USEFUL "BIGOTS"?

Time Magazine (and former Newsweek magazine) columnist Joe Klein, one might think, is on to something: he is despised by both the political right and the political left in this country.

The left satisfyingly got its fangs into this distinguished blowhard in 1989. In the summer of that year, Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" premiered. Klein, after having watched the film, predicted that "black people would riot" after seeing it. Since a non-biased read of the film raises, indeed, begs - now, as it did then - the question of what it is they would riot OVER, Klein was immediately criticized for making this statement, which was perceived as racist. (In a nutshell, here's what happpened in the film - at the end - that Klein thought would lead to a rioting: White cops go up to a black guy hanging out on a street corner (the guy has some kind of hearing/learning disability), and shoot him, essentially for the crime of having played his radio too loud. The black guy Mookie who has worked at Sal's (Danny Ailleo's) pizzeria for years, enraged by what has happened, throws a trash can into the pizzeria. This act is followed by a black mob burning the pizzeria down. The film scrupulously avoids taking sides, and indeed avoids answering the question form of its title - i.e. "Did Mookie Do the Right Thing?). Klein lamented the burning of the pizzeria in his review in New York magazine (while failing to note the shooting).

Of course, the "fanging" occurred when Klein was proven wrong, and no race riots occurred. And it was not as if no one saw the film - quite a few people did; black, white, and so on. Perhaps the film just didn't cause black people to act like the animals Klein thought they (and Lee) were.

The next decade, Klein, as "anonymous," published the book "Anonymous," which was a roman a clef of the Clinton White House. He didn't claim to have special knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the White House beyond that (or even even to that) of what any other Washington thug reporter had - meaning that his work was uncontestably largely a work of fiction and surmise to the extent that it implied or inferred the characters in the book represented the Clintons or their associates, and yet Klein refused to avow authorship of the book for over a year.

Klein, predictably, was attacked by conservatives once he revealed his authorship - for - surprise - not having made his work of fiction critical ENOUGH of the Clintons. (I thought Republicans didn't have a problem distinguishing fact from fiction! Oops, my bad!)

Some of Klein's recent remarks have incurred the supreme ire of the left. He has recently referred to what he calls the "left wing" (undefined by him) of the Democratic party as "anti-American," and as "viewing America as a force for evil in the world."

His latest column has set some Democrats off. Not all of them. I believe that Klein, without precisely identifying what he means by "left-wing," has given us a rough idea, based upon what Democrats attack him every time he opens his mouth. These groups include mediamatters.org, dailykos.com, and include people such as Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore. In other words, groups that, I'm afraid, would, yes, hate America no matter who ran it or how they ran it.

But to call these people "anti-American" presumes that Americans must act and believe a certain way. Justice Jackson, in West Virginia v. Barrnette (1943), told us a long time ago that this is not so. Klein is (unconsciously?) buying the Republican line by stating these people, as strident and useless to our debate as they may be, do not have the right to say what they want to because they are "anti-American."

Klein's latest column, excerpted below, is a doozy:

"And yet one senses a fluttery uncertainty on the Democratic side -- induced, I suspect, by the prospect of another nefarious Karl Rove campaign. This is a legitimate fear. Rove has shown a positive genius for organizing campaigns around poisonous trivia. He will question the patriotism of Democrats (and, once again, be aided by those on the noisome left who believe that the U.S. is a malignant, imperialistic force in the world). He will deploy an ugly, stone-throwing distortion of Christian "values," especially against those Democrats who choose not to discriminate against homosexuals. And if things get really desperate, he will play the race card, as Republicans have ever since they sided against the civil rights movement in the 1960s."

The inevitability of race as a subliminal issue in the campaign became obvious as I watched House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, the personification of fluttery uncertainty, trying to defend Representative John Conyers on Meet the Press a few weeks ago. Conyers will be chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats win control of the House in November, and he has already threatened impeachment hearings against President Bush. This is one of the few scenarios that might rouse the demoralized Republican base from its torpor. It is also likely to alienate independents, who are sick of the hyperpartisanship in Washington and will be less likely to vote for Democrats if the party is emphasizing witch hunts instead of substantive policies.

But the ugly truth is that Conyers is a twofer: in addition to being foolishly incendiary, he is an African American of a certain age and ideology, easily stereotyped by Republicans. He is one of the ancient band of left-liberals who grew up in the angry hothouse of inner-city, racial-preference politics in the 1960s, a group "more likely to cry 'racism' and 'victimization' than the new generation of black politicians," a member of the Congressional Black Caucus told me.

Rangel would be one of the most powerful Democrats in the new Congress, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He is regarded as more mainstream than Conyers, well versed in tax and entitlement policies, but he has had an unfortunate tendency to shoot off his mouth in the past. He has questioned interracial adoption, and has compared colleagues who opposed tax breaks for minority broadcasters to Hitler. After Hurricane Katrina, Rangel compared Bush to Bull Connor, the public-safety commissioner of Birmingham, Ala., who attacked peaceful civil rights marchers with dogs and fire hoses in the 1960s.

In a way, Hastings, who would become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is the most problematic of all. He is a former federal judge who was indicted in 1981 for influence peddling, acquitted on all counts, then impeached and removed from his judgeship by the Congress. In 1992 he ran for Congress himself and, improbably, won. It is an open secret that Pelosi has chosen Hastings to replace the respected and experienced Jane Harman as the ranking Democrat on the committee. This was a questionable decision even before it became apparent that the Democrats might win the Congress; now it's a devastating negative ad waiting to happen: "Why do the Democrats want to put an impeached judge in charge of your national security?"

Conyers and Rangel are embarrassments, but there is nothing the Democrats can do about them -- and they are certainly no more objectionable than any number of right-wing extremists who fester in Congress. But it's not too late for Hastings to remove himself from the line of fire and make clear his support for Harman as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

**********************************************************************************
This column raises many questions - as many about Klein as it does about Rove, Conyers and Rangel. (Klein seems to act like only Democrats cannot put thieves like Hastings in positions of power; Republicans have done so and will continue to; nonetheless, I agree with him that Jane Harman should not be replaced simply because she is more qualified, and given that fact, why on Earth give the foamies another thing to froth over?)


The comments about Conyers and Rangel reveal as much about Klein as they do about the other two men, especially in light of Klein's "Do The Right Thing" comment. To the extent Klein implies that either or both men are racist or out of touch, he apparently has forgotten that there are not only "equally objectionable right-wing extremists who fester in Congress," but ones in equivalent positions of power, including ones who have made Hitler comparisons, who have made racist remarks, remarks ridiculing the poor people Klein mocks Conyers so mercilessly for "lobbying" for, and so on. Santorum, DeLay, Tiahrt - the list need not be exaggerated or extended. If Klein simply beleives that, as a matter of political strategy, that Conyers, Rangel and Hastings should not be allowed to accede to these positions because the spectre of this happening would allow Rove to play the bigot card to the Republicans' advantage (which, by the way, is my position), he should say so. Yet there is something about what Klein says that suggests he still has, as some might say, certain.... Let's just say that his never speaking or writing again about "Do the Right Thing: after his infamous prediction was not an accident. I can only say this: "Issues" and Klein go hand and hand vis a vis black people. But one wonders whether those issues are (more) the problem of black politician bluster, or more the problem of Joe Klein's own personal issues.