It's Perry Mason on Every TV Station: Electoral Dirty Work (and a Weekend in Cancun)
It's Perry Mason on Every TV Station
George W. Bush has won the presidency.
Again.
Whether he actually takes office is a different question altogether, as Al Gore's chief kneecapper, David Boies, the lawyer who raped, but didn't quite murder, Microsoft, is continuing to conjure up legal maneuvers for Friday's U.S. Supreme Court hearing. (Bill Daley's been AWOL lately: is he in the Democratic penalty box?) As my Nov. 27 deadline approached, Gore had yet to address the nation in a modern-day "Checkers" speech. Therefore, expect a Web-only "MUGGER" column on Nov. 29 at 2 p.m. EST (nypress.com).
Translation: the only vote tally that's legitimate is one that awards Al Gore the White House.
As James Baker said on Sunday night: "The Florida State Elections Commission has certified Governor Bush as the winner of the presidential election here in Florida. Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney have won this election under rules established by both Florida statutes and Florida's judiciary, including both procedures in place before the election and different ones in place after the election."
Bush's point-man was forced to be diplomatic but his message was clear: Gore tried to steal the presidency by methods of manipulation, coercion, propaganda, litigation and intimidation, but still came up short. I believe it's now better than 50-50 odds that the Texas Governor will prevail, but Gore's attempt at a nonviolent coup, waged with legal briefs rather than guns, has yet to be suppressed.
The actor Rick Moranis, deviating from the usual Hollywood-celebrity mush, wrote an op-ed column for the Times on Monday, part of which read: "While we're talking about recounts...I believe God created the world in eight or nine days. I think my cholesterol is lower. I think that my zip code is one digit off and that I deserve more frequent-flier miles... I think I'm taller. I think I read a lot more and watch much less television... I think I may have been a Beatle... I think I bought Yahoo stock much earlier. I think I sold it. I think I birdied the 18th."
As I've written previously, the only benefit of this stinky election is that Americans now understand how inefficient and often corrupt the nation's electoral process really is. It's no accident that most of the irregularities?to put it charitably?are found in the major cities. Think of it this way: When you travel to a small commonwealth, say Bermuda, the immigration officials are rigorous to the point of frustration. No matter how upstanding a citizen you appear to be, luggage is inspected and documents are double-checked, and then you're given the green light, usually without a smile. The same thing occurs in suburban and rural voting precincts, where the turnout is relatively light and local officials take their jobs seriously. They're important for a day.
On the other hand, just as customs workers and security guards are lackadaisical at JFK, LAX or O'Hare and allow travelers to breeze right by them, the poll workers in Chicago, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., are much more relaxed or bored, and often don't even ask for identification. This can partially be ascribed to sheer volume, but some of it is due to the orchestrated, time-honored shenanigans of union leaders, ward heelers and party hacks.
It's just a hunch, but if every legitimate ballot?and that means one per registered voter?were counted on Election Day, Bush would've won the popular vote.
So when the new administration convenes, let's hope that electoral modernization leapfrogs to the head of the legislative docket, along with tort reform and tax relief, and that red herrings like campaign finance limits are put in mothballs.
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Twenty-nine years ago, when I was an 11th-grader at Huntington High School, my favorite teacher, Ernie Barra, would look outside in the fall or spring, and if the weather was pleasant, he'd say, "Ladies and Gentleman, we'll skip class today and have a match of bocce!" No arguments were heard from the 25 or so kids, and we'd close our Latin textbooks and follow Mr. Barra out to a field, where he'd expertly start the game, all the while justifying this semi-hooky by laundering it as an exercise in Roman cultural history. Ernie was about 60 at the time?in fact, he'd taught all four of my older brothers?and his eccentricities were long accepted by the school's principal. Other students, looking out from their geometry or physics classes, wondered why they hadn't had the foresight to sign up for Latin.
He was an extraordinary man?imagine a blend of only the finest traits of Sam Ervin and Ed Koch?and on Christmas Eve some friends and I would make sure to make his bachelor pad a must-stop when we went caroling. He was always delighted, sometimes getting a little misty-eyed, and would invite the five of us in for hot chocolate.
