The Greatness of Sen. Bayh
Fredericks, William G.
"The Greatness of Sen. Bayh"patriotism (it's a sham), and right and wrong (there are only shades of gray - - except the war, that is immoral). This, I think, is why we...
...Marvella on the Boy Scouts: "'I think the Boy Scouts are wonderful, anyway...
...Some Washington reporters know why Mr...
...They were asking friends there to help tide them over the Fourth of July weekend with a little pocket money...
...They are the busiest hands in the Western world...
...You will make war when it suits us and keep peace when it doesn't...When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need...
...That's another fault...
...Sex and love are wor~derful and pure experiences and there is no reason to flaunt it," she says...
...Making money from discord involves using an unpopular war as a catalyst...
...Faced with what admittedly is the sophistication, breadth and depth of reading experience that professors have vis-a-vis students, a student would have to be superhuman to overcome the feeling that the ritualistic liberal professors are correct, not only in the way they ttfmk, but in the condlus/ons they have reached...
...he questions the methods and the documentation and, ultimately questions the competence of even the most articulate men m areas of conduct and belief - - all of this using the professors' very own tools...
...On the other hand, perhaps a significant portion of Bayh's money is coming from Senator Kennedy...
...Who says there is not a cheerful aspect of the poverty problem...
...Perhaps one of the lesser lights on Bayh's staff will have the temerity to suggest that joint interviews are counterproductive...
...The reason: The Bayh campaign, famed for its chartered jets and mass champagne breakfasts, had run out of money and was totally incapable of meeting its big payroll...
...The Senator has been rearing around the Republic at a pace that is remarkable even for a Senator whose inattentiveness to Senate business is a minor legend...
...he begins by questioning the dond/us/ons of the professors...
...Bayh's disingenuous withdrawal that we are publishing a report received last month from William G. Freclericks on the truth about this great man's exit - - ~ust ascribe it all to our noble desire to "shake up the system.'" RET Quickly now, before it sinks beneath the foam, consider the Bayh-forPresident caper...
...The upper classes put their children in nursery schools and the others don't have the opportunity...
...Certainly everyone is for peace, but the Peace paraphernalia being widely advertised and merchandized carries with it a special symbolis~n...
...it's the same GOd...
...The article contained enough embarassing material to keep all ot Washington laughing all Sunday...
...Senator Bayh is not a wealthy man...
...But the Bayh candidacy indicates that the rich have discovered an additional instrument of conspicuous and sporting consumption...
...The money and energy Bayh expends in self-promotion is inversely proportional to his devotion to Senate duties, and that is a lot of money and energy...
...Perhaps the frivolousness of the man is the key...
...Yet they prey upon and reap rewards from an imPeriling of our national life...
...Obviously pther men are footing the formidable bil'.ls run up by the Bayh campaign...
...they want their feelings known...
...Take the idea of God, for example -- you can believe in God the way Uncle Louis does or the way Bill Buckley does...
...The "merchants of death" are, in the traditional sense, businessmen who promote warfare to make money...
...After all," he said, "everybody's for peace...
...The sale of the paraphernalia lends to a climate where rational debate between the two groups becomes impos (continued on page 21...
...Stage Three: Again, the student is active...
...But the opposition to those nominations did not distinguish Bayh from the majority of Senators...
...People are looking for an easy way to say, "ThiS is me.' People want to embrace the symbol of peace...
...Yet every poll indicates that the public is managing to remain blissfully ignorant of his campaign...
...That glimpse of the Senator's "'partner" has a ring of truth...
...According to this theory, Bayh is serving as a stalking horse for Kennedy...
...Thus it may be that a few wealthy men are getting their kicks by buying a piece of Bayh...
...He has a professional campaign staff, who had adopted such expensive innovations, as a special radio network, which rushes out Bayh statements on two l~ased long-distance lines to the radio networks and hundreds of independent stations for their news shows...
...I ex...
...Thus, you might go on to stage three...
...Consider this vignette: _9 "We really live in our rec room," she says of the red, white and blue basement...
...A call placed to the advertising manager of that store revealed that there was not even discussion about using the ad...
