Less than a year after he left the White House in 1953, Harry Truman gave a speech to the City College of New York alumni in a Manhattan hotel ballroom. I was editing their magazine at the time, and if the former president's "honorarium" had exceeded $1000 and expenses, the check would have bounced.
The memory comes back at the news in the Clinton tax returns that on one day in 2005 the former president made $475,000 for two speeches in Canada, more than double his annual salary in the White House, as part of a schedule of 352 speaking engagements that year.
The Clintons' total income of $109 million in the past eight years is a testament, pace the Obama bashers, to the value of words--from daises, in the pages of books and around corporate tables. It may be a measure of their embarrassment that the returns were released in a Friday night news dump to get as little attention as possible.
Cynics may see all this as selling out to 21st century celebrity, but we are a long way from the days after the Civil War when Gen. Robert E. Lee indignantly refused offers to write his memoirs. "I should be trading on the blood of my men," he said.
That evening in 1953, Harry Truman gave a rousing speech about the dangers of McCarthyism to academic freedom. It was worth every penny.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
A Country With Nobody in Charge
The Bush era is closing on a downer. More than four out of five Americans, 81 percent, are unhappy with the way the country is going, the New York Times/CBS News mood poll tells us today, with the economy replacing terrorism and the war in Iraq at the top of their worry list.
They blame government for the housing crisis more than banks or home buyers and favor help for individuals rather than financial institutions.
But that's not what's happening in Washington. After the $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns, the Senate is cobbling a $15 billion bill that provides tax breaks for home builders but leaves out a provision Bush threatened to veto that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages to keep owners in their homes. They did include $100 million for counseling people facing foreclosure, presumably to help the newly homeless feel better about their situation.
The March decline of 80,000 jobs is the third in a row, signifying a real recession. For those who still have jobs, wage increases failed to match inflation, in effect giving them a pay cut.
As voters watch their Executive Branch and Congress fumble and stumble on the economy, they may also be depressed by the bottomless quagmire in Iraq that continues to consume lives and billions of dollars. The Petraeus-Ryan tap dancing team will bring very little convincing cheer from a country where the newly trained freedom fighters desert in droves when called into action.
Somebody should check on what the 19 percent of Americans who think the country is going in the right direction have been smoking.
They blame government for the housing crisis more than banks or home buyers and favor help for individuals rather than financial institutions.
But that's not what's happening in Washington. After the $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns, the Senate is cobbling a $15 billion bill that provides tax breaks for home builders but leaves out a provision Bush threatened to veto that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages to keep owners in their homes. They did include $100 million for counseling people facing foreclosure, presumably to help the newly homeless feel better about their situation.
The March decline of 80,000 jobs is the third in a row, signifying a real recession. For those who still have jobs, wage increases failed to match inflation, in effect giving them a pay cut.
As voters watch their Executive Branch and Congress fumble and stumble on the economy, they may also be depressed by the bottomless quagmire in Iraq that continues to consume lives and billions of dollars. The Petraeus-Ryan tap dancing team will bring very little convincing cheer from a country where the newly trained freedom fighters desert in droves when called into action.
Somebody should check on what the 19 percent of Americans who think the country is going in the right direction have been smoking.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Decoding Iraq
The Central Government's surprise offensive against Shiite militias in Basra in the past week was (a) a bold move by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to quell lawlessness, (b) a rash, impulsive action that had to be bailed out by the US or (c) both, with the underlying motive of politically weakening Muqtada al-Sadr before provincial elections later in the year.
The Bush administration, of course, has called the offensive a “defining moment” to show the Iraqi government's determination to take on renegade militias.
On the ground, it looked different. “He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest," said an anonymous US official, "and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for. They went in with 70 percent of a plan."
As al-Maliki got bogged down, it took US generals, admirals, ground troops and air strikes to rescue the operation and restore an uneasy peace.
But the prime minister, now feeling his oats, is beginning to sound like Eliot Ness.
"We cannot remain silent about our people and families in Sadr City, Shula and other areas ... while they are held hostage by gangs that control them," he told a news conference. "We must liberate these cities because we came
to serve them."
When they get here next week to explain it all to Congress, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will undoubtedly spin it as a sign of progress.
But yesterday in Baghdad, Crocker was urging less militant means on Maliki, to proceed with a plan to seek alliances with Shiite tribes.
“We strongly encouraged him to use his most substantial weapon, which is money, to announce major jobs programs, Basra cleanup, whatnot,” Crocker said. “And to do what he decided to do on his own: pay tribal figures to effectively finance an awakening for Basra.”
If you can't beat them, buy them.
The Bush administration, of course, has called the offensive a “defining moment” to show the Iraqi government's determination to take on renegade militias.
On the ground, it looked different. “He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest," said an anonymous US official, "and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for. They went in with 70 percent of a plan."
As al-Maliki got bogged down, it took US generals, admirals, ground troops and air strikes to rescue the operation and restore an uneasy peace.
But the prime minister, now feeling his oats, is beginning to sound like Eliot Ness.
