By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
It’s never easy to write one
of these.
You have to be clever,
prophetic and compassionate. You have to be critical, uplifting and
visionary. New Year’s columns are a bummer. Everyone does them and
rarely are they done well.
So, why do one, you ask?
It’s Jan 1, 2004. I’m in
Florida as I begin this column. We fly home tonight. It’s 11-something
in the morning; Lil is at the pool catching the last few rays of the sun
which has been elusive most of the week. Allison is in the next room
catching the last few z’s of a week where they too have been a bit
elusive for her. Me, I’m all packed and have some free time while I
watch the Gator Bowl and they struggle to check out by 1 p.m.
I need a column for next week,
but was away from news and politics which usually inspire me. I spent the
time relaxing and visiting with mom; mom-in-law; New Yorkers Jerry and
Lois; my sister Carole and hubby Gil; and Mindy, Jeff and family, dear
friends who just moved here from New York.
So, with two transplanted New
York mothers and sets of New York friends and family being the extent of
my home-related news for the week, the New Year seems the subject which
beckons me.
And so, if this column
eventually gets to see ink, please be tolerant. It was born out of New
York withdrawal in Florida, a spare hour in a hotel room and probably will
be built at the airport or on the plane. It will ferment inside the laptop
until the weekend when it will have aged well enough for me to refine or
it will ultimately face eternity as some lost bytes in an old hard drive’s
recycling bin. Even words can have a lonely existence.
I guess the predictions
started last night, when Mindy asked for them. Almost 15-year-old Todd
declared that he gleefully predicts he will be driving in 2004 – he gets
his learner’s permit in March when he’s 15. I quickly countered with a
prediction that Florida would raise the minimum driving age. That ended
Mindy’s game.
I try to pick it up here.
In 2004, American men and
women will continue to die in Iraq. The sneak attacks costing lives will
become the Democratic nine’s rallying cry to prove Bush’s war was
wrong. Every so often, one of the nine or whatever number there are at the
moment will remind the American public that we attacked Saddam because of
his weapons of mass destruction.
But his 2004 trial and
ultimate conviction in a court recognized by most of the international
community will be the centerpiece of the Iraq war debate. And at the end
of the year, punishment for a guilty Saddam will be the year’s climax.
And George W. will be back
above a 65 percent approval rating and the Democrats will be running Mike
Dukakis again. (For those who don’t remember: Dukakis, the governor of
Massachusetts who captured the ‘88 Dem Presidential nomination and was
photographed in a tank to look tough, was ultimately devastated by George
Bush – the father — and a "Willie Horton" TV commercial
embarrassing him for pardoning a murder and rapist. It was all over.)
And so it shall be before the
Republicans and Tom Delay embarrass themselves in New York with vile
fundraising, anti-New York City actions and their renomination of a guy
who can’t speak straight. (In all fairness, Carl Rowe will orchestrate
some glorious Republican sound bites at Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty
and other City spaces. But deep in their hearts, the GOP will do as little
as possible to help our Democratic city.)
The Dems will do no better.
They’ll go to Boston with almost two handfuls of candidates and return
with a Mike Dukakis clone. We Dems seem to continue to wish for the likes
of George McGovern or Eugene McCarthy.
Howard Dean seems the likely
sacrificial lamb and those Dem beltway insiders will relish throwing him
to the Republican wolves, abandoning him as unelectable and continuing to
demonstrate that Democrats eat their young while Republicans finish off
the adults.
At the end of the day, we will
have reelected George Bush by a significant margin and have Tom Delay
gloating — a symbol of what’s really wrong with the Republican Party
and perhaps politics in our country.
Public service will again take
a back seat to partisan interests. And recognizing that NYC goes
Democratic, the Republicans will spend more per capita on Homeland
Security in the cornfields of Nebraska than in New York and the other
major cities that vote D.
George Pataki will grab as
much exposure as possible during the Repub convention. It will do little
to help his pathetic approval rating due to his dismal failure with the
state economy, nor will he receive any national Republican help with his
sham of a State budget. Pataki will cling to the hopes of a position in DC
with the new Bush Administration. He’s better than half of their bunch
but don’t expect him to find comfort there.
