[Dixielandjazz] <no subject>

[Charlie Hooks]

Jewish World Review Sept. 26, 2002 / 20 Tishrei, 5763

Bob Tyrrell 

Awhile back I posed the question of Bob Greene's firing in musical terms, as
though it had happened to a musician, as it frequently does, of course. The
list was of various minds, and one anonymous lady grew quite angry with me.

So this piece is a bit long, but please feel free to delete at once if you
are sick of the question.

Charlie


 
Is Bob Greene a victim of an anti-Clinton backlash?
by Bob Tyrrell


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | When The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz
headlined a column the other day "Tribune's Bob Greene Resigns After Sex
Inquiry," you can be sure my attention was fetched.


Greene is a columnist for the newspaper I grew up with while a boy in
Chicago. The topics he covers have usually been corny, his prose lachrymose.
Chicago is a tough town. To this native Chicagoan, Greene's popularity is a
testimonial to the infinite possibilities of the improbable. He wrote in the
same city and same paper as the bare-knuckled Mike Royko.


So why did he resign after a sex inquiry? Was he conducting the inquiry? Did
he find the sex too disgusting to bear, or more characteristically, too sad?
No, it turns out that a, shall we say, "whistle blower" notified editors at
the Trib that Greene had had a liaison with a young, albeit of age, woman,
during the marriage he so often blubbers about.


Unfortunately the girl -- as yet unnamed -- was not a Trib intern, so Greene
does not have the "this-is-a-private matter" dispensation recently employed
so successfully by the Clintons. Remaining details of his resignation are
murky, for neither he nor the Trib has been very forthcoming.


One detail does stand out. The liaison took place 14 years ago. That would
seem to leave Greene the "these-are-all-old-stories" dispensation that
served President Clinton so well through five years of sexual revelations
until Monica made her debut. It has not.


So, after 24 years as a nationally celebrated columnist, television
personality and author of best-sellers, Greene is in disgrace and abrupt
retirement. None of the dispensations allowed that other nationally known
adulterer has been extended to him. It is obvious, however, that the Trib
forced him out. The paper's publisher has said that he "misused his position
for personal benefit." Of course, so did Bill Clinton, who also lied under
oath about his misbehavior and misled the entire nation for a long and
painful time while using the power of the White House to smear a federal
prosecutor. 


Apparently, the Trib would have disgraced and forced resignation on Clinton
if he were an employee. However, editorially it opposed impeachment.


As I say, the details of Greene's misbehavior are still vague. The paper and
the columnist being in the news business really ought to feel obliged to
give us more information so that we can arrive at a fair judgment of the
writer and his forced resignation. At this point, my view is that Greene's
punishment has been capricious and unjust.


I have a fat file of news reports about well-known journalists caught
plagiarizing, fabricating stories and lying about their misdeeds. A
surprising number of these journalists have landed right back on the pages
of newspapers and magazines, and continued to appear on television as
authoritative witnesses to the national scene. None has suffered Greene's
ignominy. Greene's misconduct was personal. These other columnists'
misconduct was public and a breach of ethics.


What is the point that the Trib is making? Is it that adulterous sex with
young women is intolerable, though it happened 14 years in the past -- even
if Greene's act was criminal, the statue of limitations has run out? Is it
that a writer has an obligation to inform readers when he is writing about
someone he knows intimately ("Full disclosure, I have known Miss Toots
carnally," or, "When I think of her I have lust in my heart")? Is it just
that the Chicago Tribune is returning to the middle-American values of its
illustrious conservative publisher, old Col. Robert McCormick? Let me point
out the Colonel had an eye for the fair sex. "They all do it," as the
Clintons would say.


Or is Greene just a victim of the society's swinging pendulum? When our
lying and lecherous president was exposed four years ago, the pendulum had
swung to the outer regions of toleration. Now it is swinging the opposite
way. 


Perhaps that is why I would rather put my faith in the rule of law than the
swings of public opinion. I believe Clinton should have been impeached
because he broke the law. I believe Greene should at most have been
reprimanded. He broke no laws. The offense took place long ago. Since then,
his behavior has been unexceptionable, though his writing is hooey.
Americans live in a constant drizzle of infantile sex. That some poor sap
and his transient amourette catch a bug from it is unfortunate, but these
things happen.