Why are these celebs—with their unlimited access to all that is freaky and fabulous in the world of fashion—dressing as if they were headed for a Saturday night at a red-state country club? How did we get to the point where the anti-Bush movie stars are playing it so safe that they end up resembling the very people they most revile? These burning questions can only be answered by taking a quick trip down fashion memory lane.

A brief history lesson: Back in the old days, movie celebs used to be a lot more fun. By “fun,” I do, in fact, mean “funny-looking,” as in goofy and unstylish. I’ll never forget the first time I attended a “Hollywood Party.” The year was 1978. The place: the Paramount back lot on Melrose Avenue. It was a very Zsa Zsa/Merv/Sue Mengers/floppy hat/feather boa kind of evening, if you know what I mean. The attendees in their canary-yellow chiffons and teal Quianas (and that was just the men) were so delightfully out of it that they fairly took my breath away.

As the 1980’s dawned, everything began to change: Hollywood discovered hip, and vice versa. Gusts of Armani, Montana and Mugler blew into town like so much modish flatulence. Ere long, those gusts became a tornado of Prada and Gucci and Helmut. By the mid-90’s—the arrival of Barneys, bonjour!—L.A. had actually become trendier than New York.

The collision of fashion and entertainment provided some unforgettable red-carpet visuals: Juliette Binoche in Gaultier and Björk in Marjan Pejoski’s swan dress, to name but two. We couch potatoes loved the spectacle, and so did the tabloids. With their populist point of view, it wasn’t long before the tabs began to skewer these Tinseltown fashionistas by collaging them into endless what-the-hell-were-they-thinking? double-page spreads.

Unamused by their repeated appearances on the “Worst Look of the Week” page in the Star, the celebs have become gun-shy. On pain of death, their stylists—Robert Verdi, Phillip Bloch, Jessica Paster et al.—are mandated to rid their red-carpet drag of the kind of creative flourishes which might expose their clients to any negative comment. The results? Monday night’s horribly neutered version of style, which was about as risky and fashion-forward as Laura Bush’s inauguration gown. Quel grand irony!

Watching the G.G.’s with a shrink friend compensated for the lack of onscreen entertainment. When E! channel host Isaac Mizrahi, having found the frocks unremarkable, resorted to inquiring whether various stars had shaved and/or dyed their pubic hair, my pal—who tends the severely mentally ill at a New York area psychiatric facility—let out a little shriek of recognition. Apparently, one of her chronically ill patients had asked her that very same question only the week prior.

Though the hamstrung fashion parade which pranced down the red carpet at Monday night’s Globes had all the verve and excitement of a second-tier Palm Beach fund-raiser, there were a few bright spots (e.g., Sarah Jessica Parker in Rochas, Vanessa Paradis in Chanel and—most fab of all—Gwyneth’s Shakespearean Balenciaga maternity number. Best Supporting Actress winner Rachel Weisz, also knocked up, looked intriguingly ghoulish in her gold Donna Karan. Expect to see all four pilloried in next week’s Us Weekly.

As I scanned the crowd searching for moments of stylish idiosyncrasy, I found myself looking beyond the celebs and fixating on the flacks. Yes, I’m talking about that sea of agitated, headset-wearing publicity drones—mostly female, mostly chunky and mostly wearing black crêpe pantsuits—who usher and cajole their taller, thinner charges down the runway. Next to the sleek and boringly appropriate movie stars, these hard-working lasses appeared positively edgy and enigmatic, recalling a private army in a bad Bond movie.

Like the black-clad performers at a Japanese bunraku performance, the crêpe-wearing flacks are ultimately more fascinating than the gussied-up puppets that they are charged to manipulate. As of last Monday, I have become totally obsessed by them. I’m dying to understand the perverse psychology that would compel somebody to embrace such a strangely anonymous but celebrity-adjacent career: so near the blazing spotlight, and yet so far. Where do they live? Are they lesbians? Do they hang out together? Do they have a softball team? Are they part of a union? Who is their boss? I imagine some cruel Rosa Klebb–ish figure issuing strict edicts about trouser lengths and where they can shop while handing out 10 percent discount cards to Eileen Fisher or the Loft.

It can only end in tears. I predict that, as the celebs become more boring and less flamboyant, the already massive pressure on the flacks to increase their anonymity and “dress down” will continue to increase. The Oscars are looming. It can only be a matter of time before a few of them snap under the strain. I have alerted my pal at the loony bin to prepare for an influx of pant-suited patients.

To: Si

From: Tina

Got your lovely message, but I’m afraid I’ve already edited TNY once, and once was enough.

I do, however, have something else in mind.

O.K., here it is. New magazine. Keep reading.

