The Ghost Of Beijing Future?

December 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under China | Leave a Comment 

An “Economist” writer, passing Christmas in a Beijing bookstore, reflects on the interrelatedness in China of economic and political stability:

Earlier in the week the authorities had arrested one of the country’s best known political activists, Liu Xiaobo, after he and some 300 other academics, lawyers, journalists and other intellectuals circulated a petition known as Charter 08 (echoing Charter 77, a document signed by dissidents in Czechoslovakia in 1977 calling for human rights protection).The petition called for sweeping reform, including freedom of the press and the right to form opposition political parties. As the economy sputters, a pillar of the party’s legitimacy (its ability to deliver growth) is beginning to wobble. Such demands are the last thing the party wants in these anxious times. Officials are desperate for the middle class to get out and shop in order to help take up the slack caused by plummeting demand for China’s exports.

Mark Felt and alt.-Watergate

December 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Intelligence, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

At Strafor, the private intelligence firm, George Friedman offers a not-hagiographic view of W. Mark Felt, who illegally gave government secrets to the Washington Post. Friedman argues that Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and their editor, Ben Bradlee, were manipulated by a government police agency that was moving against an elected President:

Felt saw [L. Patrick] Gray’s selection [as acting FBI director] as an unwelcome politicization of the FBI (by placing it under direct presidential control), an assault on the traditions created by Hoover and an insult to his memory, and a massive personal disappointment. Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Nixon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.

It wasn’t just Watergate, in Friedman’s view:

For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.

Friedman’s no Nixon fan:

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

“Frost/Nixon – See It!”

December 29, 2008 by Dwight Chapin | Filed Under Movies, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Actor and potential Academy Award winner Frank Langella has hit the big time with his portrayal of RN in Frost/Nixon, first on stage and now the movie. The following interview with Mr. Langella from our East Hampton, New York Independent paper caught my attention. The interview makes it “crystal clear” that the actor is not going for historic accuracy, least anyone be persuaded otherwise: (The italic emphasis is mine.)

“Langella explains that he ‘totally trusts his intuition’. There are certain historical truths you have to respect. From there I concentrate on what is going to make people laugh, cry and feel. Instead of history, this is more about the human condition and that is hopefully what will prove fascinating to moviegoers.”

Last Friday night I went to the movie. For me it was “fascinating”. Langella delivered a characterization of the President that was only in a small part accurate. The theatrical representation was out of sync with Nixon’s age at the time of the interviews. The on screen Nixon that Langella portrays is old, slumped, moves in an over-the-top exaggerated and halting manner that denotes a man obviously weighed down by guilt and remorse. However, putting those criticisms aside, I enjoyed the movie. Actually, I think it does Nixon a service in many ways. The dialogues accuracy I will leave to others. But, the remorse that RN expresses, his admissions of error and letting the country down, was moving. As I recall, it was an accurate representation of what he said at the time and, I believe, how, in his heart-of-hearts, he really felt. I sat watching and wanting words of remorse to come out of his mouth and they did. That was a “victory” for the President. We know, for all the Nixon “haters” it will never be enough. But, for the twenty-five year old and two thirty year olds who saw the movie with me—his admission seemed to be enough. Without prompting, my friends also locked on the fact, as implied in the movie, that there was much more to President Nixon than Watergate. An additional plus, the freakiness of the Reston, Jr. character helped create empathy for Nixon and illustrated the hatred the left cannot surrender.

No matter how you cut-it, Ron Howard makes great movies. My view, for younger generations, Frost/Nixon helped position RN in a way that will lead to a more objective analysis of President Nixon’s public life in the decades ahead.

Featured Articles — December 29, 2008

December 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

The Net-Zero Gas Tax By Charles Krauthammer
A once-in-a-generation chance.

Life at New Animal Farm Won’t Be All That Bad By Victor Davis Hanson
By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media∗ begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place.

Bush and Barack, Bedfellows By John Heilemann
Why the current president is rooting for the next one.

Palestinians Need Israel to Win By Michael Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi
If Hamas gets away with terror once again, the peace process will be over.

Top 10 political upsets of 2008 By Alexander Burns
Every election cycle has its share of upset winners, the candidates who pulled off long-shot victories that surprised the pundits, the political professionals and sometimes even themselves.

Afghanistan is a failing state. It needs a Marshall Plan By Ashraf Ghani
The Obama Presidency provides a second chance to get Afghanistan right. The President-elect has made it clear a stable Afghanistan is his priority. That stability will only come when Afghanistan can govern itself. To reach that point, three key assets must be harnessed: first, American forces and resources; second, the instruments of national and international power; and third and most crucially, the Afghan people, who are as eager to see the restoration of order and justice.

The Short War By Shmuel Rosner
Why Israel wants the war in Gaza to be brief.

Invest in Iraq? By Richard Rahn
Would you invest in Iraq ? Many people think it is crazy to even ask the question. But strange as it may seem, there may already be some good investment opportunities in Iraq , and chances are there will be many high-yielding investments in the country in the next few years.

