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The Pseudo-Rockefeller

By Jeremy Derfner
Updated Friday, Dec. 8, 2000, at 8:30 PM ET

New Republic

New Republic, Dec. 18
A piece scoffs at George W. Bush's pledge to build a bipartisan administration. Mainstream Democrats will refuse to serve in a Bush administration, and the conservative ones who do will be seen as betrayers, not uniters. … An article calls Dick Cheney's recent tax-cut rhetoric nonsense. Cheney claims the slowing economy should force policy-makers to reconsider Bush's tax cuts, but his argument is foolish for two reasons: First, Republicans usually laugh at such Keynesian arguments, and second, since the economy is only slowing and not even close to negative growth, Cheney has misunderstood the basic tenets of the economic worldview he suddenly espouses. … A piece reports that Gore has angered blacks by contesting the election on the basis of technicalities such as chad and absentee ballots when he could have zeroed in on blatant cases of racial discrimination and voter intimidation. Black activists want Gore to fight on, not so much because they want him to win, but because they want to expose racist election policy.

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair, January 2000
An article describes how a young French orphan conned millions out of unsuspecting benefactors, posing first in Los Angeles as French royalty and then in the Hamptons as a Rockefeller. Along the way, he befriended actor Mickey Rourke and married twice, first to a born-again Christian coat-check girl and next to a Playboy centerfold. His lack of breeding (and his Mazda) exposed him as a pseudo-Rockefeller; he has since jumped bail and is now a fugitive. ... A piece profiles Pyongyang, the capital of beleaguered North Korea. A famine killed as many as 3 million North Koreans in just three years, and Pyongyang is a façade city, with virtually no functional substance. Even dictator Kim Jong-il seems to recognize the abject condition of his country, but if he abandoned the agitprop and ended his cult of personality, the population would go insane because it would see how ruined it was.

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone, Dec. 28/Jan. 4
The big sound bite from the Bill Clinton interview ("I worked out this dumbass 'don't ask, don't tell' thing with Colin Powell") turns out to be mistranscribed, as Slate's Chris Suellentrop pointed out here. Clinton speculates elsewhere in the interview about why Republicans hate him so much. He believes that because his "ideas on crime and welfare and economic management and foreign policy" were not traditionally Democratic, the Republicans could not caricature them, and so they lost all the major policy battles. Clinton also says that they hated him for being involved in the anti-Vietnam era counterculture. The toughest questions are about why Clinton could not deliver anti-gun legislation in the wake of Columbine and other school shootings, but Clinton claims that the House Republicans are at fault for bottling up good bills in committee. Clinton mostly dodges questions about drug legalization or decriminalization.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Dec. 10
The cover story explains how the Internet has changed the coming-out experience for gay teen-agers. Once isolated and prone to serious depression, young gays and lesbians have found an online community of chat rooms, advice columnists, and pornography sites that allows them to live a virtually gay lifestyle while remaining closeted among friends and family. Most experts say a virtual gay community is better than none, but some worry that the lack of face-to-face accountability makes gay teens susceptible to predators and con artists. … A piece praises Magic Johnson's inner-city business empire. He has brought Loews movie theaters, Starbucks, and T.G.I. Friday's to South Central Los Angeles and Harlem, disproving the conventional wisdom that blacks make bad consumers. One complaint: He has partnered primarily with white-owned businesses, and so the black wealth he has tapped does not stay in poor communities. … An article profiles Nauru, a tiny Pacific Island whose offshore banks helped Russians launder some $70 billion. Nauru turned to shell banking because its phosphate mines, which destroyed its ecosystem, are played out.

Time and Newsweek

Time and Newsweek, Dec. 11
Time applauds the Supreme Court for briefly bringing dignity to the usually contentious election fight. The Republicans were encouraged by the tone of Friday's hearing, especially by swing voter Sandra Day O'Connor's tough questions for the Al Gore team. … A Newsweek story reports that the public wants a manual count but is annoyed by Gore himself. Congressional Democrats are starting to stray.

Newsweek profiles the young generation of Palestinian warlords controlling the intifada. They despise the Palestinian Authority for its corruption, and it is unclear how much they listen to Yasser Arafat. They recognize Israel's right to exist but believe violence will win a Palestinian state that includes Jerusalem. … A piece catalogs DaimlerChrysler's problems. When Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler, the corporate cultures clashed, causing Chrysler's top people to resign. The company started hemorrhaging money, and the combined company is now worth less than what Daimler-Benz was worth at the time of the merger.

Time reports on the college gender gap. Fewer men are going to college now than in 1992, and by 2010, college campuses could be 58 percent female. Experts have no idea why, but many schools have started special male recruitment efforts, and a few have even instituted pro-male affirmative action policies.

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 11
Like Time did, the cover story praises the Supreme Court for its gravitas, but it differs from the other news mags in its interpretation of Democratic resolve. Far from losing patience with Gore, U.S. News says, labor, blacks, and congressional Democrats are more enthusiastic than ever. … A piece explains the right-wing resurgence in Israel. Ehud Barak is more hated than even Yasser Arafat, and last week 100,000 people joined in a protest against him in Jerusalem. He has lost the support of key allies such as Israeli Arabs and Russian immigrants. Meanwhile, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is remembered not for his otherwise failed presidency but for his ability to neutralize Palestinian terror. ... A piece reports that class-action fraud lawsuits could destroy the already struggling online auction eBay. Its stock is slumping because analysts fear it cannot convert from auction site to commerce portal, and now it may be held liable for fake memorabilia sold on its site.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, Dec. 11
An article examines Saddam Hussein's increasingly powerful grip on Iraq. He has exploited loopholes in U.N. sanctions and allowed enough smuggling to keep the rich happy; many countries are starting to reinitiate diplomatic relations with Iraq for its oil reserves; and the pro-Saddam propaganda machine works better now than ever before. … A piece blames rent control for a landlord-tenant murder in New York. For more than 30 years, Barbara Kenna falsely accused her landlord of stealing items from her apartment, and during a confrontation he shot her several times at point-blank range. Kenna was unwilling to move out of the apartment because she paid so little in rent, and the landlord could not easily evict her.

GQ

GQ, December 2000
A piece describes the racial controversy that flared up in Kokomo, Miss., when a black teen-ager was found hanging dead from a tree. Jesse Jackson called it a lynching and persuaded the national media to go along with the story, but the local police were correct in their determination of suicide. … GQ's literary editor tells about his experiences taking Ritalin. A lifelong scatterbrain, he became intensely focused on his work as soon as he started taking the drug. But he eventually became a drone, obsessed with productivity and utterly devoid of spontaneity, so he quit. He worries that millions of kids who don't want the drug take it because it pleases their parents. … A Hank Williams III profile calls the country musician his grandfather's ghost. He looks exactly the like him, drinks and womanizes as much, and could revolutionize music by blending country with punk.

National Review

National Review, Dec. 11
A piece suggests that Democrats get support from both the very dumbest and the very smartest American voters. The urban machines pressure dumb voters to the polls, and the smart voters "believe their brilliance gives them license to organize the lives of the rest of us." The solution: IQ test voters and "remove both tails of the bell curve from the electoral rolls." … A piece applauds the Republican demonstrators in Miami-Dade for stealing "the other guy's playbook" The usually staid rank-and-file GOPers were fed up enough to go into the streets, "and it worked." … An article blasts the new, settled-down Madonna. After having two kids, she's settled down with the love of her life, and she has dropped her "exhortations to group sex and anonymous fellatio" for family life in an $11 million London flat. The press praises her for growing up, but she has already been a bad role model to a generation.

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Jeremy Derfner is a former Slate editorial assistant.
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