George W.'s Rise; Hillary's Fall
            

            ELLEN:

            My family and I returned last night from a week in Bermuda, where I managed
to pick up a bad sunburn, watch my 6-year-old boogie-board in the Atlantic, and
make sure my younger son didn't get swallowed by the undertow. My wife and I
managed one night without the boys, going to a country club dinner with my
brother and his wife, which was remarkable only for the dazzling array of
photos on the walls. One in particular, of a (undoubtedly re-touched) Churchill
when he visited the (mostly) golfing facility in the early '50s, was very
striking.

            Another change of pace for me was the lack of cable TV, save CNN, and the
stateside dailies not being delivered until about 5 in the afternoon. Which was
kind of cool: You'd get the meaningless Times fax with breakfast, but
then read the Times , Wall Street Journal , New York Post ,
and Boston Globe before falling asleep. After days in the sun, and the
arduous exercise of building sand castles and going swimming, it made me less
angry at the morons who staff the daily papers.

            But here's a question: Where have all the fact-checkers gone? One of my
hobbyhorses is that the vast majority of dailies and magazines are overstaffed
by at least 50 percent--there's a problem with unions for you--and still the
quality, overall, is poor, especially in comparison with the upmarket British
dailies. For example, in a sidebar to the letters section in today's
Time magazine, an editor wrote: "Several people pointed out that while
John F. Kennedy uttered the phrase ["Ask not what you can do ..."] in his
Inaugural Address in 1962 ..." Now, of course, the date was '61 and you'd think
one of the scores of editors and editorial assistants and assistants to
editorial assistants could've snared that mistake. We run a small shop at
NYPress , and make mistakes, as every publication does, but I find it
inexcusable that large media organizations are rife with errors every day.

            Today's New York Times has a teaser on the front page, "With Straw
Vote In, Some Hint of a Race," that says Gov. George W. Bush really has a
contest on his hands. You don't have to guess who wrote the story
inside: Richard Berke, perhaps the most biased beat political reporter in the
United States. In fact, it was a decisive win for Bush, and the Forbes camp,
which outspent Bush considerably, was privately disappointed by the outcome,
hoping to either defeat the governor or come within a few percentage points.
Unless some catastrophic scandal is revealed--and drug use doesn't come close
to alleged rape and illegal campaign contributions, but don't get me
started--Bush will be the nominee. The Times , which must be apoplectic
that Gore is on the ropes, will do everything in its power, from pictures to
captions to editorials, to stop Bush. Which is fine; I just wish they'd declare
themselves as partisan, as say, the Guardian or Telegraph in
London do.

            I may be going on too long, but one more thought. I read in the New York
Post this morning about the Clinton family's house-hunting in Westchester.
I don't believe Hillary Clinton will wind up running. She'll be creamed
(meaning by 6 or 7 points) by Giuliani, and I suspect she'll end the campaign
sometime in December. I think the final blow, ironically, was the tragic death
of John Kennedy Jr. It pointed out that Hillary isn't a New Yorker, and that
liberals and moderates would've far preferred Kennedy as a candidate. I think
eventually RFK Jr., a solid New York citizen, or Andrew Cuomo will run.
Personally, I'd love to see Charlie Rangel go against the Mayor: That would be
entertaining politics. More later.

            Best,
RUSS