Among the Intellectualoids/Fast Times on Parliament Hill
Gladwell, Malcolm
"Dr. Zero" by his opponents because he has never been elected to any office, Mifsud Bonnici is feared because he appears to believe all the nonsense Mintoff spouted just to attract attention. For...
...During the ensuing confrontation (which is still unresolved) it was Mifsud Bonnici who as education and deputy prime minister did the most to fan the flames...
...THE NATION'S PULSE THE SOBRAN SCANDAL by Joseph Sobran...
...Miss Rosett explained to Journal readers that I was "one of Mr...
...He had faith that others would soon sense the importance of his mission: "There must be a Gallup poll that will be taken any time, I presume...
...There he would remain for three weeks, holding court, receiving visitors, granting interviews—but never eating...
...I had only myself to blame...
...And that of course is just what has the rest of us so worried...
...A few months ago, a book by William F. Buckley, Jr., gathering dozens of his columns over several years, was published under the title Right Reason...
...Iivo years ago Mintoff started a row with the local church over the latter's school system, which he said had to befree...
...Buckley's longtime staffers at National Review" The secret was out...
...Dreadful by my standards, anyway...
...Some have argued that Hebert should have waited until he was no longer a member of the Senate to stage his protest...
...I stocked up on cheap cigars and disconnected my phone, pondering my next move...
...The problem may come," says one Maltese, "when Mifsud Bonnici finds he cannot win an election but realizes he can still govern...
...I've never been romantically linked with actresses in the gossip columns or arrested at an airport...
...Prime Minister Mulroney answered Hebert's cri de coeur on behalf of Canadian youth with a one-sentence form letter thanking the Senator for his interest in the problem...
...Even for a journalist I lead a pretty dull life...
...Judge of my dismay, then, when I picked up my Wall Street Journal one morning as I sipped my coffee and, expecting nothing more heart-pounding than (say) a stern editorial on marginal tax rates, found my name at the center of a scandal...
...But not to the point of death...
...One-time summer camp instructor Tom Connell recalls taking a Katimavik group on a canoeing trip...
...At the end of their term, students were expected to have found themselves and were rewarded with $1,000...
...I'm not one of those relentless investigative chaps who get anonymous threats from husky-voiced guys on the phone telling them how many different pieces they'll wind up in if they don't lay off the big story...
...Fairlie is an English gent who, it transpired, had known Buckley some years ago...
...I had always known, in the back of my mind, that my association with this journal, though unfailingly pleas-ant and lucrative, could only lead to Joseph Sobran is one of William Buckley's longtime staffers at National Review and a nationally syndicated columnist...
...As a senior staffer at National Re-view, I am privy to the information that Fairlie borrowed several hundred dollars from Buckley years ago and, promising to repay it forthwith, vanished...
...scan-dal . . . The American Spectator...
...This may not sound like the makings of scandal, but an unsuspecting world was to learn otherwise...
...For the Prime Minister of Canada had tried to cut Hebert's favorite government program, and Jacques Hebert—Senator Jacques Hebert of the Parliament's Upper House—was on a hunger strike...
...This was where matters stood when the Wall Street Journal ran a story by Claudia Rosett about Buckley, Fairlie, and me...
...At stake was only a $20 million relic from the Trudeau era, an "outward bound"-style jobs program for youth, called Katimavik...
...In the mean-time, however, his actions have forced Canadians to take a step back and ask some tough questions about their democracy...
...If need be, Jacques will be prepared to go all the way," Dr...
...It should have been foreseeable that a young man who could regard Michael Oakeshott as his moral inferior would find J. Sobran a particularly poor moral specimen...
...30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1986...
...But that didn't always happen...
...You could always recognize the Katimavik people," says John Clark, a former travel guide who ran into them often, "because they were the ones necking in the bus station...
...And when Hebert's mentor, Pierre Trudeau, finally showed up, he told reporters that his visit was only a "photo opportunity" and went straight to lunch...
...For the middle-class kids who flocked to the program, Katimavik was considered little more than a good time...
...It's too early to judge the ultimate effect on my career, but I draw solace from the recent appearance of Richard Nixon on the cover of Newsweek...
...Although his friends spoke poignantly of his strength and commitment"Jacques has the drive of a pioneer and the strength of a bull...
...He knew his cause was just and that the public support was there, even if no one else did: "I see the numbers of letters published in the newspapers...
...And that's the way I like it—a nice, quiet existence...
...Some have suggested that the program become a non-profit corporation, and others that it be expanded to include not just unemployed youth but also retired civil servants and suburban housewives...
