Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 17
tilting at winDmills
all our mistakes in Saigon in the 1960s and early ’70s. Chandrasekaran tells how the late Richard Holbrooke at a 2009 strategy session on Afghan policy “implored USAID and state department officials to increase the size of their initiatives.” Holbrooke, who as a young man had been a Foreign Service officer in Vietnam and should have known better, then said, “If you used to ask for 22 million and are now asking for 24 million, that’s not truly bold.”
You know?
Have you ever caught yourself abusing “you know”? Then you will sympathize with Barack Obama, who managed to use “you know” fifty-two times in just one interview, the one with ABC News correspondent Robin Roberts in which he endorsed gay marriage.
More Ginsberg memories
Now, to more memories of Allen Ginsberg. In some ways, Allen was a bad influence during that first year I knew him, in 1946– 47. In teaching me how to be hip, he made me look down on those who weren’t. (You mean you haven’t read Rimbaud or Baudelaire!) But we also often just had fun. He liked jazz, and so did I. I can remember one morning I skipped class so that we could get the bargain rate—it was either 55 or 95 cents if you got there before 11:30 a.m.—at the Strand Theater, where the great tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet was performing with Lionel Hampton’s band. We also frequented the Three Deuces, one of the many jazz clubs that lined Fiftysecond Street. It featured another tenor saxophone player, Flip Phillips. Late one night, we went to Carnegie Hall to attend a concert in the “Jazz at the Philharmonic” series that featured both Jacquet and Phillips. I was still so un-hip that Allen had to explain to me that the strong aroma in the hall was from marijuana. Herbert Huncke was the only friend of Allen’s I met that first year (by the way, Herbert later wrote a very accurately titled autobiography, Guilty of Everything). Allen was away most of the next, serving in the Merchant Marine, but during the 1948–49 school year
he introduced me to Jack Kerouac, Neal Cas- to ask Mark Van Doren, a Columbia professady, Lucien Carr, Vicki Russell, and Allen’s sor we both admired, to help get him out. father, Louis. Carr seemed guarded and hard I went to Van Doren, who did not immedito know, but Kerouac and Cassady not only ately respond—I think his attitude was that were open and affable, they could be down- Allen needed to be taught a lesson. But after right exuberant. I would never have guessed I received several more desperate calls from the undercurrent of torment that was part Allen and paid more visits to Van Doren, the of both men. Vicki was a hooker who want- professor finally agreed to ask his friend, ed to use my apartment as a pad where she the civil rights attorney Morris Ernst, to could entertain her johns, for which I would help. But by the time I was able to tell Allen be rewarded with a commission. Thank the good news, he was out of jail; his brother goodness I wasn’t quite hip enough to accept Eugene, who was a lawyer, had made a deal that proposal. for Allen’s freedom in return for his commitAllen made a special effort for me to ting himself to the Payne-Whitney psychiatmeet his father, and I think the reason ric clinic at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. was that Allen saw me as a “respectable” Years later at a Washington party Allen friend and there was part of him that, un- and I were attending, I started to tell this til at least 1954, had wanted to keep one story, but Allen quickly interrupted. I later foot in the respectable world. He often talk- realized he preferred a version of the story ed about how T. S. Eliot, as a bank official, in which the Columbia faculty had actualWallace Stevens, as an insurance company ly come to his rescue. This wasn’t really that executive, and William Carlos Williams, as far from the truth—but it wasn’t the truth. I a family doctor, had combined lives in po- came to understand that Allen was an active etry with regular careers. The last time I saw him As the criticism of Hillary Clinton before I left New mounted, I was hoping no one would York to go to law school, he was remember how wrong I had been. wearing a suit and told me he was working for a market research firm. participant in creating his own myth and Allen got arrested in 1949. I was on the the myth of the Beats. From the time I first subway one Saturday morning in March met him, he wove wonderful tapestries of when, looking over another rider’s shoul- the group that made me eager to meet them der, I saw a photograph in either the Daily in spite of some of the outrageous things Mirror or the Daily News of Allen, Herbert, they had done. But I don’t think this in any Vicki, and a new friend of theirs, “Little Jack” way diminishes works like either Howl or On Melody, peering out of a paddy wagon. Lit- the Road. Most of the famous people I have tle Jack, it turned out, was in the same line known have not been above gilding their of work as Herbert, namely larceny, and was own image. understandably apprehensive about contact with officers of the law. When a policeman A shifting wind attempted to stop the gang as they drove around Queens, Little Jack immediately A high-end costume jewelry store serving stepped on the gas. The result was that, in Washington’s wealthiest neighborhood ran the subsequent chase, his car turned over. a poll in 2008 based on how many McCain Though the occupants fled, some of Allen’s or Obama pins it sold. Obama won by a compapers were left behind. They contained fortable margin. This year, Romney is ahead Allen’s address on York Avenue, which ul- by a 4-to-3 margin, which curiously enough timately led to the arrest of Allen and his happens to be the Republican fund-raising friends, and the discovery of either stolen advantage as we go to press. goods or illegal substances at his apartment. The next day I got a call from Allen, who said Charles Peters is the founding editor of the he was in a Manhattan jail and wanted me Washington Monthly.
Washington Monthly 17
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2012
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012
Contents
Editor’s Note: Where Credit Is Due
Letters
Tilting at Windmills
Do Presidential Debates Really Matter?
The Clintonites’ Beef With Obama
Party Animals
Introduction: A Different Kind of College Ranking
America’s Best-Bang-for-the-Buck Colleges
The Siege of Academe
Getting Rid of the College Loan Repo Man
Got Student Debt?
Answering the Critics of “Pay As You Earn” Plans
National University Rankings
Liberal Arts College Rankings
Top 100 Master’s Universities
Top 100 Baccalaureate Colleges
A Note on Methodology: 4-Year Colleges and Universities
Why Aren’t Conservatives Funny?
First-Rate Temperaments
A Malevolent Forrest Gump
Broken in Hoboken
Identity Politics Revisited
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Washington Monthly - September/October 2012
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Cover2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 4
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 5
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 6
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 8
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 9
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Editor’s Note: Where Credit Is Due
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 11
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Letters
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 13
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Tilting at Windmills
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 15
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 16
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 17
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 18
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Do Presidential Debates Really Matter?
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 20
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 21
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - The Clintonites’ Beef With Obama
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 23
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Party Animals
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 25
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 26
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Introduction: A Different Kind of College Ranking
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 28
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 29
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 30
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - America’s Best-Bang-for-the-Buck Colleges
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 32
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 33
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 34
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - The Siege of Academe
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 36
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 37
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 38
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 39
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 40
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 41
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 42
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 43
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 44
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Getting Rid of the College Loan Repo Man
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 46
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 47
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 48
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Got Student Debt?
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 50
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 51
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Answering the Critics of “Pay As You Earn” Plans
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 53
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - National University Rankings
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 55
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 56
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 57
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 58
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 59
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 60
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 61
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 62
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 63
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 64
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 65
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 66
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 67
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Liberal Arts College Rankings
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 69
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 70
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 71
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 72
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 73
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 74
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 75
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 76
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 77
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 78
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 79
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Top 100 Master’s Universities
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 81
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 82
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 83
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Top 100 Baccalaureate Colleges
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 85
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 86
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 87
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - A Note on Methodology: 4-Year Colleges and Universities
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 89
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Why Aren’t Conservatives Funny?
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 91
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 92
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - First-Rate Temperaments
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 94
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 95
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - A Malevolent Forrest Gump
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 97
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 98
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Broken in Hoboken
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 100
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Identity Politics Revisited
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 102
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 103
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - 104
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Cover3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - Cover4
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