will be big. Rock-star big.” That was the most noticed line from that piece, and Rice was teased some about it.But it was an amazingly easy call. All you had to do was meet and talk to her.I keep singing the glory of Ed Koch, the former New York City mayor (and a Democrat). Here’s the latest: A columnist at Newsday, Les Payne, wrote of President Bush’s “simian lips.” And Koch wrote a letter to the paper (as is his wont). He said,Les Payne is an editor and columnist with Newsday. He has held these positions for many years. When I read Sunday’s Newsday, I was truly shocked to read his column and language describing the president of the United States and his inaugural address. Payne wrote, “The president was barely in better voice than Rehnquist, with his simian lips tripping workmanlike over his prose.” I disagree with Payne’s description of the speech and its delivery. I liked the substance and the style of the president’s remarks, but Payne is entitled to his journalistic opinion.However, he is not entitled to use the columns of Newsday to voice his racism. I believe that Newsday’s senior editors had an obligation to edit out his vulgar and racist remark. Payne described the president as having “simian lips.” The definition of simian in Webster’s Dictionary is, “Relating to, characteristic of, or resembling an ape or monkey.”What if a Newsday columnist had referred to the lips of the Rev. Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson in that way? There would have been a flood of complaints, pickets at Newsday’s office and cancellations of subscriptions. Rightly so. Both Newsday and Payne should apologize immediately to the president and Newsday’s readers.Payne wrote another column–repeating his charge, and damning Koch–and Koch wrote another letter (unpublished).But my point: Mayor Koch is “on it,” as I hear on the streets–”Which streets?” you may well ask–and I respect him hugely for it.Oh, yeah, I had another point too: As I’ve mentioned before, Lincoln was constantly insulted in primatological terms. They called him a gorilla and “the Illinois ape”; they depicted him as hairy and stooped over, his knuckles dragging on the ground.Indeed, Lincoln and Bush are two presidents who have a lot in common. We had an unusual Impromptus about that–remember?–last summer, based on the cherished 1952 biography by Benjamin P. Thomas. Here ’tis.And do you remember this one? After a Lincoln speech, a Democratic editor in Chicago wrote the following: “The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.”That speech, my friends, was the Gettysburg Address.I have been following–with interest and revulsion–the contretemps involving our Jonah Goldberg and Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan, and president-elect of the ghastly MESA (Middle East Studies Association).I don’t know Mr. Cole–although one can know him through his writings–but I do know a little something about the University of Michigan, at least the way it was 20 years ago. I wonder how much has changed.Veteran readers may remember something I wrote in Impromptus six days after September 11. I reprint below:. ,Toms Shoes Outlet. . I’d like to say one more thing–something autobiographical. I have held off, but it seems appropriate, and–who knows?–it may be of some help to people,toms shoes online, as they think our situation through.When I was young, I was quite the little Arabist–cocksure, arrogant, wholly misguided. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and there were many Arab students–most of them Palestinian–in my high school. I befriended them, loved them. Was intensely interested in them. Some wore keys around their necks, and they claimed that these were the keys to the homes back in Palestine their families had been forced to abandon. I was mightily impressed. Later on, I knew to doubt the authenticity of those keys.I remember one girl, who liked me, asking, “Jay, you Related articles:

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