The week's big news, and how's it's being spun.
Oct. 5 1996 3:30 AM

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(posted Friday, Oct. 4)
President Clinton hosted a hasty Middle East summit between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after last week's violence. The result was nothing but an agreement to resume talks in the Middle East over the weekend. Clinton called the summit a success for both sides, but right-wing Israelis declared their man the victor, and Palestinians agreed. Bob Dole echoed Arab governments in dismissing it as a public-relations charade, arousing intimations in the American press that he was stepping over the line in foreign-policy criticism. Editorials disagreed wildly: The Washington Post called the summit an aimless and fruitless "disaster," while the New York Times said, "Just getting Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat in the same room was an accomplishment." The conventional view was that Netanyahu had stiffed Arafat and was feigning moderation in a scheme to string out the talks and delay concessions indefinitely. But by week's end, the Times had turned to the contrarian theory that Netanyahu had privately bonded with Arafat and was feigning intransigence in a scheme to placate the Israeli right and generate enough confidence among Israelis to make concessions.
The 104th Congress adjourned after passing a flurry of bills covering immigration, aviation, and national parks. Somewhat contradictory points of agreement among the reviewers: The Republican revolution has fizzled. There was never a mandate for the Contract With America. Speaker Gingrich ruined hopes of bolder change by failing to contain himself. Last year's government shutdown was the GOP's fatal mistake. But also: This Congress accomplished more than any recent Congress. The GOP won the battle to determine the country's direction. Welfare reform was the biggest legacy of the past two years. Major political reforms (campaign finance and term limits) were conveniently dropped. The GOP promised to cut subsidies but ended up cutting only subsidies to the poor. Democrats successfully demagogued Republican efforts to control the cost of Medicare, making it harder to rein in entitlements. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has turned out to be a more eager deal-cutter than Bob Dole. Divided government isn't so bad after all.
The Pentagon announced plans to send 5,000 more soldiers to Bosnia, supposedly to help other troops pack up and leave. But a Pentagon spokesman conceded that the "covering force" troops would also inherit duties of troops already there, including security for local elections. This produced charges of "mission creep." Republican senators roasted Defense Secretary William Perry and Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili for fudging about the deployment plan. Perry conceded that a force equal to half the 15,000 American troops in Bosnia now would be there through March, three months after the Dec. 20 deadline Clinton had set for withdrawal. Republicans speculated that the administration had been trying to hide the deployment scheme until after the American elections. Newspaper and TV reports largely agreed.
The Supreme Court agreed to take up assisted suicide. The court has recognized already the right to be spared unwanted life-prolonging treatment. The question now is whether this right also covers affirmatively ending one's life, with a doctor's help. Thirty states ban assisted suicide; voters in recent referendums have been closely divided on it; juries have refused to convict Dr. Jack Kevorkian for practicing it. The American Medical Association is opposed, arguing that when patients' pain is controlled, they change their minds about killing themselves. Some are cautioning the court not to repeat what they view as its mistake in the abortion debate in 1973: dictating a decision on a national moral controversy before the democratic process has resolved it. The Washington Post said the case "promises to be among the most important rulings of the decade."
Disney World celebrated its 25th anniversary, marked by promotions at McDonald's and media reflections on the Disney phenomenon. Critics, led by the New York Times' Frank Rich and the Los Angeles Times' Howard Rosenberg, flayed Disney for whitewashing American culture. On the other hand, many noted--and conservative religious voices deplored--Disney's surprisingly avant-garde aspects: gay-friendly employment policies and its refusal to censor its more risqué products. Disney's newest projects--a model town in Florida and an adult-education program--occasioned reflections on the Disneyfication of everything. ABC, which is owned by Disney, broadcast "Good Morning America" all week from Orlando, prompting warnings of media conglomeration.
The Taleban rebel movement consolidated its hold on Afghanistan. Afghans were reported as being pleased with the Taleban for restoring peace, order, electricity, and lower food prices; less so with their hanging the country's former president and his brother in a public square, banning women from working, and prescribing the stoning of adulterers. The Washington Post summed up the paradox: "Stealing has declined, largely because of the Taleban's vow to cut off thieves' hands." Iran called the Taleban "medieval." (The tough-on-crime policy had at least one loophole: The Post cited reports that the Taleban was "back in the heroin business.") Taleban officials signaled that they wouldn't support terrorists abroad, wouldn't try to foment fundamentalism in adjacent Muslim countries, and would be delighted to receive American aid.
