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Wladyslaw Pleszczynski and William McGurn

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from: Wladyslaw Pleszczynski

Looking Across the Atlantic for Political Clarity

Posted Monday, Jan. 29, 2001, at 4:39 PM ET

Ahoy Bill:

I learned long ago not to bait you, which is why it works every time I try. Now I'm waiting to hear you say some nice things about Notre Dame's only top-ranked basketball team. The one thing I don't like about women's hoops is the smaller size of the ball. It makes it seem that they're using a volleyball, plus it complicates boy-girl shoot-arounds, as I know from playing against my niece, recently a scoring ace at Smith College. (Now if only Antonia would stop voting for the likes of Judy Chicago to speak at commencement.)

Sorry I can't help you learn more about advertisers' interests in Britney Spears. Until last spring I had never heard of her. Then at my younger son's sixth-grade graduation, a classmate bequeathed his ability to love Britney Spears with all his heart to the rising fifth-graders--and I assumed he was referring to a girl in his class he had a crush on. Am I instead to understand that the next remake of Lolita will be called Britney?

You ask: How long before Greenspan undergoes revision for straying toward the tax-cut reservation? How does the day before yesterday sound? "Greenspan's [Pro-Tax Cut] Remarks Have Democrats Fuming and Questioning His Motives," the Washington Post's headline read in part. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. (which I take it doesn't stand for Notre Dame), was livid: "Mr. Greenspan sauntered up to the Hill and wasn't bashful about putting the Fed smack in the middle of the most controversial political issue of the day," he told the Post. "I'm surprised that he felt he had the berth to do that." It's just a matter of time before the enlightened among us declare tax-cutting to be as morally reprehensible as opposition to abortion.

I hope Sen. Dorgan and his colleagues keep up with the strong rhetoric. Then we wouldn't have to rely on the U.K. for political clarity. As if answering Timothy Noah's call for Whoppers of the Week, Blair Cabinet member Peter Mandelson resigned (again) last week for lying in office. Tory head William Hague knew where--and how--to affix blame:

When asked to choose between high standards of Government and the low politics of your cronies, you have unerringly chosen the latter. You set those standards yourself. In every incomplete answer in this House, every distorted accusation and every piece of baseless spin, you have set the standards of this Government.

In a Government where standards of truth, honesty and integrity have taken second place to spin and smear, aren't you truly the first among equals.



The only thing better was Tony Blair's comeback: "I really think, by that performance, you diminish yourself far more than you diminish anyone else."

Correct me if I'm wrong.

As ever,
Wlady

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718
from: Wladyslaw Pleszczynski

Looking Across the Atlantic for Political Clarity

Posted Monday, Jan. 29, 2001, at 4:39 PM ET
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Wladyslaw Pleszczynski is executive editor of the American Spectator. William McGurn is the Wall Street Journal's chief editorial writer. (Read the Journal's editorial page here.)
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