If nothing else George, John Kennedy Jr.'s new clothing catalogue, is one
of the best-smelling magazines to hit the stands in years. The masterful
blend of pull-out sampler scents seems just right, heady but not
overly-pungent. Vanity Fair could learn a thing or two in this department,
as could the perfume-adless Nation, which smells like an old mattress
doused with vanilla extract, or the New Republic and National Review,
which are virtually odorless, yet still somehow stink.

I only mention my olfactory impressions at the outset because, as George
reassures us, everything is politics -- except maybe politics. Or, as John
Boy explains in his editor's letter: "Politics has migrated into the realm
of popular culture, and folks can't turn away."

No, it seems they can't, and a good thing too. If they did, some of them
might get the urge to vote. Or worse, take up Mr. Jefferson's famous
suggestion about government losing touch with the people, although some
George readers might argue that it was actually Nick Nolte that said it,
and that what he meant to say is that we should all consider buying
minivans, not overthrow the state.

Besides smelling good, George is nice on the hands, smooth and shiny but
not paper-cut sharp. Increasingly disillusioned page-flippers will
appreciate this, as will pet birds.

George, in the end, should have been the ultimate 'zine, a scenester rag by
the handsome boy with the endearing bar exam-deficiency and the inside
scoop. After all, if you can't learn the laws, make your own. There should
have been staples and photocopy smudges, puerile speculation on the
regularity of GOP contenders, a four Blunt rating system on congressional
drug use, crude drawings of Bob Packwood executing one of his dangerous
night desk landings. This is what the people want, isn't it?

Mark Leyner, who reports from the field on Richard Lugar's doomed
nomination shuffle, comes the closest to this model. Leyner, who has gone
from post-punk anarcho-surrealist icon to the Regis Philbin of American
letters and half the way back again in a scant five years, does manage to
ask a Lugar field coordinator if he likes Fugazi. But after that Leyner
keeps his assignment at cattle prod's distance from his ego, and in the end
he sounds like those people (you know who you are) who sit in the back
seat of the car and think that just because they cracked a few funny jokes
over the last several hours they don't have to ante up for gas.

Also in the lighter vein are fashion critiques of political players
courtesy of Crawford and Isaac Mizrahi, in which Mizrahi lets the
salary-slashed victims of a Downsized America know that "KMart is not to
wear" and a "modest proposal" by Al Franken about ejecting the elderly into
outer space that would probably garner an A for a high school English
assignment based on Swift's classic, but falls out of orbit here. The
party-on journalism gets notably thick in a piece about Grover Norquist's
all-night GOPAC keggers, where we learn that the new new breed of
Republicans listen to Deep Purple and smoke pricey cigars, just like the
rest of us.

Finally we get to the core of George, the cover photo. The shot of Model
Laureate Cindy Crawford in colonial disco gear and founding father do-rag
is not nearly as risque as the tittering hype would have had you believe,
but I found it personally offensive. Why should a bright articulate voice
of the nineties be forced to dress up like that rotgummed scoundrel who
after years of gainful employment by the British, chopping down the French
and Indians like so many cherry trees, turned around and whacked his own
benefactors upside the head? Some role model.

But enough about the father, what about the favorite son?

Beyond the record-setting ad sales and glamorous photo shoots, John-John's
editorial vision is mainly distinguished by its quest for a vague "post-partisan"
politics, an end-run around today's ideological gridlock that nonetheless
adroitly avoids any real challenge to the system. Caleb Carr, of Alienist
fame, weighs in with "The Next American Revolution is Now." It is short,
powerfully-worded, and utterly devoid of tangible meaning. Carr unveils the
fact "we have become a more factionalized society than at any time during
the Civil War" and that "what is required is a new political party and a
new kind of candidate, one who puts honesty and the country's interests
above partisan politics."

But what George means exactly by "post-partisan" is unclear. Inside the
beltway, the term connotes the shared corporate interests of politicians on
either side of the aisle, the "Republicrat" phenomenon. On a broader level,
it points to the fluid, issue-based boundaries of nineties mainstream
politics. This affords elected officials a scratch-n-sniff approach to the
debates of the day, whereby they can gauge the viability of different
agendas -- and, in effect, different personas -- before actually
committing. This personality parade is the true subject of George. Politics
and marketing intersect in the psychological profiles of senators,
pollsters, and campaign managers: democracy as Dewar's ad.

So in the tradition of Hitchcock and Truffaut, cyber-libertarian John Perry
Barlow and the Old Gingo himself, as in Newt, the heterosexual half-brother
of Candace Gingrich (profiled fifty pages earlier) sit down for a tentative
powwow to discuss the Speaker's benign toleration of the so-called
counterculture and the future of informational freedom. Barlow, a fellow
Tofflerite, kisses up ("you seem like an extremely compassionate guy") and
Gingrich, in his inimitable style, kisses down.

"I attempt to be a problem solver on the level of civilizations," Gingrich
explains. Ludicrous as the statement seems, it does link up to the general
tenor of George, an unsurprising if occasionally freewheeling confidence in
the Great Man/Woman theory of politics. Threaded through the magazine is an
unquestioning assumption that history is made from the top down, big
decisions made by big personalities in locked rooms.



What's missing here is a sense of what the Old Left used to call the
"collective," a sense of the people as more than just polling data and
demographics. What is forgotten is the role of social movements, of masses
of people creating political history on their own terms. Take the New Deal
as an example. In mainstream thinking and writing, FDR is either deified or
excoriated for its inception, with an astonishing amnesia about the social
unrest and labor activism that brought it into being. George, operating
within the limited vocabulary of a celebrity glossy, is often forced to
take personality politics to the next stage. Though there is a finite
number of certifiable leaders to cover, the pool of pollsters and wonks and
bag-men is endless. The Great Man theory naturally yields to the
Suit-of-the-Month club. When that spring runs dry, it's time to humanize a
villain.

Which brings us to John Kennedy Jr.'s interview with former Alabama
governor George Wallace. It may be the best thing in George, though not for
the starkly smarmy photographs or even John-John's strange tenderness (you
almost expect him to take the old man grocery shopping). The interview
reveals the true political nature of Wallace's racism. When Wallace says he
never hated "the blacks" you can't help but believe him, and find him all
the more repugnant. What becomes clear is that Kennedy Jr.'s kindly manner
to the gnarled half-penitent Wallace is born of mutual understanding.
Always and forever the governing elite has to do what it has to do, to get
votes, to consolidate power.

John Kennedy Jr. and Hachette Filipacchi, the magazine group that publishes
George (perhaps the third party Carr and others keep alluding to) have to
do what they have to do as well. Whether they use the soft sell of gossip,
fashion tips and glib reportage or the hard sell of millennial anxiety,
they still have to move product -- perfumes, cars, alcohol, computers, and
despair.

I know, maybe I should lighten up. I tried. But so far George is just not
all that entertaining. If you offer me bread, I know it's just another
empty promise, but if it's circus we're talking, you better deliver. The
fact is, if early fifth century Rome had been blessed with George, the
empire would still have fallen, but no doubt toga design, fueled by market
demands, might have reached new levels of sophistication. And maybe --
Kennedy and company seem to suggest -- in a Clinton America and a
Newtonian Universe, that is all we can reasonably expect.

What's your view on George? Have any idea what "post-partisan politics" means? Let us know what you think. If you have a Web browser that can read newsgroups, you can take part in FEED's online discussions. Just click on the Feedbag icon below and start posting!