November2.1998

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3 WHIP IMPEACHMENT NOW 4 PULL THAT WFP LEVER 5 DELAY TACTICS

6 WINNTNGLIBEFUL

7 HOMOPHOBIA KILLS

7 INFACT ...

David Corn

Eric Altennan

Doug Ireland

6 SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC Calvin Trillin

9 MINORITY REPORT An Open Letter to Gore Vidal Christopher Hitchens

10 SUBJECT TO DEBATE Poverty: Fudging the Numbers Katha Pollitt

The Nation since 1865. 3

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VOLUME 267, NUMBER 14

& THE 11 POWER TO REDISTRICT IS THE

TRUE NOVEMBER PIUZE Whichever party controls that Freedom process will shape national politics for a decade. John Nichols

25 BRONSKI: The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay

George De Stefan0

Adventures and Misadventures of an .27 HERRICK. Jumping the Line: The

15 TO THE RACES Democrats have a few good candidates but the party is institutionally weak. Doug Ireland

If campaign finance reform wins here, it will get a big boost. Marc Cooper

22 RIGHT STILL GOLDEN ON INITIATIVES Progressives lament a once-populist idea. Jim Shultz

A case of effective use of a referendum. Harvq Wasserman

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19 ARIZONA’S CLEAN-MONEY FIGHT.

23 DEREGULATION WAR HEATS UP

American Radical FISHER Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War RUBIN: Spain’s Cause Was Mine: A Memoir of an American Medic in the Spanish Civil War SCHRANK: Wasn’t That a Time? Growing Up Radical and Red in America John L. Hess

POETRY PRIZE Charles Simic

32 TELEVISION: Encore! Encore! Will and Grace Alyssa Katz

Stuart Klawans

29 1998 LENORE MARSHALL

34 FILMS: Apt Pupil Life Is Beautiful

Cover design by Scott StoweWOpen; cover image by AP/ mde World; illustrations by Ed Karen, Rupert Howard

/ I

Whip Impeachment Now ames Carville is not everyone’s cup of gumbo. But in urg- ing Democratic candidates to mount a more vigorous and strategic attack on the right-wing impeachment machine, Car- ville’s instincts are surely right. While few Democrats would J have chosen this particular battle as the basis of Congres-

sional election strategy, sometimes the battle chooses you. For many Americans, Ken Starr’s report and Congress’s impeachment offensive have revealed Republican conservatives as the sex- policing, antidemocratic extremists that they are.

This crucial election offers citizens a chance to change the terms of the national debate. Polls suggest voters are eager to participate fully in the decision on whether the country can afford two years of a government paralyzed by impeachment hearings. A mid-October Washington Post poll found that since the impeach- ment inquiry began, “for the first time in months, fewer than half of the country say they approve of the job Congress is doing”; moreover, “support for the Republican-held Congress has fallen the most among voters who say they are certain to vote in Novem- ber.” Most important, support for the Republican majority fell pre- cipitately among Democratic swing voters and independents.

This election also offers an opportunity not seen in years to broaden the constituency for civil liberties. For nearly a genera- tion, defenders of the Bill of Rights have complained of the dif- ficulty in drawing public attention to such core issues as privacy, due process and the rights of defendants. Bill Clinton, armored with all the resources of the presidency, is no typical ACLU client.

Yet the Starr investigation has aroused real anger among millions OfAmericans around precisely those issues, captured neatly in the phrase “sexual McCarthyism.” It has precipitated a public conver- sation, stunningly reflected on newspaper letters pages around the country, replete with concise, hard-hitting articulations of political philosophy.

The first Democrats-to wrap themselves in the anti-Starr flag in campaign ads are desperate underdogs with nothing to lose, but there’s no reason that more Democratic candidates shouldn’t make similar appeals to voters. Indeed, a motivated constituency will be crucial in countering the high-turnout right-wing minority. It may be too much to wish for a complete turnaround in control of the House (requiring a change, be it noted, of just eleven seats). But it’s not too late to narrow the Republican margin in that body, sending a strong message when articles of impeachment come to the floor. As for the Senate, where any trial of the President would take place, alarmed swing voters could save the seats of California’s Barbara Boxer and Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold and retire the odious Alfonse D’Amato of New York. Republicans know the stakes too. At press time it is clear that the run- ning scared of another government shutdown, has abandoned the budget fight, even over such issues as the IMF and education, and is betting the farm on the impeachment militia.

