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Timothy Noah and Marjorie Williams

the breakfast table
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from: Timothy Noah

Don't Count Your Boobies Until They're Hatched

Posted Tuesday, July 14, 1998, at 3:53 PM ET

Marjorie,

Hey, watch who you're calling a sick puppy. You're starting to sound like a Thurber Wife. As in: "You are a booby, and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch." (That's from James Thurber's "The Unicorn in the Garden," and as you may recall the wife who makes this rude comment ends up being carted off to the booby-hatch herself. Though as I write this I'm remembering that most booby-hatches of yore no longer exist; they've been replaced by booby pharmaceuticals and booby outpatient clinics.)

But enough domestic comedy.

For some reason I can no longer bring myself to read anything about Al Sharpton or Tawana Brawley, even when I'm being paid to. So let's skip that one. The HMO story in the Times is very interesting, and it follows a by-now established pattern in the Republican-controlled Congress: 1.) The GOP tells Democrats they will expand regulation in a given area over its dead body; 2.) The Democrats take their cause to the public (usually through the media); 3.) Business lobbyists, who are basically cautious types easily frightened by the over-the-top anti-government rhetoric of the GOP House leadership, and easily swayed by public-opinion polls, conclude that some regulation is inevitable; and 4.) These same business leaders do an end run around the GOP to strike a regulatory compromise.

This basic sequence of events played out several times when I was covering environmental policy for The Wall Street Journal in 1995 and 1996.

Thanks for pointing out Karl Vick's "Letter from Lagos" in the Washington Post. I do like this notion of "house wives" and "yard wives." I wish we could get a more precise count of how many wives Abiola had. (Also, is there another category--say, "work wives"?) No wonder he suffered so in prison; I can't imagine he was entitled to conjugal visits with the lot of them. (Did he have "prison wives" too?)

My recommendation for the day is Eric Pianin's profile of Lawrence Kudlow in the Washington Post. Kudlow is an important adviser to House Budget committee chairman John Kasich and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and his basic message is: You aren't cutting taxes fast enough. If this logic has a familiar ring, that's no coincidence; Kudlow was chief economist to David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget chief and, for awhile, one of Washington's most ardent supply-side economists. (Quick refresher on supply-side theory: When taxes go down, revenues go up. Always! It's that simple!) In Kudlow's case the "supply'' appears to have carried a double meaning: During the go-go 80's, Kudlow developed a nasty drug and alcohol habit that cost him a job as chief economist for Bear, Stearns and an economics-writer gig at William F. Buckley's National Review. (He once missed a speaking engagement with Bear, Stearns clients because he'd blacked out from a cocaine binge.)

After that, it was Hazelden and a conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, and apparently now he's off drugs--but he still has that supply-side monkey on his back.

Putting Fiscal Responsibility Above All Else,

Tim

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152535455565758596061626364656667686970717273747576
from: Timothy Noah

Don't Count Your Boobies Until They're Hatched

Posted Tuesday, July 14, 1998, at 3:53 PM ET
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Timothy Noah writes Slate's "Chatterbox" column. Marjorie Williams is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.
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