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Hit Parade Archive
August, 2001
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The recent federal surplus debate offers a good contrast between the worldy Beltway-wise WaPo editorial page and the new, post-Raines, Gail Collins NYT editorial page. ... Only WaPo makes two essential points: 1) It's not so bad to run a deficit -- or smaller surpluses -- at the moment ("[T]hat's what governments are meant to do when recession looms"); and 2) Much of the current debate is "posturing" because "it doesn't matter whether the federal budget this year has saved the entire Social Security surplus plus $2 billion ... or has dipped into [it] to the tune of $9 billion." Those are small numbers, and, given the recession, there's an argument the government should dip into the Social Security surplus even more. It's just not a huge deal (Condit really is a bigger story!). WaPo is honest enough to take a shot at the Democrats for making a sound-bitten fuss about the differences in this year's projections:

"[T]he Democratic party's attack ads on this issue reflect a cynicism and a poverty of ideas, not sound economic thought."

Tag, I'm It: The "replacement watch" theory, of which kausfiles was especially proud, may need some modification. It seems the police traced the watch box (disposed of by Condit in a Northern Virginia trash can) to its giver by way of the box itself, which may have had a serial number on it. So the box was the box for the watch that was given by an ex-girlfriend. ... Ah, but was it the only box? For the only watch? ... More obviously, why has no Condit interviewer so far had the presence of mind to ask the three word question: "Where's the watch?" Has the issue become grassy-knollified, with respectable journalists afraid that asking about "the watch" will mark them as pathetic, hopeless-Condit-obsessives the way asking about the GK once marked one as a hopeless assassination conspiracy buff? ... (8/28)

Isn't it a possibly large-ish mistake for Anne Marie Smith to get into bed with Judicial Watch, a very conservative and ... er, highly litigious organization? If Condit's team tries to make an issue of Judicial Watch's fierce anti-Clintonism, that might do as much to tar Clinton (and Democrats) as help Condit -- but why would Smith want to becloud her cause by raising that set of issues at all? ... [Worried that JW's Larry Klayman will sue you too?--ed Can I make this item any blander?] (8/28)

When John DiIulio, head of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, undercut the Bush tax-cut effort last February by telling the NYT he didn't want the estate tax to be eliminated (because that might result in reduced charitable contributions), there was a sharp intake of breath by knowledgeable Bush observers, who realized DiIulio had committed a capital offense in the loyalty-based administration. And gee, guess which Bush official recently found a pressing need to spend more time with his family after only a few months on the job? Yet the Time and NYT accounts of DiIulio's resignation failed to make this obvious connection. (The NYT piece was even written by the reporter who'd gotten DiIulio to utter his seppuku-like dissent. ...) (8/28)

Clip and Save: One for the "Bush is Toast" file of embarrassing predictions:

As to Condit, I'll watch with morbid interest. There's a small chance he'll simply blow this non-scandal away. Very few of us have any idea what he's actually like--but his erstwhile popularity in his home district suggests to me he's probably not a terrible communicator. The few miniscule facts in the case are so overwhelmingly in his favor, it's hard to see how he can come off that badly. ...
-- Andrew Sullivan in Slate, Wednesday, August 22

Useful letter (on Jim Romenesko's letters page) from N.Y. Daily News star Condit-coverer Helen Kennedy giving a plausible, non-incriminating theory as to why Condit might have told flight attendant Anne Marie Smith that he was in "trouble" during a midnight phone call he made from Luray, Virginia. Answer: that was the first day cameras had chased him around the Capitol. He "freaked and ran." He was in trouble, "not with the cops --with the press." ... Of course, Condit denies saying he was in trouble at all. ("I might have said I'm going to be gone for the weekend.") But then, if we relied on him for his defense, he'd really be in trouble! ... (8/24)

Saturn's not dead yet! Just like Salon! The Sky four-seat convertible looks very promising. ... The GMC Terra4 is another "angry kitchen appliance" (in new GM product chief Bob Lutz's phrase)... (8/22)

