Caveat lector

JACOB SKIS! As Weisberg skis New Hampshire’s grooved trails, he ponders pastels and long lashes:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004

SKIING THOSE SLICK, GROOVED TRAILS: For students of the corps’ Millionaire Pundit Values, Slate is the web site that just keeps on giving. Last spring, the Post-of-the-west gave us Margaret Carlson’s secret diaries—an inside peak at the corps’ inner values. This week, the mag presents its own Jacob Weisberg, glissading his way through New Hampshire.

How empty is the insider press? Be sure to read each of Weisberg’s installments. We struggled when we first found them yesterday, suspecting they were parody. They are not.

Poor Weisberg! During previous Granite State primaries, he was forced to enjoy his beloved cross-country skiing only “surreptitiously.” This time, though, the scribe is in charge, and he’s planned a more leisurely week. “This time, with others doing the serious coverage for Slate, I’m mixing skiing and politics openly,” he writes, “partly in the spirit of multitasking and partly just to see if anything interesting happens when you bring these two unrelated activities into juxtaposition.” Weisberg fails to say just who at Slate is providing the “serious” coverage he describes (note below). But soon, we see Weisberg as he plays country gentleman; he enjoys a long, thoughtful schuss through the woods, engaged in some brilliant discussion. He glides along with David Plotz, a writer now on leave from Slate. “The definition of a good sport, David drove all the way from Hampton on the seacoast to freeze his ass off keeping me company,” Weisberg writes. “As we propelled ourselves along the slick, grooved tracks, we talked politics.” Readers, “slick” and “grooved” would be our words too! Let’s recall that this isn’t a parody as Jake lets us in on the chatter:

WEISBERG: David’s view of the race is that each party has an entrenched base of 43 percent or 45 percent that is largely unconvertible. The election will be decided by the 10 percent-15 percent of voters in the swayable middle. Given that reality, it would be insane for the Democrats to nominate Howard Dean, who is unlikely to win swing voters over with centrist positions or an easygoing personality, neither of which he has.

WEISBERG: The others still standing after Iowa—Clark, Edwards, Kerry, and Lieberman—all make plausible claims that they can capture the crucial votes in the middle. Clark’s argument is his military background. Having seen the general up here a few times, David confirms my impression of yesterday that Clark’s performances have improved to an amazing degree. But David sees Naomi Wolf-type issues. He thinks Clark is too pretty and feminine-looking to win. Herringboning up a very tall and cold hill, I told David he was crazy to think Clark couldn’t beat Bush because his eyelashes are too long. But I must admit, it’s a novel complaint.

What about Lieberman’s campaign, for example? “Why hasn’t the candidate with the most centrist profile and record been more of a factor?” Our country gentleman sought out the answer. “After lunch at a restaurant with picture windows overlooking the trailhead and a soak in the tub back at the Centennial Inn,” he confides, “I headed off to the Red Blazer Restaurant in Concord to try to find out.” And sure enough, “Lieberman’s rallies are quite different from Clark’s.” After slamming the food at the Lieberman rally, our herring-boned harrier types this:

WEISBERG: And dress. Like Clark, Lieberman wears a green sweater. But where Wes’ evergreen model strikes a flinty New England note, Joe’s is a pastel cashmere number that shouts, “I have been neutered!”

Believe it or not, all these excerpts all come from one entry—Weisberg’s Tuesday rumination. Because we happened to read the Tuesday piece first, you can see why we thought that we must be reading a satire. But no. Weisberg’s class—like all leisure classes—is addicted to its tired old twaddle. For example, this predictable piece of palaver opened the Tuesday report:

WEISBERG: The news from Iowa brings us back to the Democratic race of a year ago…Dean is on the way back to long-shot status. When the history of the campaign is written, I predict the Vermont governor’s unstoppable erosion will be dated from the moment Al Gore endorsed him. That man has a political black thumb.

