse that's recently opened on Reade St. in the same location that's housed about 10 restaurants since 1988. Mrs. M, Andrey Slivka and I went there the other night, not expecting much, but were delighted to find that this is a very decent eatery indeed. I was skeptical upon looking at the prices?all the steaks were about $20, a rarity in Tribeca?but the sirloins, lobster, shrimp cocktail and salads were very much up to snuff, meaning that we'll return shortly. It was a little odd that the waiter spoke with an Italian accent; I think that's because it's the same ownership as the Italian place that was there before, and they're just trying out a new menu in search of a wider audience in this restaurant-packed district. Tribeca Prime is a relative bargain, and I recommend it to my fellow downtowners.
Last Sunday morning marked a personal first for me: I plucked a newspaper section out of a garbage pail in front of Morgan's. It was a strange sensation, since I've never cottoned to the habit, peculiar to New Yorkers across demographic lines, but in this case it was too tempting to pass up. You see, I'd thrown out the arts section of the Times the night before, forgetting that the boys wanted to see an IMAX show on Sunday afternoon. I was about to buy another copy of the paper?and believe me, shelling out an additional $2.50 to the "wealthiest one percent" Times owners really sticks in my craw?but as I was drinking my coffee, a fellow came out of the deli and, like most Sunday newspaper readers, dumped all the newsprint he didn't want. So, on top of the garbage was a fresh arts section, and I scooped it up immediately.
As I said, it was a foreign feeling. I remember, years ago, when a colleague of mine at the paper, a fellow affectionately dubbed "The Janitor," came into the office with a load of wooden planks. "Where'd you find them?" I asked innocently. "In the trash, dumbo," he replied, "there's some amazingly good shit there if you look hard enough."
One more Morgan's anecdote and I'll move on. Last Thursday evening, about 6 or so, I watched as one of the store's fearless Koreans gave chase to a young black man who'd lifted a bunch of sunflowers from the outside mini-nursery. He caught up with the perp down the street by Game Park, and was cursing up a storm, both in English and Korean, and received high fives from his coworkers inside. At about the same time, I spied a quarter on the ground and picked it up, much to the disgust of four people walking by, who looked at me in amazement. "What a bottom-feeder," was the sentiment their eyes implied, which I just don't get. Updating Ben Franklin, a quarter saved is a quarter earned.
2. If you're a swing voter, vacillating between Bush and Gore, here's one compelling reason to vote for the former: tort reform. I read an astounding story (courtesy of Lucianne.com) from Knoxville's News-Sentinel, about a couple suing a McDonald's franchise. I'm not a fan of the fast-food champ?the workers at our Chambers St. branch make U.S. postal workers seem like Japanese busy bees?but this Oct. 7 dispatch was a prime example of the outrageous litigation in this country, a travesty that is encouraged by the Clinton-Gore administration. It seems Mrs. Veronica Martin bought several burgers at the Lovell Rd. McDonald's, and when she began to eat one, a pickle slid from the bun and landed on her chin. According to the lawsuit, which seeks $110,000 in damages for Veronica, and $15,000 for her husband Darrin, who's been "deprived of the services and consortium of his wife," the pickle was so hot it gave the woman a second-degree burn and left a scar on her chin.
This incident recalls the legendary judgment?which has now passed into folklore?in favor of a woman who spilled coffee, purchased from a New Mexico McDonald's, on herself, causing horrible suffering, and claimed the corporation was at fault. As if she couldn't have waited a minute or two for the beverage, properly served hot, to cool down. Same thing with the offending pickle. This kind of class-warfare litigation is abominable: greedy Americans, goaded on by ambulance-chasing lawyers, are encouraged to win a self-created lottery. Hot pickles, hot coffee, I don't get it. When I'm at a local pizza parlor, and rush to eat a slice, causing a mild burn on the roof of my mouth, whose fault is it? Mine.