"We cannot remain silent about our people and families in Sadr City, Shula and other areas ... while they are held hostage by gangs that control them," he told a news conference. "We must liberate these cities because we came
to serve them."
When they get here next week to explain it all to Congress, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will undoubtedly spin it as a sign of progress.
But yesterday in Baghdad, Crocker was urging less militant means on Maliki, to proceed with a plan to seek alliances with Shiite tribes.
“We strongly encouraged him to use his most substantial weapon, which is money, to announce major jobs programs, Basra cleanup, whatnot,” Crocker said. “And to do what he decided to do on his own: pay tribal figures to effectively finance an awakening for Basra.”
If you can't beat them, buy them.
Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover
He knew he was going to die. Before Martin Luther King was shot and killed on the balcony of a Memphis motel forty years ago tomorrow, he went to see his parents to prepare them.
“The reports are that they are out to get me,” he told them. “I have to go on with my work, I’m too deeply involved now to get out, it’s all too important. Sometimes I want to stop. Just go away somewhere and have some quiet days, finally, a quiet life with Coretta and the children. But it’s too late for that now. I have my path before me. I know what I have to do.”
The hatred came from many directions, not only from white racists but, as we now know from FBI files, from J. Edgar Hoover, the Director, who had agents bug his hotel rooms and send him anonymous threatening letters, urging him to commit suicide.
"King," read one of them, "there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is...You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
In Hoover's files, there are angry scrawls on Dr. King's press clips. On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from the Catholic Church, he wrote "this is disgusting." On King being expected to win the Nobel Prize, he wrote "King could well qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize!"
Then one of the most powerful men in the nation, Hoover is forgotten now. What remains is the image of Martin Luther King, who changed America, on the night before he died, concluding his last speech with these words:
"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
“The reports are that they are out to get me,” he told them. “I have to go on with my work, I’m too deeply involved now to get out, it’s all too important. Sometimes I want to stop. Just go away somewhere and have some quiet days, finally, a quiet life with Coretta and the children. But it’s too late for that now. I have my path before me. I know what I have to do.”
The hatred came from many directions, not only from white racists but, as we now know from FBI files, from J. Edgar Hoover, the Director, who had agents bug his hotel rooms and send him anonymous threatening letters, urging him to commit suicide.
"King," read one of them, "there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is...You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
In Hoover's files, there are angry scrawls on Dr. King's press clips. On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from the Catholic Church, he wrote "this is disgusting." On King being expected to win the Nobel Prize, he wrote "King could well qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize!"
Then one of the most powerful men in the nation, Hoover is forgotten now. What remains is the image of Martin Luther King, who changed America, on the night before he died, concluding his last speech with these words:
"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Media Meltdown
Below the radar of the subprime crisis and credit crunch are signs of distress in American media. ABC and CBS are cutting jobs, and Newsweek is shrinking its staff with over 100 buyouts.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
According to the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 fell 9.4 percent to $42 billion compared to 2006, the most severe decline since the association started measuring in 1950.
Not only are some journalists losing their jobs but those who remain are working harder than ever. In a survey, the majority of more than 1200 media people said they are being asked to do more today that in past years, among other duties, contributing to online versions of their publications.
Little wonder, then, that in the recent Pew survey, journalists expressed more concern about "the financial crisis facing news organizations" than traditional worries about the credibility and the quality of news coverage.
As media shrink, how much more will our picture of the world be distorted? As it is, in the first three months of this year, only 4 percent of the news was devoted to Iraq, compared to 23 percent in the same period of the year before. It's so much easier and cheaper to cover every minute of the presidential candidates' days than a war that one of them will have to resolve.
News is news, isn't it?
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Military Strategy: Co-Opt Bloggers
If you can't beat them join them--or use them. That time-honored American strategy for dealing with threatening social change has been on the table for bloggers, with a study for U.S. Special Operations Command suggesting "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."
According to Wired, a 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University proposed "putting them on the payroll" to "verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message."
The co-author, a Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, reports "positive feedback" for the proposal, which warned of the danger of "blowback," as in the case of the military being caught paying Iraqi journalists for enthusiastic reporting on the US occupation.
Bribing bloggers is an iffy idea, as various attempts to put them on campaign payrolls have shown (pace John Edwards), but co-opting social change is built into American society with a momentum of its own.
In the 1960s, the Hippies launched a "revolution" against materialism and hypocrisy but, after relentless media exposure, ended up self-destructing. Underground newspapers started taking advertising, the editors became TV celebrities and, on the streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, national magazine reporters in psychedelic dress were interviewing one another for photo spreads. A year later, the cover stories read "Love Is Dead."
Blogging is too big and diverse to suffer such a fate, but if the military is considering moving in, it may be time for online reporters and talking heads on cable TV to be on guard against what Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand called "a multitude of tongues" beginning to sound more like a single voice.
According to Wired, a 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University proposed "putting them on the payroll" to "verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message."
The co-author, a Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, reports "positive feedback" for the proposal, which warned of the danger of "blowback," as in the case of the military being caught paying Iraqi journalists for enthusiastic reporting on the US occupation.