What’s the hottest thing going right now? No, not Angelina’s baby or Miers’ mire. Disasters, of course! Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, naughty terrorist attacks, Biblical floods, horrid bus accidents! SO why not a magazine which captures all the buzz and excitement and je ne sais quois of these events? I give you:

KATRINA!

With me at the helm, and you shoveling the proverbial coal, KATRINA! will flood the newsstands (ha!) and cause a seismic shift (double ha!) in the magazine world. The main audience would be, just like VF and Talk, mainly women. I call them “FEMA females.” She’s a woman who downloads the latest weather on her P.D.A., always builds her house on high ground, and just might like to know what’s under that Sikh’s turban! She’s up, up, up on all the news; she watches BBC World News at the Reebok gym. She has a heart: She sent $100 to Red Cross to help the “unfortunates” in New Orleans, blah, blah, blah. When disaster strikes, others may stress—she buys a new dress! If the 90’s were all about nightclubs bombing, now it’s all about bombing nightclubs! (Good advertorial possibility with Bali Industry of Tourism here. Maybe a cruise with Simon Dumenco?)

The mix in KATRINA! would be celebs (that model who swam around in the tsunami would be a good first cover; I see Jesse Kornbluth), art, fashion, finance—our girl doesn’t want her bottom line to get soaked!

At the end of the day, a disaster always gets people buzzing. Think about it, Si-nubs: Every time something terrible happens around the world, we get a bounce on the newsstands and our cost-per-thousand plummets like a lorry falling from the sky!

So join me, Si, get in on the ground floor of KATRINA!—before it blows up! (Sor-ry!)

Luv,

T

Interview With an Inventor

I spoke with Brooklyn inventor Serge Pastin.

SPARROW: I understand you have invented a psychic alarm clock.

PASTIN: Yes, I have.

SPARROW: How exactly does that work?

PASTIN: Suppose you set the alarm for 7:08 p.m. At 7:08, you hear nothing. But, inside the clock, a microchip plays the phrases “Time to awaken …. Please wake up … , ” over and over.

SPARROW: Does the clock work?

PASTIN: For some people, yes. I’d say 5 percent of the population can “read the mind” of their alarm clock. Of course, it depends how sleepy they are.

SPARROW: How would one use the clock?

PASTIN: If there’s a pressing engagement—a polo match or an airplane flight—you use an ordinary clock. But if there’s an elective awakening—if you take a nap, and you’d prefer to get up in a half-hour—you use my clock. If it succeeds, you feel like a genius.

SPARROW: Do you use the alarm yourself?

PASTIN: No. I’m not psychic.

—Sparrow

Medieval Manhattan

On a recent Tuesday night, large men suited in medieval armor battled with swords and shields on an asphalt field in the Canton of Whyt Whey—which is to say, by the Petco just off Broadway.

“Go ahead and hit me in the head, squire. In the head, hit me!” screamed a warrior named Gavin, all the while making sure not to accidentally smite any of the neighboring skateboarders or rush-hour commuters entering the subway at the northern end of Union Square. There, under the soft, golden glow of the McDonald’s arches and above the rumble of the R train, about a dozen members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, “a nonprofit, educational medieval recreation group,” meet every Tuesday night, Halloween season or not, for “single combat or melee battles.”

Manhattan, or Whyt Whey (“It’s supposed to sound Nordic and Viking and all those things,” said participant Lady Elizabeth Devon) makes up one of the 18 kingdoms of the “Known World.” Created in—you guessed it—Berkeley in the 1960’s, this quixotic universe is now populated with scores of imagined characters, such as Lady Lile Dubh inghean ui Mordha (Lilli Cohen) or Baron Sean de Londres (John Cnapich), transported from sometime between the fall of Rome and the English Civil War to the safe, bland streets of Bloomberg-era New York, where any vice or quirkiness can seem anachronistic.

Whyt Whey, like its earthly counterpart, turns out to be quite the medieval melting pot. The society counts Scottish lairds, Italian courtiers, Viking raiders, Flemish merchants, Irish clansmen, Norman Crusaders, Middle Eastern sheiks and Mongolian horsemen among its ranks. But few fighters have caused as much stir on the battlegrounds of Union Square as one fierce Trump Tower chef did on the damp October night.

“I haven’t seen that style before—different even from a California style. There’s a lot of feinting, throwing and blocking until a shot finally lands,” said Dwayne Herron, 44, the wizened master of the Manhattan warriors. Dressed in a leather jacket and leaning on his walking stick like a portly wizard, Mr. Herron studied the mysterious chef. His thick chain mail and steel helmet glinted in the lamppost light. His nimble sword thumped on his opponent’s head and limbs.

