Miscellaneous

The controversy over the LeBron James-Gisele Bundchen Vogue cover is American lunacy at its best. Apparently the cover is supposed to subliminally recreate King Kong and Fay Wray and reinforce racial stereotypes. I guess I’m unimaginative; to me it just looks like an NBA player in a typical pose, juxtaposed with a typical supermodel looking supermodelish.

If Barack Obama does not become the first black President, I think Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ may claim the honor. I saw him on Bill Moyer’s program the other night and he was very impressive. He’s 38, was an All-Pac 10 Academic basketball player at Stanford, a Rhoades Scholar, earned a JD at Yale. He had a great job at IBM but gave it all up in 1998 to move into the worst, most dangerous public housing complex in Newark where he lived until 2006 when he was elected mayor on his 2nd try. His message and speaking skills are exceptional.

I was reading People over the weekend and was struck by the number of photos in which a celebrity appeared with his or her children. Not only has celebrity become the leading industry in America, it seems that the industry leaders are giving their kids a leg up in the family business. They seem to be emulating the Paris Hilton/Nicole Richie business model.

The five funniest TV characters of all times, in no particular order: Ralph Kramden, Ed Norton, Norm from Cheers, Ted Baxter and Homer Simpson.

Liar of the week

I think we all know why.

A little more McCain

Don’t worry, I don’t plan on using the blog as a regular bully-pulpit for Senator McCain, but permit me to respond to the comments from the earlier post. I was slightly disheartened (I’m over it) to have apparently failed to convert anyone, but since he is going to be the GOP candidate he has to be a part of the ongoing conversation. The counters to my arguments for McCain can be summarized into a few groups:

Some disagree with my priorities, placing health care, energy policy or other items ahead of international issues and fiscal restraint. I certainly don’t under rate these other problems; they are important and need to be solved, however, I see my picks as overarching issues, that is:

1. There can be no successful energy policy without a dramatic improvement in our international standing and ability to successfully deal with terrorism, and McCain has vastly more international policy experience than either Dem.
2. All other social problems require money – health care reform, infrastructure improvements, alternative energy R&D – you name it. McCain will demand we find a way to pay for it other than more borrowing or more taxes. I really fear that left unchecked either Dem will spend without regard for the consequences – taxes and the national debt will continue to rise and we will become weaker as we saddle our children with those costs.

Some people worry about Senator McCain’s temperament and perceived bellicosity, but try a military leader we have elected President who got us into a war. I don’t think there has been one. Military people understand the real cost of war better than the rest of us and work harder to avoid or stop bloodshed. If you are open-minded to this point, read David Brooks today. McCain is no cowboy-war monger.

The Supreme Court argument is the weakest against him. While he talks a good social-conservative game he has a long history of working well with moderate politicians, real social-conservatives know this and don’t trust him, and anyone he nominates has to have the A&C of the Senate, which will probably have 60+ Democratic Senators starting in ’09.

John McCain is a moderate, pragmatic, man who has more practical life and world experience than any candidate in the field. He is remarkably candid for a politician and he doesn’t take himself so seriously that his own opinions become dogma the rest of us have to live with forever. His character has been tested beyond what the average person can even imagine. He is human and flawed – but there is a lot to like and admire about him.

Funniest candidates

Birdman sent me a very funny video of John McCain singing Barbara Streisand tunes – from Saturday Night Live, I think – which got me thinking about who might comprise the top ten funniest Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates of my lifetime.

Well, that is a tough one. I might have found ten if I had expanded the criteria to include the unintentionally funny (Spiro Agnew, Dan Quayle), but I wanted to keep it pure, which limited me to seven names. So here they are:

7. Ross Perot

6. Barry Goldwater

5. John Kennedy

4. Ronald Regan

3. Bob Dole

2. Harry Truman

1. John McCain

Let us now talk about John

The Democratic race has been so much more exciting I feel we’ve been a little like the media in general in that John McCain has gotten too little attention. Since he is my horse in this race, let me try to make the case for him and I’ll be interested, as always, in your responses.

