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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

Happy May Day, Katha,

A big day at The Nation, I'm sure. Unisex tweeds, seminars on family values, reminiscences of Alger Hiss, sherry all round. At TNR, all we got was a large, inflatable menora over 19th Street for Israel's birthday. Socialists have all the fun.

Some eternal truths in today's papers. The IRA refuses to disarm. And their intransigence we are supposed to be grateful for. Why is it that, in the press, terrorists are heroes if they enter "peace" negotiations but not blackmailing murderers if they keep their semtex and machine guns? Maybe Gerry Adams learned something from Arafat. And Yeltsin continues to reform. Why is it that Yeltsin gets such a terrible press, I wonder? What he has achieved in Russia is monumental, and just when he is dismissed as a buffoon, he tries once again, against the odds, to keep economic reform on track. His personal unpredictability is arguably essential to keep his many enemies off balance. And the Russian economy, for all its woes, is now in recovery. NATO has expanded without a revanchist response; and the Constitution is still (just)intact. What more could we want? Yet it is fashionable to deride this nation-builder as a drunk autocrat. I don't get it. Maybe some of the tweedies are nostalgic for the Soviets.

Clinton's press conference was a classic. It reminded me of the only good scene in Primary Colors when he learns that he may have made a young black girl pregnant. "Can't I ever get a break?" he laments. The man's incapacity to take responsibility is fathomless. My favorite quote of the day is from Webb Hubbell's prison phone calls to his wife, saying he'll have to take the hit for not cooperating in the Rose Law Firm inquiry: "I will not raise those allegations that might open it up to Hillary ... So I need to roll over one more time."

Just who does Clinton think he's kidding in all of this? Except most of the American people.

best
Andrew

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