Mr. Clean gets soiled
Dionne, E.J. Jr.
one seven-room apartment. Many more magical effects can be encountered outside in cars, planes, airports, office buildings, streets, stores, factories, and hospitals. God help you when you are...
...That same afternoon, a lead agent of the FBI distributed a four-page paper, listing, by chapter and verse, parallels in ideas, similar or identical terminology, and apparent paraphrases linking the manifesto and my book...
...When Achenbach's story appeared on the front page of the Post a few days later, I was quoted, accurately but not by name, to the effect that, though I agreed with much of the substance of the Unabomber's diagnosis of the ills of modern industrial society, I thought his suggested cure-its destruction by force-was way off base, to put it mildly...
...If Democrats played loose with the law in 1996, and if Gore went along, he deserves what he's getting-especially since there have been subtle changes in his story as more facts became public...
...I was basking in the New Mexico sun in blissful retirement, minding my own business, when out of nowhere I received a startling telephone call from the Albuquerque field office of the FBI...
...But now that Gore has been tainted by the finance scandals, he will be forced to make his candidacy about something bigger than four more years of Clinton prosperity...
...If the Democratic National Committee funneled some of the money Gore raised to the wrong accounts, he may face an independent counsel's investigation...
...D stakingly built...
...His anthem for the last six years: It's hip to be square...
...Come on over...
...And though the manifesto seemed at times to speak on behalf of a group, the Commonweal 9 September 26,1997...
...CLEAN GETS SOILED Gore & campaign finances P Commonweal 8 September 26,1997 Medicaid) that are still popular...
...God help you when you are subject to the ominous rites, lights, screens, and intravenous tubes found in hospitals...
...Let's face it...
...All those jokes Gore would tell about his stiffness reflected his political shrewd ness...
...The two obvious facts are the tawdriness of the 1996 fund raising and the weirdness of campaign-finance laws that seem to allow certain kinds of big money fund raising while prohibiting others...
...All devices must regularly be taken back to the store to be repaired or exchanged, and inevitably they must be updated and replaced...
...Now, he seems even more threatened by the fund-raising mess than Clinton...
...The more open the nomination looks, the more likely former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey is to run...
...In leaving, he made me promise to read the manifesto within the week and to keep this whole matter as quiet as possible...
...It was a facsimile of the original communication, complete with typos and tics, which the FBI and other agencies were furiously screening for clues about its origins, physical and intellectual...
...The Unabomber had been killing people for ten years...
...oor Al Gore...
...Though nothing much was said, I couldn't help feeling that the Task Force members were not persuaded by my explanation...
...Gore's current weakness makes that debate more likely...
...Would I be willing to read it and to talk to him a week later about my reactions...
...He has a moderate demeanor but asks radical questions about how the economy distributes its rewards and how the political system works (or doesn't...
...My only "defense" was that the evidence was circumstantial...
...And in these conditions, superstition breeds...
...Tough primaries often lead to defeat...
...Grown men and women are reduced to tears and placating invocations or curses...
...The Task Force was costing more than $1 million per year to operate...
...Even when indispensable and useful, these new tools of scientific control lead to new forms of bondage and helplessness...
...If we are not going to fall into mindless gullibility or retreat to a desert hermitage, we will have to develop new forms of reasoned critiques of scientific technology complete with appreciative detachment...
...But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Gore is battered politically but not legally...
...No one knows which way this story will go...
...As a professor, had I ever used this or that book in class...
...The good news in this for the country is that the current torpor in the political debate will end-and that will be true in both parties...
...On the fund-raising matter, Gore's proud clunkiness did not serve him well...
...Hours and hours are spent mastering new programs, decoding complex instructions, and diagnosing new problems...
...The surprise: It could do the Democrats a world of good-and not just because they will be forced to clean up their fund raising...
...And with this pious hope I will now save, revise, format, print, and fax this column off to the editors who wait for it in an office thirty miles away...
...I read it immediately, of course, partly in search of any mention of me or my book...
...A fundamentally honest guy-no one would confuse him with Boss TweedAl Gore responds to the political imperatives of the moment and to legal advice that says he is responding within the bounds of the muddy campaignfinance statutes...
...Maybe once we could confidently comprehend levers, bicycles, or even in my case the pedal sewing machine upon which I learned to sew, but how many people understand their own fax and computer systems, much less the viruses that can infect them...
...Oh," I reply, "do we really...
...The conference was polite in tone, but included a note of near desperation...
...Everyone I know is regularly reduced to helplessness by the breakdown, malfunctioning, or bugs that damage the operations of the complex technology that surrounds us...
...Did he do anything so different from what Republicans did before him...
...Sure...