Bribing bloggers is an iffy idea, as various attempts to put them on campaign payrolls have shown (pace John Edwards), but co-opting social change is built into American society with a momentum of its own.
In the 1960s, the Hippies launched a "revolution" against materialism and hypocrisy but, after relentless media exposure, ended up self-destructing. Underground newspapers started taking advertising, the editors became TV celebrities and, on the streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, national magazine reporters in psychedelic dress were interviewing one another for photo spreads. A year later, the cover stories read "Love Is Dead."
Blogging is too big and diverse to suffer such a fate, but if the military is considering moving in, it may be time for online reporters and talking heads on cable TV to be on guard against what Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand called "a multitude of tongues" beginning to sound more like a single voice.
A Man to Remember
They were playing politics with Cesar Chavez's birthday yesterday, Hillary Clinton issuing a statement praising him and Barack Obama trying to one-up her by supporting the effort to make the birthday a national holiday. (Eight states recognize it now.)
Chavez would have been embarrassed by the fuss. A truly modest man, he worked tirelessly to improve the lives of migrant workers and, like Martin Luther King, was inspired by the selfless non-violence of Gandhi. At the age of 60, he fasted for over a month to protest the use of pesticides.
In the 1960s, nobody I knew would buy or eat grapes to support his efforts to get decent pay and working conditions for the people who picked them in California. Using his memory now to court Latino voters is particularly sad in the light of Chavez's own view of life and politics.
"When we are really being honest with ourselves," he said, "we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us, so it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are."
Chavez would have been embarrassed by the fuss. A truly modest man, he worked tirelessly to improve the lives of migrant workers and, like Martin Luther King, was inspired by the selfless non-violence of Gandhi. At the age of 60, he fasted for over a month to protest the use of pesticides.
In the 1960s, nobody I knew would buy or eat grapes to support his efforts to get decent pay and working conditions for the people who picked them in California. Using his memory now to court Latino voters is particularly sad in the light of Chavez's own view of life and politics.
"When we are really being honest with ourselves," he said, "we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us, so it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are."
Monday, March 31, 2008
The McCain Makeover
The Righteous Republican cosmeticians have started to work their magic and, as in the women's magazines I used to edit, a natural-looking person may end up resembling an aging tart. To borrow from Gloria Steinem, McCain would do better to brush them off and say, "This is what seventy and self-possessed looks like, get used to it."
The first ad is a tipoff, harking back to those days at the Hanoi Hilton over a quarter of a century ago, echoing his advice to fellow prisoners: "Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Stand up. We're Americans. And we'll never surrender."
We're all prisoners of George W. Bush in Iraq now, and it may not be in McCain's best interests to remind us that he wants to keep us there, if not for a hundred years, until some of the troops there are his age now.
Today William Kristol is advising the candidate who admits he doesn't know much about the economy to offer "a broad reform agenda--education reform, health insurance reform, tax reform, government reform, Wall Street reform. He could start by outlining an up-to-date, capitalism-friendly and transparency-requiring approach to regulating the credit markets."
Biography isn't enough, Kristol reminds McCain. You have to start doing a George Bush impersonation, throwing out all kinds of voter bait that you can sweep aside when you get into the White House.
By the time Conservatives finish remaking McCain, his nonagenarian mother won't recognize him and, if he looks in the mirror, neither will he.
The first ad is a tipoff, harking back to those days at the Hanoi Hilton over a quarter of a century ago, echoing his advice to fellow prisoners: "Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Stand up. We're Americans. And we'll never surrender."
We're all prisoners of George W. Bush in Iraq now, and it may not be in McCain's best interests to remind us that he wants to keep us there, if not for a hundred years, until some of the troops there are his age now.
Today William Kristol is advising the candidate who admits he doesn't know much about the economy to offer "a broad reform agenda--education reform, health insurance reform, tax reform, government reform, Wall Street reform. He could start by outlining an up-to-date, capitalism-friendly and transparency-requiring approach to regulating the credit markets."
Biography isn't enough, Kristol reminds McCain. You have to start doing a George Bush impersonation, throwing out all kinds of voter bait that you can sweep aside when you get into the White House.
By the time Conservatives finish remaking McCain, his nonagenarian mother won't recognize him and, if he looks in the mirror, neither will he.
Iraq's Cruelest Month Coming Up
Next week, against a backdrop of cherry blossoms on the Potomac, we will get the latest Petraeus-Crocker production of "Blood and Sand" for an audience of the hollow men and women in both houses of Congress.
When they get here, the General and the Ambassador will no doubt give us another suave performance to explain the latest twist in the Mideast theater of the absurd--how our Iraqi lawmakers have been in Iran appealing to the head of the Revolutionary Guard, branded a terrorist organization by Congress last August, to persuade Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop killing people in Baghdad and Basra.
If all this feels like being trapped in an endless Pinter play, consider the recent monologues of Andrew Cordesman, one of our most knowledgeable observers. Last summer, describing Iraq as "three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you," he made a cautious case for starting to withdraw troops early this year. A month ago, another trip to Iraq and Afghanistan persuaded him that "these are wars that can still be won" if we stay another decade or more.
