Politics : Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004

by Hertzberg, Hendrik (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780143035534
• ISBN10: 0143035533
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-28
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

Imagine if the Rolling Stones were just now releasing its first greatest hits album, and you'll have some idea of how long overdue, and highly anticipated, Politics is. Here are Hendrik Hertzberg's most significant, hilarious, devastating and infuriating dispatches from the American scene - a scene he has chronicled for four decades with an uncanny blend of moral seriousness, high spirits, and perfect rhetorical pitch. Politics is at once the story of American life from LBJ to GWB and a testament to the power of the written word in the right hands. In those hands, everything seems like politics, and politics has never seemed more interesting.Hertzberg breaks down American politics into component parts - campaigns, debates, rhetoric, the media, wars (cultural, countercultural, and real), high crimes and misdemeanors, the right, and more - and draws the choicest, most telling pieces from his body of work to illuminate each, beginning each section with a new piece of writing framing the subject at hand.

Author Biography

Hendrik Hertzberg has been a staff writer and editor at the New Yorker since 1992, and also in the early 1970s. He has also been a naval officer, a Newsweek reporter, President Jimmy Carter-'s chief speechwriter, and (twice) editor of the New Republic.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. XVII
Author's Note	p. XXV
Enough About the Sixties
The San Francisco Sound: New music, new subculture	p. 3
Weather Report: White Tornado: Lunacy on the Left	p. 19
Everywhere's Somewhere: John and Yoko come to New York	p. 27
Why the War Was Immoral: Looking back at Vietnam and anti-Vietnam	p. 32
You Had to Be There: What Woodstock was "like"	p. 39
Big Men
A Moral Ideologue: The character of Jimmy Carter	p. 45
The Child Monarch: Ronald Reagan's surprising presidency	p. 70
Scaling Mt. Kennedy: R.F.K.'s journey from fixer to martyrdom	p. 93
Speechifyin'
In Praise of Judson Welliver: Judson who?	p. 113
Wascally Woss: Perot's favorite fuzzy animal	p. 117
Speeding Ticket: Cicero goes Geraldo	p. 121
Two Speeches: J.F.K.'s Inaugural and Clinton's	p. 124
Big Talk: It's about addressing the mainstream	p. 127
Star-Spangled Banter: Can we please have a better national anthem?	p. 131
Talking Points: Behind the lines with Peggy Noonan	p. 134
The Word from W.: A shockingly good Inaugural Address	p. 140
Grinding Axis: The rhetorical uses of evil	p. 143
Judeo-Christians
Antidisestablishmentarianism: A Jaycee protests	p. 151
Vatican't: Instructions from Rome and Alabama	p. 154
Secular Sermon: The stakes in the Rushdie affair	p. 157
Two Little Words: One nation under God (stet)	p. 160
Dividends: Bush's preferential option for the rich	p. 163
A Campaign
Sluicegate '88: The journalistic stoning of Gary Hart	p. 169
Sporting News: Tarred by the Miami Herald's brush	p. 174
G.O.P. Follies: The Republicans debate	p. 177
Tuesday Night Patball: Republicans and Democrats, starring Tom Brokaw	p. 182
Monster from the Id: Politics as psychotherapy, from Gary Hart	p. 185
First Returns: Good morning, Iowa	p. 191
Dole's Charm: His masks of comedy and tragedy	p. 194
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Politician: Pat Robertson's Oedipus complex	p. 200
The Tortoise: Dukakis's slow, sure bid for the nomination	p. 208
Ivy Scoreboard: Which is more elitist, Harvard or Yale?	p. 215
Dynasties Old and New: Scenes from the Democratic Convention	p. 219
Front Man: The moral decline of the American ruling class	p. 222
Roboflop: Make that 999 points of light and one dim bulb	p. 227
And What if ... ? Debate three: the remix	p. 238
Aroma of Bull: Following the Bush campaign caravan	p. 242
Recriminations '88: Hell, I Dunno: Parceling out blame	p. 248
Foreigners
Poland's Revolution: The Proletariat--remember them?	p. 257
Le Changement: L'anticommunisme des Socialistes	p. 260
Death of a Patriot: Olof Palme, American	p. 263
Casualties of War: Oops, Russia got out of Afghanistan	p. 267
Democracia: The fall of the Berlin Wall as seen from Central America	p. 271
Civics, Nicaragua-Style: The Sandinistas blow it	p. 274
Non-Party Lines: Scenes from the Soviet twilight	p. 281
Team Player: "Observing" an election	p. 285
Gremlins and Goblins: The end of the Soviet Union	p. 289
The Kosovo Precinct: Police work in the Balkans	p. 292
A Tale of Two Cubas: Havana and Miami fight over Elian	p. 295
