Hey! Didn't I See You on TV?

A handy chart in which Dartmouth's most visible opinion-givers talk about themselves

PUNDIT: Regina Barreca '79

EXPERTISE: Feminism, literature, women's humor

APPEARS: Oprah, Today, 20/20, numerous talk shows, NPR, BBC. Wrote They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted; Perfect Husbands and other Fairy Tales; Sweet Revenge; The Penguin Book of Women's Humor, 12 academic books.

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... "a feminist humor maven." (Ms. magazine)

FAVORITE SAYING: Gertrude Stein: "If you can do it, then why do it?"

PROUDEST MOMENT IN PUNDITRY: Correcting The Rules authors on a Shakespeare misquote during Oprah.

WORST MOMENT IN PUNDITRY: Agreeing to appear on Ricki Lake. ("It was just so tacky. But for Ricki Lake this was top of the line, because it wasn't a show about anybody trying to eat their kin.")

WHAT THEY SAY ON THE STREET: "'Didn't I see you on TV?' They don't care what you said because they don't remember. People remember you in a blur."

COMMENTARY: "I'm a feminist, too, but actually I'm the fun kind." (They Used to Call Me SnowWhite, But I Drifted)

PUNDIT: Mort Kondracke '60

EXPERTISE: Politics (moderate)

APPEARS:

Roll Call (executive editor), McLaughlin Group, PBS, NPR, News Hour withJim Lehrer

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... a columnist and commentator.

PROUDEST OF SAYING: "[Karl von] Clausewiu said war is politics by other means. I always said politics is war by other means."

BEST CALL: 1994 and 1996 House races. Won Washington Post's Crystal Ball award in 1994.

WORST CALL: Spent ten years naming Fidet Castro as "Destined for Political Oblivion." (Recently changed vote to Slobodan Milosevic.)

SIGNS OF IMMINENT PUNDITRY: Carried James Reston's photo in billfold through college years.

WHAT THEY SAY ONTHE STREET: "How can you stand that John McLaughlin?"

COMMENTARY: "Being irredeemably a Beltway person, I can't help thinking about politics, even in church." (The New Republic, 1990)

PUNDIT: Judson Hale '55

EXPERTISE: Weather predictions and Yankeeisms, based on The Old Farmer's Almanac

APPEARS: Scads of talk and radio shows during changes of seasons. Wrote Education of aYankee; Inside New England. Editor of Yankee.

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... an editor and writer.

FAVORITE SAYING: From Barbara Tuchman: "You cannot extrapolate any theory in which the human element intrudes. That is, the human narrative never follows and will always fool the scientific curve. The doomsday factor sooner or later generates a coping mechanism." ("I like it because I'm sort of an optimistic person.")

BEST CALL: "This year's [weather] predictions are going absolutely fabulous. All the rain in November, the warmer-than-usual December..."

WORST CALL: Lack of snow for January 1996.

NEXT CALL: Would like to change New Hampshire state motto from "Live Free or Die" to "Live Free or Be Sick for Almost a Month."

WHAT THEY SAY ON THE STREET: "'Why are Yankees so unfriendly?' I tell them it's none of their business."

COMMENTARY: "I told Jane Pauley once that a meteorologist looks deeply into the eyes of a woman to determine weather." (She didn't crack.)

PUNDIT:Paul Gigot '77

EXPERTISE: Politics (conservative)

APPEARS: Wall Street journal (columnist), News Hour with Jim Lehrer

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... "in essence, a reporter."

PROUDEST MOMENTIN PUNDITRY: Predicting the fall of Marcos and the peaceful transition of the Philippines.

BEST RECENT CALL: "I got the early Clinton years right, anil predicted the Republican sweep."

WORST CALL: "Assuming that George Bush had learned something about politics from spending eight years as Ronald Reagan's vice president"

NEXT CALL: "I suspect that Clinton will be kind of the Grover Cleveland of the late twentieth century; a historical blip."

WHAT THEY SAY ON THE STREET: "You're supposed to be meaner to Shields."

