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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Christopher Caldwell and Jonathan Mahler

the breakfast table
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from: Jonathan Mahler

Christian Soldiers

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000, at 12:08 PM ET

Dear Chris,

Moving indeed, that McCain speech. And proof of its effectiveness can be found in that lame Op-Ed by Gary Bauer in the New York Times (Chris, you work at the Weekly Standard, when I can expect to see the phrase "the Reagan Legacy" disappear from Republican discourse?)

Every time I read about McCain as a POW, I can't help but think of our old friend James Stockdale. He may never have amounted to much as a politician (ironic understatement intended), but the guy actually beat his face to a bloody pulp with a stool when he was in captivity so he wouldn't be used in a Vietnamese propaganda film. I mean, jeez Louise.

Oh, and that story of scratching the cross in the dirt reminded me of another great tale of religious resilience. A historian of Eastern Europe once told me about visiting a small town in Poland in the 1970s that claimed to have a church. When he asked a couple of the townsfolk to show it to him, they led him over to an empty plot. Confused, he asked, "Where's the church?" They replied matter-of-factly: "This is where it was. Can't you imagine it?"

And speaking of Communism, I was intrigued by your description of that little theater on Karl Marx Allee in Berlin. Did you know that there's a trendy (or maybe once-trendy, or maybe never actually trendy) bar in New York called the KGB Bar? Can the SS Saloon be far behind?

OK, you may be getting tired of this Commie riff, but indulge me for one more sec here. There is definitely a movie in the life of that Bulgarian queen who just died in exile in Portugal. Her husband makes a supposedly reluctant alliance with Hitler, she is placed under house arrest by the Gestapo, and then, just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, the Communists rolled into town. In the words of the Times writer: "The slender, cheerful woman ... represented an elegant thread between the days the world watched the meaningful glances, dalliances and marriages of European royalty like a sport, and the 20th-century specters of war and revolution." Get me Meryl Streep on the blower!

But on to more pressing matters. Before the Diallo-decision backlash actually manages to drive my sympathy away from the prosecution (yes, I am talking about you, Calvin Butts), I feel that I need to say something about yesterday's New York Post editorial. It was, in a word, disgraceful. Here's how the Post attempted to dismiss the argument that Diallo would still be alive if he were white and living on the Upper East Side: "Had he indeed been a white stockbroker living on the Upper East Side, he doubtless would not have attracted the SCU's attention to begin with." In other words, yes, he would still be alive if he were a white stockbroker living on the Upper East Side. Um, guys? You can do a little better than that, can't you?

Also in the category of needless violence, how about this business with Andrew Goldstein, the schizophrenic subway pusher? Surprise, surprise: Now that his lawyers have taken him off his medication so as to make a better case for his insanity, he has started attacking his social worker. Isn't this guy's past already replete with evidence of his mental illness?

OK, this afternoon it's baseball. I must confess, Chris, since our last meal together I have done a bit of research on you and I have a hunch. Does the year 1918 mean anything to you?

Warmly,
Jonathan

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Jonathan Mahler

Christian Soldiers

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000, at 12:08 PM ET
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Christopher Caldwell is senior writer at the Weekly Standard and a columnist for New York Press. Jonathan Mahler is a senior editor at Talk.
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Highlights from The Fray:

[The Breakfast Table participants covered a wide variety of serious and political subjects this week, and as usual Fraygrants knew which were the really important topics, and were keen to participate in the life of the mind:]

The reason the quoted verse of the Steely Dan lyrics makes no sense is that you have omitted the central line:


Any major dude with half a heart
Surely will tell you, my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart
Falls together again.
When the demon is at your door,
In the morning he won't be there no more.
Any major dude can tell you

Doesn't that make it crystal clear?

--Ralph Bartlett

(To reply, click here.)


I rather think that Jonathan missed Chris' main point. Baseball teams shouldn't be adopted for their success, or for their failures. There's something mightily strange about growing up in California and rooting for the Yankees. After all, there was hardly any shortage of New York teams on the West Coast - whence the need to appropriate the only one that remained where it belonged? I'm a Red Sox fan because I was born and raised fifteen minutes from Fenway Park, because one of my strongest childhood memories is the glory of '86 (and yes, the pain), and because hope springs eternal at the end of winter. I do, however, want to compliment Chris. He may not be a native New Yorker, but he seems as smugly superior as any Yankees fan whom I have ever met.

--Yoni

(To reply, click here.)


Maybe it's one of those "you had to have been there" sort of things, but I thought The Sure Thing was charming. It was funny without being crude or stupid. And the punchline you were strugling with? After a series of catastrophes, the protagonists find themselves locked out of shelter in a downpour. The girl suddenly recalls that she has a credit card, but "I'm only supposed to use it for emergencies!"

--Bill Altreuter

(To reply, click here.)


To Bill Altreuter:
Actually that was the set-up line. The punch line followed: "Maybe one will come up."

--B.Roman

(To reply, click here.)


You should start and post a list of phrases to be banned from the press henceforth. My three nominees (for now): 1) sloe-eyed; 2) tsunami; 3) "I knew (blank) and you're no (blank)."

--Matt Murray

(To reply, click here.)


Here are some more proposed Taboo Phrases: 1) Its the *******, stupid! 2) Risky tax schemes 3) Move forward 4) Media savvy 5) Sole remaining Superpower 6) Outside the mainstream 7) Go negative.

--John McGraw

(To reply, click here.)

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