“He just cut his leg off. Ooh, that stings,” said Mr. Herron, noting that the chef wore a white belt. “That means he’s a knight.”

Indeed, Duke Ibrahim—also known by his mundane name, Abraham Risho—is a 28-year-old knight from Montana. Through his helmet’s battered grill, he recounted how he had brought his hand-painted aluminum shield, leather boots and trusty sword with him when he came to Manhattan in July to cook over on 56th Street. So far, he has found the island’s competition most worthy, he said, though he conceded that the really topnotch fighters of the country’s East Kingdom are found in the suburbs of New Jersey.

“It’s hard to get to practice here because of all the parking restraints,” he said.

The Duke’s sword, like everyone else’s, was made from rattan sticks, wrapped in strapping tape, then duct tape, and equipped with a crosspiece (usually a basket or metal guard) to protect the hands. Judging from the number of his opponents who suddenly dropped their swords, skipped around in circles, shook their wrists and blew on their fingers, the hand seemed the Duke’s favorite target.

“Halt—injury to thumb!” Mr. Herron often called out.

Some locals have grown used to the weekly clanking of armor and shields, but the fights inevitably attract a small, rather nonplussed crowd.

“Excuse me, sir, what do you call this? Fencing?” one woman asked Mr. Herron after having been dragged over by her intrigued young son.

“It’s called armored medieval combat. It predates fencing.”

“It sure does,” she said, before guarding her boy from one of the chef’s quickly retreating enemies. “Be careful!” she snapped and stomped away.

But others—such as Adam Deutsch, a tall 27-year-old attorney dressed in a dark pinstripe suit—watched the fighting with a wild gleam in the eye. “It’s great to get your aggression out,” he said. “Just to beat each other, with sticks, after work.”

The Union Square warriors stress that they aren’t putting on a show and that their armor is no mere Halloween costume, but rather a portal through which their alter egos express themselves. The fighting is real, not choreographed, insisted Lord Ervald the Optimistic, 37, dressed in blue with a yellow triskelion. This was no game—except when his buddy Flynn rode by on a bicycle and unsheathed two Star Wars light sabers from the guitar case on his back. “Cool,” said the Optimistic.

Flynn fought with an elegant style, crouching low with his left arm folded behind his back. “Yo, he fight like Yoda,” one kid in the growing crowd commented.

The Optimistic became aware of the building audience.

“You got to throw a spin in there somewhere,” he whispered to Flynn. “Swing low—I’ll leap.”

—Jason Horowitz

For reasons that go beyond inexplicable, Mr. Ridge, with the complicity of Congress, has turned homeland security into just another government entitlement program. Rather than acknowledge that some places-like, say, New York City-are in greater danger than others-Butte, Mont., comes to mind-the Homeland Security secretary and the grasping hacks on Capitol Hill are spreading money around the country to no great purpose other than to make heroes of local Congressmen. The result is that while New York has received $300 million in homeland-security money since 9/11, it gets less per capita than other states and local jurisdictions.

Congress and Mr. Ridge have taken great pains to make sure that homeland-security money is spread evenly-and, worse, they apparently think this is a good and fair way to operate. In fact, it is absurd. As Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out, the threat level is not spread evenly, so why should the money be?

The answer to that question involves the politics of pork-barrel spending. All 435 members of the House of Representatives want to get their pictures taken with the newest bit of homeland-security hardware in their districts. So everybody is screaming for a piece of the homeland-security pie. And their screams are being answered with dollars that could be better spent elsewhere.

Like here. Is there any doubt that New York remains a high-priority target, along with Washington, D.C.? Does anyone think that the good citizens of Wyoming are as threatened as those of the Upper East Side, or of Brooklyn? In terrorists' minds, New York isn't just target No. 1; it's also targets Nos. 2 and 3. Another strike here would generate enormous casualties and immeasurable media attention.

Leadership is about setting priorities. Tom Ridge has failed to provide that kind of leadership, and Congress has walked all over him. New York and other high-profile targets deserve not just a fair share of

homeland-security money-they deserve most of it. Here is where the threats are. Here is where the battle will be won. But only if Tom Ridge discovers a courage that may not be there.

Sam Heyman and The Partnership for Public Service

The decline of the great empires throughout history can be attributed in part to the waning interest in public service by the best and brightest of the population. Just look at the United States today: Rather than being imbued with dignity and wisdom, the White House and Congress are ruled for the most part by craven, short-sighted individuals who try to pass arrogance off as courage. This didn't happen just by accident or because of some nefarious Republican plot; for the past few decades, the public-service sector has come to be seen as a shabby career route, and has failed to magnetize the most talented college graduates. For a country to move forward and avoid decline, for its government and military to be in safe hands, it is essential that a sense of the nobility and urgency of public service be instilled in its young people. Toward this end, Sam Heyman created the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, bipartisan organization that works through educational outreach, research and legislative advocacy to revitalize public service and encourage the rising generation of Americans to see the virtues of a public-service career.