COMMENTARY: "There has never been another campaign even dose to Mr. Clinton's for brass.. -This is political talent o( the highest order. So let us hail true virtuosity when we see it, because it may all be downhill after next Tuesday." (Wo!! Street Journal, Nov. 1,1996)

PUNDIT: Linda L. Fowler

EXPERTISE: Congress and polling

APPEARS: Various news/political shows. Is director of Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center; wrote Candidates, Congress and AmericanDemocracy.

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... a teacher and scholar.

PROUDEST OF SAYING: "I don't know." (Meaning: "I have used refusal to comment or backed away from issues where it was very prudent that I not express an opinion.")

BEST CALL: The Dole/Buchanan New Hampshire primary results. "We said it was a dead heat, and we were right."

WORST CALL: A Bush victory in '92. Changed her mind near the end.

NEXT CALL: "I don't know."

WHAT THEY SAYON THE STREET: Nothing. "I learned early that I was not going to talk about Congress at cocktail parties."

COMMENTARY: "There are a lot of folks who want to be political players, but they don't want the misery of being candidates. And so being in the news analysis business or the punditry business is a very nice way to have influence, to be a player, but not have the inconvenience of running for office."

PUNDIT:David Shribman '75

EXPERTISE: Political analysis

APPEARS:The Boston Globe (Washington bureau chief), Fortune (columnist), Washington Week in Review

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... an editor.

WISEST STATEMENTHEARD: "'No one ever remembers much of what you said,' and I don't remember who said that."

BEST CALL: In the 1994 election, whoever won the Senate races and gubernatorial race in Tennessee would control the U.S. Congress. (An editor killed it.)

WORST CALL: That (defeated) Governor Ben Nelson of Nebraska would be one of the leading members of the Senate in 1997.

BENEFITS OFTV PUNDITRY: "I have better shim than I did a year ago."

COMMENTARY: "In convention season, as at cocktail hour, you can take the measure of a parry by the people who show up. Don't expect many welfare advocates, for example, to be clinking ice cubes at the insurance industry soiree, and you get a special reward if you find a single big-labor type at the bankers' barbeque." (fortune, August 1996)

PUNDIT: Dinesh D'Souza '81

EXPERTISE: Race and education

APPEARS:Forbes (columnist), numerous political shows; research fellow at American Enterprise Institute; wrote The End of Racism, Illiberal Education.

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M ... "trafficking between journalism and scholarship."

PROUDEST OF SAYING: "The line between civilization and barbarism does not run between the races, but between every human heart."

WORST CALL: Surprised by the sudden collapse of communism.

NEXT CALL: "That the 21st century will no longer be the American century. The West is riot only losing the work ethic, but also population, which is the traditional measure of the strength of an empire."

WHAT THEY SAYON THE STREET: Plenty. "I try to be genial in person, and I always hear them out."

COMMENTARY: "It makes no sense to force this new generation of mixed-race citizens into the Procrustean bed of official racial categories. America runs the risk of developing its own version of the Nuremberg laws and thus inviting a grim future of balkanization and ethnic conflict." (TheWeekly Standard, December 1996)

PUNDIT: Susan Dentzer '77

EXPERTISE: Economics

APPEARS:U.S. News (columnist), Nightline,NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Frontline,Washington Week in Review

I'M NO PUNDIT, I'M... "primarily a journalist."

FAVORITE TECHNIQUE: Making esoterica easy to swallow. Regarding Social Security, for example: "People think there's a little box in Washington with their name on it, and when they retire, they'll draw money out of that box."

BEST CALL: Knew that the Clinton health reform. package had tanked by spring of 1994.

WORST CALL: Believed voters had so much economic anxiety that no single party would control the White House for more than a single term.

NEXT CALL: "The economy is already growing faster than statistics indicate. I think you can't rule out economic cycles, like growth and recession, but I think there's a fair amount of optimism about America's long-term prospects at the moment."

WHAT THEY SAYON THE STREET: "'Hey, I saw you on television.' People smile at you like they know you."

COMMENTARY: "We sometimes draw unrealistic parallels between Uncle Sam's and our own finances. Behind such sentiments lies the belief that our kids will inherit only the obligation to 'pay off the debt, as if they would be stuck settling our gambling I losses with a casino after we'd died."