Today Cordesman describes "worrisome possibilities" that could deny us "victory" in Iraq--the cooperating Sunni tribes and militias could turn against the central government, ethnic conflicts to control territory in the north could lead to fighting in Kirkuk, Mosul and other areas and the political struggle between the dominant Shiite parties could become an armed conflict. (Could? Check the headlines.)
In 2004, as a division commander, Gen.Petraeus was asking a question to which he clearly had no answer, “Tell me how this ends.” Last year, he was telling us that "we can't shoot our way out of Iraq." No matter what he has to say now, how do we persuade him and Congress to stop sleepwalking with Bush toward the edge of another precipice?
When they get here, the General and the Ambassador will no doubt give us another suave performance to explain the latest twist in the Mideast theater of the absurd--how our Iraqi lawmakers have been in Iran appealing to the head of the Revolutionary Guard, branded a terrorist organization by Congress last August, to persuade Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop killing people in Baghdad and Basra.
If all this feels like being trapped in an endless Pinter play, consider the recent monologues of Andrew Cordesman, one of our most knowledgeable observers. Last summer, describing Iraq as "three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you," he made a cautious case for starting to withdraw troops early this year. A month ago, another trip to Iraq and Afghanistan persuaded him that "these are wars that can still be won" if we stay another decade or more.
Today Cordesman describes "worrisome possibilities" that could deny us "victory" in Iraq--the cooperating Sunni tribes and militias could turn against the central government, ethnic conflicts to control territory in the north could lead to fighting in Kirkuk, Mosul and other areas and the political struggle between the dominant Shiite parties could become an armed conflict. (Could? Check the headlines.)
In 2004, as a division commander, Gen.Petraeus was asking a question to which he clearly had no answer, “Tell me how this ends.” Last year, he was telling us that "we can't shoot our way out of Iraq." No matter what he has to say now, how do we persuade him and Congress to stop sleepwalking with Bush toward the edge of another precipice?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
A. J. Liebling's War
As a charter member of what has been called the Church of Liebling, I have good news for fellow worshippers.
Liebling's coverage of World War II for the New Yorker has now been gathered into a volume of 1089 pages by the Library of America. Like everything else he wrote, by reporting what he saw and heard, Liebling conveyed more about his subject than all the TV cameras and embedded journalists have told us about Iraq.
I have had the temerity to borrow his name for the URL here, but it's likely Liebling would have been ambivalent about blogs. As a press critic, he was a premature blogger himself, looking behind the news and picking apart the work of those who delivered it, making connections between the motives and methods of the messengers and the frequent unreliability of the message.
But a reporter at heart, Liebling hated experts. He mistrusted anyone who claimed "to have access to some occult source or science not available to reporter or reader...the big picture."
He didn't like editors much, either. "They come to newspapers," he wrote, "like monks to cloisters or worms to apples. They are the dedicated. All of them are fated to be editors except the ones that get killed off by the lunches they eat at their desks...The survivors of gastric disorders rise to minor executive jobs and then major ones, and the reign of these non-writers makes our newspapers read like the food in the New York Times cafeteria tastes."
Above all, he hated publishers. "The function of the press in society," he wrote, "is to inform, but its role is to make money. The monopoly publisher's reaction, on being told that he ought to spend money on reporting distant events, is therefore exactly that of the proprietor of a large, fat cow, who is told that he ought to enter her in a horse race."
And that was before Rupert Murdoch.
Liebling's coverage of World War II for the New Yorker has now been gathered into a volume of 1089 pages by the Library of America. Like everything else he wrote, by reporting what he saw and heard, Liebling conveyed more about his subject than all the TV cameras and embedded journalists have told us about Iraq.
I have had the temerity to borrow his name for the URL here, but it's likely Liebling would have been ambivalent about blogs. As a press critic, he was a premature blogger himself, looking behind the news and picking apart the work of those who delivered it, making connections between the motives and methods of the messengers and the frequent unreliability of the message.
But a reporter at heart, Liebling hated experts. He mistrusted anyone who claimed "to have access to some occult source or science not available to reporter or reader...the big picture."
He didn't like editors much, either. "They come to newspapers," he wrote, "like monks to cloisters or worms to apples. They are the dedicated. All of them are fated to be editors except the ones that get killed off by the lunches they eat at their desks...The survivors of gastric disorders rise to minor executive jobs and then major ones, and the reign of these non-writers makes our newspapers read like the food in the New York Times cafeteria tastes."
Above all, he hated publishers. "The function of the press in society," he wrote, "is to inform, but its role is to make money. The monopoly publisher's reaction, on being told that he ought to spend money on reporting distant events, is therefore exactly that of the proprietor of a large, fat cow, who is told that he ought to enter her in a horse race."
And that was before Rupert Murdoch.
Wake Me When It's Over
As someone who has lived through and been involved in 15 Presidential contests in an adult lifetime, I'm ready to say "Uncle" to this one. After more than a year of being water-boarded by campaign trivia, I give up. Prepare a confession, and I'll sign it.
