ABCDE
OUTLOOK
sunday, may 30, 2010
INSIDE
Lots of Bill Clinton, a little George Bush
Sandy Berger dissects Obama’s national security strategy. B4
BOOK WORLD, B6-8
Dead man talking The tale of the corpse that fooled the Germans and won World War II. B6 Hard bargain Can you trade political freedoms for economic riches? China is trying. B7 Beyond the musicDuke Ellington transforms race, culture and — oh, right — jazz in America. B8
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myths about working moms. B4
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BOOK REVIEW
If boring is a sin, Hitchens is a saint
by Diana McLellan
W
hat a guy. At Oxford, Christopher Hitchens pumps the Fist O’ Protest and bellows “The Interna- tionale” — against the
Vietnam War, provincial English hair- dressers who won’t cut the hair of black people, segregated cricket teams. He knows, and blabs, that Bill Clinton took his dope when they strove together, or at least at the same time, among those dreaming spires. (Not inhaling! Gob- bling it in brownies, like Alice B. Tok- las!) He has his scrotum waxed and sub- mits to waterboarding for Vanity Fair — not, alas, at the same time. (Full dis- closure: Hitchens was the only critic to dump on my quickie first book, “Ear on Washington,” back in 1982. He was a newbie, wild to be noticed at the Nation. I forgive him.) He acid-washes Princess Di and
Diana McLellan’s most recent book is “The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood.”
hitchens continued on B2
Mother Theresa in articles. Maggie Thatcher spanks him. He’s bosom buds with Salman Rushdie, Edward Said, Ian McEwan, Clive James, James Fenton. (Who? Oh, right. That guy, the poet.) He whores in a horrible brothel with his
HITCH-22 A Memoir
By Christopher Hitchens Twelve. 435 pp. $26.99
best chum, Martin Amis. He wriggles into Cuba when it’s wicked and almost meets Che. He hits the nastiest global hot spots. He bloviates the naughtiest things he can think of on American TV, oblivious to the impact of his home- hacked hairdo and stained English teeth, convinced that nobody notices he’s pie-eyed. The unflagging author, lecturer, jour- nalist, “contrarian,” television gasbag and longtime Washington intellectual pit bull of the left — who fell out with most of it over his support for the war in Iraq — has been doing his best to stir up excitement here since his ’82 arrival, publicly declaring war on everyone from Henry Kissinger (“a war criminal”) to God (“not great”). But Lord, my heart goes out to the lad.
He grew up largely in Portsmouth, Eng- land. That’s a provincial seaport where admirals lie thicker on the ground than
TONY HEALEY
icture it: the opening home game of the Wizards’ 2010-2011 season. Tied score, fourth quarter. Rookie point guard and top draft pick John Wall snags a rebound and races out on a fast break, whipping the ball to Gilbert Arenas for a jumper from the corner. Gilbert — in his rehabilitated, unselfish and unarmed incarnation — takes a quick look at the basket but pump-fakes, freezes a defender and instead feeds the ball to the Wizards’ glorious new small forward trailing down the middle, who takes off from the free-throw stripe for an insane, jaw-dropping dunk. The sold-out crowd at Verizon Center explodes. Senators, lobbyists, White House aides and visiting
heads of state exchange awkward high-fives courtside. Instant “SportsCenter” highlight. Now imagine this for 82 games each year, and deep into every playoff season, for the next decade or so. Everyone, even President Obama, has an opinion about where Cleveland Cavaliers superstar and free-agent-to-be LeBron James should play next year. But the obvious answer has yet to emerge from the speculation flooding the nation’s sports media: The most tal- ented player on the planet should come to the most powerful city in the world. Washington, the town named for our first president, is ready for its first King.
lebron continued on B5
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIN LENZ
Michael Abramowitz, a former
Washington Post reporter and editor, recently gave up his Wizards season tickets but is willing to reconsider.
The fake feminism of Sarah Palin
by Jessica Valenti
S
arah Palin sure is dropping the f-bomb a lot lately. In a widely noted speech this month to the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abor-
tion-rights group, Palin invoked the words “feminism” and “feminist” no less than a dozen times. She called for a “pro-woman sisterhood” and ad- dressed the “sisters” in the audience. If it weren’t for the regular references to gun rights, you might have thought you were listening to Gloria Steinem. If this rhetoric seems uncharacter- istic of the former governor of Alaska, that’s because it is. When running for vice president in 2008, Palin flip- flopped on the feminist question, tell- ing CBS’s Katie Couric that she is one, but later telling NBC’s Brian Wil- liams, “I’m not going to label myself anything.” Today, however, Palin is happily adopting the feminist label. She’s throwing support behind “mama griz- zly” candidates, describing the large number of women in the “tea party” as evidence of a “mom awakening” and preaching girl power on her Face- book page.
It’s not a realization of the impor- tance of women’s rights that’s in- spired the change. It’s strategy. Palin’s sisterly speechifying is part of a larger conservative move to woo women by appropriating feminist language. Just as consumer culture tries to sell “Girls Gone Wild”-style sexism as “empow- erment,” conservatives are trying to sell anti-women policies shrouded in pro-women rhetoric. Several years ago, when antiabor- tion protesters realized that scream- ing “Murderer!” at women wasn’t winning hearts and minds, they launched more palatable campaigns claiming that abortion hurts women —their new protest signs read “Wom- en Deserve Better.” (Not surprisingly, this message is much more effective than spitting invective at emotionally vulnerable women.)
When members of the conservative
Independent Women’s Forum argue against efforts to address pay inequi- ty, they say the salary gap is a result of women’s informed choices — mother- hood, for example — and that claims of discrimination turn women into victims. Conservatives have realized that women respond to seemingly
palin continued on B3
Jessica Valenti is the author of “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women” and the founder of
Feministing.com.
WASHINGTON NEEDS A KING
The improbable case for LeBron James and the Wizards
BY MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ
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