March 1997, pg. 122

Publishers' Page

No One Ever Went Broke

Overestimating the bad taste of the American people. It was H.L. Mencken who said that, or something like it, and that was even before television. We can add that no one ever lost an election by bashing an Arab. So is that why FBI Director Louis Freeh went off on his own to The Washington Post and unloaded on the Saudis, and then Janet Reno held a press conference to say "me, too"?

We'd Heard She Was Thinking

Of running for governor of Florida. Maybe she figured she could offset media skepticism if she started bashing Arabs early enough. That's how Pat Moynihan, when he was U.S. ambassador to the U.N., won a Senate seat in New York. And bashing one Arab in particular and the rest of them in general helped make Madeleine Albright what she is today.As for Louis Freeh

The FBI has been up to its ears in problems on his watch, and somehow they've all been somebody else's fault. He's probably just about run out of colleagues to blame. So how about the Arabs?

Wonder What He'll Run for?

It's said other Clinton administration officials were stunned at the two outbursts, although it appears to us that they've been trying to get the Saudis to blame the Iranians for the Khobar Towers bombing, so that the U.S., in turn, could bomb something in Iran. President Clinton, Secretary Albright, and CIA officials are said to be embarrassed by the Arab bashing. Guess they're wishing

They'd Thought of Doing it First!

It's no picnic to be an Arab, a Muslim, or even an "Arabist" in America these days. You can stay off welfare, pay your taxes, support your family and get shot at in earnest every generation or so while fulfilling your patriotic duty, but when politicians screw up, they just

Blame an Arab! Works Every Time!

We're coming back to this but, meanwhile, we were apologizing to Bay Area writer/activist Ed Miller for something the other day when he said, "Don't worry about it

"You Can't Be Everywhere!"

Usually he's right, but on that he was wrong. AET and the Washington Report were everywhere in December. Book Club director Geoff Lumetta teamed up with Chicago volunteer (and former CNI staffer) Mark Safman to staff a table at the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) Convention in Chicago. Senegal-born former Book Club director Ely Dieng and Lebanese intern Sahar Mawlawistaffed a table at the MAYA convention in Dayton. Circulation director Delinda Hanley and her two extra-charming daughters staffed a table at the MAYA convention in New Jersey and charter volunteer Donna Bourne Curtiss staffed a table solo at the MAYA convention in Los Angeles.

In Fact, We Are Everywhere.

It's how we build circulation. And building circulation is how eventually we're going to survive without shaking down our loyal readers year after year after year. So please give yourself a quiz. Is there any appropriate group of potential subscribers to which you could distribute sample copies of the Washington Report? (We'll send you the copies, free, and with pleasure.)

We'd Guess There Are a Million

Potential subscribers out there. If we could sign up just 10 percent of them, we could pay our bills from our earnings.

Help Us Go For It!

You also might check your local public library and its branches, your church, mosque or synagogue reading room, your university library, and perhaps your children's school libraries. If they don't subscribe but can be made to think about it, we've got a library donation package that can go with the subscription. (Ask us about it.) And if they want the subscription but neither they nor you can pay for it, tell us anyway. Lots of donations to the tax-exempt AET Library Endowment come in as subscriptions to any library of our choosing.

Subscriptions in Libraries

Get more people involved than anything else we do. And they also get us desperately needed new paid subscribers. Your donations to your local libraries plant the seeds.

We'll Turn Them Into a Forest.

Finally, if you have enough time to devote to it, check the bigger newsstands and bookstores in your areaÞthe ones that carry other foreign affairs publications. If they don't carry the Washington Report, find out why. If they express interest, we'll inform one of our six regional distributors, or set up a direct arrangement if necessary. Please be our local eyes and ears.

We May Be Looking Again

For an office manager and for correspondents from Chicago, with its 300,000 Muslims and 60,000 Assyrians; Detroit, where there are more Chaldeans than are left in Iraq; New York/ New Jersey, with more Muslims than there are in some Arab League member states; Massachusetts, where great things happen all the time that we don't hear about; and the San Francisco Bay Area, where the only people we read about are from the ADL.

At Various Times We Thought

We had them all covered. But for this issue nothing came in from any of those areas. How can we be the Middle East's publication of record in the United States if no one tells us anything?

And Then There's Advertising.

We have more paid circulation than any other periodical in our field. Maybe more than all of them laid end-to-end. So if you want more members for your group, more donations for your Mideast-related charity, or more customers for your business, Mideast-related or not, try an ad in our magazine. The non-profits who use it say it's the best of any periodical in which they advertise. The businesses that use it keep coming back. If you try it, you'll like it because

We Really Are Everywhere!

Okay, back to our earlier complaint. We're tired of being honorary members of a community that's bashed every now and then for some politician's personal gain. And we're tired of watching a few Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and retired foreign service officers being bought off with an invitation to the White House that doesn't even involve a night in the Lincoln bedroom, a politician's brief visit to their mosque, or an appointment to some official committee that never meets and no one's ever heard of. We have the numbers to demand much, much more.

It's Time to Draw Up a Short List

Of a very, very few key points of vital interest to us all. And then to stop searching for the perfect candidate for every office and unite on the candidate in each race that scores the highest. Forget parties! We're talking bloc voting here. We have the numbers. We have the brains. What we don't yet have is the discipline or the unity.

But We're Working on That!

Work with us and

Make a Difference, This Month!