...Long before history recorded an American presence in Vietnam, Frank A. Vanderlip, whose career in finance and government spanned the first quarter of this century, said about another war, "As a result of the war, a million new springs of wealth will be developed...
...Neither Marvella nor the Senator are bashful about revealing themselves...
...And you read so much about venereal disease, these days," says Mrs...
...At a reception in Madison, Wisconsin, Bayh provided two free bars and a rock band...
...When Birch is away he calls every night," she says...
...Bayh's brand of vote-seeking, delegate-courting, publicity-hunting freneticism costs money and the money is not coming from the Senator's pocket...
...This interpretation fits nicely with the plausible notion that Bayh is really running for the Vice Presidential slot on a Kennedy ticket...
...Judging by the interview, what Bayh does best (or most frequent) is embarass his wife: When they do stay home they like to entertain...
...His most remarkable characteristic is his hands...
...That liberalism is a politics of form and fashion for those suffering from the-lingering maladyknown as Camelotitis...
...It's easier and cheaper to buy one...
...Marvella on culture: "If Vietnam were over tomorrow "Hair' would be irrelevant...
...Still most reporters have no idea what has taken plade in Mr...
...So why are some rich folks financing him...
...After all, for the profiteers that polarization means cash...
...But the drive to make money at any cost is the same and the effect of his merchandizing may be far more dangerous...
...There is no concern in these statements, about the fact that such identification is a factor in national polarization...
...They felt it was pretty non-controversial...
...The proprieter of another hippie store in that city agrees...
...I for one cannot blame any student for reaching such a conclusion...
...Their argument has always been that they must present "the other side of the argument" (the origin of the idea that an argument has only two sides is, a faseinaUng historical, puzzle) because, after all, the students have received "the only side" from parents and church and school...
...I don't want to get into comparisons there," he says, "'but I'll tell you one thing...
...It was a kind of light masterpiece...
...He is not a salesman of weapons in keeping with the traditional meaning of the merchants of death theory...
...For many decades it has been common for the rich to slake their sporting instincts and parade their affluence by buying a race horse or a "piece" of a Broadway show or a prize fighter...
...No one will tell him that there is another battle: that of questioning the stuff he is getting now without reverting to the kind of argumentation his parents "taught" him...
...So the final question is, Why the sudden poverty...
...So it is because of the mantle of tommyrot that has covered Mr...
...chins of those whom he is inflicting his particularly leaden small talk...
...Marvella's an excellent hostess...
...One of the Senator's rivals for the nomination estimates that Marvella is "'ten times" smarter than the Senator...
...Anyway maybe Bayh is irying to implement the Early Mets Theory of Popularity Cultivation...
...But "Marvelous Marv" was the favorite of those persons - - and they were legion - - who did not care a fig for baseball, but who enjoyed the spectacle of a fine art reduced to grotesque parody...
...Bayh is a passionate believer in the public's "Tight to know" when it comes to publishing stolen "'Top Secret" documents, but he has not yet seen fit to disclose the source of his campaign funds...
...This has even held true of the lower forms ol man...
...But whoever these sources are, they cannot mean serious political business...
...Viewed in this fashion, what passes for a liberal education in most colleges today should bring a blush to the cheek of even the most unabashed liberal or leftist professor...
...He is patient to a fault, tolerates mistakes in others to a fault, and he works too much...
...But he wanted me to make the phone call," he protests...
...it allowed two subjects to reveal themselves completely...
...Yet where, oh whore can a student hear this view on campus...
...Not only are antiwar products displayed enticingly on the shelves of many stores, but large sums are spent widely advertising these goods...
...Get out of here...
...Consider the Veblen Function and the Kennedy Factor...
...Recently columnist Jack Anderson published this report on Bayh's spectacular spending: "'He has courted key Democrats with champagne breakfasts, chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces, plane tickets to Washington and other costly services...
...Indeed, because his products stress peace symbolism, he is better called a peace profiteer...
...A salesman in a Philadelphia hippie store best explains the importance of identity in selling peace...
...Three cheers for the country that contrives to bankrupt a few Bayh workers on Independence Day Weekend...
