Salon Newsreal | The whole world is watching -- again

A L S O+T O D A Y

Peace, the movie
By Daryl Lindsey
Clinton's three-day visit to the Middle East was full of symbols and photo ops, but precious little in the way of content
(12/16/98)
Here comes the judge
By Jeff Stein
Chief Justice William Rehnquist's writings on impeachment contain good news for President Clinton
(12/16/98)

[ IVORY TOWER ]
God save the president?
By Jackie Stevens
An anti-impeachment gathering of New York's intellectual hotshots may not do much for the country, but at least it made them feel good about themselves
(12/16/98)

T A B L E+T A L K
To impeach, or not to impeach: Debate the question in the Politics area of Table Talk

___________________
Bone up on impeachment at BarnesandNoble.com
___________________

R E C E N T L Y
City of self-hate
By Greg Critser
Why Los Angeles elites love being bashed by Mike Davis
(12/15/98)
A kinder, gentler lynch mob
By Gary Kamiya
The GOP confirms the most brain-dead radical stereotypes from the '60s
(12/15/98)
Off the cliff?
By Harry Jaffe
The White House tries lobbying, "scorched-earth" threats and one more speech to sway fence-sitting Republicans
(12/11/98)
Clinton's real crime
By Mollie Dickenson
The president's cagey testimony in the Paula Jones case shows he's guilty of sexual selfishness, but not perjury
(12/11/98)
"Real America?"
By Joan Walsh
Alan Dershowitz blasts Clinton critic Rep. Bob Barr for a speech to white supremacists
(12/11/98)
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The whole world is watching -- again
Sean Wilentz
LEFT-WING LITERATI TURN OUT TO BLOCK IMPEACHMENT, BUT IS IT TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

BY TODD GITLIN
Princeton historian Sean Wilentz left Washington after testifying against impeachment -- unavailingly -- before the House Judiciary Committee last week, convinced something more had to be done. And within 72 hours, there he was, onstage at New York University Law School's Tishman Auditorium, with Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, Jessye Norman, Elie Wiesel, Mary Gordon, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Alec Baldwin, telling some 800 people present that something very important was at stake for the nation in President Clinton's fight for political life.
Wilentz, red-haired and equivalently insouciant, won a slap from the New York Times for warning pro-impeachment Congress members, "History will track you down and condemn you for your cravenness." But a few days later the New York Times was publicizing the NYU event he thought up with a restive friend, New York writer Paul Berman, who talked to another restive friend, New Yorker film critic David Denby. Then NYU law professor Stephen Holmes was enlisted, and their phones started buzzing over the weekend, and electronic circuits got humming. And the next thing anyone knew, all the seats of the law school auditorium were filled Monday night at 7:30, and so was a spillover room of equal size equipped with two TV monitors, and the satellite uplinks were posted on the street outside, and the doors of the law school had to close to latecomers.
The crowd was mannerly, groomed, heavily white, middle class and cross-generational, though skewing toward the middle-aged. Some were in suits, some in white collars, hardly any in jeans or with metal piercings evident. Undergraduates were few. This was 1998, not 1968, and not a few in the audience knew the difference viscerally. For some moments throughout the evening, much of the crowd was combative and, at least in undercurrents, celebratory, too. "Are we glad we're here, or what?" asked Gloria Steinem. The sense of emergency was palpable. So was the sense of relief, that at long last like-minded people were rallying.
At a time when national moralism has come off the leash, cautions in biblical cadences were welcome. Wiesel, an infrequent visitor to public displays of indignation on American national themes, uttered a line many protesters took to heart: "Who shall judge the judges?" Doctorow distinguished between Reagan lies and Clinton lies, proposing that "perhaps the problem with President Clinton's lies is that they lacked grandeur ... Speak of perjury, if you will, but to me the whole thing smells of entrapment. The impeachment drive" -- Doctorow shifted upward the metaphorical gears -- had "all the legitimacy of a coup d'état."
"Who started this coup d'état?" asked Rep. Nadler a few minutes later. "Who paid for it?" (Considerable applause.) "What was the role of the Arkansas Project, paid for by Richard Mellon Scaife?" Sen. Torricelli: "I will never vote to convict this man [Clinton]. Never. Never. Never. Mr. President, I ask you this. Do not resign!" Huge applause.
Steinem characterized Clinton as "the first president elected by woman voters" and defended feminists against the hypocrisy charge in the Paula Jones case, noting that "Paula Jones refused to see Patricia Ireland, and not the other way around," and calling for "an end of the humiliation of Clinton but also of Monica."
Alec Baldwin represented the Hamptons side of the president's base with a pleasingly unpolished talk that culminated in a crack at "the sociopaths that run the Republican Party." Kennedy Schlossberg, a surprise guest, read her speech gamely and was moving by virtue of her being there. Philosopher Thomas Nagel, author of a brilliant piece in a recent Times Literary Supplement, repeated his argument that there is no civilization without privacy, including the freedom to dissemble.
Novelist Mary Gordon likened Clinton to the hapless Billy Budd and the Republicans to phobics (a nice touch, speaking of those who affect opposition to the culture of victimhood), and struck a nerve with Yeats' frequently quoted but too infrequently felt declaration, written around the time of Henry Hyde's birth: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." The number of speakers expanded past elasticity, but there remained for two hours, in this crowd, a good-humored willingness to give each speaker the benefit of the doubt. They had, after all, taken the platform. At last.
N E X T+P A G E+| Why the inactivity of the activists?

