A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Former US Senator and Presidential Candidate (as well as super-intellectual) Gary Hart is odds on favorite to replace retiring Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) if he wants the seat. Hart, who recently received a PhD in Philosophy at Oxford, has written ably on Kierkegaard, Jefferson, and an immensely useful and creative retooling of Machiavelli's Prince for our Democracy called, The Patriot, is indeed that.

When he is not writing novels, practicing international law or brushing up on his Russian studies, Gart Hart is at his ranch in Colorado -- like a philosopher king -- observing the decline of Western Civilization. Run, Gary, run.

Out: Dick Cheney. Apparently at the Gridiron Dinner, Cheney quipped, according to Hillnews, "I always feel a genuine bond whenever I see Senator Clinton. She's the only person who's the center of more conspiracy theories than I am." Yeah, uhm, did you hear the one about Bush replacing you with Giuliani at the NY convention, Soprano-style, Dick?

In: Manley Moonlighting Governors. What is it about the tag team of Ventura and Shwarzenegger ("weighing in at a combined weight of 600 lbs, from parts unknown The Masked Governators!") First Ventura moonlighted on Vince McMahon's gloriously doomed XFL, then, Arnie -- get this -- moonlights as an "editor/predator" at ultralowbrow men 18-35 demographic 'Flex' and 'Muscle and Fitness.' What-the-fuck?! Will the next Governor of New York be an anchor at ESPN? Perhaps the bigger story, as a result of 9/11, is the incredible rise of manliness -- the Iliad, Alexander the Great flic, HBO's wild west manly tale Tombstone, Gibson's bloody Christ who takes his licks like a man. It's a man's world, it seems, though we'd like to see some Grrl power in the mix.

Out: Liberals. Ever since Bush the Elder trounced Mike Dukakis for being a card carrying member, it has not been cool to be lib. Now, however, even Ralph Nader can barely conceal his contempt when he utters the words, "liberal intelligencia" to refer to his opponents on his right, who have asked him to not run for president. You know life sucks for libs when Nader is hating on you.

Being called a liberal is like being called weak and human beings -- especially in this adenoidal era -- regard weakness as Evil. Good and Evil are irrelevant: all that exists is Strong and Weak. Being Strong is better than being Good; being Strong is better than being Just; Being strong is better than being Smart. And Being Liberal, alas, is not perceived as being strong.

In: Ken Auletta. Auletta is a class act, and he showed an incredible amount of patience on Tina Brown's Topic A last night, sandwiched in between the seriously stupid Kinky Friedman cadidate for Governor of Texas ("to hell with corporations!", the matronly Susan Cheever ("I don't care who runs Disney, just as long as they keep making movies that keep my kids quiet") and Rocco Landesman, who made facile points about the shocking -- shocking! -- anti CEO climate.

In that mix of stupidity, Auletta shone, stating facts and figures as well as reasoned arguments about Disney. Way to go, Ken; then again, what was Tina thinking?

Out: C-SPAN Delay. After 25 years, Howard Stern's band of merry pranksters is causing C-Span CEO Brian Lamb to consider adding a pause to live phone discussions. Not that I watch those call in shows that offer elderly retirees a chance to rant ad nauseum in shrill, semi-senile disembodied voices about the Illuminati's hold over our government, and the good old days of "Cal" Coolidge, but this is a sad testament to the fact that we -- America -- are no longer young.

IN: Kurt Andersen. Anderson writes in this week's New York:

"One has the friends one has, and one doesn�t tend to choose them carefully. I wouldn�t call myself a friend of Martha Stewart�s, but I know her. A few years ago, during a coffee break at a technology conference, we had a pleasant conversation about public radio and�this was the best�the excellence of the steamed-milk froth on our free Starbucks lattes. A few years before that, she had invited me to a large dinner party at Nobu where Sam Waksal was present. (At that dinner, I happened to exchange a friendly glance with Calvin Klein, whom I had met exactly once before, but who nevertheless acted in that moment as if we were good friends, mouthing the words �Are you okay?� from across the room, since a few weeks earlier I had been fired as the editor of this magazine.)" Did he mention Latrell?