More on amnesty and dual citizenship: John Fonte makes some good points about dual citizenship. Whether or not dual citizenship is a dangerous trend (there's a debate here) it's clearly something new. The old model of assimilation doesn't quite apply. ... For instance, Frank del Olmo of the LAT doesn't like Bush's amnesty idea, or at any rate abandons the idea in the face of the don't-reward-lawbreakers arguments of its opponents. Del Olmo thinks the citizenship issue isn't that important anyway -- before the 1990s, many Mexicans preferred a "circular migration" in which they worked here, kept up contacts in Mexico and eventually returned there after "building a nest egg." Del Olmo argues this circular pattern "might well resume" under an expanded guest worker program. But why wouldn't Mexicans want to become U.S. citizens since they can now retain their Mexican citizenship as well? What do they have to lose? ... (8/22)

Amy Wallace's profile of Variety editor Peter Bart in Los Angeles magazine is almost as good as you'd expect, given the reaction. (Bart has been placed on leave!) Request: Next time, fewer non-shocking shocking racial slurs (as far as I can see Bart isn't saying much Chris Rock hasn't said to great acclaim) and more examples of Bart's real, firing offense: altering stories to please his buddies. ... This excellent, wave-making profile -- very fair, considering what a major-league a______ Bart seems to be -- was written by a recently-departed L.A. Times writer for a recently-departed LAT editor. Tell me again why the LAT didn't manage to produce a piece like this itself. (David Shaw, this means you!) ... (8/21)

Two men who are symbolically associated with the opposing sides in some of the worst urban rioting in memory (the Crown Heights riots in New York ten years ago) meet peacefully for lunch and Mayor Giuliani gives them ... baseball bats??? ... [Thanks to K.S. of our N.Y. office.] (8/21)

Update: In National Review Online, Mark Krikorian joins the pummeling of Paul Gigot over the latter's pro-immigrant-amnesty party-lining. Krikorian adds a far-from-crazy concern about the growth of "dual citizenship." What happens when a significant sub-group of Americans formally splits their allegiance? ... (8/20)

Dana Milbank's WaPo story on immigration liberalization -- like many on the topic -- has a bizarre, shadow-boxing quality. We're told that President Bush is pulling back from pushing dramatic changes, including broad amnesty, due to "legislative reality" and "'a system with a lot of resistance.'" There's "not a consensus for rapid action in Congress," Milbank reports. ... Who, or what, exactly, is putting up this powerful, hidden resistance? Finally, in the 22d paragraph, we learn that a "large number of Republicans oppose any immigration liberalization." OK. But why? Couldn't Milbank have found one liberalization opponent willing to speak, for attribution or not, about what's bad about the idea? Or even about the politics of the idea? ... Perhaps liberalization opponents are lying low. (Even Phil Gramm?) But then Milbank should tell us that they're lying low. The impression he leaves is that reform is opposed by some sullen, unreasoning troglodyte bloc, possibly nativist or racist, whose thinking, like that of segregationists in the 1960s, is not worth exploring -- when in fact there are sound policy reasons to oppose at least some sweeping liberalizations (see items below). ... Meanwhile, Milbank's piece is filled entirely with quotes from members of the mysteriously-embattled pro-liberalization forces. In order of appearance: Rep. Chris Cannon, Rich Bond, Charles Kamaski (an official of Council of La Raza), Gabriela Lemus (an official of the League of United Latin American Citizens), Rep. Howard Berman, Rep. John Conyers, Sen. Ted Kennedy. ... Milbank seems to believe that because he quotes pro-liberalization conservatives and pro-liberalization liberals he's achieved some sort of balance. ... I'm allergic to pieces like this because (like so much else) they remind me of the welfare debate, in which opponents of expanded benefits were for decades routinely portrayed as a reactionary, possibly racist, majority -- a majority that turns out to have been largely correct in its judgment. ... (8/19)

