Joshua Glenn, in the Boston Globe (June 27, 2004):

DID WALT DISNEY turn Johnny Tremain, the teenage hero of Esther Forbes's 1944 Newbery Award-winning novel of that title, from a proper Bostonian son of the Revolution into a proto-1960s radical?

Such is the suggestion of film historian Douglas Brode, author of the newly published "From Walt to Woodstock: How Disney Created the Counterculture" (University of Texas). Rather than providing pro-Establishment entertainment, claims Brode, who teaches cinema studies at Syracuse University, movies written and directed under Uncle Walt's oversight - including such animated classics as "Snow White" (1937) and "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), but particularly live-action movies like "Davy Crockett" (1955) and "Johnny Tremain" (1957) - encouraged young Americans "to question all authority and, when (if) finding it invalid, to strike out against those who would repress youthful freedoms, even if this necessitated employing violence as a last resort."

From the communalism of the Seven Dwarves and the "Swiss Family Robinson" (1960) to the psychedelia of "Fantasia" (1940) and "Alice" to Captain Nemo's eco-terrorism in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), not to mention the spectacle of midcentury Mousketeers gyrating to rock'n'roll, Disney's hugely popular output prefigured the key themes of the 1960s counterculture, argues Brode in chapters on everything from "Disney and the Culture of Conformity" to "Disney and the Denial of Death."

Boston, which Brode points out is frequently evoked in Disney's films as shorthand for an oppressive, hierarchical social order, goes up in flames in "Johnny Tremain," a movie that approvingly traces the arc of a budding young capitalist's transformation into a violent revolutionary. "The initially wholesome, easy-going teenager is last seen killing agents of the establishment," Brode points out, "and doing so with great relish."

Bat Ye'or, in the course of a seminar at the French Senate reprinted by frontpagemag.com (July 2, 2004):

Allow me first to make a preliminary observation about the title of this session: the ‘return of the spirit of Munich’ – a title which I find somewhat optimistic. At Munich, in 1938, France and England, exhausted by the death toll of the Great War, abandoned Czechoslovakia to the Nazi beast, in the hope that by doing so they would avoid another conflict. The “spirit of Munich” thus refers to a policy of states and of peoples who refuse to confront a threat, and attempt to obtain peace and security through conciliation and appeasement, or even, for some, an active collaboration with the criminals.

For my own part, I would say that we have gone beyond the spirit of Munich, and the present situation should be seen not in the context of the Second World War, but in the present jihadist context.

In fact, for the past 30 years France and Europe are living in a situation of passive self-defense against terrorism. This began with Palestinian terrorism, then Islamic terrorism, not to speak of the local European terrorism, including the Basques in Spain, the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, and the Red Brigades of Italy of the 1980s.

One need only look at our cities, airports, and streets, at the schools with their security guards, even the systems of public transportation, not to mention the embassies, and the synagogues – to see the whole astonishing array of police and security services. The fact that the authorities everywhere refuse to name the evil does not negate that evil. Yet we know perfectly well that we have been under threat for a long time; one has only to open one’s eyes and our authorities know it better than any of us, because it is they who have ordered these very security measures.

In his book, La Vie Quotidienne dans l’Europe Médiévale sous Domination Arabe (Daily Life in Medieval Europe under the Arab Domination), published in 1978, Charles-Emmanuel Dufourq, a French specialist on Andalusia (Islamic Spain) and the Maghreb, described under the subheading “Une grande Peur” (“A great Fear”) the conditions of life for the indigenous non-Muslim peoples in the Andalusian countryside. (1) Today, Europe itself is living with this Great Fear.

At Munich war had not yet been declared. Today the war is everywhere. And yet the European Union and the states which comprise it, have denied that war’s reality, right up to the terrorist attack in Madrid of March 11, 2004. If there is a danger as Europe proclaims urbi et orbi, that danger can only come from America and Israel. What should one understand? For can anyone seriously maintain that it is the American and Israeli forces that threaten us in Europe? No, what must be understood is that American and Israeli policies of resistance to jihadist terror provoke reprisals against a Europe that has long ago ceased to defend itself. So that peace can prevail throughout the world, those two countries, America and Israel, need only adopt the European strategy of constant surrender, based on the denial of aggression. How simple it all is…

This strategy is less worthy than even Munich’s connivance and cowardice. At Munich there was some sort of future contemplated, even if war, or peace, were to determine the future. There was a choice. In the present situation there is no choice, for we deny the reality of the jihad danger. The only danger comes, allegedly, from the United States and Israel. We conduct a propaganda campaign in the media against these two countries, before entering into a yet more aggressive phase; it’s so much easier, so much less dangerous…And we conduct this campaign with the weapons of cowardice: defamation, disinformation, the corruption of venal politicians.