Ernie was a throwback teacher, a man who devoted his life to the frustrations and occasional rewards of lording over class after class of suburban kids, most of whom were forced into Latin by their parents. I remember one school assembly when I was 16 and with two other comrades faced a senior squad for a grudge contest of a College Bowl-type game. It was a big deal, since the 12th-graders were a bunch of shitball nerds who thought they'd wipe up the cocky juniors, potheads all, but we took the lead early and never looked back. The last question was easy: "Whose face is on the $100 bill?" I buzzed in response, and knowing that the game was already wrapped up, answered, "Ernest R. Barra!" The audience broke up in laughter, my team snarled at the stunned seniors, and Tom Demske and I raised our arms in a "Right on!" salute to the assembly and sneaked off triumphantly for a celebratory joint.
At Latin class that afternoon, when no one else was watching, Ernie hugged me and simply said, "Mr. Smith, you're a fine young man, just like all your brothers." Besides learning how to type, my two years under the tutelage of Mr. Barra were the pinnacle of my school career in Huntington.
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Mrs. M, the boys and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Playa del Carmen, a jackhammer, throw-up-the-cabanas-as-fast-as-you-can resort about 45 minutes from Cancun, and we had the good fortune of having our Vicente Fox suite at the Royal Hideaway right above a makeshift bocce court. I hadn't played since high school, but Junior and MUGGER III were excited to get a game going, and so we squared off each morning and afternoon during the short vacation. The boys dug holes in the sand to hold the balls, making sure their favorite colors?red for Junior, green for MUGGER III?got favored positions. My wife was the champ after all was said and done?I think my tossed-off comment that she threw "like a girl" added incentive?but it was pretty close all the way through.
It reminded me of another family sporting exhibition, back in '75, when I was in Copenhagen with one of my brothers, my sister-in-law and their two children. We were touring the Tivoli Gardens and, half-sloshed from glasses of Tuborg, my brother, nephew and I waddled up to the mini-golf course and had at it. After the first 12 holes, I was whupping the two of them, and my brother, as cutthroat a competitor as you'll find, was getting testier by the minute. My sister-in-law took me aside while he was at the bar and said, "Rusty, for the good of the trip back to the hotel, not to mention dinner tonight, will you please take a fall?" I told her no way and said let the best man win. Turned out it wasn't me. As luck would have it, my game took a nosedive after the 14th hole and I pulled four consecutive triple-bogeys, which allowed my brother, who'd nabbed two holes-in-one, to win. Kathy thought I pulled a Black Sox number and my brother was on a pink cloud, so everyone was happy as we went out for a meal of fish and aquavit. Everyone but me. I was pissed that I blew the damn game.
Anyhow, back to the Hideaway. On one occasion, we played a sloppy but fun game with a terrific family of four from Toronto, and in between tosses and rolls of the bocce ball, we talked politics. As they were pulling for Bush?the mere mention of Gore made Gordon's nose flinch?there was plenty of gabbing on the sandy field. Just as there's nothing like our men and women in the military, there's nothing like a conservative nuclear family from the U.S.' neighbor to the north.
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The Royal Hideaway is considered a luxury hotel?but this "all-inclusive" enclave isn't exactly the Ritz. The food was simply awful, par for resorts, and unfortunately the Gulf waters were far too choppy for safe boogie-boarding or swimming. Nonetheless, it's rather charming, modeled after a traditional Mexican village, with ponds everywhere you look and a slow but very friendly staff.
On Thursday afternoon, I did have an altercation with this cow from California, who roundly criticized the behavior of my boys that morning. In a Gore-like lie, she claimed that when we left our suite at 7:30 to go swimming in the pool, the kids were running around and screaming, a falsehood so flagrant that?in this weird period of American history?I considered awakening my lawyer in Maryland from his morning reverie.
The lady and I traded words, much to the amusement of Junior, and I was a little harsh, considering it was a holiday, but you know what? I've had it with liars. I'm simply up to my ears in spin and distortion, and I wouldn't listen to this garbage from a woman blasting my kids, complaining that she and her guests couldn't get back to sleep after all "the commotion." She allowed that being from the West Coast they had jetlag, and we should be considerate. I shot back, "We're from New York City, so our time zone is different, too. Deal with it." It didn't make for excellent karma, but enough is enough.