Mike Bloomberg – come back
Mike – will take a stand against the Delay-type New York bashing and
will, during the Repub convention in New York (I hope), clearly
differentiate between the hateful Tom Delay Republicans and New York
Repubs of Jack Javitz.
He can, at the expense of
alienating the national right-wing GOP leadership, recapture the
independent Dems of his City. He can do it all while still nominally
endorsing Bush for reelection and speaking of "Public Service not
Politics" as the ultimate mission. Criticism in the name of public
service is so much better received than personal attacks. We expect old
friend, Bloomberg Communications chief Billy Cunningham, to embrace and
initiate this strategy.
To date, the Mayor’s people
have failed to capitalize on his apolitical stances. Hey Billy, that’s
an asset in any party, in any election. Mike must be portrayed as
apolitical – a CEO (add: with a heart) who is here to do the job without
regard to the old alliances which often led to corruption, distaste and
stagnation. As the year ends, the new Bloomberg image will be emerging to
enter the campaign of 2005.
On the NYC Dem side, remember,
Dems eat their young – but that will be a 2005 story. This year will
witness Giff Miller, Bill Thompson, Anthony Weiner, Freddy Ferrer,
Virginia Fields and Brian McLaughlin playing chicken in the Mayoral
sweepstakes. Before year’s end, Miller will drop down to the Comptroller
slot, and McLaughlin will ultimately take a pass in favor of retaining his
powerful labor posts. Fields will be the poor player and look for other
options like Pub Advocate. While dealmakers will attempt to unite Ferrer
and Thompson, don’t bet on it happening.
(An hour after our 7:30 p.m.
take-off, we land at a closed Myrtle Beach airport because of problems
with our backup generator. As we sat on the plane, ground maintenance did
their thing. Almost two hours later, we pushed back from the gate and
readied for take-off. The pilot comes back on the loud speaker to inform
us that the problem persists. We deplane into an empty, closed Myrtle
Beach airport to find out the snacks on the plane and in a single vending
machine were all that was available and our wait might be long.
We’re informed the plane
could not be repaired as Spirit staffers scurried to locate alternatives.
There are no available seats out of Myrtle Beach for at least two days. At
4 a.m. a backup plane finally arrived from Ft. Lauderdale and we were at
LaGuardia after 6 a.m. We arrived home tired and hungry as the sun came
up. A quick breakfast out, some phone calls and emails to the office, and
Friday was lost to sleep.
The column whose energy was
also lost somewhere over the Carolinas was in need of closure.)
Perhaps the positive hope for
the future, out of the mess of the above-described national politics, is
the possibility of the Iraq debacle bringing real change to the Middle
East. If by chance, we could engineer the construct of a true
non-sectarian democratic government in Iraq and build a meaningful
education system and viable economy with jobs and opportunity, Western
culture could be viewed with something other than disgust and disdain.
Along with western investment
comes western television. And HBO could be the ultimate panacea to
fundamentalists recruiting oppressed youth as terrorists and a culture
which ferments hatred. Give any healthy young Iraqi boy a night of Carrie
Bradshaw or just a couple of minutes of Samantha’s oral sex, and they,
like us will be converts forever.
Once tasted in Iraq, the
ruling families of the fundamentalist Middle East nations will realize the
inevitable: HBO is infectious. And what started as a war against weapons
of mass destruction could result in a massive cultural conversion led by
television, the weapon of mass communication.
The western life of "Sex
and the City," or perhaps the "West Wing" would take hold.
Young Middle Easterners could watch as Martin Sheen, in the middle of a
crisis in the Middle East, seeks comfort in the bed of a young intern or
reporter played by a post-"Sex and the City" Sarah Jessica
Parker. And the world would have to wait while the sexual fling played out
until they learned the fate of peace in the Middle East.
And 2004 may just be the year
where the fine line between life and art becomes so blurred that we can’t
tell the difference between Martin Dean and Howard Sheen.
Happy New Year!
Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
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Michael Schenkler can be
