May 12, 1999

Funds Before Guns

Early this week, the White House was scheduled to exploit the Trench Coat Mafia massacre of Littleton, Colorado, with a summit on youth violence. Exploit? Indeed. For why did President Clinton have to assemble the conference in less time than it took to deploy Apache helicopters to the Balkans? A serious session -- one that might actually develop policy responses to the vexing problem of teen terrorism or, at least, stir a conversation that moves beyond clichŽs -- would require weeks of planning. The organizers of a substance-driven summit would need time to assemble the right mix of experts, parents, teachers, civic leaders and children. They might ask for papers and ideas to be presented before the group met. Then the ensuing discussion could go beyond jaw-flapping. Clearly, the slapdash meeting had one aim: politics.

Here were the Clintonites scurrying to stay ahead of the curve on school shoot-ups. Big Daddy President has to respond to all threats to children -- immediately. In our age of cynicism, it's understandable that the White House operates this way, propelled by a permanent-campaign impulse that infects much of Washington. But in this instance, the political perversion was at a record-level. Why rush to hold this gabfest on May 10? Because shortly afterward the President was due to jet off to the West Coast on a fundraising jaunt where he might find himself hitting up culture-making capitalists -- the folks in charge of the violence-drenched movies and television shows now under attack. The pols knew what would happen if Clinton, in the wake of Littleton, frolicked with entertainment industry moneybags. William Bennett, the GOP presidential candidates, Tim Russert and a host of others would all pop off. Consequently, Administration officials hurried to arrange a summit -- where Clinton would have the chance to wag gently a finger at the profiteers of violence -- in order to inoculate the Fundraiser-in-Chief. This conference was arranged not for the security of school children, but for the political security of a money-chaser.

Clinton, of course, is not the only politician who raced to respond to Littleton. Last week Senator Joseph Lieberman, one of Clinton's comrades in the conservative/centrist Democratic Leadership Council, appeared at a Senate committee hearing and ranted against entertainment gore. He warned the entertainment industry that if it "continues to market death and degradation to our children and continues to pay no heed to the real bloodshed staining our communities," then Congress would craft legislation or mount an investigation into the marketing practices of the entertainment business. But while Lieberman, the scourge of those who make movies with violence, also has been endeavoring to finance real-life brutality. He is one of the members of Congress cheerleading the Kosovo Liberation Army and sponsoring a bill that would hand that bunch $25 million in weapons and training. A number of news reports have maintained that KLA members associate with drug traders and Islamic fundamentalists. One noted that when the leading anti-Serbian political movement in Kosovo tried to set up its own military branch, the KLA, looking to protect its turf, assassinated the head of that operation. Citing "intelligence reports," The Washington Times -- the conservative newspaper and not a wholly reliable source -- has published stories reporting that KLAers have financed their war through heroin sales and have been trained in a camp run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden, whom the Clinton Administration blamed for last year's bombing attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Jane's Intelligence Review, a well-regarded publication, suggested that the KLA could have bagged tens of millions of dollars through the sale of heroin. If this were true, then Lieberman, who lashes out at Hollywood, is in league with real bad guys -- not celluloid ones. The reports linking the KLA to drug smuggling and terrorism are sketchy. But is it too much to ask Lieberman, who is so concerned about the links between entertainment and violence, to assure the public there is no Kosovo (drug) connection before subsidizing the KLA?

While Lieberman railed against make-believe violence, sitting next to him was Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican, who also threatened the entertainment industry with congressional reprisals. He should be so tough on another industry -- the gun manufacturers. In 1997, Hatch waged a successful effort in the Judiciary Committee to deep-six legislation to compel handgun producers to provide trigger locks -- a.k.a. child-safety devices -- with each new handgun purchase. The bill failed by one vote. Aspirin comes in child-proof containers. Why not make guns harder for kids to use? But Hatch, in sync with the NRA, beat back this modest gun safety initiative.

Hatch and Lieberman are not wrong to suggest culture affects children (and adults, too). But what is easier to control: products or ideas? It's not difficult to blast away at Hollywood. During one visit to Los Angeles, Hatch complained, "When I come out here [for a fundraiser] I get about $30,000. For Gore, it's about $2 million." The causes of violence are abstract and amorphous, hard to address. (Why is it that Hatch and his comrades in the it's-values-not-guns club only look at the cultural triggers of violence and don't bother with other abstract factors, such as social and economic conditions that might contribute to youth violence in the inner cities?) But the means of violence are concrete. You can hold them in your hand. Thanks to Hatch, many don't have child-safety devices.

A 37-Year Losing Streak

The most interesting moment I witnessed at the rematch between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban all-star team at Camden Yard last week did not occur on the field -- where the lackluster Os, who were grumpy about playing on their day off, were trounced 12-6 by an ebullient Cuban squad. It came in the Camden Club, the bar and restaurant that overlooks the diamond from high above right field. There I overheard the conversation of two businessmen at the bar.

"So is the point to keep communism from spreading elsewhere?"

"I don't think so. Who the hell wants it?"

"But we say we want Cuba to be capitalist, right?"

"Yeah."

"But we don't let capitalism in?"

"No, we don't."

"And that doesn't change anything."

"No, it doesn't."

"And the Canadians and the Europeans and the Asians are there, right?"

"Yeah. All over the place."

"But not us?"

"No, not us."

"This doesn't make any sense."

"Not any business sense."

"Think this game's going to make any difference."

