...when I leafed through the July 4, 1994 issue of Newsweek, which I found on a shelf in an unused room at my grandmother's old house in Wisconsin. The cover story - "Living in Terror" - referred not to you and me and everybody else, but to battered women like Nicole Brown Simpson, whose ex-husband OJ's infamous trial had just started in Los Angeles. The mag also featured an interview with American-teen-caned-in-Singapore Michael Fay, highlights from the meetings of the House subcommittee investigating the tobacco industry, and a story describing how Bill Clinton used diplomacy to get North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
The most interesting article, however, was one called "The Bush Family Franchise," which detailed the gubernatorial aspirations of former President Bush's sons Jeb and George W. , the latter pictured in a spread eagle position in a seat at a baseball game, with large Texas Rangers logos brightly embroidered on each of his cowboy boots. There's a great baseball-themed quote on W from Ann Richards, who he would go on to defeat in that November's election: "He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple."
The article notes that both Jeb and W were heavily influenced by Lee Atwater, who ran their dad's '88 campaign and "preached a 'message focus' on cultural 'wedge issues' that separate white Democrats from their party." And despite the ultra-connected status of their family, both Jeb and W planned to run as "outsiders." As W's adviser Karl Rove noted, "There is an entrenched power structure in Austin, and that's what we're going after."
Ah, the good old days.