...Insofar as he has had energy to spare from messaging his ambition, he has used his position on the Constitutional Amendments subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to propose improvements to the work of the Founding Fathers...
...on, Birch, you're embarrassing me...
...And again: If Senator Bayh decided not to run for President, did he have a favorite candidate...
...Perhaps young conservatives might enlist the aid of enlightened liberal classmates to demand that professors who hold dogmatically liberal, radical or leftist opinions present a reading list and guest lecturers to even things out...
...If that were the case, the values held by the working class would, of course, he intellectually doomed...
...He is constantly told that the battle is only between what he came to school with and what he is getting now...
...9 "And in Chicago, he threw a black tie dinner featuring Laugh-In's Lily Tomlin and George Shearing...
...Today people are different...
...Department stores and specialty shops also are cashing in on peace and polarization...
...A Washington, D.C...
...But his campaign is intriguing nevertheless...
...At the behest of Andy Beimiller, chief Washington lobbiest for the AFL-CIO, which contributed several score of thousands of dollars to Bayh's most recent Senate campaign, Bayh actively opposed the nominations of Haynesworth and Carswell to the Supreme Court...
...It was said that his teammates even refused to give him a birthday cake because they were sure he would drop it...
...The intriguing aspect of the Bayh 10 The A l t e r n a t i v e December, 1971 campaign is its cost...
...But it does not therefore logically follow that the views held by your parents are undesirable and the views held by the professors desirable...
...Some comes from his '340-acre farm in Vigo County, Indiana...
...What is wrong is that he has not learned ways to challenge the beliefs of those professors who challenge the beliefs of his parents: no one on campus has ever said to him: "Yes, it is true your parents don't think in the sophisticated ways the professors do...
...Nor is the campaign interesting merely because the candidate's brass is suggesting that he ought to sit in Lincoln's chair...
...One need hardly underscore the depressing similarities between Marvelous Marv's fans and Marvelous Marvella's husband's fans, and between the early Mets and the Bayh campaign...
...After all, there is a large stockpile of such brass on Capitol Hill...
...Veblen was intrigued by the ways in which many wealthy people managed to spend their money in ways which attracted attention to the fact that they had a lot of money to spend frivolously for chancy, "'sporting" ventures...
...But the significant thing is not that Bayh is obnoxious, but that he is everywhere...
...So who cares...
...I'm no prude and I'm no saint...
...He earned more money "'lecturing" than any other Senator...
...That fact lent a certain poingancy to an Evans and Novak column that appeared one week later: "'Belying the fabled affluence of the presidential campaign by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, several of his workers turned up on 2 July at the campaign headquarters of rival Senator George McGovern of South Dakota to do a bit of panhandling...
...Birch is idealistic and The A l t e r n a t i v e December, 197] 11 has a heart...
...The intriguing aspect of the Bayh campaign has nothing to do with anything the candidate says...
...It said "You don't need this to keep me sticking to you.' At dinner parties he'll draw an arrow with a heart through it and have the waiter bring it over to me...
...Undershaft ~ would understand and appreciate the activities of the peace profiteers...
...He pays taxes on income of approximately $100,000 a year...
...William G. F r e d e r i c k s So powerful is mankind's yearning to believe a lie that he w/ZZ cling to it even though it is not particulorly useful...
...Throughout history, money-making greed in the armaments industry supposedly has encouraged wars...
...9 All this is very obnoxious and, understandably enough, it does not appear to be moving him an inch toward the nomination...
...That's where all of our parties begin and usually end...
...The article was in the Sunday "'Style" section of the Post...
...Birch in the throes of agonizing self-appraisah "I like Dairy Queens...I like work, I'm strong, young, energetic and I can take any burden that comes my way...
...If being frantic is being serious (and more Democratic politicians think it is), then Bayh is serious...
...Large numbers of people who oppose U. S. involvement in Southeast Asia provide a ready market for anti-war products...
...Birch on the role reversal: "'But if the roles were reversed and Marvella were the Senator and I were the advisor I think I would be satisfied...
...I save them all...
...They oPerate in relative obscurity...
...How many people have the thne or skill to make a peace symbol...
...And they help people when they are in need...
...Certainly today's media man positively cherishes whole heaps of spurious truths...