I've stopped caring about Obama's pastor, Hillary's fibs and McCain's temper. I don't want to hear or write another word about Florida, Michigan, super-delegates, caucuses and primaries. Brainwash my memories of the debates and Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarbororough and their chattering-head panelists.
Make me forget I ever heard about red phones, Vicki Iseman, Tony Rezko and, above all, Bill Clinton.
Give me back those halcyon days of just bashing Bush, caricaturing Cheney and deploring Karl Rove. Life was so much sweeter and simpler back then.
The way this thing is shaping up, nobody is going to be the next president or deserves to be. When they start talking seriously about resurrecting Al Gore, we're in Easter territory. Praying for miracles has never worked in presidential politics.
Meanwhile, I'm going to stop reading newspapers and blogs, call the cable company and see if there is a V-chip to block off CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, and spend these Spring Fever days watching Laura seduce Paul on HBO's "In Treatment" and wishing they had picked a less doughy-looking John Adams than Paul Giamatti. If all else fails, there's always Turner Classic Movies.
Wake me when it's over--gently.
I've stopped caring about Obama's pastor, Hillary's fibs and McCain's temper. I don't want to hear or write another word about Florida, Michigan, super-delegates, caucuses and primaries. Brainwash my memories of the debates and Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarbororough and their chattering-head panelists.
Make me forget I ever heard about red phones, Vicki Iseman, Tony Rezko and, above all, Bill Clinton.
Give me back those halcyon days of just bashing Bush, caricaturing Cheney and deploring Karl Rove. Life was so much sweeter and simpler back then.
The way this thing is shaping up, nobody is going to be the next president or deserves to be. When they start talking seriously about resurrecting Al Gore, we're in Easter territory. Praying for miracles has never worked in presidential politics.
Meanwhile, I'm going to stop reading newspapers and blogs, call the cable company and see if there is a V-chip to block off CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, and spend these Spring Fever days watching Laura seduce Paul on HBO's "In Treatment" and wishing they had picked a less doughy-looking John Adams than Paul Giamatti. If all else fails, there's always Turner Classic Movies.
Wake me when it's over--gently.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Global Warming Alarmism
Disregard those crackling sounds up north and pictures of an ice shelf the size of Rhode Island breaking apart. It's just global warming alarmism, and Jim Inhofe, the ranking Republican of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works, is having none of it.
"Media hype," says Sen. Inhofe, who has it on the authority of a former Weather Channel meteorologist that "the vast majority of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years and ice coverage has grown to record levels."
But tomorrow night on 60 Minutes, Al Gore will be at it again, telling Lesley Stahl that skeptics like Inhofe and Dick Cheney are "in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.”
The former Vice President is giving his Nobel Peace Prize money and proceeds from "An Inconvenient Truth" to pay for ads to mobilize public opinion about fighting global warming, featuring such radicals as Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich.
This week's pictures of the ice shelf splitting are accompanied by warnings from international scientists that "key glaciers flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are thinning at rates not seen since the last ice age" and "losing 132 billion tons of ice a year."
But no sweat, Inhofe and his Weather Channel man are sure there's nothing to worry about.
"Media hype," says Sen. Inhofe, who has it on the authority of a former Weather Channel meteorologist that "the vast majority of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years and ice coverage has grown to record levels."
But tomorrow night on 60 Minutes, Al Gore will be at it again, telling Lesley Stahl that skeptics like Inhofe and Dick Cheney are "in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.”
The former Vice President is giving his Nobel Peace Prize money and proceeds from "An Inconvenient Truth" to pay for ads to mobilize public opinion about fighting global warming, featuring such radicals as Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich.
This week's pictures of the ice shelf splitting are accompanied by warnings from international scientists that "key glaciers flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are thinning at rates not seen since the last ice age" and "losing 132 billion tons of ice a year."
But no sweat, Inhofe and his Weather Channel man are sure there's nothing to worry about.
Sniping Over Sniper Fire
The media hanging jury has pounced on Hillary Clinton's landing-in-Bosnia gaffe, with her biographer Carl Bernstein noting that William Safire had called her "a congenital liar" and that the public "seems on the verge of returning a negative verdict on her candidacy.”
Even with all the election-year hyperbole, this is too much weight to pile on one piece of self-inflation, recalling the Republican attacks on Al Gore in 2000 for implying that he had been involved in inventing the Internet.
As anyone of advanced age can tell you, memory conspires to improve on the past and sometimes rewrite it--a process best illustrated by the story of Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn.
A screenwriter he had hired to do a script based on a popular novel came to him after months of trying and told him it couldn't be done. Goldwyn hired another writer and made the movie, which turned out to be a disaster.
Years later, when discussing a new project, someone suggested the first writer. "Oh, no," Goldwyn said vehemently. "He was involved in one of my worst failures."
So the critics and comics might cut Hillary Clinton a little slack. If she retrospectively inflated her anxiety over the Bosnia landing into a false memory, it's the kind of human fallibility that she is accused of never showing.
After seven years of George Bush twisting the truth and playacting in flight jackets, it would be a good idea to separate relatively harmless lies from those that get people killed.
