Posted on 03/06/2002 4:03:02 PM PST by vannrox
There is a chance that you remember a good deal of talk about a "new seriousness" in the American culture, to follow the grim and sobering events of last September. The two symptoms of this were alleged to be, first, an increase in church attendance and, second, a greater willingness on the part of the public to read long and solemn articles and watch high-minded and informative television shows. Well, the spike in Sunday observance was, I am glad to say, shortlived. On the other hand, the Nation magazine, for which I have the honour to be a columnist, reports an increase in circulation of 30,000.
In the broader culture, however, it is business as usual and then some. At the ABC television network, whose ultimate owner is the Disney Corporation, a decision has evidently been taken to replace Nightline, the egghead's late-night chat show, with a comedy/variety programme.
The two "names" involved here are Ted Koppel, who has fronted Nightline for the 20-odd years since it made its name during the Iranian hostage crisis, and David Letterman, king of comedy in New York City and beyond. Disney wants Letterman, and this victory for the entertainment division over the news department was conveyed to the Koppel team more or less through the newspapers.
"Can we be funny?" the hosts of Saturday Night Live asked Rudy Giuliani when they nervously invited him on to the set a few nights after the immolation of the World Trade Centre. "Why start now?" was his mordant reply and, with that, frivolity resumed her reign.
Koppel, whose 2000 book, Off Camera, predicted an anthrax attack on the US, is not what the Disney demographers have in mind to attract the younger viewer. Even if there were another anthrax or suicide attack tonight, this commercial logic would not change.
Not all the head-shaking about this is justified. Nightline was chiefly a megaphone for the most establishment pundits and "terrorism expert" pseudo-academics. Koppel - whose annual salary is $8m (£5.6m) - is under the impression that Henry Kissinger is an impartial source and once said that he'd be happy to serve him in government if he ever came back to power. An incredibly narrow range of opinion, all the way from right to centre-right, was canvassed on the show. (Mind you, it did make efforts to respond to this criticism. Once, rather late in December, I was invited on by a very solemn-sounding voice to discuss the grave issue of homelessness in America. Glancing at the calendar I replied: "My god, it can't be Christmas already.")
And, just as the supermarket tabloids are often better sources of news than the so-called "serious" press - most of the Clinton scandals were disclosed to us by these means - so the entertainment divisions are often more informative than the half-baked thinktankery that passes for upscale TV.
A few years ago an episode of Miami Vice, guest starring the Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy, was so accurate in its portrayal of a covert US gun-running operation to Central America that the FBI turned up on the set to ask who knew what. The script had inadvertently stumbled on a version of the Iran-contra scandal; a major story that the news division, along with the rest of the mainstream media, had completely failed to cover, or do I mean to uncover?
Justice is just too expensive
Very quietly, the Bush administration is moving to subvert the work of the International Criminal Court. Though it supported and even demanded the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, it now says that the cost of such trials is too high. The financial cost, I mean: while billions are being allotted to elaborate schemes of "homeland defence" and "counter-terrorism", the expense of justice is deemed prohibitive.
We don't know the cost of the Camp X-Ray facility at Guantanamo Bay, but it can't be cheap, and the whole legal and moral embarrassment of that could have been avoided if there were an international body, recognised by the US, before which those who commit crimes against humanity could be brought.
Now we learn that, though the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power has already been taken (and will probably be implemented this year), there is no intention, at least on the part of Washington, of putting Saddam himself on trial.
It's not absolutely clear how to interpret this. Some people in the administration more or less confirm, in private, that he's not expected to survive his removal. But this can only be known in advance if it has, so to speak, been decided in advance. And even then, what if he escapes to another country and asks for asylum? There will be no legal framework with which to pursue him.
Meanwhile, the US continues to shelter its own war criminal in the shape of Henry Kissinger. But the atmosphere around him continues to grow thinner. He has just had an exceedingly rough reception in Cork and Dublin, with vigorous protests at his appearances and newspaper demands for his arrest. And his visit to Brazil, scheduled for next week, has been cancelled. The Brazilian ambassador in Washington confirmed to a colleague of mine that this followed representations from the Brazilian government. There have been calls for his detention there, too. London, to its shame, seems to be one of the few capital cities that this creature can visit with impunity.
The mean spirit of Lord Elgin lives on
Those who have seen the movie Nashville will remember that its closing scene takes place at the Parthenon. This is because Nashville is the only city on earth that boasts a replica of the world's most famous and beautiful building. Originally constructed for the Tennessee centennial and international exposition in 1897, it was so popular that the city made it permanent.
On its centenary in 1997, it was decided to enhance the building by adding a cast of the entire Parthenon frieze. This would have made the Tennessee version somewhat superior to the Athenian one, because as you may have read, Lord Elgin ripped about half the original frieze away from the building and carried it off to England some years ago.
The permission and cooperation of the British Museum was required for the project, and seemed to be forthcoming. However, an estimate of the cost has now been presented to Nashville, and turns out to be double what had been projected. One of my informants in the city tells me what is suspected in some circles: the British Museum, currently refusing even a loan of the sculptures to the Athens Olympics in 2004, does not want anybody to see what the frieze would look like if, at long last, it was ever restored to the unity in which it was originally carved. Nobody who saw the marbles reunited would ever dream of wishing to see them amputated again, or for a moment longer.
This meanness of spirit also makes London the world capital of philistinism, grudging and provincial compared to Nashville.
· Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
YOU must be Joking!
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But his hypocirsy apperent and his true colors fly for all in his support of the trial against Milosevic. Here is a man who has been denied every sort of normal western right to defend himself and yet Hitchens howls for his conviction! And yet this same, left wing conscious, trumpets every tiny mis-step in procedure for murderers on Death Row in this country. The man is a fraud.
There are 15,692 books that sold better than Koppel's. I guess the public wasn't ready for his private thoughts.
"A hit, a palpable hit."
Kissinger is right wing?
Ye gad!
Whoops, Chrissy! Sorry, that was me. Ran out of Charmin and the cheap paper they print that rag on feels almost nice against 'me bum. Even if the writing's not quite as good.
Keep Speaking Truth to Power, rummy.
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