The 'Argentine Firecracker'
THE SCRAPBOOK hasn't much to add to the saga of Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina and his Argentine soulmate. THE SCRAPBOOK is all for open government, of course, but when the governor started talking--and talking and talking--about how many times he had "crossed the line" with women in his married life or compared himself to King David or discussed his intent to "fall in love again" with Mrs. Sanford, he crossed THE SCRAPBOOK line that separates us from the realm of Too Much Information. When this episode began, however, THE SCRAPBOOK was impressed not by the sordid/pathetic details--the sloppy emails, the Appalachian Trail cover story, King David again--but by the fact that the governor's beloved is not a statehouse intern (à la Bill Clinton) or a working girl (Eliot Spitzer) but a (divorced) Argentine TV journalist/businesswoman in early middle age named Maria Belen Chapur. Apparently there's something about Argentine women in early middle age that is catnip to certain Southern politicians.
THE SCRAPBOOK refers here to the late Rep. Wilbur Mills of Arkansas who, from 1957 until 1974, was invariably referred to in the press as the "powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee," and who was, in his time, one of those genuinely omnipotent Capitol Hill powerbrokers during the golden age before the Watergate reforms.
That is, until one evening in October 1974 when, as was his custom, Mills was enjoying a drunken assignation with his own extramarital soulmate at a downscale Polynesian restaurant in Washington called the Junkanoo.
Mills and his friend, whose name was Annabella Battistella, then piled into his official vehicle and were scuffling in the back seat when a park policeman stopped the car beside the Tidal Basin because the driver had not turned on the headlights. At that instant, just as a television camera crew arrived on the scene to record the spectacle, Mills's companion bolted from the car, and ran into the Tidal Basin in a vain attempt to escape from the cops. Mills, thoroughly intoxicated, with his face scratched and his mistress thrashing around in the waist-deep water (all recorded on the local TV news), appeared to be looking into the abyss of humiliation, disgrace, and involuntarily early retirement.
And yet he might--just might--have survived the mortification, except for two things. First, his soulmate was not just any goodtime gal but a 38-year-old stripper with the irresistible stage name of "Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker." And second, after winning reelection back home in Arkansas a few weeks later, Mills followed Ms. Foxe to a professional engagement at Boston's Pilgrim Theatre, where he made an unscheduled appearance onstage and, suitably fortified with booze, conducted a press conference backstage with the Argentine Firecracker and her understanding husband.
We know where this ends. Shortly thereafter Mills resigned his chairmanship and stepped down from Congress in 1976. He also stopped drinking, joined the lecture circuit on the perils of alcohol, and died--still married to Mrs. Mills--in 1992. Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker, is now 73 years old and lives in Argentina.
It's a sad story, from THE SCRAPBOOK's point of view, but a sadly familiar one--with just one tantalizing postscript: Has anybody in Buenos Aires introduced Mrs. Battistella to Mrs. Chapur?
The Chief vs. the King
Another reason to admire Chief Justice John Roberts: As a young aide in the Reagan White House Counsel's office, he twice put the kibosh on efforts to solicit letters from Ronald Reagan lauding the late "King of Pop," Michael Jackson. Charlie Savage of the New York Times retrieved the memos, which were among the documents released before his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. The first, from June 22, 1984, refers to a proposed letter from Reagan that would have appeared in a special issue of Billboard magazine devoted to Jackson:
I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough. The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson's PR firm. "Billboard" can quite adequately cover the event by reproducing the award citation and/or reporting the President's remarks. (As you know, there is very little to report about Mr. Jackson's remarks.) There is absolutely no need for an additional presidential message. A memorandum for Presidential Correspondence objecting to the letter is attached for your review and signature.
That fall, with Jackson planning a concert in Washington's RFK Stadium, the White House correspondence office proposed a letter of greeting from the president. Roberts responded in part:
I recommend that no such letter be sent. The Jackson tour, whatever stature it may have attained as a cultural phenomenon, is a massive commercial undertaking. The visit of the tour to Washington was not an eleemosynary gesture; it was a calculated commercial decision that does not warrant gratitude from our Nation's Chief Executive. Such a letter would also create a bad precedent, as other popular performers would either expect or demand similar treatment. Why, for example, was no letter sent to Mr. Bruce Springsteen, whose patriotic tour recently visited the area? Finally, the President, in my view, has done quite enough in the way of thanking and congratulating the Jacksons, and anything more would begin to look like unbecoming fawning.
The FBI on Saddam
Notes and transcripts from the FBI's interviews with a captured Saddam Hussein were released last week. It's not edifying reading. Here's a bit from a May 10, 2004, FBI memo, written after an agent's "casual conversation" with Saddam:
Hussein's work schedule was long, but he would set time aside for fictional reading, something he enjoyed very much. His days would include meetings with the other senior Ba'ath Party members. Hussein claimed he regularly met with the Iraqi people as he found them to be the best source of accurate information. Hussein would meet with citizens daily, or every other day. When asked, how could he be certain that the citizens were honest during their discussions, as most would have been afraid? Hussein replied that this could have been the case, but the population knew he sought the truth. Hussein gave an example involving his half-brother, Watban Ibrahim Hasan Al-Majid, the Minister of Interior at the time. A citizen reported to Hussein that while stopped at a traffic light, Watban fired his pistol at the traffic light. Hussein contacted Watban to determine if this was true. Watban acknowledged it was. Hussein then told him to pack his things, allowing him to learn of his removal from Hussein instead of the state news radio. Hussein claimed that he held his family at a higher standard than others.
Of course, Saddam killed his own family members. Astonishingly, this type of mindless drivel is now being cited as evidence that the FBI "broke" or got good intelligence out of Saddam.
Mary Lou Forbes, 1926-2009
THE SCRAPBOOK bids adieu to Mary Lou "Ludy" Forbes of the Washington Times, who died last week. A Pulitzer winner as a young reporter for the Washington Star, Mrs. Forbes presided--unflappably, cheerfully, tirelessly--over the Commentary pages of the Times for 25 years, until just days before her death at 83. "Pages" is the key word. While other papers shrank the space officially devoted to opinion writing (even as the amount of opinion in their "news" pages grew), Forbes's multipage section was home to an astonishingly large array of columnists, many of them conservatives, at a time when there were far fewer outlets for conservative opinion than in recent years.
It is probably no exaggeration to say that thousands of writers are in her debt, as of course are hundreds of thousands of faithful readers.