Just a few weeks ago, conventional wisdom held that Clinton’s troubles would be the Democrats’undoing. Now, it’s possible that this election will stand not as a judgment on Clinton’s sex life but as a referendum on the very unpopular impeachment ma- chine. It’s up to Democrats to recognize the voters’ hunger for a principled fight.

4 Nation. 2.1998

Nation. PUBLISHER AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Victor Navasky

EDITOR Katrina vanden Heuvel

LITERARY EDITOR Art winslow SENOREDITORS Richard Lingeman, Betsy Reed, Karen Rothmyer (managing editor), J o h Wypijewski

WASHINGTON EDITOR David Corn COPY C H E F Roane Carey COPY EDITOR Judith Long COPYASSOCIATE: LisaVandepaer ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR Amii I1 Barksdale ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR Peggy Suttle ASSISTANT LITERARY EDITOR: Margaret J. Lee

Frida Berrigan, Michael Blanding, Loren Brodx Carl Bmnley, Emily Kopp Belinda E. Lanks, Angela Moore, Kytja Weir

DEPARTMENTS Jane Holtz Kay; Arthur C. Danto; John Leonard; Stuart Klawans; Edward W. Said, Gene Santoro; Poetiy, Grace Schulman; Alyssa Katz; Laurie Stone;) video, Ben Sonnenberg

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Katha Pollitt

Daniel Singer; MM6s Vimos; Tokyo, Karl Taro Mark Gevisser

COLUMNISTS AND REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Eric Alterman Alexander Cockbum Devil), Christopher Hitchens Katha Pollitt to Debate), CalvinTrilliin, Bruce Shapiro Order), Patricia J. Williams (Diay a Robert Sherrill;

Michael T. Klare; Ian Williams; Legal David Cole CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Lucia hunz ia t a , Kai Bird, George Black, Robert L. Borosage, Stephen E Cohen, Marc Cooper, Mike Davis, Slavenka Drakulid, Susan Faludi, Thomas Ferguson, D.D. Guttenplan, Doug Henwood, Max Holland, Molly Ivins, Maria Margaronis, Michael Moore, Richard Poll&, Joel Rogers, Kirkpatrick Sale, Robert Scheer, Herman Schwartz, Andrew L. Shapiro, Ted Solotaroff, Edward Sorel, Gore Vidal, Jon Wiener, Amy Wilentz EDITORIAL BOARD: Norman Birnbaum, Richard Falk, Frances FitzGerald, Eric Foner, Philip Green, Randall Kennedy, Elinor Langer, Deborah W. Meier, Toni Morrison, Richard Parker, Michael Pertschuk, Elizabeth Pochoda, Neil Postman, Marcus G. Raskin, David Weir, Roger Wilkins

PRESIDW Teresa Stack

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The Nation (ISSN 0027-8378) is published weekly (except for the second week in Jan- uary, and biweekly the third week of July the third week of September) by The Nation Company, L.P. 0 1998 in the USA. by The Nation Company, L.P., 33 Place, New York, NY 10003. (212) 209-5400. Washington Bureau: Suite 308, 110 Maryland Avenue N.E., Washington, DC 20002. (202) 546-2239. Periodicals postage paid at New York, and at additional mailing offices. International Telex: 667 155 NATION. Subscription orders, changes of address and all subscription inquiries: The Nation, P.O. Box 37072, Boone, IA50037, or call 1-800-333-8536. Subscription Price: 1 year, $52; 2 years, $90. Add $18 for surface mail postage outside US. Please allow 4-6 weeks for receipt of first issue and for subscription transactions. Back issues $4 prepaid ($5 foreign) fiom: The Nation, 33 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003. The Nation is available on microfilm from: University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Member, Audit Bureau of Circulations. POSTMASTER Send address changes to The Nation, EO. Box 37072, Boone, IA 50037. This issue went to press on October 14. Printed in U.S.A. on recycled paper.

&MAm info@TheNation.com. Letters the Editor: letters@TheNation.com. 1

‘Pall That WFP n an otherwise desultory fall election, there is one lever New

~ York voters can pull on Election Day that will make a real dif- ference-that of the Working Families Party and its guberna- torial candidate, Peter Vallone. The WFP is a new community- I labor coalition whose core institutional support comes from

the statewide Communications Workers of America, Regions 9 and 9A of the United Auto Workers, the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Citizen Action of New York, the New Party’s state branches and a dozen or so smaller union locals including the Teamsters, Laborers Union and the Buffalo Teachers Feder- ation [see Doug Ireland, “Labor’s Time to Party?” July 201.

