Marjorie Williams and Tucker Carlson
Dear Tucker,
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponI think your explanation of the Gore-is-dead phenomenon is pretty sound, if a depressing comment on the mores of journalism. (If anything, there is even more evidence today that Gore still has a pulse: He's gaining in Florida, and Bush would still need a miracle to take California.) But here's another question for the ladybug: Why are you particularly anxious to see this election end? Do you always feel this way as voting day approaches? Or has there been something especially dispiriting about this campaign--other than the fact that both candidates have mostly ignored all voters under the age of 65 unless they live in Michigan?
I'm groping for an explanation on my own behalf, too. I've been loath to admit to myself how turned off I am to the whole thing at this point. (Though I am clear that I'm looking forward to an end to the charming candidate e-mails that clot my in-box by the dozen: GAO DISPUTES DEMOCRATS ON NURSING HOMES. BUSH GETS IT WRONG ON SOCIAL SECURITY--AGAIN. Can there be any e-mail greeting less alluring than REVISED CHENEY ADVISORY?)
But my obsession today is with the amazing interview Clinton gave to Esquire, complaining about the fact that the Republicans haven't yet apologized for impeaching him. Just when you think you finally see Clinton whole, he goes and ratchets up the self-pity another notch. Only last Friday I went back and read Joe Klein's remarkably fair-minded retrospective of the Clinton administration, published a month or so ago in The New Yorker. It left me in an unaccustomed state of mild Clinton nostalgia, especially for its account of the ways Clinton--somewhat invisibly, beneath all the swoops and dives and lightning and thunder of his two terms in office--has bettered the lot of the working poor. So reading Clinton's latest--including the White House's whining about how Esquire had promised to embargo the interview until the election was over--was just one last chance to stare into the clanking machinery that drives Clinton to drive us crazy.
Though he is obviously not the only pol who is given to self-delusion. Jim Moran, for those not up on Virginia politics, is a Democratic congressman (Is he, in fact, your congressman?) who finds himself on the front page of the Washington Post this morning because he took a $25,000 unsecured loan from his good friend who just happened to be a lobbyist for Schering-Plough; five days later, Moran just happened to co-sponsor a bill to extend the company's patent for the drug Claritin. All a coincidence, says Moran.
Of course what's really interesting about this story is the part that no one will ever talk about, which is that Moran and his friend met when both were Hill staffers. Twenty-three years later, the one who had spent five terms in Congress was financially desperate--all the more so for his efforts to solve his problems in the stock market; the one who had stepped through the revolving door to become a lobbyist was in a position to write a friend a check for $25,000 at a favorable interest rate, no big deal. These relationships--and the envy and fury they inspire in people who earn public-sector salaries--are part of the very fabric of Washington and one of the reasons that someone will one day write a great Washington novel.
Which is not to say that Moran wasn't remarkably dense, at best; only that the familiar elements of these Impropriety Dramas leave out all the great human stuff, which you need to know in order to understand that a guy who pockets a big loan from a lobbyist friend and then carries his water really can see himself as an innocent. The longer I live in Washington, the more convinced I am that nine out of 10 people who end up on the front page of the Post for shady dealing really haven't admitted to themselves what was wrong with what they did.
Am I getting soft in my old age to find this aspect of the story so much more compelling than the simple fact that Moran got caught with his pants down?
Yours,
Marjorie
Is Hasan a Terrorist? And Other Great Stories From Slate This Week.
How Sarah Palin Is Dividing the Republican Party
Can We Apply the Lessons of Y2K to Swine Flu?
They Made a Movie About the Wrong Aviatrix
Jamie Foxx's New Single Is Extremely Lewd
The Week's Best Editorial Cartoons
Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: The first two posts below comment on different Breakfast Table topics, but we can't help sensing a connection, and a rather cruel blow at the BT participants.
The other important topic is of course Jeopardy. David Franklin's post is here. Kevin Bertsch gives a detailed analysis (we feature the conclusion below) and says "Tucker you still don't understand"--though it seems to us at The Fray that Mr Carlson's words "Blow yourself up before you let yourself squeak by" make it clear he doesn't need to understand strategy. Meriadoc points out that "knowing the answer" doesn't seem to feature in any of this discussion, and there are other comments throughout The Fray.
Elsewhere, Lisa Hancock-Jasie generously gives Tucker Carlson two reasons not to like Rupert Murdoch, and then another two later on.]
I'm aghast at what Carlson and Williams say about their college days. My years at Brown, in physics and then computer science, were the most intensive periods of sustained learning of my life. I guess it's true, very few people go into quantum physics because they can't make it as journalism majors.
--Bob Munck
(To reply, click here.)
Sure, space colonization isn't getting as much attention as, say, Al Gore's earth tones, or the latest Oprah appearance. No surprise. Columbus' voyage wasn't thought of as important at the time either. That's because the chattering classes, then and now, are more interested in gossip than news. They like to talk about each other, and about the people they fondly imagine they're like, or will be like some day, or at least will have influence over some day.
In all of this, of course, they're mostly wrong. But a close connection to reality has never been the strength of the chattering classes. That's for the boring geeky types who actually change the world.
--A.G.Android
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Wednesday's entry:]
In third place, sometimes the right move is to bet everything, sometimes it's to bet nothing, and sometimes you bet part of what you have. David's strategy was perfectly rational, and to have bet everything to avoid appearing 'wimpy' would have been to substitute macho stupidity for brains, which is generally not a winning move on Jeopardy.
--Kevin Bertsch
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Tuesday's entry:]
Why do issues like a kiss or Oprah dominate? The answer is because the press, and by this I mean the working press not the pundits, have been reduced to recycling AP wire stories churned out by the same five writers for the same five major papers every day. Facts that don't fit preordained story lines are jettisoned. Al Gore is a liar, that's the story, run with it. George Bush doesn't lie, he's stupid, and his misstatements are just good natured mistakes. This is what passes for journalism. The punditocracy, by which I mean those highly paid folks like your own Tucker and Marjorie who take it upon themselves not to be journalists, but to provide their opinion on everything, whether they are qualified in the subject matter or not, have completely punted in this election. It is they who declared that going on Oprah was a good idea. It is they who decided Bush was a frontrunner before the first vote was cast in Iowa. It is they who have declared Clinton-fatigue a factor. It is they who refuse to delve in any depth into the issues of the day.
Ask not for whom Al Gore kisses, he kisses for thee.
--John Burns
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Monday's entry:]
One key sign that it doesn't look good for Gore is Joe Lieberman's decision to remain in the Senate race in Connecticut. Based on that decision, I suspect that the Dem's internal polling numbers look worse than the public tracking polls. If Lieberman either loses the Vice Presidency or withdraws from the Senate race, the seat would be a shoe-in for the Democrats, while if Gore/Lieberman win, it will be assured for the Republicans. If it looked like Lieberman might be the next Vice President, there would be a lot of pressure on him to withdraw from the Senate race.
--J.Travers
(To reply, click here.)