...Then again, maybe they are not counterproductive...
...The Bayhs on love: "I'm not for free love," says the Senator...
...I t is some measure of Bayh's stature that people can believe that he will allow himself to be so used while pursuing such a low goal...
...pect Heidelberg man thrived on rumors about the buxom lady from the dave down the mountain, and the rumors were palpable pappycodk...
...He leaves me little notes that are such fun to find...
...Birch on the charge that he is "a lightweight, a Boy Scout": "'This Boy Scout image doesn't bother me a bit...
...9 'I don't know if it's outstanding like Eugene McCarthy's though," she adds...
...Something decorated with a dove, V sign or Peace symbol helps individuals identify with the entire anti-Vietnam movement...
...But that is all he has demonstrated, and that is not the sort of stuff that normally attracts big investors to dark horse Presidential campaigns...
...P e a c e It All Together," said the spread which utilized the two-fingered V sign as an attention getter...
...Or perhaps there is a machtpolitik explanation of why a small number of rich men have written checks for large sums just to keep Senator Bayh visible at every Democratic reception, dinner and convention...
...But what about the "values" the students received from the professors...
...Marvella on her "project": "My project is child development centers...
...Last year he found time to more than double his salary on that circuit...
...In the early 1960s, in the Golden Era of the New York Mets, when that team was the incarnation - - the Platonic form - - of Awfulness, the symbol of Met incompetence was a first baseman named Mary Thornberry...
...The Bayh's son Evan attends one of the most exclusive private schools in Washington...
...Now the peace profiteers can amend Vanderlip's statement with the observation that an unpopular war is particularly advantageous for accumulating wealth...
...Their personal beliefs become a part of a cause when an item is purchased featuring the familiar circle with an inverted Y inside...
...But Buckley believes in Him after a rigorous analysis and thorough meditation...
...Perhaps the Bayh campaign's affluence is explained by Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption...
...His liberalism is of the most predictable sort...
...department store ran a full page newspaper ad to promote peace jewelry not long ago...
...I like to believe the bottom fell out of the Bayh campaign as a result of an interview article that appeared in the Washington Post in mid-June...
...I don't care," she says, softly and smiling pleasantly...
...Some of the workers in Bayh's plush headquarters were given $100 each as an emergency stipend, but others were left flat broke and had to hit the pavements...
...What is not obvious is what earthly reason anyone can have for investing money in so improbable a candidate...
...He is a shoulder-squeezer and knee-prodder...
...Divisiveness and intolerance are a means to commercial success for these merchants of mollification...
...He also writes poettry...
...This, I think, is why we see the alleged irreversible shift from conservatism to a perverse form of liberalism among college students...
...The Anderson column was published on 2 July...
...Neither am I," says Marvella...
...We have such fun with friends but not as often as we like...
...Senator Bayh enters the living room, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, tie, sits down, then is summoned to the telephone by an aid...
...Much of this comes from the lucrative "lecture" circuit...
...It is - - say the professors - - only their intellectual duty to help shake these kids up, to have them "question" the values they bring to school...
...He is always throwing "playful left hooks at the...
...Who says the system is not working...
...The instrument is a dark horse Presidential candidate...
...Is it the professor's belief that his values can he challenged only by methods and viewpoints of the workhag,class parent...
...And it is wildly improbable that even a liberal would look upon Bayh as a repository for idealism...
...After the Senator leaves, Mrs...
...They certainly contribute to the public stock of harmless pleasure...
...Nevertheless the Senator says he owes an Indianapolis bank $7,500 and an aide says the Senator had to borrow money to finance an August vacation with his family...
...But that isn't the case at all...
...It was headlined 'Bayhs: Partners in Politics...
...The weapons manufacturer, Undershaft, in Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara epitomizes the avarice ascribed to these industrialists...
...the other is associated with a very live politician...
...But the section has its moments of inadvertent brilliance, as when the Bayhs turned their interview into a spectacularly damaging document...
...But I have no right to impose my views on others...
...So the question is, Why are some wealthy men investing a lot of money in such a feckless campaign when there are serious men - - Senators Muskie and Jackson, for example - - gearing up to run...
