The American Spectator

Enemy of the Week

A picture is worth a thousand enemies -- and there might be that many in the picture. It's in yesterday's New York Times, a big spread featuring a morning-after unity embrace in Detroit between defeated, disgraced and finished off Rep. David Bonior and Jennifer Granholm, the woman who gingriched him on Tuesday night in Michigan's Democratic gubernatorial primary. His looks and smarts proved no match for hers -- how soon before she's compared to a younger version of Ann Richards, Jane Byrne, and Geraldine Ferraro? -- and they didn't exactly get along before V-Day. But now it's love, seconded by 998 Dems, all standing, gawking, and applauding in proudest politburo fashion behind them. Sen. Carl Levin is clapping extra hard in the snap, as is Terry McAuliffe, his eyes darting around the room in search of new investment opportunities. And mind you this was only at breakfast. The politburo pyrotechnics were expected to last through lunch and dinner -- perhaps until Devil's Night.

Unless of course someone compares Ms. Granholm to a younger version of Ms. Rodham Clinton. After that, all bets are off, so hold on to your lamps.

Or chandeliers, as the case may actually be. Dems that matter are still reveling in the performance New York's senatress put on at the Manhattan Palace of Congresses for the DLC's central committee last week. Joe Klein, no longer having to wish he was in love again, noted her "lighter, folksier manner." Her "political deftness and ease of delivery" in fact "were not the most impressive things about the Senator's turn." It's that she "winged" her remarks, like the angel some of us know her to be.

One unfortunate problem: Remember all those odd comparisons of Hillary to Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Well don't accuse us of making this up. Nurse Hillary, it appears, felt called upon to impress on the DLC her deep love for America's fighting men. Or as she described "folksier" words: "It was nice being back in Air Force One talking to the president about the soldiers that I'm proud to represent." Next thing you know she was bragging about going out to Walter Reed to visit with the injured and wounded: "So I went out to see them late one night after the Senate was done and went room to room talking to them and asking them how they were." What reader would not have wanted to be a fly on the hospital wall that late night -- though right-wing rumor has it that she's pretty good with a swatter as well.

Back in the real world, Oakland, California's version of David Bonior has gotten the lead out of a slow legislative session to concoct the ultimate budget balancer. State Sen. Don Perata has proposed a five-cent-a-bullet sales tax. If it passes, deer hunters will be reduced to BB guns. If Machine Gun Kelly were alive, he would have to settle for a more affordable nickname. Perata says his real goal is to raise funds to treat gunshot wounds, saying taxpayers should not be "footing the bill." At this rate, though, they won't be able to shoot themselves in the foot, either.

In a more conscientious use of public monies, the U.S. Agency for International Development is funding the renovation of a Palestinian high school named after a terrorist who blew up 37 people in 1978. Since the killer in question was a woman, enlightened opinion reveres her as a pioneering force who opened doors for a whole new generation of women terrorists that today enjoy rights and career choices unheard of under the old PLO patriarchy.

In San Marino, California, Bill Clinton's old Indonesian environmental contacts pay off. Amorphophallus titanum, Sumatra's state flower, has gone into bloom at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. According to the BBC News world edition, which took full advantage of the British knack of keeping one's distance, the exotic flower is the smelliest in the world, its "rancid fish odour" and other noxious fumes deadly even at 20 paces. Aficionados in England have likened the fragrance to excrement and rotting flesh. So next time you hear some do-gooder insist one needs to take time to smell the flowers, have FTD send him a special arrangement from Sumatra.

The headline on Drudge said it all: "Exhausted Britney 'wants to quit music.'" And here we didn't know she had anything to do with what generally regarded as music. From our perspective, it's good if she quits because we'd hate to see her get started. Besides, our musical taste run much deeper, are much heavier, and require lots of visible sweating and loud breathing. We were all set to pay 75 bucks a pop for a set for Boss tickets, when someone named Bruce Springsteen gave them to us for free. Then we learned that a longtime pair of rock groupies named Al and Tipper had just the opposite experience. What a bunch of losers. They probably swallowed the wrong drugs too. It's not really Tipper's fault, okay. But Al should know better. Everyone's dissing him like mad these days. For once, but only this once, Enemy Central will pile on. He's runaway EOW, even if that means dispensing with an awards ceremony. Word on the street is that he's still using the Amorphophallus titanum aftershave his ex-friend Bill once gave him.

topics:
Bill Clinton, Environment, NATO