Recently, the partnership has been a key player in several promising reforms. For example, almost one-half of the entire government work force is about to enact a new pay-for-performance compensation system, bringing a long-overdue taste of private-sector competitiveness into government. The partnership has also helped form the Public Service Caucus, in which 40 members of Congress are coordinating legislation on civil-service reform issues. A new Call to Serve program at over 500 colleges and universities, in which federal agencies reach out to let college students know about public-service jobs, was co-sponsored by the partnership.

Even if one chooses to pursue a private-sector job, the chances for a full life are greatly increased if one devotes a portion of that life to public service. Whether being elected to office, or working for a civic agency or nonprofit advocacy group, the genuine value in public service-both to society and to those who perform it-cannot be overstated. Nothing is more important than assuring the continued flow of smart, innovative people into public service, especially in New York, where the public sector plays such a central role in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers.

The Partnership for Public Service is an example of what needs to be done, and how to do it right. The partnership may be reached at 202-775-9111.

No Thanks For The Memories

Do you have a friend who's in a bad mood? Before you attempt to cheer him or her up by reminding them of a happy memory, ask yourself first if your friend is prone to dysphoria-chronic low-level depression. New research indicates that dysphoric people get little help from happy memories, whereas those of a sunnier disposition can use a happy memory to boost themselves out of the blues.

As reported in the American Psychological Association's Monitor , two researchers-Jutta Joormann, a visiting psychology professor at Stanford University, and Matthias Siemer, a psychology professor at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Germany-showed college students a melancholic film clip from Dead Poet's Society , and then asked the students to recall a happy memory. The non-dysphoric undergrads came up with a positive memory in 2.6 seconds, while their dysphoric classmates took 3.25 seconds. The professors concluded that this may be one reason bad moods tend to linger for depressed people. They then asked the students to write down details of either a happy high-school memory, or their local grocery store. The non-dysphoric subjects brightened up at both tasks, while the dysphoric bunch only found relief in writing about the grocery store.

The conclusion: Next time your dysphoric friend gets moody, send him or her shopping.

"He helped her get back on track, but he's a maniac," growled the preppily attired Mr. Basso as he gulped a mineral water at La Goulue. Le Basso was taking a break from the frantic setup of his spanking new fur salon, which opens this week at 765 Madison Avenue, between 65th and 66th streets, with an invitation-only opening party; confirmed guests include Patti LaBelle, Joan Collins and son, model Helena Christensen, the Philbins, Whoopi Goldberg and Ms. Minnelli herself in the flesh. "She's talented; she's Judy Garland's daughter," he continued, getting quite agitato . "He wanted to control her. He wanted to be her!"

Profound psychological insights aside, the maker of Liza's $20,000 duchesse satin-lined floor-length white wedding mink is probably about the most amusing, likable and unpretentious character on the New York fashion landscape. A tour de force of showbizzy camp who manages to jam the words sable and Ivana (pronounced "Eye-vahnah") into every sentence, Mr. Basso, 49 and Jersey-born, flaunts an unabashed appetite for extravagance. "I was drawn into the fur business," he said, "because I loved the fact that something could cost thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars!" Hilariously quotable and unapologetically himself, D.B. claims he always felt "an affinity for the carriage trade. My taste leans towards the fashion-forward-conservative-slash-glamorous!"

Regarding PETA and the ongoing furor over the ethics of fur, Dennis seems remarkably sanguine. "Fur is the oldest profession," he shrugged, "and we never use any endangered animals." I pointed out that PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk's extremism has improved the lot of factory-farmed animals, according to a New Yorker article earlier this year. "That's good," Mr. Basso replied. "Our animals are humanely treated, too."

Though we do not quite see eye to eye on the wearing of fur, I found that the two of us have much in common. We have both, at one time in our lives, sold garments out of the trunks of our cars. In the early 1980's, Dennis hawked wholesale-priced furs to Long Island and New Jersey glamourpusses from the back of a rented town car. "I guess you could call it a trunk show!" he guffawed with a Rip Taylor–ish growl. At exactly the same time, I was doing exactly the same thing-to a less fashion-forward-conservative-slash-glamorous clientele-on the as-yet-undeveloped Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. When I needed extra cash, I would silk-screen and hand-paint a bunch of T-shirts from Chinatown with designs of my own making-fleurs-de-lis, teacups and anything else that took my fancy-and flog them from the back of my black VW. Though Eye-vahnah was not one of my customers, I distinctly remember Shelley Duvall, fresh from The Shining , haggling over my alfresco offerings.

