Wednesday, December 31, 1997

The big stories of '98

By MARTIN SCHRAM

Scripps Howard News Service

Today's traditional column - the Media's Big News Stories of 1998 - opens with a government-mandated warning: "Reader and Beware: Punditry is mere sophistry set to the Media Age music of the Talking Heads."

Followed by a knee-jerk disclaimer from the manufacturer (your faithful columnist): The punditry contained herein may turn out to be true. According to a review of the record, past offerings had an alarming tendency toward accuracy, for which the manufacturer bears full responsibility.

You could look it up:

Spoken on the eve of 1989, as a CNN commentator: "The Berlin Wall will come down in 1989. Write it down. It'll happen." It did. Written on the eve of 1991: "Mikhail Gorbachev ... will resign. ... The Soviet Union will break into a confederation of nation-states." He did; it did.

Headlines predicted on the eve of 1992: "Democrats Nominate Bill Clinton" and for the following Jan. 20, (America Inaugurates) William Jefferson Clinton." Yatta and yatta.

Headline for the eve of 1993: "Peace Prevails on West Bank, Golan Heights ... There will be an autonomous West Bank homeland for Palestinians, a Golan Heights domestically governed by Syria- with both forever demilitarized under international guarantee."

Come to think of it, that last one must be moved to a special category: So right, yet so wrong.

Now, on to the media's big stories of '98. First, headlines from afar.

- Bye-Bye To Bibi: Israel's prime minister will find himself deserted by disillusioned political allies and - faster than you can say Benjamin Netanya-who? - a less hard-line Labor government will emerge. American Jews will claim it's because Israelis want a leader who will push harder for peace, rather than tunnel-taunt the Palestinians; but they will be wrong. Israelis will mainly grow impatient with their troubled economy and myriad domestic woes. Still, the change will reinvigorate the peace process which a certain columnist once thought would be much further along now than it is.

- Hello To Mr. No-sir: Yasser Arafat will prove himself unwilling and/or unable to stop Palestinian terrorists, who will respond to every honorable push for peace with cowardly bombings of innocent women and children. Leaders of the Arab world will be so worried about fundamentalist challenges in their own backyards that they will develop diplo-laryngitis when they know their tough talk and action is the only way to propel the process toward peace. (And readers will wonder if this is a prediction of the year to come or a review of the year that was.)

- America's Healthy Malaise Over Malaysia: The collapse of the Asian miracle makes it easy for the United States to remember its duty to promote human rights in the despot-led, no longer-thriving eco-markets of Southeast Asia. American officials will finally take tough stands that need to be taken concerning Malaysia's mean-spirited, West-baiting, anti-Semitic-talking Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad, who blames the West for his failings. Malaysians who hold economic power will recognize that Mahathir can never lead them back toward prosperity. They'll give the old tyrant his gold watch and will anoint Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, a modern-thinking leader who is a fundamentalist Muslim in his religious and private life but possesses the vision and skills to lead his nation to prosperity. Jakarta's leaders will see how Malaysia is righting itself and will end the year with a few slight improvements in its own harsh rule. Singapore, I fearlessly predict, will continue to be Singapore.

Next, headlines from the home front.

- Deficit Vanishes, Politicians Promise Taxpayers Every Day Can Be Xmas: No pol in this congressional election year will risk suggesting anything as sensible as using the soon-to-be Clinton-era budget surplus to reduce the $5 trillion national debt that remains. No, the pols will promise everything you want; but the good news is they will reach a sensible compromise - targeted tax-breaks aimed at encouraging social good. Example: Tax breaks for those who buy the coming new generation of cars with near-zero polluting emissions.

- The Biggest Story of Election '98 Will Be Open Rebellion About Election Year 2000: Outbursts of rebellion from two political groups - Democrats and Republicans - will be heard as rank-and-file of both parties express dissatisfaction over those who have pre-positioned themselves as presidential front-runners. And the media, preferring politics over substance, will banner it all. Democrats will complain that Vice President Al Gore and House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt are pre-packaged, pre-coached, yet still underwhelming. Republicans will wail that House Speaker Newt Gingrich will be their ruination. Bob Kerrey and George Bush Jr. will be emerge as the twinkling new stars of this pre-positional phase.

That of course is pure sophistry. But it may have the added virtue of becoming true.

(Martin Schram writes a weekly column that focuses on the intersection of the news media, policy and politics.)