A View From Here -- Deb Weiss
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
All in a Slow News Week...
July 12, 1999
It was one of those weeks when you sensed, more than
ever, that if no news really is good news, then we
ought to be a whole lot happier than we are.
Lord knows there was no news.
Oh, sure, there was some stuff about Hillary. Lots of
stuff. Reporters would spring toward the camera with a
kind of glorified shine on their faces, like converts
at a tent-revival, uttering paeans to the Listening
Queen. One little gal from MSNBC went so far as to
opine that if the race shaped up as expected, pitting
Hillary against New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, it would
be, like, the most historic campaign since Stephen
Douglas ran against Abraham Lincoln a way big long
time ago.
There was some stuff about George W, too, mostly about
money, and about rumors of money, and about rumors of
rumors. Reporters discussing George W. don't look as
shiny and saved as reporters discussing Hillary. Of
late, even their mandatory indignation about all that
nasty Republican money is losing its zest, dwindling
into a kind of pro forma malice without portfolio.
There was a glimpse or two of Al Gore -- who's said to
be seeking the Democratic nomination for the
presidency -- only you had to look hard. The most I
saw at one sitting came at week's end, when posh
reporters lounging in a vaguely post-modern PBS studio
agreed with each other, chuckling, that it didn't
matter a whit that Al had betrayed his natural
constituents, the environmentalists, since hey --
where else were they gonna go? Were they gonna
(snicker) vote for Bush, or something? This kind of
commentary is called "political analysis," I believe.
At least, it is at PBS.
Al's about to reinvent himself as a crime-fighter, by
the way, giving them all something new to talk about
next weekend.
A few enterprising reporters managed to work up a
sweat about the GOP's churlish response to New
Hampshire Republican Senator Bob Smith's plan to run
for president on the U.S. Taxpayers' Party ticket. It
wasn't much of a sweat, though.
Oddly, the story about how the GOP is imploding and
the other story about how the GOP is getting its act
together by exorcising its extremist elements share
all the same facts. They just reach different
conclusions.
There was some silly-season coverage of Mr. Clinton's
poverty tour, but it was subdued, as if even cynical
Clintonite reporters recoiled from the crudity of
using poor folks as stage-props in the president's
scavenger-hunt for a legacy.
Or maybe they were simply bored by all those poor
folks.
There were SUV-alerts, and summer travel hints, and
food safety tips, and some of those "medical
breakthrough" stories that once seemed so exciting and
full of promise.
And there were canned rhapsodies about the U.S.Women's
World Cup victory on Saturday. Now, that was really a
pretty nifty event: so why did network cheers ring so
hollow?
You almost felt that the anchors, grinning artfully,
didn't so much care about the game as they did about
some kind of edgy etiquette ordaining raptures.
Obviously, they felt they ought to be making a lot of
bright noise and declaring that women's sports had
really arrived at last, and quoting Mr. Clinton on how
the women had, by winning, proved the worth of those
cumbersome Title IX regulations (an absurdity, but at
least it was one of those rare moments when political
blather about leveling the playing field involved an
actual playing field).
None of it, somehow, was from the heart.
Out there, far removed from all this white noise, were
flashes of authentic news, like distant lightning,
silent, practically illusory. You might have missed
them altogether, if you blinked.
Violent stirrings in Iran. Murmurs from Kosovo, where
a pogrom of sorts is being waged against Serbs and
gypsies. Another African war producing another bumper
crop of human wretchedness. Bloody skirmishes
yielding, briefly at least, to talk of peace between
India and Pakistan. Terrorist bombings in Turkey,
where the unacknowledged genocide against the Kurds
continues, in the face of nearly-universal
indifference. North Korean nukes. The teetering
settlement in Northern Ireland. Another haunting,
elusive promise of peace in the Middle East. Religious
repression in China. Here at home, crackling back-room
battles over fundamental principles of government,
with our constitutional tradition perhaps hanging in
the balance.
Good stuff: just not quite good enough for the nightly
news.
Hillary, now -- that's another story.
A VIEW FROM HERE archive
Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999
Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999
R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999
Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999
Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999
Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999
FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999
The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999
Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999
Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999
Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999
On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999
The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999
Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999