Critics of Benedict misheard the Pope By John Heard
WHEN Adele Horin encouraged gay Catholics, especially younger people, to sing out about our experiences in the church (The Sydney Morning Herald, December 27), she probably expected a chorus of protest.

The Historical Nixon De-Frosted

December 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Frost/Nixon | 6 Comments 

Frank Langella’s fictional Richard Nixon is right: Both he and David Frost turned out to be winners in their famous debates. Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” helps begin the historical rehabilitation the 37th President never expected in his lifetime. Read my review here.

“Ask Not, You Know, What Your Country, You Know…”

December 28, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Featured Articles, Internet, News media, Presidents | Leave a Comment 

The interview conducted by David Halbfinger and Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times with Caroline Kennedy (who seems to have dropped the name Schlossberg permanently), as linked below in today’s Featured Articles, did not have the headline “As A Candidate, Kennedy Is Forceful Yet Elusive” when it first appeared on the newspaper’s site yesterday morning. Instead, it originally read “As A Candidate, Kennedy Is Eloquent Yet Elusive,” and is still identified in those words at the Times’s own website Blogrunner, despite the fact that the quotes attributed to the candidate, as they appeared in the published article, had little of the rhetorical art for which Ms. Kennedy’s father gained renown (with some help from Ted Sorensen).

The interview was one of Ms. Kennedy’s first attempts at a sit-down conversation with the press, following several weeks during which she preferred to deal with the Fourth Estate by giving them written replies to written questions.  Within a few hours after its appearance, the irreverent website Gawker pointed out that in one of the audio clips attached to the interview, the would-be successor to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat managed to use the words “you know” (as a “discourse marker” as the linguists say, rather than in any intelligent grammatical context) a dozen times in 49 seconds.  Almost within minutes after that observation was posted, the Times changed the headline to what it is now.

Last night, the Times also put up what is seemingly a word-for-word transcript of Ms. Kennedy’s conversation with Halbfinger and Confessore.  In what must have been a conversation lasting about 40 or 45 minutes, she uses “you know” no less than 138 times.  Especially impressive are two occasions where she uses the words five different times in one sentence – or what would be a sentence, if it were not, in both cases, a chain of clauses with no grammatical conclusion.

Indeed, throughout the transcript, Ms. Kennedy proves to be nearly as unable to articulate a proper sentence as was the case when she appeared on Meet The Press last spring to endorse Barack Obama for the presidency.  As I listened to the clips at the Times’s site and read the transcript, I had to conclude to send her to be America’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom would make this country the object of ridicule in that isle where Shakespeare’s unmoved bones rest.

And while it is true that quite a few Senators, past and present, have been as inarticulate as Ms. Kennedy, very few among them have used what facility of speech they had to assert, as Ms Kennedy more or less does in this interview, that they should be in the United States Senate, well, because they want to be there, whether or not there are more qualified candidates for the job.  As Gawker’s Gabriel Sherman pointed out today, Ms. Kennedy’s supply of hauteur, manifested more than a few times toward Halbfinger and Confessore (as the transcript shows), may be her biggest problem of all as she seeks this office.

(Also noteworthy is an entry at the Language Log blog which discusses editing of the audio clips featured with the Times article, and not acknowledged at the site.)

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

December 28, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives | Leave a Comment 

Every Sunday The Soundtrack of Our Lives looks back at some of the music that was popular and the performers who were influential forty years ago, around the time Richard Nixon was elected President.

During December the Soundtrack has considered some of the most popular Christmas carols and holiday songs.

AULD LANG SYNE (TRADITIONAL TUNE WITH WORDS ADAPTED AND WRITTEN BY ROBERT BURNS)

On 17 December 1788 the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote to his friend and long-time correspondent Mrs. Frances Dunlop about his current project:

… is not the Scotch phrase Auld lang syne exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet… Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians.

The verses on that other sheet were the first versions of “Auld Lang Syne” — a phrase which means both “old times” and “long ago.”

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o’ lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo,

For auld lang syne,

We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

For auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
And surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot,
Sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
And gie’s a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
For auld lang syne.

CHORUS

The rough English translation would be:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old times since ?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
And surely I’ll buy mine !
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

Burns also wrote about “Auld Lang Syne” to George Thomson, another friend and correspondent who was a collector and connoisseur of Scottish music:  ”The air is but mediocre; but the song of itself – the song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man’s singing — is enough to recommend any air.”

There has been considerable exegesis —and not a little controversy— regarding the paths and degrees of derivation involved, but the consensus seems to be that the words (both adapted from poems and ballads dating back to the late sixteenth century and added by Burns) and the melody pursued different courses until they were finally joined — although it is far from clear that the tune we sing today was the one Burns heard and knew.  The Burns Encyclopedia online supplies an excellent summary of the song’s long and speculative history.

