A front-page news analysis in today's New York Times asks, "Is American politics entering a nonideological or an anti-ideological phase? Only six years ago, the Republicans swept into control of the House on a radical right-wing program. But they were able to enact relatively little of it, and in this election, Congressional and presidential candidates alike did their best to skitter toward the center." There was nothing particularly "radical," or even particularly "right-wing," about the 1994 Republican House program, as expressed in the Contract with America. As Newt Gingrich has pointed out, President Clinton's own 1996 presidential nomination acceptance speech in Chicago claimed credit for at least seven items that were part of the Contract With America and that were passed by the Republican Congress: an adoption tax credit, a tax cut for small businesses, the line-item veto, making Congress adhere to the laws that apply to the rest of the country, stopping unfunded mandates to state and local governments, welfare reform, and tax incentives for the purchase of long-term care insurance. Virtually all of these items were carefully poll-tested and were at the core of the Contract with America. If they were so "radical" and "right-wing," why was Bill Clinton taking credit for them? The 1994 House Republicans didn't enact "relatively little" of their program; they enacted a great deal of it. And as for the supposed skittering to the center, the idea that this is some new "phase" that American politics is just "entering" is sort of strange, considering Mr. Clinton's 1992 Democratic campaign, which featured his vow to end welfare as we know it, not to mention his promise of a middle-class tax cut and his departure from the campaign trail to fly back to Arkansas to personally order the application of the death penalty to a quasi-retarded convict. If anything, Mr. Gore, with his rhetoric about "the people" versus "the powerful," his demonization of the medicine, health insurance, oil and tobacco industries, and his attacks on the richest one percent of Americans, was more ideological and less centrist than Mr. Clinton.
Now They Tell Us: Now that Hillary Clinton has safely won a seat in the U.S. Senate, the Times editorialists finally see fit to share with their readers the fact that "Mrs. Clinton launched a harsh last-minute commercial that accused Mr. Lazio of trying to gut funding for breast cancer treatment. The ad, meant for the suburbs where Mrs. Clinton was not doing as well as expected, distorted Mr. Lazio's record on breast cancer." Funny how the Times never got around to editorializing about this commercial before the election was held.
Tendentious: An article in the international section of today's Times reports on the impending resignation of America's special Middle East coordinator, Dennis Ross. "Mr. Ross has been at President Clinton's side at the two major Middle East diplomatic drives this year: the meeting in Geneva with President Hafez el-Assad of Syria, and the Camp David summit meeting in July. Neither produced the results Washington had hoped for, though the Camp David talks pushed consideration of the most tendentious issues further along than expected," the article reports. This is a misuse of the word "tendentious." The Times means to say the most difficult issues, or the most controversial issues. Webster's Second defines "tendentious" to mean "characterized by a deliberate tendency or aim; especially, advancing a definite point of view or doctrine; as tendentious writings." It just doesn't make any sense, in English, to write about "tendentious issues."
Patronizing: Speaking of tendentious, check out the column on the education page of today's Times defending bilingual education. The article runs under the headline "Debunking Double Talk," but double talk is what the article is, and of a particularly patronizing variety. The article discusses the distinction between bilingual education and English-language immersion, and it asserts, "Decisions about which method to use in particular cases should be made by educators studying facts, not by politicians or voters on ideological crusades." Just who are the voters on "ideological crusades" that in fact are responsible for the efforts in California and Arizona to teach immigrant children English rather than ghettoizing them in bilingual education programs that mire them in non-English instruction? Well, you wouldn't know it from reading the Times column, but the Arizona statewide chair of the English for the Children campaign is Maria Mendoza. The statewide co-chair is Hector Ayala. Another co-chair is Margaret Garcia Dugan. The Maricopa County co-chair is Norma Alvarez. As it was in California, this is a movement of Hispanic parents who want their children in classes with English speakers and who understand the importance of English skills to the success of their children. But the Times columnist pays no heed to the Hispanic parents. One indication of why comes in the following passage, which is a stunning example of the Times' arrogance: "Of course, children from literate homes who are taken abroad can learn a new language by being immersed in it at school. And immigrant pupils here whose families are more literate in their own language (like many Jews early in the 20th century, or Asians today) can learn English quickly without bilingual help. But they are unlike children from less literate homes who immigrate without the background in any language that teachers expect of children their age." In other words, Jews and Asians can learn English through immersion, but Hispanics can't because they are from "less literate homes." As for those Hispanic parents who are agitating for their children to be allowed to learn English -- well, in the mind of the Times, they must be illiterate ideological crusaders who would be better off leaving decisions about their children's education in the hands of "educators studying facts." Breathtaking.