Next stop: “Strength Through Joy.”
We would kick this man but we have too much respect for our shoes. Hillary is reported to have greeted Lerner by saying, “Am I your mouthpiece or what?”
Which brings us to the Hill of Beans herself. According to syndicated columnist Don Feder, “Michael Lerner has said, ‘This woman is just as smart and sensitive and morally attuned as I am.’” And we couldn’t have put it better.
Yet perhaps it’s time for us to reassess our opinion of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Of course we loathe her—who are we to disagree with her own husband? Nonetheless the First Lady has been gravely misunderstood by the right. We call her “harridan,” “virago,” “termagant,” and “The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock.” But let us examine a lickspittle piece in the May 6, 1993, Style section of the Washington Post. Here the slavering Martha Sherrill writes:
Way in the future, when she’s old and probably legendary, Hillary Clinton wants to be able to look back and feel that she led “an integrated life,” she says, sitting in her West Wing office last week. She wants to have felt unified, whole. She wants her emotional life and physical life, her spiritual life and political life all to fit together, in sync, an orchestra sitting down to play the same song.
And suddenly we realize that what we should be calling Hillary is “intellectual dust kitty.” She’s a bossy little rich snoot of a goody-two-shoes and not real bright who got into a fancy law school when girls were in season. Back in the sixties, the halls of academia were three deep with them.
“Hillary often quotes from an address book full of inspirational sayings and scripture,” says the irony-proof Sherrill. We can hear it now: Tomorrow Is the First Day of the Rest of the Month. Michael Kelly, in his Times Magazine article, painted the view from Hillary’s head: The Western world, she said, needed to be made anew. America suffered from a “sleeping sickness of the soul,” a “sense that somehow economic growth and prosperity, political democracy and freedom are not enough—that we lack at some core level meaning in our individual lives and meaning collectively, the sense that our lives are part of some greater effort, that we are connected to one another, that community means that we have a place where we belong no matter who we are.”
She spoke of... a nation crippled by “alienation and despair and hopelessness,” a nation that was in the throes of a “crisis of meaning.”
What a chowder-skull. The idea of Hillary being the brains behind the Clinton administration is . . . very likely, come to think of it.
VIII
100 Reasons Why Jimmy Carter Was a Better President Than Bill Clinton
The American Spectator, September 1993
Insights compiled with the kind assistance of the patrons of the Zoo Bar on Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
1. Jimmy Carter had a nicer wife,
2. A smarter baby brother,
3. A less frightening mom,
4. And a... No, we can’t bring ourselves to make fun of the first daughter, especially since some of us have been going through an awkward adolescent stage for nearly four decades. But we can say: “Damn it, Hillary, quit fussing with your hair and do something about Chelsea’s.”
5. And, speaking of coiffures, Jimmy Carter never in his life got a haircut that cost more than $2.50, if appearances are anything to go by.
6. Carter had governed a more important state.
7. Carter had once held a job.
8. He came from a more cosmopolitan hometown,
9. And had a more charismatic vice president.
10. It took Carter months to wreck the economy.
11. It took Carter weeks to become a national laughingstock.
12. Carter committed adultery only in his heart.
13. And, if we know anything about female tastes, Carter was telling the truth about that.
14. As for military record, Carter was, comparatively speaking, a regular Audie Murphy.
15. They were on drugs during the Carter administration—they had an excuse.
16. We were on drugs during the Carter administration—we had an excuse.
17. Carter looked—think back carefully, we promise we’re telling the truth about this—less foolish in his jogging outfit.
18. Jogging actually worked for Carter. Say what you want against the man, he’s no double-butt.
19. Carter passed out while jogging and the nation was safe for a moment.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Carter Administration
Clinton Administration
20. Pardoning draft dodgers
Draft dodgers
21. Women integrated into the military
Men dressed like women
integrated into the military
22. Return of canal to Panama
Return of Haitians to Haiti
23. Bailout of Chrysler Corp.
Jobs in White House travel office
for hick cousins from Arkansas
24. Creation of Departments of Energy and Education
Can’t find enough gay disabled women of color to head the departments he’s got already
25. President successfully treated for hemorrhoids
Hillary still heading health-care reform panel
26. Russians in Afghanistan
Brit Hume in White House press corps
George Stephanopoulos with feet not quite touching floor
28. Kidding Mexicans about Montezuma’s revenge
Kidding Mexicans about NAFTA
29. Boycott of Moscow Olympics
Not seeing much of the Bloodworth-Thomasons lately
30. Hostage rescue attempt in Iran
Trying to get Zoë Baird confirmed at Justice
31. Mount St. Helens
Air Force General Harold Campbell
32. Peace between Israel and Egypt
Peace between the FBI and IRS
33. Elvis dead
Barbra Streisand all too lively
34. SALT II
U2
35. Three Mile Island
Sam Nunn
36. Admiral Hyman Rickover
The Ty-D-Bol man
37. Wimping out in the face of the second most powerful military force in the world
Wimping out in the face of Slobodan Miloševic
38. Gas shortage
Gassiest administration since who knows when
39. Mariel Boatlift
Which one is she? Does Hillary know about this one?
