When the July-August issue of Worth sought advice on picking the 10 most economically illiterate members of Congress, it received an early warning from David Stockman, Ronald Reagan`s onetime budget meister.
”It`s not possible to come up with a number as low as ten,” he told writer Teresa Riordan.
Well, the new and strong business bimonthly came up with a measly 10 after receiving 82 nominations that included ”the entire Michigan
delegation” and ”the whole House (Senate) Banking Committee.”
The losers include Rep. Helen Bentley (R-Md.), a heavy-handed Japan basher who has labeled Japan`s U.S. investments ”the modern Pearl Harbor”;
Rep. Mickey Edwards (D-Okla.), who has faced many personal financial travails (”We had loans out the kazoo,” says an ex-wife), as well as having written 386 bum checks at the House Bank; Rep. Bill Dannemeyer (R-Calif.), notorious for simplistic solutions to the budget deficit and pushing a return to the gold standard; and Sen. Alfonse D`Amato (R-N.Y.), who has kissed the fannies of the banking and securities industries but showboated with superficially alluring, impractical calls for banks to dramatically lower credit card interest rates.
Yet when it came to picking a first among equals for economic stupidity, there was a clear frontrunner: Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.).
The Chicago hack is chided for, among other flaws, running the House Administration Committee while the House Bank mess went unwatched, and being
”primary stooge” for the savings-and-loan industry as boss of the Financial Institutions Banking Subcomittee (two sons-in-law have been employed by the industry).
Worth concludes by noting what Chicagoans well know, that there is ”bad news for S&L lobbyists, some of whom have dubbed him a `one-stop shop`
”: Annunzio was redistricted and, rather than run against Dan Rostenkowski, decided to retire after the current term.
Quickly: In July-August Audubon, James Ridgeway details how the Soviet Union mixed a Cold War mentality with a paradoxical energy policy to alter the course of the Danube, Europe`s second-longest river at 1,770 miles, via a series of dams that don`t promise much more energy than before and are raising pollution problems. . . . In Aug. 13 New York Review of Books, California academic Ronald Steel dissects the strange, sad life of James Forrestal, a small-town poor kid who rose to be secretary of the Navy and secretary of defense in the late 1940s but later suffered a nervous breakdown and commited suicide. Elsewhere, Northwestern`s Garry Wills chronicles George Bush`s political past, finding him a groveler with no distinct philosophies who has alternately curried favor with his party`s left and right wings. . . . August Mirabella tracks down Pauline Kael, the wonderfully provocative movie critic who gave up reviewing for the New Yorker (partly because of the pain of Parkinson`s disease). She discourses on some films she couldn`t review; for example, she didn`t think Robert Altman`s Hollywood critique, ”The Player,” was nearly as good as his ”Nasvhille” or ”McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” and found Jonathan Demme`s ”The Silence of the Lambs” to be well-made junk. Her most notable declaration is that ”Steve Martin has not had his due as a movie star.” . . . In August Cosmopolitan, movie stars cough up their biggest rejections, including Angelica Huston recalling being spurned in seeking a bigger salary for her role in ”Prizzi`s Honor,” directed by father John and starring then-boyfriend Jack Nicholson. She recalls a film executive saying:
”Forget it. You think we want her in the picture. She`s in because of her father and her boyfriend” (she won the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance). . . . ”Insurgents in Pearls,” in August Lear`s, profiles rich Republican women who are pro-choice. . . . August GQ chronicles the unseemly James Holderman, who got booted from the presidency of the University of South Carolina after ripping off state funds during a reign that featured lavish living, sucking up to the famous, and surrounding himself with preppy male
”interns” who allege he sought sexual favors. . . . Both L.A. Style and GQ do solicitous profiles of actress Annabella Sciorra, though L.A. Style`s most notable effort is writer Paul Rosenfield`s literary self-flaggelation as he admits all the crow he`s eating because of mistakes in his book ”The Club Rules: Power, Money, Sex and Fear-How It Works in Hollywood.”
