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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rollcast... who wrote (9951)	9/30/2003 12:20:36 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793759

This is a weekly Political "Gossip" column in the "New York Times." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITICAL POINTS Rivals, Yes. Pals, Maybe. By MICHAEL JANOFSKY Rivals, Yes. Pals, Maybe. REMEMBER when Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and Wesley K. Clark, the retired general, were all buddy-buddy, talking now and then about politics, maybe even running for the White House as a ticket? Well, now they're barely talking. While other candidates standing side by side chatted amiably during commercial breaks at the Democratic debate in New York City on Thursday, General Clark and Dr. Dean virtually ignored each other, a sign perhaps that each considers the other his biggest threat. Iciness was apparent in the first break, which followed a welcome to New York to all from the Rev. Al Sharpton. With the cameras off, General Clark leaned past Dr. Dean on his left to shake hands with Mr. Sharpton. As Mr. Sharpton threw a bear hug around General Clark, Dr. Dean stepped back. In another break, after a dust-up over Medicare between Dr. Dean and Representative Richard A. Gephardt, Dr. Dean smiled tightly and patted General Clark on the shoulder. But the general, who was talking to the candidate on his right, Senator John Edwards, did not respond. In a quick interview after the debate, General Clark sounded like the pol he has become, dismissing any suggestion of frostiness between him and Dr. Dean by dodging the question. "I like all these people," he said. "Howard, I was telling him where to go to look at some of the great military training. He needs to come out and see it. All our candidates do." What Are They Doing Here? UTAH is so Republican that no other state cast a higher percentage of votes for President Bush in 2000, when votes for third-party candidates are excluded, than its 71.7 percent. So what's with all the Democratic challengers building ties there? Senator John Kerry, Representative Gephardt and Dr. Dean have made campaign appearances, said Donald Dunn, chairman of the Utah Democratic Party. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman has promised to visit. General Clark is about to win the endorsement of the leading Democrat running for governor next year, Scott Matheson Jr., and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio has a small band of Kucinistas traveling the state on his behalf. All this for a piddling 29 delegates? That and money, Mr. Dunn said, pointing out that Fat Cat Democrats live everywhere, including ski towns like Park City. Mr. Dunn said the contenders' interest aids Utah Democrats in their generally impossible task of defeating Republicans. Citing Representative Jim Matheson of Salt Lake City — Scott's brother — as the best (ahem, only) example of a Utah Democrat winning high office, he said: "People here will split their votes. So the party benefits." The General Finds Some Roots NOW that he is a contender, General Clark is enduring not-so-subtle attacks that question his party loyalty. After all, it was only weeks ago that he confirmed he was a Democrat. But even after admitting that he had voted for Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, General Clark is going to great lengths to prove he has deep Democratic roots. Consider his appearance last week at DePauw University in Indiana. "This is a Methodist school, isn't it?" he asked his audience, which assured him that it was. "There's something in theology about the prodigal son. My father — my real father — was a Jewish lawyer in Chicago. Many years ago, I found a little gold card. And it said, `Delegate, 1932 Democratic Convention, Chicago.' "I'm just coming back." A Stop in D.C. En Route to D.C. NO sooner had District of Columbia officials dissed political tradition by moving the city's primary to Jan. 13 — making it the nation's first presidential test — than Democratic leaders trashed it as unofficial, meaningless and disrespectful to Iowa and New Hampshire. They also urged candidates to avoid it. But most of the Democrats running have dissed the party leadership, recognizing the symbolism of Washington as a majority African-American city and the only jurisdiction in the United States without a voting representative in Congress. Sean Tenner, executive director of the D.C. Democracy Fund, a political action committee that supports candidates who favor voting rights for the city, said all but Senator Bob Graham and General Clark have campaigned in the District or have sent aides on their behalf. Jack Evans, one of six City Council members endorsing Dr. Dean, said the primary provided an early forum on issues important to urban residents like crime and race relations, which don't necessarily get play in the more rustic environs of Iowa and New Hampshire. "Regardless of how some people want to put down the D.C. primary," Mr. Evans said, "to win the first primary, that's a big deal." A Different Kind Of Green Party IN a campaign to protest the treatment of circus animals not long ago, women working for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sat naked inside cages on busy downtown streets around the country. Now, the group has another campaign, this time with a ticket running for the White House in the form of Chris P. Carrot and Kernel Corn, who are actually two guys dressed in silly vegetable outfits. The idea is to call attention to the ways animals are treated as they are turned into Big Macs and Manolo Blahniks. It also builds on earlier PETA campaigns, like the bare naked ladies and a move to create an excise tax on meat, with activists dressed up like pigs holding signs that read: "Cut the Pork. Tax Meat." Campaign organizers say Mr. Carrot and Mr. Corn will make appearances on the government's role in animal protection and the benefits of vegetarianism. The campaign slogan? "Give peas a chance." The Week Ahead THE third campaign finance quarter ends on Tuesday, a marker that could help winnow the still bulky field. Campaigns with better-than-expected donor results will start leaking their totals, as the Dean campaign did yesterday. Whatever amount newcomer Wesley K. Clark has raised will be spun by aides to make him look like the Seabiscuit of the race. Metaphorically, of course. nytimes.com

