THE LAND OF IS

Like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, we're off to see the wizards of "What We Stand For," a two-day conference featuring Paul Krugman, Gary Hart, Jim Fallows, Sandy Berger, Eliot Spitzer, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kevin Phillips, Robert Reich, Joe Trippi and many more from the Land of Is.

In our absence, here are some excerpts from a memo by one of our fave columnists, Bruce Feirstein, channeling Karl Rove's updates of new "White House-approved media buzzwords":

+ Abu Grhaib prison. Henceforth, this will be known as the "Khalil Gibran/Dale Earnhardt Jr. vocational-training facility and recreational center." As John Kerry himself asked: "Who among us does not like NASCAR?"
+ "Liberators." This remains the preferred terminology to describe our presence in Iraq, as opposed to "bungling clueless superpower."
+ "American war criminals." Please substitute "Overzealous patriots."
+ "Independent contractors" remains our preferred appellation. "Mercenaries," "hired guns," "Halliburton employees" or "crazed good ol' boys operating outside any known moral or legal authority" are not acceptable synonyms.
+ "Prisoners of war." Better to say "Guests of interest."
+ "War Crimes," "Atrocities," "Human-rights violations," "Torture," "Softening up prisoners for interrogation." The preferred description is "intelligence-gathering activities." But if pressed, use "Having a frank and honest chat with our 'guests of interest.'"
+ "A world of hurt." Avoid. Please substitute "An unfortunate and unforseeable blip on the road to success."
+ "Chain of command." Obsolete.
+ "Swatting flies." Inoperative.
+ "Imminent threat." Banished.
+ "Boots on the ground." Expunged. (Alas, it seems that certain "independent contractors" mistook this to mean "boots on the prisoner's head.")
+ Presidential daily briefing. The P.D.B. will henceforth be known as "USA Today." If you get a chance, stop by to say hello to ace journalist Jack Kelley, who's been brought in to edit it.
+ "Unknown unknowns." Now that we know what said "unknown unknowns" are (i.e., white trash gone wild in Abu Ghraib prison), this phrase will be dropped from our lexicon.
+ "It's possible." As per use by Donald Rumsfeld: "Not a chance."

Future updates are pending, we hope. This morning even strait-laced William Powers offers a faux news summary, Rummy-style. And finally, for anyone who needs reminding: "The Wrong Direction" gets it right.

May 14, 2004 9:24 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
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