A Chump on the Stump Donald Trump Pretends to Run for President
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Chump upc REVISE 8/20/01 3:27 PM Page 1 TURALWYERS BORN NA LA J. BUDZISZEWSKI AA ChumpChump onon thethe StumpStump Donald Trump Pretends to Run for President BY MATT LABASHABASH DECEMBER 20, 1999 • $3.95 Log Cabin Blues BY TUCKER CARLSON McCarthy and His Historians BY ROBERT D. NOVAK Iss14/Dec 20 TOC2 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 1 Contents December 20, 1999 • Volume 5, Number 14 2 Scrapbook . Forbes’s faxes, Love Canal Al, and more. 6 Correspondence . on Bush’s smile, the Clintons, etc. 4 Casual . J. Bottum, Christmas shopper. 7 Editorial . Mindlessness about Homelessness Articles 19 Reagan, McCain, and Sam McGee The unlikely revival of Robert Service, presidential poet. BY ANDREW FERGUSON 11 Log Cabin Blues Bush, McCain, and the controversy over gay Republicans.. BY TUCKER CARLSON 13 The Importance of Beating Hillary The New York Senate contest may eclipse the presidential race. BY JOHN PODHORETZ 15 White Candidates Seek Black Voters Bradley tries to narrow Gore’s lead among African Americans. BY MATTHEW REES 18 Ethnic Cleansing, Russian Style This isn’t the first time Moscow has targeted Chechens. BY ANNE APPLEBAUM 20 The Unpardonable Leonard Peltier Why the Left wants to release the murderer of two FBI agents. BY MARK TOOLEY Features 22 A Chump on the Stump Donald Trump pretends to run for president. BY MATT LABASH 27 Appeasing North Korea The Clinton administration strengthens a very dangerous tyranny. BY WILLIAM R. HAWKINS AP/Wide World Photos Books & Arts 31 Natural Born Lawyers Why natural law theory is staging a comeback. BY J. BUDZISZEWSKI 35 McCarthy’s Historian Tailgunner Joe, retried at the bar of history. BY ROBERT D. NOVAK 37 King of the Hill Stephen King is more serious than you think—and more conservative, too.. BY JONATHAN V. L AST 40 Parody . The newest college entrance exam. William Kristol, Editor and Publisher Fred Barnes, Executive Editor David Tell, Opinion Editor David Brooks, Andrew Ferguson, Senior Editors Richard Starr, Claudia Winkler, Managing Editors J. Bottum, Books & Arts Editor Christopher Caldwell, Senior Writer Victorino Matus, David Skinner, Associate Editors Tucker Carlson, Matt Labash, Matthew Rees, Staff Writers Kent Bain, Art Director Katherine Rybak, Assistant Art Director Jonathan V. Last, Reporter Lee Bockhorn, Editorial Assistant John J. DiIulio Jr., Joseph Epstein, David Frum, David Gelernter, Brit Hume, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, P. J. O’Rourke, John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Contributing Editors David H. Bass, Deputy Publisher Polly Coreth, Jennifer Felten, Business Managers Nicholas H.B. Swezey, Advertising & Marketing Manager John L. Mackall, Advertising Sales Manager Lauren C. 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THE WEEKLY STANDARD is a trademark of News America Incorporated. www.weeklystandard.com Iss14/Dec20 casual 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 1 extra $1.43 to buy my older sister the metal stands instead of the plastic to Casual hold her dolls, it was at the well- understood cost of getting the plastic SPENDING CHRISTMAS tea set instead of the china for my younger sister. If I bought the Irish handkerchiefs for my grandfather, it was at the heartbreaking expense of hat fades in memory is A children’s toy catalogue came in the potholders for my mother. Very not the fact, but the the mail the other day—or rather, an little in my life has ever been judged feeling. I can call up adults’ toy catalogue, filled with the as carefully; and yet, even now, I’m every detail of those opportunity for grown-ups to buy at not convinced that I shouldn’t have WChristmases of my childhood. A cold outrageous prices the toys of their gone with the taffy for Aunt Helen sparrow peering out across the lawn childhood: Sting Ray bicycles with and saved the money the chocolates from under the snow-covered lilac banana seats, slinkies, pogo sticks, cap cost to buy my grandmother the larg- hedge, while I sat at the window, wait- guns, and the kind of open-springed, er size of glass ornament. ing for my parents to wake. My father bouncing nursery horses no liability- When I was 8, I decided that what cocking his head to the side to con- conscious manufacturer would dare my 9-year-old sister really needed was centrate on cutting out the sections of offer children anymore. Just hearing the savings bank I found on the dis- a grapefruit for breakfast. The heft of the names of those desperately hoped- count counter of a junk store, carved the Swiss Army knife from Uncle for toys is like listening to an ancient, from a coconut shell in the shape of a Howard, smuggled in the pocket of beatnik monkey, complete with beret, my dress pants to church. The steam sunglasses, and bongo drums. But rising while we washed the endless It’s the buying of then, five blocks from home, Scooter Christmas dishes, until the fog North’s mother pulled over to offer formed into little rivulets that raced presents, rather than the me a ride. And it was while I was each other down the kitchen window receiving, that remains struggling to hold my packages, panes. The ink-and-paper new-book thank Mrs. North, and climb inside smell of Kipling’s Jungle Books, read my strongest memory. that I slammed the car door on the with a flashlight under the blankets monkey and cracked it down the after my mother had come in to shut There was the middle. The grief was so sudden and off the lights and whisper one last simultaneous feeling of precise, the desire not to let Scooter’s Merry Christmas. mother see me cry so strong, the look I can call up every detail—except titanic generosity and on my face, reflected in the window the emotion, the overwhelming of her Buick, so perfectly preserved, waves that beat upon my sisters and utter miserliness, love that I can almost relive that sorrow me down the long stream of days in measured to the penny. just by remembering it. the Christmas season. To dwell on And the next year as well, I was those memories is more to remember almost in tears as I walked home, lis- that I did have a certain feeling than half-forgotten litany of secularized tening to the dry snow crunch to recapture just how that feeling real- Christmas. Tinker Toys, Erector sets, beneath the black rubber overshoes ly felt. They come faded like last and Lincoln Logs. Creepy Crawlers, my father made us wear, and with year’s pine needles that fall from the Flexible Flyers, Raggedy Ann, and nothing but a Christmas card to give box of Christmas ornaments when Raggedy Andy. They have the rhythm my mother after the store where I’d you bring it down from the linen clos- of plainchant, paeans lifted up to planned to get her genuine rhinestone et. Why should I remember the long- Santa Claus. earrings closed earlier than I expected needled ponderosa tree we had when I But it’s the buying of presents, on Christmas Eve. But while I was was 6? The heavy-scented balsam rather than the receiving, that trudging past the almost deserted tree, bending under the weight of the remains my strongest memory. There Christmas-tree shop in the school ornaments, when I was 8? The Dou- was the simultaneous feeling of titan- parking lot, a salesman suddenly glas firs, the Black Hills pines, the ic generosity and utter miserliness, an leaned over the fence to ask if I want- juniper? The scalloped holly sprigs endless calculation of love measured ed a wreath. “I don’t have enough set on the sideboard and mantel, with to the penny, and an irrecoverable money left,” I said. “That’s okay, a stern warning every year not to eat sensation—the proud knowledge that kid,” he answered.