In the time of Munich, one could envisage that there would be battles that might be won. There was at least the Maginot Line for defense. In Europe today, dominated by the spirit of dhimmitude – the condition of submission of Jews and Christians under Muslim domination – there is no conceivable battle. Submission, without a fight, has already taken place. A machinery that has made Europe the new continent of dhimmitude was put into motion more than 30 years ago at the instigation of France.

A wide-ranging policy was then first sketched out, a symbiosis of Europe with the Muslim Arab countries, that would endow Europe – and especially France, the project’s prime mover – with a weight and a prestige to rival that of the United States (2). This policy was undertaken quite discreetly, outside of official treaties, under the innocent-sounding name of the Euro-Arab Dialogue. An association of European parliamentarians from the European Economic Community (EEC) was created in 1974 in Paris: the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation. It was entrusted with managing all of the aspects of Euro-Arab relations – financial, political, economic, cultural, and those pertaining to immigration. This organization functioned under the auspices of the European heads of government and their foreign ministers, working in close association with their Arab counterparts, and with the representatives of the European Commission, and the Arab League.

Dick Morris, in frontpagemag.com (July 1, 2004):

Even as the polling shows a nation evenly divided, Americans are curiously united in their perceptions of the two candidates. By 20 points or more, they agree that Bush is better on terrorism, national defense, and homeland security. Even on Iraq, even on the worst days, they give Bush a 10-point margin over Kerry. On the other hand, they give Kerry a lead of double digits on job creation, education, healthcare, Social Security, prescription drug prices and the environment.

To fight the war on terror, they want Bush. To handle domestic problems, they want Kerry. How similar the situation is to the 1945 Churchill vs. Atlee election in the United Kingdom. There, even though Britain was still at war with Japan — and nobody knew about the bomb as yet — voters opted for Atlee’s superior capacity to deliver on peacetime promises like healthcare and social security.

Grasping this basic fact, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is taking a page out of the Clinton playbook for 1996 and the Bush strategy of 2000 and trying some triangulation of his own. While Clinton hugged the GOP on issues like welfare reform and deficit reduction and Bush mimicked the Democratic agenda by stressing education standards and vowing to leave “no child behind,” so Kerry is broadly supportive of Bush’s actions in Iraq and in the war on terror.

Kerry’s reluctance to part company with Bush on current and future steps in Baghdad does not, of course, stop him from criticizing past administration actions, but he is careful not to allow any real daylight to shine through his proposals for the future in Iraq and those of the Bush people. Like the administration, he wants more international support for our efforts and like the president he wants to turn power over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible. Most important, like Bush, he does not want to withdraw and vows to stay the course.

When an insurgent challenges an incumbent, he can always choose the field of battle by articulating precisely and narrowly the differences between them. Too often, challengers fall into the trap of criticizing everything their opponent does. By doing so, they take on their adversary’s strong points as well as his weak ones. A shrewd challenger bypasses the strong points, professing agreement, and concentrates on the weak ones instead. Unless the challenger attacks the incumbent over the strong elements in his record, the incumbent has difficulty putting his strengths into play. There is no more potent way to dismiss the achievements of one’s adversary than to praise them, and thereby banish them, from the campaign.

Kerry’s strategy is to stress his differences over Bush’s weaknesses like healthcare, Medicare, the environment, Social Security, stem-cell research and the like while narrowing the gap between them over terrorism and the president’s strength....

Media critic Norman Solomon, in the Baltimore Sun (July 1, 2004):

Presidential candidate Ralph Nader is standing on a bar of soap in a political rainstorm. Midway through 2004, while his electoral base shrinks, one of the great American reformers of the 20th century is drifting out to sea.

When the Green Party's national convention refused to endorse Mr. Nader for president a few days ago, the delegates were not rejecting his strong anti-corporate and pro-democracy politics. On the contrary, the convention was acting on the basis of such principles. Greens from every region of the country recognized that Mr. Nader -- proudly unaccountable to any institution but himself -- has steered his campaign into a steadily worsening tangle of contradictions.

Activists struggling to build a viable Green Party with a truly democratic process found that Mr. Nader preferred to remain aloof.
Four years ago, he was the party's presidential nominee but declined to become a member. This time, he ruled out accepting the Green nomination. But he did express a desire for the party's "endorsement" -- and its ballot lines in two dozen states.

