Presswatch/The Shifty Hands of Time

...The climax of this breathless description informs us that "occasionally the eyes, the hands, and the voice reach peak power at the same time"it must be absolutely deafening-"and then it is clear why this man is General Secretary...

...The Times duly made handsome amends in its editorial: "Mr...

...All the better to see through you with, my dear...

...Wall Street Journal, July 18, 19781 But we did make that bet and it turned out to be wrong...

...It may turn out that such a tax cut would raise the revenue, just as it may turn out that there is human life on Mars...

...P R E S S W A T C H THE SHIFTY HANDS OF TIME Vladimir Bukovsky complains in the current issue of Survey, Leo Labedz's indispensable journal of East West studies (59, St...

...You know, the Western press is in love with her...

...Meet the 283 State Legislative Leaders • In-depth biographical and political profiles plus photographs of every House Speaker, Senate President, Majority leader and Minority leader in our nation's state legislatures...

...By some curious hocus pocus, it could even be argued that this wise and wonderful success was actually an argument against any future anti-terrorist actions...

...Those of you who had supposed that elbows, knees, and teeth were his principal debating features now know better...

...To borrow an argument from Macaulay: It is understandable that Gorbachev should make such a joke in a light unguarded moment...

...But was there any evidence for them...

...The hands have a variety of functions," it tells us in the incontestable style of a medical textbook...

...This was the only false step the liberal editorialists made in an otherwise brilliant display of ideological reinterpretation...

...Well," she finally said...

...That is true even under the normal criminal law...

...T know of no other national publication that even comes close to your book...

...Hot work," said the King, to which the workmen laughingly assented...

...There are a few manic touches like giving a gung-ho description of a table as "the center for action," as if it were a sort of trampoline...

...No courtier in the palace of an Oriental despot of uncertain temper has ever exuded such ingenious and varied flattery...

...It "lectures" and "declaims"--but there is no mention of whether or not it "laughs easily...

...provided Mr...

...Up-to-date information presented in a 6x9 loose-leaf binder...

...26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1985 The jocular answer was vintage Gorbachev: "Well in that case, maybe I should reconsider...

...But the one important national consequence has been the cut in the planned defense program...

...There have been other consequences, but they have been distributional, shifting income from one group to another...

...One can like or dislike these shifts, depending presumably on where one's interests and sympathies lie...

...Gorbachev is asked if his attractive wife will be accompanying him to the Geneva summit...

...And, guess what, it was...

...Box 1151, Hyannis, MA 02601, The Handbook of State Legislative Leaders Detailed political and biographical profiles, plus photos, of every House Speaker, Senate President, Majority Leader and Minority Leader in each of our nation's fifty state legislatures...

...But I would not invest much in a McDonald's franchise on that planet, and I wouldn't bet the nation's economic policy on the assumption that the tax cut will increase the revenue...

...The legalistic approach to terrorism-which the press was implicitly adopting with its stress on the known identity of the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer-is an absurd one...

...Mr...

...It must surely be a crisis which provided no lessons for the future...

...Other people's hands do that kind of thing and no one remarks on it...

...Saturday's Actual Size: 6" by 9" Please send me copies of The Handbook of State please include 5% sales tax...

...but conclusions must be sparingly drawn...

...Whether the tax cut has increased or decreased the national income is uncertain, and the net effect has probably been small in either direction...

...The "eyes go into action first...

...RAISE TAXES The problem of adequacy of tax revenue is simply the defense problem...

...interception of the Egyptian plane and the arrest of the four Achille Lauro hijackers to a distinguished liberal journalist at a cocktail party...

...I evaluated that possibility seven years ago in an article on the Kemp-Roth tax bill that by Herbert Stein was the forerunner of the 1981 tax cut: Economists cannot say that they know with certainty that the Kemp-Roth tax cut would not raise the revenue...

...Gorbachev's joie de vivre...

...it is implemented at fairly regular intervals when the economy slows down...

...As I read the editorials in the mainstream liberal press over the following weekend, I found myself astonished at their brilliant recovery...

...Valuable summaries of the key provisions of each state's laws on lobbying, campaign finance, and open meetings...

...But it raises no new point of importance...