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By the time we'd arrived at the hotel last Wednesday, another five turns had taken place in the postelection campaign, most notably the satisfying decision of the Miami-Dade election board to pack it in and stop a farce they didn't want any part of to begin with. Naturally, Gore, Daley, Boies & Christopher, Esqs., went back to court to force them, liked caged veal, to count votes for the increasingly discredited Democratic candidate. I'd gone to sleep the night before, after watching the CNN and MSNBC "experts" decipher the moronic ruling by the Florida Supreme Court in favor of Gore, and figured it was only a matter of time before the pendulum swung back again. I refused to stay up for the Vice President's smirky press conference about democracy and making sure every (manufactured) vote counts.
And sure enough, it was appropriate that on Thanksgiving the U.S. Supreme Court shocked America's liberal cult by agreeing to hear arguments on Dec. 1.
I'm so sick of the elite media whining about how "ironic" it is that the GOP is resorting to federal courts when one of their core beliefs, reflected in their platform, is in favor of states' rights and the importance of local municipalities' deciding matters in their communities, instead of deferring to Big Government.
What really riles these jokers, who've had it far too easy in the past eight years as Clinton and the trial lawyer lobby have rolled Republicans time and again, is that the GOP is taking their fight to the streets.
It's about time. And guess what, you blowhards on cable tv and in the newspapers who've had a ball mocking Bush's alleged lack of smarts and laziness: it's the Texas Governor who's calling the shots. It's Bush who's orchestrated, whether from Crawford, TX or Austin, the thermonuclear war against the vast army of Democratic foot soldiers and special-interest reinforcements. All the smarties who claimed Bush was an Eastern aristocrat at heart, an aging fratboy, didn't have a clue as to what a hard-ass competitor he is. This whole thing would be over if Bush had folded early on, giving a concession speech filled with malarkey about uniting behind Al Gore for the good of the country.
And that would've been a huge fib. The visceral dislike between the two candidates is combustible. Democrats took Bush's easygoing demeanor for granted. They forgot he defeated Ann Richards in '94 with a combination of winning issues and tough retail politicking.
It's been a sorry spectacle watching the Republicans lie down for Clinton and Gore on issue after issue. First there was Newt Gingrich (who led the takeover of the House but got too cocky to retain his speakership), admitting that he was charmed by Clinton in the budget negotiations that led to the government shutdown, thus dealing his colleagues a major blow. In the election of '96, Bob Dole, badly overmatched by Dick Morris' and Terry McAuliffe's fundraising machines, waged a tepid campaign characterized by every mistake it's possible to make in modern politics. Worse, just a few months after Clinton soundly defeated him?in part by attacking him at every turn?Dole showed up at the White House to accept a medal of honor from his competitor. If I were Dole I'd have thrown that medal in the sink into which Clinton was later found to have masturbated.
(I must say that Dole, after too much bipartisan bullshit, has become a Republican activist, going down to Florida to speak before a rally protesting the planned repression of military ballots. He's been forceful, articulate and out of his mind with rage. That's the Bob Dole we knew a long time ago.)
And let's not even talk about impeachment. The House managers should be included in Ted Sorensen's updated Profiles in Courage, but their work wasn't followed up in the Senate, where pork-happy Trent Lott was all too eager to make deals. And then Jerry Ford stuck his befuddled two cents in with an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the Senate to censure, but not convict, Clinton. For the good of the country. Oh, brother. And the lack of support for Ken Starr was inexcusable, as he was ambushed, nonstop, by the Carville-Clinton hit squad.
Finally, a Republican's decided to get bloody with Clinton's tenacious would-be successor and contest the fraud the Democrats set out to perpetrate?in the hope it wouldn't be noticed?just hours after the polls closed on Nov. 7. Maybe Bush can't pronounce "subliminal" under pressure, but he knows how to throw a strong right punch to the Democrats' glass jaw.
Right now, on Friday night, I'm listening to Charlie Rangel on Crossfire as he asks Mary Matalin why she's so sure that the dimpled chads in Broward and Palm Beach Counties aren't for Bush. Is Rangel still with us? Has he gone so bonkers that he doesn't realize he's practically drooling with insincerity?
On Saturday, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler took Democratic hubris to a new level after witnessing a small rally of incensed Republicans. He said there was "a whiff of fascism is in the air." I guess when Al Sharpton or Jesse, Jesse...Jackson, that's right, incites huge Rainbow Coalition crowds every time the police induce a hangnail in a suspect, well, that's just a nostalgic reminiscence of the Summer of Love.