I won’t dwell overly on his personal story, but it is worth stating in the beginning that few people who have ever run for President have given as much to their country, or shown a degree of personal courage that even approaches Senator McCain’s. I do not fault Senators Clinton or Obama for having given less – each of us lives our own lives – nor does this difference make them unqualified for this office. But we will have a choice and McCain’s character is clearly the most tested, and proven worthy, of those choices.

What problems loom most ominously ahead of us? In my view the greatest is the international political turmoil of terrorism and the shift in power to countries like China and an oil-rich Russia. Here again, McCain’s military and international experience dwarfs Clinton and Obama’s, and he is the only one of the three unwilling to promise the fairy tale ending of immediate and total withdrawal to the Iraq mess, which could only lead to a horror show for the Iraqi people and complete chaos in the middle east.

Second, we have America’s looming status as a second-rate economic power, as our Congress (and current President) continues to spend money we don’t have by borrowing it from China and middle eastern potentates who will use the debt as political leverage against us for decades to come. McCain may have questionable credentials as a social conservative, but no one doubts his status as a fiscal conservative. McCain is a vocal and determined foe of pork barrel earmarking, in which our elected representatives appropriate our money under the cover of darkness to advance their own pet political projects.

Social Security begins to go upside down in 2017; by 2030 it will run a half trillion dollar annual deficit unless something is done, and done soon. Who of the three still in the race is most likely to tackle this problem, I ask rhetorically?

Sen. Obama has made a great case for abandoning the old partisan politics, and perhaps he will, but who has actually done so? McCain had a real bipartisan success with campaign reform; he worked closely with Ted Kennedy on education reforms, and was an ally and mentor to Mrs. Clinton on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

You may remember that there was even serious consideration given by Sen. Kerry to making McCain his Vice Presidential running mate in 2004. Maybe he should have done it. Neither Obama nor Clinton have any real crossover appeal in the world of political governance. One might even call them polarizing.

And since the Democrats seem to be a lock to control both houses for at least another two years, I would feel a lot less need to hold on to my wallet if John McCain was in a position to veto Congress’ natural proclivity to hock our futures and spend our money without regard for the consequences.

Finally, while he is a politician, and all politicians say and do things for the sake of expediency at least occasionally, there have been few politicians of stature in our lifetimes willing to say the hard truths – to tell unemployed auto workers in Michigan that their jobs may never come back, to say it is impossible to deport 12 million illegal aliens, to call Donald Rumsfeld the worst defense secretary ever – and more. A little more truth is what we need.

So there it is, my case for John McCain. Another old white man, I know. But are you going to buy the packaging or the substance this time?

Miscellaneous

Money: In February, Obama raised about $55 million, Clinton about $38 million, and McCain about $11 million. Controversy pays. The Dems will spend over half a billion dollars to nominate a candidate. I don't know the GOP number, but it's real money. There is something just a little crazy about this process.

Muslim extremists: This seems like too nice a term. Four American and one Austrian contractor were kidnapped in Iraq more than a year ago. This week their captors sent five severed fingers to U.S. authorities as "proof of life." DNA analysis confirms they are from the captives. It would be a really bad thing if these people win.

Gov. Richardson's endorsement of Obama must really hurt. He's known the Clinton's forever. They gave him his first big job. Bill went to NM to watch the Superbowl with him, and yet he went with the enemy, no doubt taking a few Hispanic votes with him. What does he know that we'd like to know?

