Rhinocrisy

There’s a lot of talk about “eccentric billionaires”. In fact, “eccentric” is almost a standard modifier for the word “billionaire”, so that one takes it for granted that if you’re a billionaire, you must, indeed, be eccentric. I think this is rubbish, however. Billionaires are boring!

The last truly eccentric billionaire we had was Howard Hughes, who was not so much “eccentric” as “completely insane”. These days there are, according to Forbes, 793 billionaires, worth a total of $2.6 trillion. This is a lot of money, you’ll note. What are we getting in return? Bupkis!

In ages past, egocentric eccentrics used their vast coffers to build ridiculous monuments to themselves which have served as some of the finest examples of architecture and sculpture in human history. And, after their deaths, they were frequently appropriated for the public good. Royalty is probably the prime example of this (e.g. the Louvre, Versailles, Buckingham Palace, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, the Great Pyramid).

But our modern billionaires have given us nothing. Gormless glass buildings we can work in, maybe. Mansions for themselves off where we can’t find them (not built to last, of course). Not a one has used their wealth to enrich the lives of their fellow citizens in some absurd, fabulous way. Who is paving the sidewalks with marble? Building kites the size of a house and flying them over the city harbor? Hiring an acting troop to dress up as gnomes and skulk around in alleys? Why isn’t there a giant glass fish half-buried in the middle of the Charles River? Et cetera.

Boring, I tell you.

Tonight, Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who did more than her share to stir up the Iraq war, emerged from Upper East Side seclusion to tap out a lengthy story for a medium that fits her proclivities: the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

It surprised me. First, it had assertion after paragraph of information that lacked direct attribution. “Reportedly” is a word that some editors forbid.

Second, she didn’t spend any ink defending herself.

Third, she suggested that neocons would have “sabotaged” diplomatic efforts to stop Libya’s nuclear program. What happened to BFF? Or is she just publicly distancing herself from them?

And finally, the story. It explains for the first time how the U.S. convinced Libya’s leaders to give up their nuclear bomb program.

It touches only briefly on current events, mentioning that the former head of the CIA’s covert side, who is now up for reappointment to the agency, was a hero in the Libya situation. (These lines reek of payback to me — I would bet an Iraqi dinar that the dude was a source of hers, if not an employer, at some point) and doesn’t once mention Iran. If anything, the story is a nice little allegory, pointing out that even the Bush administration can deal more or less wisely with pretty hard-core despots and prevail over their nuclear programs. The differences between their treatment of Libya and of Iran is pretty stark.

That said, I can’t see her staying out of current events. She’ll be out soon enough with some big story about Iran’s valiant resistance, or about some new atrocity there, or about the time she was in Iran and someone did something really horrible to her. It will likely be true, though we have no guarantees. The only guarantee is it will make her look smart and worldly (she’s both) and also like an innocent observer (she’s not). I give her a week.