A Not-So-Fearless Forecast For ‘97
The time has come to rate the best stories of 1996 or predict what will happen in 1997. I prefer offering predictions because that allows me to display my natural optimism.
And so, looking ahead to the next 12 months, I see the following:
Congress, in the best spirit of bipartisanship, will do away with ethics committees. Both sides, Democrats and Republicans, will come to see this as a necessary step if lawmakers are to avoid the distractions associated with interminable ethics probes and jail terms. Once ethics committees have been abolished, lawmakers will be able to focus more intensely on their primary responsibility - raising money for re-election.
Lawmakers, again acting in the best spirit of bipartisanship, will appoint a commission to propose campaign finance reform for the year 2040, when most current members of Congress expect to be dead.
Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating President and Hillary Clinton as well as some of the Clintons’ former business associates and some of the White House staff and some of the Clintons’ former political cronies in Arkansas and some of the Clintons’ old classmates from elementary school and some of the Clintons’ former dental hygienists, will announce that he’s expanding his probe to include anyone who ever has seen the president in his running shorts. Most of these people will be indicted for something.
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner will buy the Boston Red Sox and move the baseball team to Osaka, Japan, rubbing salt in the still-open wound left by Babe Ruth’s move from the Red Sox to the Yankees in 1920.
Bill Gates will announce that his company, Microsoft, has acquired everything.
The big news out of Hollywood will be the announcement that there’s a bidding war for production rights to a sure-fire blockbuster, “Whitewater.” Kevin Costner, originally picked to play President Clinton, will be dropped in favor of John Travolta. Vice President Al Gore will play himself and do such a good job he’ll win an Oscar for best-supporting actor. Dennis Hopper will play Kenneth Starr, but Michelle Pfeiffer will almost steal the show as Hillary Clinton. Oliver Stone will direct, working with a screenplay by James Carville.
In Oakland, Calif., the school board will announce that standard English is a second language and seek federal funds to train teachers how to teach it.
Without Boutros Boutros-Ghali to kick around, people will lose interest in bashing the United Nations.
Back in Washington, President Clinton, speaking before a joint session of Congress, will say in a nationally televised address that he was just kidding when he said the era of big government is over.
The Democratic National Committee will announce that it has returned a $1.6 million contribution from Fidel Castro, a $238,000 contribution from Mikhail Gorbachev and $486,000 that supposedly was the proceeds from a yard sale held by Tibetan monks. The committee will claim there is no connection between the yard-sale contribution and the monks’ attendance at Chelsea Clinton’s birthday party.
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will denounce the Democratic National Committee’s fund-raising tactics as the kind of activity that could weaken people’s faith in government. Because they are coming from Gingrich, the remarks will be dismissed as hypocritical, selfserving blather.
Madonna will begin to seem like a model of responsibility.
MEMO: Jesse E. Todd Jr. is associate editor of the editorial page of the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.