Scrapbook
Scrapbook Team Bush Storms Capitol Hill Top aides to Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush briefed senior House and Senate Republican staffers in a closed meeting Nov. 23 on the...
...Now there's a handy idea...
...No doubt that, too, will be brushed aside as his "private" view and therefore meaningless...
...The team of aides said the Bush "corporation"—their nickname for various campaign, special interest, and grass-roots groups—is expected to amass a staggering $250 million to $300 million for use in the 2000 election...
...The President and His Marbles Good news for George W. Bush...
...And did so, incidentally, on the side of a particularly philistine museological ethnocentrism...
...By 1800, however, only four were left, and two of them had no heads...
...Ma'ariv reported the following response from Barak's aides: "The criticisms of Giuliani's associates were dismissed by those inside Barak's entourage, who described those statements as mild compared to the pressure exerted on them by senior levels [in the United States] to speak on Hillary's behalf...
...But for decades now, a succession of Greek governments have been demanding the return of their "stolen patrimony," despite the fact that Athens has neither a legitimate legal claim to the Elgin Marbles nor any feasible plan to preserve and display them...
...Oops Correction of the week, from The Guardian (London): "An article about food in Ireland (Weekend, page 86, November 6) commended a guidebook for showing that 'industrial food production has never penetrated Ireland in the way it has mainland Britain.' This careless inclusion of the word 'mainland' wrongly implies that Ireland is part of Britain...
...In other words: He may bungle the foreign stuff till the cows come home because the president doesn't necessarily speak for the United States...
...Great Moments in Clintonian Diplomacy From the Nov...
...Attendees tell The Scrapbook this appeared to be only the tip of the iceberg...
...The Brits have always firmly and correctly said no...
...Turns out that a loose grasp of certain foreign policy details—not knowing much about the Grecians, to be pre-cise—doesn't disqualify a fellow for the White House, after all...
...Bush, on the other hand, has refused federal funds and may spend as much as he wants...
...Clinton "should not be blamed because she could not have reacted immediately on the spot...
...But the principle Clinton's Washington aides advanced in the course of post-Parthenon damage control is even more peculiar: The White House disavowed the president's remarks...
...in Athens, Clinton had merely been expressing views he holds "privately...
...They emphasized that senator John McCain does not pose a threat to the Texas governor in the New Hampshire primary...
...The purpose of the meeting was to convince everybody that Bush is going to win the primary," says an attendee, "and to assuage any feeling there might be that McCain is going to sneak up and creep in...
...um, Kosovarians...
...If it would be me," he volunteered, "I would give them back immediately...
...A bit of that will be used for the new television ads unveiled at the meeting...
...20, Israel's prime minister, Ehud Barak, tried to help the Clinton administration extricate itself from the embarrassment caused by Suha (Mrs...
...22 edition of the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, translated for The Scrapbook by David Wurmser: In a speech to the Israel Policy Forum on Nov...
...Barak emphasized that "Mrs...
...sculptor phidias remained intact...
...20, Bill Clinton ("one of our greatest presidents," sayeth Al Gore) blurted out something extraordinary to his guide, Greek culture minister Elisavet papazoi...
...But the aides did say that after meeting his own fund-raising goal, Bush would raise money for the party and campaign for candidates in close races...
...Team Bush also said that their candidate will be delivering a major economic speech in December...
...Recent polls have shown the Arizona senator within kicking distance of Bush in New Hampshire...
...pieces of sculpture and friezework original to the parthenon—but safely housed since 1816 at the British Museum in London—should be returned to Athens, Clinton told papazoi...
...During parliamentary debate, and in unusually candid interviews with the press, spokesmen for both the Labour government and the Tory opposition essentially told the president to keep his yahoo mits off England's antiquities...
...They said no again last week in response to Clinton's little Acropolis brainstorm...
...That goal, by the way, is astonishingly ambitious...
...And that's only the half of it...
...on the west pediment, for example, 20 figures by the 5th-century B.C...
...The "principle" Clinton was advancing in this incident—he apparently told Papa-zoi that all such antiquities should be similarly removed from all the world's museums—is ludicrous...
...Because of this, he is limited to spending roughly $650,000 in New Hampshire, of which he has already spent $250,000...
...But these Bush campaign aides—political director Maria Cino, deputy campaign director Mark Lampkin, and press aides Ari Fleischer and Mindy Tucker—argued that McCain's Achilles' heel is his acceptance of federal matching funds...
...But it's the smart thing to do...
...The president thus barged unwittingly into a heated, ongoing dispute between the Brits and Greeks over "restitution" of the so-called Elgin Marbles...
...So in 1806, the British diplomat and amateur archaeologist Thomas Bruce, earl of Elgin, purchased from the ottoman governors of Athens, and began shipping back to England, an extensive collection of the parthenon's surviving masterworks...
...He has just delivered an appallingly presumptuous sermon to them on their obligation to "forgive the Serbs...
...As THE SCRAPBOOK goes to press, Clinton is beginning a visit to the Balkans for his first post-NATo-rescue speech to the...
...The Greeks had used the parthenon as a munitions dump during their war with the Turks, and the temple had been shelled...
...As late as the middle 1600s, the parthenon was still in pretty good shape...
...The rest of the Acropolis has ever since continued to crumble—victim-ized by floods of tourists, automobile emissions, encroaching development, and a series of famously bungled 20th-century Greek "restoration" jobs...
...Yasser) Arafat's remarks in Hillary Clinton's presence, in which she slandered Israel...
...Governor Bush will want to take note...
...In response to a question, Cino said it would be up to the House Republican leadership to retain control of that chamber...
...Washington has taken no official, public position on the Elgin Marbles, administration flacks Joe Lockhart and Barry Toiv told reporters...
...And both the Greeks and Turks had later quarried or otherwise defaced the site's marble...
...It's my impression that this stuff is less actual information and more a function of the Bush campaign just doing the dance to make the rank-and-file Republicans think they're responsive to their needs," said another congressional aide...
...He also enjoys the support of the state's political establishment, the Bushies stressed...
...It's just doing what they ought to be doing...
...On a rainy morning tour of the Acropolis Nov...
...Clinton has touched the heart of many in our country," and that "she has encouraged efforts for peace in the region...
...The ads focus on "restoring integrity to the White House," the military, and Bush's record on education and tax cuts while governor...
...Upon hearing the news, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's camp accused Barak of interfering in the Senate race in his attempt to get Hillary off the hook...
...He went out of his way to dismiss the criticism of Hillary Clinton's failure to quickly and forcefully respond to Suha Arafat's accusations against Israel, saying that Mrs...
...It was very clear that they are going to spend a huge percentage on television and mail and getting the message out," said an aide to a Texas congressman...
...23 on the status of the campaign...
Vol. 5 • December 1999 • No. 12