40. Proposition 13
(Write your own Clinton libido joke in the space provided: ________________________________
41. Carter was a good man to have on board when your canoe was attacked by a swimming rabbit.
42. Carter hardly ever hugged or kissed anyone in public except Leonid Brezhnev.
43. The FBI didn’t kill anybody at Jonestown.
44. Bert Lance could make a bigger splash doing a cannonball into the Camp David pool than Webb Hubbell.
45. Hamilton Jordan could beat Mack McLarty at arm wrestling.
46. Plus Jordan could get into Studio 54.
47. Joseph Califano was prettier than Donna Shalala.
48. And he opposed abortion (though maybe he hadn’t met Donna yet).
49. Warren Christopher was young and full of pep during the Carter administration.
50. And Warren Christopher’s initials look funnier on a briefcase than Cyrus Vance’s did.
51. Zbigniew Brzezinski is worth more points in a Scrabble game than Anthony Lake.
52. Jimmy Carter didn’t play any Fleetwood Mac songs on the campaign trail,
53. Or any Judy Collins records at home,
54. Or any saxophones anywhere.
55. THE UNDEAD
Carter Administration
Clinton Administration
Miss Lillian
VAT
56. No one can say a word against a Carter Supreme Court appointee.
57. Carter did not use Bloomsbury, Mayfair, Pall Mall, Hackney, Notting Hill, Shoreditch, or any other London neighborhood as the name of his child.
58. One thing about Carter-era inflation, the money may have been worthless but at least we had some.
59. ENDANGERED SPECIES
Carter Administration
Clinton Administration
The Snail Darter
The DLC
60. Jimmy Carter’s nervous smirk was less demanding of a punch in the snoot, even if it did present a larger target.
MAJOR FOREIGN POLICY QUESTIONS
Carter Administration
Clinton Administration
61. Should Red China have a seat in the U.N.?
Is Macedonia what Macedonia is supposed to be called?
62. Does Nicaragua have strategic importance?
Is it “Ukraine” or “The Ukraine”?
63. What type of relationship with Israel best serves America’s interests?
If those guys are so Jewish, how come they aren’t on the staff of Tikkun?
64. Is it time for America to relinquish its global leadership role?
Should Chelsea go to Japan with Bill and Hillary?
65. Would economic sanctions on South Africa be effective?
How about economic sanctions on white males right here in the USA?
66. Should we sell wheat to Russia?
Let’s just give them a bunch of money.
67. Is deployment of the neutron bomb immoral?
Does appointing Jean Kennedy Smith ambassador to Ireland put the Kennedys in their place or what?
68. LANGUAGE WHICH THE PRESIDENT WOULD NOT SHUT UP IN
Carter
Clinton
Spanish
English
69. Navy’s football team can whip Oxford’s.
WORLD VIEW
What Ideas Loomed Large Inside Their Respective Thick Skulls?
Carter
Clinton
70. Human rights
Partnership role for the First Lady
71. Moral equivalent of war
Partnership role for the First Lady
72. National malaise
More mayonnaise
73. Diminished expectations
David Gergen
74. Carter did not, as part of focusing his agenda, address himself as “Stupid.” He let us do that for him.
75. Carter wore real blue jeans and not the Levi’s 550 roomy-in-the-buns kind.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST, PART II
Carter Administration
Clinton Administration
76. Mork&Mindy
Mary Matalin and James Carville
77. Láveme & Shirley
Cokie Roberts and Anna Quindlen
78. The Dukes of Hazzard
Various half brothers
79. Three’s Company
Gennifer Flowers
80. Happy Days
1980-1992
81. The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman
Marriage seems stable for the moment, but super powers are fading
82. WKRP
NPR
83. Star Wars
Base closings
84. Annie Hall
Anita Hill
85. Grease
Mousse
86. Saturday Night Fever
Saturday night working late at the OEOB
87. The Goodbye Girl
Kimba Wood
88. Midnight Express
Bus trips
89. La Cage aux Folles
The Marines
90. All President’s Men
Home Alone II
91. Abbie Hoffman
Socks the cat
92. Carter’s poll ratings were higher (in Iraq).
93. Carter walked the whole inaugural parade route.
94. Carter saved America from a plague of Misha the Bear Olympic mascot toys.
95. Has Bill Clinton helped the Shah of Iran get medical treatment?
96. Carter spent his time doing things like figuring out the White House tennis court playing schedule—the man knew his intellectual limitations.