Fast-forward 20 years: Today, Mr. Basso is opening his 3,000-square-foot store, and he's blowing a gasket with excitement: "I have a 40-foot frontage-d'ya think Bill Blass ever had that?" The store, which has the luxe-y beige, carriage-trade comfort of a Four Seasons Hotel, is crammed with Montana lynx, shaved broadtail, stenciled goat, unshaved shearling, white mink and sable, sable, sable: "Something for everyone," as Mr. Basso optimistically puts it. My pick: If I were a rich female, and hadn't read about how little furry animals are killed with electrodes in their anuses, and if I had $35,000 dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I would grab one of Mr. Basso's spectacularly squishy dyed chinchilla wrap coats, "very Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues ."

For those who cannot afford the above, or who are queasy about wearing fur, there's always QVC, where Mr. Basso-who seems to adore statistics as much as he loves Eye-vahnah-has just sold his one-millionth faux-fur. The price? A mere $143.75. ("Is it sable? NO! Is it fun? YES!") Check out his 10th-anniversary show tomorrow, Nov. 13, at 10 p.m.: "I'll be reaching 90 million people!"

At the conclusion of our interview, I ask the gorgeously affable Dennis to identify his favorite coat. "It's called SOLD!"

P.S.: Back when David Gest was nobody, Liza recorded an album with the Pet Shop Boys called Results (Amazon, $9.98). This 1989 masterpiece of boozy agony-set to a pounding, anthemic disco beat-fully expresses the torment and majesty that is Liza, even though, on a couple of the tracks, she sounds as if she's wearing loose-fitting dentures.

Mr. Bush's advocates around Capitol Hill and in the mass media are even more irresponsible in their eagerness to inflame. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole announces that if the Democratic candidate is declared the victor in Florida, Republicans will boycott his inauguration. That sour sentiment is more or less endorsed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, while his confederate, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, schemes to undo any unsatisfactory result through a semi-Constitutional subterfuge.

The Bush camp in the press, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page to the Washington Times , rants incessantly about "fraud," "theft" and "vote-rigging." In the New York Post , editorials and columns warn about a "Gore coup d'état." They are echoed by somewhat more respectable figures like syndicated columnist George Will, who doesn't bother to acquaint himself with basic facts before discharging a dose of poisonous ink about an election that "probably will soon be stolen" by Mr. Gore, a man of "moral turpitude." Cable television, talk radio and the Internet have been, not surprisingly, much worse.

The unwholesome effects of all this exaggeration and agitation were made plain to me the other night, after a TV appearance on which I ventured the radical suggestion that every valid vote ought to be counted. I regularly receive my fair share of nasty mail and messages, of course, but this one went further. An excitable man-who admittedly hadn't seen the broadcast in question-left a long, quavering, profanity-laced voice mail threatening that blood will be spilled in a looming "civil war."

That represents an extreme expression of unbalanced rage, but a similar fury is reflected in recent poll numbers. Fully 40 percent of Bush voters have declared that they would not accept Mr. Gore's election as "legitimate" (in contrast to roughly 25 percent of Gore voters who say they would regard a Bush Presidency with equal suspicion). Set against the undisputed facts of this election, the wretched rhetorical excess of the Republican side seems even more inexcusable. The supporters of Mr. Bush simply have no justification for their seething anger and self-righteousness.

There has been no proof of fraud on either side, in Florida or any other state. There has been no attempt to deprive the Republican candidate of his legal rights, which he is exercising just as vigorously as his Democratic opponent. The manual re-count of discarded ballots is proceeding according to the same standards signed into law by the Texas governor three years ago in his home state. His totals, if they vault him to victory, will include hand-counted ballots in at least six Florida counties.

More importantly, there is no question, according to current numbers, that Mr. Gore received more votes nationally than Mr. Bush-and by a considerably wider margin than the present difference between their Florida totals. In the national popular vote, Mr. Gore leads by just under 250,000, or nearly one-quarter of one percent. That is a tiny amount indeed, except when compared to the fluctuating difference between the two major candidates in Florida. Depending on exactly when the calculation is performed, Mr. Bush leads there by between 600 and 900 votes, or scarcely more than one-hundredth of one percent.

Those statistics may matter little in the Electoral College, but they destroy the Republican canard that the Democrats are plotting to thwart the people's choice. For Mr. Bush and his supporters to pretend they know the true outcome of this bizarrely close contest is not only ridiculous but obnoxious. The exposure of terrible flaws in the Florida balloting have created permanent doubt regarding who really won those 25 electoral votes. Someone will eventually prevail, but he will assume office without any mantle of moral certainty.