...We are told approvingly that "he laughs easily...

...Thus the New York Times murmured approvingly: "The Reagan Administration's passage from aimless shelling of the Shuf in Lebanon last year to the carefully calibrated aerial intercept near Sicily may mark our collective passage from bluster to mature self-defense...

...actions to suppress terrorism are unthinkable-even when one occurs in front of them...

...Sample: King Alfonso of Spain to some workmen digging the road on a summer's day...

...Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4JS, U.K...

...It is a perfectly fair distinction...

...Massachusetts residents Title: Organization: Address: City: State: Zip: Phone: (617) 77I-3821, Telephone: Mail your order to: State Legislative Leaders Foundation, Publications Department, P.O...

...firmness had solved this particular crisis...

...So far, so normal...

...After this, the introduction tails off...

...Remember that, unlike other voices, it has to compete daily with the talking hand...

...interception in the warmest terms...

...Sometimes both hands work together, the fingers clasped, drumming the table for emphasis"-an altogether inspiring picture of what collective endeavor can achieve when selfish sectional interests are set aside...

...Gorbachev's voice is not, of course, any ordinary Russian voice...

...This was a kind of reverse prediction since Arafat actually persuaded Craxi to release the PLO hijack organizer, Mohammed Abbas, a few days later...

...It is "extraordinary, deep but also quite soft...

...It was "exhilarating" (New York Times) and "splendid" (Washington Post...

...And that is the main reason why it is convinced that U.S...

...C Bill me (postage & h andling are extra) Paymen enclose (postag handling Name: tde & are included) 27 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1985 of releasing Abbas...

...And the American press in particular had displayed an almost slavering servility towards him...

...low and melodious...

...It had employed force...

...Not at all...

...Those who feel this picture of sycophancy is somewhat exaggerated should turn to Time magazine of September 9. No, not to the inevitably turgid interview with Gorbachev, but to Time's very revealing introduction thereto...

...When you subscribe: you will receive a permanent, three-ring loose-leaf binder...

...The U.S., by its decisive action, had defied all the confidently defeatist assertions that it had no "options" in the fight against terrorism except "restraint...

...The right hand holds his glasses...

...that the media adulation of Mr...

...That's good," said [Time's Henry] Grun wald...

...That leaves only the argument that this operation differs from other terrorist crises in that the lives of hostages were not at stake...

...None of this was supposed to happen and, for a moment, it disconcerted the establishment liberal media as completely as it had disconcerted my cocktail party companion...

...It had treated diplomatic considerations as secondary...

...no hint of grudgery qualified their generous tributes...

...And what remarkable wreckage of liberal theory on terrorism there briefly was...

...Second, the government and the public could have decided that the deficit resulting from the tax cut should 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1985...

...Reagan's achievement was thus born in a most appalling failure of friendly governments to stand together against a common danger...

...Gorbachev was repeatedly described as a reformer even though the only "reform" he has actually implemented is the campaign against alcoholism...

...Finally the rules of a just war dictate that, though care should be taken to avoid harming innocent civilians, their presence at a legitimate military target does not morally prohibit an attack upon it...

...Legislative Leaders 1985-86 @ $50 a copy...

...Time goes on to tell us that the Soviet leader dominates a meeting with "three extraordinary tools: eyes, hands and voice...

...The main consequence of the excessive tax reduction of 1981, and of the subsequent reluctance to make a substantial tax increase, has been to shrivel the increase of national defense expenditures that President Reagan had planned...

...But that Time magazine should write it down, send it to the printers, correct the proofs, and then publish it to the world as a joke surely passes all understanding...

...It amounts to arguing that an army could return fire only at those individual soldiers in opposing trenches who had actually been observed sniping...

...Apple, Jr...

...THE PUBLIC POLICY...

...The left hand talks...

...And Gorbachev naturally doesn't just wear a suit-he has to be "resplendent" in it...

...If U.S...

...and it is subsequently abandoned when it has the effect of removing almost the only incentive in Soviet society and thus making the economy go even slower than before...

...editorial in the New York Times referred to the interception breathlessly as "more than an American victory...

...In his magisterial summing up for the New York Times "Week in Review," Mr...

