David Plotz and Hanna Rosin
Patricians and Principles
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Thursday, March 9, 2000, at 5:29 PM ETDearest David,
I suspect you put out that Bradley item as bait. But because of your sweet sign-off, and because the weather's so nice, and because several friends have called worried about how much we squabble, and because that Bradley mourner in "The Fray" made me feel bad, I won't rise to it. I will now pull a McCain, and change my mind mid-campaign.
I didn't see him deliver the farewell address, but I just read it. Actually, I don't think it's half-bad. It begins well, with a rare self-deprecating joke. And while the "new politics" he talks about is not really new, it's important. He's right, that Gore has to account for his role in a politics corrupted by money. And he's also right that in times of prosperity we tend to forget the less fortunate "A president is president of all the people, wealthy as well as poor, but a president must listen more closely because the voices of those who have been less fortunate are not as loud and insistent as those who have been more fortunate." The man may be awkward, and distant, and a patrician, but I can't argue with that.
I take a break from my kinder and gentler breakfasting to point out a brilliant notebook item in my alma mater, the New Republic. It's about an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal I meant to write about Monday but which slipped my mind, so I'm glad they (he, Hi Jon) took it up. The Op-Ed was by Mark Helprin, author and Republican speechwriter "known for penning lyrical odes to the warrior virtues," writes TNR. Helprin's running theme is the nobility of the brave soldier, and he used to it to great effect when he wrote a farewell speech for Bob Dole. He should, by his principles, support McCain, but as it happens he doesn't, so the principles bend. Now, it seems, the greatest virtue is party loyalty. "Betrayals," he writes about McCain, "are hard to square with honor." Of all the mysteries of this race, the conservative's visceral loathing of McCain will always confound me. Is it really only because the press liked him so much?
Well, you can't answer, since we've reached the end of our dialogue. I had hoped we would at some point get away from politics, and talk about food, the Walker Evans exhibit, Bernhard Schlink, anything else. But alas, primary week was our unlucky draw.
Here's to a lifetime of breakfasts.
Yours, faithfully,
Hanna
P.S.--I promise.
Patricians and Principles
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Thursday, March 9, 2000, at 5:29 PM ETHanna Rosin covers religion for the Washington Post. David Plotz is her husband and Slate's Washington bureau chief.
Highlights from The Fray:
Obviously I'm biased, and in mourning, but Hanna's outburst about Bill Bradley [see Wednesday's entry] still seems to be a bit much...it's pretty hard to exit one of these races with any grace and dignity, and I think my guy's doing a pretty dang good job of it. Regarding "you just lost, nobody liked you" - Bradley picked up a fairly consistent 30% of the vote nationwide, but many more didn't hate Bradley but they simply thought Gore was the better candidate. Could you imagine if Gore hadn't gone through a primary? Six months of getting killed in the press every night by the GOP? And certainly Bradley did raise a number of issues that the veep wouldn't have prioritized--including universal health care, race relations, and, yes, campaign finance reform.
--Sad Bradley Fan
(To reply, click
here.)
[And see Thursday's entry where Ms Rosin responds: that Bradley mourner in The Fray made me feel bad.]
The Breakfast Table asked [see Tuesday's entry] why science reporters haven't written articles explaining the reason TRW and other contractors have such a hard time making a workable missile defense. The short answer (I'm a correspondent for Science magazine, which I assume makes me a science reporter) is that they have written such articles, and the reason that the contractors are having such trouble is that the task is extremely difficult. It's like shooting a bullet at a bullet, only much, much harder. Longer explanatory analogy: I once saw Pief Panofsky, the Stanford physicist who helped negotiate the test-ban treaty, talk about this subject in Cambridge. He asked the audience to imagine some nutty guy who liked to drive into his garage by hitting the garage-door opener at precisely the right moment so that the door flew open exactly as he rolled in. If you think about it for a moment, you can see that this is quite like flying into the path of a missile at exactly the right time so that you hit its forward section -- it's a matter of split-second timing. Now imagine that you are doing this at thousands of miles an hour. Now imagine that instead of a regular car, you are driving a jet-powered car, which shudders and shakes and has to be constantly course-corrected just to stay in a straight line, which of course must be factored in to your garage-door opening. Now imagine that the garage is moving, too, and it's jiggling through the air just like you are. Now imagine that you have to make a whole lot of the crucial decisions when you are miles away and can't even get a good look at the garage. Now imagine -- Panofsky went on like this for a good while, and in the end pretty much convinced everyone in the audience that the ABM treaty was a good idea primarily because it would prevent nations from spending billions of dollars to build systems that simply could not work. Or, rather, that it was supposed to do that -- I guess we're doing it anyway.
--Charles C. Mann
(To reply, click
here.)