Follow-up on the News! More evidence that Bush's budget is actually good for liberals in the not-so-long run -- the "irresponsible" tax cuts are already working to restrain defense spending, according to the NYT. Without the tax cuts and the surplus squeeze they've produced, the Pentagon would feel far less pressure to keep the defense budget down. Future Democratic presidents would be saddled with structurally higher defense spending -- money they couldn't cut without damning opposition from the right, money they'll now be able to spend on, say, health care. ... The Manhattan Institute has sent out invitations to Prof. James Q. Wilson's annual pubilc policy address on September 13th. Wilson's topic: "Why is Marriage in Trouble?" In light of the recent evidence, relentlessly hyped in this space, showing that the percentage of children living with married parents is increasing -- dramatically so among blacks and Hispanics -- perhaps Prof. Wilson should begin revising and extending his remarks. ... Wilson never gave much credence to the possibility that welfare reform would have a big impact on the family structure. I remember him being nailed on this point by Heather Higgins and Stanley Crouch at a Manhattan Institute lecture several years ago. ... P.S.: Josh Marshall likes Wilson, putting him (correctly, I think) in the "Gives a F---" camp. ... (8/17)

Paul Gigot defends Bush's amnesty plans in an impressively unpersuasive and jarringly unprincipled column in today's WSJ. Gigot spends the first 13 of 16 paragraphs arguing that Republicans should be for amnesty because ... well, there are going to be a lot of Hispanics and the party has to suck up to them quick! (This argument doesn't have much appeal for those few WSJ readers who, like me, are Democrats.) ... Three grafs from the end, Gigot finally turns to the substance, as opposed to the party politics, of the issue. "The best ... conservative argument against [amnesty] is that it rewards people who've broken the law." How true. It's also the best liberal argument against it. A couple of dismissive sentences later and Gigot has collected his paycheck. Key argument: Amnesty won't encourage future illegal immigration because there will be a "regular work permit system." But why should potential immigrants wait to queue up for a regular work permit system when the lesson of amnesty is that if they come here illegally, outside the permit system, they'll eventually be rewarded? Won't a work-permit system work better without amnesty? ... I thought David Greenberg's Slate assessment of Gigot was way too harsh. But Gigot's columns, usually much better than this, do have an apparatchik, party-line quality that the writings of other, equally conservative but freer-thinking columnists such as Charles Krauthammer don't have. ... Maybe that unprincipled column endorsing the Republican riot in Dade County ("'Shut it down'") wasn't such an aberration. ... (8/17)

Source-greaser Alert! WaPo's Juliet Eilperin on Rep. Henry Waxman, "Reluctant Warrior." Don't laugh! You see, Waxman "didn't always spend as much time in the limelight." He used to "bully Republicans from his committee perch." Wait, wasn't that the limelight? Never mind! "He's not getting publicity because he has worked out some really cute phrase or because he's pulling some stunt," says his longtime ally, Rep. Howard Berman. This is right after we're breathlessly told about Waxman "bestowing a 'golden jackpot' award on the administration for loosening arsenic level standards." That was not a stunt! It was ...um ... a gimmick! ... Eilperin should really be embarrassed by this puffer. I agree that Waxman's gradual extension of Medicaid to poor children (even if they aren't on welfare) was, in retrospect, a major accomplishment. But he's not an especially pleasant man, and a lot of people hate his guts. The only negative word in the Eilperin's piece is a hack sound bite from Mary Matalin that only makes Waxman look better. ... (8/16)

The Agony of DeParle: What's another beneficial consequence of the NYT's front-page treatment of how welfare reform has seemingly spurred a comeback for the two-parent family? It will now be harder for veteran Times welfare reporter Jason DeParle to maintain with a straight face his ridiculous thesis that the 1996 reform didn't make much difference. (See also here.) ... Let's see: Where there used to be welfare mothers there are now working mothers. Where there used to be single mothers there are now, increasingly, married couples and other two-parent families. But it makes no difference! ... (8/14)

The German Prospect: For several decades, the tacit assumption of every sophisticated liberal was that Western Europe's welfare states were more advanced than America's, and the historic mission of the U.S. was to become more like Europe. But the Wash Times reports that Roland Koch, the governor of the German state of Hesse, recently met with former Wisconsin governor (now HHS Secretary) Tommy Thompson -- and Koch promptly instituted a Wisconsin-style workfare plan in Hesse. Unions and the Social Democratic party have protested, but the incident seems to back up Prof. Lawrence Mead's contrarian thesis that, when it comes to cash assistance for the able-bodied poor, it's the Europeans who are destined to catch up to the Americans. ... (8/13)

