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Jeffrey Goldberg and Jack Shafer

the breakfast table
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from: Jack Shafer

Washington's Hypersecurity State

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2001, at 5:06 PM ET

Brother Goldberg,

What sort of shameless suck-up artist are you? I ask for your opinion about the stone-cold blind sourcing of a Washington Post Page One story, and you write back, "Let me say this in the story's defense: John Harris is a great reporter, and he's playing by the generally accepted rules of White House coverage."

I never said he wasn't a great reporter. Or a great American. Or that I didn't believe his story. Now that we've settled that, can you can yank yourself out of bootlicking mode (you're still smarting over the fact that the Washington Post passed you over, aren't you) and give a substantive assessment of the story's sourcing? I'm beginning to think that Hamas is right about you.

I, too, experienced the White House fire drill bells and whistles you mentioned in your last mail. The Imperial Death Star quality of Washington has always rankled me: Black helicopters patrolling the federal corridor; streets shut down because the president decides to motor his convoy to an upper Northwest residence for a fund-raiser; cars towed away from the scene of presidential fund-raisers because the random backseats might contain bombs. Slate's offices are three or four blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., which puts us in this loathsome National Security Police State. The feeling of lockdown ratcheted up only slightly when Lynne Cheney started to work out of an office in our building again. Secret Service agents--the truly secret ones whose identities are concealed from anybody who can't spot the earwax-stained fiber-optic cords hanging from their lobes--mob the joint every time she visits. In fact, I just happen to occupy the very office that Lynne Cheney previously worked out of. It's the largest Slate D.C. office. A McOffice, if you will. But even if Cheney didn't work here, the police state feel would continue because the Mayflower Hotel is next door. (Rereading this, I sound like a whinging pom. I'm grouchy because I live in a well-kept totalitarian corridor? Please give me better material to work with next time.)

Anyway, I ignored the police sirens and sidestepped the fire department hook-and-ladder that was blocking traffic because it misnegotiated the intersection of 17th and M Streets N.W. and met my girl for lunch at the Tabard Inn. You've been there, I assume. It's Washington's idea of a charming little hotel and restaurant, but its charm works only if you stand 4 feet tall. (Every time I'm there, I expect a 4-and-a-half-foot version of Basil Fawlty to goose-step into the dining room and shout, "Duck's off!")

We were having a tasty lunch, and then it happened, as it has happened so many times before: A human bullhorn across the way turned it up to 11. Several hundred three-letter acronyms (TLAs) poured out of this female jackass' mouth as she regaled her lunch companion with her division's first quarter plans. Now, I understand that when I go to a restaurant I'm not promised the peace and quiet of my home. But why, tell me why is it that every time my girl and I dine out, we're always seated in the proximity of a shouter? Do I bring it out in them? I seem to bring it out in you.

I was tempted to call the secret Secret Service and have them escorted out.

Hey, isn't it time for you to pick up one of your daughters?

Love,
Jack

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Jack Shafer

Washington's Hypersecurity State

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2001, at 5:06 PM ET
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Jack Shafer is deputy editor of Slate. Jeffrey Goldberg is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His book on the Middle East, Prisoners, will be published next year by Knopf.
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: There was a spirit of friendly enquiry in the Fray: "Do you guys like each other?" asked Beth. "What is a CVS?" came from Dea--and do you need to be rich to find out? (Fletch tells us it's a drugstore.) And Mark wanted to know "What's wrong with a little Masada?"

Posters who weren't asking questions were trying to draw blood. "Breakfast Table" Fray regulars are a nest of trouble-makers. Neill Hamilton demonstrates this here and here, and so does Joseph Britt, whose comment below provoked a thread well worth reading, including a debate on whether basketball is prominent in American culture.]


In response to last week's "Breakfast Table", I and several other Fray posters made the suggestion that this feature would be more interesting if it involved writers who actually disagreed with each other about something.

By "something," I was referring to American politics or something especially prominent in American culture.

Disagreements about whom Israelis should vote for do not count. This is because Israel is a foreign country. Now, I wish Israel well; I like most of the Israelis I have met in my life; I even think how the American government should respond to whatever Israeli government emerges from this week's election is a topic worthy of exploration.

But who would I vote for? Stupid question

--Joseph Britt

(To reply, click here.)

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