...The Congressional Budget Resolution enacted in August would cut defense expenditures in the five years 1986-1990 14 percent below President Reagan's 1985 budget proposals, which were already cut below his earlier programs...

...It fails to account for the success of people like Brezhnev and Chernenko who lacked Mr...

...R .W...

...It occasionally manipulates them to emphasize a point...

...The subscription price of $50.00 includes more than 275 profiles of legislative leaders from all fifty state legislatures, summaries of important state laws, facts and figures on session schedules and committee membership PLUS periodic updates sent to you during 1986...

...Perhaps that is more versatile...

...The charming mask duly slipped and Gorbachev snarled his replies...

...Other possibilities existed: First, the cut in tax rates could have increased the tax revenue...

...Impressive though these arguments sound laid end to end, none of them stands much examination when looked at singly...

...Nor does that gifted left hand confine itself to trivial conversation...

...The Washington Post mumbled in agreement: "A chain of circumstances...

...Indeed, they thought so highly of the operation that they assumed instinctively it must have been carried out by someone other than the Reagan Administration...

...Indeed, it merely brings us back to the familiar question that always bedevils proposals for antiterrorist action: Should the lives of hostages be the first priority...

...Thirdly, the guilty men are not confined to those terrorists who plant the bombs and hijack ships and planes...

...The hijackers, trapped in a plane rather than able to escape to land hideouts, were especially vulnerable...

...It was seemingly the work of three governments-the Italian, the Egyptian, and the American-acting in secret concert...

...It is doubly true under the rules of war...

...Moreover, there is apparently a strong possibility that the Congress will cut defense below the level of its budget resolution, using the deficit as its reason, or excuse...

...Important facts and figures on legislative session schedules, party composition, committee chairs...

...11...

...Because we had known the identity of the hijackers, we could mount a precise operation to seize them...

...A cut in the defense program was not the logically and arithmetically necessary consequence of the cut in taxes...

...And it had triumphed...

...Over the next few days, the reasons why the U.S...

...As during the TWA hijacking crisis, President Reagan had grown...

...But not fat," it adds hastily...

...But Time marches on to Gorbachev's hands...

...The tax cuts have shifted income from some Herbert Stein is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute...

...In effect, the choice is between protecting the lives of a known number of identifiable hostages now and protecting the lives of an unknown number of anonymous hostages who will be put at risk in the future if this particular terrorist action gains its objectives...

...And when it cuts across the room, it is "not angry or bullying"that would be vulgar-"just stronger than any other sound in the room," like the clock in a Rolls-Royce...

...She will...

...But the liberal press has, without fully acknowledging the fact, made up its collective mind that the lives of today's hostages must be paramount...

...This particular reform is at the top of every Soviet bureaucrat's in-tray...

...Even Arafat, the Times speculated, had probably been persuaded by Bettino Craxi, the Italian prime minister, to acquiesce in turning the hijackers over to justice...

...That was both legal and-since it did not harm innocent bystandersmoral, in a way that a retaliatory strike against a terrorist camp would not be...

...Real defense expenditures today are no higher than was proposed by President Carter in his final budget...

...They welcomed the U.S...

...The Washington Post outlined the same scenario with a nod-and-wink passage in its Saturday editorial: "Whether Egypt contributed further by joining a plan that let it make good on its felt obligations to its fellow Arabs, while at the same time allowing the capture of the terrorists, is a question not likely to be suppressed by official denials...

...But what about the left hand...

...By Sunday the Times reporters had established fairly conclusively that Egypt's President Mubarak had lied to Reagan and that Craxi was wriggling furiously to find some respectable way I broke the news of the successful U.S...

...Then memory returned: "Oh, Grandma, what big strong eyes you've got...

...I had to think for a moment before realizing what that description reminded me of...

...And oh, what eyes-neither "harsh nor kind" but "big and strong, and sometimes quick too...

...First, it is actually harder to apprehend terrorists who are flying around the Mediterranean than to attack them in their camps...

...That is surely a romantic novelist's conception of why people rise in the Soviet hierarchy...

...The Post followed suit...

...Reagan with a rare opportunity...

...It is worth wondering, however, exactly what innocent bystanders are doing in a terrorist camp...