Even with all the election-year hyperbole, this is too much weight to pile on one piece of self-inflation, recalling the Republican attacks on Al Gore in 2000 for implying that he had been involved in inventing the Internet.
As anyone of advanced age can tell you, memory conspires to improve on the past and sometimes rewrite it--a process best illustrated by the story of Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn.
A screenwriter he had hired to do a script based on a popular novel came to him after months of trying and told him it couldn't be done. Goldwyn hired another writer and made the movie, which turned out to be a disaster.
Years later, when discussing a new project, someone suggested the first writer. "Oh, no," Goldwyn said vehemently. "He was involved in one of my worst failures."
So the critics and comics might cut Hillary Clinton a little slack. If she retrospectively inflated her anxiety over the Bosnia landing into a false memory, it's the kind of human fallibility that she is accused of never showing.
After seven years of George Bush twisting the truth and playacting in flight jackets, it would be a good idea to separate relatively harmless lies from those that get people killed.
Friday, March 28, 2008
"Being Stupid Isn't a Crime"
Rush Limbaugh won't be going to jail for encouraging Republican voters in Ohio to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in their primary.
His listeners were concerned that he might be charged with voter fraud, and Limbaugh apparently hoped that he would. "I wouldn't worry about it," Limbaugh told them. "Look at this as a badge of honor, ladies and gentlemen. If anybody gets indicted, if anybody has to go jail, it will be me-- and I'll do my program from jail..."
But the Democratic Attorney General of Ohio has calmed their fears and dashed his hopes. "We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn't a crime," a spokesman announced.
Politicians everywhere must be breathing a sigh of relief.
His listeners were concerned that he might be charged with voter fraud, and Limbaugh apparently hoped that he would. "I wouldn't worry about it," Limbaugh told them. "Look at this as a badge of honor, ladies and gentlemen. If anybody gets indicted, if anybody has to go jail, it will be me-- and I'll do my program from jail..."
But the Democratic Attorney General of Ohio has calmed their fears and dashed his hopes. "We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn't a crime," a spokesman announced.
Politicians everywhere must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Tacky War on Terror
Munitions merchants are not what they used to be. A century ago, in "Major Barbara," George Bernard Shaw gave us Andrew Undershaft, an intellectual who philosophized about war and poverty. Today we have 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli, who peddles useless used weaponry and keeps getting arrested for domestic violence.
After "repeated inquiries" by the New York Times, the Army this week finally suspended his company, AEY inc., from future federal contracts, after learning Diveroli had sold them Chinese ammunition that he claimed to be Hungarian.
The company, which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach with a licensed masseur as Vice President, had supplied $300 million of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces, much of which turned out to be more than 40 years old from stockpiles of the former Communist bloc, including some that the State Department and NATO had determined to be obsolete and spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
Diveroli's convoluted business dealings include allegations of bribery in Albania (where some of munitions blew up this month, killing 22 people and destroying hundreds of homes), a dummy company in Cyprus and illegal arms trafficking in the Czech Republic, all of which led to arming US allies fighting the Taliban with useless and dangerous weapons.
It's comforting to know that the war on terror is being run by the people who certified Diveroli as a reliable arms contractor.
After "repeated inquiries" by the New York Times, the Army this week finally suspended his company, AEY inc., from future federal contracts, after learning Diveroli had sold them Chinese ammunition that he claimed to be Hungarian.
The company, which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach with a licensed masseur as Vice President, had supplied $300 million of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces, much of which turned out to be more than 40 years old from stockpiles of the former Communist bloc, including some that the State Department and NATO had determined to be obsolete and spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
Diveroli's convoluted business dealings include allegations of bribery in Albania (where some of munitions blew up this month, killing 22 people and destroying hundreds of homes), a dummy company in Cyprus and illegal arms trafficking in the Czech Republic, all of which led to arming US allies fighting the Taliban with useless and dangerous weapons.
It's comforting to know that the war on terror is being run by the people who certified Diveroli as a reliable arms contractor.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Trapped in Bush's Old Movie
Muqtada al Sadr is splintering the peace in Baghdad and Basra, militias are murdering and looting, but our toy soldier President is still out speechifying to captive stateside military audiences about how splendidly the war is going and belaboring Congressional Democrats for "hectoring" Iraqi leaders as they "try to work out their differences."
After five years, over 4000 American lives and half a trillion dollars, George W. Bush has no patience for critics whose "prescription is always the same: retreat." Today he ridicules anti-war Democrats: "They claim that our strategic interest is elsewhere and if we would just get out of Iraq, we could focus on the battles that really matter."
Then the President sets them straight: "If America's strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al Qaeda and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?"
The critics could furnish him with a list, starting with Afghanistan, Pakistan and homeland security, but that might intrude on George W. Bush's fantasy life.
With every passing day, he is looking more like the deluded character in "Arsenic and Old Lace" who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and keeps running up the stairs with a saber, yelling "Charge!" and the rest of us feel trapped in his bad movie praying for the lights to come back on.
