A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss

The Media: A Nose Like a Vacuum Cleaner
August 19, 1999


As the press frenzy over George W. Bush and the 'cocaine rumor' enters a new, glittering, sharp-toothed phase, it's depressingly obvious that the Clintonization of American politics won't end, after all, with the blessed departure of Mr. C. himself, some 17 months hence.

Nope. The worst is yet to come.

Mind you, in this particular instance, it's not altogether fair to blame Mr. Clinton.

EMAIL: DEB WEISS

He may be the monarch of slime, the author of a feverish, sweaty brand of political S&M that makes one fairly long for the cool, clean, wholesome days of U.S Grant or Warren G. Harding. Still, it seems he didn't start this scuffle, though he and his operatives are making the most of it now that it's here.

In fact, the rumor first oozed to light from beneath some impeccably conservative rocks: or so political analyst Larry Sabato claimed in a CNN interview on Wednesday.

According to Sabato, operatives for Bush opponents Gary Bauer and Steve Forbes first approached reporters with the rumor -- an over-the-transom smear, transparently political, lacking documentation or substantive proof.

The fact that the press chose to elevate this toxic trifle to a make-or-break issue for Candidate Bush is enough to make a Republican oppo-researcher green with envy. I mean, it's just not fair.

For contrast, consider all those alleged 'eyewitness' reports of Mr. Clinton's own adventures with cocaine. These may be mere rumors, too, though heaven knows they're far more detailed than the buzz on Bush. Every right-winger on the planet can quote First Brother Roger Clinton's fabled claim that the president "has a nose like a vacuum cleaner."

However -- and maybe this is just as well -- it's been virtually impossible to get this stuff aired outside the right-wing press. Establishment journalists, priggish about what they like to call 'Clinton-bashing,' have kept the lid on whenever possible, whether the subject was sex, drugs, violence, or (alas) corruption, abuse of power, failed foreign policy, and worse. Such coverage as they've been unable to avoid has almost always been filtered through a screen of almost palpable resentment of the president's critics.

Lewinskygate was typical. The president's own misbehavior was Topic A for about 36 hours. After that, though, the focus shifted to Ken Starr's 'fanatical zeal,' hastily-contrived polls showing that the American people didn't care, and Hillary's Kafkaesque fantasies about a vast, right-wing conspiracy.

This press environment yielded an orgy of GOP-bashing that almost certainly saved Mr. Clinton from ouster, though not from impeachment.

By contrast, these ephemeral rumors about George W. now dominate entire news cycles, and those of us who follow such things are paying an awful price.

We're choking on hypocrisy, for one thing. The paid chatterers swing their partners and all change sides in the great square dance of American political life. Democrats (those new guardians of public morality) demand that each squalid rumor be given full consideration, while Republicans piously denounce (could it be?) the 'politics of personal destruction.'

Meanwhile, maddened by the candidate's stubborn reluctance to answer The Question, we dedicated reams of newsprint to the odious debate, 'Should he or shouldn't he?' It's unlikely the half-answer he's now provided will silence the clamor.

I was one of those who said he shouldn't, incidentally: but then, I'm descended from a man who was burned at the stake for refusing to recant a minor point of theology, so George W. probably did well not to listen to me. On the other hand, he may live to regret his Jesuitical hair-splitting as more trouble than no answer at all.

Worst of all, we can't turn on the cable these days without seeing, for horrible instance, the spectral visage of Joe Conasan. He smirks back at us, exhaling venom like a visible smoke.

Conason is a man who looks as though he's spent his entire adult life locked up in a basement somewhere, far from God's good sunshine and fresh air, churning out moldy little rumors by the gross. As he flogs the notion that Bush's evasions of the cocaine question have "public policy implications," even he can hardly keep a straight face.

It's worth remembering that he's one of the boys who, back in 1992, enthusiastically slimed Bush the Elder, minting malevolent little rumors to undermine President Bush's reputation in two key areas of Clintonian vulnerability (sex and military service) so as to level the playing field for young Bill.

It may be something of a first in American politics for two generations of one family to be beslimed by the same team of players.

There will be other firsts, before all this is over. To be honest, I'm not absolutely looking forward to them.

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A VIEW FROM HERE archive

A Voter's Guide To The 21st Century -- August 16, 1999

A Good Town -- August 12, 1999

Singing The Praises Of Government News -- August 9, 1999

The First Couple's Chamber Pot -- August 5, 1999

Lifetime's Woman of the Year -- August 2, 1999

Thinking Over This Tax Cut Thing -- July 29, 1999

The John John Show -- July 26, 1999

America's One China, Two Alka Seltzer Policy -- July 22, 1999

The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead -- July 19, 1999

The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999

All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999

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