The Washington Spectator/Bush Bash
Ferguson, Andrew
BUSH BASH THE WASHINGTON SPECTATOR T he Washington Post inaugurated George Bush's inaugural week with a suitable gesture: a long piece called "Inaugural Kitsch: Goodbye To All That," by Sidney...
...Like that last song you did `They Killed Him...
...Well, people tell me it's a powerful song...
...Also ready for quick and permanent shelving is what Beltway believers are starting to call the "kinder, gentler thing...
...The gravamen of Sid's inauguration article—published by the Andrew Ferguson is assistant managing editor of The American Spectator...
...TVvelve column inches in the Post all week...
...Jack Brooks, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, imploring him to "get to the bottom of the Iran-contra scandal...
...He was specifically referring to "cuts" in the increase in the allocation for the National Park Service...
...Hefty words...
...And they did...
...Dukakis, Mondalethey didn't know poetry...
...But I will demur, and point out that the truly worrisome aspect of the celebrations, for this Bush partisan, had nothing to do with entertainment...
...I've tried to do that, too," Kris said, "but I always seem to get stuck on Elliott Abrams...
...And, compatible with their author's generosity, utterly empty...
...I wasn't able to watch the thing live, but I got hold of a videotape, and when I had some spare time I waded into it as far as I could...
...The Gala, unlike the other events, was televised for the nation to see...
...Here was an inaugural gala that Sid would die for: no sequins, no grandes dames in Scaasi gowns, no odious Sinatra...
...I fast-forwarded to Cheryl Ladd, but even she couldn't save the evening...
...It didn't fly with Barbara Walters, and it won't fly with his other adversaries, either...
...With the SWAT team perched watchfully on the roof of the temple, the master of ceremonies, Willard Scott, first introduced the Gatlin Brothers, who were followed by the Beach Boys, who were followed by that unspeakable collection of teenage hopheads, "Up With People...
...I attended most Coalition events, and the only one that topped 1,000 participants was the "NO HONEYMOON" benefit concert for the Christic Institute on Thursday night, staged at the Warner Theater even as Nell Carter was throwing her weight around for the President-elect at the Inaugural Gala...
...Some in the crowd waved them lamely, others held them aloft, and some, in embarrassment, turned them off at once and put them back in their pockets...
...I believe that kindness and gentleness begins in the kitchen...
...The highlight, for my money ($25 a seat...
...This is a colossal misunderstanding, similar to the one that for decades caused people to send fruitcakes to friends and relatives for Christmas, in the erroneous belief that everyone enjoys fruitcake...
...There's no humanity there...
...Well, the only time I've ever felt so-called God or grace or what-have-you is when I've tried to do that...
...In austere contrast to the other in- augural events I attended, the fare at the reception was modest: cheese and crackers, beer and wine, an enigmatic vegetable dip...
...Then I saw Nell Carter, who danced but shouldn't have, and then a group of precocious pre-teen fiddle players who made you wonder whether child abuse isn't a two-way street...
...A pale young woman in black tights grabbed his attention first and held on to it for dear life...
...And finally, when the wispy Tommy Tune was joined on stage by Brian Boitano, I feared the whole show might collapse from a shortage of hormones...
...was Kristofferson, who—perhaps as penance for his role in the TV miniseries "Amerika"—has made several trips to Nicaragua (pronounced, of course, the politically correct way: Neek-ah-RAH-gwah) and gone irretrievably native...
...I'll try," said Kris...
...In high dudgeon, for example, he is apt to accuse conservatives of heartlessness, but then gently backs off, refusing to be so cruel as to cite examples...
...This, says Sid, should be cause for trepidation among freethinkers, for "the line between fantasy and reality was constantly blurred that night"—blurred so decisively, indeed, that Sid has trouble distinguishing between the two to this day...
...As a baby...
...Can I just share one thought with Kris, please," said an exasperated young man in a cream-colored sweater vest...
...But of course no self-respecting President would ever do such a thing...
...Many conservatives harbor a deep animus toward Blumenthal, and it's true that his work is routinely chock-a-block with factual errors, unfalsifiable assertions, deep-thinking allusions to TV culture, and all the other weapons of the neolib arsenal...
...Yes," said the young man, undeterred, "that's authentic...
...It is," said the young man, "because what distinguished those kind of people—Jesus Christ, Bobby Kennedy, all of them—was that they were angry, but not judgmental...
...These last two elections were the most depressing . . ." "That's because they didn't have any poets on their staffs...
...BUSH BASH THE WASHINGTON SPECTATOR T he Washington Post inaugurated George Bush's inaugural week with a suitable gesture: a long piece called "Inaugural Kitsch: Goodbye To All That," by Sidney Blumenthal, the Hildy Johnson who patrols the right-wing beat for the paper...
...Consider the alternative...
...It's hard to see, 1 agree...
...They didn't know how to win...
...On tiptoes she placed her mouth against his ear and began reciting a poem she had written for him...
...I want you to know that," and then turned to the sweater vest, who launched right in...
...This 200th inaugural, its promoters constantly claimed, was supposed to be "for all the people," but it's hard to imagine all the people—any of the people, really—having warm and fuzzy feelings about their next President after watching the Gala on the tube...
