DIARY
IRWIN STELZER . er weeks of rain, which climatolo- gists say will produce a thick horde of mosquitoes but a rich bounty of mush- rooms and oysters, the capital is in luxuri- ant bloom. These are the few glorious weeks between the end of the rainy season and the onset of one of the steamiest, most uncomfortable summer seasons known to America. It is always a surprise to return from London, one of the greenest cities in the world, and find that the foliage of Britain's capital is as nothing compared to that in America's.
The leafiness enhances the beauty of the several embassies on Massachusetts Avenue, the city's 'embassy row', on which Lutyens's stately British embassy still has Pride of place. But only architecturally. As a. centre of influence, political and social, it is not what it was under the shrewd Sir John Kerr, whose recent inability to con- struct a coherent explanation of Robin Cook's doings in Sierra Leone must have him longing for the days when, as Britain's ambassador here, he moved noiselessly but effectively through this city's corridors of Power. His successor, Sir Christopher Meyer, just hasn't made an equivalent impact on the people who matter here, per- haps because direct contact between pals Bill Clinton and Tony Blair has marginalised both nations' ambassadors. But it is widely believed here that Sir Christopher's failure to cosy up to key con- gressional Republicans ill serves his For- eign Office masters.
T, he business of this one-industry town is politics. There is no manufacturing; only lawyers and lobbyists importuning govern- ment to do things that other lawyers and lobbyists are importuning it not to do. Add the policy wonks who do the heavy policy lifting at the city's think tanks, and you account for almost everyone who matters here — except for the President and Congress. At the moment, the Republican Congress and the Democratic President are locked in combat over two issues that have evoked intense reactions from time iiiimemorial: sex and money. Clinton is Using every stratagem his lawyers can devise to stall the investigation into his sexcapades, which even the most devoted Chntonistas concede included trysts with the young White House intern Monica Lewinsicy. Clinton partisans deny, howev- er, both that the discoverers of the new sex-enhancing drug considered naming it after the President before settling on Via- gra, and that he suborned perjury to cover up his several gropes. Afor money, the problem is that the government has too much of it. The boom- ing economy is producing a budget surplus that the President wants to spend on new social programmes, and the Republicans want to use to pay off the national debt and to finance tax cuts. These conflicting propositions will be put to the voters in the November congressional elections, now close enough to dominate discussions in the salons of the city. One such is held at noon every Sunday, when a group of conservative intellectuals gathers in one of the city's greasy spoons, as restaurants serving politi- cally incorrect high-cholesterol eggs, bacon and bagels with real butter, on genuine plastic tables, are known. Organised by the godfather of neo-conservatism, Irving Kris- to!, and his scholar-wife, Gertrude Him- melfarb — a Victorian scholar who is labouring to foster a remoralisation of a demoralised America — this open forum attracts leading conservative thinkers and journalists such as George Will and Charles Krauthammer, and the ICristoLs' son Bill, a Republican activist, television commenta- tor and editor of Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard. (Declaration of interest: I take many Murdoch shillings, and occasionally write for the Weekly Standard.) Behind a cloud of cigarette smoke that would delight Hillary Clinton, whose desire to increase the longevity of Americans does not extend to this crowd, the conservatives talk and plan. Having set the intellectual agenda that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980, they hope to repeat that feat in 2000. Problem: they don't have a candidate, and there is an old saying in Washington, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' a truism amply proved in 1996 when the Republicans tried to beat Clinton with Bob Dole, who, now 75, has taken to giving ringing endorse- ments of the efficacy of Viagra.
Like Britain's Tories, who seem intent on destroying themselves over the euro, America's conservatives seem to have a sort of death wish. This was highlighted when Michael Portillo visited my think tank for a lecture and a subsequent dinner con- versation with leaders of our intellectual Right, among them Jeane Kirkpatrick. Por- tillo's convincing anti-euro argument was well-received, but his dinner partners were less satisfied with his position that certain social issues — most notably abortion — are best left out of politics. The libertarian wing of American conservatism, of which group Barry Goldwater, who passed away last weekend, was a prominent member, agreed. But not the social conservatives, for whom legislation upholding `right-to-life' is a litmus test: fail it, and they would deny you the Republican party's endorsement. Here the British have it right: our conserva- tives' war over abortion makes the Tories' over the euro look like a mere skirmish. Inject it into politics, and all the bridge- building talent of David Willetts will not succeed in putting the party together again.
Local politics are as fascinating as the national version. Washington, the crime cap- ital of America, with one murder and almost 20 reported burglaries every day, has been presided over by Mayor Marion Barry for 16 of the past 20 years. Barry served a prison term for possession of crack cocaine, then proclaimed his 'redemption', emerged from prison to win re-election, and would undoubtedly win a fifth term in this predomi- nantly black city. But his wealthier followers, fearing that another Barry term would dam- age the capital's chances of economic recov- ery, have funded a private-sector, charitable position for him, providing a dignified exit from the political stage. Besides, the job is less attractive than it once was. Much of the mayor's power has been transferred by Congress to a financial control board that is desperately trying to restore minimal services to a city with potholes large enough to swal- low even the big cars that Americans fancy, a fire department with most of its engines out of service, and a police force that has a back- log of unsolved murders.
Summer is about to descend on Wash- ington. Indeed, we have already had one day when the thermometer at DuPont Cir- cle, a park that is home to both drug and chess addicts, read 99 degrees. This one- time malarial marsh is so unpleasantly hot and muggy in summer that until the advent of air-conditioning Britain maintained a winter residence for its ambassador, Mas- sachusetts serving as America's equivalent of Simla. Naturally, Congress is eager to close shop and flee, which it will soon do, leaving the republic safe from its misfea- sances until autumn.
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