Mr. Nader promised no accountability for his campaign. In the driver's seat, with hands tight on the steering wheel, he offered to take the Greens for a ride.

Instead, Green delegates opted to nominate David Cobb, a longtime grass-roots activist with a commitment to building the party. Mr. Cobb doesn't hesitate to describe both George W. Bush and John Kerry as corporate functionaries and militarists. But he readily acknowledges that Mr. Bush is significantly worse. And while Mr. Nader vows to actively seek votes in every state he can, Mr.
Cobb has pledged to adopt a "safe states" approach that mostly bypasses campaigning in swing states.

Short on cash and volunteers, Mr. Nader began to make overtures several months ago for a Green Party endorsement that could get his name on some state ballots. To smooth ruffled Green feathers and boost his chances, Mr. Nader chose Green Party leader Peter M.
Camejo as his running mate just days before the convention opened.
The gambit didn't work.

Mr. Nader's credibility is at a new low after sinking steadily this year.

"I'm going to take more votes away from Bush than from Kerry,"
he claims. Yet the overwhelming majority of polls say just the opposite. And by selecting a vice presidential candidate who will be anathema to conservatives, Mr. Nader indicated that defeating Mr.
Bush is actually quite low on his list of priorities.

Mr. Nader's choice of Mr. Camejo renders even more relevant a quip from The Daily Show's Jon Stewart: "Conservatives for Nader.
Not a large group. About the same size as 'Retarded Death Row Texans for Bush.'"

Mr. Camejo, who was a Socialist Workers Party spokesman for many years, will be most unpalatable to exactly the voters whom Mr.
Nader maintains he can lure away from Mr. Bush come November.

While participating in a debate with Mr. Camejo early this year on the merits of a "Nader in '04" presidential run, I was struck by his ideological rigidity -- and by his refusal to acknowledge meaningful contrasts between Mr. Bush and the likely Democratic nominee.

On this point, Mr. Nader has waffled in recent months, sometimes differentiating between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, other times seeming to conflate the two. By tapping Mr. Camejo, he has linked up with someone who routinely paints himself into a sectarian political corner with a sliver of left appeal.

White House strategist Karl Rove must be more pleased than ever about Mr. Nader's campaign.

The contradictions of that campaign have been stark. In early spring, when I spoke with Mr. Nader in a lengthy phone discussion, he never came close to making a credible case that his run for president this year could help beat Mr. Bush. The conversation reinforced my impression that Mr. Nader is committed to a campaign in search of a rationale.

After supporting Mr. Nader's presidential drives in 1996 and 2000, I've become more than disappointed in his decision to run this year. I'm now aghast at the current extent of his double-talk -- and double-dealing.

While he gives lip service to preventing a second term for the Bush presidency, Mr. Nader's key decisions -- such as striving to get on the ballot in swing states and putting Mr. Camejo on the ticket -- fundamentally contradict his words.

Ironically, these days, Mr. Nader's behavior resembles the efforts of an irresponsible corporate CEO who confuses his own prerogatives with the greater good.

Bruce Shapiro, in the Nation (June 25, 2004):

It is April of 1970. President Richard Nixon, frustrated with the Vietnam War, orders tens of thousands of US and South Vietnamese troops to invade neutral Cambodia. He launches his new war--and widens his bombing campaign--without consulting an outraged Congress. Demonstrations engulf campuses and cities. Aides to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger quit in protest. And at the Justice Department, an assistant attorney general named William Rehnquist, in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, makes a case for the legality of Nixon's new war in a white paper,"The President and the War Power."

It is half a lifetime from that spring to this one, and half a world from Cambodia to Iraq. The historical chasm abruptly collapsed, though, with the release of the memo on torture written for the White House in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, Rehnquist's latter-day successor at the Office of Legal Counsel. What do Nixon and Cambodia have to do with the beatings and rapes at Abu Ghraib? Ask Bybee, because it is his memo that makes the comparison with Cambodia and Rehnquist, a comparison that lays open the deeper motivations, goals and implications of the Bush Administration's interrogation policy.

The Bybee memo attempts to erect a legal scaffolding for physical and psychological coercion of prisoners in the War on Terror. Coming from the Office of Legal Counsel, it holds the authority of a policy directive. The memo proposes so finessed and technical a reading of antibrutality laws that all manner of" cruel, inhuman or degrading" interrogation techniques--including beatings and sexual violations like those in Abu Ghraib--simply get reclassified as Not Torture. The memo's language so offends common sensibility that within a few days of its release, White House officials were disavowing its conclusions and selectively declassifying documents allegedly showing the President's commitment to humane treatment of prisoners....

