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Russ Smith and Ellen Willis

the breakfast table
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from: Ellen Willis

Beyond Fact-Checking

Posted Monday, Aug. 16, 1999, at 1:56 PM ET

Hi Russ,

While you've been in Bermuda getting sunburned, I've been up in the mountains (Catskills) all summer, which has been great for getting away but also leaves me somewhat media-challenged--I get the New York dailies but don't have cable or any TV, and even the radio reception is terrible. For any magazine less popular than Time, the nearest venue is that great metropolitan center, Woodstock, which is 25 miles away. Courtesy of a traveling family member I did get hold of the first Talk issue, speaking of Hillary. The profile was terrible--it must be really difficult to write with your nose so far up someone's ass.

Hillary needs a great popular novel to do her justice. She's in some ways poignant, in some ways horrifying, and an ur-representation of all our cultural contradictions about women and power. I'm no fan of her politics--on the evidence, her left-wing reputation is entirely undeserved, she's a pro-corporate New Democrat (that health plan should have been called the Insurance Company Protection Act), a pious communitarian (against divorce--!!), no friend of civil liberties, feminism half a millimeter deep. I would vote for her for Senate, because I can't stand Giuliani and don't want to see the Republicans get 60 votes, but not with any enthusiasm. She's a vulnerable candidate, not because of the New York thing but because she's arrogant, hates the press, and people are tired of the Clintons. (Though if Ken Starr is stupid enough to release his report right before the election, she's in.) But Giuliani is no shoo-in: A lot of New Yorkers and even suburbanites are turned off by his authoritarianism; Pataki and D'Amato will continue to undermine him, endorsement or no; and the Conservative Party probably won't endorse him unless he makes some gestures to the right, which will not help him with his New York/suburban base.

I do think Hillary will run, short of some major negative groundswell, which I don't detect so far. I hope she does, since it would at least be an exciting and unpredictable race, unlike (so far) the presidential yawn. RFK Jr. or Andrew Cuomo?? Excuse me while I take a nap. Rangel? Maybe. Nita Lowey would have been the best candidate, actually, but at this point she could never escape the comparisons and the celebrity gap.

Re: the dailies' casual attitude toward facts: If news stories get the dates wrong, the "facts" purveyed by what passes for news analysis and commentary make me feel like I'm living in an alternate universe. From what I read, we're in the middle of an endless euphoric economic boom and lots of jobs at rising wages, while what I see is a shaky stock market, technology companies unable to unload their overstock of computers, continuing layoffs, people losing good jobs and getting part-time, lower-paid, benefitless jobs instead, etc., etc. And then I keep reading that the culture war is over--so what do you call it when the Kansas school board has decided evolution doesn't have to be taught?

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Ellen Willis

Beyond Fact-Checking

Posted Monday, Aug. 16, 1999, at 1:56 PM ET
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Russ Smith is the editor in chief and owner of New York Press, the Manhattan weekly he founded in 1988. He writes the column "Mugger" for the paper. Ellen Willis directs the cultural journalism program at New York University. Her latest book, Don't Think, Smile! Notes on a Decade of Denial will be published this fall.
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