Editorials / Missing the Point / Helmsmen
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS Missing the Point by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. y ou will perhaps have noted that at his press conference the day after the most colossal electoral landslide since 1980, Boy Clinton's...
...Tyrrell goes on "Nightline" and defends Helms, thereby showing himself to be equally as troglodytic and "ideological" as Helms...
...I have yet to see one soldier side with Helms...
...He learns from his mistakes...
...then the media resound with hope: Clinton is so smart...
...That "Nightline" would ask me tells us much about the so-called scandal of Helms's utterances...
...The liberals cannot undo the elections, but they can discredit those elected, and, with a little luck, homswoggle "moderate Republicans" into acting like Democrats—"moderate Democrats...
...CI Helmsmen 14 The American Spectator January 1995...
...Bill's historic embarrassment had been fashioned by the old cowboy himself...
...And the media made this perfectly unexceptional answer about a spectacularly flawed and failed American president into a scandal...
...The so-called enviromnen6 6 eN wt's out of control...
...And forget not Major General Harold Campbell, who ingratiated himself to his military audience in Europe by referring to the president as our "womanizing, pot-smoking, draft-dodging Commander in Chief...
...What if the Kazakhs or Azerbaijanis get wind of Jesse's disturbing outbursts...
...Likewise, since his inauguration Clinton has been reported as a bungler...
...In liberals' eyes the row over Helms' remarks is a no-win situation for conservatives, so why not invite them in...
...Obviously, the media, too, are out of control...
...It cracked up into an anarchy of radical, mutually antagonistic interests over a decade ago...
...All objective evidence pointed to a Republican rout...
...Quite properly he is no longer delivering such public oratory, but the point is that this president is famously unpopular with the military...
...Only the media missed the vast dimensions of Jimmy Carter's blunders...
...Throughout the midterm elections we would hear of an impending Republican victory, then we would hear the race was "tightening up...
...11 if conservatives share the liberals' illusions that Helms's criticism of Bill Clinton is damaging to America and a tip-off to the war-like Kazakhs and Azerbaijanis, who are, supposedly, waiting to pounce on us...
...Soldiers ought not to side with Helms...
...or Tyrrell goes on and pooh-poohs Helms, and the liberals have still more ammunition against him...
...The furor began a few days ago when Fred Barnes, that estimable stalwart for the New Republic magazine, asked Helms on CNN's "Evans & Novak" if he thought that, after two years of the Clinton presidency, Clinton was "up to the job of being Commander in Chief...
...It cracked up into an anarchy of radical, mutually antagonistic interests over a decade ago...
...They too are endangering world peace...
...He is a simple hustler...
...Their demands are too fanatical...
...I weigh into this shocking—and, entre nous, fleeting—scandal because ABC's "Nightline" asked me to appear late at night to discuss it...
...The remark had been made on or close to November 22, the same day that John Kennedy was assassinated...
...In a throw-away line, Helms said that were the president to visit the purlieus of the local military base he'd better have a bodyguard...
...Each faction is dominated by frauds who put their own interests above those of every other faction...
...Helms is right...
...Voters had a better sense in 1980 that Democratic collapse lay ahead, because they could see a Republican presidential candidate who was manifestly outperforming the media's dreary accounts...
...He and Hillary had been up all night finger pointing...
...Yes, but why has he committed so many mistakes...
...They too are endangering world peace...
...Next, the national press discovered that Helms had stated the obvious to a home newspaper, namely that the president is not popular with the military...
...In 1980 the Democratic Party's policies were for the most part repellent to a large number of citizens, as they are today, though the media and the Democrats did not (and do not) think those citizens really mattered...
...Late on election night, when the sobbing had abated some and the last Domino's Pizza delivery had cleared White House security, Boy Clinton, perhaps, pointed his finger at Ronald Reagan...
...Senator Jesse Helms, the likely chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is saying things that are supposedly very damaging to international harmony, world peace, and American national security...
...One day they would be inagreement that a large Republican victory loomed...
...Obviously, the media, too, are out of control...
...Richard Gephardt resorted to it just the other day in appraising the incoming Republican leadership...
...That it implies anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, racial intolerance, and disloyalty to American constitutionality is okay by those who pretend to be shocked by Helms...
...Surely, Reagan timed the release of his hand-written declaration about being in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease so as to remind the electorate of how he soars over the Arkansas Wunderkind in terms Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...The incumbent president in 1980 was an obvious failure, as is the incumbent today...
...The so-called enviromnen6 6 eN wt's out of control...
...Yet Helms's remarks represent a no-win situation for conservatives onlytalists, feminists, consumerists, ethnic charlatans, and all the other impostors whom Bill Clinton has tried to minister to are ungovernable...
...Christopher Dodd even suggested that some sort of desecration had been committed...
...Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives are going to have their every extravagant statement ripped from context, and they will see themselves transmogrified into monsters...
...First their defeat was the fault of the National Rifle Association...
...I say, "Dick's out of control...
...It was suggested that the senator was encouraging assassins, inspiring mutiny among the troops, imperiling national security (the Kazakhs and the Azerbaijanis, again...
