Battle of the dwarfs
Nicholas von Hoffman
Washington With his handling of l'affaire Butz President Ford let it be known he intends to challenge the Reverend Peanut in the race to lose the election. Shortly after the irritating Secretary of Agriculture resigned his office. Ford quickly followed up with another hard blow to his own forehead during the second debate, when he insisted that the Soviet Union has no satellites in Eastern Europe. The prissy press here wouldn't, with the exception of the Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times, print Butz's exact words as they appeared in the weekly Rolling Stone but word got around the country fast enough that in Elmer Idiot's opinion the only thing the 'coloureds respond to is tight pussy, loose shoes and a warm place to shit.' It's a wisecrack that petrol pump bigots used to make, but most of us haven't heard it for years, and the fact that the Secretary of Agriculture could be talking that way in the mid 'seventies bothered a lot of people.
The most sophisticated were dumbstruck that Butz could be so unguarded in front of John Dean, the sneak with the tape recorder memory who had sunk Butz's old boss Richard Nixon. But he was and Dean immediately betrayed Butz and sank him too. Many blacks, of course, were furious, but so were many whites and even more, who may not have been driven to anger, were seriously disturbed. The United States, even with the civil disorders of the 'sixties, may be the most, perhaps even the only successful multi-racial, multi-national society on the globe. From Canada and Northern Ireland through Belgium, Lebanon, Russia and Yugoslavia and on to Sri Lanka and the Malaysian peninsula national states with racially or culturally diverse populations are under terrible internal pressures. America, even with and in some ways because of her well-publicised race problems, is not. The nation is very far from race warfare and there are practical grounds to hope, if not expect, that the next twenty years can see the end of racism on these shores.
The progress which the country has made depends on many mechanisms of a political and economic nature but it also depends on a certain type of public, social etiquette.
Butz violated etiquette. He as much as said that the brotherhood and equality talk is guff for the gullible because the government is actually in the hands of the type of country club bigots whose wives chisel down their black maids' wages and who themselves believe that black men have longer penes and fear them for it. Even Republicans who have no regard for the values of the civil rights upheaval—and there are a number who do—understand that the
society's well-being hinges on the general belief that there is racial justice. That is a non-debatable proposition which now attaches to the underlying social contract and that is why, when Butz was caught out, there was such consternation. In all likelihood Ford is too stupid to see that, which is why he thought in his primitive way that he could go through the official ritual of denouncing what Butz had said without having to fire him. A number of members of his own party set him straight on that, but by the time the Secretary of Agriculture was told to report to the White House with resignation in hand Ford had delayed so long he was being hurt by the remark.
The Butz controversy has been carried on in a period when for the first time Ford's personal, financial probity is being questioned. The special Watergate prosecutor has been investigating money matters relating to campaign finances in Ford's old fifth Michigan congressional district. Even the fact that such an investigation has been going on has sent right-wing supporters and newspaper columnists up the wall, but they're going to have to change their tune. The conservative Wall Street Journal has just published a front page article saying that Ford seems to have used money collected for his political campaign to pay for clothes and a vacation. Moreover, the journal revealed to its readers, an internal revenue service audit of the Ford family cash flow shows that for tax purposes, at least, Ford claimed that in 1972 he lived off a mere five dollars a week in out-of-pocket expenditures. The implication is that he either had been cheating on his taxes by not reporting the income he was getting by dipping into campaign funds or was having his living paid for by lobbyists and others seeking special favours from Ford, who was House minority leader at the time. That the Wall Street Journal, a cautious, right-wing publication which has supported the Ford administration, should break such a story suggests that Ford may have trouble defending his honesty and that we may have a second President under serious attack for tax-cheating and petty theft.
Nevertheless, as Ford moved into the second debate, he was still gaining ground all over the country. The reaction to the Butz affair was only beginning to build up and the picture of Ford, the tax cheat and panhandler President mooching off lobbyists, hadn't yet registered—nor has it as of this writing. Perhaps if he'd had a good debate, matters would still be going well with him, but his gaffe on Eastern Europe must have cost him support. Ford is so inarticulate that when the tape in the little cassette in the back of his skull runs out and he switches to the manual mode, it is impossible to ascertain what he means. But a President can't plead he's too stupid to make sense, and the man insisted, even in the face of incredulous questioning, that the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe had van ished. The next day Democrats back in Washington were sk ipping about the Capitol asking if they should introduce legislation for withdrawal from NATO. That, of course, is the farthest thing from Ford's mind.
For the millions of people of Eastern European descent clustered in the cities and suburbs of states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania Ford's position will cause bafflement and anger. For thirty years these groups have been petitioning, parading and pleading for American action on behalf of 'the captive nations' as they are often called here. The Eastern European vote, even now in a period when 'ethnics' have a small degree of chic, tends to be overlooked except by adept campaign managers.
It's always possible that Ford's people will be able to explain away their candidate's foolish words, or that so much time has now elapsed from the big emigrations that not many people care what their raisin-eyed President with the golf ball-sized brain says about Poland. The Republicans had better hope that's true, because there are almost as many people of Polish descent in and around Detroit as there are in Warsaw.
You will notice in this version of what's happening in our atomic Disneyland no mention is made of Carter winning votes, only of Ford losing them. Immediately after the second debate the myriad pollsters got on the telephone to their randomly selected respondents and announced that the public had decided Carter had 'won'. A non scientific appraisal of the public's reaction
would be that Carter simply lost less than Ford. It was truly a match between President
Flubb and Governor Fluff. Neither of them can speak a complete English sentence. Ford comes closer and that may be where Carter's advantage lies. Since fewer people can guess what it is he might be saying, he is less offensive.
Europeans with other concerns may ask themselves what the words spoken during the debate may portend for American actions abroad. The answer is, neither candidate has the foggiest idea of how to change American foreign policy nor the smallest desire to. On sober second thought, after the ballots are counted, the winner will most likely retreat somewhat from the more extravagant pro-Israel promises that were made on the stage in San Francisco.
Some people are deciding to vote for Carter on the basis of better a devil you don't know than one you do. Millions more, one suspects, are taking another look at third party candidates or confirming their de cision to boycott the election ; at the same time, the murmuring questions grow about a political system that offers such dwarf epigones in place of genuine distinction.
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