ArticleIP_3930.txt

   
   
      
         
            

            
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               Multiple
Thumbs Down
            

            Jacob Weisberg further
damages his case in his
reply to my recent letter to the editor. Responding to my suggestions that
he uses selective quotation and inadequate research, he writes, "Siskel gave
Armageddon a 'thumbs up' and named it his 'flick of the week' on
Sneak Previews ."

            Siskel did indeed give the
film a "marginal thumbs up"--hardly "cringe-making praise." Otherwise,
Weisberg's sloppy homework is again on display. Siskel named it his "Flick of
the Week" not on television but in the Chicago Tribune , where he reviews
one film a week at length. (Siskel's review is here.) If Weisberg had clicked on a couple of samples, he
would have learned that the "Flick of the Week" is not an endorsement and can
be a positive or a negative review; the current "Flick of the Week" gets only
two stars. We have not appeared on a program named Sneak Previews since
1982, which may offer a clue as to how carefully Weisberg watches Siskel
& Ebert while forming his opinions.

            I note he
does not reply to my observation that most of the critics he mentions have
given negative reviews to most of the films he says we praised.

            -- Roger EbertChicago
Sun-Times Chicago

            
               Awww,
Shucks
            

            In
"Flytrap's Trashy Books," David Plotz says William Bennett is guilty
of false modesty. This called to mind a remark of the English playwright Alan
Bennett (no relation, I think): "All modesty is false. Otherwise it's not
modesty."

            -- Adam Liptak New
York City

            
               A Job
Well Done Is Its Own Reward
            

            In "Privatize the
Independent Counsel!" Steven E. Landsburg suggests, somewhat tongue in
cheek, that we allow the president of the United States, after he leaves
office, "to sell 10,000 U.S. citizenships to the bidders of his choice. ... If
he does a better job, those citizenships will become more valuable, and he'll
get a better price for them."

            This, he contends, will
encourage the president to do a good job.

            Earlier in the column,
however, he exposes the flaw in this idea. Landsburg notes, "What if he [the
president] keeps us out of war through policies that make the world more
dangerous for our children?"

            Indeed, what if the
president makes the world (including the United States) a more dangerous place,
but the United States remains a safer place relative to the rest of the
world? Even though the United States would be safer than other places, and thus
U.S. citizenship would be more valuable, it would still be, in absolute terms,
more dangerous than it was.

            Really,
we already reward the president for doing a good job--we reserve a place for
him in history. Presidents who do a good job are remembered favorably; those
who do not are not. This is not always true, of course. Sometimes when a
president does a terrible job we just name an airport after him.

            -- Rich
Goldberg Silver Spring, Md.

            
               Steven
E. Landsburg responds:
            

            
               Touché, Mr. Goldberg.
The plan I proposed not only gives the president an incentive to make the
United States better, it also gives him an incentive to make the rest of the
world worse. So I should not have proposed it. After all, we wouldn't want to
deter future presidents from emulating great achievements like, say, freeing
Europe from Communism.
            

            
               Flytrap
Claptrap
            

            After a promising beginning,

                  Slate
                has degenerated into a ridiculous mess of sixthhand
rehashing of the Lewinsky scandal. It has been weeks since I've seen a
substantive and interesting article posted. How about stopping publishing so
much of this drivel and hiring people to write intelligent, interesting work on
some (any!) other topic?

            If

                  Slate
                continues in anything like its present form, I certainly
won't be renewing my subscription. You'll continue to have an audience of
Clinton-hating Lewinsky junkies, but as years go on I don't think this is a
viable business model.

            -- Peter Woit New
York City

            
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