It is in defense of his view of the Commander in Chief's legal impunity that Bybee invokes the Cambodia precedent, citing Rehnquist's 1970 white paper as his principal authority. Rehnquist spelled out his arguments both in that memo and in an article later that year for the New York University Law Review.

One glance at the Rehnquist documents and it is easy to see why his 1970 reasoning resonates throughout the Bush Administration's 2002 and 2003 memorandums. Just as Bybee finds that torture isn't torture, Rehnquist argued that the invasion of Cambodia wasn't really an invasion:"By crossing the Cambodian border to attack sanctuaries used by the the enemy, the United States has in no sense gone to war with Cambodia." The Bybee memo offers officials accused of torture the"necessity" defense; in 1970, Rehnquist argued that pursuing Vietcong troops into previously neutral territory was"necessary to assure [American troops'] safety in the field."

In particular, Rehnquist offered the Nixon White House a bold vision of the Commander in Chief's authority at its most expansive and unreviewable: The President's war power, he wrote acerbically, must amount to"something greater than a seat of honor in the reviewing stand." Cambodia--where the devastation of the war and the Nixon Administration's carpet-bombing following the invasion would prepare the way for the Khmer Rouge holocaust--amounted to"the sort of tactical decision traditionally confided to the commander in chief."

For Rehnquist, the invasion of Cambodia in May of 1970 was a dual watershed. On the one hand, it marked the greatest assertion of expansive presidential warmaking power, crystallized in the white paper cited by Bybee. At the same time, protests against the Cambodian invasion led Nixon to centralize the gathering of domestic political intelligence directly in the White House; Rehnquist supported this domestic expansion of executive-branch authority, arguing in court for no-knock entry, preventive detention, wiretaps and other ancestors of today's Patriot Act.

The authority of Nixon and his successors was soon curtailed--at least on paper--by reform-minded legislation: the War Powers Act, the Freedom of Information Act, CIA reform, the War Crimes Act and a host of other statutes. And ever since the invasion of Cambodia, a parade of conservative policy-makers--among them Rehnquist, Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney--have repeatedly sought to regain the expansive presidential power asserted in Rehnquist's memo.

This is what is really at stake in the torture scandal....

Renato Redentor Constantino, a writer and painter based in the Philippines, in TomDispatch (June 22, 2004):

Coincidence, pattern, and memory. Tricky things these three.

One ghastly day in May, at close to three in the morning, a US helicopter fires its missiles at the village of Mukaradeeb in western Iraq."Coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided," the Pentagon explains later. The target was"a suspected foreign fighter safe house," the deputy director of U.S. military operations in Iraq, Gen. Mark Kimmitt, adds.

Once the smoke peels away from Mukaradeeb, the counting begins. Over 40 people are dead, many of them women and children. It was a wedding party.

Almost a year earlier, in the early hours of a July morning, the U.S. Air Force pounds the Afghan village of Kararak with bombs."Close air support from U.S. Air Force B-52 and AC-130 aircraft struck several ground targets, including anti-aircraft artillery sites that were engaging the aircraft," explained the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida. By the end of the attack, over 40 people are dead -- all of them civilians, many of them children. Another wedding party.

In Southeast Asia over a hundred years ago, the American annexation of the Philippines has just commenced and the crescendo of carnage is nearing a state of continuous climax. In a humid theater somewhere in the ex-future first republic of Asia, the 11th Cavalry encounters a festive gathering -- another wedding party, of course. The soldiers fire into the throng, kill the bride and two men, and wound another woman and two children. The cursory statement from the Army in response to the atrocity, which explains that"American troops ran into a beehive of insurgents and responded valiantly with covering fire," has yet to be discovered. We are certain, however, that it's tucked somewhere in the growing scrapbook of imperial nuptials, the remedy to insatiable greed.

Till death do us part?

The exchange of vows under the American boot has been going on for some time now. Everyone is invited, depending on the matrimonial gift one brings. The wedding of avarice with gluttony: imperial groom -- that ugly, muscular, festering wound of a suitor -- seeks and swallows lonely girl, professing love, the good life, and liberty. We don't do torture; we don't occupy; we don't do massacres; we reject Satan and all other evildoers.

"Those are my principles," said Groucho Marx."If you don't like them, I have others."

