Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles

The Case for Class Warfare * Piggybacking Plaintiffs * By the Book at the FBI Buena Vista Social Club * General Rove and Field Marshal Wolfowitz

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE BUSH gang is applying its Florida recount strategy to the U.N.'s inspection of Iraq's weapons? Just as key delayed the recount until it was too late, they are delaying the inspection or finding fault with the inspection plans--delaying until the administration comes up with enough "intelligence" to justify a preemptive strike.

WE HAVEN'T RUN A CONVENTION abuse item in quite awhile, but a veteran reader, aware of my fondness for examples of the chicanery involved in taking tax deductions for fun-in-the-sun excursions, has sent me the brochure for the meeting of the Torts, Insurance, and Corporate Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, to be held Nov. 7-10 at the Disney Yacht and Beach Club Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The morning sessions do have some relation to the practice of law. I was particularly struck by the 8:30 a.m. Saturday session on "Ethical Issues Facing the Trial Attorney," which I'm sure will be crowded with trial lawyers whose deep concern for moral issues has long been one of their more conspicuous characteristics. In the afternoon and evening, any pretense of serious purpose is abandoned. Disney's Magnolia Golf Course is the venue for the afternoon activity. Then come cocktail parties, dinners, and Cirque du Soleil performances. Also included is a two-day Park-Hopper pass offering admission to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.

WILLIAM PHILLIPS, THE LONG-time editor of Partisan Review who died recently, was known to have had a running feud with his coeditor Philip Rahv. Of Rahv, who was not noted for his modesty, Phillips once said that there would be no use in having him undergo psychoanalysis: "Most of us under analysis, break down and admit our shortcomings; Philip would break down and confess he was a great man."

THE FOR-PROFIT WELLPOINT Health Network, Inc., is proposing to take over CareFirst, a nonprofit Washington healthcare provider. WellPoint devotes 25 percent of its income to administrative expense and profit, while CareFirst devotes only 12 percent of its income to administration. So CareFirst is clearly a better deal for the patient, isn't it? Of course. Then why is CareFirst interested in the deal? It may have something to do with the $78 million in severance payments its executives are being offered by WellPoint.

TAKI, PAT BUCHANAN'S PARTNER in the new magazine, The American Conservative, would not ordinarily qualify as one of Pat's heroes. Buchanan is famous for his dedication to family values. Taki has been quoted as saying, "Womanizing is a matter of honor. The more the better." And Pat's immigration policy is famously harsh on those of dubious character who want to enter this country. In 1984, Taki was arrested by British customs with 23 grams of cocaine in his possession. But why be picky? After all, Taki--whose last name, Theodoracopulos, makes clear why he prefers to be known by the first--is a millionaire, who in Buchanan's words "has been extremely generous in support of the magazine."

When Buchanan was asked if Taki isn't the kind of immigrant he'd keep out of the country, Buchanan replied, according to The Washington Post's Peter Carlson: "I don't think he came across the Rio Grande."

"No," Taki added, "I came on my yacht."

ACTUALLY, I'M NOT WITHOUT sympathy for Pat's new venture. Speaking of Iraq, he asks, "Where are the conservatives who are against the war? Kristol, Podhoretz, Will, and Bennett, they're all hot for war and can't wait to get started."

For a long time there was, among American conservatives, an honorable tradition of skepticism regarding military adventures on foreign shores. But the movement's anti-Communism made it increasingly support deployment of American power abroad, and it became more and more an automatic advocate of militarism.

SPEAKING OF CONSERVATIVE militarism...