Posted on 09/05/2001 5:54:34 AM PDT by prognostigaator
A View From Here -- Deb Weiss
by deb weiss
every tuesday
The More Things Change
September 4, 2001
I suppose a lot has changed since last I wrote.
Except -- as my teenage daughters would say -- NOT.
Change is mostly a matter of interpretation, when you get right down to it, and the fact remains that the one truly admirable thing the French ever gave the world (with the possible exception of a fresh croissant), is the maxim we translate roughly, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Consider, in this summer of the shark.
EMAIL: DEB WEISS
Chandra Levy is still missing -- pleasing news for Mark Geragos, Larry King, and the newsettes at MSNBC, all of whom have found their visibility greatly enhanced by the invisibility of Chandra.
It is also a delicious twist of fate for Congressional Democrats, who are adept at turning lemons into lemonade, and who have managed to slip the shiv between Gary Condit's shoulder-blades without cutting themselves (Republicans are humiliatingly clumsy when it comes to this kind of sleight-of-hand).
The Levys' tragedy allows the Dems to replace a vaguely centrist Democrat with a nicely leftish one, much more to their liking, all through the quiet miracle of redistricting, and all without getting their own political hands even faintly bloody. (Should you question their motives or their tactics, you will be sternly reprimanded for forgetting that the Real Issue Is A Missing Girl.)
Al Gore is still reinventing himself -- talk about old news. Having spent his summer vacation enduring a kind of cushy martyrdom, meeching about the ivy-covered halls with his beard and his disciples to offer sermonettes and sanctimony to the faithful, the boy is now prepping for that breakthrough speech in Iowa later this month (perhaps he'll even shave).
He's banking on the loyalty of old friends in the D.C. press corps to help him fend off all those lean and hungry rivals for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, notably Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the leanest and hungriest of them all.
Senator Kerry is a charmless individual whose icily patrician manner makes him possibly the one man in the Democratic Party more capable of alienating the elusive white male vote than Mr. Gore himself, though he, too, like Mr. Gore, is immensely popular with Beltway journalists.
Naturally, Bill Clinton still sniffs about the comeback trail like a malign beagle scenting political rabbits. He has even taken to hinting that he may make another White House run himself, some day.
Oh, goodie.
As for the press establishment's war on Mr. Bush, it continues undiminished -- no surprises there. Democratic talking points continue to spring full-blown into the news cycle and the late-night monologues, especially when talk turns to the economy.
Consumer confidence is perhaps the single fragile filament that keeps our economic engine from stalling altogether, and reporters are doing their utmost to fray it beyond repair: rather a high-stakes game to play, just for the sake of getting one's chums back into the majority in Congress, but I suppose they'll manage to persuade themselves that they're doing it for our own good. They always do.
Not since the feverish campaign of 1992, when elite journalists decided (for reasons best known to themselves) that they could most effectively serve the voting public by imposing a kind of ad hoc blackout on all news of the burgeoning economic recovery, have we heard so many such discouraging words, or seen skies quite so cloudy all day.
Now as then, the nightly newscasts have taken on a kind of tent-revival intensity, packed to the brim with piteous testimonials from the usual roster of Ordinary Folks Who Live In Fear. Joblessness, layoffs and penury are once again our daily bread, and I don't suppose the chattering classes will be really, truly happy until consumer spending dries up altogether.
Meanwhile, another Florida recount story looms. New 'analyses' of the 2000 presidential election, more wildly abstruse than any that have gone before, and more precisely designed to harden public unease about the president, will shortly (and not coincidentally) reach the front pages of The New York Times and Ms. Katie Couric's morning show, just in time to up the rhetorical ante in the autumn budget wars.
Speaking of Florida, by the way, bless my soul if that isn't former Attorney-General Janet Reno gracing my TV screen. Yes, Janet Reno, the idol of -- well, to tell the truth, I'm not sure just exactly who she's the idol of, except that people like CNN's creepily affable Bill Schneider keep assuring me that we all really do think the world of her.
Ms. Reno, having doubtless observed the wonders the press managed to work for the equally outlandish Hillary Clinton, is on the verge of announcing her much-rumored run for the governorship of Florida.
Republicans will rejoice at their own risk. There was a time when the prospect of a Senator Hillary seemed no less improbable.
Mind you, Democrats will rejoice at their own risk as well. If the national press pours itself too ardently into the task of propping up Ms. Reno's eerie candidacy -- and it shows every sign of being poised to do precisely that -- other dicey races may well be lost to the left for lack of network stewardship.
But then, that's an old story, too. It's quite true that there is nothing new under the sun.
Even the real sharks have been around for millions of years.
It is only our perception of them that changes !
Only do the liberals get dumber with age with their perception of things-[as they cannot or will not try 2see2].
reset?
Bump for Deb!
'nother bump for Deb [who was around this am]
I think Deb Weiss' screen name was Debo 21, and the Deb that still posts here is another person.
so, bump for both....
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