Reversions and Revisions

...Especially when all the polls and the pols with their collective firepower had sunk Jimmy Carter But does not the Lord look after his own...

...Then, as the price of oil continues to rise, Americans can take comfort that their money is going into the pockets of regimes that see eye to eye with us on the impropriety of Russians being rude to Moslems (Unless the Moslems are Egyptians —but that's another confusing story While the rest of the world is rattling arms all over the place, there in the Sinai, the lamb is lying down with the lion, though there is still some dispute over which is which If only Sadat would convert to Judaism, politics would become simpler for the Saudis and the Iraqis and the Libyans But what do the Saudis have in common with the Iraqis and the Libyans anyway, outside of Allah...

...And does he not use strange instruments...

...How much oil will those new ships use...

...Who can say what might serve in a trying time...

...Carter was not tough enough in Cuba He is too tough in Afghanistan Or, anyway, he is not being tough in exactly the right way For a moment there, before the youngest of Joe Kennedy's glorybound offspring got his bearings, he was running against the former Shah of Iran But see what's afoot among the Republicans Ah, you can count on the Republicans All those tough-talking guys, George Bush and Howard Baker and John Connally, panting after Ronald Reagan, toughest talker of them all until just the other week The same sun of Iowa that shone on Jimmy exposed Ron-rue More wrinkles showed in Maine The man is evidently not unbeatable Since there is no space to attack on his right and since Jimmy has moved toward the center, as Democrats have been known to do in election years, the Republicans, excepting a!wa\s holy John Anderson, air forced to do battle for the very space on which Reagan stands Who can be the toughest kid on the GOP block' Wow, are they ever tough The lungs of John Connally alone could blow Leonid Brezhnev clear out of the Kremlin Add the belligerent bellows of Bush and Baker, and the whole Politburo must quake Pity poor reasonable John Anderson for having to associate with these blusterers Beside them, Teddy Kennedy and even Jerry Brown sound like the candidates of prudence and concern for our internal condition Their attitude toward the Soviets may be a touch fuzzy, but they are resisting joining the cacaphony of the resurrected Cold Warriors What does it cost, after all, to growl at the Russkies...

...And by the time the fashion changes again, who knows whither the hour's passions and political exigencies will have led us...

...The God or the born-again uses mullahs and Soviet tanks And overnight, the heir was disinherited For, yes, Jimmy Carter recognized the Russkies for what they were, they were the bringers of happy tidings, delivered in Iowa And so it fell to the once-secure Teddy to be in the unenviable position of having to beard President Carter, scourge of the Soviet's (And where, by the way, is our President holed up these days...

...Friends and Lovers And consider Iran It was only yesterday, or the day before, wasn't it, that we were lamenting the fate of America's friend the Shah and the loss of an outpost of civilization in the Middle East You recall There were American hostages being held in our former Teheran consulate by a bunch of people who appeared to be the instruments of the Ayatollah Khomeini blessed be all the works of his days Well, believe it or not, the Iranians are once again on the verge of becoming the allies of the West Yes, all it took was for the Russians to march into Afghanistan If there's one thing that an Imam doesn't like, it's atheistic aggression directed at a nearby Moslem country No, that's something that the regimes of the Third World, which are prepared to countenance so much, will not countenance The United Nations has spoken If the Soviet's have to pick on somebody, let them pick on Israel So the Iranians, our pals, are probably not going to send their teams of slogan-shouters, effigy-burners and hostage-binders to the Olympics A frightful loss for world sportmanship The foreign minister will not do his whirling dervish act In Iran, the friends of sanity are moving toward an accommodation Hail to thee, benign Bam-Sadr Come on now, pretty please, take our planes and tanks and technical advisers Come, let us pay exorbitant prices for your oil Let us do for you what we once did for your Shah Don't you want to be the policeman of the Gulf...