Good God! What in the world has become of Jake Weisberg? As he glissades on the Granite State’s trails, his thoughts still turn to Naomi Wolf, and he still offers dumb, scripted shots about Gore. His judgments are based on pastels and long lashes. But then, the leisure class has always been empty, and Weisberg—four years into retyping Bush quotes—gives the rest of us cause to shudder as we think of who’s writing our history.

SWEATER BOYS: Just who is providing Slate’s “serious coverage?” In the first three days of his diary, Weisberg links to one Slate report from New Hampshire. It’s a Chris Suellentrop article written last week. Suellentrop spent his entire report describing Clark buying a sweater.

TOMORROW: Slate critiques the Globe on Kerry. And Slate recalls Campaign 2000.

HOWLER HISTORY: Now we know that he chafed and burned, kept from the slopes during Campaign 2000. Perhaps that explains his oddest effort from that campaign—Weisberg’s influential real-time review of the first Gore-Bradley debate. The forum was held at Dartmouth College on October 27, 1999. In Slate, Weisberg penned a puzzling description of Gore—an odd description which would soon provide the corps with a pleasing Standard Script:

WEISBERG: Gore arrived on stage like some sort of feral animal who had been locked in a small cage and fed on nothing but focus groups for several days. Upon release, he began to scamper furiously in every direction at once. Assuming his stool 20 minutes before showtime, he volunteered to take extra questions from the audience. At the end of the hour-long non-debate, he promised to stay and answer even more. As of this writing (10:30 p.m.) he’s still at it, sitting on the edge of the stage with his wife, talking about human rights in Africa and offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico with a few dozen New Hampshireites.

WEISBERG: Gore came across as a kind of manic political vaudevillian. He oozed empathy from every pore, getting all over every questioner like a cheap suit. First he would ask the person about his circumstances, his family, or his job, in a desperate effort to bond. Then he would respond with an explosion of gesticulation, sympathy and agreement...

Several things were startling about this portrait. First, we simply defy you to read Weisberg’s piece after watching the actual tape of this forum. In fact, press reports the following day stressed how “relaxed” Gore and Bradley had seemed (links below). But by the weekend, pundits were getting their story together; many pundits began reciting Weisberg’s odd account of Gore’s “manic” behavior. Again: We defy you to watch this event on tape, then read this puzzling description.

Yes, Weisberg’s description of this event is quite hard to square with reality. And no, we can’t get inside Weisberg’s head. But we can report what Jake left unsaid. Let’s recall the “feral” conduct our fine fellow knew to ignore.

By the time of this event, there was little doubt—the Washington press corps was stalking Gore and heavily pimping for Bradley. A few months later, Mickey Kaus arrived in New Hampshire; he was “startled” by what he found on the ground, Kaus reported. “They hate Gore,” he wrote of the press (Kaus’ emphasis). “They really do think he’s a liar. And a phony.” But that hatred had clearly been in place when Weisberg typed his October portrait. Which takes us back to the “feral” conduct the scribe knew enough to ignore.

Yes, this was the same Dartmouth debate where 300 journalists sat in the press room and “groaned, howled and laughed almost every time Al Gore said something.” This astonishing conduct was later described by three major journalists who had been in the hall. But Weisberg belongs to a corrupt leisure class, and he knew not to say what his colleagues had done. Instead, he typed a bizarr-o account of their target’s behavior—and kept the secret of his colleagues’ misconduct. Today, he still glides along his cohort’s grooved paths, chatting about pastels and eyelashes. Enjoying the leisure he richly deserves, he just can’t stop citing Naomi Wolf.

VISIT OUR INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: We don’t seem to have posted a full account of this remarkable press event. But partial accounts are available. In April 2000, we wrote an account of this debate for Capital Style magazine. You know what to do—just click here. For a real-time account of Weisberg’s odd piece, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/4/99. To read about the “feral” behavior he ignored in his colleagues, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/18/02. One last reminder: To see what an empty ski suit one scribe has become, just read this week’s laughable diary.

Yes, this is your recent history. Americans badly need to understand it.