In October 2004, to celebrate the opening of the Scottish Parliament’s new Holyrood Building, singer-songwriter Eddi Reader was invited to sing “Auld Lang Syne” in the presence of the Queen.  Ms. Reader, perhaps judging that the whole thing was a tad stodgy, ignored protocol with a spontaneous exhortation — in advance of the words “And here’s a hand, my trusty friend”— to “offer each other a hand.”  The deputies responded with increasing enthusiasm; the Duke of Edinburgh rolled with the flow; and the Queen —who nobody ever touches in public— discreetly joined in the applause at the end.

In the United Kingdom, the singing of  ”Auld Lang Syne” is not confined primarily to New Year’s Eve.  It is generally associated with parting, and is sung at the conclusion of all kinds of events throughout the year.

In America, where the song didn’t have the kind of widespread acceptance and familiarity as in the UK, it became almost synonymous with New Year’s Eve because of the popular dance band Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.

Beginning with a radio broadcast on New Year’s Eve in 1928 —and then on TV from 1956 through 1976— the Lombardo band’s smooth and mellow sounds filled homes all across America.  Americans coast to coast eavesdroped on Lombardo’s annual sophisticated New Year’s Eve party from the ballrooms of swanky New York hotels, and then welcomed in the New Year by listening to Ben Grauer describe the ball drop in Times Square.

For generations of Americans  this is the sound that will always and forever signal New Year’s Eve in our memories and in our hearts:

By the late 1960s, a new demographic was —literally and figuratively— starting to call the tune, and the Lombardo sound seemed mostly to appeal to folks with lumbago.  (Sorry about that, but it’s now 1.45 am and I’m sitting in a hotel room in Garberville, California, after a certain amount of earlier revelry, so I think I deserve to be cut at least a little slack.)

On 31 December 1972,  Dick Clark hosted the first broadcast of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on the ABC network.  The Lombardo show stayed on for another few years, but by 1976, NYRE ruled the airwaves.

“Auld Lang Syne” has been around long enough to have been covered by artists of three centuries and several continents.  Two from Germany demonstrate the song’s flexibility.  The first cover is by Ludwig van Beethoven, from his 1818 collection suite of 12 Scottish Songs for vocal trio and piano:

And now, for something completely different, here’s a 1999 rendition by the Dusseldorf-based punk band Die Toten Hosen:

SEE YOU NEXT DECEMBER

Many thanks —and the warmest greetings of the season— to all the TNN readers who have expressed interest in the Soundtrack’s December detour to consider some Christmas carols and other popular holiday music.  We’ll resume here in eleven months.   In the meantime, thanks to The Late Show with David Letterman, here are ten songs that you can be sure will not be featured then.

Featured Articles — December 28, 2008

December 28, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Israel Continues Attacks Against Hamas Targets in Gaza By Charles Levinson and Joshua Mitnick
Israeli jets attacked Hamas targets for a second day Sunday across the Gaza Strip, as the death toll in an aerial assault against the Islamic militant group escalated, along with international calls to halt the violence.

Lebanon Enjoys a Respite By David Ignatius
It’s Christmastime in Lebanon. The piano player in the lounge at the Phoenicia Hotel is pounding out carols for an audience that includes many Muslims, judging by the headscarves. Along Hamra Street in the heart of Muslim West Beirut, the stores are wooing holiday shoppers to buy the latest fashions and electronic gadgets. The window displays of the local lingerie stores would make a Victoria’s Secret salesgirl blush.

As a Candidate, Kennedy Is Forceful but Elusive By Nicholas Confessore and David M. Halbfinger
Caroline Kennedy, the woman who would be New York’s next senator, is sure of one thing. Among all the hopefuls seeking to succeed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, she said on Saturday, there is no better choice.

A New Chance for Darfur By Nicholas Kristof
If Barack Obama wants to help end the genocide in Darfur, he doesn’t have to look far for ideas of how to accomplish that. President Bush and his top aides have been given, and ignored, a menu of options for tough steps to squeeze Sudan — even destroy its air force — and those will soon be on the new president’s desk.

Should the Obama Generation Drop Out? By Charles Murray
BARACK OBAMA has two attractive ideas for improving post-secondary education — expanding the use of community colleges and tuition tax credits — but he needs to hitch them to a broader platform. As president, Mr. Obama should use his bully pulpit to undermine the bachelor’s degree as a job qualification. Here’s a suggested battle cry, to be repeated in every speech on the subject: “It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it.”

Why Can’t I Get Off This List? By Juan Fernando Gómez
Airport security should know enough to tell me from the terrorists.

Win, Win, Win, Win, Win … By Thomas Friedman
How many times do we have to see this play before we admit that it always ends the same way?

The First Reader

December 27, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Bush Administration, Culture, History, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, economy | 2 Comments 

It is hard to determine whether the number of books read by a President during his or her term, and which ones, have any real correlation to ability in leadership and governance.  Lyndon Johnson, famously, was reported never to have cracked open a book in his five years in the White House (except perhaps for British economist Barbara Ward’s The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations, a volume of 148 pages), but, in domestic affairs at least, he put together a considerable list of achievements.  Franklin Roosevelt seems to have read a lot of mysteries, which no doubt agreeably whiled away an hour before bedtime but had little relevance to policy; Harry Truman read perhaps countless volumes of history, but much of his book-reading appears to have taken place before he succeeded FDR in 1945.