To: Rollcast... who wrote (9951)	9/30/2003 5:43:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793759

Great Obit! But you won't see it in mainstream media. The morality of congressional investigations and private blacklists would not be challenged if the targets were, say, the militia movement or some neo-Nazi group. Such entities would be clearly recognized as threats to individual freedom. The left would surely support an anti-Nazi blacklist, but somehow regards an anti-communist blacklist as unpardonable. _________________________________________________________________________ Elia Kazan: Moral Hero Kazan should be applauded for testifying against Hollywood's communists. By Robert Tracinski Almost without exception, the obituaries of Elia Kazan—while praising his enormous talent as a director—are critical of his testimony against Hollywood communists. According to some, Kazan, a former member of the Communist Party, should never be forgiven for naming names of fellow party-members before the House Un-American Activities Committee. But Kazan deserves to be honored, not despite his testimony, but because of it. He is worthy of respect and admiration not because we should separate his politics from his art, but because his politics helped preserve artistic freedom for everyone in America. Kazan was the one defending freedom—while it was the Hollywood communists who were betraying their fellow man. The search for Hollywood communists was not a hysterical witch-hunt. There were real communists in Hollywood (as numerous reports, such as Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley's recent book, Hollywood Party, have shown). Thus, the injustice of which Kazan is accused is not that he made false accusations—but that he was an anti-communist. Yet there is nothing unjust about exposing the supporters of dictatorship. The Communist Party was not merely a political organization like the Democratic or Republican Party. It was a totalitarian network. Its goal was not to win an electoral majority but to eliminate free elections and institute a one-party dictatorship. The Party's charter called for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and its officials took orders from Soviet despots. With brazen effrontery, however, the Hollywood communists painted themselves as martyrs for freedom. In an attempt to conceal their dirty secrets, they claimed that their political rights—the very rights that had been systematically exterminated in the slave state they admired and worked for—were being violated by the House investigations and by the Hollywood "blacklist." And, amazingly enough, history has believed them. It is perfectly legitimate for Congress to investigate any organization that declares its active intent to overthrow a free society on behalf of a foreign dictatorship. It was not the communists' ideas which were the inquiry's target, but their actions—or threatened actions. As to the "blacklist," why shouldn't private employers, such as the Hollywood studios, refuse to give platforms to people whose views they find repugnant? The communists claimed the right to free association in order to shield themselves from the disapproval of others. Didn't the studio-owners have the same right not to associate with advocates of totalitarianism? The morality of congressional investigations and private blacklists would not be challenged if the targets were, say, the militia movement or some neo-Nazi group. Such entities would be clearly recognized as threats to individual freedom. The left would surely support an anti-Nazi blacklist, but somehow regards an anti-communist blacklist as unpardonable. Further, "whistleblowers" are hailed today as protectors of our rights when they disclose that corporations are circumventing minimum wage laws or Occupational Safety & Health Administration regulations. Yet a man who blew the whistle on a genuine evil—on a movement bent on establishing an omnipotent state—is condemned for "selling out." What can explain such perversity, except the belief that communism is not an evil, but anti-communism is? Kazan's own defense of his testimony provides the most revealing analogy. His 1954 film, On the Waterfront, portrays a young hood who becomes disillusioned with the gangsters who control the local longshoreman's union. The rule on the docks, enforced by terror, is that union members are supposed to be "deaf and dumb"—to pretend they don't know anything about the gang and to refuse to speak to the police. The hero of the film is the one man who has the courage to break this code of silence and testify against the gang. Kazan intended the film as a metaphor for his decision to testify against his former comrades in the Party. Almost fifty years later, the sympathizers of leftist dictatorships still want to cover up the fact that the real defenders of freedom were not the "martyred" Hollywood Reds but the courageous men who acted to expose them. aynrand.org