This is no endorsement of the kind of politics practiced by Vallone, a centrist machine Democrat from Queens County, dur- ing his years as Speaker of the New York City Council, when he was known for rewarding sycophantic councilors and harshly punishing mavericks. Rather, we urge our 13,000-plus NewYork subscribers (and, if you count everyone you share this magazine with, it’s an estimated readership of 30,000) to join us in a purely tactical vote to create some badly needed leverage for progres- sives in state and local politics. Under state law, the only way a new party can gain a full-fledged line on the ballot (good until the next gubernatorial election) is to receive at least 50,000 votes for its candidate for governor. New York also allows fusion, or cross-endorsement, so a party can get established if a major party’s nominee accepts its endorsement and that candidate gets 50,000 votes on the new party’s line. This year the Independence Party (a Perot offshoot) is trying to hold on to its ballot line with Tom Golisano, its mogul/founder, spending millions on news- paper ads, as he did in 1994. One faction of the squabbling and ineffective New York Green Party is trying to win a ballot line by running the character actor who played Grampa on The Mun-

And the Liberal Party, a once-proud institution that’s now a bunch of lawyer-lobbyists with a ballot line for sale, is pinning its hopes on Betsy McCaughey Ross’s erratic candidacy.

The WFP, by contrast, is developing cross-racial alliances among inner-city residents and white working-class unionists who understand the pragmatic value of cross-endorsing Vallone. Once they have their ballot line, they hope to act as a check on the Democrats’ rightward drift by endorsing progressives, withhold- ing support from conservatives and occasionally punishing them by W n g independent candidates. The party’s leaders aim to pursue living-wage legislation, increased investments in childcare and education, affordable and accessible healthcare, campaign finance reform and improvements in workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits. Already, the mere existence of the WFP organizing effort has boosted some progressive concerns. Bertha Lewis, ACORN’S head organizer in Brooklyn, reports that it opened the door to the City Council’s consideration of a griev- ance procedure to protect workfare workers. Richard Schrader, the executive director of Citizen Action New York City, says it prompted Vallone to improve a campaign finance measure he pushed through the Council this past summer.

2,1998 Nation. 5 l3ImEam

There is no guarantee that the WFP won’t just become a ve- hicle for the organizations that are launching it-particularly the unions-to win a few goodies for their members. But all the players understand that in order for the party to grow and have more influence it will have to advocate and.organize more broadly for the needs of all working people. It’s a balancing act that will take creative leadership. “This is the best possible thing you can do and still be connected to major institutions like labor,” says Bob Master, CWA’s political director. “We’re at the edge of what’s possible in the labor movement.”

But the future of the Working Families Party won’t begin until the day after the election, and there will be plenty of time then to struggle over its direction. The first step is finding 50,000 votes. On Election Day, look for Peter Vallone’s name under the WFP logo (pictured to the right). To volunteer your support, call (212) 647-8604. To help with outreach, non-NewYorkers and resi- dents alike: Send e-mail addresses of like- minded New Yorkers to wfp@igc.org. -

Tactics magine a well-established businessman claiming that Bill Clinton provided him with advice on how to skirt federal election law so he could pump money into the campaign of a Clinton ally. There would be huge headlines, breathless TV I reports and shrill calls on Capitol Hill for a no-holds-barred

investigation. But change the scenario so that House majority whip Tom DeLay, ardent critic of President Clinton’s character, is in the cross-hairs, and what would happen? Virtual silence- for DeLay has been the target of such an allegation, and there has been scant coverage.

In early August-as Monicagate swirled-Peter Cloeren Jr., who owns a $40 million-a-year plastics business in Orange Coun- ty, Texas, DeLay’s home state, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that DeLay had encouraged him in 1996 to use contribution swaps and questionable conduits to evade limits on his donations to Brian Babin, a Republican Con- gressional candidate. Six weeks before Cloeren complained to the FEC, he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor violations for using employees to disguise $37,000 in contributions to Babin. Cloeren was sentenced to two years’ probation and 100 hours of community service; he and his firm were fined $400,000.