PHOTOGRAPH: AP/WIDE-WORLD

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A L S O+T O D A Y Peace, the movie By Daryl Lindsey Clinton's three-day visit to the Middle East was full of symbols and photo ops, but precious little in the way of content (12/16/98) Here comes the judge By Jeff Stein Chief Justice William Rehnquist's writings on impeachment contain good news for President Clinton (12/16/98) [ IVORY TOWER ] God save the president? By Jackie Stevens An anti-impeachment gathering of New York's intellectual hotshots may not do much for the country, but at least it made them feel good about themselves (12/16/98) T A B L E+T A L K To impeach, or not to impeach: Debate the question in the Politics area of Table Talk ___________________ Bone up on impeachment at BarnesandNoble.com ___________________ R E C E N T L Y City of self-hate By Greg Critser Why Los Angeles elites love being bashed by Mike Davis (12/15/98) A kinder, gentler lynch mob By Gary Kamiya The GOP confirms the most brain-dead radical stereotypes from the '60s (12/15/98) Off the cliff? By Harry Jaffe The White House tries lobbying, "scorched-earth" threats and one more speech to sway fence-sitting Republicans (12/11/98) Clinton's real crime By Mollie Dickenson The president's cagey testimony in the Paula Jones case shows he's guilty of sexual selfishness, but not perjury (12/11/98) "Real America?" By Joan Walsh Alan Dershowitz blasts Clinton critic Rep. Bob Barr for a speech to white supremacists (12/11/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		The whole world is watching -- again LEFT-WING LITERATI TURN OUT TO BLOCK IMPEACHMENT, BUT IS IT TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE? BY TODD GITLIN Princeton historian Sean Wilentz left Washington after testifying against impeachment -- unavailingly -- before the House Judiciary Committee last week, convinced something more had to be done. And within 72 hours, there he was, onstage at New York University Law School's Tishman Auditorium, with Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, Jessye Norman, Elie Wiesel, Mary Gordon, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Alec Baldwin, telling some 800 people present that something very important was at stake for the nation in President Clinton's fight for political life. Wilentz, red-haired and equivalently insouciant, won a slap from the New York Times for warning pro-impeachment Congress members, "History will track you down and condemn you for your cravenness." But a few days later the New York Times was publicizing the NYU event he thought up with a restive friend, New York writer Paul Berman, who talked to another restive friend, New Yorker film critic David Denby. Then NYU law professor Stephen Holmes was enlisted, and their phones started buzzing over the weekend, and electronic circuits got humming. And the next thing anyone knew, all the seats of the law school auditorium were filled Monday night at 7:30, and so was a spillover room of equal size equipped with two TV monitors, and the satellite uplinks were posted on the street outside, and the doors of the law school had to close to latecomers. The crowd was mannerly, groomed, heavily white, middle class and cross-generational, though skewing toward the middle-aged. Some were in suits, some in white collars, hardly any in jeans or with metal piercings evident. Undergraduates were few. This was 1998, not 1968, and not a few in the audience knew the difference viscerally. For some moments throughout the evening, much of the crowd was combative and, at least in undercurrents, celebratory, too. "Are we glad we're here, or what?" asked Gloria Steinem. The sense of emergency was palpable. So was the sense of relief, that at long last like-minded people were rallying. At a time when national moralism has come off the leash, cautions in biblical cadences were welcome. Wiesel, an infrequent visitor to public displays of indignation on American national themes, uttered a line many protesters took to heart: "Who shall judge the judges?" Doctorow distinguished between Reagan lies and Clinton lies, proposing that "perhaps the problem with President Clinton's lies is that they lacked grandeur ... Speak of perjury, if you will, but to me the whole thing smells of entrapment. The impeachment drive" -- Doctorow shifted upward the metaphorical gears -- had "all the legitimacy of a coup d'état." "Who started this coup d'état?" asked Rep. Nadler a few minutes later. "Who paid for it?" (Considerable applause.) "What was the role of the Arkansas Project, paid for by Richard Mellon Scaife?" Sen. Torricelli: "I will never vote to convict this man [Clinton]. Never. Never. Never. Mr. President, I ask you this. Do not resign!" Huge applause. Steinem characterized Clinton as "the first president elected by woman voters" and defended feminists against the hypocrisy charge in the Paula Jones case, noting that "Paula Jones refused to see Patricia Ireland, and not the other way around," and calling for "an end of the humiliation of Clinton but also of Monica." Alec Baldwin represented the Hamptons side of the president's base with a pleasingly unpolished talk that culminated in a crack at "the sociopaths that run the Republican Party." Kennedy Schlossberg, a surprise guest, read her speech gamely and was moving by virtue of her being there. Philosopher Thomas Nagel, author of a brilliant piece in a recent Times Literary Supplement, repeated his argument that there is no civilization without privacy, including the freedom to dissemble. Novelist Mary Gordon likened Clinton to the hapless Billy Budd and the Republicans to phobics (a nice touch, speaking of those who affect opposition to the culture of victimhood), and struck a nerve with Yeats' frequently quoted but too infrequently felt declaration, written around the time of Henry Hyde's birth: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." The number of speakers expanded past elasticity, but there remained for two hours, in this crowd, a good-humored willingness to give each speaker the benefit of the doubt. They had, after all, taken the platform. At last. N E X T+P A G E+\| Why the inactivity of the activists? PHOTOGRAPH: AP/WIDE-WORLD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.