...I cleaned up a wood lot and added sunshine to the lives of handicapped children...
...But Hebert was insistent...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1986 29 and stray youth a year...
...That's a sign...
...Hyde told reporters...
...I don't think he would go to that point because he wouldn't be able to come back and fight again...
...In Ottawa, on Parliament Hill, this was considered shocking, but among Canadian youth it was hardly news at all...
...I had better reconstruct the events and allegations leading up to the morning I refer to...
...Hebert's party leader John Turner counseled an end to the protest, and a television poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Canadians felt the same way...
...Hebert is a 62-year-old with a history of heart trouble...
...Adding to this fear is that unlike other Third World-style demagogues, Mifsud Bonnici gives no evidence of the traditional vices open to those in power: wine, women, or riches...
...Was it possible...
...dire consequences for my reputation...
...It was a few weeks after this that my own review of the same book appeared in The American Spectator...
...Wieseltier said it certainly was proper, but added that it was "scandalous" and "utterly incestuous" that the Spectator should have given the same book to me to review...
...Byron Hyde, instituted daily urine tests...
...Buckley made some sport of Fairlie's hyperbole, manners, grammar, and love of the bottle...
...Though Mifsud Bonnici disclaims any responsibility, he did tell me at the time that the attack was "fortunate" if it persuaded people to think twice about bucking the will of the Labor party...
...I learned French while renovating a home for the aged...
...My whole life seemed to flash before my eyes...
...In other words, apart from the outright toppling of the Libyan strength behind him, there is nothing this world has to offer that might keep the prime minister of this strategic island-paradise from turning it into the Cuba of the Mediterranean—except for his own better judgment...
...Who, it will be asked, is this Wieseltier and what does he want...
...I learned to use survey equipment and to write a good resume," is how the recruitment brochure quotes one graduate...
...Novelist Mordecai Richler called Hebert a pretentious bore...
...Actually, the secret was out long ago...
...He can move mountains to get what he wants"it was clear they were worried...
...The bottom line is still a smorgasbord of Marxist-inspired programs administered with all the delicacy of a Chicago pimp...
...AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS FAST TIMES ON PARLIAMENT HILL by Malcolm Gladwell On March 10 of this year, after a hearty breakfast of three eggs, four slices of toast, cheese, orange juice, and coffee, Jacques Hebert took his red sleeping bag and three bottles of Perrier and lay down in the foyer of the Canadian Senate building in Ottawa...
...But I'm getting ahead of myself...
...As for me, I thought it best to lie low for a few days after the scandal broke...
...It was divulged yet again in the identifying note that accompanied my review...
...A special committee of prominent politicians, academics, and dignitaries has been set up to look for ways to revive Katimavik...
...Usually on these trips we would do twenty miles a day, but with Katimavik we did about six miles in four days...
...Nixon's name is still mud over at the New Republic, where scan-dal is deplored and rectitude prized, but his rehabilitation holds out the promise of a new dawn to us sinners...
...Wherever Hebert starves next, controversy will follow...
...Already locals are talking about "taking" a victory a la Corazon Aquino should the government try to steal it again...
...In 1981 IRA terrorist Bobby Sands languished in a Northern Ireland cell for 66 days...
...Two doctors trained in Chinese massage techniques were called in to help the Senator deal with increasingly worrisome bouts of insomnia...
...For the uninitiated, it should be explained that Hitler's name is mud nowadays...
...That's not the sort of thing that shows up in the government's newsletter sent abroad, especially with elections a year away and Mifsud Bonnici badly in need of Western money to patch up the economy his ruling party has done so much to wreck...
...Some reckless, mindless functionary at the Spectator, forgetting the adage that loose lips sink ships, had told the reading public that I was "a senior editor of National Review," thereby vitiating the impact of my praise of the book and playing right into Wieseltier's hands...
...One thing's for sure...
...There is no point in denying it now...
...Coffee spurted from my nose...
...Was it worth it...
...Of the several articles of his I've read, the only one I remember clearly was one that snarled that conservatives lack compassion and cling to privilege, or words to that effect...
...Briefly forgetting myself, I uttered a dreadful oath...
...It found that nearly three-quarters of the participants drank too much, and 55 percent admitted they used drugs...
...Fairlie glancingly mentioned that he was attacked in the book and proceeded to give not only the book but Buckley's life, intellect, talents, and character a somewhat unfavorable review...
...But Sands was a young man disciplined by conflict...
...Many close to the scene had their doubts...
...Recently, too, he said that he was ready to take to the streets again...
...Today the deadly game of chicken is over...
