What the Writers Saw
To tell the truth, we don’t know anyone, either. Do you?
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The Sun-Times editorial page spoke of “halting the plunge of political discourse in this country into anything-goes venality and mendacity.” George Will spoke of a city, Washington, “becoming increasingly carnivorous as it becomes decreasingly serious about governance.” The Tribune’s William Neikirk explained that “the ugly, tawdry nature of Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing flows from an increasingly polluted American political stream that thrives on scandal and personal attack and diverts attention from pressing national problems.” Russell Baker observed that “Washington is having a nervous breakdown. It has been coming for a long time. The hysteria about the Thomas nomination is not the cause of it, just the final bursting of the dam when all restraints collapse and howling replaces civil discourse, telling us something is terribly wrong.”
Over at the Sun-Times the sharp liberal columnist Carole Ashkinaze also was troubled by the timing. “Those who say this looks like a last-ditch attempt to sandbag Thomas have a point,” she wrote. “If so, it threatens to backfire, and the senators may as well go ahead and vote. There are plenty of other grounds for rejecting Thomas, if they wish.”
Abutting Safire’s column was another by Anthony Lewis, who said “It is obvious that the Republicans are out to destroy Anita Hill, right or wrong.” To Lewis, “Specter has acted as the hatchet man, coming on like a mean small-town prosecutor. He found sinister meaning everywhere.”
It’s Striking Time Again
Both sides are preparing for a strike that neither, in its heart, probably expects. The other day we talked to a local free-lance writer who’d been offered a $1,000-a-week reporting job at the Sun-Times if the Guild went out.
