Havoc for the Holiday

The Mumbai massacres undermine our shaky faith in human nature as American families gather for loving celebration in the safety they always took for granted before 9/11.

The identity of the killers matters less than their purpose--to "cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war," in Shakespeare's phrase--to attack civilization itself in bloodthirsty rage and hate.

As grievous as the slaughter of innocents is the knowledge that these acts of darkness, planned with precision, are abetted and amplified by the technology that has done so much to improve modern life, that computer and TV screens which create community can also be used to convey chaos.

It's hard to turn our eyes away from the carnage and concentrate on our good fortune without feeling that, no matter who these murderers turn out to be and whatever their "cause," we are living in a world where their like will be with us for a long time to come.

Deciding Demographic: The Inattentive

Give or take Florida and Michigan, some 35 million American voters have determined that Barack Obama will contest John McCain to become the next president. Now comes the harder part.

Of all the demographic divisions--gender, race, age, economic status, education--Obama faces the most crucial of all, between those who have been paying attention and those who haven't.

With all the new registrations, this year's total of voters is sure to exceed the 122 million of 2004, and the Democratic candidate's challenge will be to make himself known to those like the woman in West Virginia who rejected him saying, "No More Hussein," and millions more who don't know even that much about him.

Presidential campaigns, for better or worse, come down to the perceived character of the candidates, and Obama has come a long way but is still relatively unknown to many, if not most, voters.

In Iowa last night, he asserted that the hard-fought battle for the nomination was good for his party, saying, "Now, some may see the millions upon millions of votes cast for each of us as evidence that our party is divided. But I see it as proof that we have never been more energized and united in our desire to take this country in a new direction."

For the next six months, the Obama campaign will be all about going beyond the energized and united to reach the apathetic, the uninformed and the fearful to persuade them that they and their families will be better off with him in the Oval Office than John McCain.

John F. Kennedy had the same problem in 1960, a young Senator running against a better-known, more experienced political figure, and he overcame it. Eleanor Roosevelt, late in life, compared him to her husband being energized by the campaign crowds of 1932.

In the era of TV and the Internet, Obama is capable of outdoing them both.

William F. Buckley Jr.

Urbane, witty and maddeningly supercilious, he was the liberals' favorite conservative. William F. Buckley Jr., who died today, went to Yale, found it not to his liking, wrote a best-seller about his disdain and went on to make conservatism intellectually respectable in the second half of 20th century America.

In 1955, he founded National Review with his brother-in-law, F. Brent Bozell, but being a magazine editor was only a part-time occupation. Buckley leaves behind a torrent of words, on the pages of books and periodicals and in the medium that came of age with him, television.

My favorite memory, among many, is of his 1968 stint as a network commentator, paired with his liberal doppelganger, the elegant novelist and playwright Gore Vidal.

They ended a dispute on some minor point by calling one another "a pro crypto Nazi" and "a queer." Buckley won the argument by warning Vidal, "Stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddam face..."

In 2006, Buckley rendered his verdict on George W. Bush: "Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology--with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress," he told a TV interviewer. "And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge."

As always, well said.

Bah, Humbug and All That

If he wrote "A Christmas Carol" today, Charles Dickens might take flak for insidiously promoting a welfare state that could lead to higher taxes and SCHIP programs for the likes of Tiny Tim.

But after more than a century and a half, Scrooge and his ghosts will be all over TV this week without protest, except from lovers of the classic who feel strongly about the dozens of movies based on it.

Christmas eve, TCM will be showing the 1938 MGM version, which ranks high in memory, with an asterisk to protest liberties taken with the plot, including Bob Cratchit heaving a snowball at Scrooge and being fired before the holiday (always a touch of Andy Hardy in the Louis B. Mayer era).

You'll have to check local stations or Blockbuster because no network showing is scheduled for arguably the best, a 1951 darkly beautiful British tour de force with Alastair Sim, a grand actor who was born to play Scrooge, or for my Yuletide guilty pleasure, the 1970 musical with Albert Finney.

With an undistinguished score (we're not talking Stephen Sondheim here), the singing and dancing somehow seem just right for a tale to lift our hearts and make believing children of us all. Peopled with great actors--Edith Evans, Kenneth More and Alec Guinness as the campiest Jacob Marley ever--it's a thing of visual beauty, culminating in a joyous scene of dancing, bell-ringing celebrants against a snowy background that is pure Breughel.

There have been "Christmas Carols" by all the icons of pop culture from Mickey Mouse and the Jetsons to Star Trek's Patrick Stewart and the Muppets and, in 2009, there will be a live action-computer graphic version with Jim Carrey as Scrooge and all three ghosts.

So take your choice and Bah, Humbug and Merry Christmas to all.

