Timothy McVeigh was found guilty on all counts in the Oklahoma City
bombing. Journalists, having exaggerated the defense's options and prospects
for dramatic effect throughout the trial, finally conceded that the contest had
never been close. Editorialists congratulated the judge and jury for proving
(in contrast to the O.J. Simpson judge and jury) that the criminal-justice
system works. While proclaiming that the United States has finally lost its
virgin naiveté about domestic terrorism, pundits scratched their heads over why
the trial didn't mesmerize the nation the way the Simpson and Rodney King cases
did. Next, jurors will consider whether to give McVeigh the death penalty.
Having milked the trial for pathos, the media applauded the judge for
instructing prosecutors not to manipulate the jury's emotions. The early line
on the coming trial of alleged co-conspirator Terry Nichols is that he'll be a
lot harder to convict because he was home in Kansas when the bomb went off in
Oklahoma. (6/5)
Lawyers
for President Clinton and Paula Jones commenced settlement talks through
the media. The Jones camp's spin: She wants her good name back. The threat: to
focus the trial on Clinton's relations "with other women" and make him spend
the rest of his presidency being hounded about his privates instead of showing
off his public service. Settlement demands: his admission that she told the
truth, plus $700,000 in damages, and compensation for her emotional pain. The
Clinton camp's spin: She and her lawyers are in it for the bucks. The threat:
"to put her reputation at issue," dredging up old boyfriends. Settlement
proposal: a $700,000 donation to her chosen charity, plus some part of her
legal costs, but "no apology" and "no admission of misconduct." The National
Organization for Women and the New York Times denounced Clinton's
lawyer for stooping to the old tactic of bringing up the accuser's sexual
history. The Times ' Maureen Dowd urged that Clinton "quit besmirching
Paula Jones and settle the case, before people stop seeing him as a likable
rogue and start seeing him as an unlikable rogue." (6/5)
Canada held a parliamentary election. 1) Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's
centrist Liberal Party retained its majority. However, 2) the Liberals lost 19
seats. However, 3) they won a mandate for their fiscal austerity program, sort
of. ("Americans can only admire an electorate readier than their own to
administer a bitter but necessary medicine," said the Washington Post .)
Meanwhile, 4) the anti-Quebec-separatist Reform Party won big in the West and
became the official opposition. And 5) Chrétien nearly lost his seat to a
Quebec separatist. However, 6) Quebec separatists lost seats overall. American
pundits, confused by the results, accused the voters of confusion and warned
that regional conflicts within Canada could destabilize its relations with the
United States. The Wall Street Journal blamed the weak showing of
economic conservatives in recent elections--in France, Britain, and the United
States--on those nations' insufficient economic conservatism. (6/5)
An
ethics-commission report solicited by President Clinton will recommend that
scientists be allowed to clone human embryos for experiments, according
to the Washington Post . However, the report recommends a ban on
implanting these embryos in women and developing them into babies. Pro-lifers
attacked the proposal for 1) inviting researchers to toy with human life and 2)
then requiring them to abort it. Other critics argued that if human-embryo
cloning remains legal in the private sector but illegal in government-funded
research, unsupervised quacks will control it. But the commissioners decided
not to ask Congress to ban human-embryo cloning outright, reportedly because
they trust Congress even less than they trust scientists. Related updates:
"Human Chromosomes Transplanted Into Mice" (the Washington Post , May
30); "Rush Is on for Cloning of Animals" (the New York Times , June 3).
(6/5)
Sen.