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In the last month there have been two instances that have made me brim with pride at being an American. The first occurred the night before the election, a period during which, if you take the pundits seriously, Bush was supposed to be napping. In fact, he was nailing down votes in Tennessee, and in Arkansas at a huge GOP gathering in Little Rock. At the beginning of the rally, the Clinton theme song "Don't Stop (Thinkin' About Tomorrow)" started to play on a record player. Ten seconds into that forever-ruined tune, someone dragged the needle across the album and then immediately segued into the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." That act of defiance was a harbinger of Bush's steel will in the postelection campaign.
Second, The Wall Street Journal, as you'd imagine, has been a beacon of media sanity throughout Hurricane Hillary. There's been much excellent commentary, by John Fund, Peggy Noonan, Mark Steyn and Robert Bartley, but one sentence, from the lead editorial of Nov. 24, stands out: "Never in politics have so many goal posts been moved so many times." This was a relatively restrained snipe at the legal and ballot manipulations of Gore and Boies. I swear, if these two were as blatant in their larceny in anything but an election, they'd have been arraigned by now, and bending over for soap in an Orlando pokey.
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A few more Beltway media stunners. On Nov. 25, The New York Times editorialized that Dick Cheney's heart attack should've been immediately revealed to the public. After an obligatory expression of "relief" that Cheney's ailment wasn't more serious (frankly, I'd be surprised if the Times owners and editors wouldn't have preferred that Cheney had dropped dead), the writer set out to embarrass Bush for not knowing the full extent of his runningmate's condition earlier.
Listen up: Cheney went to the hospital on Wednesday morning. By nightfall, it was confirmed he'd suffered a heart attack. That's less than a day. Americans didn't know for months that Ronald Reagan almost died after he was shot in 1981. In this case, there was no conspiracy. No subterfuge. The Times ought to save its sanctimonious sermons for their darling Al Gore and his band of crooks.
If you can imagine a writer even more loony, just log onto Salon. Bruce Shapiro, a "progressive" political writer, is deeply worried about the health of Bush and Cheney. He oozes with sympathy. Shapiro: "You've got to ask: If a close election causes Bush to break out in a boil and Cheney to have a coronary, what will happen in a genuine crisis?in whatever equivalent the new century brings to the Cuban missile confrontation, for instance? What will President W. look like after a weekend at Camp David negotiating between Barak and Arafat?"
Who knows? But Bill Clinton, healthy as a horse, sure didn't have much luck with Barak and Arafat. Besides, if Shapiro wants to carp about Bush's boil, I've got a question too: Will Al Gore weigh 300 or 350 pounds after his first "crisis" as president? I know Salon's the joke of political journalism, but isn't anybody at that shop screening articles that could pass as rewrites of My Favorite Martian episodes?
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Just a five-minute cab ride away from the Royal Hideaway is the Playa del Carmen, the shop- and restaurant-lined tourist strip, of which the main drag is Avenida Cinco. The driver said we'd "get mucho better shopping" in Cancun, but I told him?in Spanish as fractured as his English?that we weren't exactly looking for fur coats or diamonds, since we were from Manhattan. He shrugged and dropped us off. We drifted into a maze of maybe 300 little shops, pharmacies, restaurants and tequila emporiums, half of which had barkers outside trying to entice you inside to inspect the wares. Honestly, I enjoy the culture of the semi-legit con man; it can be annoying, all the bickering and mock-anger that transpires during a purchase, but I've been through enough of it in my travels around the world that it seems pretty harmless. Besides, these Mexicans are amateurs compared to the real brokers I've locked horns with in Cairo, Izmir, Athens, Bangkok and Montego Bay.
We were on a hunt for ocarinas. The boys were desperate to find the palm-shaped instruments that Link uses in the video game Majora's Mask, but we had no luck, finding only a bunch of bongos and maracas, of which we already have plenty. Mrs. M grants me a long leash when I hunt for cheap souvenirs and kitschy items for my library at home, but at some point, she simply gets weary of the psychic wear and tear that shopping under such circumstances can inflict. On this Friday morning, the breaking point came when we briefly entered a jewelry store, did a 30-second peek, decided it was junk and then had to listen to disparaging remarks about my wife, which I won't repeat here. I told him he was a rude man and didn't go any further, since the boys were all ears.