...UWP claims to be "dedicated to peace through understanding among young people of all nations," but the only feelings they inspire in the young people I respect, as they prance and leap by Andrew Ferguson and grin and make mysterious gestures with their flailing arms, is a violent, physical rage, checked only by a debilitating nausea...
...Because they didn't know poetry...
...And they'll win the way they've always won: by conflating fiscal prudence and heartlessness...
...Poor Sid must have been agog...
...one of the organizers complained to me on Saturday, as the festivities were winding down...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1989...
...Just one point...
...The Christic Institute's loony activities, by the way, were well documented in these pages last May, by David Brock...
...After the show was over and the unwashed had been hustled out of the theater, the Christics held an exclusive reception in the lobby for big money types, select journalists, and (of course) the celebrities themselves...
...I leaned up against the bar and after a while found myself next to Kristofferson, who was quickly besieged by admirers...
...Think of his decorous refusal to engage the enemy on the battleground of actuality and common experience...
...The concert featured Kris Kristofferson, Graham Nash, and David Crosby, who, in sheer tonnage, can be considered the left's answer to Miss Carter —although Crosby had the good sense not to attempt an ambitious production number...
...White House show biz run amok can lead to disaster—next thing you know, someone with the President's ear will suggest he stand on the White House driveway, hold hands with an enormous line of strange people, and sing "We Are The World" for the benefit of the nation's homeless...
...The Coalition prided itself on its diversity: it contained multitudes, ranging from the Women's Community Bakery to the National Organization of Changing Men...
...They killed him...
...And to close the set: "Was a man named Mahatma Gandhi/Just another holyman/who tried to take a stand/My God...
...In his dud salvo Sid was referring, in particular, to the Inaugural Gala, which is not to be confused with the Inaugural Festival, the Inaugural Pageant, the Inaugural Forum, the Inaugural Dinner, or the Inaugural Ball...
...But a more fruitful approach to Sid's work would be: Leave all that aside, and think of his politesse...
...That's the only way they'll happen," Kris said...
...But just imagine him in diapers...
...They understand precisely that Bush's purpose in using the phrase was purely exhortatory, that he was referring to private 48 relations among private citizens, an area beyond the clumsy reach of their public mechanisms...
...It was a long poem, and other admirers got impatient...
...Which is not to say that he isn't a booby...
...The Coalition was disappointed, too...
...The President has tried his best to keep the phrase from getting away from him, even to the point of admonishing Barbara Walters, in a televised interview, that his idea of kind and gentle governance did not involve "being able to match the highest bidder on federal money...
...There to greet the President-elect was Walter Cronkite, figure of bipartisan rectitude, who recently told another gala—this one sponsored by People for the American Way—that George Bush had run one of the most "sophisticated and cynical campaigns ever...
...I see him, therefore, as a peaceable man, a man of principle, and to conservatives startled by the smoke and spark of his relentless volley of blanks, my advice is: Be still, and know that he is Sid...
...Kris bowed his head modestly and looked into his glass of Coke...
...Sid can kvetch all he wants to: Thirteenth Street was still clotted with traffic, and though I've never been much of a partisan for tux-clad men and fur-wrapped women in white stretch limousines, I was overjoyed to see them...
...There is but one thing to do with that tendency, and here—following Sid—I quote Barney Fife: "Nip it...
...but most political careers in the Democratic party have been based on the premise that a pol who pushed for a bigger government was a pol with a bigger soul, and they won't let a right-wing Republican beat them in the big-soul contest...
...I myself was disappointed that attention wasn't paid to a more entertaining spectacle: the "Counter-inaugural Coalition for a People's Agenda...
...Now, I'm sure that a social critic of Blumenthalian scope could draw some large (huge) lessons from the banality of the inaugural entertainment—some intricate argument concerning the relationships among illusion and political reality and wealth and class stratification and the technology of mass media, bolstered by allusions to obscure poets of the French Symbolist school, Clement Greenberg, and Ricky Ricardo—and doubtless Sid is pounding out something along those lines even as I write...
...That mistake was corrected, and this one can be too...
...When he props his bulk on a stool, straps on his guitar, and tries to drape his chubby arms over the instrument, he resembles nothing so much as an upended Beluga with the little fins wagging helplessly...
...Considering the debased state of political discourse, there was no way such words could survive prolonged use with their meaning intact, and indeed they may already have boxed the President in...
...These are the acts who show up at Super Bowl half-times, Olympic celebrations, and suchlike extravaganzas, and who event-planners, especially if they're middle-aged Republicans, seem to agree everyone enjoys...
...The instructions stopped there, however, and no one—least of all the Bushes and the Quayles, who stood with all eyes upon them—quite knew what to do with his own personal point of battery-operated light...
...just a bare stage, muted spotlights, and a sixties over-the-hillgang singing off-key (a subtle reminder of 01' Blue Eyes), interspersed with semi-articulate dicta about American evility...
...They killed them, too...
...The thrown-back head, cascading hair, and soulful grimace do nothing to diminish the effect, and throughout the evening I half-expected a roadie to emerge from the wings and give him a good dousing with salt water, to keep him from drying out...
