Dear Susan,
Who’s your favorite conservative newspaper columnist? My favorite liberals are Richard Cohen and Frank Rich. Cohen knows just what size idea to bite off for an 800-word sprint and his mind wanders creatively over many different topics. Rich doesn’t have much of a positive agenda of his own, but he knows he hates conservatives, and better than anyone else he is able to get under our skin. I should add that there are at least half a dozen conservative columnists who are better than any liberal: Will, Krauthammer, Gigot, Michael Kelly, James Glassman, Safire, etc. Liberals make better rock stars, conservatives better columnists. I also think Maureen Dowd’s pyrotechnics are awfully impressive but I don’t know where to put her politically. (There was a big roast of Bush press spokesman Marlin Fitzwater here the other night. I went to the Mets-Orioles game instead, but I hear Dowd was hilarious, CNN’s Bernie Shaw was atrocious and the entire GOP establishment is panting in anticipation of the George W. Bush administration).
Anyway this rate-the-columnists idea came to mind because Richard Cohen has a fine column about China in the Washington Post today. He urges Clinton, as does a New York Times editorial, to make a Reaganesque speech when he visits Tiananmen Square on Saturday. But the best part about the column is how he weighs the various virtues and evils of the current Chinese regime. He acknowledges the lack of democracy on a national level, the intolerance of any political dissent (there are 2,000 political prisoners), the religious persecution, but he still comes out positively toward China. Economic reform, political loosening, some conciliatory diplomatic gestures. I think the Chinese are more malevolent than Cohen does, but at least he makes you consider the alternative. The Wall Street Journal, by contrast had an absolutely terrible front page piece yesterday on China. It was written on a third grade level and it was a classic suck up to the Chinese. It ignored almost all evidence that reflects badly on the governing elite and treated those who oppose the engagement policy is if they were nuts and freaks. (In this the Journal was reflecting the attitude of the U.S. business elite).
Some of this attitude reminds me of the conventional wisdom before W.W.I, which held that countries were trading so much with each other that war was impossible. If there is anything we should have learned over the past century, it is that we are not on some inevitable path toward liberalization, secularization and moderation. I’m also beginning to conclude that the starting point of political wisdom is the ability to take the arguments of your opponents seriously. The China lobby doesn’t, neither did the tobacco bill forces.
Is this a big day for Ken Auletta or what? The New Yorker media writer must be tingling over the AT&T-TCI merger. So many moguls to talk to. I leave analysis of these deals to the experts. I read the stories for an account of the magic moment when the deal was consummated. After months of foreplay, two virile executives finally come to agreement–titans determining the fate of millions–a thrilling climax. Accounts of these meetings are the business person’s pornography. I turned to the Wall Street Journal, but for once there is a merger story they don’t own. Then I turned to the New York Times, but their account of the merger talks is also boring and uninformative. Then I came to a Mike Mills story in the Washington Post: “Breakthrough for AT&T Came at Secret Meeting” Bingo!
Mills got an interview with TCI’s John Malone yesterday who described it all. He and AT&T’s Armstrong had been going back and forth for months, in Denver, in New York. Then came the climactic meeting in a little airport near Morristown N.J. Armstrong and Malone were passing a legal pad back and forth, adding notes and ideas. “I could tell he was getting it,” Malone recalls. “I think we understand each other,” Armstrong said. This reminds me of the scene in War and Peace (If I’m remembering right) when Pierre proposes by simply writing out the letters “W…Y…M…M…”–Will You Marry Me. I also think I read that is actually how Tolstoy proposed to his wife. All happy mergers are alike, each unhappy merger is unhappy in its own way.
Give your daughter a big congratulations from me for perseverance. I can’t say I’ve figured out how to encourage perseverance in my kids, whether It’s through compliments and self-esteem, or through drill sergeant-like pushing. I tend to think praise is pretty good for encouragement, but kids today are surrounded by self-esteem enhancement. Each one wins a trophy for every little thing they do, and as far as I can see they actually believe they are outstanding at everything. It’s nice at the time, but what happens when they discover they are bad at something and need to overcome their badness? My larger theory is that teenagers rebel against self-esteem by puncturing their bodies with piercings, tattooing themselves and otherwise indulging in grunge and self-mutilation.
On that happy note, I’m off to Chicago. Going to a conference at the estate Colonel Robert McCormick built. What a weird guy he was.
Sincerely,
David