...The article included a selection of the poetry...
...I wear baggy pants...
...The A l t e r n a t i v e December, 1971 9 there), patriotism (it's a sham), and right and wrong (there are only shades of gray - - except the war, that is immoral...
...The 'Style" section is a politicized "'society" section which perfectly captures the Post's version of liberalism...
...The article should have been headlined "Everything You Could Possibly Want To Know About the Bayhs but Would Be Too Civil To Ask...
...Their products flood the marketplace - - items like clothing, jewelry and housewares decorated with the peace symbol - - but their greed and their unstated motives have escaped examination...
...He has done nothing noteworthy in the Senate...
...Who will help shake up these kids about those ideas...
...It is part ol the truth, but it is not the whole truth, and a portion o] the truth still does not convery the truth...
...in all of the major areas of thought, there is a responsible, scholarly, welldocumented, rational, humane, intellectual position diametrically opposed to that of the relativists, liberal dogmatists and leftists and quite in the line with the condlusion - - if not the methods of argument - - of the parents, church, school - - in short, of civilization...
...But media man does not only hold to his lies because of mankind's inherent appetie for falsity...
...Bayh's campaign headquarters is carpeted and furnished in executive suite splendor...
...He grills a good steak, and he has a good voice...
...This is simply not the truth...
...Undershaft states...
...One explanation derives from a dead economist...
...Thus Bayh, who flunked the Indiana bar examination, has demonstrated a flickering interest in the fundamental law and the judges who construe it...
...We do not know who these rich men are...
...Oh, Birch, you're embarassing me...
...There is a lot of life in fair Columbia yet...
...It's a class thing...
...At any rate, Bayh's campaign may be heading for a recession...
...Senator Birch is spending enormous sums of other people's money in order to tell the Nation that he would rather like Birch to become Chief Executive and the leader of the free world...
...my friend, you will do what pays us...
...The student has progressed from dogmatieally-held prejudices, unexamined and half-understood, if at all, through the cynical but almost always convincing skepticism or leftist dogmatism of the professors to, finally, an intellectually based, rationally held position that is in line with the basic beliefs of the working class parents - - and of Western civilization at its height...
...Once he left a note under my can of hairspray...
...Christian charity forbids quoting it: suffice it to say that poetry is not what the Senator does best...
...The dogmatic assertions that pass for argument among the average families come to seem to the mind of a college student vulgar, irrational and shameful when placed next to the admirable exercises in logic, demonstration and irony that are the marks of the best liberal professors...
...But this kind of callous disregard of the national interest is not limited to hippie shops...
...Bayh's political assets are even more miniscule than his financial assets...
...Take for instance the whopper that Senator Bayh ~ust dropped our of the contest for the White House because ol his wile's uncertain health...
...But because the products are designed for one group, they are an anathema to other people holding other opinions...
...Walk in any store and you may find a new "'merchant of death" behind the counter...
...Media man also adcepts lies because he is too lazy to discover exactly what the truth is...
...There are two plausible explanations for the generosity of the few wealthy people who are financing him...
...What matters is whether or not such views are true -- and it is the conservative potation that the traditioanl views are, for the most part not only true, but demonstrably so...
...What is wrong, of course, is not that the student has learned ways to challenge the beliefs of his parents...
...The goods being sold are meant to appeal to one segment of the American people who hold reasonably uniform opinions regarding military and foreign policy...
...Three Democratic functionaries cannot meet for lunch without Bayh jetting in to administer his hail-fellow-well-met-brand of courtship...
...His Senate salary is $42,500 per year...
...According to the Senator, "'My wife has a better political head than anybody who works for me...
...Bayh's olfide, and they are too busy pressing their pants in the Washington saloons to find out...
...I'm in between...
...Maybe we need somebody who can articulate across that spectrum of thought...
...Bayh advises the aid to leave...
...There's not one candidate's wife on the scene who could hold a candle to Marvelia...
...Bayh lost his avidity for the sdaffold on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but they also know how people relish a good, solid lie...
...I don't think I have given enough time in my 43 years to making any money, but we have enough...I'm not a materialist...
Vol. 5 • December 1971 • No. 3
