High life
Sterner stuff
Taki
1 he Big Bagel Times, the newspaper that prints only what fits the liberal-leftist ideol- ogy, put out a phoney story last week about how terribly depressed President Bush was as a result of his electoral defeat. As soon as I read it I smelled a rat. It was written by a woman, an extremely bad sign, as Ameri- can female hacks tend to psychoanalyse everything, including household pets.
President Bush is a decent and extremely brave man, someone whose patrician grace will not allow self-pity, which is what con- sumed Jimmy Carter and his awful family. The sandal-wearing queers that are at pre- sent putting out these stories do not under- stand what grace under pressure means. All they know how to do is go out in the streets and scream with rage about Aids, blacks and for more welfare money. George Bush is made of sterner stuff.
My good friend Christopher Buckley, a one time speech-writer for the President, told me that the hardest thing would be getting used to carrying money once again, and travel. Bush has not travelled like the rest of us in 12 long years. When JFK was assassinated, his sister-in-law Lee Radziwill told me that after Air Force I, private aero- planes were a very poor substitute. She told me this while on an Agnelli private plane, and I remember thinking the Kennedys only had three years and still got spoiled.
When my other hero, President Richard Nixon, was forced from office by two con- niving reporters and a crooked Congres- sional committee, his chief of staff, Alex- ander Haig, was said to predict that Nixon would be dead within a year. The depth of the emotional wound would prove too much. Not so. Richard Nixon is still around and blooming, as is Jerry Ford. Both men had seen action during the war, something that Lyndon Johnson had not. (Instead, he had false witnesses testify to his courage and was awarded a bronze star.) The Texan was very unhappy out of power, and lasted only four years.
George Bush survived being shot down by the Japanese navy — can you imagine Clinton spending a night in the drink? and will survive private life. What I find disgusting and extremely un-American is the lack of magnanimity of the media, which is now baying for Bush blood two weeks after his defeat, trying to involve him in all sorts of plots, the point being to drive a spike through the heart of the Reagan- Bush years once and for all. They are a pathetic, ugly, self-important and pompous bunch, who deserve the draft-dodger in the White House come January.
And speaking of self-importance, Bar- bara Walters is a television star, a woman of about 65 years of age whose father owned a famous strip joint, the Latin Quar- ter. Walters does not have a single wrinkle, but nor does she close her eyes when she goes to sleep at night. In fact she is said to sleep standing up so the silicone won't move. Last week Walters went to a party given in honour of Henry Kissinger, and the mother of my children was also there. The conversation turned to Bosnia, and la Walters asked a Turkish friend of mine if he was worried about the war spreading to Turkey. 'No, I'm not worried,' said Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic records.
That is when the mother of my children got curious and asked Babs why she was worried about Turkey. 'Well,' came the answer, 'because of their common border.' Now I don't know if multiple face lifts make one ignorant, but someone as highly paid and with as many years of experience as Babs should have known about a couple of countries — including my own — being in between. But perhaps I'm being unfair. Most idiots on American television have never heard of Turkey. The fact our Babs had is a plus. And speaking of turkeys, have a happy Thanksgiving next week.
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