Why I’m rooting for Obama

It’s taken me a while to get to this point, and I still have my reservations, but I’m hoping Sen. Obama wins the Democratic nomination. Here’s why:

• I’m definitely tired of the Clintons. I don’t think he did anything for the country, I don’t think she has any new ideas, and they are a divisive force in general; plus, it’s simply impossible to separate them into individuals. Elect her and you get him. I’d rather he was out making speeches.
• Obama’s desire for a new kind of political dialog is very appealing to me. Fighting the same old ideological issues we’ve been arguing over since I was 10-years old is getting us nowhere; we aren’t solving problems, we’re blathering into the great void.
• The Rev. Wright issue doesn’t bother me at all. We are not responsible for the words of others and we all have friends or family who say things – sometimes horrible things – that we wish they hadn’t said (like Obama’s white grandma). But we don’t disown them, we judge them as whole persons and on their actions more than their words.
• Don’t get me wrong, I have no use for the rhetoric of the Rev. Wright, but if Obama got the nomination that would do more to silence the voices decrying America as an unrepentant racist state than anything else I can imagine. More importantly, it would give hope to all black people and evidence that not all white people are hopelessly blind to the value black people bring to America. I think it would do a lot of good for the collective white, American soul as well.
• It would be a very positive thing to have something both white and black Americans could root for (or against) other than their favorite team.

Conversely, there is a scenario that scares me. Let’s say the electorate can’t get over Obama’s association with the Rev. Wright, and he staggers to the finish line during these last primaries -- still leading in delegates and popular vote, but with a clear loss of momentum.

The Clinton machine will be working the super delegates like stock brokers at a lottery winner’s convention from now until the summer, with the message that Obama can’t win. The super d’s buy it, and give the nomination to Hillary.

This will make a lot of people, black and white, very angry, but it will be a particularly hard pill to swallow in the black community, and will be like pouring gasoline on the fire for people like Rev. Wright. Racial hostilities will escalate further, and America will slip further behind its promise of being “the last best hope of earth.”

A great speech

I though Barack Obama’s speech today on race in America was excellent. I don’t know how many minds it will change; mine didn’t need changing as I just couldn’t get all that upset over things someone’s pastor said -- it seems unreasonable to me to hold one person responsible for those words of another. I also wonder how many people will even hear the speech. Even the Jim Lehrer NewsHour on PBS only showed maybe a 15 second clip. You can see the whole speech on the New York Times web site.

Obama said a lot of wise things in the speech, but I thought he did a particularly good job of identifying the tempest over the Rev. Wright’s inflammatory words for what it is: the latest in an endless string of meaningless distractions that focus the attention of the media and the voting public someplace other than on the important issues of the day.

Regardless of how you plan to vote, and I still don’t plan to vote for Barack, I highly recommend the speech.

Sign that the apocalypse is near

Sirius Satellite Radio is launching a talk show radio network devoted to news and the fallout of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. Dubbed Client 9 Radio, the service will air only from March 14 to midnight March 17, featuring Sirius hosts such as Judith Regan and Ron Silver.

What they’re saying at the deli

The village deli is the Westchester equivalent of the country general store. Sit there for a while and a dozen or so people who have know one another all their lives come in for coffee, breakfast or a sandwich. And while they’re there they gossip about the events of the day.

I was in my local twice this weekend, and what everyone was talking about was Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and they were not happy. They were completely offended and angry at the things he said about 9/11 and about America in general. And as angry as they were, they were equally incredulous that Obama could have been a regular member of Wright’s congregation for 20 years but unaware of the nature of the Reverend’s more inflammatory comments.

If there is one thing I’m sure about, it’s that you can’t reliably tell someone’s politics by looking at them, but this appeared to be a pretty random sample of white people, and they live in a very reliably democratic county. I don’t think this issue is going away soon, and you know the Clinton’s will be doing everything within their considerable powers to make sure it doesn’t.

By popular demand…

As I was hoping, enough of you asked to hear my Bill Murray story, so here it is.

We had a great six days in Spain; the first three visiting our son in Cadiz, then we all went up to Sevilla for three days. In case you’ve never been, Sevilla is a very old city that spent 500 years under Arab rule. The old city is very large and crisscrossed with hundreds of small streets, most of which are not wide enough to make a proper alley in an American city. No two of these streets appear to be parallel and every fifty meters or so each empties into a little plaza. The plazas all offer something interesting – beautiful flower beds, a lovely stature or fountain, often an ancient church or public building with Moorish influences.

