Mixologist-In-Chief

March 23, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, Frost/Nixon, Humor, News media, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The Daily Princetonian published an article today about the imminent departure of Jim Kelly (a member of Princeton’s Class of ‘76) as Time’s managing editor. In the course of reminiscing about his long career with the magazine, Kelly recounts this story:

On one especially memorable occasion, he even dined with former president Richard Nixon.

“[Nixon] asked if anyone wanted a drink, and we all said white wine. And he said ‘Well, I’ll have a martini, and if anyone else wants a martini, I’ll mix one for you,’ ” Kelly said, laughing. “Suddenly, everyone wanted a martini.”

In other news, word came from Los Angeles this evening that actor Stacy Keach, whose work as RN in the touring production of Peter Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon was interrupted when he suffered a mild stroke last week, has been released from the hospital. Still no word when or if he will return to the production, though the Ahmanson Theater, where he was performing before falling ill, is offering refunds to ticketholders uninterested in seeing understudy Bob Ari take on the part.

Obama Is The New Bush

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Bush Administration, Iraq War, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Abe Greenwald explains that there have been no changes in Iraq policy between inauguration and now:

One must remember that Barack Obama is not referring to the benefits of any change that he’s made in Iraq policy — because he hasn’t made any. He is saying that the Iraq War and the future U.S. commitment there, as outlined by the Bush and Maliki governments, have left him with the smoothest, most promising issue on his daily agenda. It turns out that with the heat of campaigning lifted, the Iraq War is finally acknowledged as what it is: a success.

Ironically, and tragically, Obama won’t use this as an issue around which to rally much needed American support. He has spent too long talking down the war to now cite it as an example of American endurance. But for the former president, sitting in Texas, this must have felt pretty good. No matter how many signing ceremonies are to follow.

Should We Still Kill Bin Laden?

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan | Leave a Comment 

Counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen says no, the Afghanis should do it:

Let me give you two possible scenarios. Scenario one is, American commandos shoot their way into some valley in Pakistan and kill bin Laden. That doesn’t end the war on terror; it makes bin Laden a martyr. But here’s scenario two: Imagine that a tribal raiding party captures bin Laden, puts him on television and says, “You are a traitor to Islam and you have killed more Muslims than you have killed infidels, and we’re now going to deal with you.” They could either then try and execute the guy in accordance with their own laws or hand him over to the International Criminal Court. If that happened, that would be the end of the al-Qaeda myth.

The Only Risk Is Wanting To Stay

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Iraq’s tourism industry has taken the first steps of re-branding the country’s image:

Why not? When security improved after years of civil war and brutality imposed by drug cartels , Colombia pulled it off:

Revisiting Afpak

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan | Leave a Comment 

Special envoy Richard Holbrooke on visiting the border region of Afpak:

Ahead of a key April 2 NATO meeting – and Barack Obama’s first presidential trip outside North America – US special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke says that western Pakistan presents the chief problem in resolving an eight-year war that has divided allies and threatens the standing of an alliance ready to mark its 60th anniversary.

The Talibanization of west Pakistan, in the Swat region that borders Afghanistan, was the greatest surprise to envoy Mr. Holbrooke on his first fact-finding mission to the region last month. It was the top issue he relayed to Mr. Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Holbrooke told the Monitor on the sidelines of the Brussels Forum, a security meeting here.

“A year ago, I visited Peshawar [near the Khyber Pass] and I was asked about starting an Asia Society office there,” Holbrooke said. “Last month, people were afraid to go outside after dark and walk their dogs. The change in the situation was stunning. Geopolitically Afghanistan hasn’t changed; Pakistan has.”

The Dummy Defense

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama | Leave a Comment 

Though it would spurious and unfair to compare President Obama to the convicted and deceased Enron CEO Ken Lay, Fred Barnes writes that the President is maneuvering for political vindication by reining in the incompetence card (while taking Lay-like “responsbility”) in light of the AIG bonus kerfuffle. Afterall, he like Lay, was selected to steer the ship right:

In the AIG case, Obama is like a cuckolded spouse, portrayed by administration officials as the last person to learn about the bonuses, though he signed the economic stimulus legislation with a provision assuring they’d be paid. A front-page account in the Washington Post played along, absolving the entire administration of blame. Attributed to “government and company officials,” the story said Federal Reserve officials were at fault, having failed to alert anyone in the administration, much less Obama, in a timely fashion.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he didn’t tell the White House until March 12, two days after he learned of bonuses totaling $165 million and the day before the checks went out. What could Obama do? He was “stunned,” the president told Jay Leno last week. Obama said he takes full responsibility for the mess. Then he went on to blame others.

Featured Articles — March 23, 2009

March 23, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

My Plan for Bad Bank Assets By Tim Geithner, The Wall Street Journal
The American economy and much of the world now face extraordinary challenges, and confronting these challenges will continue to require extraordinary actions. No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk.