...None of them votes in Republican primaries Is it not possible to safeguard our position in the Middle East and deter the Russians from further adventurism without our public figures waving bloody flags and stamping and ranting...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Reversions and Revisions It's topsyturvy time again Inside-out and upside-down time The moon must be in one of its whackier cycles All yesterday's wisdom is up for sale, as the wisdom of the day before yesterday brings premium prices on the contemporary idea exchange An idea, as the philosophers have always told us, is like gold Yes, it may go out of style for a time, but hold on and it will come back, at inflated prices Persons not yet in their dotage can recall a time when historical revisionism was the vogue And what was being revised'' Why, the whole Cold War canon You remember We had been beastly to the Russians The CIA had played dirty, dirty tricks Multinationals were gobbling up the Third World, having already digested the First and Second Harry Truman was a crook-eder poker player than Joe Stalin This country was the number one pal of despots and a threat to progessives everywhere Only yesterday And today...

...Will Islam prove a more powerful force for peace in their part of the world than Christianity proved in the West9 Ah, how the faith of nations succumbs to the egos of rulers) Guys and Doll Meantime, this country moves toward its Presidential election Remember the Kennedy dynasty...

...Are such matters likely to be sensibly debated this season, with toughness the political fashion...

...How could Teddy fail to collect his family's due...

...Are Carter s latest arms requests a signal to the Russians or a gesture to the voters9 Is it easier to build more ships than to slow down inflation...

...Why, today we are in the throes of revisionism revised Jimmy Carter, friend of man, announces that the scales have fallen from his eyes Prepare a feast for the independence-cherishing, nuke-loving, peanut-despising Pakistanis Un Salted peanuts Bring back the draft' Build more MXs' Unleash the CIA' Cancel the high jump' And there, out of the closets where they have been gathering dust, come the icons of another age St Harry the Truman and St Dean the Acheson And —gloryosky, can it be?—St John Foster the Dulles Grandparents are regaling lads and lassies with the grand tales of grand times—the Berlin Blockade, Containment, Massive Retaliation, Liberation, Eyeball to Eyeball Ah, those brave times before anyone had heard of Vietnam, when America flexed its muscles on all the beaches and the Russian weakling slunk back into the fastness of Eastern Europe See Jimmy Carter transformed from a 90-pound creature of detente to a muscle builder Don't kick sand in my oil tank, buster In the universities, we may be sure, the memory of the American Century is being refurbished Libraries are abus-tle with young historians, bit-chafing, trace-kicking, burning the midnight flu-orescents, as they reinterpret the rein-terpretations of tenured professors already in their 40s Every generation owes this discourtesy to its predecessors Revisionism revised We were not the villains of the world after all We were the good guys, trying to maintain some sort of equilibrium, a balance of power as preached by Metternich and his great disciple, Kissinger We stood against the attempts of Soviet power and ideology to repress the Estonians, mislead the Greeks, shake up a stable order and endanger universal safety and enlightenment Remember the Marshall Plan' Remember Hungary and Czechoslovakia' And don't forget China That was the country Joe McCarthy believed Dean Acheson had personally lost Well, it has been found again China, our nemesis, is our pal China will not send its ping pong team to the Olympics China is indignant at the aggression of large powers against small powers, under certain circumstances What is wrong with India that it does not appreciate the benefits of being situated between such friends of national sovereignty as China and Pakistan...

...He never promised us the Rose Garden Why, he's playing commander-in-chief, launching Rosalynn like a guided missile ) From what direction should Teddy counter-attack...

...All one can say for sure is this In high school now are youngsters who have yet to absorb even the first wave of revisionism or understand what was being revised These young folks, perhaps looking ahead to registration for a draft (one way to reduce unemployment), are already, without being aware of it, preparing themselves to bring down the new hawks, to haul from their closets the image of St George McGovern and reveal the whole story of the CIA's assault on the freedom-loving Afghans and the capitalist world's threat to the security of Comrade Brezhnev So turns the globe as Jimmy Carter does w hat needs to be done to hang onto office for another lour \ears At the conclusion of which, it he makes it, and we all live that long, he can bid us farewell with a speech on the penis of the milium-industrial complex...