...At the height of the furor the Conservative government released the findings of a special report on the Katimavik pro-gram...
...At one point he delivered a rousing speech to a mob of dockworkers (many brandishing weapons) and led them through the streets of this capital city, where a group then attacked the church curia—just ten yards from the police station—desecrating altars and ran-sacking the archbishop's office...
...Nor does this newsletter focus on the military treaty with Libya, which some fear might be invoked to ensure a Labor victory next time around...
...It is especially crushing that he should find Henry Fairlie more to his liking...
...Despite lofty goals and a budget that came to $10,000 per head, about a thirdof Katimavik participants thought their jobs were dull and unfulfilling...
...He struck me as a young and intelligent man...
...Buckley replied by taking out a full-page ad in the New Republicreprinting the column about Fairlie...
...He cited Michael Oakeshott as a case in point...
...The room swam like Mark Spitz...
...Miss Rosett asked Wieseltier if he really thought it was proper for Fairlie to review a book in which he was ridiculed...
...Thus has Malta seen its one university brought to heel, a worker/student plan from China's Cultural Revolution adopted, links with the Soviet bloc and the Arabs fostered, a PLO office opened, the Israeli charge d'affairs shot at and that embassy closed, the country's largest trade union legally incorporated into the Labor party, and the sole independent newspaper—the pro-Western Times of Malta—looted and burnt down by a Labor mob...
...Ihave met him only once...
...As his weight plummeted, Hebert's physician, Dr...
...For nine months volunteers between the ages of 17 and 21 would do community work through-out Canada for a dollar a day...
...Ottawa's present government-slashing mood clearly has Hebert's doctors and close familyand friends concerned...
...By March 21 Hebert's heartbeat was irregular...
...Three days later he admitted to feeling weak for the first time"tired, but alive...
...Yes . . . there it was, in black and white . . . "Sobran...
...The story introduced a new character: Leon Wieseltier, the book review editor of the New Republic...
...Hebert tried to maintain that Katimavik was of critical importance, but it was really just an adventure, an ex-tended summer camp for a few thousMalcolm Gladwell's last article for The American Spectator was "Fast Times at Dartmouth High," an attack on the administration of Dartmouth College...
...It was reviewed by Henry Fairlie in the New Republic, and by me in The American Spectator...
...At its best, Katimavik amounted to shipping kids from Ontario and Quebec 3,000 miles to mow lawns in the Yukon...
...The Mulroney government made Hebert a face-saving offer, that, after twenty-one days on the hard marble floor of the Senate lobby, he could not refuse...
...He still lives quietly at home with his brother, a priest, and is known to be ruthlessly scrupulous about personal gain...
...The morning when my hitherto tranquil life was shattered, perhaps forever...
...I am one of Buckley's longtime staffers...
...Others, like the government leader in the Senate, Duff Roblin, have complained that Hebert should have held his hunger strike from his desk in the chamber and not the lobby because that implied that "what we say here doesn't count...
...One of the columns in Right Reason took him to task for comparing the Republican delegates at the 1980 convention to the sort of people who elected Adolf Hitler...
...He has now repaid Buckley, after his fashion...
...Where Senator Jacques Hebert goes from here is not clear...
...For the unfortunate souls who have had to endure his Labor party, however, it matters not whether Mintoff was opportunist or ideologue...
...What is more likely, however, is that the whole matter will just quietly fade away...
...Fueling such fears are the prime minister's past statements that elections might be "useless and baseless...
...This kind of talk, together with the nasty harassment of opposition voices, has attracted the unwanted attention of foreign journalists and human-rights delegations from the European Parliament to the Helsinki watchers, and matters were not helped last year when Mifsud Bonnici clapped into prison an Italian Christian Democrat politician on the island to give a speech: Nor is it alleviated by something called the "Foreign Interference Act," a law that can be used against foreign journalistsreporting in Malta and which some believe might be invoked as an excuse for suspending the next elections...
...Flanked day and night by his trusted personal aide Guy de Grandpre, a staffer from his office, his doctors, and a battery of cameras and newsmen, he invoked memories of Mahatma Gandhi...
...Meanwhile, I can peddle my sordid tale to cheap tabloids like this one...
...There have been other, more spectacular hunger strikes of course...
...They insisted on stopping every ten minutes to take their clothes off...
...I did get a parking ticket at an airport once, but I managed to keep it off the front pages...
...Given too that the Labor party lost the last one but still managed through some crude gerrymandering to carve out a three-seat majority in the 65-seat parliament, one ought not underestimate the lengths to which this party will go to stay in power...
Vol. 19 • July 1986 • No. 7
