THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601130030
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Memory can dim over time. But back in 1950 most folks, we'd guess, got a good laugh and little more from an irate Harry Truman's letter to Washington Post music critic Paul Hume.
Reviewing presidential-daughter Margaret's Constitution Hall concert, Hume said she was ``flat a good deal of the time'' and ``cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.''
Mr. Truman responded: ``Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!'' (Later they did meet, Hume said, and the encounter was friendly.)
This week Bill Clinton reacted much as Truman had. New York Times columnist William Safire, writing about Whitewater, called Mrs. Clinton ``a congenital liar,'' and privately, reported White House spokesman Mike McCurry, the president said he'd like to punch Safire in the nose.
But nobody seems to be enjoying this harmless business. Some are even analyzing it. Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar who worked in the Eisenhower White House, told The Post:
``Harry Truman, by golly, was just fit to be tied with Paul Hume and dashed off the note that made history. (The Clinton response) is quite different. This is careful and deliberate and calibrated.
``For one thing, to know Mike McCurry is to know that he does not lose his temper and he's quite in control of himself. So at some point this week, it was decided that the president had to make some measured response in defense of Hillary. He couldn't just leave her, like the old expression from John Ehrlichman, `twisting in the breeze.'''
Hess said the image of Clinton punching Safire ``is a bit of a reach. It sort of becomes a pillow fight - the image of this guy with his stomach hanging out over his jogging shorts socking Bill Safire, a gentleman in his mid-60s. It's not really good stuff in a pugilistic sense.''
The continuing negative reaction apparently pushed McCurry into sounding silly as he tried to reassure the media. ``The president, being president,'' he said, ``knows that he can't possibly do such a thing.''
For a long time we've fretted over the low state of today's politics - the whole budget and government-closing fiasco, in fact, the seeming inability of Washington to solve any problems. The gap between ideological extremes widens; personal attack and other mean-spiritedness heighten. All this spoils relationships among lawmakers and between Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue. The wonder is that it wasn't Newt's nose Bill threatened to punch. Alas, the ludicrous becomes ever more serious.
Could it be we have too much analysis and too little fun? by CNB