Financial Policy Despair By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Inside Obama’s Economic Brain Trust By John Heilemann, New York Magazine
Tim Geithner boarded the 6 a.m. US Airways shuttle to Washington last Wednesday at La Guardia, slid his rail-thin frame into seat 5C, then stared into the middle distance. Geithner is invariably described as boyish, but that morning he looked every one of his 47 years—and then some.

Five Signs of a Flailing Presidency By Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard
You don’t have to be an old Washington hand to spot the telltale signs of a presidency and an administration in serious trouble. There’s nothing new about these clues. The inability to get their stories straight–that’s a hardy perennial of high-level officials caught in the vise of political embarrassment. A president who skips town to avoid the White House press corps and speak directly to the American people–we’ve sure seen that before. So in a sense the AIG mess has touched off nothing more than business as usual.

Obama Sells Out a Friend From Connecticut By Steve Kornacki, The Observer
When word spread a week ago that AIG had used $165 million in federal bailout money to lavish bonuses on the same executives whose incompetence had forced the insurance giant to the trough in the first place, unusually intense public anger erupted and leaders from both parties rushed to condemn the payments.

Love’s Labor’s Lost By Shmuel Rosner, The New Republic
As the leftist Labor Party slowly awakens from the shock of winning only 13 seats in Israel’s elections last month (a historical low for the party), Ehud Barak has begun pushing his party to join Binyamin Netanyahu’s fledgling right-wing coalition. His critics paint him as narcissistic opportunist who is sacrificing his party’s future to save his own career. His supporters claim he is putting the interest of the country before that of the party.

Iran Has Started a Mideast Arms Race By Amir Taheri, The Wall Street Journal
In the capitals of Western nations, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man regarded as the father of the Pakistani atom bomb, is regarded as a maverick with a criminal past. In addition to his well-documented role in developing a nuclear device for Pakistan, he helped Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs.

A Visit To The Crater

March 22, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Nixon family, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

The Everett, Washington Herald today has an interview with RN’s brother Ed Nixon concerning his new book The Nixons: A Family Portrait.

In the article, Ed explains that it was partly thanks to his famed elder sibling that he developed an interest in the field in which he came to make his professional career.

In 1939, having saved up enough money as a young lawyer to buy a new car, RN decided to travel to Michigan to buy an Oldsmobile and drive it back to California. Taking nine-year-old Ed along, the future President went by train to Chicago, then Detroit. After acquiring the vehicle, RN and Ed went back to the Windy City, then returned to Whittier by way of the famed Route 66. Near Winslow, Arizona, the pair stopped to take a look at the awe-inspiring Meteor Crater, and this stirred young Ed’s interest in geology, which he subsequently made his life’s work.

The article also notes that Ed “believes that Richard Nixon’s achievements are being recognized,” and quotes him as saying: “Healing has come with patience. You see the total life of the man.”

Worth A Listen

March 22, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under History, In Memoriam, Music | Leave a Comment 

(In 1935, Anne Brown and Todd Duncan were the original Porgy and Bess.  Mr. Duncan died in 1998 at the age of 95.  Ms. Brown died last week; she was 98.)

There really is nothing quite like NPR when it’s doing what it does best (in other words, not all those hours of tendentious and portentous news programming).   Here are two examples from last week’s All Things Considered.

The first is film critic Bob Mondello’s obituary of Anne Brown — the soprano on whom George Gershwin built the role of Bess.  Before her audition inspired him to expand the hitherto minor role, his work-in-progress was titled (as was Dubose Hewyard’s 1925 book on which it was based) simply Porgy.  You can hear it here.

In October of 1935, Porgy and Bess opened at New York’s Alvin Theater, to general confusion from the critics. They weren’t sure whether they had seen an opera or a musical, and either way, they were mixed on it.

Still, they liked Brown, and Todd Duncan, who played Porgy. So the company headed out on tour — a sometimes rocky tour. In Washington, D.C., near Brown’s hometown of Baltimore, she refused to perform when the company was booked into a segregated auditorium.

Duncan backed her, the management backed down — and for that one week in 1936, blacks and whites sat together at the National Theatre, two blocks from the White House.

The second is Baghdad bureau chief Lourdes Garcia-Navarro’s report from Anbar province about the extraordinary archeological discoveries that have made possible as a result of a record drought that has lowered the level of the Euphrates River. You can listen to it here.

In the mid-1980s, Saddam Hussein’s government dammed the Euphrates in the area, flooding a 120-mile-long stretch of land near Iraq’s border with Syria.

What once was an enormous reservoir that stretched as far as the eye could see has shrunk an astonishing 90 percent since summer, officials say.