The other businessman shrugged and ordered another round of Scotch. In less than a minute, the two had encapsulated the absurdity of the US economic embargo against Cuba. Since 1962, Washington has stuck to a consistent foreign policy regarding Cuba, which, unlike some other polices, has a clear goal: get rid of Fidel Castro and his undemocratic regime. After all that time, the results are easy to judge: Nada. And it takes only a few moments between innings to figure that out. Before the game, Peter Angelos, the irascible owner of the Os, confessed to The Washington Post that one of his goals in pursuing baseball diplomacy with Havana was to take a swing at the embargo. Angelos recalled that in his preliminary discussions in 1995 with Washington writer Scott Armstrong and Baltimore attorney Rick Schaeffer, who were trying to organize this sports exchange, "we quickly reached a consensus that the embargo should be lifted and relations should be normalized. With the Orioles, I was in a position to make an overture, not to establish relations, but to do something positive."

Though the game was marred by lousy play on the part of the ungracious Os, a rain delay, and a five anti-Castro protesters who ran about the field, it reminded people who probably don't spend too much time thinking about Cuba -- like the two suits at the bar -- that US policy prohibits any US-Cuban commerce and bans Americans from traveling there. (As far as the US government is concerned, Americans are free to travel anywhere in the world but this small island-nation.) Angelos' initiative is not likely to persuade the Clinton Administration to lighten up or to address the contradictions of the embargo. (Trading with China, importing satellites for launches there, and inviting its leader to the White House are permissible, but American tourists cannot visit Hemingway's home in Havana and Cuban baseball players cannot compete in the major leagues without defecting.) Still, the Os-Cubans games -- an earlier one was played in Havana -- call attention to a policy that cannot withstand scrutiny.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the embargo has become even harder for conservatives to justify. In recent years, a small number of right-wingers have broken with the Cuban exile community on this matter. At the party hosted by Vanity Fair after the recent White House correspondents' dinner, I was chatting with Smith Bagley, a liberal philanthropist and Democratic donor, and Group-leader John McLaughlin. The conservative among us was quite eager to see the embargo lifted and wondered if a legacy-seeking Clinton might try to normalize relations with Cuba. (McLaughlin is betting that Clinton is going to need to counter both Monicagate and Kosovo.) Bagley and I were not optimistic. That would entail political courage on Clinton's part. He would have to tell the Cuban expatriates who influence the Democratic Party in Florida and New Jersey to shove off. And Clinton already punked out by signing the Helms-Burton legislation in 1996 which codified much of the embargo. Consequently, to undo the embargo, Clinton would need to win a fight in Congress.

But I did appreciate McLaughlin's sentiments. They are spreading. A few weeks ago, I ran into Grover Norquist, a conservative activist who functions as party central for the right-wingers in Washington, and asked him what he thought of the embargo. He was not enthusiastic about it. He said he recognized that perhaps lifting the embargo would bring change faster to Cuba. But, he added, the anti-Castro Cuban-Americans are part of his conservative coalition and he had to defer to them. If they decide to steer a new course, he'd follow. So it's not only Clinton who is held hostage. When I saw Norquist more recently, he informed me that he had some initial conversations with other conservatives about rethinking the Cuba policy.

Except for those frozen by hatred of Castro, this is a no-brainer. The policy has failed miserably. Why not take a chance -- yeah, after three-and-a-half decades, go crazy -- and see what how Cuba might be affected by a flow of ideas, citizens and commerce between the two countries? If Castro became more repressive, the embargo could be reinstituted. After all these scoreless years, it is time to try a new game plan.

Dizzy

Two weeks back, I scoffed at former White House spin-jockey Lanny Davis's attempts to spin his own reputation in his new book, Truth to Tell. Shortly after that, I received an invitation to a reception honoring Davis. The bash was arranged by Patton Boggs, one of the cloutiest law firms in Washington and Davis's professional home before and after his stint as Clinton damage-controller. That the lobbyists of Patton Boggs should embrace Davis as a truth-teller is no surprise. Washington fixers make their livings by bending, folding and spindling the truth. Thomas Hale Boggs, the firm's chieftain, not too long ago shared with a reporter his view on how to handle a political scandal: "You spin it and it's over."

On the invitation are the blurbs to the book, and it appears Davis has collected the seal of approval from at least two prominent journalists. Carl Bernstein, half of the reporting duo who became famous by countering Richard Nixon's Watergate spin, says of Davis: "Lanny Davis has managed the considerable feat of serving all his constituents extremely well: President, Press and Public." NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, too, offered kind words for Davis. Reporters who came into contact with Davis -- as I did -- should know that he saw his task as manipulating information to serve the Clintons, not facilitating the transmission of truth to the public.

Even his invitation spins. On the back cover it boasts an excerpt from a New Republic article on Davis written by William Powers in the summer of 1997. The passage refers to a practice Davis engaged in during Senate hearings on Clinton campaign improprieties: each day he passed out news clips covering the subject at hand.

"It was a moment brilliantly conceived to work on the mind of a journalist: if what I am hearing has already been printed, then what am I doing here? If the White House is comfortable handing out these stories, then what I am hearing can't be damning. This is the essence of the White House spin operation -- that the Thompson committee's hearings on fund-raising by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee amount to old news and therefore non-news. The effort has been creative, aggressive, and, so far, stunningly successful....And at the center of it all is White House special counsel Lanny Davis."

No surprise, Davis did not refer to crucial portions of the article which, shall we say, round out the picture. Such as Slate contributor Jacob Weisberg noting, "Everything [Davis] says is immediately discounted 95 percent....His credibility is severely impeached." Such as a description of how Davis played reporters against one another in order to restrict the flow of information to the public. Such as Powers' observation that Davis was "off-the-record frank about how unfrank he's being on the record." Only the most audacious spinner would shamelessly present a description of his ability to manipulate the media as a tribute. Davis learned his job well in Bill Clinton's house.