GUESS WHO’S COMING TO LUNCH We understand, especially after the last couple of weeks, that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III’s job description includes enduring any number of slings and arrows, some more outrageous than others. But he must be even more of a glutton for punishment than we imagined to have agreed to be a luncheon speaker at the American Muslim Council’s annual convention on June 28. The AMC is one of those groups that once upon a time, way back before September 11, expressed sympathy for the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and support for terrorist outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah. But all has changed since last fall, right? Now the AMC specializes in maligning federal law enforcement officials. An AMC press release characterized the federal raids in March on several businesses in Northern Virginia suspected of aiding terrorist groups as follows: “National Muslim organizations have described the raids as what appears to be ‘a fishing expedition by federal authorities’ using ‘McCarthy-like tactics’ in a search for ‘evidence of wrongdoing that does not exist.’ Brothers and Sisters this is YOUR community that has been attacked.” And here is the AMC’s June 3 letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft complaining about the new surveillance policies announced by Ashcroft and Mueller to improve the FBI’s ability to gather intelligence on terrorists: “The announcement last week by the Justice Department of its new policy permitting blanket government spying on any mosque or Muslim organization, however, has raised issues and questions in our community which we feel you must directly address now. For example, we need you to clarify your remark that ‘scrupulous respect for civil rights and personal freedom’ will be maintained even under this new policy. “Thus, we request an immediate meeting with you to discuss this issue. We feel that Director Mueller addressing the Muslim community at our convention can serve as a bridge builder–provided there is first a fundamental acknowledgement and protection by the Justice Department of the rights and liberties of Muslim Americans.” So here’s the AMC’s offer: We will insult you, then you must suck up to us, then we will deign to let you speak to us. The Scrapbook is glad it doesn’t run the FBI. MCCAIN’S SOFT SPOT FOR SOFT MONEY John McCain, the Arizona Republican, is the world’s biggest foe of soft money. Because soft money corrupts politics. Well, not always. When it comes to so-called leadership political action committees–McCain’s is called Straight Talk America–they are entitled to raise some soft (unregulated) money. Why? Because McCain said so on the floor of the Senate when campaign finance reform was being debated this spring. The issue came before the Federal Election Commission last week as it began looking into rules to implement the campaign law enacted after years of effort by McCain. Trevor Potter, a McCain adviser and ex-FEC commissioner, cited McCain’s words to justify double fund-raising accounts for leadership PACs. These are PACs run by elected officials that dispense money to other candidates in their party. They can raise $5,000 each election cycle in hard (or regulated) money from donors and, in a separate account, pick up $5,000 in soft money per donor for use in state or local campaigns. Nifty, huh? McCain says his PAC only raises hard money. And he says Democrats who want their national party to have two accounts, one for hard money, one for soft, are making “an extraordinary leap” from what the new law requires. If he says so. WHAT AN ALTERNATIVE With some notable exceptions–the New York Press and Boston Phoenix prominent among them–the so-called “alternative weekly” newspapers are most useful when they’re crumpled up underneath logs to start a fire. Many of those who work on such papers, however, take themselves very seriously. Consider the recent activities of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a self-described “diverse group of 121 non-daily free-circulation papers.” When the group held its annual convention last weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, the admissions committee voted to accept just one of the 14 new applicants–giving the group an admissions rate that’s more competitive than Yale Law School. The critiques of the papers that didn’t make the cut were posted on the AAN website, and several were rejected for legitimate-sounding reasons: bad writing, poor reporting, a too-cozy relationship between the business and editorial sides of the operation. But the critique that caught The Scrapbook’s eye was the rejection of the Independent Florida Sun, a weekly published in the Sunshine state’s panhandle. The judges praise the Sun as “interesting,” possessing “energy and considerable wit throughout.” Indeed, it’s “almost a throwback; IFS reminds me of a late-19th-century muckraking daily, back when publisher/editors wore their hearts on their sleeves.” And, “it’s refreshing to see at least one of this year’s applicants doing something that the alternative press built its reputation on.” Still, the judges recommended against admission: “Generally speaking, Republicans are too constipated to publish alternative papers, which makes this applicant from Florida’s Redneck Riviera all the more perplexing. There’s some honest journalism here mixed in with a lot of pandering to the military, the religious right, and the Bushes.” Come again? “The right-wing church columnist has no place in AAN.” Say what? “All the God-and-flag sh– disturbs me.” There were a few substantive comments, too. But the reason the IFS was rejected is clear: too conservative. So who is this crazy right-wing publisher? David Duke? Jerry Falwell? No, it’s Joe Scarborough, the Republican who was one of the wittier and well-liked denizens of the cable TV circuit before he retired from Congress last year. Meanwhile, the AAN board of directors approved a plan to create a foundation to help fund the Academy of Alternative Journalism at Northwestern’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism. Executive Director Richard Karpel explained the reason: “Our goal is to increase editorial diversity at AAN papers.” Right, Dick. AXIS OF KUSHNER Of all the remarks inflicted on graduating college seniors by their commencement speakers this year, none may be as stomach-churning as these from playwright Tony Kushner at Vassar College on May 26. It’s not that we have a problem with such inspirational lines as “I hope you are aflame with vision, ambition, and hope.” It’s the tiresome harangue against the Bushes that made us lose it: “Evil is always happy to enter, sit down, abolish the Clean Air Act, and the Kyoto accords, and refuse to participate in the World Court or the ban on landmines. Evil is happy refusing funds to American clinics overseas that counsel abortion and evil is happy drilling for oil in Alaska. Evil is happy pinching pennies while 40 million people worldwide suffer and perish from AIDS; and evil will sit there, carefully chewing pretzels and fondly flipping through the scrapbook [no relation to this page, as far as we know] reminiscing about the 131 people he executed when he was governor, while his wife reads Dostoevsky in the corner.” Sounds like maybe Tony wants a job writing editorials for the New York Times. CORRECTION Last week we wrote that Sen. Patrick Leahy had requested of Miguel Estrada, a Bush judicial nominee, copies of all memos Estrada had written for his law firm. The request–no less outrageous–was actually for materials Estrada generated when he worked in the solicitor general’s office.