Cloeren, a campaign finance novice in 1996, takes responsi- bility for his misdeeds, but he maintains he was urged by Babin to concoct this illegal-though not uncommon-scheme. More- over, the employee pass-through was only one plot of several, Cloeren asserts, and DeLay guided him to the others.

Here’s Cloeren’s story. In August 1996 he attended a private luncheon at a local country club, where Babin, DeLay, a DeLay aide named Robert Mills, several Cloeren employees and Babin campaign staffers were present. Cloeren told DeLay he had run out of “vehicles” for contributing to Babin. No problem, DeLay responded; “additional vehicles” could be found. DeLay noted that other Congressional campaigns and a political outfit called

Triad could serve as “vehicles.” He told Cloeren that Mills would provide fiirther details.

A day or two later, says Cloeren, Mills called and spelled out the specifics: If Cloeren would contribute to other Republicans- Senator Strom Thurmond in South Carolina and Steve Gill, a Congressional challenger in Tennessee-contributors to those campaigns would cut checks to Babin. Mills also said that Cloeren could make a donation to groups that would then pass the same amount to Babin. Cloeren says he was then contacted by Carolyn Malenick, head of Triad Management Services, who told him that if he and his wife contributed $20,000 to Citizens for Re- form (a nonprofit managed by Triad), the money would be used to help Babin’s campaign. Cloeren says Babin also asked him to send $5,000 to the Citizens United Victory Fund, a political action committee that would forward $5,000 to Babin’s campaign. Cloeren made these donations.

Under federal law, an individual is allowed to give only $1,000 per election to a Congressional candidate. But in a variety of ways, Cloeren says, he slipped nearly $60,000 to Babin. If his descrip- tion of DeLay’s role is true, it’s proof that a House Republican leader violated the intent, if not the letter, of election law.

Hill, a weekly newspaper that covers Congress, broke the Cloeren story in Washington, and Texas papers have covered it, but the national media have neglected it. Babin disputed Cloeren’s accoun:, a lawyer for Triad called Cloeren’s assertion “untrue” and Mills told The Hill he was considering suing Cloeren for defamation. DeLay has denied Cloeren’s allegations. “I don’t know this man from Adam,” he said, claiming he had only spoken to him for three minutes at the lunch.

“That’s fine,” says Cloeren in an interview. “There are a dozen and a half people who will say we sat next to each other for one and a half hours.” Cloeren also paid for the air charter that brought DeLay to the Babin event-an illegal corporate con- tribution later reimbursed by Babin-and Cloeren escorted DeLay on a tour of his manufacturing plant.

Cloeren’s claims may be a self-serving effort for partial vin- dication. But FEC records confirm that he donated to Thurmond and Gill and that contributors to those campaigns supported Babin. Also, according to FEC records, the Citizens United PAC received $5,000 from Cloeren and ten days later sent the same amount to Babin. Democratic investigators in the Senate and the House have long suspectedTriad-a mysterious firm that claims to be a for-profit company advising candidates on how to spend their campaign dollars-of being at the center of a Republican plan to circumvent campaign finance laws. Cloeren’s statements put DeLay in the middle of this GOP scheme.

In August, Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee, the panel chaired by Dan Burton that’s been investi- gating Clinton’s campaign finances, requested a hearing to look into Cloeren’s allegations. Burton did not reply. In September the Justice Department began reviewing the case. Cloeren claims that earlier this year, when he was cooperating with the US Attorney’s office inquiry, he taped, with the FBI’s knowledge, a.phone con- versation between himself and a Babin campaign consultant, who implicated DeLay’s office. He was disappointed when federal officials did not pursue the case.

6 The Nation. 2,1998

DeLay has not let Cloeren’s charges slow him down. After the House voted to initiate an impeachment inquiry, DeLay declared that the review would look beyond the sex and lies to probe ille- gal contributions. Perhaps he thinks the best defense is a good offense. The strident denials DeLay’s office has issued-and the fact that a DeLay spokesperson threatened never to cooperate with The Hill if it published the Cloeren piece-may have helped smother a story that raises questions about DeLay’s integrity.

“What I did was wrong,” Cloeren says. “But this was not a one-person act.’’ It’s no surprise that Republicans, running an impeachment fever and searching for more-than-Monica evi- dence, haven’t checked out Cloeren’s story. Meanwhile, few who see DeLay on TV leading the charge against Clinton realize that DeLay himself stands accused. CORN

Win ning Liberal ith turnout all-important in the fall elections, who wins is largely a matter of who inspires people to vote. In Illinois, it could be Jan Schakowsly, a veteran Citizen Action ac- tivist running for the seat vacated by Democrat Sidney Yates; in California, Lois Capps and George Brown, both fending

off right-wing challenges to hold on to Democratic seats; and in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, a gay labor supporter facing a bitter fight to replace retiring Republican Scott mug.