After five years, over 4000 American lives and half a trillion dollars, George W. Bush has no patience for critics whose "prescription is always the same: retreat." Today he ridicules anti-war Democrats: "They claim that our strategic interest is elsewhere and if we would just get out of Iraq, we could focus on the battles that really matter."
Then the President sets them straight: "If America's strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al Qaeda and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?"
The critics could furnish him with a list, starting with Afghanistan, Pakistan and homeland security, but that might intrude on George W. Bush's fantasy life.
With every passing day, he is looking more like the deluded character in "Arsenic and Old Lace" who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and keeps running up the stairs with a saber, yelling "Charge!" and the rest of us feel trapped in his bad movie praying for the lights to come back on.
Obama-Bloomberg Boomlet
As dream tickets go, this one would go deep into the American unconscious and produce either a catharsis or a nightmare.
Today's surprise embrace of Barack Obama in New York by Mayor Mike Bloomberg sets off speculation about an endorsement, but more than that, the possibility that they might share the Democratic ticket for November.
The pluses are obvious: Bloomberg would bring to Obama the managerial skills he is accused of lacking, a Jewish partner to offset doubts raised by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright flap, credibility in handling a recession as well as a billionaire's deep pockets for campaign funds.
The Mayor, according to Obama, has been "a remarkable leader for New York--he has established himself as a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children, and seeking energy independence. Mr. Mayor, I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people."
For the two to share more than that, the once Democrat turned Republican now an Independent would have to convince his former political allies that he would bring more to the party and Democratic candidates across the country than the combined racial and religious prejudice would take away.
But in this extraordinary year, when there are even renewed rumors about a McCain-Condoleezza Rice pairing, speculation won't go away.
Today's surprise embrace of Barack Obama in New York by Mayor Mike Bloomberg sets off speculation about an endorsement, but more than that, the possibility that they might share the Democratic ticket for November.
The pluses are obvious: Bloomberg would bring to Obama the managerial skills he is accused of lacking, a Jewish partner to offset doubts raised by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright flap, credibility in handling a recession as well as a billionaire's deep pockets for campaign funds.
The Mayor, according to Obama, has been "a remarkable leader for New York--he has established himself as a major voice in our national debate on issues like renewing our economy, educating our children, and seeking energy independence. Mr. Mayor, I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people."
For the two to share more than that, the once Democrat turned Republican now an Independent would have to convince his former political allies that he would bring more to the party and Democratic candidates across the country than the combined racial and religious prejudice would take away.
But in this extraordinary year, when there are even renewed rumors about a McCain-Condoleezza Rice pairing, speculation won't go away.
The Lost McCain
If he had not been sidetracked in 2000 by the Bush-Rove smear machine, John McCain might have attracted enough Independents and so-called Reagan Democrats to win the White House without the help of the Supreme Court.
In that event, would we have been spared not only the Bush years but the far different McCain who is contending for the Presidency this year?
In power after 9/11, McCain would not have had a Dick Cheney and his Neo-Cons to torture intelligence into a case for invading Iraq and, even with his own quasi-religious faith in military force, might have presided over a saner response to the threat of Islamic extremism.
But that McCain, who charmed the media with his candor, is long gone, vaporized by bitterness over what Bush et al did to him back then, by his decision to court the Religious Right he once disdained, by tailoring his views on tax cuts for the very rich to win over the Grover Norquist gang in the primaries, by hooking up with the likes of Joe Lieberman to become the champion of a war he might never have started.
In the coming months, Democrats will have to work hard to make voters understand that this year's Republican standard bearer is not the John McCain of 2000, who would not have needed Lieberman to whisper in his ear after confusing Iran and al Qaeda, who would not be entrusting his own professed ignorance about the economy to those who helped deregulate us into recession, who might have included Independents and Democrats in an administration back then but would be too compromised to do so now.
McCain has always had a romanticized picture of himself that an admiring media has helped perpetuate. His favorite movie, "Viva Zapata," is about an uncompromising man of the people done in by petty politicians, an image that helps explain constant battles with members of his own party in the Senate and displays of temper when challenged.
As the rightmost Republicans who changed him over the past eight years try to sell McCain as the man he was then, it will be up to the Democratic candidate to bring down that Wizard of Oz façade without alienating voters who respect his lifetime of service to the country.
When all the primary garbage is cleared away, Barack Obama will be in a better position to do that than Hillary Clinton.
In that event, would we have been spared not only the Bush years but the far different McCain who is contending for the Presidency this year?
In power after 9/11, McCain would not have had a Dick Cheney and his Neo-Cons to torture intelligence into a case for invading Iraq and, even with his own quasi-religious faith in military force, might have presided over a saner response to the threat of Islamic extremism.
But that McCain, who charmed the media with his candor, is long gone, vaporized by bitterness over what Bush et al did to him back then, by his decision to court the Religious Right he once disdained, by tailoring his views on tax cuts for the very rich to win over the Grover Norquist gang in the primaries, by hooking up with the likes of Joe Lieberman to become the champion of a war he might never have started.
