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Jewish World Review /Dec. 9, 1998 /20 Kislev, 5759
MUGGER
MATT DRUDGE WAS BURSTING with news this past week.
First, he preempted the annual, if fading, game of guessing who will be Time's
"Man of the Year" by announcing on his website that the selection has
been narrowed to two choices. One is Alan Greenspan, for propping up the
economy when just two months ago the stock market was bobbing up and
down faster than a London yo-yo and the specter of a worldwide
depression in early '99 wasn't all that far-fetched.
The more popular
choice, according to Drudge, is a split cover of Bill and Hillary
Clinton because they "triumphed over the impeachment storm and
engineered a remarkable comeback in the face of what seemed like mortal
blows." Time's managing editor Walter Isaacson has the final word: The
magazine's staff is reportedly preparing two different packages.
Drudge also said that David Brock, the conservative Benedict Arnold who
fell under Hillary's black magic a few years back, after being part of
the vast right-wing conspiracy at The American Spectator, has a
blockbuster article coming out in Esquire that will be his "biggest
story since Troopergate." We now know it's a piece about Michael
Huffington's homosexuality. Nuts! I was hoping for something juicier:
Ken Starr and Michael Isikoff are secret lovers? Linda Tripp was a
double agent for the White House, working under James Carville and
Sidney Blumenthal? GQ editor Art Cooper has given up turtleneck sweaters
forever?
Drudge also had fun poking fun at Dan Rather's Larry King Live
interview last Thursday night, in which the daffy anchorman suggested
that Hillary Clinton might be the strongest Democratic candidate for
president in 2000. Rather also lobbied for Hillary being named Time's
Man of the Year, and in a hypothetical Gore administration, becoming the
chief justice of the Supreme Court.
If the Clinton/Starr/Lewinsky trio weren't such an obvious choice for
Time's cover, I'd argue for Drudge himself for a couple of reasons. One,
he's successfully cowed all the Beltway insiders who've ridiculed his
reporting; two, he's the most obvious symbol of the next wave of
journalism, a one-man shop who's caused newsrooms with hundreds of
reporters to pay attention to his postings.
Kurt Andersen, who I'll confess is a friend of mine, was the author of the
piece on Tom Hanks, and he did a fine job, considering that it was an
assignment that I don't think is worthy of his estimable writing talent.
Then again, he did interview Hanks in Venice, so maybe that's the reason
he took the job. Several sessions with Tombo, who seems like a pretty
upright guy, then off to see the sights in that outstanding outdoor
museum.
Anyway, the Post and other newspapers leaped on a very minor part of
the piece in which Hanks said that he "regretted" contributing to
Clinton's legal defense fund.
It was refreshing to see a crack in the
Hollywood-First Liar connection. But then, quick as Tina Brown snaps her
fingers to get a lackey to fetch a few canapes and an Evian for lunch, a
publicist got to America's good-guy actor and he retracted the
statement. The same day The New Yorker was released, Hanks told
reporters, "If I was asked to do it again, I would probably give twice
as much... You couldn't get a bigger supporter of the president than I
am."
Andersen told me on Tuesday: "[Hanks] told me when I interviewed him
that he 'still supports the president,' which is not incompatible with
regretting the defense fund donation. His take in our conversations
seemed properly nuanced and full of grays, as I suggested in the piece.
I suppose the sudden black-and-white tabloid hoopla made him decide that
if he's going to be forced now to declare himself on one side or the
other of the pro- and anti-Clinton barricades, he's going to be on the
pro- side. What choice did he have? He gave the guy a C or a C-, but
suddenly everybody said to him on Monday, 'Sorry, only Pass-Fail grades
allowed,' so he had to go back and give him a Pass."
Ellis Henican, in a Dec. 2 Newsday column, discussed the brouhaha,
unfortunately continuing the self-flagellation that journalists find so
satisfying today. He wrote: "Actually, it's kind of hard to blame Tom
Hanks for most of this. He's just a likable movie actor. He never
claimed to be William F. Buckley, for goodness sake. We're the ones who
deserve most of the blame. We're the ones who put him in the paper, as
if he had something to say. We're the ones who put him all over TV. And
it wasn't like we could blame the tabloid snakes who slither around our
feet. Wasn't it the august New Yorker who set this whole thing off?"
Uh, Ellis, isn't Newsday a tabloid? So I guess you're a snake, too, and
can feel justified in bellying up to the bar with the likes of Ray
Kerrison, Deborah Orin, John Podhoretz and Michael
It Was Drudge's Year
Okay. While Greenspan is a safe and prudent choice, it doesn't have the
oomph that the cover at one time symbolized. As for the Bill and Hillary
combo, what a joke! First, Clinton isn't out of the woods as far as
impeachment goes; second, what the heck did Hillary do this year except
write a saccharine, syndicated column and campaign for Democratic
candidates, often using race-baiting tactics? Seems to me the most
logical choice, if you use the historical basis for the cover, is a
three-way montage: Clinton, Ken Starr and Monica Lewinsky.
Drudge
That Flip-Flop Hanks Does
I ALMOST NEVER READ celebrity profiles, but after seeing the headline on
last Monday's Post --"H'WOOD HERO DUMPS ON PREZ"-- I hopped over to Mary
Parvin's Fourth Estate newsstand and picked up The New Yorker.
I watch Hanks' movies, and really liked his That
Thing You Do!, although he sort of dismissed it in talking to Andersen,
as well as Philadelphia and Sleepless in Seattle. Saving Private Ryan I
couldn't stomach, given Steven (can I suck up to Bill Clinton more than
David Geffen) Spielberg's involvement, but Hanks himself was terrific,
although Ed Burns and Jeremy Davies stole the film.
Hanks
JWR contributor "Mugger" is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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