There's a simple solution to this absurd rash of frivolous lawsuits. Require the plaintiff, if found by the court to be in the wrong, to pay the defendant's legal fees. I'm certainly in favor of citizens seeking justice, whether against a corporation, storefront business or police department, but if such a restriction were passed by state legislatures, you'd find the number of let's-get-rich lawsuits drop by about 99 percent.
On the same subject, a Colorado couple has sued a drugstore chain?Longs Drugs and Fujicolor Processing Inc.?for $1.5 million because they were mistakenly given the wrong batch of photos. According to the Oct. 14 Denver Post, Tim Kelley picked up three rolls of developed film from the store, and when he arrived home he opened the packages with his wife and young daughter. They discovered an unsettling mix-up. Kelley's wife Veronica said: "The first picture was a closeup of a man's penis fully erected, and that's all that was in the picture. I pulled the next one away and it was a picture of sodomy... They're filthy, they're absolutely filthy."
I'll agree that pornography, especially homemade, is not for everyone, but $1.5 million to assuage their "emotional distress," plus unlimited therapy for the Kelleys' daughter? The family has every right to be angry, and the offending party certainly owes them an apology, but more than a million bucks for seeing an erect penis? Could be the closeup of that cock wasn't to Veronica's taste, but the couple's daughter wasn't left on their doorstep by a stork. This is just another example of people with too much time on their hands, looking to screw a corporation (a la Al Gore) instead of concentrating on their own lives.
More kooky behavior is going on in this era of American prosperity. In Adrian, MO, earlier this month, according to an Oct. 11 Associated Press report, a school principal ordered a group of fourth-grade boys to strip down to their underwear "during a search for a missing war medal." The medal was later found on the classroom floor. The elementary school's principal, Wallace Henrickson, apologized to the kids and bought them soft drinks. The ACLU, not my favorite organization, was enlisted by justifiably enraged parents, and is now mulling over legal action. Here's the stunner in the AP story: "School attorney Beverly Propst said the district was investigating and would take action if it was determined that an improper search occurred."
Is such an invasion of privacy ever proper? Why this Henrickson character wasn't pink-slipped on the spot is beyond me. This is a case of admitted wrongdoing, and there's no need for the red tape of the ACLU or for any other lawyers getting involved.
Finally, also in Missouri, this UPI Oct. 13 headline, "Police seek man who sucks toes," caught my attention. Get this: "Police said the man struck up a conversation with a woman about pantyhose, saying his wife had sent him out to buy some. He asked the woman what kind she was wearing. She kicked off her shoe to show him. 'And the next thing you know, he's sucking on her toes,' Detective Joe Eagan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 'He has the pigs in his mouth.'" Sounds like a mutual pick-up situation to me, straight out of a John Waters movie, but maybe I'm spending too much time picking up stray quarters and missing the Big Picture.
3. The New York Post's Rod Dreher isn't the most astute political pundit?although he towers above his finger-in-the-wind colleague John Podhoretz?but his Oct. 15 column about the Mideast war was right on the button.
Dreher begins: "Now is the time for all medicine factory employees in the Muslim world to stay home from work. At least until after Tuesday night's final presidential debate.
"Given the Clinton administration's shameful record, there is every reason to expect Third World blood to be shed to save Al Gore's flagging bid for the presidency.
"To be sure, the prospect of Osama bin Laden and his fanatical cohorts turned into terrorist tartare by U.S. bombs is deeply satisfying to contemplate.
"And the cowards who murdered the men and women of the USS Cole have given the United States every reason to hit the guilty back hard, as we must.
"But who can trust Clinton to do it right, to act on hard facts and clear principle unsullied by selfishness? Our dog-wagging commander-in-chief is no stranger to committing acts of war to protect himself politically."
At this point, the administration hasn't a clue who the responsible terrorists are, or even if the disaster was due to an internal problem within the ship. Dreher's column might be a touch hyperbolic, but given Clinton's track record when it comes to ordering politically convenient air strikes, who can blame him?