In the coming months, Democrats will have to work hard to make voters understand that this year's Republican standard bearer is not the John McCain of 2000, who would not have needed Lieberman to whisper in his ear after confusing Iran and al Qaeda, who would not be entrusting his own professed ignorance about the economy to those who helped deregulate us into recession, who might have included Independents and Democrats in an administration back then but would be too compromised to do so now.
McCain has always had a romanticized picture of himself that an admiring media has helped perpetuate. His favorite movie, "Viva Zapata," is about an uncompromising man of the people done in by petty politicians, an image that helps explain constant battles with members of his own party in the Senate and displays of temper when challenged.
As the rightmost Republicans who changed him over the past eight years try to sell McCain as the man he was then, it will be up to the Democratic candidate to bring down that Wizard of Oz façade without alienating voters who respect his lifetime of service to the country.
When all the primary garbage is cleared away, Barack Obama will be in a better position to do that than Hillary Clinton.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
An American Face
Richard Widmark, who died today at 93, made his movie debut in 1947 as a giggling psychotic who pushed a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs in "Kiss of Death."
Nominated for an Academy Award, he went on to play villains over next decade but, approaching middle age, his maturing prototypical American face made him more suitable for roles that reflected cherished American values--as the caring head of a psychiatric hospital in "The Cobweb," Jim Bowie in "The Alamo" and the prosecutor of Nazis in "Judgment at Nuremberg."
Our paths crossed during regular visits in the waiting room of a Manhattan oral surgeon in 1965. I was being treated for excruciating pain from TMJ muscle spasms, and Widmark was there because the doctor, Stanley Behrman, the nephew of a Broadway playwright, was famous for his expertise on facial shapes. At 50, Widmark could not have entrusted his appearance to anyone more sensitive to an actor's needs. He would smile and nod as I nodded back and grimaced
He was in 77 movies, in later years playing senators, generals and judges. Living in northwestern Connecticut with his wife of 55 years, Widmark was a founding member of a land trust to preserve the rural landscape.
On and off the screen, he lived up to that American face.
Nominated for an Academy Award, he went on to play villains over next decade but, approaching middle age, his maturing prototypical American face made him more suitable for roles that reflected cherished American values--as the caring head of a psychiatric hospital in "The Cobweb," Jim Bowie in "The Alamo" and the prosecutor of Nazis in "Judgment at Nuremberg."
Our paths crossed during regular visits in the waiting room of a Manhattan oral surgeon in 1965. I was being treated for excruciating pain from TMJ muscle spasms, and Widmark was there because the doctor, Stanley Behrman, the nephew of a Broadway playwright, was famous for his expertise on facial shapes. At 50, Widmark could not have entrusted his appearance to anyone more sensitive to an actor's needs. He would smile and nod as I nodded back and grimaced
He was in 77 movies, in later years playing senators, generals and judges. Living in northwestern Connecticut with his wife of 55 years, Widmark was a founding member of a land trust to preserve the rural landscape.
On and off the screen, he lived up to that American face.
Hillary's True Voice
After her first primary victory, Hillary Clinton exulted, "Thank you so much, New Hampshire. I listened to you, and in the process I found my voice."
Make that plural. Since then, the candidate has given us more vocal gymnastics than the legendary Mel Blanc, who did Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, among others. Her repertoire has been dazzling--and confusing.
There has been the vulnerable Hillary followed by the combative, condescending, sarcastic, victimized, wounded Hillary, not to mention the nasty and negative voices from her discordant campaign chorus.
Now we have the embattled Hillary, apologizing for her Bosnia sniper fire gaffe with something less than graciousness. "So I made a mistake," she said. "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."
Courage, Hemingway said, is grace under pressure.
It must be hard getting up every morning and having to face a growing consensus that she can't win the nomination. But if adversity is the truest test of character, it would be heartening to see Hillary Clinton swallow her disappointment and either soldier on with dignity, if she decides to, or accept the inevitable with grace.
Doing so would be good for the Democratic Party and a rebuke to those who hate her. Her voice is too important to be drowned out in disappointment and negative campaigning.
Win or lose, Hillary Clinton can keep serving her country well.
Make that plural. Since then, the candidate has given us more vocal gymnastics than the legendary Mel Blanc, who did Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, among others. Her repertoire has been dazzling--and confusing.
There has been the vulnerable Hillary followed by the combative, condescending, sarcastic, victimized, wounded Hillary, not to mention the nasty and negative voices from her discordant campaign chorus.
Now we have the embattled Hillary, apologizing for her Bosnia sniper fire gaffe with something less than graciousness. "So I made a mistake," she said. "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation."
Courage, Hemingway said, is grace under pressure.
It must be hard getting up every morning and having to face a growing consensus that she can't win the nomination. But if adversity is the truest test of character, it would be heartening to see Hillary Clinton swallow her disappointment and either soldier on with dignity, if she decides to, or accept the inevitable with grace.
Doing so would be good for the Democratic Party and a rebuke to those who hate her. Her voice is too important to be drowned out in disappointment and negative campaigning.
Win or lose, Hillary Clinton can keep serving her country well.
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