Just before the baseball playoffs, Baltimore Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar spat in the face of an umpire after being thrown out of a game. Alomar was sentenced to the standard deferred suspension, which means that he can keep playing during the postseason. Umpires protested that he should serve his suspension immediately. Editorialists accused the league of "coddling" a superstar player. The umps then lost their PR advantage by calling a playoff strike. Commentators pointed out that this was just what baseball didn't need at its moment of recovery from the infamous players' strike. Alomar hit a home run to put the Orioles in the playoffs and then knocked in the Orioles' final run in a playoff victory over the Cleveland Indians; his brother, Indians catcher Sandy Alomar, muffed a throw that cost the Indians the game. Sportswriters asked Roberto to defend Sandy, leading columnists to lament that in professional sports, winning is more important than decency. Meanwhile, two basketball teams signed up a player who was alleged to have ordered the murder of his girlfriend.
Federal regulators allowed ValuJet to resume flying. Editorialists said the regulators were being too lax and credulous. The New York Times noted that the last time Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña had vouched for ValuJet's safety was just before the carrier was shut down in June. ValuJet took journalists and politicians on its first new flight to win them over. (Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., parroted the company's PR line, calling ValuJet "one of the most inspected carriers in the nation.") And it advertised $19 fares to win back business. The Washington Post observed: "It seems there are two types of travelers in America--those who will fly ValuJet, and those who won't."
The media decided that sexual harassment among children wasn't a joke after all. Last week's derision of a North Carolina school that punished a 6-year-old boy for kissing a female classmate gave way to less lighthearted reports of bra-snapping, breast-grabbing, and proto-stalking, and of dismissive disregard by teachers and school officials. Network TV news segments examined the multitude of reported cases and the law's inadequacy when it came to dealing with them. While conceding that boys will be boys, correspondents asked whether behavior deemed unacceptable among adults should be acceptable among kids.
Skylight, a new play by David Hare, met with enthusiastic reviews. The New York Times' Ben Brantley called it "Mr. Hare's most heartfelt statement on an age that seems to thwart all hope of sustained connections, whether between lovers, social classes, or Thatcherites and Socialists." The Times' Vincent Canby described Michael Gambon's boisterous performance (as an aging London restaurateur trying to rekindle an old affair) as "a phenomenon as rare and spectacular in the theater as the green flash is on the high seas." In New York, the usually quite skeptical John Simon called the play "first-rate drama." Critics also noted with approval the quiet vulnerability brought to the role of a lonely schoolteacher by a hitherto unknown actress, Lia Williams.
A dispute broke out about the wisdom of putting wooden cutting boards in microwave ovens. In July, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Naderite consumer group (best known for its attacks on Chinese and Mexican food), urged this technique for destroying bacteria. But the president of a "microwave consulting company" wrote the New York Times to warn that this could cause the cutting boards to catch fire or explode due to "thermal runaway." The center insisted that nothing worse could happen than "smoking and charring"; that these could occur, if at all, only after 10 minutes (double the recommended zapping-time); and that "grease or varnish," not the wood, might be the culprit. The scientist whose study the center relied on denied the existence of "thermal runaway." The center's other recommendation--microwaving cellulose sponges for 30 seconds--has generated no controversy.
Media mogul Ted Turner apologized for likening fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch to the "late Führer" at a luncheon last week. Turner explained that he had meant to refer "only to the way Hitler managed the news in Germany."
Wislawa Szymborska, age 73, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. According to the New York Times, she is "a Polish poet whose work reflects on life's daily quirks." The Swedish Academy called her "the Mozart of poetry."

--Compiled by William Saletan and the editors of SLATE.

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Photograph of Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu by Stephen Jaffe/Reuters; photograph of Mickey Mouse, Betty White, and Pluto by Pierre DuCharme/Reuters; photograph of umpires by Gary Hershorn/Reuters