You asked {Tuesday's entry] what TRW stands for.
Two brainy guys formed Ramo-Woolridge in Los Angeles and showed up on the cover of Time in the late 1950s. Soon after, the big successful machine shop, Thompson Products, acquired them. I don't remember if they named their company Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge, but if they did, they soon changed it to their italicized monogram, TRW.
--Thomas Tersigni
(To reply, click
here.)
I love this word, "ironists," as in "committed Democrats and ironists all" by Hanna [See Tuesday's entry]. As for me, I try to live without irony, but sometimes my shirts are just too damned wrinkled, especially the cotton ones. And "canicide!" Fabulous.
--Tim K.
(To reply, click
here.)
Plotz has a dizziness accumulated only from his great rareness in common folkish observations without realizing that greatness comes from all around him and manifests itself only to those who are not so encumbered as he obviously is in his own importance and cowering adjectives self learned and looking for a target that is worthy of his very dubious talents and one that is not likely to object as he reads much more worthy...stuff.
--bill schwarz
(To reply, click
here.)
To hell with Gabriel Snyder--more domesticity please.
--Jim Crowley
(To reply, click
here.)
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Highlights from The Fray:
Obviously I'm biased, and in mourning, but Hanna's outburst about Bill Bradley [see Wednesday's entry] still seems to be a bit much...it's pretty hard to exit one of these races with any grace and dignity, and I think my guy's doing a pretty dang good job of it. Regarding "you just lost, nobody liked you" - Bradley picked up a fairly consistent 30% of the vote nationwide, but many more didn't hate Bradley but they simply thought Gore was the better candidate. Could you imagine if Gore hadn't gone through a primary? Six months of getting killed in the press every night by the GOP? And certainly Bradley did raise a number of issues that the veep wouldn't have prioritized--including universal health care, race relations, and, yes, campaign finance reform.
--Sad Bradley Fan
(To reply, click here.)
[And see Thursday's entry where Ms Rosin responds: that Bradley mourner in The Fray made me feel bad.]
The Breakfast Table asked [see Tuesday's entry] why science reporters haven't written articles explaining the reason TRW and other contractors have such a hard time making a workable missile defense. The short answer (I'm a correspondent for Science magazine, which I assume makes me a science reporter) is that they have written such articles, and the reason that the contractors are having such trouble is that the task is extremely difficult. It's like shooting a bullet at a bullet, only much, much harder. Longer explanatory analogy: I once saw Pief Panofsky, the Stanford physicist who helped negotiate the test-ban treaty, talk about this subject in Cambridge. He asked the audience to imagine some nutty guy who liked to drive into his garage by hitting the garage-door opener at precisely the right moment so that the door flew open exactly as he rolled in. If you think about it for a moment, you can see that this is quite like flying into the path of a missile at exactly the right time so that you hit its forward section -- it's a matter of split-second timing. Now imagine that you are doing this at thousands of miles an hour. Now imagine that instead of a regular car, you are driving a jet-powered car, which shudders and shakes and has to be constantly course-corrected just to stay in a straight line, which of course must be factored in to your garage-door opening. Now imagine that the garage is moving, too, and it's jiggling through the air just like you are. Now imagine that you have to make a whole lot of the crucial decisions when you are miles away and can't even get a good look at the garage. Now imagine -- Panofsky went on like this for a good while, and in the end pretty much convinced everyone in the audience that the ABM treaty was a good idea primarily because it would prevent nations from spending billions of dollars to build systems that simply could not work. Or, rather, that it was supposed to do that -- I guess we're doing it anyway.
--Charles C. Mann
(To reply, click here.)
You asked {Tuesday's entry] what TRW stands for.
Two brainy guys formed Ramo-Woolridge in Los Angeles and showed up on the cover of Time in the late 1950s. Soon after, the big successful machine shop, Thompson Products, acquired them. I don't remember if they named their company Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge, but if they did, they soon changed it to their italicized monogram, TRW.
--Thomas Tersigni
(To reply, click here.)
I love this word, "ironists," as in "committed Democrats and ironists all" by Hanna [See Tuesday's entry]. As for me, I try to live without irony, but sometimes my shirts are just too damned wrinkled, especially the cotton ones. And "canicide!" Fabulous.
--Tim K.
(To reply, click here.)
Plotz has a dizziness accumulated only from his great rareness in common folkish observations without realizing that greatness comes from all around him and manifests itself only to those who are not so encumbered as he obviously is in his own importance and cowering adjectives self learned and looking for a target that is worthy of his very dubious talents and one that is not likely to object as he reads much more worthy...stuff.
--bill schwarz
(To reply, click here.)
To hell with Gabriel Snyder--more domesticity please.
--Jim Crowley
(To reply, click here.)