Naturally, Gore's brain-dead spokesman Chris Lehane accused the Bush-Cheney ticket of practicing cheap politics in the midst of the Mideast unrest and Clinton's journey there to help quell the violence. While Bush applauded the President's efforts, and joined Gore in a condemnation of those responsible for the USS Cole tragedy, he and Cheney also continued to criticize the present administration's energy polices. Lehane, who last summer likened Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter to Joseph McCarthy for having the audacity to question Attorney General Janet Reno's partisan Justice Dept., solemnly told reporters, "Given the situation, people ought to be careful, be responsible."
4. I'm not particularly distressed that Junior's favorite band right now is Rage Against the Machine, but as his eighth birthday approaches this Friday, it seems just a few years ago that he was plucked from Mrs. M's belly by C-section at New York Hospital in 1992.
After MUGGER III's first win on the soccer field (my wife took him to the game, and when they returned he jumped into my arms and yelled, "Daddy, we beat the curse!"), I took the boys to Midtown on Saturday, to buy some new threads at a Gap. This outing thrilled them, since they feel so confined by their school's dress code during the week. They both emerged with skullcaps and skateboard vests, feeling like the toughest guys in New York. Down the block, a few doors past the Empire State Bldg., we spent about 10 minutes inside Sweet Craze (36 W. 34th St.), the most amazing candy store I've ever seen in my life. MUGGER III was transfixed by the Spider-Man lollies, hundreds of jars containing gumdrops, Bart Simpson bubblegum, salt water taffy, chocolate pretzels and sour lime slices, just to name some of the merchandise. Junior, pretending he was Tony Hawk in his new clothes, settled on a cherry Tootsie Roll pop and bag of popcorn. He's too much of a wiseacre for any kid stuff.
But there're still some little-boy thoughts in that growing body of his. Last week, Junior lost a baby tooth, and just before bed he asked for a pen and paper. He wouldn't let me see what he wrote to the Tooth Fairy, who's still in his orbit even though Santa Claus bit the dust two years ago, but I peeked at it later that night. The note simply read, with correct spelling: "I'm working on another one! Love, Junior." Mrs. M, who's reluctantly realized that our sons want to pick out their own clothes, music, books and videos, just about started bawling into her dish of rice and vegetables. Being a manly man, I kept a stiff upper lip for about two minutes, and then joined my wife in reminiscences about when Junior was just an infant.
5. Thanks to National Review Online, I came across a March 16 column written by St. Albans student Brian Finn, who contributes to the school newspaper there. St. Albans, as many know, is the Washington, DC, prep school from which Al Gore graduated in the mid-60s. Finn discovered that most of his fellow students are not rooting for the school's most famous alumnus: "In fact," he says, "the majority of the student body believes that Al Gore is an elitist who lacks the charisma and commanding presence needed in order to be our next president."
I've no idea whether Finn intends to pursue journalism as career, but the conclusion to his piece is more to the point than anything I've read in the national press all year. He writes: "If you ever hear Gore speak publicly, you will notice that it is as if he is talking to four-year-olds. This just illustrates a tendency among St. Albans students to regard those outside our privileged circle as simplistic... We are all too familiar with people like Al Gore and their competitive, ambitious demeanors. We don't want to look into Al Gore's cold, calculating eyes and have those eyes belong to us in thirty years."
6. The Boston Globe's ombudsman, Jack Thomas, is a fool. This was amply demonstrated last summer by his blithe attitude toward the punishment meted out, for a minor infraction, to Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby?a four-month suspension, with no pay. Had one of the paper's many Gore propagandists committed the same offense, it's certain that a wrist slap would've sufficed. So it was especially gratifying to read Thomas' column of Oct. 2, in which his first paragraph was a horrible breach of political correctness.