What a curious thing, today's trends. The rage is Abu Ghraib. The shame of the few"bad apples" that have sullied the good name of the United States. The Rumsfeld memorandum. The August 2002 memo on"standards of conduct for interrogation" prepared by the misnamed Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The isolated incidents.

Yes. The isolated incidents.

In 1901, in the course of interrogating"treacherous" Filipinos who did not have the good sense to accept America's seizure of the Philippines, Lieutenant Frederick Arnold and one Sergeant Edwards were accused of torturing Filipino prisoners. Their acts of"prisoner abuse"? Stripping a young man naked, then subjecting him to the water cure (the essential memory-recovery medication of the occupation army's battle kit and predecessor to today's"water-boarding"): The prisoner's mouth is forced open to respectfully facilitate down his throat five to ten gallons of water (or whatever his bloated stomach can endure). Once filled up, the interrogators politely step on the prisoner's tummy until the prisoner blurts out the desired information.

For data validation purposes, the same prisoner is interrogated once more by his American liberators and"whipped and beaten unmercifully with rattan rods" and"then strung up by his thumbs." Efficiency is everything.

Another feat of the imagination -- before questioning, a strip of skin is cut from a Filipino prisoner's ankle and attached to a piece of wood. Then"the flesh" is coiled"with the wood." Think can-opener.

"When I give a man to [my troops]," said Lt. Arnold,"I want information. I do not know how [they] get it, but [they] get it anyway." Filipinos"had no feelings other than physical, and should not be treated as human beings."

In 1900, a captain and lieutenant of the 27th Regiment were tried for hanging six Filipinos by their necks for ten seconds," causing them," it was charged,"to suffer great bodily pain." The words in the charge sheet were later changed to"mental anguish" and the officers were found guilty and sentenced to reprimands.

Unlucky chaps these U.S. officers; they lived way too far ahead of their time. By the standards of America's government today, they wouldn't have been charged at all. According to the Acceptable Torture Handbook prepared by the Bush administration, if someone"knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent." A"defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control."

Thus, if your professed intention is to extract information, you can't be accused of torture.

God bless America.

Kogure Satoko, in Japan Times (reprinted in Japan Focus) (June 15, 2004):

"I do understand why that girl could do such a brutal thing, because I myself treated people cruelly during World War II, without any hesitation," says 82-year-old Nishiguchi Masaichi, a former military policeman (MP) in the Japanese Army.

When Nishiguchi first saw the news about U.S. soldiers abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, memories from over 60 years ago flash backed to him.

Nishiguchi, who is retired and living in Mie Prefecture, has openly confessed his actions during the war in the hope that his experiences can help to prevent the same tragedy occurring again.

"I'm so ashamed that I did such a thing, and I have felt so sorry for the detainees that I dealt with.

"I know how war can dehumanize people, and that is war. I experienced that. But I also know how cruel the remainder of their lives can be for those who have been treated cruelly and for those who have committed cruel acts."

Nishiguchi was sent to the border of Manchuria, a former puppet nation established by Imperial Japan in China in 1942. There, his duty was to uncover spies from the former USSR. Nishiguchi and his comrades hunted down suspicious persons, capturing them, and then detaining and torturing them during interrogation.

"I hung a Chinese man by rope-handcuffs from a crossbeam and beat him with a bamboo sword until blood gushed out from all over his body. Having been tortured for a week, the strong man became deadly weak, and started to nod to the other MP's leading questions."

According to Nishiguchi, the clear order from higher officers to the MPs was "to find a spy." Beyond that, such details as how they might "find" a spy became "unspoken orders" and "recognized by everybody from the top down."

This unspoken order and "feeling" shared by everybody created the atmosphere for the abuse."

"I perfectly understand what the situation must be like at Abu Ghraib. American soldiers tortured Iraqi detainees so that they could get any useful information from them, such as where Saddam was hiding and how the resistance force is operating. That's how I worked in Manchuria," he says.

"Now I deeply regret what I've done, but at that time I believed I was doing the right thing," Nishiguchi says. "I thought I was performing my mission of eliminating enemies, and even felt proud of finding a 'spy' and being praised by a higher officer."

But, he continued, "all the people concerned with the abuse at Abu Ghraib, including the young MPs and high-ranking officers, should regret what they've done for the rest of their lives, as well as fully take responsibility."

Over sixty years ago, when Nishiguchi heard the shriek of tortured detainees for the first time, he was "hugely disturbed and couldn't sleep because of the disgusting feeling."

