Something good seems to have come out of the unfortunate episode earlier this month when, at a Capitol Hill bar, Sen. Rand Paul’s son William blew up at Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.
William Paul, Rand’s son, supports incumbent Thomas Massie, a fellow Kentuckian who shares Rand’s libertarian and noninterventionist views. Massie is therefore despised by President Trump, who backed Ed Gallrein, Massie’s successful challenger in the GOP primary. If Massie were to be defeated, Rand Paul fils said he will hold Lawler and other non-MAGA Republicans he dislikes responsible, including Jews and gays, whom he said he “hates.”
William, who admits he was drunk at the time, has apologized, saying he is seeking help with this drinking, and for that, everyone should wish him well, Jews and gays included. Democrats, too, of course.
What might be most regrettable about this appalling incident is that it has brought unsought publicity to the Tune Inn, where it happened. Since 1947, the Tune Inn has been for decades a dingy—at least in my day—and much-loved watering hole for congressional staffers, their bosses, journalists, influence peddlers of one sort of another, and generations of unemployable but opinionated philosophes.
The Tune Inn says it is proud to “hold the second-oldest liquor license in DC after the repeal of Prohibition,” but even Prohibition didn’t much cramp its style. Back in the 1920s, well before the current owners got involved, a speakeasy operated here. (The first liquor license was probably snatched up by the Old Ebbitt Grill, up near the White House, but that is a question for historians. Gordon Wood or Joe Ellis might know, so next time you attend one of their lectures, raise your hand and ask.)
The concern here is that the Trump administration will discover the place and—with its expansive view of presidential power—take it over, possibly rename it, and most definitely renovate the interior. That of course would mean more profits for Home Depot, where there’s no shortage of gold spray paint, and more work for what the President has called his Mar-a-Lago “gold guy.”
Rumors that said Mar-a-Lago “gold guy” is ’80s TV sensation Mr. T. remain unconfirmed.
The third edition of Gary Wasserman’s Politics in Action: Cases From the Frontline of American Government has been published, and if political science professors across the country aren’t using it in their classrooms, more’s the pity.
“The emphasis is on storytelling,” Wasserman writes, and over 15 chapters he presents succinct but “in-depth” cases designed to stimulate class discussions, drawn from the whole sweep of American political history. Such fact-based discussions are important, he says, given “the distractions of modern media.” There is a problem, apparently, with students bringing their smartphones to class, though Wasserman is too much of a gentleman to put the matter so directly.
Most of the cases “illustrate the rise of the American Right,” which Wasserman views with alarm, but brings a judicious understanding to his alarm. Trump, he writes, is “the inheritor of the emergence of conservative groups and opinion rather than a creator of it.” He’s a beneficiary of deeper changes in the American electorate, and not a cause.
For all his learning, Wasserman is by no means a stuffy academic. He has taught at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, including Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar, and Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Nanjing, China. But he has also been a political consultant in Washington, which means he brings real-world experience to the classroom as well as book larnin’.
His greatest claim to fame, though he might deny it, is to have established in the early 1980s, a DC-based magazine called Mole. Though Mole survived for only three issues, it published racy satire and salacious gossip, which might be why it survived for only three issues. An early benefactor was Larry Flynt, the mastermind behind Hustler, who was at that time either institutionalized or incarcerated, but still able to make a small financial contribution and offer editorial advice.
As a graduate student at Oxford, Wasserman enjoyed Private Eye and Le Canard Enchaîné and wished to start something comparable back here in the states and did so stupendously, though not of course for long.
A house ad in the premier issue asking, “What Sort of Man Doesn’t Read Mole?” was illustrated with photos of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Barry Manilow. “He’s powerful, he’s rich, and he’s brought misery to millions,” it read. “Even with hordes of slavish followers, he seldom gets a laugh. If you like his type, you probably won’t like Mole.” Manilow, who was not amused, threatened to sue. The page labeled “Editorial: A Declaration of Principles” was left blank, except at the bottom where, in much smaller type, it read: “This space available for advertising.”
Nicholas Von Hoffman contributed a piece about sex scandals called “Uncle Sam Wants You Tonight,” and Art Levine and Sheila Kaplan, writing as Mel Slotkin, offered tips on “How to Pick Up Feminists.” (Lecherous males were urged to try this line, referring to the chanteuse who sang “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”: “Don’t you think that if Helen Reddy had been a man, she’d have won the Nobel Prize?”)
Mole was an equal-opportunity abuser. Issue #1 also included a spoof of the leading liberal magazine of the day, which it called the New Repulsive, and a tabloid Kennedy World, wherein “Joan and Ted Beg Ghost of JFK: ‘Bless Our Love Match.’”
Resourceful students fortunate to be assigned Wasserman’s textbook are encouraged to do more than the minimum, to dig deep and maybe get extra credit. They should read the cases, yes, but not stop there. They can study Chapter 11, which deals with Democrats’ frustrating attempts to address climate change, and then look in Mole for just what they were up against.
There they’ll find a spoof of the “op-ads” that Mobil Oil would place in the opinion pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other respectable newspapers. This one from Mobil laments the fact that American political discourse, “long dominated by liberal pedants,” would
have us believe that the sun is good, while oil is bad. Unthinkingly, we praise one person’s disposition as ‘sunny,’ while deriding another’s appearance as ‘oily’ or ‘greasy.’ This bias has extended in recent years to shrill nay-sayers, sun-worshippers who tout the alleged advantages of this alien energy source.
There is of course
a place for the sun in your life. In poetry, in songs, at the beach. For dreamers like Icarus. But in the real business of living, ever seeping between reality’s nuts and bolts, there is oil.
The genius behind this and countless other sardonic observations is someone young people today can learn from. Professors, take note!
Yes, gas prices are going up and have been for weeks, which is another upside of our war with Iran. Americans will either be paying more or driving less—and coasting downhill whenever possible, as our president recommends.
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Being antiwar is great, but who ever thinks about the fact that more people are killed in car crashes than in all the wars this country has ever fought? And for what purpose? Does getting in a wreck prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?
“Driving a car or being a passenger in a car is by far the most dangerous thing that most of us do,” says the coauthor of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile. Her name—not making this up—is Goodyear.
We’re all lazily reluctant pedestrians these days, expecting to be driven everywhere, which contributes to a national epidemic of obesity. Rising gas prices gives us the opportunity to reconsider what an “environmental psychologist” calls our lamentable motonormativity. His name—not making this up, either—is Walker.
