The Sounds of Jane Fonda's Silence
Scrapbook The Sounds ofJane Fonda's Silence The Scrapbook never turns down a seat in the front row of history, and last week was no exception. There was a modest antiwar rally on the Mall in...
...NY Times V Iran Wonder what prize the New York Times will win for that astonishing lead editorial in last Thursday's paper: "Bullying Iran...
...His line of questioning eschewed banality for absurdity...
...Frost, of course, defined a liberal as someone so broadminded he won't take his own side in a fight...
...According to the paper's Washington bureau chief, Philip Taubman, Gordon "stepped over the line" and "went too far...
...For further information about both awards, contact Germaine Febles at 212843-8031 or gfebles@rubenstein.com...
...Among them are this magazine's deputy editor, Richard Starr, and contributing editors Joseph Bottum, Tod Lindberg, and PJ...
...No, this is not a joke...
...The $20,000 prize is named for longtime New York Post editor and columnist (and Weekly Standard contributor) Eric Breindel, who died in 1998...
...O'Rourke...
...Compared to [your typical leftist scholar], much conservative writing has a deft, light touch...
...Turning Right For that bookshelf groaning under the distinguished works of our contributors, we commend a new volume, Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys, edited by Mary Eberstadt and featuring a number of names that will be familiar to readers...
...Matthews, the Examiner continues, also asked Kate Michael, aka Miss District of Columbia, where Osama bin Laden is hiding...
...Times readers can relax...
...As a judge, Matthews took part in the question and answer session with pageant contestants...
...That portion of the Q&A never aired on television, but we can only imagine that Michael's initial reaction was a mixture of shock, befud-dlement, and bemusement—which, come to think of it, is a lot like the reactions of many guests on Matthews's shows...
...Would it be possible to assemble a countercollection by leftists that would be equally limpid...
...A small sample: • "Why can't [Oprah] find a guy...
...Meanwhile, in other West 43rd Street developments, the Times is in favor of bullying its reporters, when they display dangerously deviation-ist views on the Great Bush Terror...
...We nominate the Times editorialists for the Robert Frost Prize in pathetic liberalism...
...dissent in the ranks has been quelled...
...The Post was similarly intrigued, but seemed content—and curiously credu-lous—to view Miss Fonda entirely uncritically...
...Submissions are also welcome for the second annual $10,000 collegiate award for the undergraduate whose journalistic work best reflects the themes that animated Breindel's writing...
...But around lunchtime, when The Scrapbook arrived with reporter's pad in hand, the Mall was largely empty...
...F— the Army] Show"—"a satirical revue . . . [featuring] protest songs, anti-war humor . . . and agit-prop theater designed to increase awareness and spread resistance" (the New York Times)—on college campuses, at coffeehouses, and outside U.S...
...Our attention was drawn, however, to the appearance of none other than Jane Fonda on the speaker's platform...
...Describing a 1972 photograph of a helmeted Jane Fonda sitting happily atop a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun—aimed at you-know-whose aircraft—the Post explained that this appalling spectacle "was viewed by many as sympathetic to North Vietnam...
...Jane Fonda may not have spoken at rallies during that time, but silence was never an option when she could lend her voice to the enemies of her country...
...Thousands Protest Bush Policy" screamed a front-page headline the next morning, while the story took delight in "a raucous and colorful multitude of protesters" who, "under a blue sky with a pale midday moon . . . danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition," and "came from across the country and across the activist spectrum, with a wide array of grievances...
...Then there was her assertion "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years...
...Indeed, The Scrapbook is just old enough to remember that, during those locust years when Jane Fonda (in the words of the Post) was "a workout maven, postfeminist arm candy for billionaire media magnate Ted Turner, a vocal Christian and an auto-biographer," she was also, with second husband Tom Hayden in their spacious L.A...
...What the Times calls "bullying" is Americans fighting back...
...Thirty-four years would take us back to the winter of 1972-73, when she and actor Donald Sutherland, songbird Holly Near, and others were finishing the worldwide tour of their "F.T.A...
...In case you're trying to guess, the "bully" is George W. Bush...
...Of course, the Washington Post found the glass half-full, as it were...
...And I think that if it's done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something...
...His Dream Job...
...Silence is no longer an option...
...All rather different in tone, as you might suspect, from coverage of the annual Right-to-Life march on Washington...
...Reporter Michael Gordon, the Times's chief military correspondent, appearing recently on the Charlie Rose show, let slip that he secretly hopes the war goes well for America: "As a purely personal view," said Gordon, "I think [the Bush surge is] worth it—one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we've never really tried to win...
...Your typical Miss America Q&A, we are told, involves banalities like "If you were Miss America, how would you combat global hunger...
...Why is that...
...The book has already been attacked as "facile" in the Chronicle of Higher Education (or, as we like to think of it, the National Enquirer of the faculty lounge...
...What the Times calls "meddling" is Iranian agents helping Iraqi insurgents kill American soldiers...
...But the reviewer, though hostile, was a bit envious: "Almost without exception, each essay is lucid and articulate...
...military bases here and in Japan, the Philippines, and Okinawa...
...Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC's Hardball and the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, was in Vegas recently, among the judges at the 2007 Miss America pageant...
...Unlike the Post, which accepted this as gospel, and reported that Miss Fonda had been otherwise engaged in the intervening decades, The Scrapbook was struck by the precision of her memory...
...It is presented each year to the columnist, editorialist, or reporter whose work best reflects the spirit of Breindel's too-short career: love of country, concern for the preservation and integrity of democratic institutions, and resistance to the evils of totalitarianism...
...and "How do you make every day special and unique...
...In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, "why did Mississippi seem to do a better job" rebuilding than Louisiana...
...Breindel Awards Applications are invited for the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Journalism...
...Bush is at it again, this time trying to bully Iran into stopping its meddling inside Iraq...
...Faulkner never used commas when he wrote...
...Unlikely...
...That is not the approach Matthews took, according to a recent item in the D.C...
...residence, host to a parade of strongmen from Nicaragua's Sand-inista regime, as well as visiting officials of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the Communist guerrilla army seeking to destroy the democratically elected government of El Salvador...
...There was a modest antiwar rally on the Mall in Washington—modest by Vietnam-era standards, that is, with about 10,000 people...
...There was the usual prose poem about winsome senior citizens taking the train down from New York, bearded veterans, "civil rights and community activist" Jesse Jackson, young couples with babies, smiling students, "children in tie-dyed shirts, grandmothers in flowered hats, kids with frizzy hair and muddy jeans," and assorted Hollywood leftists...
...Examiner...
...The passive voice got a good workout in the Style section depiction of her...
...Believe the man...
...We've simply been managing our way to defeat...
...Complains the Times: "Mr...
Vol. 12 • February 2007 • No. 21