All feminists, womyn and men, please close your eyes: "As the great Globe columnist Jeremiah Murphy used to say, let's forget the heavy stuff today, and instead we sort through the mailbag of letters, mostly electronic, for a sampling of what's bugging readers, from the Grateful Dead to the best way to tell if a woman's breasts are real, an advisory that?in order to ensure your perseverance?we save until the end."
Think Thomas is a Juggs subscriber? I'm betting on it.
7. I'm not sure the best assignment for a 24-year-old journalist in Manhattan is examining this city's media. No matter how precocious that writer may be, there's an argument to be made that a command of media history and a familiarity with the media's myths and legends are requirements for the job. Nevertheless, the confused editors at The New York Observer have entrusted the weekly's "Off the Record" column to Gabriel Snyder, who, as it happens, is 24 years old. And it shows.
For example, in a shameless suck-up to New York Times reporters, Snyder, in his Sept. 20 column, lectured Matt Drudge on the rudiments of journalism. This was shortly after the Internet pioneer, who's intensely disliked and dreaded by the elite media, bannered his website with details of stories that Times reporters were working on. One was about the list of White House and Camp David guests whom Hillary Clinton was shaking down for campaign contributions, a scoop that the Times didn't publish until after the first Clinton-Lazio debate.
Snyder takes the word of the Times men and women as gospel and then proceeds to lecture Drudge on his craft. He writes: "But Mr. Drudge's passionate hatred of the Clinton administration makes his reports immediately suspect. And his lack of understanding of journalism is apparent; he sees no difference between being a news source and a journalist."
One paragraph later, Snyder refers to former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart as "James Lockhart."
Also, while Drudge became famous for his work on the Lewinsky scandal, he prefers scoops over political partisanship. Remember, it was on Drudge's website that there was first mentioned the possible existence of photos of a nude George Bush dancing on a bar many years ago.
Factcheckers must share some of the blame when it comes to a pup like Snyder. In his last week's column, about Tom Wolfe's new book Hooking Up, Snyder makes the error of claiming that Wolfe's famous 1965 essays about The New Yorker were published "in New York magazine 1965." New York magazine debuted its first issue on April 8, 1968. Had Snyder bothered to do some research, he'd have discovered that the pieces were in the Sunday supplement of the daily New York Herald Tribune. The supplement, a Clay Felker-edited precursor to the weekly that became enormously influential in the magazine industry, was also called New York, but that's not the same as Snyder stating that a "New York magazine" existed in 1965. It didn't.
Snyder gets into deeper water when he reports that Hendrik Hertzberg, currently a New Yorker senior editor, "added that he still owns the original copies of New York magazine that carried the pieces." Hertzberg probably meant the supplement, not the magazine.
By mere coincidence, Hertzberg made a goof of his own the very same week, in his "Comment" in The New Yorker's "The Talk of the Town." In a pro-Gore essay, Hertzberg writes about the Vietnam experiences, or lack thereof, of the Vice President, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Gore, according to Hertzberg, was a virtual gladiator; Bush a dilettante who camped out with the National Guard.
He writes: "Vietnam, of course, brought out another pair of Clinton halves. The young Clinton saw the war as an agonizing challenge to conscience; he was more active in the antiwar movement than all but a few thousand of his contemporaries, much more so than Gore. Yet, like the young Bush, he looked for an easy way out. A spot in the stateside Guard would have suited him fine; in the event, he dodged and weaved until a low draft number came along to moot his problem."
It's said that if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there. I guess that explains Hertzberg's error: surely, as a man of draft age, this journalist knows that it wasn't a "low" draft number that saved your butt, but a "high" one. I clearly recall the night of the first lottery. My brother Doug was as 1-A as you could be, just out of college and in excellent health. He drew 345 and was home free. My brother Gary, however, a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, didn't make out as well, pulling a 176. He sweated it out for a year, wondering how far up our local draft board would go. Fortunately, it stopped at about 150 and he was off the hook.
OCTOBER 16
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