Peter Skerry's WaPo piece on amnesty for illegal immigrants makes the essential obvious-but-unmade point -- that the "almost certain consequence of an amnesty" would be "more illegal immigration." ... That's what happened, Skerry notes, after the 1986 amnesty. And why not? What amnesty says, to potential illegals, is that if you sneak across the border and stay long enough you'll win the jackpot -- citizenship -- in some future amnesty. ... Skerry buries this point under layers of concern about a "backlash" against illegals. He also despairs of stopping amnesty, now that Bush has put it on the table. But why? The enthusiasm for amnesty (except as a business-class plot to attract more illegals and hold down wages, or a crass Rovian "compassion" bank shot aimed at prosperous suburban women) baffles me. It's dumb policy. It hurts low-wage American workers. Even from Bush's crude political point of view, it's semi-deluded: There aren't that many Hispanic voters (half as many as blacks) and an amnesty won't make many of these Hispanics Republicans. Even if the program is wildly successful at attracting the new citizens to the GOP -- and say, 40 percent of them become Republicans -- that still means Bush has created three new Democrats for every two new members of his party. ... Why can't it be stopped? Like Nixon's unexpectedly liberal "guaranteed income" plan, it intrigues the media elite but is likely to enrage a majority of voters (blacks maybe even more than whites). It creates a huge political opening for the candidate willing to say "no" -- as Ronald Reagan said "no" to Nixon's welfare plan. ... (8/12)

Governor Jones: There's no bigger turn-on for David Broder than a roomful of governors. Every ten columns or so the WaPo pundit indulges in his peculiar form of pornography -- Sunday's column is an unusually graphic example. ... One question: Would those be the same responsible, can-do governors who are currently busy trying to gut the education bill so none of them will be held accountable if one state does worse than others? Who've responded to the 1996 welfare reform by taking the easy course (pushing mothers into the private-sector workforce, then taking credit for the resulting fall in the caseload) instead of the more difficult course (emulating Wisconsin by creating a backup public jobs program, which annoys unions and costs money but allows the work requirement to be enforced during a recession)? ... (8/12)

Lede found buried on page A24:

"In many ways welfare reform is working better than I thought it would. ... The sky isn't falling anymore. Whatever we have been doing over the last five years, we ought to keep going."

-- Wendell Primus, one of the three Democratic HHS officials who resigned to protest President Clinton's signing of the 1996 welfare reform law, quoted in the NYT, Sunday, page A24.

Salon gets a massive infusion of ... er ... $2.5 million. ... Hmmm. They admit they lost $2.9 million in the quarter that ended in June. So this should last until ... (8/10)

The Main Event: Are the House and Senate about to gut the crucial "comparability" provisions of the big education bill, allowing states to give a variety of tests so nobody will be able to compare school districts with each other (and hold education officials accountable)? It sure looks that way. ... But Congress can be made to back down by a strong presidential stand -- i.e. a veto threat. Normally, Republican presidents take a hit when they veto education bills. But would it make Bush look anything but good if he vetoed this one -- his baby, after all -- not because it spent too much money but because the state educrats had watered it down? ... He could say "Send me back this bill, with the same amount of money, but with real testing, and I'll sign it." He'd look strong, and leave the water-downers and hostile TV personalities whining about local control and various arcane concepts the public doesn't understand. ... Bush wins that debate. Does he realize this? What he does here, more than his stem cell decision, will tell us whether his presidency means anything. ... (8/10)

I shouldn't have gotten huffy about Talk's photo reenactment of the Bush twins in jail. It turns out to be just another dumb Talk fashion spread attempting ... what? (The Camille Paglia sidebar on the "Top 25 Wicked Women In History" seems like a more straightforward attempt to be pathetically hack.) The photos aren't especially nasty or unfair to the twins, though, given their behavior. ... But Talk still would never have done this to Chelsea!. Or even to Jenna if she weren't a twin. ... (8/10)