Richard Nixon was a careful and thoughtful reader, concentrating on history and biography during his White House years.  (He had read a considerable amount of literature and philosophy as part of his studies at Whittier College, and in the years after 1974 took up such books again.) His admiration for Robert Blake’s biography of Benjamin Disraeli is well known; less so, the fact that he spent part of 1971 reading Winston Churchill’s four-volume account of World War I, The World Crisis. From these and from books such as Charles de Gaulle’s Memoirs Of Hope and Andre Malraux’s Antimemoirs he learned much that proved useful, especially in constructing foreign policy.  He didn’t peruse the flashier bestsellers, such as I’m OK, You’re OK or Airport or the several novels Harold Robbins wrote during those years. RN’s reading was weighty – and it took him a while to get through it, with the duties of office. It appears unlikely that he had the time to read more than one or two books a month.

But in recent years – whether or not it has anything to do with the need to assure those in the flagging book business that their wares are still in demand – White House insiders, past and present, have gone out of their way to emphasize the enormous degree of erudition of the Chief Executive.  During Bill Clinton’s eight years in office we heard a lot about his habit of utilizing his night-owl hours to read any solid nonfiction book that was handy, with the occasional Walter Mosley mystery on the side. (Indeed, his endorsement of Mosley in 1992 catapulted that writer to bestsellerdom.)

But it turns out that George W. Bush has Clinton, and seemingly every other President, completely beat when it comes to the printed page.  In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Karl Rove, the former deputy chief of staff famed for his own wide reading ranging from Jorge Luis Borges to Paul Horgan to David McCullough, discusses a competition he has had with our outgoing President to see who can read the most books in one year.

Rove says that it all started on New Year’s Eve of 2005 when he told President Bush he planned to read a book a week during 2006.  Two days into 2006, the man in the Oval Office informed Rove: “I’m on my second [book]. Where are you?”

And so the contest was on.  If Rove’s account can be trusted, he personally managed to finish the year with 110 books read.  The President, during that time, had read 95 books – not nine, 95. The books read included eight Travis McGee mysteries by John D. Macdonald (a writer Rove identified as one of his own favorites in Vanity Fair), Albert Camus’s The Stranger, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals (that favorite of the President-elect), James L. Swanson’s account of the Lincoln assassination Manhunt, and biographies of Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, Lyndon Johnson, and Genghis Khan. The nonfiction-fiction ratio was 58-37.

In 2007, the contest was repeated and Bush read 51 books to Rove’s 76.  With a few days left in 2008, Rove has read 64 books, the President 40.  Well, Bush has an excuse for the slackened pace – he had to deal with a major recession, after all.  But Rove left the White House in August 2007 and has focused on writing, TV appearances, and the occasional lecture since then, so I have to wonder what has slowed him down.

Among the books Rove says the President read in the last two years are Jacobo Timmerman’s Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number;  Khruschchev’s Cold War by Nixon Library director Tim Naftali and Aleksandr Fursenko; biographies of Dean Acheson, Andrew Mellon and Andrew Jackson; David Halberstam’s book about the Korean conflict, The Coldest War; and Hugh Thomas’s mammoth history of the Spanish Civil War.  One very noticeable thing about the titles Rove lists is that none of them primarily concern economics – the one subject that, I would guess, many people wish the President had focused on during his second term, at least starting with the buildup of the housing crisis in the summer of 2007.

In 2000, Michael Beschloss, as eminent a figure as there is in the field of presidential history, wrote an article for the New York Times concerning the question of just how literate a president needs to be, as opposed to how literate he or she needs to appear.  He noted that Adlai Stevenson, during his lifetime a figure idolized by intellectuals from coast to coast as the archetype of the philosopher-statesman, in fact could let a whole year go by without finishing a book.  I would say it’s a good thing for Presidents to read books – and an even better thing if enough of the books have a direct bearing on the duties and concerns of the Presidency.

Oops! They Did It Again

December 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Watergate | Leave a Comment 

Richard David Doyle joins Stanley Kutler and Rick Perlstein in the Non-Smoking Gun Club.

A Nixon/Obama Plan For Schools?

December 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Obama administration, Richard Nixon, education | Leave a Comment 

Matt Miller thinks 44+37=a workable blueprint for education reform:

Nixon’s commissioner of education said publicly that the federal government should pay 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost of public education. His domestic policy staff considered a new national tax, with the proceeds distributed to states that drastically reduced state and local property taxes while closing the financing gaps among their school districts.

In the end, of course, Nixon found he had bigger problems to deal with. But he left a blueprint for Mr. Obama to follow. The federal government contributed just $45 billion of the $488 billion spent on primary and secondary schools in 2004 and 2005 (the most recent data available). That’s just nine cents of the nation’s education dollar.

