PRESIDENT CLINTON AND THEMIDNIGHT OIL
President Clinton and the Midnight On President Clinton labors tirelessly to remind the American people how hard he works for them—selflessly totin' dat barge, liftin' dat bale so all of our...
...Garbage In, Garbage Out In the mid-1960s, William E Buckley had a famous debate with James Baldwin in which Baldwin remarked that, in Harlem, black people threw garbage out their windows for purposes of "protest...
...The committee would release an annual report including "measurable data on implementation and progress toward district educational diversity...
...And Another Thing . . ._ Our president's compulsive bragging erupted on Meet the Press last week, when host Tim Russert cited a poll in which 6 percent of Americans associated Bill Clinton with eating at McDonald's...
...The destruction of Marshall's office is being pushed by the new deputy secretary of defense and former bean-counter John Hamre, who apparently wants no challengers to conventional wisdom in-house...
...Rempel and Frantz also described Gov...
...Dan Coats, Charles Robb, and Rick Santorum joined Lieberman in warning Cohen that he will lose the "bold, innovative, and controversial thinking" previous secretaries of defense have depended heavily on...
...And there he was doing it again on November 6, at the dedication of the George Bush presidential library and shrine...
...Clinton's night at the University of Virginia...
...And imagine the money that can be saved by moving a dozen thinkers out of the Pentagon...
...If we straightened out ourselves, people would deal with us as human beings...
...Jackson echoed Baldwin: "If you live in a certain area of town where they cut off access to capital, and cut off access to jobs...
...Prominent figures in the defense community like former undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz have also weighed in on Marshall's behalf...
...Their account involves yet another of those many women of the president's acquaintance who are referred to delicately as "not his wife...
...Sens...
...No, it doesn't...
...President Clinton and the Midnight On President Clinton labors tirelessly to remind the American people how hard he works for them—selflessly totin' dat barge, liftin' dat bale so all of our children may have a brighter future as they cross his bridge toward a newer tomorrow in the new American whatever...
...But an enterprising editorial writer at the Washington Times showed just how pathetic the president's lie and subsequent spin were...
...Chief among them, curiously, was that "as president, [Bush] summoned all the governors, including me, to the University of Virginia for a summit on education, where we stayed up more than half the night in a totally bipartisan fashion to write national education goals for our country...
...There are many things that I, not only as president, but as a citizen, am grateful to George and Barbara Bush for," Clinton said...
...Leaving aside how one goes about staying awake "in a totally bipartisan fashion," the president's memory jogged The Scrapbook's own memory—specifically, of the landmark Los Angeles Times story by William Rempel and Douglas Frantz that became known as "Trooper-gate...
...Time to add some crow to your diet, Mr...
...All areas had better come up equal...
...He greeted his guest, Jesse Jackson, with a provocation: "What do you do, Jesse...
...In March 1994, he told kids visiting the White House: "We love to have Egg McMuffins on Sunday mornings...
...In the 1990s, Marshall and his whiz kids have been at the forefront of thinking about the strategic threats likely to emerge in the coming decades...
...Buckley, incredulous, replied that this was no protest at all but merely self-injury...
...Of course, the white people ain't giving you a damn thing—why don't you clean up your f— house...
...The data would show how students—categorized by race, sex, English-language ability, and eligibility for "special education services" and subsidized lunches—fared in the following areas: enrollment, academic progress, attendance, graduation, absenteeism, expulsion, suspension, and participation in extracurricular activities...
...Naturally, the board gives detailed orders...
...Rock went on to observe that, at a rally in Chicago led by Jackson and Al Sharpton, "Brothers were marching . . . past garbage...
...I mean, we see you at the rallies . . ." (Jackson responded, "I fight for freedom...
...Chris Rock is a black comedian who has little patience with black-establishment orthodoxy...
...Guess we don't need that anymore...
...Cohen has so far stood by Hamre's decision with a tenacity he has not shown on other controversial issues...
...Just about everyone who knows the Pentagon has denounced this attempt to eviscerate our strategic brain-trust...
...president...
...Maybe Marshall's best chance to change the defense secretary's mind is to file a discrimination suit...
...In his first term, Clinton sang the praises of McDonald's chicken sandwiches to Prime Time Live...
...but Rock would have none of it: "That don't mean you can't pick up a damn piece of paper in front of your house...
...A Net Loss Last week, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced, as part of his larger reorganization, the downgrading of the pentagon's office of Net Assessment, headed by legendary strategist Andy Marshall...
...Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman has declared the planned move a disastrous mistake...
...It's funny," said the president, about to uncork one of his gratuitous whoppers (and we don't mean the sandwich): "I haven't eaten at McDonald's a single time since I've been president...
...The committee would include people of diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, and also persons of both sexes and with disabilities...
...He wolfed down Big Macs and French fries at a catered event with Senate Republicans...
...Under a proposed set of "Rules Relating to Educational Diversity," each school district in the state would have to set up a diversity committee and adopt a plan for a "multicultural, gender fair, and disability aware" curriculum...
...The Minnesota State Board of Education was poised to pass the rules without a public hearing until Katherine Kersten, a Star Tribune columnist, blew the whistle...
...Writing national education goals for our country, phoning babes in the wee morning hours—all in a night's work...
...Sometimes farce repeats itself as history...
...The White House quickly issued a lawyerly clarification that the "operative" word in the president's statement was eaten...
...For, as Harvard professor Stephen P Rosen notes, Marshall has for two decades "spoken truth to power...
...If not—if the data suggested that a district had failed to implement the state-required diversity plan—the district could lose its funding...
...The bill for his hotel room," Rempel and Frantz wrote of that historic evening, "showed a call placed to the woman's home was made at 1:23 a.m...
...the same day, according to the hotel record, the same number was called again and lasted 18 minutes...
...In the 1980s, Marshall's office provided key insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet military and economy...
...I fight for the American dream...
...Diversity in Minnesota_ The Minnesota State Board of Education has provided the best argument so far for school choice: a chance to escape from the diversity police the board wants to unleash...
...It lasted 94 minutes...
...The president had drunk an occasional cup of coffee...
...At 7:45 a.m...
...Whoa...
...For more than two decades, every secretary of defense from Melvin Laird through William perry has counted on Marshall's tiny team of defense intellectuals for long-range strategic thinking in an otherwise sclerotic and short-sighted bureaucracy...
...This debate repeated itself last week on the Chris Rock Show...
...Carlson has been a leader on school choice, but it looks like someone on his staff was asleep at the switch when it came time to appoint the board...
...The board, which is appointed by Republican governor Arne Carlson, was in unanimous accord...
...Clinton is, clearly, a public servant who never sleeps...
Vol. 3 • November 1997 • No. 11
