Capitol Ideas / Letter from Martha's Vineyard
Bethell, Tom
"Capitol Ideas / Letter from Martha's Vineyard" genius, hence not smart enough maintain double digit inflation plus 7.8 percent unemployment. Then, too, he will charge that Reagan is strictly nineteenth century, hence...
...acted in mediocre movies and carried a gun...
...Now that Sen...
...That would require too much energy, which as we all know is in short supply in America these days...
...Those of us who have been going there over the years never planned it that way As a matter of fact, many people fell in love with the island because it wasn't "in...
...But today the summer population swells to about 70,000, mainly because, in the words of Art Buchwald, the Vineyard "is the 'in' island at the present...
...The island--somewhat larger than you might i m a g i n e - - s t r i k e s me as being overgrown with scrub, fir trees, small oaks, and masses of prickly vegetation of every description...
...Disputing this, however, George Gilder tells me that, unless Reagan gets his act together, Anderdon is actually going to be elected president, and I hereby put his August prediction on the record, just in case it turns out to be true...
...I'm not sure whether that is a significant development or not...
...The Energy Department or the Labor Department will come up with the money and it spares you the humiliation of going down to the welfare office...
...What this shows is -that these people are quite content to see Ronald Reagan elected in November...
...The year-round population of this 100-square mile island off Cape Cod is only 9000 or so--much smaller, I believe, than in its glory days of whaling in the first half of the nineteenth century...
...I w a s n ' t quite sure what the point was...
...Why did so many Vineyard men go whaling...
...But today's enervated upper classes do not aspire to anything more than energy conservation...
...But somehow not Tom Wicker...
...A girl in cutoff blue jeans handed me a bumpersticker: Support Vineyard Recycling...
...Then, too, he will charge that Reagan is strictly nineteenth century, hence not sophisticated enough to deal with the collapse of Iran, the invasion of Afghanistan, tumult in Central America, Soviet proxies in Africa, and the hostages--that last unpleasantness being Carter's greatest triumph...
...A man could make a living, and sometimes a good living, at sheep raising or fishing...
...Our President will remind us that Reagan is old and no jogger...
...I suppose oil wildcatting would be the modern equivalent...
...But Lillian Hellman thought otherwise...
...I was stationed 20 feet out to sea at the time, listening to some hair-raising conversation between liberal journalists (who come here en masse on vacation these days) and their guttural-voiced, behind-the-iron curtain sources...
...We're CETA funded," she said...
...Ergo, no McDonald's...
...Subsidiary members include Walter Cronkite (who was recently turned away curtly by a local head waiter for being seven minutes late for his reservation--a true story, everyone swears...
...Kennedy then came out, drove off for a solitary Kennedyesque beach stroll before turning in, and didn't know the young lady was in the back at all . . . . Just thought I'd pass it on...
...and hails from Hollywood, California, where carnality is the norm and divorce is rampant...
...I f Reagan sneezes or orders a roll of Turns in public, our virtuous President will immediately make available Bethesda Naval Hospital...
...Out of the question, of course, to go off and find work on one of those offshore oil r i g s . . , roughnecking . . . the modern-day whaling...
...Maybe there was a right and a wrong way to throw them away or scrunch them up or something...
...The humorist continues: Local residents question whether Buchwald ever tended a lobster pot, or so much as clammed, o n the island...
...They know too much," a visitor hinted, undoubtedly in reference to nearby Chappaquiddick...
...We sailed, fished, clammed, and tended our lobster pots oblivious to the goings-on in such Gucci-ridden places as Southampton, East Hampton, Newport, Bar Harbor and Malibu...
...I predict that Campaign '80 will be far dirtier than Campaign '66 Let it, too, have a happy ending...
...C A P I T O L I D E A S . . • . . . . . . . - . . . . ; . . . . . . ` . . . . . . . . . . . ` . . . . . . . ` ` . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . ` ` . . . . . . . ` . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ` . . . . . . ` . . . . . . . LETTER FROM MARTHA'S VINEYARD b y Tom B e t h e l l C } n the third day I was stung by a jellyfish named Bitsie or Muffle, trailing an Anderson sticker from a tentacle...
...inquires Gale Huntington in a local guide book...
...There will be innuendos too dreadful and lascivious for a sinner like myself even to imagine...
...De Borchgrave and Moss, but Muffle spotted me at my listening post and came smartly to the rescue...
...My plan of course was to beat the spike by telling all to Messrs...