Going to 25 percent to 30 percent of the overall tab by using a Nixonian revenue-sharing plan would lift the federal contribution by $80 billion to $100 billion a year, and replace an equivalent amount of state and local taxes. A little more federal money might be needed to sweeten the pot, round up the votes and give a boost to the poorest schools.

Two Enlightened Dads

December 27, 2008 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

In The Politico, Andie Coller suggests that President-elect Obama’s rhetoric stems from his enlightened ideas about fatherhood:

The “change we can believe in,” it turns out, shares a lot with the revolution in thinking about child-rearing sprung from the work of Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, which centers on principles such as mutual respect — or what the president-elect has called “the presumption of good faith” — fostering independence (“Team of Rivals,” anyone?), and encouragement (“Yes we can!”).

This passage from Obama’s victory speech, for example, is a family meeting waiting to happen, complete with attempts to acknowledge his own limits, make room for dissent, make sure the listeners feel heard, and stress the importance of everyone’s contribution:

“There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

The implication is that such rhetoric is something new. But one can find similar themes and language in the first inaugural address of another president:

When we listen to “the better angels of our nature,” we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things–such as goodness, decency, love, kindness. Greatness comes in simple trappings. The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.  Those left behind, we will help to catch up. For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure. As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before–not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another–until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways–to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart–to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.

 

From the setting of this blog post, you have probably guessed that the speaker was Richard M. Nixon.

Please Hold For The President, Mr. Langella

December 27, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, Frost/Nixon, Movies, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

An article about Frost/Nixon in yesterday’s Norfolk Virginian-Pilot features some lengthy quotes from Frank Langella. Among his ruminations:

Langella acknowledges that Peter Morgan’s script, adapted from Morgan’s own play, is not historically accurate on all counts.

“History is a lot duller than drama because it takes too long for history to play. Every line that is used from the telecast was actually in the telecast, but Peter took liberties with the personal side of things, and with the meetings between Frost and Nixon. For example, there never was that telephone call in the middle of the night between the two of them before one of the telecasts. But it was needed to emphasize the rivalry, the duel.

“I think it was true that just before the camera rolled on one of the live telecasts, Nixon tried to knock Frost off guard by asking, quite seriously, ‘You do any fornicating last night?’ There was plenty of material to work with. Not much had to be invented.”

Nixon died in 1994, but the actor said, “I talked to Nixon every day and he talked to me. There was something about the man that affected me more than any role I’ve ever played, and I’ve played a lot. On the set, everyone called me Mr. President.”

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

December 27, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

This weekend’s Reward is from Tony Bennett who will be celebrating his eighty-second New Year’s Eve next Wednesday night. His just-released Christmas album with the Count Basie Band —A Swingin’ Christmas— was one of the highlights of the 2008 holiday season.  Here he is from a 2006 appearance on Imus In The Morning, with what could be a useful mantra for 2009 — Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s 1964 standard “The Best Is Yet To Come.” (Frank Sinatra took the sentiment so seriously that he had the title engraved on his tombstone.)

“Doubt” Gets 5 Checkers, Too

December 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Movies, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

Do we need love or authority? Yes.

Featured Articles — December 27, 2008

December 27, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Theodore Roosevelt Was No Conservative By Ronald Pestritto
There’s a reason he left the GOP to lead the Progressive Party.

The End of Art By Roger Kimball
Nearly everyone cares—or says he cares—about art. After all, art ennobles the spirit, ­elevates the mind, and educates the emotions. Or does it? In fact, tremendous irony attends our culture’s continuing investment—emotional, financial, and social—in art. We behave as if art were something special, something important, something spiritually refreshing; but, when we canvas the roster of distinguished artists today, what we generally find is far from spiritual, and certainly far from refreshing.

Obama’s Down Payment By Lawrence Summers
A Stimulus Must Aim for Long-Term Results.

Obama May Be an Aloof President By Michael Barone
Barack Obama and his family are vacationing in his native Hawaii, far from the wintry snows of Chicago — and far from almost every other American politician. There’s a metaphor here for how I think Obama is going to conduct himself as president: He’s going to try to keep his distance from other politicians, including his fellow Democrats. I see him trying to remain aloof from his party, much as Dwight Eisenhower did five decades ago. Like Eisenhower, I think he’s drawn the conclusion that his party needs him more than he needs his party.

George W Bush: winning the war on terror By Nile Gardiner
Europe’s political elites are no doubt salivating at the prospect of George W. Bush departing the White House in January.

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God By Matthew Parris
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.

There’s No Pain-Free Cure for Recession By Peter Schiff
Belt-tightening is required by all, including government.

From Pax Americana to slacker Americans By Chris Ayres
Take it from a Brit: Losing the No. 1 world superpower spot won’t be that bad. Really.