Meanwhile, the candidate who vowed a new spirit of bipartisanship in Washington and a more elevated tone in American politics remains silent and secluded as those values are trashed by his allies, a crowd more worrisome in some ways than the governor himself. As his promises of healing vanish in acrid smoke, it seems more and more to be Mr. Bush who will do anything to win.

her eyes to know how rankly foul our school systems, public and private,

must be. Seldom has there been a more discouraging parade of illiterate,

unlearned, ill-prepared, poorly spoken ignoramuses than the men and women

members of the Congress depositing their soot on our television screens

during the impeachment debate. So many hours of coarse, repetitive,

inarticulate grunts, gargles and gwaks.

The American Congress has never had a reputation as the home of the

learned or the wise, but in the past there have been a few eloquent

speakers betraying a broader knowledge than can be found in a law library.

The current membership of the House of Representatives, however, is as

unimpressive a collection of human beings as can be found assembled

anywhere outside of Rikers Island. Few of them, to use one of their

favorite expressions, rise above the level of street thugs in their

discourse. With a congressional staff approaching 40,000 people, you would

think that at least one member of the Senate or the House would have found

somebody to write a decent speech.

Nevertheless, their trash-mouth repetitions and cliché-mongering

are worth dwelling on for a moment. "This is a government of

laws," they proclaim with the maddening regularity of cuckoo clocks,

but anyone from the outside listening to them is driven to conclude that it

isn't a government of laws, it is a government of lawyers. The laws

are an incomprehensible hash.

After 4,000 references to the Founders, Framers and Fathers, and

adjurations that any deviation from their perfect wisdom will send the

society crashing God knows where, it occurs to an intelligent outsider that

it might be better to think about the Constitution than worship it.

Treating it as the Shroud of Turin only traps us into mindless debate as to

what does or does not "rise to the level of blah, blah, blah."

This Constitution before which there is so much kneeling and joss-stick

lighting is anything but the supreme political design of the ages. We act

as if the Constitution was not made to serve us but as though we were made

to serve the Constitution. In truth it is a sucky document in need of

overhaul before it does us in, and perpetual peddling of it to the populace

as the perfect political plan only makes it that much harder to change.

As has been said elsewhere, it is all but impossible to change because

the Founders, Framers and Fathers wrote it that way, not for any exalted

motive like protecting liberty, but to protect human slavery. Every day in

the House and Senate, you will hear the familiar cant about not changing

the Constitution but the insuperable barriers to amendment were in place

before the first 10 amendments were passed, and it is worth bearing in mind

that for decades thereafter the Bill of Rights was a dead letter,

unenforceable anywhere in the United States. It was window dressing and

would have remained window dressing without the passage of the 14th

Amendment.

To get the 14th Amendment passed, 600,000 men died in the Civil War.

Nothing short of this sacrifice was demanded by that crinkly piece of

parchment to purge it of slavery and begin to make the Bill of Rights

something like a real protection of personal liberty. This argument has to

be made repeatedly as a corrective against those who insist the only way to

run the country is Constitutional divinations conducted by legal pedants and judicial scholiasts scouring

200-year-old manuscripts written by men who, in their craziest dreams,

could not have imagined a nation such as ours. We are related to the

reality of the Founders, Framers and Fathers in the same degree and kind

that we are related biologically to Australopithecus, the little apes at

Olduvai Gorge from whom we are said to descend.

No amount of exegesis on what the Founders, Framers and Fathers may have

intended when they wrote phrases like "high crimes" is going to

accomplish anything but to further mislead ourselves. Hence, beware of

members of Congress quoting and requoting Barbara Jordan's now

somewhat tired statement that, "My faith in the Constitution is whole,

it is complete, it is total …" Such fervent credos are

meaningless invitations to stop thinking and stop questioning imbecilic

recitations of legal and political dogmas.

Why should it be a mortal sin to contemplate changing a sclerotic

governmental system that barely works at any level? Exhibit No. 1 for this

assertion is the impossibility of campaign finance reform. Setting aside

whether or not it is desirable, look at the predicament we're in.

Nine judges who serve for life and whose findings cannot be reviewed by

any other power on earth but themselves have decreed the Constitution is

violated if limits are put on campaign spending. At the same time, any

legislation that might be cleverly enough drawn up to snake its way around

this decree cannot pass the Senate, a legislative chamber where Montana,

with 870,000 people, gets two Senators, as does California, with 31

million. At this late date in the 20th century, the one-man, one-vote rule

obtains to only one house of the American Congress. I suppose that we

should be grateful for this much since the Constitution, as originally

written by the infallible Founders, Framers and Fathers, did not have the

direct election of Senators by the people. To get that one small change,

direct election, required more than a century of bitching, moaning and

struggle. We are living under a cryogenically rigid system without ice

breakers.