...Edward Kennedy has been knocked out of the presidential race, the Vineyard summer visitors have switched over pretty solidly to John Anderson...
...6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1980...
...I suspect, that there is so little cohesion at the center of U.S...
...One fears for a President Reagan, should he be elected...
...The hamburger people, perceiving a good market, wanted to open a new outlet in Vineyard Haven...
...Buchwald would hardly build a house on Martha's Vineyard if he was going to be here all on his lonesome...
...Farmland has reverted to forest...
...And someone called John Belushi (if you know who he is, I don't) bought Robert McNamara's house...
...But apart from.that he hasn't quite got the socio-dynamics right...
...Oh yes, Anthony Lewis...
...political life at present that political goals can more easily be advanced in opposition than in office...
...I guess energy conservation is one of the ways the upper classes go on welfare these days...
...The island seems to be alive with passive solar talk, windmill demonstrations, glass recycling projects...
...Nearby, there was a pitiful little display of aluminum cans, bottle tops, and whatnot...
...Or so I am informed...
...Growing tired of all the earnest political conversation in the cottage that night, Mary Jo Kopechne slipped out for a snooze on the back seat of Kennedy's car...
...In short, too much Ecology and not enough Energy...
...The regular Vineyard residents, on the other hand, never were too enthusiastic about Kennedy...
...The truth is...
...Captain Ahab, where are you now ~hat we need you...
...Looked at this way, Kennedy supporters are right not to be concerned about the prospect of a Reagan victory...
...But what the townies want, and what the townies get, can be two very different things, depending on the proclivities of the gownies...
...D o n ' t believe the p o l l s ! " Gilder warns...
...Beverly Sills, James Reston, Mike Wallace, William Styron, John Updike, and other lovelies too numerous to mention...
...Yoget back to politics, as briefly as possible in this political season, it is worth considering this business of Kennedy supporters backing Anderson (as I'm sure many of them will...
...But everyone keeps mentioning it, so I thought I'd pass it on...
...At one point I heard the year-round Vineyarders, who are said to be mostly for Ronald Reagan, described as the "townies...
...genius, hence not smart enough m maintain double digit inflation plus 7.8 p e r c e n t unemployment...
...has the support ot the oil tycoons plus the Ku Klux Klan...
...The point is that the fashionable folk are quite happy to up and abandon Gucci-ridden East Hampton provided there's a whole rat pack of them ready to migrate at approximately the same time...
...Better in some ways to be in opposition, in this weak-kneed, energy-conservation period of U.S...
...Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington editor...
...Lest we forget, whaling was energy production...
...This was in connection with the Great McDonald's Hamburger Episode of a few years back...
...I went one day to the fair at West Tisbury, and one of the first booths I came to was occupied by the Energy Resource Group of Martha's Vineyard, "created in 1976 by a group of island residents concerned with the lack of accessible information about energy conservation and alternatives...
...Perhaps he could make a better living as an officer on a merchant vessel or as a pilot, but only by whaling was there a chance for a young man from the vineyard to become really wealthy . . . . Many Vineyard whalemen reached command while still in their early twenties...
...Bill Styron thought otherwise...
...One can already hear the drumbeat of hostility from Congress, the wailing obbligato from the press, the crescendo of criticism, building up to a lovely crisis...
...I could put it next to my Vote for Anderson sticker...
...One thinks back inevitably to the days of whaling, to those dangerous three- and four-year voyages...
...Such tiny horizons...
...The townies wanted it," a visitor recalled...
...I dutifully went sight.seeing at the fateful spot, and heard the following rat-pack explanation of the tragedy...
...But that of course is just the way the rat pack likes it --somewhat resembling an UnderTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1980 5 developed Country and deserving, therefore, of foreign aid in due course (from Washington...
...I asked the girl where the money came from...
...And unless I am much mistaken, Scotty Reston's Vineyard Gazette, with a cause to champion at last, thundered against the proposed franchise...
...The consensus seems to be that the rat pack as presently constituted is led by Lillian Hellman, the wellknown Stalinist writer...
...history, If re-elected President Carter will no doubt fare no b e t t e r than Richard Nixon did in his second term, the Vineyard gownies will surely find a pretext to tear him limb from limb, with almost as much relish as they would Ronald Reagan...
...Assuming this dire prediction to be false, however, and assuming that many Kennedy people really don't object much to a Reagan presidency, it is worth asking why they feel this way...
Vol. 13 • October 1980 • No. 10
