Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

�

Click here for the Secret Decoder Ring to this issue!

No Justice, No Pulizer

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

Well, there you are. This year's Pulitzer Prizes were announced the other day and Mullings missed out again. Informed sources have told us that Mullings could have been a finalist in many categories, Fiction being high amongst them.

In our post-game analysis here at Mullings Central, we noted that the single largest group of Prizes were awarded for reporting and photography that had to do with events precipitated either directly or indirectly by the U.S. Justice Department.

- The reporting by the Miami Herald on the Elian Gonzales case which was overseen by � Janet Reno.
- That photo of the INS agent in the ski goggles by Alan Diaz of the Associated Press on the morning of the raid, ordered by � Janet Reno.
- The Portland Oregonian won for its reporting on the secret jails of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which reports into the Justice Department headed, at the time by � Janet Reno.

This should have been the most frequent quote, yesterday, from the winners: "I would like to thank Janet Reno without whom this Pulitzer Prize would not have been possible �or necessary."

Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and the Pulitzer Prize for criticism was given to Gail Caldwell of The Boston Globe.

I'm not critical? I don't comment? What? Is it because the depth of thought involved in a typical edition of Mullings makes a single layer of an Intel P4 chip look like Mount Everest in comparison? Is that it?

Wait. Maybe if I do more literary stuff �

Ok. Book Report: Yesterday Craig Helsing and the BMW folks hosted a luncheon for Jay Winik who has written a fascinating book about the Civil War, "April 1865: The Month That Saved America."

Dr. Winik's thesis is this: If Lincoln, Lee, Grant, Sherman, and others (et. al. if the Pulitzer Committee is reading) had not risen to the occasion as they did, then the end of the Civil War might well have marked the beginning of a centuries-long conflict of the type we still see in the Balkans and Northern Ireland.

Instead Lee surrendered, Grant didn't arrest Lee, Sherman didn't shoot everyone in sight, and Lincoln said, when asked what the North should demand from the South, "Let them up easy."

According to Winik, there were 620,000 casualties in the Civil War. The population of the U.S. in 1860 was about 31.5 million. If that same proportion of butchery were to occur in 2001, when the population is over 281 million, that number would exceed five and a half million people right here in North America.

If different men were in place - or, if the men in place had acted differently - that last number, in aggregate, might have been close to an actual total.

But here's the really big deal. As of last night "April 1865" held the Amazon.com sales rank of SIXTY-SIX out of the bazillion books Amazon sells.

A rare glimpse of what goes into being confirmed as a Cabinet Secretary was offered by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, the other day. According to the AP, Thompson, who served as Governor of Wisconsin for 14 years, said one Senate Committee "wanted every piece of legislation he introduced in two decades as a state legislator, plus every bill he vetoed in 14 years as Wisconsin governor." While another committee "wanted every speech he gave over 35 years in public office."

In addition, 10 FBI agents looked under every rock in the state and even interviewed a guy with whom Thompson had a fist fight when he was 16. "He said great things about me," Thompson said, "which leads me to believe that I lost the fight.''

Rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs who was cleared of gun charges, bribery, and other stuff (et. cetera if You-Know-Who is reading) a couple of weeks ago, changed his nickname to P-Diddy, went to Florida, and promptly got arrested again.

The charge? Making an illegal lane change on a motor scooter which he was driving on a suspended license.

Rap stars don't drive motor scooters. Rap stars don't drive at all. They are driven. In stretch limos that are so long that you can't see the driver from the back seat due to the curvature of the Earth.

Current Issue | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?