From http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary.asp?f=000419/263238 {{<Begin>}} Wednesday, April 19, 2000 Playing the ethnic card in New York Christopher Hitchens National Post In Edwin O' Connor's classic The Last Hurrah, which is the best pastiche of the Tammany style that we have, the real-life figure of Mayor James Curley of Boston is represented by one Frank Skeffington. Here he is, as he explains the foreign-policy dimension of local elections: "When you come right down to it, there are only two points that really count ..." Skeffington held up two fingers. "One," he said, ticking the first. "All Ireland must be free. Two," he said, ticking the second, "Trieste belongs to Italy. They count. At the moment, the first counts more than the second, but that's only because the Italians were a little slow in getting to the boats." The playing of the ethnic card in New York City politics is often lazily assumed to follow the stupid adage of that other great Bostonian Democrat, Tip'O Neill, who remarked contentedly that "all politics is local." In fact, in the Five Boroughs, much politics is global. Ward-heeler talk about "the three Eyes" -- Ireland, Italy and Israel -- understates the way in which New York is international. It also, in its traditionalism, overlooks the way in which Asian and Middle Eastern influences have rewritten the score of West Side Story. It has been alternately amusing and sickening to see Mrs. Clinton trying to navigate these waters, sometimes in her simpering role as a newly-minted upstate suburban housewife and sometimes in her more "strong woman" role as First Lady and chief confidante. Everyone remembers the same dual personality; the woman who claims that "Bill and I talk all the time" (a shudder-making thought in itself) claims not to have talked with him about the amnesty for Puerto Rican bombers. In rather the same way, when her trip to Israel and occupied Palestinian territories turned farcical, she was somehow deemed to be there as a private citizen rather than a First Lady. This is a White House long used to replacing accountability with deniability -- micro-management of everything from health care to welfare, but total amnesia and inattention when things turn nasty -- so the quick-change habit has become ingrained by now. My favourite example -- apart from the fouled up why-was-I-not-told decision to attend the wrong St. Patrick's Day parade -- was Mrs. Clinton's confusion between different cover-stories over her famous cattle futures trade. She was pregnant with Chelsea at the time, she fluttered, and too hormonal to think straight. Strong, independent woman or self-pitying sob-sister? Maybe both. The apparent surrender to global influence-peddling in the matter of Pakistan has been allowed to die a media death. Remember when every liberal knew how to sneer at George W. Bush, not only for forgetting the name of Pakistan's new dictator but for saying that he seemed like a good guy? Well, the General Musharraf regime has now hired, at a retainer of $22,500 (US) a month, the DC law firm of Patton Boggs, for which Lanny Davis, one of the First Family's chief apologists, toils. Perhaps for reasons having to do with the separation of powers, Patton Boggs also collects $10,000 (US) monthly from Pak- Pac, the Pakistani lobby in America, for Lanny Davis' services in its behalf. Suddenly, no more Dem jokes about ignorance of Pakistan. Last December, after Clinton announced that Pakistan would not be on his itinerary when he visited the subcontinent, his former White House "special counsel" arranged a fundraiser in Washington at which 37 lawyers from Patton and Boggs contributed $24,000 (US) to the First Lady's Senate campaign. So, not very indirectly, Pakistani military money was washed into her coffers from the very start. Then in February, another Pak-Pac event in New York was brought forward so as to occur before the arrangements for the president's passage to India had been finalized. Having been told that the First Lady did not grace any event for less than $50,000 (US) up front, the Pakistanis came up with the dough and were handsomely rewarded for their trouble by the presence of Lanny Davis and by a statement from Mrs. Clinton that she hoped her spouse would stop off in Pakistan after all. And a few days later, he announced that, after much cogitation, he would favour General Musharraf with a drop-by. How does this look to you? One way of deciding it is to try the cover-stories for size. "I wish I could say I had the influence and had applied the right pressure for the president to visit Pakistan, but I didn't, so I can't" That's Lanny Davis. Is this what he tells the Pakistanis in return for his large stipend? "If anybody thinks they can influence the president by making a contribution to me, they are dead wrong." That's Hillary Clinton. Is that what she said at the Pak-Pac fundraiser? One thing that strikes the eye is how cheap this is. And inexpensive, too. The Pakistani nuclear junta must be rubbing its eyes; for such a relatively small outlay it can get the First Family to perform public political somersaults. The problem with Pakistan is that it is a banana republic with nuclear weapons, run by ambitious and greedy politicians who are scared of their own military- industrial complex. Aren't you glad you don't live there? Meanwhile, don't forget that the main task is to put the country behind us and move this forward -- (I think I've got that right). Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation. Copyright © Southam Inc. 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