Writers Strike: Not Just the Money

In the ideas-and-images industry, there has always been a gulf between labor and management. Seeing writers on picket lines now only confirms where, in our society, the money and power always goes.

On one of my first magazine jobs, the editor was Wade Nichols, a writer at heart, who created a family-like atmosphere where on Friday afternoons everyone on the payroll gathered in his office to drink and talk their way toward their weekend lives.

When the publisher died, Nichols took that that job too. "Do you really want to do all that business stuff?" I asked. "No," he answered," but I don't want to see some son-of-a-bitch do it and ruin what we have."

When I became editor, they put me on the company's board of directors, and I felt like an atheist in church, watching even the best people take on a quasi-religious fervor for maximizing profit. They seemed to be under the influence of a narcotic that suppresses conscience and brings out low cunning that might make a carnival pitchman blush.

Such zealotry may explain why the current strike, which is costing organizations millions, is now in its tenth day with no end in sight. What the writers are asking won't put a dent in their huge profits but, for the corporate true believers, it isn't the money, it's the principle that's at stake.

They have to keep their faith.

ABC's Terrorist PR

No American graduation ceremony has been as well covered as that of the Al Qaeda/Taliban training camp shown by ABC on its network news last evening.

The terrorist publicists must be thrilled with the PR return on inviting "a Pakistani journalist" to videotape their staged proceedings.

In passing, the network's promotion of its exclusive noted that "U.S. intelligence officials described the event as another example of 'an aggressive and sophisticated propaganda campaign.' "

So it was. The "intelligence officials" will be studying it, as they should, but why were millions of American TV viewers exposed to it. There was an uproar when the Bush Administration tried to pass off its political videos as news. Are terrorists a more credible source?

Soprano Spinoffs

Facing the first Sunday of the rest of their lives, addicts should consider Dick Cavett’s question: How is a person supposed to live without “The Sopranos”?

To answer, we must first deal with last week’s ending and the growing consensus that the sudden blackout signified Tony’s death. A dissent on aesthetic grounds: If David Chase had intended that to mean Tony’s loss of consciousness, the camera would not have been on his face but seeing the room through his eyes.

Be that as it may, put aside the survival of Anthony Soprano while considering spinoffs to assuage our grief:

The Melfi Files: Haunted by loss, the therapist embarks on dramatic, dangerous encounters with patients from various fringes of society, to the constant consternation of her mentor, Dr. Eliot Kupferberg.

The Hunt for Junior’s Gold: Janice has to fend off con men and fortune hunters attempting to penetrate her uncle’s Alzheimer’s and find his hidden stash. Sub-theme: Is Corrado just faking it to throw off the Feds?

Nine Lives of Christopher the Cat: Twilight Zone fantasies centering on the feline inheritor of the Moltisanti spirit hovering over and protecting his wife and baby while devising devilish ways to keep making Christopher’s collections for them.

Meadow Soprano Esq.: Heartwarming tales of a public defender saving the lost souls of our society, featuring a different ethnicity each week.

The Artie Bucco Kitchen Capers: Comedy series featuring colorful patrons and a special Italian recipe each week. Guest appearances by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub.

A.J.’s Entourage: Loopy stories about Hollywood losers coalescing around a Mafia prince.

There is no cure, but these pale palliatives would be intended to help Soprano Syndrome sufferers through unbearable Sundays when DVDs of the original series are not strong enough to ease the pain.

The Sopranos and the Bushes

Two families have kept us in suspense since this century started. We won’t have all the answers about the Bushes until the end of next year, but tomorrow night will tell us how it all comes out with the Sopranos.

Both clans produced strong-minded men who came to power in the wake of their fathers and went on to outdo them in lawless violence. But there, as I pointed out earlier this year, is where the resemblance ends:

Art and life diverge. The fictional Mafia boss is racked by conflict and ambivalence to the point of having panic attacks. The real-life Decider is never in doubt.

Tony Soprano seeks help from a therapist, but George Bush takes advice from no one.

In “The Sopranos,” Federal authorities are closing in on the Mob. In Washington, the White House fires Federal prosecutors who don’t toe their line.

Both men have blood on their hands, but the imaginary thug feels some guilt while the actual Commander-in-Chief sends young men and women to their deaths feeling smugly secure in the approval of a Higher Power.

The Sopranos’ final season was obsessed with aging and waning powers. In the wintry White House, Bush and his capos have been in a bunker of denial, still insisting against all evidence that they are in absolute control of events.

In the end, the difference is that there has always been some poetry in Tony Soprano and none in George Bush, and no script writers could change that.

Tomorrow night we find out how it all ends with the Sopranos. When it comes to the Bushes, there is not that much suspense.