97. Carter had enough clout to get Lani Guinier appointed to the Justice Department (and anyone who gets shot down for holding Menckenish views about the excesses of democracy has to be some kind of friend of ours even if she doesn’t know it).
98. Carter let the Soviets have Angola, Ethiopia, and South Yemen. And, in retrospect, the Soviets deserved no better.
99. Carter wasn’t a throwback to the Carter Era.
100. And let us not forget that Jimmy Carter gave us one thing Bill Clinton can never possibly give us—Ronald Reagan.
IX
Why I Am a Conservative in the First Place
Rolling Stone, July 13-27, 1995
A conservative believes in the sanctity of the individual. That we are individuals—unique, disparate, and willful—is something we understand instinctively from an early age. No child ever wrote to Santa, “Bring me, and a bunch of kids I’ve never met, a pony, and we’ll share.” The great religions teach salvation as an individual matter. There are no group discounts in the Ten Commandments. Christ was not a committee. And Allah does not welcome believers into paradise saying, “You weren’t much good yourself, but you were standing near some good people.”
Virtue is famously lonesome. Also vice, as anyone can testify who ever told his mother, “All the other guys were doing it.” We experience pleasure separately. Ethan Hawke may go out on any number of wild dates, but I’m able to sleep through them. And although we may be sorry for people who suffer, we only “feel their pain” when we’re full of baloney and running for office.
To say that we are all individuals is not a profession of selfishness any more than it’s a call to altruism. It is simply a measurement. Individuals are the units we come in, and the individual is the wellspring of conservatism. The purpose of conservative politics is to defend the liberty of the individual and—lest individualism run riot—insist upon individual responsibility.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE
The first question of political science is—or should be—What is good for everyone? And by “everyone,” we must mean “all individuals.” The question can’t be, What is good for a single individual? That’s megalomania—like a New Hampshire presidential primary. And the question can’t be, What is good for some individuals? Or even, What is good for the majority of individuals? That’s partisan politics, which at best leads to Newt Gingrich or Pat Schroeder and at worst leads to Lebanon or Rwanda. Finally, the question can’t be, What is good for individuals as a whole? There’s no such thing. Individuals are only available individually. Complete sets are not for sale.
By observing the progress (admittedly spotty and fitful) of mankind, we can see that the things that are good for everyone are the things that have increased the accountability of the individual, the respect for the individual, and the power of the individual to master his own fate. Judaism gave us laws before which all men, no matter their rank, stood as equals (though this did mean no BLT sandwiches). Christianity taught us that each person has intrinsic worth, Newt Gingrich and Pat Schroeder included. The rise of private enterprise and trade provided a means of achieving wealth and autonomy other than by killing people with broadswords. And the Industrial Revolution allowed millions of ordinary folks an opportunity to obtain decent houses, food, and clothes (albeit with some unfortunate side effects, such as environmental damage and Al Gore).
In order to build a political system that is good for everyone, that ensures a free society based upon the independence, prestige, and self-rule of individuals, we have to ask what all these individuals want. And be told to shut up. There’s no way to know the myriad wants of diverse people. They may not know themselves. And who asked us to stick our nose in, anyway?
In a free society some people will want to make money or art or love or a mess of their lives. Some people will want to help othe
rs. Some will want others to help them. And some people will complain about how chaotic freedom is and agitate for its restriction. We can hazard certain guesses about the common desires of mankind: three squares and self-esteem. But we may find that any given example of mankind is fasting to obtain enlightenment or deeply involved in masochism.
In a free society a person can want what he likes and do what he wants to get it as long as this does not occasion real and provable harm to a fellow person (light bondage and discipline are acceptable). Thus the two fundamental rules of a political system in a free society are (1) Mind your own business; (2) Keep your hands to yourself. The political leaders of our nation would do well to reacquaint themselves with these tenets. (Hillary, mind your own business. Bill, keep your hands to yourself.)
But how do we actually go about the construction of such a political system? We don’t have to. The framers of the United States Constitution have already done a fair job of it for us.
The Constitution contains a plan for representative democracy that has, over the years, been successful in luring some of our most egregious national characters out of the private sector, where they would have done no end of damage to industry and commerce, and into public office, where they can be watched.