Wingers
McGovernist Conspiracies: The threat of ideological fluoridation	p. 303
Neoconfab: Debating whether Soviet power will still triumph	p. 305
Sweet and Sour: Wild and crazy Republicans in convention assembled	p. 308
Marxism: The Sequel: The dialectics of Newt Gingrich	p. 311
Cookie Monster: The Speaker as author	p. 315
Bad News for Bigots: The good news from Bob Jones University	p. 319
Sheer Helms: He preferred his racism straight up	p. 322
Can You Forgive Him?: A right-wing conspirator comes clean	p. 325
Rush in Rehab: Megadoses for megadittos	p. 334
The Wayward Media
Headline: The guy who wrote Ford to City: Drop Dead	p. 341
The Big Tune-Out: Whaddya mean, "no story"?	p. 345
Entertainment for Men: Which'll it be, Playboy or Penthouse?	p. 351
Cross Talk: An irritating anchorhabit	p. 354
Press Pass: Clinton awes the hacks	p. 357
Topless Tabloids of Gotham: Latest on Post-News slayfest!	p. 360
George Without Tears: What was John Kennedy's magazine all about?	p. 378
What's Up, Doc?: Dr. or Mr.?	p. 383
L'Affaire Blair: Fabulousness at the New York Times	p. 386
Radio Daze: Same thing on every station	p. 391
Wedge Issues
Big Boobs: The good parts of the Meese porn report	p. 397
Burning Question: Whom does capital punishment punish?	p. 407
Federal Death: Gallows to gurney	p. 410
Wounds of Race: The bitter truths behind affirmative action	p. 413
Flagellation: Flag burning? Can't be done	p. 418
Gore's Greatest Bong Hits: The dopey drug war	p. 422
Labor's China Syndrome: The problem is, unions are illegal	p. 426
Cops and Wallets: Have faith in Bruce, please, Officers	p. 429
Unnatural Law: Taking sodomy private	p. 432
Northern Light: O Canada	p. 435
High Crimes
Dean's First Day: The Senate Watergate hearings get under way	p. 443
Tower Play: Capitol Hill prissiness claims a Republican sinner	p. 447
What a Whopper: Clarence Thomas's lies about lying	p. 451
Tales of the Tapes: Nixon had the right idea	p. 454
What It's About: Evidently not the opposite of sex	p. 458
Ghosts in the Machine
Let's Get Representative: How to make Congress democratic	p. 465
Twelve Is Enough: A simple cure for chronic incumbency	p. 474
Boom Vox: The screeching, deafening voice of "the people"	p. 481
Idea Woman: The actual, and excellent, thoughts of Lani Guinier	p. 484
Filibuster I: Catch-XXII: The Senate rule that killed health care ...	p. 488
Filibuster II: Filibusted: ... and how and why it should be killed, too	p. 491
The Case for Proportional Representation: Why voting is almost never a political act in the U.S.	p. 495
Letter from New Hampshire: This Must Be the Place: Somebody has to decide who'll be president, right?	p. 508
The Lesson of Red Ken: The real novelty of London's mayoral election	p. 516
Best Picture: Why good movies get nominated and bad ones get Oscars	p. 519
Framed Up: What the Constitution gets wrong	p. 522
Yuppies and Other Leftovers
The Education of Mr. Smith: The morality of pragmatism	p. 535
All the Fine Young Kennedys: Caroline and John, among others	p. 543
Moby-Rick: In quest of Leviathan	p. 546
The Short Happy Life of the American Yuppie: The rise and fall of a cultural archetype	p. 549
Book Him: Bill Clinton and other presidential memoirists	p. 563
2000 + 9/11
Five Percenter: Why it was right to keep Nader out of the debates	p. 575
Both Sides Now: Clinton versus Clinton	p. 578
They've Got Personality: What are the candidates "about"?	p. 581
College High Jinks: What if the loser wins?	p. 586
All Perfectly Legal: Bush becomes president-appoint	p. 589
Eppur Si Muove: Gore and Galileo	p. 592
Advice and Consent: The case for obstructionism	p. 595
Generous George: Bush disguises an agenda of greed	p. 598
Defense Mechanisms: The obsession with missile defense	p. 601
Tuesday, and After: The reality of horror and the metaphor of war	p. 604
Stimulation: Squandering 9/11's only gift	p. 607
Differences: A success that's too conventional for comfort	p. 610
Recounted Out: An election result no longer in doubt	p. 613
Mine Shaft: Lessons of the Quecreek Nine	p. 616
Manifesto: A dismal, ignoble vision of "national security"	p. 619
2000 and Two: The unmet challenge of that undemocratic election	p. 624
Too Much Information: Information awareness that's, like, total	p. 627
Blixkrieg: The unilateral rush to war in Iraq	p. 631
Attack Anxiety: How did it come to this?	p. 634
Collateral Damage: Things hidden in the fog of war	p. 639
Building Nations: What's sauce for Iraq ...	p. 642
Unsteady State: Earth to Bush: Bush to Mars	p. 645
Acknowledgments	p. 649
Index	p. 653
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