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Loony Noonan | page 1, 2
It should come as no surprise, then, that the best sections of this book are scriptlike. In a lively passage set in the Hollywood home of Michael Eisner, Noonan "quotes" the first lady lambasting the assembled heads of the entertainment industry for producing degrading, violent art. Before the likes of Ted Turner, Steven Spielberg, Rupert Murdoch and Gerald Levin, she says, "I'm going to speak my heart -- the real one, not the one I show on TV." She rips the executives for undermining our society (wait, I thought that was her job) and demonstrates a canny grasp of contemporary culture. "How is 'Sex in the City' going to be more demeaning," she asks them rhetorically, "are they going to start dating German shepherds next year?" These comments were made a few months after the Columbine massacre, see, and Clinton was imploring these taste-makers to look into their hearts, to try and make America a more decent place. "Which is just when I awoke," writes Noonan. Yep, it had all been a dream! Though she roasted Edmund Morris' acorns for the liberties he took in his biography of Ronald Reagan, Noonan is not above a little "Dutch" courage herself when the occasion calls for it (i.e., when the narrative flags, as it does after the usual flogging of Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, etc.). That the Hillary Clinton who stuns the entertainment moguls into silence sounds nothing like the Hillary Clinton we have come to know (or not know) seems to be the point. She'd be a better person, and certainly a better politician, Noonan implies, if she spoke in long, ideological Paddy Chayevksy-like speeches. But who wouldn't? John McCain's appeal to the press seemed to lie largely in the perception that he shot from the hip and said what was on his mind. Unlike the Clintons, certainly, but unlike almost every other politician you can think of as well (starting with Bush). Noonan is criticizing Clinton for not being what she would like her to be: a freewheeling risk-taker. As Michael Oreskes wrote in his New York Times review of the book, "The great speechwriter invents the speech she wishes Hillary would give and then says the fact that she never gave it demonstrates Mrs. Clinton's lack of courage to use her political strength for a larger good." With a title like "The Case Against Hillary Clinton," you expect the deck to be stacked (the jacket cover is a photograph of the first lady in an attentive pose, wearing what could be a Mao suit). What you don't expect from a writer of Noonan's sophistication is the complete, unbridled demonization of the Clintons. They represent what the Pope called "the culture of death," according to Noonan -- even as she denies their significance. "She does not seem as big as the emotion she engenders," writes Noonan of her prey. "She lacks historical heft, is not a person of real size and authenticity." Like Morris, Noonan has peeled back the layers to find there is no onion there. She has seen through the Clintons' tired charade and is calling upon New Yorkers to do the same. She and the GOP she serves are banking on a shared wariness among voters in the Empire State, an unstated desire that the first family will just go away. But as psychosomatic political conditions go, Clinton-fatigue has nothing on Giuliani-nausea, pandemic in New York these days. The mayor reached a new low this week when he released the juvenile record of an unarmed man shot by undercover cops and told reporters the victim was "no altar boy." Calls to modify his behavior sent Giuliani into even greater snits; I keep expecting him to stamp himself into the ground, like Rumpelstiltskin, making Clinton the winner by default, tisking and tasking while baking fresh cookies. But residents of upstate New York (not to mention Long Island and even parts of the outer boroughs) may be more forgiving of the mayor's antics, and this is the audience that Noonan is playing to as well. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," William Butler Yeats wrote in "The Second Coming." Clinton's campaign has been largely substance-free while the mayor is nothing if not intense. Can Clinton make an entire campaign out of Rudy's famous temper? November is a long time away and as cooperative as Giuliani has been, she'll probably need to give voters other reasons to vote for her besides just hating him. Just as Noonan (and the GOP) will need to give Republicans more reasons to elect the mayor -- the only man who has never been wrong about anything -- to the Senate than their hatred of Clinton. We need positives, as the pols are fond of saying this season, not polemics.
- - - - - - - - - - - - Table Talk Sound off Related Salon stories She's leaving home Hillary Clinton is finally striking out on her own. But will she ever figure out who she really is?
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