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Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees returned home from camps in Zaire. The exodus was triggered by a Zairian rebel attack that expelled guerrillas who had held the refugees captive in the camps. The United States and other nations had planned to send an international force to the region to free the refugees. Now that the refugees have escaped, Rwanda says the mission is unnecessary. But the mission apparently will proceed anyway, with its focus shifting to half-a-million refugees who remain elsewhere in eastern Zaire. Early reaction to the exodus was buoyant; many analysts inferred that the crisis was resolving itself. But by Monday, reporters were sobering up as returning refugees found their homes confiscated, food and work scarce, and their guerrilla tormentors sneaking back into Rwanda in their midst. "Arriving Rwandan Refugees Find Home Is Not So Sweet," conceded the New York Times. (posted 11-18) | | Speculation continued about President Clinton's new Cabinet. Seven of the 14 jobs are expected to open, led by State and Defense. The new chief of staff will be Erskine Bowles, who ran the Small Business Administration early in Clinton's first term; Harold Ickes will be out as deputy chief of staff. Clinton's failure to give this longtime loyalist and left-liberal the top job, and his failure to tell Ickes privately until minutes before the announcement, were held to be examples of the president's characteristic ruthlessness and ingratitude (bad), as well as of his commitment to second-term moderation (good). The New York Times reported that retiring Republican Sen. William Cohen was the strong favorite for Defense, while former Democratic Sen. George Mitchell was the front-runner for State, closely contested by former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar ruled out taking the State job, and the Times downgraded Colin Powell's prospects, citing concerns that the job would elevate him as a rival to Al Gore in 2000. Others argued that an appointment to the Cabinet would remove Powell as an outside threat. Blacks complained that Clinton wasn't considering enough blacks; women complained that he wasn't considering enough women. Meanwhile, the Janet Reno deathwatch continued. "Reno Is Twisting in the Wind as Clinton Weighs Successor," observed a Times headline. (posted 11-15) |
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Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago died of cancer. Obituaries touted him as the greatest Catholic authority west of the Vatican, and stressed his unique skill in mediating disputes between the Church's hard-liners and dissidents. Liberals praised his open-mindedness toward birth-control education and the ordination of women, as well as his compassionate views on AIDS, nuclear war, and the death penalty--ignoring his activism against abortion and assisted suicide. The dominant theme of coverage was Bernardin's exemplary grace, courage, and serenity as he faced death in his final months. A less sublime subtheme: wagers on whether a liberal or conservative bishop would get the old man's job. (posted 11-15) | | President Clinton suggested he could accept a balanced-budget constitutional amendment. The next day, aides said that he had been misunderstood and that he still opposes the amendment. Nearly identical editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post branded it Clinton's first post-re-election flip-flop, but applauded him for coming back to the correct point of view. (posted 11-15) |
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| The Army faced a growing sexual-harassment scandal. In Maryland, a company commander and a drill instructor were charged with raping female soldiers under their command, and 17 other instructors were charged or suspended for lesser offenses. In Missouri, a drill sergeant was convicted of consensual sex with three female recruits, in violation of military law; two other sergeants faced similar charges. A broader survey indicated that thousands of women may have been sexually harassed or assaulted in the military. Commentators called the Maryland crimes far worse than the Navy's Tailhook scandal, which involved off-duty groping, but praised the Army for responding with far more candor and prosecutorial zeal than the Navy did. The consensus was that the military is demonstrating newfound enlightenment. (posted 11-15) |
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| The Clinton administration filed a brief at the Supreme Court opposing a constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide. The brief urged the court to "preserve the distinction between killing a patient and letting a patient die," lest patients be "steered toward suicide." Cultural conservatives were surprised and delighted. Abortion-rights advocates feared an erosion of Roe vs. Wade. (posted 11-15) |
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| Several House Republicans and conservative activists tried to stir up a mutiny against Speaker Newt Gingrich. National Review's Washington editor, Kate O'Beirne, urged Gingrich to step down temporarily to spare his party the taint of his ethics charges. Then moderate GOP Rep. Chris Shays said he wouldn't vote to re-elect Gingrich as speaker unless a secret ethics report on Gingrich was made public. Conservative Rep. Steve Largent, Rep. Peter King (a protégé of Sen. Al D'Amato's), and prominent conservative activist Paul Weyrich followed suit, calling for Gingrich to step aside. Largent said other House Republicans privately support the idea. But the Washington Post saw no sign of a putsch at next week's GOP caucus election. A Wall Street Journal editorial accused the rebels of folly, cowardice, ingratitude, and treachery. (posted 11-15) |
