The Week - presidential candidates; Hillary Clinton's family background; other political news

National Review, August 30, 1999

A funny thing happened to Dan Quayle on the way to publication. Ann Godoff, chief editor at Random House, took a look at Quayle's Worth Fighting For and apparently had a nervous breakdown, writing, "The proposal is well thought through. The trouble is I just don't want to be a party to the promulgation of ideas I disagree with so profoundly. In the end, I think, the best publishing is done without reservation." There is absolutely nothing in Quayle's book that would make a civilized person react ("so profoundly") as if she had met a king cobra. Furthermore, Ann Godoff might have assigned the book to a subordinate editor not given to ideological delirium tremens. The book has been printed by Word Publishing and is doing nicely.

Though Taiwan has sought to ease tension over its recent self-assertion, China is making threatening moves against it. In response, the U.S. Senate is considering the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which would upgrade our military relations with the island. The Clinton administration is apoplectic about the bill, claiming-against all evidence-that Taiwan faces no serious threat, and-again, against all evidence-that deference to Beijing is the surest way to discourage its bellicosity. The bill is really rather modest, merely calling for the strengthening of our ally's defenses, within the boundaries of the established one-China policy. The Senate should approve the bill with veto-proof resolve.

The Boris Yeltsin Show runs and runs. He is so sick, he can hardly work, but when he does make it into the Kremlin it is to fire his prime minister. Vladimir Putin is the fifth to be appointed in 17 months, a political turnover that merits an entry in the Guinness book. Putin, now only 46, is still old enough to have spent 15 years as a KGB man in East Germany, making him an ambitious party comrade, by definition. This no doubt explains why he has until now been in charge of the Security Council, successor to the KGB. Presidential elections are due in about a year. Yeltsin has endorsed Putin as the best man to follow him. Strange, this. Putin, an unattractive apparatchik, has no popular base at all. Many in Russia want to investigate the rumors that Yeltsin and "The Family" around him are corrupt, and Putin could usefully block that. Perhaps the cunning plan is to create confusion so that Yeltsin can decree a state of emergency. In keeping with his conquest of the Pristina airport, he could then make a grab to extend the term of his own presidency.

In the middle of the Kosovo war, President Clinton unveiled his very own doctrine of international relations: America and NATO were fighting for "the principle of multi-ethnic, tolerant, inclusive democracy" and "against the idea that statehood must be based entirely on ethnicity." His new world order would be built on federations such as the European Union; the likes of the Kosovar Albanians would enjoy limited cultural autonomy rather than full national sovereignty. So how is it working out? It is plain that the very concept of a multi-ethnic Serbian federation including Kosovo is dead. All Kosovar Albanians support independence. If NATO is to keep Kosovo under even a fig leaf of Serbian sovereignty, it will have to fight them next. So too was the Clinton Doctrine a manifesto of opposition to "ethnic cleansing"-and the Kosovar Serbs themselves are in turn being ethnically cleansed by the KLA. Since the Clinton Doctrine has no divisions (the president never pays for his commitments), there will be no multi-ethnic, multicultural federation in the Balkans. The Clinton Doctrine, like peace in Kosovo, has proven remarkably short-lived.