...At the first morning session, the lead agent of the Postal Service told the assemblage that the Unabomber must be a great fan of Professor Ferkiss, since so much of the manifesto had apparently been cribbed from TheFutureof Technological Civilization...
...Now wait a minute, say certain critics in my family circle unattuned to the magical properties of life...
...DIONNE* Jr...
...For Gore fans, this case is a tragedy...
...Gore's critics say his sanctimoniousness disguises a political ambition that does what political ambition demands...
...My concern began back in the summer of 1995...
...After all, in contrast to primitive people, we rationally understand how all these things work...
...Yes: I was intrigued by the idea of a detective story in which the clues were ideas...
...Gore would prefer to have little challenge...
...As far as I can see, our high-tech lives pro E.J...
...But if they're to play more than defense, Democrats need a big argument about the affirmative uses of government...
...Gore was there, raising money at that Buddhist temple...
...So much for secrecy...
...Two days later, the phone rang again, and this time it was Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post who wanted to know what I thought of the manifesto...
...Whenever President Bill Clinton's rating on the scandal meter shot up, there was Gore, reminding voters that he was too clunky to be slick, too straight to be corrupt...
...Still, it did not make matters easy for me that the Unabomber's manifesto was entitled "Industrial Society and its Future," nor that a book the manifesto did quote, Eric Hoffer's once popular The True Believer, sits next to The Future of Technological Civilization on many libraries' shelves...
...All this assumes that Gore is right about what the controlling legal authority-her name is now Attorney General Janet Reno-has to say about his fund raising and the need for a special counsel...
...Clinton has been very successful in containing the Republicans and in establishing the Democrats as a good defensive party-they will defend what's left of the achievements of the New Deal and the parts of the Great Society (that is, Medicare and MR...
...A few hours later, the agent arrived at my door...
...The Democrats are in a muddle over who they are...
...The man who had hoped to be associated with the slogan "reinventing government" is now forever chained to the phrase "no controlling legal authority," his mantra for the fact that no court ever ruled on the legality of what he did in the process of raising political money...
...What does this do to the campaign for the next Democratic nomination...
...many of the items cited in the comparison were commonplaces in the literature on technology and society back in 1974 when my book appeared, and the Unabomber may have gotten them from some other, common source-something like the hypothetical "Q" gospel of many biblical scholars...
...Clinton asked Gore to help...
...For much of the administration's tenure, his rat ings were higher than the president's...
...A million-dollar reward had been offered for information, but it had elicited no real leads, rather phone calls from women, each claiming that the Unabomber must be her husband...
...He couldn't help smiling when he came to The Future of Technological Civilization by Victor Ferkiss...
...This is one of many reasons why the campaign laws need to be reformed, tightened, and clarified...
...The agent then asked me a series of prepared questions, most of which were quite specific...
...The mystery of why I had been invited was soon dispelled...
...Already, Gore looks to be challenged by House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, Senator Paul Wellstone, the liberal firebrand from Minnesota, and possibly Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska...
...I perhaps should have been flattered that at least someone had read it and taken it seriously, but in the circumstances I managed to suppress any possible elation...
...Such investigations seem to take forever, forever in this case meaning up to and perhaps including the presidential year 2000...
...Expensive, expert consultants-the modern equivalents of shamans and medicine menmust be called in to deal with difficulty after difficulty...
...Would I be willing to talk to an agent about the Unabomber...
...You shouldn't call these examples of modern scientific technology "magical" or say they encourage "superstition...
...Would I be willing to attend a conference in San Francisco in several weeks to discuss it with others...
...The conference, held at a posh hotel, mustered only a half dozen academics and writers, far outnumbered by the members of the Unabomb Task Force, a hundred or so agents from the FBI, the Postal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms...
...If Al Gore were Newt Gingrich, this argument goes, the world would already be caving in on him...
...He had spent his political life as the good and solid Mr...
...Some of its leaders had put off retirement to nab this elusive terrorist...
...Talk about guilt by association...
...How people react to Gore's problem depends on where they stand on Gore...
...He presented me with a copy of the Unabomber's manifesto, which was not yet public...
...Clean, too boring to be scandalous...
...He was there, making those calls to rich donors from his office...
...The vice-president was also loyal, and his loyalty has now shattered the image of painful earnestness, so pain duce a frustration level that leads to nagging annoyance and anxious dependence...
...El ©1997, Washington Post Writers Group Victor Ferkiss THE FBI COMES CALLING My encounter with the Unabomber When Ted Kaczinski goes to trial this November, I will take a personal interest in the proceedings...
...But in vain...
...Bradley could be especially useful to the debate...
Vol. 124 • September 1997 • No. 16
