Among the Intellectualoids/A Time to Stand
Queenan, Joe
In the end, of course, Tower ran into problems not only because of his personal life. There was also the matter of his consulting with defense contractors on arms control matters right after...
...3. I thought we were going in alphabetical order...
...So it could take me a while to write the story...
...Ayatollah Khomeini put out a contract on Rushdie without ever having read it...
...I'd be damned if I was going to join this rush to judgment without having at least read the book that had caused all this fuss...
...Honest...
...If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem...
...By the time I realized what was going on, E. L. Doctorow had spoken his mind, Nat Hentoff had spoken his mind, Christopher Hitchens had spoken his mind, and Norman Mailer had spoken his mind...
...George Bush said the book was deeply offensive without ever having read it...
...Right...
...Things simply can't go on like this...
...It was my wholehearted conviction that the game plan was: First, novelists would have their say...
...Fine," I said, "but if the delivery man leaves it on the porch when I'm not here, don't blame me if some teenage punk steals it and I never get back to you...
...Like Nunn and many of his colleagues, Washington journalism has been intoxicated (if I may use the word) with appearances and perceptions and the like...
...But these terms take us into a messy, subjective area...
...q AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS A TIME TO STAND by Joe Queenan T here is a time to run and a time 1 to stand, a time to flee and a time to fight, a time to bleat and a time to roar...
...then newspaper columnists...
...The time has come for me to lay bare my soul and speak my piece, knowing full well the immense personal danger I risk in doing so...
...Are all perceptions created equal...
...He sent the book, but the kids hid it, and I only just found it under the bed...
...Also, you guys pay peanuts...
...Well Federal-Express it...
...5. Even when I finally did get the book...
...There is a time to hedge one's bets, a time to play it safe, a time to hide ones bushel beneath one's bushel basket...
...There was also the matter of his consulting with defense contractors on arms control matters right after he had served as an arms control negotiator...
...But now the time has come when my silence must end...
...Those are Nunn's italics, designed to shore up a weak case that could produce "no evidence" of any wrongdoing...
...But Waldenbooks had taken it off its shelves, so I couldn't get a copy...
...But there have been extenuating circumstances, and in the following paragraphs, I would like to discuss them...
...Whatever the case, the time has come when I can no longer remain silent on the subject of Salman Rushdie...
...We'll send you a copy...
...Were it not for the sake of protocol, I would have spoken up a whole lot sooner...
...then contributing editors to prominent intellectual digests...
...Whose perception counts...
...then the editors of major newsweeldies...
...2. I thought we were supposed to speak out in declining order of fame...
...she exploded when she found out that I was prepared to go public with my thoughts on Salman Rushdie...
...Norman Mailer...
...When the news of the Ayatollah's death threat against Salman Rushdie broke, I was visiting the Jack Nicklaus Academy of Golf in Orlando, Florida, trying to straighten out my swing...
...We must love one another or die...
...Columnist Richard Cohen wrote a March 5 piece in the Post's Outlook section in which he did a mischievous thing—he applied the appearance standard to journalism...
...I do not take pride in this dilatory moral pace...
...I'm getting sick of this stuff, Joe...
...One day I got a call from an editor at The American Spectator...
...Fine," he said...
...6. My wife threw a fit...
...Eli, eli, lamasabatanna...
...I figured I should wait until Joyce Carol Oates and Marty Peretz and John Podhoretz had expressed their views before expressing my own...
...But so much for that: "This situation," said Nunn, "created the appearance of using public office for private gain...
...But there is also a time to reap and a time to sow, and yes, a time in the affairs of men which leads on to fortune...
...You're really incredible, you know that, Joe...
...Oi vey...
...Fine," I said, "but I don't have the book...
...Here, now, I will say what I have to say—and if this be folly, then let the devil take the hindermost...
...The time has come to speak boldly and forthrightly, to join with my brothers and sisters in arms and say what I have to say about Salman Rushdie, his book, and the abyss he will gaze into every day for the rest of his life...
...Sam Nunn, writing in the Washington Post, admitted there was "no evidence that Sen...
...And what I have to say is this: There has to be a better way...
...Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...
...then all editors emerituses...
...A good question...
...and only then financial writers like me...
...We'll understand," he said...
...El condor pasa...
...Tom and Dicky Smothers...
...1. I was out of town...
...then poets...
...Last year you wrote a story about the Mafia...
...I stood by in silence throughout Salman Rushdies lonely ordeal as thousands and thousands of other more courageous, more principled, betterdressed writers flocked to his cause...
...Fine," I said, "but I should point out that I'm changing jobs and I have lots of deadlines to meet, and my sister just had an operation...
...Tower provided his clients with classified information...
...Well, I've had it up to here, buster...
...Fine," I said, "but the mail service in this town is really bad, so if it gets lost, don't blame me...
...Or was that a tide...
...You mustn't forget that controversial story I wrote about outrageous 12b-1 fees on no-load mutual funds," I reminded her...
...I had other commitments...
...Then you wrote a story about the guy who tried to kill Ivan Boesky...
...I am, in fact, the 234,567th American writer to express his views on Wfaire Rushdie, meaning that only a couple of copy editors from Field and Stream and the guy who writes "The Phantom Passenger" for the Philadelphia Daily News remain to be heard from...
...You usually have a lot to say for yourself, so how about writing something about Rushdie for us...
...The time for temporizing, for weighing one's options, for playing it safe, is past...
...see a few reports about the riots in Pakistan and Iran on the local TV broadcasts, but Florida State had just lost a heartbreaker to Louisville a couple of nights before, and I was sure that the local media were hyping the Rushdie death threat to...
...It takes one to know one...
...If you get assassinated, that means I'll have to watch Pee-Wee every Saturday morning with the kids...
...4. I couldn't get the book Rajiv Gandhi banned the book without ever having read it...
...For the sake of domestic tranquility, I finally agreed to refrain from offering aid and comfort to the embattled author...
...q 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1989...
...True, I did Joe Queenan is a senior editor at Forbes...
...And then you wrote a story about international arms dealers...
...I admit that I have been slow to respond to the crisis...
...Susan Sontag...
...Unless journalism— and Sam Nunn and his colleagues— starts insisting on a more objective standard than mere "appearance" provides, few people in any line of work will be in a position to avoid being charged with unethical behavior...
...I had already committed myself to four days of complete and utter relaxation, so not once during my visit did I read a newspaper...
...Not until I returned to my home in New York and saw the horrible news covered in big-time, professional, Gannett newspapers, did I realize how badly I had misjudged the situation...
...Who's to say what appears which way...
...Next month, I will share my thoughts on Joe Stalin...
...Noting that the press would have trouble living up to this "most elastic of standards," Cohen then asked his profession to consider "whether the standards it has set for others are unreasonable...
...take Floridians' minds off another disappointing Seminoles' season...
Vol. 22 • May 1989 • No. 5