...John O'Sullivan is the editorial page editor of the New York Post and a columnist for the Times of London...

...They also include the people who plan the operations, train the actual hijackers, provide the guns and grenades, and maintain the entire infrastructure of terrorism which makes hijackings and bombings possible...

...concluded sagely: "The circumstances of the seizure of the Italian liner and the apprehension of those who carried it out were not typical of terrorist operations and are not likely to be repeated any time soon...

...No taint of reservation...

...Much Western ink was therefore spent on gloating that Reagan would have his work cut out at Geneva to compete with this dazzling Renaissance man...

...action had solved this crisis successfully, that plainly indicated that this was a most unusualnay, unique-crisis...

...Mary McLellan, Assistant State Librarian State Library of Massachusetts Their first maneuver was perhaps their most brilliant and most ruthless one...

...You might suppose that with the left by John O'Sullivan hand grabbing all the attention, the more introspective right hand might have an attack of the sulks...

...They can, or should, only say that the available evidence makes that outcome extremely improbable...

...Arguments can be advanced on both sides...

...He had clearly been sufficiently briefed to answer the first question on any subject smoothly enough, but he lacked the training to deal competently with follow-up questions that democratic leaders acquire naturally in the rough-and-tumble of press conference and parliamentary debate...

...And that ended the press's brief flirtation with the idea that international cooperation rather than unilateral U.S...

...It had required a minimum of international cooperation from Italy and Tunisia which might not be forthcoming in the future...

...It is revealing, of course, not about Gorbachev but about Time magazine...

...Whenever a change in leadership occurs, you will receive a new profile page...

...etc., etc...

...But there was no need to worry that Gorbachev might be offended by such personal remarks...

...Quick source for identifying contact persons in the state's legislature...

...Gorbachev is now so intrusive and ubiquitous that he is almost afraid to turn on his vacuum cleaner in case it starts babbling about the virtues of the new Soviet leader...

...It begins by telling us that Gorbachev, just back from holiday, is tanned, healthy, energetic, and solid...

...And it would rule out a bombing raid on the enemy's headquarters on the grounds that this was illegal and unjustified retaliatory action of an imprecise kind...

...Until then, however, press and television both had been quite uncritical, almost starry-eyed, about the former KGB informer...

...That is particularly true for the Mediterranean which, with the presence of the U.S...

...It was a brave attempt to salvage something from the wreckage...

...Otherwise, Gorbachev had only to express an aspiration for the press to start discussing it as an accomplished fact...

...But only for a moment...

...Reagan certainly looked foolish contradicting himself on television today...

...Bruce C. Rounds, Majority Leader State of New Hampshire "It is, indeed, a useful and informative source of needed information to me in my position as a lobbyist for Ford, " Alice C. Cantwell Regional Government Affairs Manager Ford Motor Company 'An extremely useful handbook of current and concise factual information on state government, legislative leadership and organization...

...beneficiaries of social programs to some taxpayers, from borrowers, including the less-developed world, to savers, from workers and investors in tradeable goods sectors to workers and investors in other sectors of the economy, from consumers of later generations to consumers in this generation...

...Secondly, attacks on terrorist camps require little or no international cooperation-vide Israel...

...Now that's news...

...She paused for a moment, perhaps to control her emotions...

...Sixth Fleet, is virtually an American lake-mare nostrum as first the Romans, and later the British, called it...

...If it did, terrorists would permanently surround themselves with innocent civilians...

...But it does at least include an entry for Malcolm Muggeridge's longpromised "Anthology of Royal Jokes...

...interception provided no future lessons were carefully laid out...

...The subtle intrigues posited in these editorials were plainly what the editorialists hoped had happened...

...It had not risked the lives of hostages who were free by the time of the interception...

...A logical next step beckoned enticingly...

...He is plainly a relaxed chap...

...The French press proved a little more skeptical and during his Paris visit asked a few nasty questions about human rights and the treatment of Soviet Jewry...

...It was as if a platoon of soldiers, scattered and in the utmost confusion after a direct artillery hit, had almost instantly returned to their positions and were soon marching, countermarching, wheeling, and carrying out the most intricate parade ground maneuvers in perfect harmony...