Joel Achenbach and Marjorie Williams
Marjorie:
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StumbleUponI'd rather sit through a Sylvester Stallone action-movie marathon than spend one more second thinking about Monica Lewinsky. In other words, I totally agree with you about this new, gung-ho independent counsel, Mr. Ray, who seems to be under the impression that Bill Clinton "got away" with lying about the intern. Never has so little sexual misadventure failed so enormously at its presumptive goal of secrecy. Anyone who thinks Clinton got away with his dalliance and his subsequent lies should type the words "Starr Report" into a search engine. To be revealed as a skank, for all the world to see, for historians to ponder, for senators to judge, is a nontrivial form of accountability. Maybe this new prosecutor is secretly enforcing the David Kendall Full Employment Act.
Admittedly, Clinton hasn't been technically convicted of anything, and thus someone could argue that he escaped punishment. But we, the people, the Americans who had to endure that yearlong ordeal, were punished, night after night, day after day. For Ray to talk about indicting Clinton puts the entire American citizenry in double jeopardy. Thanks for bringing this up, Marjorie, because we need to nip this nightmare in the bud.
Did you see your guy Saylor's stock has fallen again? Down, down it goes. Excuse me while I laugh maniacally. Of course the Post's stock fell seven bucks a share the very day we won the three Pulitzers, so we know the market is insane. Oh, and maybe Ralph Reed is earning his money: Today's Post has a story by James Grimaldi saying that the government is leaning against breaking up Microsoft. They don't want to create a bunch of Baby Bills. My guess is they hit Microsoft where it hurts and force the company to divest itself of Slate. You can see it coming: In a year, Kinsley's working for Rupert Murdoch.
Have you figured out your next column? I have to file again this morning. Can I just steal some of your thoughts and insights? I'm Eliáned out, even though the case is rapidly developing. The morning shows report that there have been on-again, off-again negotiations through the night to bring Elián up to Washington today to be reunited with his father. But apparently Elián has told his Miami relatives that he doesn't want to go. (For the record, in my house, 6-year-olds don't get to decide which country they're going to live in. They exist in a dictatorship.) The reports say that if the Miami family doesn't come to Washington today, they'll have to turn Elián over to his father tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Opa-lacka airport just north of Miami. My column Monday, as previously noted, heroically endorsed the primacy of the parent-child bond; today maybe I'll retract that entirely, and say who are we kidding, Cuba's horrible, Castro's the poor-man's Stalin, let this kid grow up in freedom. (And in that act of retraction, show The New Yorker a way out of its humiliating position regarding the Toobin piece on the Post.)
Did you hear? There's an anti-World Trade Organization rally today at noon at the Capitol. I may go, just to see what folks are saying; also it's not far from the vehicle inspection station, and I have serious vehicle inspection problems. Right now I've got to make breakfast and lunches, and then I want to read this intriguing article in the Wall Street Journal about a woman who has holed up on a remote Caribbean island because she's trying to escape fluoridation. It's part of a series on "Lonely Causes: An occasional look at unfashionable crusaders and their unlikely, unending crusades." Do you think the next installment will be on the independent counsel and the Monica scandal?
Cheers,
Joel
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
Let me get this straight: they give out Pulitzer's for criticism [Monday]? Please--my heart is pounding, my blood pressure is rocketing, my hands now shake, please dear, please, please tell me, where do I sign up?
--Old Timer [who is well-known in The Fray for his expertise in this area.]
(To reply, click here.)
Re: Elian Gonzales. I believe that immigration laws should be as open and welcoming as possible. But at the same time we need to look at the long-term situation of the country the people are fleeing. There is not always a whole lot we can do, and we also run the risk of becoming control freak America with it's thumb in every pie--oh, hang on, we already are that. Well, anyway, my point is that instead of trying to pass a bill to make Elian a citizen, why don't we lift the embargo and make life a little better for all Cubans?
--Anne
(To reply, click here.)
"That's exactly what Castro wants us to do", I believe, is the stock response to either ending or continuing the embargo.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click here.)
[This response almost silenced David Edelstein, but not quite:]
The embargo is a 40-year hissy fit, and it's time to give it a rest. Say what you will against Castro (I can say plenty), he'd have been long gone if the embargo had been lifted 25 years ago and Disney and all the other U.S. corporations had moved in with their sundry inducements to free (sic) enterprise.
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click here.)
The question of why people hate Janet Reno [Thursday] is a bit intricate and since I do hate her, I'd like to take a stab at it--the question, not her (I don't hate anybody that much). Reno reminds me of the Greek tragedy Antigone which shows us that strict enforcement of the law, by the book, isn't always the best thing. The Waco invasion wasn't the best thing, for example. I believe the law justified her actions, that the operation was by the book. But that doesn't mean it was a good thing. With Elian, there's that potential again that Reno will embark on the legal course, but that it won't be the morally right course.
Reno does not respect people who defy her. She assumes they are wrong and she acts on that and she has a tremendous amount of power to enforce her interpretation of law. This is the crux of my anti-Renoism: She doesn't talk to people, she barks orders at them. When people ignore the lectures they get punished. Hey, that's her job. But it'd be nice to have a more philosophical sort wielding all that power--someone with a better sense of proportion who realizes that every act of defiance is unique and deserves unique treatment.
--Michael Maiello
(To reply, click here.)
Don Porges writes in The Fray about Thursday's entry:
The definition and connotations of "dice" are much more precise in naming the objects in question. My old TI-99 had a "random number generator" command in its BASIC programming. Since it was just code, it resembled nothing that would help baby get a new pair of shoes. Besides "dice" fits into a headline nicely.
--Charles
(To reply, click here.)
[No proposals this week. But that doesn't mean the Breakfast Table went unappreciated:]
These guys were the best. And that's granting that there were some close competitors. But Joel and Marjorie are the BT gold standard. The King and Queen are dead! Bring on next week's random number generators!
--Mike
(To reply, click here.)
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