THE KING OF ID
The King of In He's destroyed the sport of boxing. His coif looks as if his scalp is projectile-vomiting. He has murdered business associates and the English language with equal aplomb. But only in...
...Even Alec Baldwin should know this...
...But Wait, There's More...
...Or the time he gave new recruit Pin-klon Thomas a diamond ring, only to send him an invoice for the gift when Thomas hit the skids...
...We're talking, of course, about Jewish women...
...The president hastened to add that "I don't mean that in a bad way...
...Why are we in a good position to avoid having Asia become a separate economic bloc and a destabilizing force in the world...
...Streisand American Princess Barbra Streisand, spokesperson for the oppressed, now wants to campaign on behalf of the most maligned, most mistreated, most outrageously defamed sub-population in these United States...
...Delegates to the NAACP fell all over themselves taking offense at Perot's words, but seemed to love the president's, even though the condescending tone and patronizing spirit were exactly the same...
...As a Jewish woman," says Streisand, "I have always been bothered by negative stereotypes about us, and in my films I have always tried to show Jewish women in a positive light...
...This is not just a case of picking the 57 percent figure you like...
...The NAACP has lost its grip," Herbert writes in an extraordinary July 18 New York Times column...
...So here's a fresher number for you...
...In The Mirror Has Two Faces, the movie she directed and starred in last year, Streisand showed herself in a positive light—but Lauren Bacall and Mimi Rogers, who played her mother and sister, came across as the JAPpiest of Jewish American princesses...
...Our president appeared at the same NAACP convention that honored Don King, and spoke some amazing words...
...Thus the president takes identity politics into an entirely new realm: Call it identity economics...
...Herbert went on to lash out at the much-lauded Kweisi Mfume, the former congressman who took over the NAACP last year to restore its reputation after a series of financial scandals...
...Your people do...
...Contending that "the greatest threat to black children since slavery [is] their abandonment by their own fathers," Herbert then points out that "Mfume, unfortunately, is not well-positioned to lead [the] fight" on behalf of black children because he himself sired "five children by four women in 21 months...
...Playing the Percentages In June 1996, Louis Harris published a poll showing that 57 percent of Americans support federal funding for the arts...
...And then there are the 25-plus lawsuits from former fighters saying they've been fleeced, the crack-addicted homeless proteges, the three grand jury investigations, the FBI undercover probe, the 23 counts of federal tax evasion he eventually beat, the 1954 murder of somebody trying to rob one of his gambling houses (it was ruled self-defense...
...The anti-NEA number tracks more honestly with overall public attitudes toward government spending this decade...
...We had a lot of Republican congressmen interested in it because they think we can make a lot of money there...
...Are we the only ones who find these remarks by the president truly and deeply creepy...
...The president then went into a peroration on economic ties that leads one to wonder whether he has ever read the Declaration of Independence...
...The outrageousness of the award to King commendably set Bob Herbert's teeth on edge...
...Congresswoman Louise Slaughter regurgitated the number in her July testimony before a congressional committee...
...There is a disoriented and at times paranoid quality about the organization that more than any other did the difficult, dangerous and noble work of desegregating America...
...Also unheralded at the ceremony were some of his other humanitarian efforts: Like how he insisted recently that Oliver McCall, who was undergoing drug rehabilitation, had to fight Lennox Lewis anyway (McCall ended up having a breakdown in the ring...
...In no small measure because of all the Asian Americans in this country...
...Somehow this feels like a comedown from the work of Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold—promoting the creation of a Jewish state, educating immigrants, and finding...
...King concurred, calling himself a "farmer in the field of civil rights...
...Because of all the Jewish Americans here and the increasingly active and constructive Arab American community here...
...We just announced an initiative on Africa, on promoting economic development in Africa," he said to applause...
...Why are we in a good position to unite all of Latin America with us in a common economic group early in the next century...
...Why," the president asked, "are we in a good position to do well" in Africa...
...legitimacy...
...Despite the fact that the poll is a year old and does not measure attitudes toward the National Endowment for the Arts, the 57 percent figure has popped up repeatedly in news stories about the NEA in recent months...
...Sure...
...And there was a lot of excitement about it...
...On June 28, a Washington Post editorial concluded, from the same old Harris poll, that the NEA has a 57 percent approval rating...
...And his crowning moment: As the biggest numbers runner in 1960s Cleveland, he stomped Sam Garrett, a drug-user with one kidney who owed him $600, until, as Jack New-field put it, Garrett's "brain broke like an egg...
...What you are hearing is the sound of a once-great, once-unimpeachable organization losing its legitimacy...
...Why do we have some hope of being a major force for peace in the Middle East...
...He said his accomplishments have gone unheralded since he has "never looked for any fanfare on this...
...His answer: "Because of you...
...In March 1997, The Polling Company reported that 57 percent of Americans—yes, the same number as in the Harris poll—agree that "Congress should stop funding the NEA with taxpayer dollars and instead leave funding decisions with state government and private groups...
...Last week, the civil-rights organization bestowed its President's Award on King—not for fortitude in the face of his current insurance fraud charges, but for being, in President Kweisi Mfume's phrase, "a significant supporter of social causes" and an athletic pioneer comparable to Jackie Robinson...
...Alec Baldwin quoted the poll in his May 13 appearance before Congress to prove that elected officials are systematically ignoring the "majority...
...But only in the America of 1997 could Don King have received a humanitarian award from the NAACP...
...The Post might consider that just because the NEA faxed the figure to supporters does not make it reflect the agency's approval rating...
...Meanwhile, on her concert tour, she occasionally appeared on stage with the comedian Mike Myers, dressed in drag to play his outrageously stereotypical middle-aged JAP character, Linda Richman...
...USA Today ran an item on March 26 that read, "Public support for federal arts funding remains strong— 57 percent and higher—according to the NEA...
...You, of course, meaning "black people...
...Streisand is pronouncing on Jewish womanhood in her capacity as honorary chair of Brandeis University's new International Research Institute on Jewish Women, funded by the Jewish women's organization Hadassah...
...We recall that in 1992, Ross Perot became the focus of a two-day hysteria when he spoke before the NAACP convention and said: "It's gonna be a long, hot summer...
...But insulting Republicans wasn't the purpose of the anecdote...
...I don't have to tell you who gets hurt first when this sort of thing happens, do I? You people do...
...Says the institute's director, Shulamit Reinharz, "After 2,000 years of nearly total exclusion from the prestigious processes of learning and creating knowledge, Jewish women are ready to take their place at the table...
...Because of the Hispanic Americans, all the Latinos...
...Because of you...
Vol. 2 • July 1997 • No. 45