In 1994, 28 million Americans got food stamps. Today, about 17 million do. Is that a bad thing? The Washington Post's Anne Hull seems to think so -- she laments that "national participation in the food stamp program has fallen dramatically." That's the "biggest challenge" facing Eric Bost, Bush's nominee to administer the program, according to Hull. ... Worse, Bost seems to have convinced Hull that he agrees. ... Expanding participation in food stamps, as an end in itself, is a bad idea. Food stamps, after all, are a form of welfare (i.e., you can get them even if you're able-bodied but don't work). Since when should it be the goal of the Bush administration to run around trying to get more people signed up on welfare? ... I'm not urging that the government make it gratuitously hard for poor Americans to get the stamps if they decide they need them. But if they don't sign up because food stamps have the stigma and shame of welfare, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. If they don't sign up because they don't feel they really need the stamps, that's not a bad thing either. And if the "participation rate" falls for these sorts of reasons, that's nothing to lament. ... Quite apart from the "stigma" effect, food stamp use should fall dramatically after 6 straight years of economic growth, no? ... Let's hope Bost was just playing along with the press' (and "anti-hunger" advocates') idea of what he should think, for the purposes of Hull's beat-sweetener. Hull's piece doesn't have a lot of direct quotes from him on the subject. ... Or is pushing food stamps one of Bush's new female-friendly, Morris-esque poll-boosting "compassion" issues? ... (8/9)

Kausfiles' East Coast readers may have missed the embarrassing conflict-of-interest mess Gore spinners Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane got into while turning California Gov. Gray Davis into an energy populist. Salon's William Bradley has a fill. ... (8/6)

Rep. Gary Condit's flack, Marina Ein, came in for a lot of (deserved) grief when she alleged that Lisa DePaulo's Talk article would discuss Chandra Levy's "history of one night stands." At the time, DePaulo said "there's nothing I found in two months of reporting that even hints at that." Well, DePaulo's (quite good) article is now available. Let the record show that, while Ein's charge is not entirely supported, DePaulo does describe a friend of Levy's, who met with her after her affair with a married Modesto policeman ended:

This friend spent hours with Levy discussing her problems ... He knew that she'd had lots of relationships--including several with other cops and several with other married men.

Epstein spins the revolving door: When House Democrats (and kausfiles!) rebelled against Judiciary committee aide Julian Epstein's incessant, self-promoting, party-undermining punditry, Epstein told WaPo's Lloyd Grove that he would be leaving the Democrats' employ. But he said "his departure may not happen till the fall," (Grove's words) -- a leisurely timetable that seemed to support his claim that he wasn't being forced out. Two weeks ago, the NYT's David Rosenbaum, in a retroactive source-greaser, quoted Epstein saying "There is a good possibility I will be leaving before the end of the year." Roll Call also reported Epstein's "end of the year" spin. ... In fact, Epstein's last day at the committee was Monday. (He's opening a lobbying shop, reports National Journal.) (8/4)

Mom! I Want My "Zaftig Erotica"! Salon's entire site is now apparently blocked as "explicitly mature" by AOL's parental controls ... It was easily reachable when I wrote an item on AOL's porn filter earllier this week. ... Kausfiles (inadvertently) gets results! ... (8/4)

If ever a modern building deserved to be landmarked and preserved it was Ship's Restaurant, the brilliant, wacky, friendly coffee shop at Glendon and Wilshire in West L.A., one of the revered masterpieces of Googie architecture. The building had deconstructionist elements forty years early (it sort of disintegrated at one corner) and spectacular details. A nice place to eat, too! (It served 6,700 people a day at one point.) Ship's Westwood was ripped down in 1984 and replaced with a drab "award-winning" high-rise. ... Last Saturday, the architect of Ship's, Martin Stern, Jr., died. It seems he also designed the hideous MGM Grand in Las Vegas. ... Douglas Martin's NYT obit featured an excellent picture of Ship's. (I can't find a good one on the web). ... The obit did have one error: Martin says all three Ship's restaurants were demolished. But the first one, in Culver City -- an early, simpler, Stern design -- still stands. It's now a Starbucks. ... (8/4)

One of the smartest op-ed pieces I've read recently is a crude right-wing rant by J. Peter Mulhern in the slightly wacky Washington Weekly. Why is it smart? Because Mulhern argues that the media's liberal bias is a blessing for conservatives and Republicans. Thanks to incessant press sniping, Republicans are never surprised by sneak attacks -- they "know who's going to pummel them, what they will be pummeled about, when they will be pummeled and where the pummeling will take place." Democrats, meanwhile, are lulled into a false confidence within a comforting cocoon of like-minded reporting and commentary. "The liberal cocoon is spun out of media bias." ...