It is also, unhappily, a system whose defects are often celebrated as

its greatest virtues, to wit, the separation of powers. Under this scheme,

everybody in government can blame everybody else and all of them can be

played off against each other by the 20,000-plus lobbyists plying their

trade like so many Eighth Avenue hookers in what is called Gucci Gulch, the

hallways outside the hundreds of committee rooms where Congress stumbles

through the bewildering business of writing laws whose impact and import it

can scarcely guess–in no small measure because, under the separation

of powers, it has no connection, and certainly no responsibility, for

executing the laws it passes.

Ever since Hector was a pup, suggestions have been made for ameliorating

this deficiency by such devices as making the Secretaries of the executive

branch departments nonvoting members of Congress. Like all ideas for

revamping dinosaur government, these also were asphyxiated generations ago

by the dead hand of this Constitution.

The one argument for removing the President from office has nothing to

do with perjury. If Congress were to kick out a President on the trivial

grounds it is toying with, it might trigger a series of events through

which Congress took over much of the executive branch power and began

administering the goofy laws it passes. In the nonvirtual world, of course,

removal of President Clinton would lead to nothing of the sort. It would

lead to one more mess, and we have enough of these as it is.

Starting in the 1950's, the Supreme Court made a run at filling in

for the ever-paralyzed Congress. It didn't work. The strict

constructionists, those Talmudic fanatics of 18th-century

constitutionalism, emitted ear-splitting bellows of protest, and it turned

out that judges under our system make even worse legislators than do

legislators. After two or three decades of trying to run vast public enterprises from the

bench and making a disgusting muck of it, the judges are in retreat.

So problems pile up and the gigantic animal in Washington rollicks in

the mud or lifts its long neck so that its dumb head can rip off more green

leaves from the shrubbery surrounding its swimming hole. Nor is the remedy

for our woes a higher class of person in Congress. What we need is a better

Constitution.

Using her magazine's research department, she is led to a "horse whisperer"–a cowboy named Tom Booker (played with rusty Gary Cooper appeal by Mr. Redford), who has a magical way of curing psychologically disturbed horses. Booker is a loner, an old-fashioned roughneck and an isolationist who lives by the rugged values of the Old West in a time-warped abyss of his own choosing. Annie, the hard New Yorker, drives Grace and the horse all the way to Booker's ranch in Montana, and when the long, arduous task of healing begins, they are forced to adjust to a different way of life. In the process, every life is changed, love grows between the gentle, spiritual cowboy and the displaced sophisticate, and the wrenching choices they must make have consequences that are both enlightening and tragic.

Mr. Redford is such a meticulous actor, he makes every aspect of a Marlboro Man's life resoundingly real, and he's such a skilled director that he draws the audience into his world effortlessly. There are aerial views of the American West that take your breath away, accompanied by the awfulness of American radio–sermons, weather reports and rock music to drive you even crazier behind the steering wheel–as Annie and Grace journey toward new horizons. The daily rituals of ranch life are catalogued splendidly, from the cattle drives to the branding of steers, through the chores, the barbecues and the barn dances. It's nice to share the simple joys and struggles of people who have never heard the word " Zeitgeist ," hailed a taxi, or read a copy of Vanity Fair . After donning gingham shirts and worn blue jeans, joining in songs around the campfire and dinner out of a skillet, the jaded New Yorkers learn there's more to life than money and stress, and the movie does take you to a different place, mentally as well as geographically. Of course, the leisurely, laconic pace may lead a few cynics to wonder how Annie is editing that magazine all the way from Montana by fax. (I don't have a big picture of Tina Brown slopping hogs just to save a neurotic horse while The New Yorker publishes itself for the next six months.)

Also, at the risk of sounding churlish (a boy like moi ?), I must point out that for a movie in which very little happens and dialogue is sparse, The Horse Whisperer is incredibly long (two hours, 44 minutes). It takes two hours and 15 minutes before that aw-shucks cowpoke gets around to kissin' that uptight city gal, although there's a lotta hankerin' going on in the corral. And that ending is a real pain to the saddle sores, right out of The Bridges of Madison County , which, for double irony, was penned by the same scriptwriter, Richard LaGravenese, who shares credit with Eric ( Forrest Gump ) Roth. These guys know how to make the tear ducts flow. For anyone other than the critics, protection is advised. A nickel pack of Kleenex won't do.