...The liberals cannot undo the elections, but they can discredit those elected, and, with a little luck, homswoggle "moderate Republicans" into acting like Democrats—"moderate Democrats...
...Democratic Rep...
...Now the media are going about interviewing soldiers in uniform and asking them if they think Bill Clinton is "up to the job of being Commander in Chief...
...And, by the way, Bill Clinton is very much like them in one important department...
...A groundswell could be felt underfoot in 1980, but the media were ambiguous...
...And, by the way, Bill Clinton is very much like them in one important department...
...Well, what are we to expect...
...of gallantry, sagacity, and character...
...Each faction is dominated by frauds who put their own interests above those of every other faction...
...He, Rep...
...Then the next day's line would be that the election was "tightening up...
...But those of us with memories stretching beyond the illegitimate birth of this non-controversy surely remember news reports of the apparent, albeit reproachful, demonstrations of disrespect that the military has shown this unusual president, for instance during his trips to Normandy and earlier to the U.S.S...
...Do liberals really believe that the outside world has failed to notice Our Bill's ineptitude or his antipathy to the military, an antipathy dating from his draft-dodging youth...
...Helms is a victim of a double standard...
...Well, then, surely the media are being very imprudent in echoing his utterances so loudly and relentlessly...
...Tyrrell goes on "Nightline" and defends Helms, thereby showing himself to be equally as troglodytic and "ideological" as Helms...
...Leon Panetta, the White House chief of staff, habitually uses the term...
...The outrage over Helms's statements is, of course, contrived...
...Yet Helms's remarks represent a no-win situation for conservatives onlytalists, feminists, consumerists, ethnic charlatans, and all the other impostors whom Bill Clinton has tried to minister to are ungovernable...
...Hillary pointed to the diabolical Christian Right, and Ira Magaziner pointed to the Extreme Right, the Washington Times, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and an "ultra-right-wing" magazine way out on the fringes of American discourse whose circulation has squirted from 30,000 to 330,000 since Boy Clinton and the youthful idealists from 1968 came to Washington...
...I do not know about the lip, but the fingers were tired...
...This election was much the same...
...They are, after all, soldiers in uniform...
...y ou will perhaps have noted that at his press conference the day after the most colossal electoral landslide since 1980, Boy Clinton's finger gesticulations were limp...
...12 The American Spectator January 1995 They do not recognize that the community of bugaboos and bilge that they call Liberalism is in chaos...
...They can apply their hoary epithet "extremist" to conservatives with impunity...
...And, of course, the Reagan letter planted in many voters' minds the thought that Ronald Reagan at 83 and with Alzheimer's disease would be a more effective and desirable president than Bill Clinton...
...Roosevelt...
...He is a simple hustler...
...The answer was no...
...In liberals' eyes the row over Helms' remarks is a no-win situation for conservatives, so why not invite them in...
...What if the Kazakhs or Azerbaijanis get wind of Jesse's disturbing outbursts...
...Actually the media have been going through similar mood swings regarding Boy Clinton since his inauguration...
...That has been the major theme from Official Washington for, lo, these many days, ever since the People Spoke on November 8. Now, however, there is a new major theme: "Jesse's out of control...
...or Tyrrell goes on and pooh-poohs Helms, and the liberals have still more ammunition against him...
...That has been the major theme from Official Washington for, lo, these many days, ever since the People Spoke on November 8. Now, however, there is a new major theme: "Jesse's out of control...
...Not publicly and probably not privately...
...Well, then, surely the media are being very imprudent in echoing his utterances so loudly and relentlessly...
...11 They do not recognize that the community of bugaboos and bilge that they call Liberalism is in chaos...
...Meanwhile the Democrats can continue to abominate "the Christian Right...
...Well, every religion has its holy days, but I see no evidence that Helms was being disrespectful to Senator Dodd's personal religion...
...The answers will not be forthcoming from the consensus journalists of our monotonous, politicized media...
...Senator Jesse Helms, the likely chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is saying things that are supposedly very damaging to international harmony, world peace, and American national security...
...Moreover his lower lip went pretty much unchewed...
...I had other plans...
...The media, however, were in doubt, going through the same dramatic mood swings as in 1980...
...Their demands are too fanatical...
...After each, however, consensus journalists would feign uncertainty and point to some fleeting lapse into cogency by the woebegone Carter...
...Reagan was a clear winner in the presidential debates...
...Helms's remark was meant for emphasis...
...It was not a serious remark, and before the day was out he publicly declared it a mistake...
...This election had very much the feel of the 1980 election...
...That "Nightline" would ask me tells us much about the so-called scandal of Helms's utterances...
...I weigh into this shocking—and, entre nous, fleeting—scandal because ABC's "Nightline" asked me to appear late at night to discuss it...
...Then it was Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy...
...I had other plans...
...Of a sudden, all sorts of frightening interpretations were applied to the remark—always by his opponents...
...Helms's reply was, "You ask me an honest question, I'll give you an honest answer...
...A quick study...
...That the term has been discredited by two decades of responsible conservative public service counts for nothing...
...They, and most of the liberal Democrats who were so rudely shown the door on election day, have lived in a one-party political culture so long that they are not even aware of their own deceits...
Vol. 28 • January 1995 • No. 1