Getting Away With Murder? By Joshua Hammer
The investigation into the 2005 assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri is nearing its end—and a trial in international court looms. Insiders say the trail of evidence leads, ultimately, to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But having spent three years fearing for their lives, the investigators are now grappling with a different fear: that Western concerns about regional stability will prevent the naming of the biggest names. Inside the investigation that could blow up the Middle East.

We Finally Have a Strategy for Afghanistan By Fred Kaplan
Unfortunately, that may not be enough.

“F/N” Receives The Ultimate Accolade: 5 Checkers

December 26, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Frost/Nixon | 6 Comments 

By now enough has been written about the story —and the backstory— of Frost/Nixon (and not least here at TNN) that I won’t take your time by telling that tale yet again. Rather, I’ll cut right to the chase and try to answer the question: Is Ron Howard’s version of Frost/Nixon, which opened wide in cinemas all across the country today, any good? And if the answer to that question is “yes,” then just how good is it, and in exactly what ways?

I submit that the criterion for judging great history is accuracy: How closely does the account being offered comport with all the available evidence and documentation, and how extensive and objective is the research on which it is based?

And the criterion for judging great drama is truth: How honestly does the story being told reflect the human aspects and emotions of the characters, real or invented, that are involved?

That is why, for example, Nixonland, works brilliantly as a polemic, while, read as history, it is pretty much bunk. And that is why, as drama, Frost/Nixon rings true from the opening credits to the final fade, and absolutely rivets its audience from beginning to end.

In the history department, Frost/Nixon’s cred is marginal. Aside from the scrupulous attention paid to capturing the look —and in many cases, recreating even the most minor details— of that stylistically benighted period from 1974 to 1977, its accuracy is mostly tangential. As part of their extensive pre-shoot due diligence, director Howard and screenwriter Morgan met with many of those who had been in San Clemente during the Frost shoots —including yours truly— to discuss that experience. Most of their questions —after, of course, “What was Nixon really like?”— had to do with nailing down specific details ranging from whether RN preferred tea or coffee, to the color and the number of rings in the loose leaf binders in which we submitted material to him, to whether or not Manolo’s blazer had a presidential seal on the breast pocket.

As its lopsided billing indicates, Frost/Nixon is told from the point of view of one of the two protagonists (or, as Mr. Morgan would have it, the two antagonists). This Frostcentric version of the events is based on Sir David’s own contemporary account (I Gave Them The Sword, 1978) and the diary of one of his researchers (subsequently published as The Conviction of Richard Nixon, 2007).

Considering its sources, at the very best Frost/Nixon can only tell the one side of the story of what happened during those wrought weeks and overwrought days in the spring of ‘77.

But for every action on the part of Team Frost, there was an equal and opposite reaction from Team Nixon — and I don’t think I’m being myopic, or disrespecting Sir David, when I say that the Nixon side would be incomparably the more important and interesting of the two. Perhaps someday someone will write Nixon/Frost and the two can be played in tandem like the histories of Shakespeare (or, depending on your point of view and frame of reference, the farces of Alan Ayckbourn).

Apparently Sir David has expressed some concerns of his own about the accuracy of Frost/Nixon’s rendition of his side of the story. But one man can only do so much, so I’ll have to leave that to him to sort out. But I can tell you that, as far as the Nixon side is concerned, this film belongs more in the Da Vinci Code than in the Apollo 13 column of Mr. Howard’s impressive oeuvre. That said, and while as history it’s no better than it needs to be, as a movie it’s hard to imagine how it could be much better. It’s simply a terrific flick: provocative, suspenseful, thoughtful, entertaining, and accomplished.

It was Peter Morgan’s insight as a playwright to recognize and heighten the inherent drama in that thirty-two year old televised encounter between Frost and Nixon. On the stage in London and New York, directed by Michael Grandage and with Messrs. Sheen and Langella in the title roles, Frost/Nixon was an unlikely, but well deserved, hit. (The national road tour of the Grandage production, starring Alan Cox and Stacy Keach, will be visiting Minneapolis, Cleveland, and Boston during January)

It is Mr. Morgan’s skill as a screenwriter that he manages to retain all the tension of the small screen face off even as his material is opened both out and up to fit the demands of the big screen.

The film Frost remains largely unchanged from the stage version. Superficial bordering on vapid, he finds (or is forced to discover), just in time for the denouement, hitherto unknown depths of toughness and gravitas. As a dramatic construct this is useful and probably inevitable. But it is also, at least based on my own experience, only one side of the story.

I had the opportunity of meeting and getting to know David Frost in England in the mid-1960s while I was working for Randolph Churchill. I got to see early on the side of him that has always been easy to underestimate — perhaps because it has been less visible, and perhaps because there are so many so eager to underestimate it. He is an extremely smart, canny, clever, ambitious, and indefatigable entrepreneur. To be sure, the somewhat smarmy gushing showman is there and is real, but it is only, so to speak, the frosting.

