NOTORIOUS B.I.G.
Notorious B.T.G. With government-sponsored affirmative action in retreat everywhere, you might think federal bureaucrats would hesitate before spending tax dollars to promote racially divisive...
...his place is secure...
...Feiner-man thinks it is the "height of hypocrisy to get on our high horse about China making its prisoners work due to the fact we do the same thing with our prisoners...
...You do...
...She had proposed that China and America appoint a commission on human rights that "would point out the successes and failures" of both sides, "both Tiananmen Square and Kent State...
...Bennett was forced to backtrack...
...After all, remember how well constructive engagement worked back then...
...Book" Notes from All Over Contributing editor David Gelernter writes to The Scrapbook: "Those of us who are interested in the Bible and also computers have just had a strange week...
...damage was done...
...Death and the Times It's hard to imagine a high-profile death-penalty case without a New York Times editorial denouncing executions...
...Point Finger at China...
...I can't wait to find out what vital messages can be extracted under torture from the passaic phone book or a collected edition of Hustler...
...But as we know, there's a sucker born every minute...
...Wrong...
...He should rest easy...
...But this week a competitor in the appeasement/moral equivalence sweepstakes emerged...
...According to BIG's promotional literature, the conference has been "recognized and endorsed" by President Clinton himself, as well as by a number of federal agencies...
...And sure enough, no sooner had the Oklahoma City bombing jury pronounced Timothy McVeigh guilty than the Sages of Times Square weighed in with their ritual denunciation, a lead editorial titled "Death and Timothy McVeigh...
...Federal agencies pick up the registration fee, too, which is more than $300 per person...
...The man simply cannot stay out of the news...
...But Feinerman still asks, in the tradition of moral equivalizers everywhere, "Who are we to argue with their choices...
...With government-sponsored affirmative action in retreat everywhere, you might think federal bureaucrats would hesitate before spending tax dollars to promote racially divisive programs...
...Feminist organizations, after an eternity of hypocritical silence, finally went berserk...
...That's pretty mind-boggling...
...Last week, Bennett's defense team leaked word that it had secured a deposition from one of Jones's former employers, who was prepared to testify that she was a tramp—and that he had slept with her...
...The president's insurance companies no longer permit Bob Bennett to count his media appearances as billable hours, according to Newsweek...
...No president has even been incredibly accused of it, for that matter...
...It's quite a subsidy...
...The Appease China Sweepstakes (cont...
...The answer, incidentally: We live under a free and just regime...
...the Chinese don't...
...foreign policy in Asia...
...Last year's meeting in Atlanta began with a "Freedom Vigil" held for the benefit of "all Americans who fear for the future of our country in the face of the conservative threat to the freedoms for which this country was founded...
...In rape prosecutions, this is known as the "nuts and sluts" defense...
...Who pays for this nonsense...
...With more than 3,000 government employees expected to attend this year . . . well, you do the math...
...And we wager no president ever will be again...
...Two days later, Robert Novak's syndicated column advised China to cut a deal with the Vatican in order to mute criticism of Chinese religious persecution by the U.S...
...Farrakhan ended his address by describing how greedy, clannish Jews "run the world...
...very little goes to the people...
...About as excruciating as trying to parse the logic of the Times editorial...
...Now, the death penalty surely isn't unusual, so the Times must think that its exceptional cruelty is what makes execution unconstitutional...
...Huh...
...What exactly goes on at a BIG conference...
...And every time he talks, he embarrasses his client...
...They're probably annoyed that Clinton hired Bennett in the first place...
...Paul Blustein quotes James Feinerman, professor of Asian Legal Studies at Georgetown University...
...I don't know how many people belong in this dual category, but the number can't be small...
...At one of the group's earlier annual conferences, Louis Farrakhan gave a rousing speech in which he explained how "the white boys"— whom he described as "The Enemy"—had invented AIDS, injected thousands of black people with cancer, created inner-city street gangs, and secretly added chemicals to beef in an effort to control the black birth rate, among innumerable other crimes...
...We see capital punishment . . . as morally wrong and against the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishments," the Times declared...
...Catholic Conference...
...On the same day, in New York, Chinese dissident Harry Wu spoke powerfully against MFN, pointing out that the great bulk of the profit from foreign investment "benefits the Chinese government...
...We're with Harry, not Henry—or Bob, or Jude—but we're grateful that Novak has introduced the Mussolini analogy, which is all too apt...
...Four months ago, this page awarded top honors in our 1997 Appease China Sweepstakes to Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein of California...
...Novak quotes his friend Jude Wanniski (described as "a staunch and vigorous friend of China"—a rare Novakian understatement) as advising the Chinese ambassador to tell his government to "come to terms with Christianity...
...In an article in the Business section of the Washington Post titled "Prison Labor: Can U.S...
...The crowd erupted in applause...
...One outfit even asked me if I would debate the author on TV The idea that you would have to be an expert on the Bible or computation or anything else to comment on this book is a victory for the publisher and another defeat for common sense...
...But that wasn't the end of a week filled with amazing comments about China...
...Oscar Eason, Jr., BIG's president, touted the vigil by denouncing "the efforts of a conservative Congress to turn back the clock on the progress of minorities and women in America...
...When future scholars write the story, they should reserve special scorn for Robert Bennett, Clinton's lawyer in the Paula Jones matter...
...Which of China's neighbors gets to be Abyssinia...
...He testified Thursday before the Senate Commerce Committee in favor of most-favored-nation status for China, arguing that "cooperation with China is an essential element of U.S...
...and we should do what we can to help them achieve at least minimal levels of civil and political rights...
...But the editorial then proceeds to recommend life without parole, since for a 29-year-old like McVeigh "that would be the most excruciating punishment of all...
...Novak, joining Wanniski in the role of adviser to Beijing, in turn urged the Chinese government to sign "a concordat such as Mussolini negotiated with the Vatican in 1929...
...A famous sentence in the Talmud says that one is not to make of the Torah 'a crown with which to magnify yourself, or a spade with which to dig.' The Bible Code is contemptible...
...But the p.r...
...people kept asking us to hold forth on a new book called The Bible Code, which purports to reveal vital messages hidden in the Hebrew text and just now decrypted by sophisticated computer analysis, in the nick of time for Simon & Schuster to make a lot of money...
...Neither topic is what you would call out-of-the-way...
...For months now, Bob Bennett has publicly insisted the president has no memory of meeting Paula Jones—and vividly remembers never touching her...
...The Lawyer He Deserves_ Bill Clinton is famously concerned about his place in history...
...And speaking of "staunch and vigorous" friends of China, Henry Kissinger also weighed in this week...
...On NBC's Meet the Press, Bennett himself promised "some surprises" in the case, and allowed as how he was prepared—on behalf of the president of the United States—to "put her reputation at issue" if need be...
...He has it all to himself: No president has ever before been credibly accused of exposing himself to a strange woman and demanding oral sex...
...Government employees who want to attend the BIG conference do so on salaried time, under the guise of "training...
...Consider the annual "training and development" conference that will be held in Washington this August by Blacks in Government (BIG), an organization of black public-sector employees...
...Of course, we don't sentence people for speaking up for democracy, attempting to pray as they wish, or offending the political authorities...
Vol. 2 • June 1997 • No. 39