...So too in his Inaugural address: "No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is best in what we are...
...Their theme was "1,000 sparks of dissent," although that figure turned out to be a little high...
...the young man fairly shouted...
...Admire his feints against imaginary flanks, and his furious broadsides aimed toward regions where no adversary crouches...
...Wealthy people, Sid notes, attended the event—people in limousines—and so did Frank Sinatra...
...This is the only place in town where they're tellin' the truth tonight," he drawled, and proceeded to hose down the cheering audience with gallons of truth...
...I mean, elections won't do anything...
...At a Democratic cocktail party a Hill staffer mentioned Reagan's last budget, which Bush will use as the basis for his own budget negotiations, and said: "Kinder, gentler my ass...
...Kris looked at him...
...Kris finally dismissed the young woman with a perfunctory, "I really appreciate your spirit...
...At the Lincoln Memorial event, to "illustrate the President-elect's 'points of light' concept," most of the crowd were given tiny flashlights, and at the end of Bush's brief remarks, sure enough, they were asked to turn them on...
...A thousand points of light" was a political hack phrase—more poetic and (continued on page 48) 33 FERGUSON (continued from page 33) successful than most, and meant to convey a crucial element of the anti-statist philosophy, but a campaign slogan nonetheless, with an accordingly brief shelf life...
...And as a man of deep aesthetic sensibility, he accuses conservatives of not nurturing artists worthy of the New Deal legacy of such left-wing stalwarts as Ben Shahn and Clifford Odets—an accusation by which any conservative can only be rendered speechless...
...Sandinista," went another, "you can hold your head up high/you have given back their freedom/you have lived up to your name...
...Style was substance," he writes, "fashion was power...
...Bush has handed them a club—a heavy number-one wood—to clobber him with, and they won't let it go...
...I attended several of George Bush's inaugural events during those stirring days in late January, and I'm happy to say I saw no reason for trepidation...
...It'll work, you'll see," said the young man, and there, as Samuel Pepys said, I took my leave, through the lobby doors and into the fresh night air...
...Maybe his appearance at the Inaugural Gala was the Bush people's way of thanking him for calling them sophisticated...
...The opening ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial, which I did manage to attend, suffered from some of the same problems...
...That's pretty hard to do some times," said Kris...
...And perhaps that was the first mistake...
...At a demonstration outside the Inaugural Dinner at Union Station, an animal rights activist asked me, indignantly, "If he believes in a kinder, gentler nation, then why do they have veal on the menu tonight...
...Subsequent verses ran through the rest of the pantheon: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and "the Brothers Kennedy...
...His work, in other words, reveals him to be a pacifist in the war of words, straining heroically—at the cost of achieving a reputation as a notable social critic or even as a competent reporter—to avoid hitting a target and causing blood to be spilled...
...They're killin' babies in the name of freedom," began one song...
...Off in a corner, some Christic functionaries sifted through baskets of cards addressed to Rep...
...In fact almost nobody does...
...Isn't what this evening is about is the poets, that if we just draw on the force of the poets—because in the media, let's face it, the poets are tops—and unite with them, then the things that need to happen will start to happen...
...exclamation in original...
...T he more obvious and expected 1 anthropological phenomena of inauguration week have been well reported: the limousines clogging the streets, the battalion 'of bejewelled women in fur, the swirl of parties, the endless, mind-numbing parade following the swearing-in...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1989 Post as a kind of warning to its readers—was that "inaugurations and their accompanying ceremonies are the harbingers of an administration's style," and that the ceremonies accompanying George Bush's inauguration were going to be "derivative of the show that was staged for Ronald Reagan on his own opening night...
...I heard the line, "My soul is a blizzard," and something about an ocean, but not much else...
...It summons up the spirits of our ancestors—which of course is the traditional role of the shaman...
...In my wanderings during inauguration week, I seldom talked to a left-winger who didn't use the phrase...
...The attempt during the opening ceremony to squeeze a little more meaning out of it—to reify it with a dime-store toy—shows a tendency on the part of the Bush people toward show biz of the most literal-minded sort...
...They saw into the soul of the evil-doer and tried to understand his humanity...
...Not that things were uniformly rosy—certainly not uniformly tasteful...
...Fruitcake sales, after years of tireless effort on the part of concerned friends and relatives, are finally declining...
...We'll mail them, of course," one lady told me, "but the real idea is to start building up a mailing list...
...The cards had been handed to the concert-goers, who were cajoled into filling them out, complete with their names and addresses...
...He announces, with deep indignation, that Ronald Reagan promised "to make us feel good," though of course such a promise never passed the President's lips...
...to which we can add, borrowing Sid's syllogistic certitude, that substance was fashion, style was power, power was substance, and—most tellingly—style was fashion...
...I've thought about that...
...My God They Killed Him,' " Kris corrected...
...So did I, even though I was trying to be inconspicuous...
...Nip it in the bud...
...And on the shelf is where it now belongs...
...Imagine him in diapers," the young man insisted...
Vol. 22 • March 1989 • No. 3