Jesse Helms , R-N.C., will block the nomination of Gov. Bill Weld,
R-Mass., to be President Clinton's ambassador to Mexico. Clinton had hoped
Weld's nomination would foster bipartisan harmony. Instead, it has fostered
Republican disharmony. Helms cited conservative Republicans' quarrels with Weld
(who favors medical marijuana and abortion rights) as evidence that Weld isn't
"ambassador quality." Clinton has asked Helms' new pal, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, to meet with Helms and try to remove the thorn from his
paw. (6/5)
French voters booted conservatives out of the national Parliament and
put leftists in power. The Socialists, Communists, Greens, and other leftist
parties won a majority of seats, while President Jacques Chirac's center-right
coalition lost nearly half its seats. Commentators agreed that, unlike the
British Labor Party, the Socialists won on an unreformed welfare-state
platform: creating 350,000 government jobs without raising taxes, and cutting
weekly work hours to 35 without cutting salaries. "Voters in France Reject
Austerity in Favor of Jobs," asserted the New York Times ' headline. But
few thought that an available choice. The most common view was that the
election was a huge blow to the global spread of U.S.-led fiscal austerity and
privatization. Ironists noted that, as in the United States, "liberal" has
become a dirty word in France--but in the sense of classical liberalism, i.e.,
conservativism. (6/2)
Michael
Jordan swished a jumper at the buzzer to carry the Chicago Bulls past the Utah
Jazz in the opening game of the National Basketball Association finals.
Jazz forward Karl Malone, who edged out Jordan in this year's vote for the
league's Most Valuable Player, gave Jordan the game-winning opportunity by
bricking two free throws with nine seconds left. Sports writers agreed Malone
"choked" ( USA Today ), and regretted that the MVP vote can't be
reconsidered. "Time for a recount," said the Houston Chronicle .
(6/2)
The
homicide rate fell 11 percent last year, according to the FBI. The media
called it an "impressive" decline (the New York Times ), and President
Clinton and local police raced to take credit for their creative and diligent
law-enforcement efforts. Criminologists cited other factors: 1) Baby boomers
have passed their crime-committing years. 2) A lot of would-be killers have
been killed. 3) Kids are sick of all the murders and don't want to add to the
body count. 4) Drug gangs have sorted out many of their territorial disputes.
Meanwhile, the New York Times observed that serious dog bites have
increased by 37 percent. Pundits did not connect the two phenomena.
(6/2)
Titanic won redemption at the Tony awards . The show, which had
been faulted and ridiculed by critics, won the award for best musical, plus the
four other categories in which it had been nominated. The New York Times
called this "sweet vindication." Chicago actually won more awards (six),
but observers were less impressed, since it had been expected to do well.
The Last Night of Ballyhoo won the award for best play, and A Doll's
House won for best revival of a play. (6/2)
The
controversy over Palestinian land sales to Jews escalated. A third
Palestinian was found murdered, reportedly after having sold an East Jerusalem
house to Jewish settlers. Then Israeli police said they had arrested an armed
Palestinian squad in the process of abducting an Arab land dealer, evidently
for execution. Israel's Jerusalem police chief has fingered a Palestinian
security-agency boss in the previous two executions. The Washington Post
says human-rights groups are calling attention to "the rise of Palestinian
death squads," but the Los Angeles Times says the Palestinian public
supports the executions. (6/2)
Miscellany: The new health scare is a staph germ that is becoming immune
to the antibiotic of last resort. The germ has appeared in Japan, and the
question is how long it will take to get to the United States. The new
bioethical controversy is whether doctors should obey families who want to
freeze the sperm of their deceased loved ones. The New York Yankees finally
signed Japanese star pitcher Hideki Irabu. Baseball pundits, having hyped Irabu
for months, began questioning whether he's been overhyped. Bob Dylan is
in the hospital with a chest infection. News outlets declared it "potentially
fatal" but acknowledged in the fine print that he'll probably come out fine.
Rebecca Sealfon of New York won the 70 th National Spelling
Bee . The media construed her histrionics and rudeness as Brooklyn charm.
(5/30)
Overseas update:
Indonesia 's ruling party overwhelmingly won re-election. Analysts
credited the victory to a near-totalitarian patronage system. Military officers
in Sierra Leone (primer--it's in west Africa) ousted the country's first
democratically elected president in a coup. Nigeria then sent troops to
challenge the coup, evidently to restore the president and repair Nigeria's
corrupt image abroad. President Clinton began backing away from his pledge to
remove U.S. troops from Bosnia by June 1998, which had replaced his previous
pledge to remove the troops by December 1997. Clinton joined British Prime
Minister Tony Blair for a day of photo ops, obliging pundits to point
out once again how similar the two are. (5/30)