The film Nixon is rather different from the stage version. As the story’s scope is widened and broadened, he inevitably becomes more of a consequential figure, with the trappings that accompany power even in exile. The fact that he is being projected on a scale thirty feet high and seventy feet wide sends its own signals in this regard.

Ron Howard was able to film in the Nixon Library’s replicated East Room, on the steps of the real Marine One, and at the Casa Pacifica itself (albeit a far grander incarnation of that noble house than the one I remember from the days when the Nixons called it home).

If the film Nixon is more consequential and historical, he is decidedly less humorous, less witty and, for those available to be won over, less winning.

With a play, the theatrical experience is greater than the sum of its parts. Each audience brings with it a completely different set of vibes that immediately impact the actors; and the play, as it unfolds, establishes a unique and intimate relationship with each member of that audience as they view it, literally and figuratively, from their unique perspectives.

But once the film is in the can, the audience members are primarily individual spectators sharing only a marginally communal experience as they sit watching larger than life figures moving in two dimensions across a screen half as long as a city block.

The filmic RN still has a few solid laugh lines. The now famous fornication question remains sure-fire, although the circumstances that surrounded and explained it (but make it far less funny) are omitted. Many of the most telling details —including Brezhnev’s moving speech about his father and, most importantly, the late night phone call that is as apocryphal as it is pivotal— remain whole cloth manufactures of Mr. Morgan’s mind.

Indeed, now I know at first hand how that feels to be Morganized. The scene in which “Frank Gannon” discuss an aspect of the Frost biography with “Richard Nixon” never happened.

While Nixonians can and should continue to examine the facts of the Nixon/Frost interviews as a part of RN’s historical life and legacy, we should also recognize that, where Frost/Nixon is concerned, we’re dealing with drama. And, unlike Oliver Stone’s Nixon, which was a hatchet job tarted up as historical psychodrama, Frost/Nixon is an honest attempt to understand and depict the personal and psychological dynamics of two men engaged in a highly dramatic high stakes enterprise.

Whether or not Shakespeare made Richard III badder than he really was —or even than he had to be— is irrelevant to the power of the play. Similarly, while the characters on each side of the F/N seesaw are dramatic creations based on real people, any resemblance to those real-life counterparts is mostly —if not purely— coincidental.

People in general, and popular history in particular, have accepted a version of Nixon and Watergate that is going to hold sway for at least another few decades, until a new and truly independent generation of historians begin to consider RN, his life, and his presidency, anew. In this they will be aided, ironically, by the administration’s unprecedented degree of record-keeping and the numbers of its records that were kept. But until then the conventional wisdom will continue to prevail.

The media, of course, were obsessed and fascinated with Watergate; but polls showed that, for the vast and still mostly silent majority of Americans, the whole thing was seen —at least until near the end— as a case of business as usual where politicians were involved.

The American people, in the period 1972-74, were ready to move on from Watergate if RN had just accepted the blame as well as the responsibility, and apologized in a way, and in a voice, that rang true. But instead of accepting the reality of the public’s perception and cutting his losses, RN determined to prove the difficult, complex, nuanced —and, let’s face it, shifting— case that he was innocent. In this way his convoluted defense ended up becoming, first, a frustration, then an embarrassment, and, finally and equally damning, a bore.

The White House’s history of Watergate defense during those years —promising that this speech would be the final and definitive accounting, and that this release of documents would at last answer every question, followed by barrages of new revelations and charges — simply wore America down until a majority were ready to see Nixon go just to be rid of him so everyone could move on. In the end, when his defense options had narrowed and collapsed, and his ability to mobilize congressional support and influence public opinion had evaporated, he decided to resign rather than subject the nation, and the world, to the trauma and indignity of a President in the dock.

To that extent, the operative dramatic premise of Frost/Nixon — that only one of them could emerge victorious from the contest of the interviews — doesn’t ring true. This notion is epitomized and apotheosized in the late night last minute phone call, and it is nothing less than the linchpin of Mr. Morgan’s dramaturgy.

But, in fact, the Frost/Nixon interviews had the potential, and actually turned out to be, a win/win situation for both participants. Frost finally got Nixon to say what most Americans had wanted to hear; and Nixon, at last, had said it. The impact of watching RN say that he understood what the country had endured, and to express himself about it in straightforward and emotional terms, had a tremendous impact that only those who remember it can fully understand and appreciate.

Indeed, in the end, it only took very little for RN to address and, effectively, cauterize Watergate. In purely objective terms, and in view of what the Nixon critics had been demanding, what RN actually said to David Frost represented more of an emotional than a substantive advance over anything he had said before.

Even as pathological a Nixonphobe as James Reston Jr. —the Frost researcher whose motivating principle was finally to drive the silver spike of Watergate’s truth through Richard Nixon’s dark and evil heart—- ended up accepting the essentially unreconstructed formulations about honest mistakes, innocent intentions, and refusals to grovel, in order to embrace the few minutes of emotional truth that RN finally chose to reveal. These days, Mr. Reston, like Sir David, seems to be intent on turning Frost/Nixon into a cottage industry; and more power to them if they succeed.