But if anyone should draw progressives to the polls, it’s Jim McGovern. Locked in a tough battle for re-election in working- class Worcester, Massachusetts, McGovern has never compro- mised. He even invited Bill Clinton to speak to his constituents when the President was politically radioactive after his August 17 non-apology. McGovern did this, he said, because Worcester “is not a city of fair-weather friends and you, Mr. President, through your policies, have been a true friend to Worcester.” A practicing Catholic in a deeply Catholic district, McGovem has also refused to cave in to the church’s pressure on so-called partial birth abortions.

I have known McGovern for more than a decade and I never thought he’d get elected to anythmg. He’s just too damn principled. Nor is he pretty and blow-dried-bald and fhmpy is more like it. McGovern got his start in politics working in George McGovern’s (no relation) admirable but hopeless 1984 presidential run. He has since become a political son to the liberal icon.

Before winning his Congressional seat, McGovern spent four- teen years working tirelessly for Massachusetts Representative Joe Moakley, devoting long hours to issues related to Central American refugees. Thanks to their relentless efforts over a six- year period, Congress finally passed a law allowing refugees targeted by Salvadoran death squads to stay in this country. Mc- Govern and Moakley also spearheaded the 1989 investigation of the murder, in El Salvador, of six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter. Together they discovered that the order came from the highest levels of the US-trained and -funded Salvadoran military, including the Defense Minister.

McGovern lost his first run at the Democratic nomination in his district but won a surprise victory over GOP incumbent Peter Blute in 1996, in part because of Bill Clinton’s coattails. With Clinton supporters dispirited and depressed, this time it won’t be so easy. But McGovern is fortunate to be running in Massachusetts, which, when it comes to politics, is more like Sweden than the United States. Although McGovern considers himself a Clinton supporter (with reservations), he’s bashing his opponent, Republican State Senator Matthew Amorello, whom he accuses of supporting the Clinton-Gingrich balanced budget with its miserly Medicare funding. Amorello is also vulnerable on his unwillingness to support a ban on assault weapons. And while the Republicans claim that Jim McGovern cares more about the people of El Salvador than he does about the people of his district, McGovern’s seat on the House transportation committee helped him secure $40 million in funding for local projects.

Nevertheless, the National Republican Congressional Com- mittee has made defeating McGovern one of its top priorities. Dick Armey’s and John Kasich’s political action committees have also been generous to Amorello’s campaign, to say nothing of the Republican money that’s been pouring into the district since Clinton’s high-profile visit. Perhaps defeating McGovern is so important to the Republican Party because its members sense in him a progressive leader who knows how to get elected without apologizing for his politics.

During his first term, McGovern focused on education and the environment. With Paul Wellstone, he managed to double the size of Pel1 grants for high school students who finish in the top 10 per- cent of their class. He has also worked closely with Hillary Clin- ton on the President’s $22 billion proposal to fund high-quality daycare for working parents. And McGovern came within ten votes of restoring money to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to protect urban spaces and preserve them for public use.

On foreign affairs, McGovern nominated Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines for the Nobel Peace Prize and has attached himself to efforts to lift the ban on food and medicine for Cuba. After Clinton’s “reckless personal behavior,” which McGovern says makes him “angry, frustrated and disappointed,” it is the President’s cowardice on the landmine

2,1998 The 7 f l3D”!!%g

treaty and on Cuba that are the Freshman’s greatest disappoint- ments in the man.

Unlike the impeachment battle, these last two fights will be around long after the next election. With a little luck, the Demo- crats will cultivate leaders like Jim McGovern-to save us from Monicagates of the future. ERIC

PO 405, M A 01 606.

Homophobia Kills he brutal murder of Matthew Shepard-the 2 1-year-old Wyo- ming student who was spread-eagled a fence, bludgeoned and left to die in freezing temperatures-is only the latest and most visible manifestation of the national plague of gay- T bashing. Twelve percent of hate crimes reported to the FBI

are antigay, and many more are unreported because of victims’ fear and law-enforcement homophobia. Even in New York City, the has documented an 8 1 percent rise this year in reports of bias attacks on same-sexers.

