t}’, strangely unnientioned in onr foundingrndocument.rnSo tiiere it is. Hillan- Rodham Clintonrnwill run, she will be the Democraticrnnominee, and the betting is that she willrnwin. So fasten your seatbelts, because it’srngoing to be a bumpy ride. I mean,rnHillarv is going to get a bye from thernDemocrats because she inspires suchrnfeelings of guilt and vicarious identification.rnHer rhetoric is a real turnoff, a completernnovocaine, but it’s what peoplernwant to hear. Her blather and her chutzpahrnand her K’ing have inspired no resistancernthat I know of, except from the Republicanrnneocons whom she has madernfools of again and again. I mean, thinkrnabout it. Her affinih’ for sanchmoniousrnphonies, her identiK’ with unearned income,rnand her mastery (mistressy?) ofrnglobalist cant are the language of NewrnYork and Hollywood and the Beltway.rnAdd to that her unmatched credentials asrna manipulator of identity politics, andrnyou hae to admit that, though HillaryrnRodham Clinton will be a nullih’ for thernpeople of New York, she speaks fluentlyrnthe abstract liberal flapdoodle that is thernlarrguage of the New York Times and ofrnthe Post as well, hostile though the latterrnhas been. She certainly isn’t what NewrnYork needs. She is, rather, exactly wliat itrndeserves.rnThey are already genuflecting for St.rnHillary. Nobody een laughs when shernshows up in a factory wearing a pinkrnpantsuit and pearls and a botfle-blondernpatina to conduct an Oprah Winfrey-typernsession with the workers. But not to worry.rnThe hostiles in the Posf and elsewherernhave already announced theirrnagenda. She is going to be asked aboutrnthose cattle futmes, though since thernmarket itself is such a baseless scam, I’mrnnot so sure that the issue will spark. Shernwill be asked about the billing recordsrnfrom the Rose law firm, Wliitewater, thernWhite House travel office stuff, and allrnthe rest of it. And then I think she will replyrnthat these matters have been provedrnto be of no import and insist on not deflectingrnthe discourse from pertinent issuesrnlike female circumcision in Africa.rnEmpovsering women and children isrnsomething that she has been vitally involvedrnin for decades, and that is what herrncampaign will be all about. And if yournare against that, then you are against thernvital interests of women and children,rntheir right and need to be governed byrnwomen (some of whom are a bit different),rnand so on. Cay rights are humanrnrights, and if we have no gay rights, thenrnwe have no human rights, quod eratrndemonstrandum. That kind of stuff fliesrnwith a lot of Republicans in New York,rnnot to mention Democrats who can’t rememberrnwhen thev voted for CeorgernWallace.rnI have seen the future, and it doesn’trnwork. That’s whv I am going to be busierrnthan ever during next year’s campaign. Arnlot of nose candv, a lot of Cuban cigars litrnwith ignited hundred dollar bills, a lot ofrnhanky panky with fliose young and restlessrnbabes who are between films—that’srnwhat it’s going to take to get me throughrnthe next year with Hillarv’ Rodham Clinton.rnWe’ll have fun, fun, fun, till vourrndaddy takes the T’-Bird away. Don’t stoprnthinking about tomorrow. I’ll be so busvrndancing m life awa} and risking permanentrnhearing damage that my e-mail andrnmy snail mail will be more neglectedrnthan ever. Or, as Austin Powers has succinctiyrnput it, “Oh, behave!”rn/.O. Tate is a professor of English atrnDowUng College on Long Island.rnLetter From Londonrnby Michael McMahonrnState Education in England, orrnEnglish Education in a Staternut vero aliquis libenter educationisrntaedium lahoremque suscipiat, nonrnpraemiis modo verum etiam exquisitisrnadhortationibus impetrandum est.rn- P l i n y (I, 8)rnThose who read my “Letter From Banausia”rnin the June Chronicles will perhapsrnrecall that it described the studied destructionrnof the tradition of learning inrnEnglish schools and its replacement byrnpoliticized, centrist, authoritarian, linemanagedrntraining for employment. It reportedrnhow the new “educational” orthodoxyrnis enforced by subjecfing schools tornthe destrucfive testing methods of a tyrannicalrnand unchallengeable inspectorate.rnAnd it related the virtual collapse of secondary-rnteacher recruitment that has followedrnthese developments, despite therngovernment’s attempts to attract applicantsrnby a campaign of sentimentalizedrncinema and newspaper advertisements.rnWell, three months later, and —as thernvenerable Jesuit who taught me Englishrnall those years ago would say (daily, in responsernto the mornirrg’s news broadcastrnon what we then called the “vireless”) —rn”It’s getting vorse.”rnIn peri-millennial England, it wouldrnseem, just as in the Rome of Pliny thernYounger, “a good deal of persuasion, notrnjust financial incentives, is needed to getrnan}one to choose to put up with the boredomrnand hard work involved in teachingrnchildren.” The exquisitae adhortationes Irndescribed in my last dispatch continue,rnthrough the inexhaustibly comic catchrnphrase —still, “Nobody forgets a goodrnteacher!”; still, nobody wants to be one —rnand now through a comic book, too. Voxrnever}’ teacher in England has recenfly becomernan involuntary subscriber to a freerngovernment-produced journal calledrnTeachers, in which the party line is setrnforth with much of the glossiness of Cosmopolitanrnand with all of the subtlety ofrnDer Stiirmer.rnThe first number (Spring 1999) of thisrnhumorless and heavily designed magazinernis a giveaway in more than onernsense. Beside flie bright eyes, hope-filledrnsmile, and imwrinkled forehead of itsrnglamorous 20-something cover girl (overrn50 percent of serving teachers are overrn40, bv the way) are five telling headlines.rnThree of them promise praemia: “Pav latest:rnHow to earn £35,000”; “Recruit, retain,rnreward” — the education ministerrnon his “plans for a modern profession”;rnand an invitation to “Win a holiday forrntwo in New York!” (To enter this drawing,rnyou have to be a serving teacher whornis culturally knowledgeable enough tornidentify which of three named AmericanrnTV comedy series is set in that cify.) Thernfourth and fifth headlines are corrfidentrnadhortationes to accept two recent educationrnministry edicts: that prinrarv’-schoolrnchildren should have an hour of prescribedrnand pre-scripted reading and writingrnlessons daily (“Literacy Hour: It’srntheir favorite lesson!”) and that the numberrnof pupils excluded from schoolsrnshould be reduced to meet specific targetsrn(“I was a teenage truant. . . “) To examinernwhat lies beneath each of theserncarefully coined headlines is to discoverrnhow rapidly the tradition of an Englishrnliberal education is being replaced by arnmarket-driven, utilitarian system designedrnnot to encourage thinking but torninstill obedience in both teacher andrn36,’CHRONICLESrnrnrn