The F-Word Litmus Test
            

            It's not that I'm uninterested in electoral politics. For one thing
elections are an important form of popular culture; they always have something
to say about what's going on with us. But my view of the electoral scene is
always filtered through a layer of irony since there's almost never anyone I'm
really for, and it's usually an issue of who I'm more afraid of. Even
third-party candidates are generally lame. I did vote for Nader in 1996, but as
a protest against Clinton's policies, not because I like Nader. Warren Beatty
running for president would be fun, but on the other hand he blew it by
crossing the picket line at that PEN event at Cipriani's. Dowd's column on Bush
missed the point. Bush has every right not to talk about his past drug use. In
fact, silence is a lot more seemly than all the blather he would feel forced to
put out if he owned up, to the effect of what a terrible mistake he had made in
the feckless days of his youth. No, what's truly objectionable is his
declaration of fidelity to his wife. Enough, already, with monogamy-mongering.
Even more ridiculous is the controversy over Bush saying "fuck," apropos of
which Garry Wills, in the course of defending Bush in his New York Post
column today, saw fit to lay on us the information that he himself never uses
the word. What's next? Sidney Zion confessing that he himself doesn't do oral
sex?

            Meanwhile, Lars Erik Nelson in his New York Daily News column
suggests that Elizabeth Dole should come clean about whether she believes in
creationism. Since she is "seeking to lead this country into the
21st century," we need to know. Well, OK, since the Republicans,
with their usual respect for women, may nominate her as vice president on the
theory that women will vote for any warm female body. (Not that Bush seems to
have gender-gap problems so far, at least vis-à-vis Al Gore.) But does she say
"fuck"? And was she ever unfaithful to Bob in those dark times before
Viagra?

            I notice that Giuliani, also according to the News , has declined to
backtrack on his opposition to a law banning so-called "partial birth"
abortion. Will the Conservative Party swallow that and his position on gay
rights? And if they don't--do you really think he can win a three-way race?