However, after a while he "ceased to care about it."

While the Abu Ghraib tragedy reminds Nishiguchi of past experiences, today most Japanese don't view the reality of detainee abuse as something that might happen to their own country.

Even though Japan is known to have committed war crimes against prisoners-of-war during WWII, and that generation that bore witness to it first-hand still carries those memories, younger generations of Japanese are hardly ever taught about this side of Japanese history, if at all.

However, Nishiguchi believes that "the possibility that these things might happen can't be denied in any military at any time when faced with a war situation."

Even regarding the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), "Japanese people should not view them as removed from this POW issue."

Indeed, Japan, which is bound to a pacifist course by Article 9 of its Constitution, is already readying for a time when it will again be responsible for the treatment of POWs.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a package of seven-security related bills to augment war contingency legislation enacted last year.

One of the seven bills, which received final approval yesterday, concerns measures to deal with prisoners of war. With the Diet also ratifying two protocols of the Geneva Conventions, the introduction of the POW law is to ensure that prisoners of war are treated according to international law.

As the SDF and the U.S. forces in Japan are expected to jointly defend the country, in light of the Abu Ghraib affair, it is essential that the SDF be educated in and familiar with international humanitarian law.

However, since the law allows the two forces to hand over POWs detained by each force to the other, and is not designed to bind U.S. treatment of POWs, the SDF has an even greater responsibility toward detainees' rights and must take the lead in defending them.

Although today's situation in Iraq differs greatly from WWII, it is worth bearing in mind that the U.S. and its allies were so determined to uphold international humanitarian law that it charged 5,700 Japanese with war crimes and sentenced 984 of them to death. Among those sentenced to death were young soldiers who had had no idea about Geneva Conventions and just followed orders. While lawmakers rush to pass the security bills in order to prepare the country for a war contingency, it is crucial that the SDF, inexperienced in wartime situations, be prepared and taught to reject any policy that might breach international humanitarian law.

The Ground Self-Defense Force has reportedly made a videotape to educate members about international laws and regulations in wartime. The video includes some dramatized scenes showing how international humanitarian law must be applied in dealing with POWs. However, the SDF ought also to be educated about experiences like those of Nishiguchi's, to be made aware of how easily ordinary men and women can be dehumanized in a war situation.

"Just having a law to protect POWs is meaningless," Nishiguchi said. "We see that even the U.S., which once accused Japan of maltreatment toward POWs, ignores the law."

What's more important and more difficult is "whether we can actually adhere to that law in an abnormal war time situation."

Bill Clinton, having delivered a command performance in launching his book blitz with Dan Rather last night, is in no danger of getting the Ronald Reagan treatment.

Liberal commentators, some swallowing hard, may have hailed the 93-year-old Gipper as he passed from the scene. But there is no cultural cease-fire for the 57-year-old Democrat who left office less than four years ago.

"The respect and honor that Democrats have shown, in an appropriate way, for President Reagan will not be shown to President Clinton," says former White House spokesman Joe Lockhart."They don't live by the same credo. They're mean and nasty people. . . . They aren't self-aware enough to understand the image they'll create for themselves when they trash Clinton at every turn."

National Review Editor Rich Lowry says Clinton's book"will go over like a lead balloon with conservatives -- a very large, 950-pound lead balloon. It will prompt an orgy of argument over what happened in the 1990s and who was responsible."

When some conservatives buy Lowry's book"Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years," they rip off the dust jacket because it has a somewhat flattering picture of the 42nd president."It's too soon for any nostalgia, even if justified," Lowry says."He doesn't have any Reagan-like grand accomplishments everyone can coalesce around."

Some obvious caveats: Reagan, despite the Iran-contra scandal, left office a popular figure; Clinton's departure came two years after he was impeached and was clouded by his wave of last-minute pardons. Reagan was idolized by conservative opinion-mongers; liberal commentators were more conflicted about Clinton, especially after his sex-and-lying scandal.

More important, while Alzheimer's disease had sidelined Reagan for a decade, Clinton remains a player who is actively backing John Kerry -- and has a wife in the Senate who could run for his old job.

"Bill Clinton is still a radioactive figure," says historian Douglas Brinkley."He raises more money than anyone else, and Republicans raise money against him."

What's more, says Brinkley,"we live in a sound-bite culture. Ronald Reagan's sound bite is, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' Bill Clinton's sound bite is, 'I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.' . . . Take a swipe at Reagan at your peril. Take a swipe at Clinton, and you get laughs and applause...."