In my experience Mulhern is right. There are cocoons on both sides, but the people in the Republican cocoon tend to see themselves as an embattled minority (even when they're not) while those in the Democratic cocoon tend to believe they have the tides of history and populism on their side, even when they don't. ... The best example of this is the way liberals always seem to think a union resurgence is around the corner, because they read reports all year about labor's various campaigns and occasional victories. Then, when it turns out union membership has actually declined, it comes as a shock. ...

There may be a difference here, too, between the Washington liberal cocoon and the New York liberal cocoon. New York liberals, as I discovered when campaigning in Manhattan in 1984 for South Carolina's Sen. Ernest Hollings, tend to be aloof and isolated. They think the rest of America is populated by hopeless fundamentalist redneck hicks. As a result, they have a somewhat more realistic view of the prospects for a liberal tidal wave sweeping Democrats into power. The Washington cocoon is more respectful of the rest of the country, which, oddly, makes it more easily deluded. Washington's liberal cocooners tend to convince themselves the nation's filled with people like them, who care intensely about the Brady Bill and the liability limits in the patients bill of rights, and don't much mind if there are gays in the military. Then, unlike snobby New York liberals, they're rudely surprised. ... (8/3)

Rampant anti-twinnism at Talk? It's inconceivable that Talk magazine would run a bogus, re-enacted photo spread on Chelsea Clinton in jail, which is what the magazine is apparently doing with the Jenna and Barbara Bush. (In part that's because Chelsea Clinton was never in jail, as far as we know. But only in part. Chelsea had some moments of independence, yet her privacy was fairly ruthlessly protected by the press.) ... Talk is a Democratic, Clinton-starfucking magazine -- so what else is new? But something else may be at work here. A friend suggests that Bush's daughters may be subtly considered fairer game because they're twins. Somehow, their twin-ness makes them seem more powerful, less isolated. (They have each other! Chelsea had ... who?) It also gives them, through no fault of their own, a bigger public profile. ... But of course they are individuals and entitled to as much respect and privacy as Chelsea enjoyed. ... Memo to editorial director Maer Roshan: Talk seems to have a good issue coming up, with Lisa DePaulo's eagerly-awaited piece on Condit-Levy, and a crack Aaron Sorkin interview. Why add something that will again embarrass the mag? ... (8/2)

Anti-Backlash Backlash: The anti-Condit media wave of the past few weeks is being replaced by a pro-Condit (and anti-media) media wave. (Here is an example.) ... Kausfiles, as always, urges calm deliberation. Not all the anti-Condit evidence has been debunked. ... For example, in Salon Josh Marshall tackles the mystery of the phone calls. Was there a "flurry of frantic calls" from Chandra Levy to Gary Condit in the final days before Levy disappeared? Newsweek's Isikoff reports no calls to Condit's "foo-foo" line, or "any other number used by Condit." But everyone recognizes that there might have been another means of communication -- Condit himself has acknowledged getting one call from Levy, on April 29. If it doesn't show up in the existing records, how was it made? ... And what about calls from Levy to her answering machine, where she apparently picked up Condit's messages? Rita Cosby of Fox News has the phone records in her possession, and insists (according to Marshall) that they show "a buildup of calls from Levy" checking on her messages in the final days. ... (Of course Levy could have been checking for messages from anyone, not necessarily Condit. Still ....) Note to backlashers: Marshall also points out that the "first on-the-record" confirmation of a phone call flurry came from Condit's own lawyer, Joseph Cotchett. ... (8/1)

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