That critical Watergate encounter, which is the centerpiece of the play and the film, was treated as news, processed as drama, and accepted as catharsis — several years overdue, but better late than never. Despite the stated terms of the film and the assertion of its printed postscript, the Frost interviews were the first and major building block of what turned out to be RN’s second comeback, and his reemergence on the world stage as a wise man and an elder statesman.

Frank Langella gives a serious and stirring account of RN. He wisely eschews imitation, much less impersonation. Aside from some of the obviously applied physical characteristics, and the adoption of a recognizably husky vocal timbre, Mr. Langella’s Nixon is convincing not because it is derivative, but because it is complete. In fact, quite unlike RN, whose locution was formal and whose diction was precise, this Nixon speaks casually and colloquially and often even drops his “gs.” Mr. Langella uses his brain (and undoubtedly his heart) to embody the balanced elements of confidence, formality, toughness, shyness, insecurity, and vulnerability, and then renders them into a character that must move and compel even the people who knew RN, and have that high standard of comparison. Of course, that’s what acting at this exalted level is all about.

And Ron Howard, much of whose work has been open and optimistic and straightforward, has turned out to be the ideal director for this complex, essentially cerebral, and decidedly dark two finger exercise. He is above all a story teller, and he keeps his eye on Frost/Nixon’s clear, compelling, and chronological story line. But while he knows how to keep the narrative moving forward, he also has the willingness —and the confidence— to slow things down and take the time it takes to let the story not just unfold but take root and sink in.   This is brilliant directing — inspired, authoritative, and unobtrusive.

Hans Zimmer’s score deserves special mention. In its cool and coolly minimal way it is the perfect accompaniment to what is happening on screen. The film’s only clinker is shared by director and composer, when some horrendous footage of Cambodian casualties is accompanied by music that is uncharacteristic of the rest of the score, and manipulatively derivative (it sounds like they’re channeling Barber’s Adagio).

The cast is, typically of a Howard film, excellent and appropriate. That said, Kevin Bacon’s Jack Brennan would have been that much more effective, as well as accurate at least to that extent, had he spoken Jack’s made up lines with Jack’s real variety of Boston accent. And the selection of the excellent and accomplished Andy Milder to play the pivotal —if underwritten— part of Frank Gannon was clearly a decision to cast for solid acting chops and on screen charisma rather than simple physical resemblance; besides, I understand that Brad Pitt was already committed to another project.

For some time I have been considering proposing a TNN rating system that awards Checkers instead of stars. And I’ll launch it here and now by awarding the highest honor —Five Checkers— to Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon.

Would Two Kennedys In London Make A Right?

December 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under History, Nixon Center, Obama administration, The New Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Steve Clemons, distinguished founding executive director of The Nixon Center, has written to friends promoting his intriguing idea that the PE should end the awkwardness created by Caroline Kennedy’s senatorial ambitions by appointing her as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.

One potential problem is that her grandfather Joseph served in the same post, from which he notoriously resisted Winston Churchill’s warnings about Nazi aggression, supported appeasement, tried to meet with Adolph Hitler without President Roosevelt’s permission, and opposed wartime aid to Great Britain.

Londoners of a certain age may still wish to give an Ambassador Kennedy a piece of their minds.

Supply Side Sarko, With A Hint of Nixonian Pragmatism

December 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Economic issues | Leave a Comment 

Compared to his predecessor Jacques Chirac, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s stimulus package isn’t grounded in the subsidization of demand through government spending. He aims to increase purchasing power by encouraging investment and pro-growth policies in their ailing economy, but with a dose of Nixonian pragmatism he isn’t committed to this policy on theory, as more conservative critics are accusing him of being a socialist when he supports initiatives like bonus repayments to poorer families:

The president’s advisers say he is determined to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. Two previous attempts to reflate demand through deficit spending – by Jacques Chirac, then prime minister, in 1975 and President François Mitterrand in 1981 – provided a temporary fillip to the economy but stoked inflation, sucked in imports from Germany and Japan and set France on a quarter-century path of persistent public deficits. France has not balanced its budget since 1980.

Even some of Mr Sarkozy’s staunchest critics, who have accused him of repeating the mistakes of socialist governments, acknowledge a change of direction. “We salute as an achievement that he is not repeating his earlier errors,” says Jean Peyrelevade, a banker and vice-president of the opposition Democratic Movement party.

Yet if Mr Sarkozy has found some consistency, it is still not a quality easily associated with a mercurial leader who cares little for economic theory and whose only dogma is pragmatism.

The French president loves to blur political boundaries, confusing opponents while softening his own sharp rightwing edges in the eyes of the public. “It is not a question of knowing whether I am a free-market liberal or not, whether I have rediscovered Keynes or abandoned Milton Friedman,” he said in a speech last month. “It is a question of being pragmatic faced with an economic situation the likes of which we have never seen before.”

Speak For Yourself, Richard

December 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, News media | 2 Comments 

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