Dear Susan,
We’re only in the second day of our newspaper chatting and already I’m worrying about you. Fundraising, tobacco, presidential sex, lying, greed–you’re dwelling on all the negative stuff. Maybe you should go on-line and get Irwin Stelzer’s column in today’s New York Post, which reports on how America feels about itself. Pretty darn good, it turns out. About 85% of Americans are satisfied with their lives, up from 76% in 1979. An amazing 95% say they are happy with their family situation, 88% say they feel good about their health, about the same percentage feel that America has the best system of government in the world and 60 percent who expressed an opinion say America’s greatest days are still ahead.
As for political fund-raisers, I’m for them. Power is always going to wielded by somebody in society. In most European countries for example, it is wielded by tightly knit groups of invisible bureaucrats who all went to the same schools. In America, though, lobbyists with their PAC contributions get politicians interested in regulatory matters. Power is wielded in Congress not in unelected agencies, so there is actually some democratic pressure brought to bear. Of course, it’s ugly, but it’s better than the real world alternatives.
Call me Dr. Pangloss, but I can’t get appalled by Time magazine sucking up to Ken Starr. The media in it’s own debased way is like scientific investigation. It stumbles, deceives and gets things wrong, but over the long haul the media at least tries to get at the truth. The big picture here is that the vain reporters are trying to find out what happened while the ruthless Clintonistas are trying to cover it up, along with a few lapdogs like Brill.
Actually the Brill story is turning into a morality play. He won big attention with this story, but he is about to learn the difference between notoriety and respect. As word seeps out about his errors, naivet, and the slanting of his tale, he’s going to find that he’s blown his magazine’s credibility in the first issue. He’ll have a hard time getting mainstream reporters to write for it. (I assume that Washington Posties like Howard Kurtz will refuse to contribute after the job Brill did on Kurtz’s colleague Susan Schmidt), and he’ll have a hard time getting taken seriously. I don’t actually think Brill was motivated by sycophancy toward Clinton, as much as an egotistical lust to make a splash with his first peace. Live fast, die young.
To cheer us all up, we should dwell on all the good things that happen. For example, I read today that a man in Fox Lake, Illinois threw an M-250, which is a huge firecracker, into a lake to kill fish–which is unethical sportsmanship. But then his boat drifted on top of the unexploded bomb. When it went off, it blew a hole in his boat and he drowned. See, there is justice.
Finally, the American Film Institute has put out a list of the 100 greatest American movies, which reminds us that a lot of good movies have been made, even if they did relegate John Ford’s The Searchers, my own favorite, all the way down to number 98. The AFI list has too many long ponderous movies, like 2001 and Grapes of Wrath for my taste, and there is some political correctness–a lot of good anti-war movies like Platoon, but the only movie that depicts military courage is Patton down at number 89–but the striking thing about the list is how many fine movies come to mind that couldn’t be squeezed on: The Sweet Smell of Success, anything by Fred Astaire, The Big Sleep, Marx Brother’s classics like A Night at the Opera and Monkey Business, Destry Rides Again, and since I admitted my fondness for Disney movies yesterday, their most perfect film, Beauty and the Beast.
Don’t worry, be happy,
David