Later in the afternoon, the kids and I returned to this carnival of unfettered capitalism, while Mrs. M read by the pool, happy to have left the shysters behind. So I faced alone a quandary I'd never encountered before: Despite all the unique Mexican taco joints, fresh seafood restaurants and places serving seven kinds of mole, Junior and MUGGER III were adamant about eating at Burger King. I was both exasperated and mystified. When I was about the age my boys are, I never traveled abroad, and even if I had, American chain restaurants weren't so widespread back then. Besides, that morning, Mrs. M and I had flat-out refused to enter fast-food establishments; to have done so would have seemed contrary to the spirit of our trip.
But I relented. Why? I suppose, in similar circumstances, when I was eight years old, I would have wanted to eat at Burger King, too. As I said, I never went abroad until I was 17, but I do remember being sorely disappointed?not to mention pissed?when my parents chose a Hawaiian restaurant at the '64 World's Fair in Flushing.
Whoppers and fries finished, we persevered in our hunt for ocarinas and hit paydirt way, way beyond the main drag, finding a hut full of musical instruments. The kids stocked up, while I bought a bunch of skeleton-related doodads, the coolest being a 3-D creation entitled "Bay of Pigs," which depicted the invasion from Fidel's point of view, with Cuban patriots facing down the Imperialist American tanks.
What other loot did we pick up? Lots. A lacquered frog riding a bicycle; a couple of locally made tapestries; a peace pipe for my Injun friend Jeff Koyen; turtles with moving heads; Hey Arnold! trading cards en Español; hand-painted Christmas ornaments; masks; more skeletons; presents for the boys' teachers at school; and a number of religious items that some might find sacrilegious, but that soothe my tender soul.
Back at the hotel, a local merchant brought his Mayan souvenirs to the Hideaway for our poolside inspection. He marked the merchandise up almost to the point of hilarity, but that goes with the territory.
And here's a warning: I don't want to hear any of this "ugly American" crap from readers. This pleasant fellow is earning a living (all in cash) that far exceeds that made by many disenfranchised lower-class Americans. So don't cry for these Mexicans, all you Zabar's- and Times-worshipping hypocrites. In fact, the bellboys, room service attendants, etc., make out just fine with the generous tips they receive from foreigners. Just a reminder that no matter how lowly a job might look, if you're making an honest living from it?I'm reminded here especially of New York City's admirable Koreans?it's noble.
Besides, the kids had a great time with Pedro and his son Enrique. Junior hand-painted a Mayan sun dial; they both bought necklaces with shark teeth affixed, and we all picked up "Señor Frog" t-shirts.
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Despite all the talk of the airline nightmares over the holiday, my family enjoyed swell service. From Continental, no less. My one mistake was in not lining up a driver to pick us up at Newark on Sunday night. We stood on the taxi line for more than an hour, an unpleasant experience made even worse by this French dweeb who ranted at me after I momentarily stopped to pick up a briefcase that fell from the baggage cart. "What's your problem, Bud?" I asked. "Isn't it obvious?" he spat back, as if the 10-second delay cost him a cab. "What's obvious," I replied, "is that you're the biggest asshole I've encountered today."
I hate to swear in front of the boys, who were proud of their old man for all the wrong reasons, but they might as well learn that you can't let the world's vermin claim unjustified victories.
As we were driving home on the Jersey Turnpike, with the fog obscuring the view of the city and the smell of oil refineries omnipresent, it reminded me somehow of a long car cruise I took through a Houston suburb with several Texans back in '74. This was a group of guys who had all attended the same Jesuit high school before graduating and going on to other things, and they were catching up on gossip. I was present at the behest of my college roommate, now six feet under, with whom I'd road-tripped down to his home state. We drank sixers of Pearl and passed joints, and I marveled at how different my friend's circle of close buddies was from my own. One guy, who'd later run the "Youth for Ford" campaign at his Alabama college, was bragging about all the babes he'd balled during freshman year. "You wouldn't believe it, man, this one chick, she actually gave me the scumbag!"
Another member of the crew had dropped out of high school?even though his SATs were off the charts?because he'd knocked up a girlfriend and they immediately got hitched. Later, at his tiny ticky-tacky apartment, he tried to convince us, and himself, that life was really going well. His wife yelled at him for being drunk, the baby wouldn't stop crying and the new sofa they'd bought on layaway had already lost one of its legs.
I was stoned, all right, but not so badly that I didn't recognize that this was a weird, weird world. Texas in the 70s, and a scene just as depressing as any from The Last Picture Show. I felt like the Beaver.
NOVEMBER 27