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| Politicians paused from their assault on the tobacco industry to turn their fire on the liquor industry. President Clinton denounced distillers for discarding their decades-old voluntary policy against advertising hard liquor on television. Clinton spun it as a child-protection issue, comparing liquor ads to cigarette ads and television violence. Other cultural critics piled on with comparisons to cyberporn and gangsta rap. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott seconded Clinton's critique, and Republican Sen. John McCain called for congressional hearings. The New York Times emulated Nancy Reagan: "Just Say No to Liquor Ads." Cynics wagered that the distillers' political contributions would deter legislators from seriously threatening them. (posted 11-15) |
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Former ABC newsman and presidential press secretary Pierre Salinger claimed on French television that the U.S. Navy had shot down TWA Flight 800. Salinger cited a secret document he claimed to have obtained through back channels. The allegation quickly spread throughout the United States and led the network television news. Federal investigators met with Salinger and discounted his theory as nonsense. Reporters traced the "document" to a three-month-old Internet posting. Critics pronounced Salinger a fool. The Post called him "the Jerry Lewis of journalism." Dan Rather claimed he had featured Salinger's report "primarily to knock it down."(posted 11-15) | | Texaco released a report denying that one of its executives had used the word "niggers" in a taped meeting in 1994. An outside investigator hired by Texaco concluded from digital enhancement of the tape that instead of saying, "These [expletive] niggers, they [expletive] all over us with this" (as plaintiffs in a discrimination suit had alleged), the executive had actually said, "Poor St. Nicholas, they [expletive] all over his beard." Another apparent slur--the phrase "black jelly beans"--turns out to have come from a Texaco diversity consultant. The corrections impressed nobody, since the uproar over the taped meeting had already been engulfed by a larger tide of allegations concerning discrimination and evidence-destruction at Texaco--which, in turn, had been engulfed in a broad assault by civil-rights leaders on American complacency about racial equality. "With affirmative-action programs being criticized as unnecessary vestiges of a dead era, defenders of those policies are making the Texaco case exhibit A," explained the New York Times. Overlooked: News organizations freely printed the N-word, but refused to print the excretory expletives. (posted 11-15) |
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Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson was dethroned by Evander Holyfield. Sports writers hailed it as one of the biggest upsets in boxing history: Holyfield, 34 years old and previously diagnosed with a heart defect, had been rated a 25-1 underdog. Tyson had knocked out recent opponents so quickly that pay-per-view TV customers had complained of being ripped off. Commentators vilified Tyson as a "brute" (he recently served time for rape) and celebrated Holyfield's devout Christianity. Holyfield gave all the credit to Jesus Christ and said he had prayed throughout his pummeling of Tyson. Nobody complained about the head butt that may have been responsible for opening a gash on Tyson's face. "The Bully Gets Bullied," rejoiced a New York Times headline. (posted 11-15) | | Miscellany: It was a bad week in India: A cyclone killed at least 1,000 people, and the worst midair collision in history killed 349 more. The International Labor Organization reported that full-time child labor is nearly twice as common in the developing world as had been thought previously. A new study suggests that tofu can relieve symptoms of menopause. David Brinkley apologized to President Clinton for insulting him on television on election night. Michael Jackson said he would marry the friend who is carrying his child. A book by a "loyal confidant" of the former Duchess of York says she thought she was destined to marry John F. Kennedy Jr. The book also quotes Fergie's former lover on his infamous foot-in-mouth photo: "I wasn't sucking her toes. I was licking them." The toilet tanks on the Mir space station are overflowing. A federal investigation exposed a coffee supplier who was selling fake Hawaiian Kona to Starbucks and other outlets. The chief buyer for Peet's Coffee confessed he's not sure he could tell the difference. (posted 11-15) |
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| Trends in the news. Deregulation: Japan's new leader is pressing for deregulation of its financial markets; Ukraine is trying to goose its economy with giant tax cuts. Alternative energy: General Motors began shipping its new electric car to dealers; Honda said that next fall, it will begin selling a car that runs on natural gas. Food safety: Analysts suggested that the latest outbreak of E. coli infection (in apple juice) portends broader troubles and a government crackdown on the natural-food industry. Cybercafes: Apple is launching a chain of computer theme restaurants, with video-conferencing at each table. "Cosmic bowling": USA Today reports that alleys are attracting the younger crowd by doubling as discotheques at night. Freon: The ozone-depleting refrigerant is being smuggled to America from Mexico, reportedly yielding higher profits than cocaine. The feds have launched a "war on Freon."Skyscrapers: According to the Los Angeles Times, corporate downsizing, telecommuting, and suburbanization are threatening them with extinction. Impotence: The American Urological Association named vacuum constriction, penile injections, and prostheses as the most effective remedies. (See last week's S |
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LATE feature on impotence.) (posted 11-15) --Compiled by William Saletan and the editors of SLATE.
Photograph of Hutu Refugees by Peter Andrews/Reuters; photograph of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin by Scott Olson/Reuters; photograph of Pierre Salinger by Eric Gaillard; photograph of Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson by Gary Hershorn/Reuters
