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Wladyslaw Pleszczynski and William McGurn

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from: Wladyslaw Pleszczynski

Democratic Spontaneity, Al Gore Style

Posted Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001, at 5:08 PM ET

Dear Bill,

Lauren Hutton as an actual murderess? Tell me another tale. I think Marlene Dietrich was a more plausible potential villain in Witness for the Prosecution--but then who cares since Charles Laughton stole the movie anyway. While we're on the subject, don't miss Love With the Proper Stranger, which I first saw about 36 years ago. It's available on video, and it may be the only pro-life movie around. Apologists will claim that the grisly back-alley abortion Steve McQueen's character rescues Natalie Woods from is an argument for Roe v. Wade. But the rescue awakens love, responsibility, commitment--in short the only things keep us going. Could anything be more life-affirming or a greater source of happiness?

I've heard of the Drew professor and pastor you read about today. His name is Don Jones, and he figures prominently in the opening chapter of David Brock's The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (for which he was interviewed by then-Brock researcher George Neumayr, a very sharp young writer now with Investor's Business Daily--and you'll love his review of James Carroll's Constantine's Sword, which we posted yesterday on the American Spectator online). Blame the Rev. Jones for introducing "the young Hillary to philosophers and theologians like Kierkegaard, Niebuhr, and Barth, with a special emphasis on Paul Tillich, the theologian who led his followers to question the authority of religious creeds which, he said, could not be accepted at face value. ... Jones also drew parallels between Marxist-Leninist Utopianism and Christianity." (Brock, pp. 7-8.)

Today I feel sorry for your mother, all because of something that ran in your paper yesterday: Not only has she probably never recovered from the pitch Ralph Branca threw to Bobby Thomson, but now we're supposed to believe that Thomson knew what pitch to expect, thanks to an elaborate sign-stealing operation the Giants had installed earlier that summer of '51. I was alerted to the story this morning by the Post's Thomas Boswell, who seems genuinely disillusioned that "the shot heard around the world" was fired with stolen ammo. About the only thing missing from the Journal story or Boswell's column is DNA confirmation--that and the fact that in any other ballpark Thomson's fly ball would have been an easy out.

Must get back to the Post's post-Florida reports. Today we have a demonstration of Democratic spontaneity, Al Gore style: Fed up with Republican protesters chanting "Get out of Cheney's House" outside his residence, Gore let it be known that he "wanted some counter-protesters, and he wanted them fast." So he placed a call to John Sweeney, "the only person he knew who could round up a hundred Democrats on short notice." We also learn today that the Seminole and Martin absentee ballot cases were pushed by someone even more committed--and willing to spend millions of his own money--than Democratic lawyer and donor Harry Jacobs. Tidbits like this keep me reading, not to mention remembering, for e.g., that before calling David Boies, the Gore team tried to hire Joel Klein, as reported on Tuesday. Current history is in the details.

But I'll leave it to you to explain Sen. Robert Torricelli's latest flip in coming out against John Ashcroft--this after he initially went out of his way to back the nomination. Sen. Bob is giving New Jersey politicians a bad rap. No wonder you'd rather revisit Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and probably even Macau.

Stay tuned,
Wlady

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718
from: Wladyslaw Pleszczynski

Democratic Spontaneity, Al Gore Style

Posted Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001, at 5:08 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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