Every time in recent years there has been an upswing in po-

litical homophobia-from “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the gay- targeting Defense of Marriage Act (signed and campaigned on by Bill Clinton) to Trent Lott’s scurrilous declaration that same- sex love is a disease and the know-nothing religious right’s homosexuals-can-be-cured ad campaign-the number of attacks

gays has sharply increased. The demagogy of the political classes legitimizes the irrational, dehumanizing queer-fear that motors these assaults.

In the wake of Shepard’s murder, Clinton called for passage of the-federal hate-crimes bill (although he couldn’t bring him- self to say the dreaded g-word on camera). But that alone won’t

the gay-bashing. Until schools catch up to modern medical science and begin to teach our kids that same-sex attraction is a normal human occurrence, like being left-handed, the cultural opprobrium that still poisons attitudes on homosexuals and leads to these crimes will not be erased. Gay-bashers aren’t born that way. But neither major party has yet had the courage to challenge the rant of the religious obscurantists on school curriculums and embrace the wisdom of the song from South PaciJic: “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

DOUG IRELAND

The Nation.

35 With its cover featuring a magically mordant Edward Gorey drawing and a smaller, wittily savage David Levine caricature (Monica clenching a cigar), the thirty-fifth anniversary edition of Boob true to form, which is very good indeed. Al- though we tend to take it for granted, think how extraordinary it is in this tabloid moment in our culture to have such a biweekly class act of literary journalism. The October 22 issue includes novelist Joan Didion’s devastat- ing takeout on the Referral and the media’s complicity in the rush to impeach- ment; the last (well, not really) word on Nor- man Mailer by the inconspicuously erudite Louis Menand; the first part of a clarifjhg two-part discourse on affirmative action by one of our favorite jurisprudes, Ronald Dworkin. We haven’t always agreed with the editors’ political choices (especially in cold war history). Their decision to stop publishing the late Andrew Kopkind turned out to be

good fortune when he joined our staff. But in a time of dumbing down the cul- ture, continues to the sky. - There’s no easier target for self-criticism than the left conference circuit, where disparate participants try to forge a common agenda. Nevertheless three recent such gatherings were noteworthy for participation and substan-

In Fact. . . tive discussion. In Berkeley more than 3,000 people assembled in late September to discuss ways of dismantling the prison-industrial complex. At the opposite end of California on October 3, some 600 activists of all ages and ethnicities gathered for “Progressive LA.” And in Chicago the following weekend,

and among others, spon- sored a national movement-building forum, “Back to Basics,” at which electoral reformers rubbed shoulders with welfare-rights cam- paigners, economic populists and the Well- stone for President bandwagon. There was a general sense of the lack of a coherent pro- gressive outlook; as Hightower put it, unifying the left is “like trying to load frogs in a wheelbarrow.” He noted that “there’s a class war in this country, waged against the average workaday American,” and called for a left discourse built around “bottom versus top,” rather than left versus right. Barbara Dudley made an eloquent plea that the left unlearn its elitism. Joel Rogers outlined a common left agenda and analyzed why today’s left is so fragmented (yet like a “bunch of sick people stealing each other’s medicine”). We’ll give Hightower the last word “If we can get our publications together, let’s see if we can get our butts together.”

RE: V. HDJL On page 9, Christopher Hitchens writes “An Open Letter to Gore Vidal,” a critique of

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Vidal’s anti-impeachment editorial in our last issue. At press time we received the following message from the party of the second part: “Gore Vidal always answers his mail but will be traveling for the next month. He expects he will be in a responsive mood then.” - Last year the Royal Swedish Academy of Sci- ences awarded the Nobel Prize in economics to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes for their brilliant work in derivatives. Their theo- ries were presumably put to pragmatic test at Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund in which they were partners and which was a highly visible casualty of the world economic disorder. It was bailed out, but still sinking are millions of considerably less visi- ble impoverished people in Russia, Indonesia and other depressed nations. Significantly, the Academy awarded this year’s prize in eco- nomics to Amartya Sen, an Indian whose work is considered fundamental to under- standing the political economy of inequality and its extreme extension, famine.

The FBI report on its interview with Monica Lewinsky describes the notorious cigar episode in clinical detail and then primly observes: “The president did not smoke the cigar because smoking is forbidden in the White House.”