Nit-picking aside, this is a warm, gauzy, feel-good flick that should delight anyone crazy about horses. The scenery is gorgeous, the stars are gorgeous, the uplifting spirituality it shares is gorgeous. Mr. Redford's appeal and dedication shine through every scene. In addition to the actors already mentioned, there are solid contributions by Chris Cooper, Sam Neill, Dianne Wiest and a little boy named Ty Hillman who will melt your heart. From the flapjacks to the narrative Celtic folk ballads sung by the cowboys around the chuck wagon, The Horse Whisperer draws you into an ambience of peace and rapture that is sadly missing in the dumbfounding dementia of today's films. The tenderness and the intelligence are contagious.

Mr. Beatty Goes to South Central

Warren Beatty's Bulworth , a satirical spin on the hypocrisy of American politics, can accurately be described as audacious. It is also a courageous, risky, annoying, brilliant, exasperating, hilarious, repellent, provocative, sophomoric mess. Fueled by years of vigorous, self-involved political disenchantment, the star, producer, writer and director unloads a broadside on American society like a shotgun blast and probably hopes American society will love him for it. Did I neglect to say that I found the result somewhat naïve?

Mr. Beatty plays J. Billington Bulworth, an incumbent Democratic senator in the 1996 California primary who, on the threshold of a new millennium, is looking for the exit door. Sick of pork bellies, insurance bills, tobacco lobbies and endless rounds of fund-raisers, Bulworth is stressed to the max. So he strikes a deal to have himself bumped off and then, with nothing to lose, goes loopily, uncontrollably berserk. In a movie that really should be called Warren Loosens Up , Bulworth spends the first half bouncing from a gospel meeting in South Central Los Angeles to a black after-hours joint to smoke reefers, then into Beverly Hills to insult the Jews, to drag three young black women into a breakfast fund-raiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and to rap his way to stardom while the world goes into shock. As soon as he starts having fun, he wants to cancel the hit, but it's too late. The "fixer" has a heart attack, lands in intensive care, and time is running out. The rest of the movie shows Bulworth still berserk but on the run, trying to outwit the killer with only a foxy black chick (Halle Berry) to help him hide.

In the process, he gets his conscience back and goes on a truth-telling binge, insulting everybody in America along the way. This gives Mr. Beatty the chance of his life to get everything wrong with America off his chest. Nobody is left unscathed, from limousine liberals to the lying politicians and the rich powerbrokers who finance their campaigns. Ghetto blacks get the worst of it, as they sit around eating fried chicken and watermelon while their kids are robbing convenience stores and dealing coke, but the movie is so steeped in leftist propaganda, they probably don't even know it. Meanwhile, Mr. Beatty takes to the 'hood, rapping in rhyme, dressed in a heliotrope ski cap and knee-length shorts, looking like a cross between the Pied Piper, a character from South Park and Ice Cube. I guess it's for laughs, but in a movie of so much concept and so little coherence, it's hard to tell. When he buys his way out of the most dangerous block in L.A. by treating a gang of drug-dealing, gun-toting mini-muggers to free ice cream cones, you're too goggle-eyed from the pure preposterousness of it all to laugh. The real laugh comes on cue when, after treating every couch potato to his antics on C-SPAN, Bulworth makes the media bigs drool with visions of ratings dancing in their brains. "People are tired of baloney," pants Larry King. "I want him on my show!" Mr. Beatty takes on media whores, too.

It's a Frank Capra idea, set to hip-hop, and the notion that a complacent fat-cat goes down the rabbit hole, inadvertently becoming a hero while introducing a few revolutionary ideas every liberal thinks about but rarely talks about, is not to be dismissed lightly. There's material here for a dozen films, but Mr. Beatty has crammed them all into one. In the 10 years it took him to give it life, Bulworth has taken on so much helium, you'd be afraid to light a match in its presence. Good actors populate the scene (Christine Baranski, Paul Sorvino, Jack Warden, Don Cheadle) and the crisp cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro is a marvel. But the script has holes the size of canyons and the cynical finale, replete with a toothless black panhandler as a one-man Greek chorus, is a real downer.

There's an excess of talent and energy here, and Mr. Beatty is far from the jerk he appears to be in interviews. But Bulworth is still an ego trip with a commercial box-office potential of zero. It isn't remotely believable, but it is, for perverse intellectuals, hugely enjoyable.

Robert Redford and Warren Beatty are two of the last dinosaurs surviving the crunch–middle-aged survivors from Hollywood's glamour years still ambulatory enough to star in, produce and direct their own movies, whether anyone wants to see them or not. It's ironic that their new ones are opening competitively on the same day. Sort of reminds me of the porn actress in the three-way who beckons lasciviously to her attendant toy boys: "There's room enough for both of you." It might be interesting to see which one stays in the saddle longer.