Remnick's Progress
The
Times of
London Monday was much impressed by Russia's "dash and daring" in sneakily
moving into Kosovo before NATO's troops. In an editorial titled "Who Dares
Wins" (the motto of the British SAS commandos), the paper said that the
Russians have won "not only Pristina and the initiative, but the secret
admiration of scores of NATO officers frustrated by an enforced wait on the
Kosovo borders." Their "coup de théâtre" has served as a reminder "that
dithering loses to derring-do," the paper said: "This may have been a
media-dominated war; but to halt and advance to allow the cameras to catch up
is a grotesque irresponsibility."
But
this was a minority view in the British press. On the Left, the Guardian said the Russian
military "seems ever closer to being out of control" and that its behavior in
Kosovo is "proof that there is no longer one government in that vast country,
but rather several, held in loose, often hostile connection to each other."
NATO should continue to deny Russia its own sector in Kosovo, but should also
soothe its wounded pride by "admitting that the West has been cavalier in its
treatment of the former superpower and that it now has to be given a seat at
the commanding table."
On the
Right, the Daily Telegraph criticized the United States for being too
accommodating to Russia. It is hardly surprising that a cardinal aim of Russian
policy is to counter NATO's influence in central Europe, "and the role of
honest broker between the West and Belgrade gave them an ideal opportunity to
do so," the paper said. "Trusting them with that task prolonged the air
campaign and has now seriously queered KFOR's pitch," it added. "NATO cannot
blame the Russians for making difficulties. The fault lies in giving them such
an opportunity."
In
Paris Sunday, Le
Monde ran an editorial saying that the message of Russia's race to
Pristina was a "brutal" one: that the Russians are not willing to submit to
NATO's authority and that they want control of the northern sector of the
province to carry out a de facto partition of Kosovo. While the West had good
reasons to be considerate toward Russia (by delaying preparations for a land
invasion and seeking a solution to the crisis within the unusual context of the
G-8, only because Russia was a part of it), it also has the right to expect
Russia "to play the game," Le Monde said. The West was right to involve
Russia, it concluded, "but not at any price, and especially not at that of a
partition of Kosovo."
Another Paris daily, Libération , said Monday that Russia's dash into Kosovo
shouldn't be treated lightly because it's unclear "who pilots the Russian plane
today." Bill Clinton might well ask this question of Boris Yeltsin when they
meet in Cologne, Germany, on Saturday, the paper said, but "it isn't certain
that his answer will be very convincing." In Germany Monday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
called the move "Yeltsin's coup" but added in a front-page comment that the
next few days would show whether Yeltsin has only been acting on whim or
whether there's a strategy behind it.
Europe's Monday papers were generally dominated, however, by the results of the
weekend's elections for the European Parliament in Strasbourg that, on very low
voter turnouts throughout Western Europe, delivered heavy rebuffs to both
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany and Prime Minister Tony Blair of
Britain. Conservatives trounced the Left in Italy as well, where the party of
TV magnate Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister, came in first. But in
France, the Socialists triumphed. Le Figaro of Paris said, however, that the real winners of
the elections were the absentionists. In France, fewer than one elector in two
voted; in Britain, fewer than one in four did. The Financial Times of London said
the low turnouts threatened to undermine the effectiveness of the European
Parliament, and most British papers said the results might set back Blair's
plans to bring Britain under the European single currency, the euro.
David
Remnick, editor of The New Yorker , told the Milan daily Corriere della
Sera Monday that his objective for the magazine was that it would be
said that "of the 100 best articles of the century, 25 were published in The
New Yorker --ideally, half of those under my editorship." Confessing to
interviewer Alessandra Farkas that The New Yorker was still in the red,
Remnick said he is pleased that it has been rechristened "the most
authoritative and prestigious weekly on the planet" because "when you're the
best in your field, it's inevitable that sooner or later you become
profitable."
He
rejected a suggestion that The New Yorker was "elitist," saying that the
word applied better to the New York Review of Books --"a purely celebral,
if brilliant, undertaking." Asked if he agreed that the quality of the world's
press is in decline, Remnick replied: "We are the living proof of the opposite:
Investing in quality has and always will have a place in the market. Despite
our deficit, nobody tells me what to publish and what not to publish. And do
you know why? In a world of fast food, there will always be room for a
five-star restaurant."