It was on just such a plaza Wednesday evening that we stopped for the evening meal about 10:00. We sat at a table on the square under an orange tree lit from below. It was one of ten such trees on the plaza and the aroma from the blossoms was intoxicating. In was peacefully quiet because the streets of this plaza were too small for cars. The only sounds came from the bubbling water fountain and the laughter of the other diners, maybe 12 in number.

When no waiter appeared after a bit I walked into the restaurant to find one. I walked up to the bar where there was just one person talking to the bartender. That person was Bill Murray. I was, of course, a little surprised, but when he looked up I asked him if he’d seen Mike Kelly lately (a mutual friend), which sparked a five minute conversation that he showed no sign of finding bothersome. We parted.

Five minutes later he walked up to our table and presented us with an excellent bottle of wine, which he said was “an extra” he’d ordered “in error.” He chatted with all of us for another five minutes. He went back to his table and four friends.

A half-hour later he came by again with a brandy glass filled with something clear and very strong for me, which he refused to identify (and again called “an extra ordered in error”), plus an autograph and an inscription for my daughter based on our first conversation. The guy couldn’t have been more charming.

His four companions left on foot. Bill rode away on what looked like a 1957 Huffy with whitewalls and a little bell that he rang as he waved goodbye.

The New Dream Team: Spitzer-Ferraro

Jeez, I leave for a week and all hell breaks loose. Surely Elliot and Geraldine (sounds like a really bad early ‘70s movie trying to ride the coattails of “Harold and Maude”) will now team up for an independent party run for the White House.

If it is possible to understand what made him do it, I think David Brooks may have nailed it today. I, being no David Brooks, will just say that surely this is the final proof that a Harvard degree does not mean you are smart.

As for Gerry, I’m going to think about what I want to say for a bit before committing it to the permanence of text lest I make the same error she did.

Finally, we had a great time in Spain. Does anyone want to hear about how Bill Murray bought us a bottle of wine and an after dinner drink in Sevilla?

I'm on vacation

I'll be out of the country until March 14th so I'm taking a break from blogging. I'll leave you with this quote from one of my favorite Times columnists, Gail Collins, on the results from Tuesday's primaries.

"The white male vote, which keeps shifting, was split. I’m beginning to suspect that the white males have realized that they’re either going to be accused of racism or sexism and have therefore made a secret pact to take turns."

Thanks to everyone for visiting and commenting. I look forward to resuming the conversation in a week.

Do one thing right

For most people, getting a new job is a pretty big deal. It’s a lot of work getting your resume and story together for a particular position. Then there can be multiple interviews; tests even for some jobs. But once you have the job, that’s when the real work usually begins.
Not so for politicians. Getting their job is the hardest work they’ll ever do; in fact, for many of them, it’s the only work they’ll ever do. Once one election is over they are campaigning for the next one.

The country would be a lot better off if each year the leaders of the two parties got together and agreed to fix one thing that year. One, and only one thing. And no other bills – especially earmarks – could be turned into laws until that one thing was fixed. Polls will help select what the American people think needs fixing most urgently, and God knows politicians can read polls.
The one thing selected should then be given the same kind of effort pols give to elections. There should be town hall meetings everywhere to discuss the pros and cons. Television spots should run advocating various points-of-view. We should have yard signs and buttons. The whole schmageggie.

By the end of the year we’d know if our elected officials had actually accomplished the task, and as long as we replace it with another task of similar significance we could keep them focused on what is really important to us.

One could argue for a long list of candidates for the first task on the annual “Do One Thing Right” list. I think I’d go for health care reform.

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What really makes you mad?

I write this blog primarily for my own amusement and for its cathartic qualities, but I’d like to try something a little different today. Please leave a comment and tell everyone what really makes you angry. That’s the only direction; it could be political, social, interpersonal, or anything else. Let it fly.