[Anbar province Director of Antiquities] Ratib says that at least 75 archeological sites had been partially excavated before the area was flooded. They ran the gamut of civilizations — from 3,000 B.C. to the Sumerian and Roman periods. Ancient Jewish settlements were also submerged in the area. But because of the receding waters, Ratib has been able to access some sites for the first time — including, for instance, a cliff with a series of pre-Christian tombs carved into its face. Though they have been heavily damaged by the water, Ratib says they still have value.

This silver lining, however, is clouded by two problems.  In the short term it’s looting — and with virtually no protection, the sites are naked to their many enemies.  In the long term, of course, the drought will end and the waters will once again submerge the treasures.

(Hitherto submerged pre-Christian tombs have been revealed by the Euphrates’ receding waters.)

Annals Of The Obama Administration

March 22, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration | 1 Comment 

The egos were still bruised from the snub, but if President Obama was AWOL from last night’s Gridiron Dinner (apparently the first such first-term-first-time snub from a POTUS since the Gridiron Club was founded back in 372 BCE), his presence was pervasive.*  Explaining the President’s absence, his stand-in, Vice President Biden, launched a quip that is currently being heard around the world (or at least around the blogosphere):

President Obama does send his greetings…He can’t be here tonight — because he’s busy getting ready for Easter.  He thinks it’s about him. …

In fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the evening’s designated Republican speaker (Wisconsin’s Jennifer Granholm rose for the Democrats) probably had the best explanation for President Obama’s decision to spend the weekend at Camp David instead of attending the Gridiron Dinner: “He’s just not that into you.”

Even without POTUS, the annual off-the-record black tie affair was still a highlight of the social season.  The Club’s motto is “singe but never burn,” and, like the Al Smith and White House Correspondent’s Dinners, the criterion is the ability to laugh at oneself while making others join in.  

The Grid format involves putting on a show — in which working journalists perform the humorous lyrics they have written set to familiar tunes.  Among past highlights were Nancy Reagan’s surprise appearance and sending up her much-commented–upon wardrobe by  singing “Second Hand Clothes” to the tune of “Second Hand Rose.”   (“Even though they tell me that I’m no longer Queen / Did Ronnie have to buy me that new sewing machine? / I sure hope Ed Meese sews.”)

And RN’s first-time-first-term Gridiron appearance on 14 March 1969 was the stuff of legends.

The evening, predictably,  had been rife with jokes about the “Southern Strategy” that had been so much discussed and analyzed during the recent campaign.  Instead of delivering the expected remarks from the podium, RN achieved the coup of complete surprise when the curtains parted revealing him and Vice President Agnew seated at two grand pianos.

After a couple of back-and-forth Southern Strategy jokes, RN said that he would play some of the favorite songs of his recent predecessors.  He started off with FDR’s “Home on the Range,” but Agnew broke in with a raucous rendition of  ”Dixie.”  Then Harry Truman’s “Missouri Waltz” — interrupted by “Dixie.”  Ditto LBJ’s “The Eyes of Texas.”  

With the audience already cheering and laughing, RN said, “Hold it!  Hold it!   Now we’ll play my favorite.”  

He launched into “God Bless America.”  Agnew joined in.  The audience was on its feet shouting along with the accompaniment.  

At last night’s Gridiron Dinner, the show’s opening number was “There Is Nothing Like A Change,” set to the tune of South Pacific’s “There Is Nothing Like A Dame.”  The kicker: “What ain’t we got?  We ain’t got jobs!”

Vice President Biden was serenaded to the tune of “Some Enchanted Evening”: ”Some implants and weaving/Biden’s hair this evening/Hair we can believe in!/Hope of the Baby Boom.”

“Vice President Cheney” sang to the tune of “My Way”: “As number two to forty three/ I moved about in such a sly way/ But George, he was the key/ He did it my way.”

Nancy Pelosi’s was the evening’s “Imperial Girl.”

The White House released Mr. Biden’s prepared text.  Like  most such efforts, it contains a few zingers, a few groaners, and a lot of filler.

Axelrod really wanted me to do this on teleprompter — but I told him I’m much better when I wing it. … I know these evenings run long, so I’m going to be brief. Talk about the audacity of hope. … President Obama does send his greetings, though. He can’t be here tonight — because he’s busy getting ready for Easter. (Whisper) He thinks it’s about him. …

I know that no president has missed his first Gridiron since Grover Cleveland. Of course, President Cleveland really did have better things to do on a Saturday night. When he was in the White House — he was married to a 21 year old woman. … I understand these are dark days for the newspaper business, but I hate it when people say that newspapers are obsolete. That’s totally untrue. I know from firsthand experience. I recently got a puppy, and you can’t housebreak a puppy on the Internet.

Now let’s see: we have a Republican speaker who was born in Austria, and tonight’s Democratic speaker was born in Canada. Folks, this is Lou Dobbs’ worst nightmare. … We are now two months into the Obama-Biden administration and the President and I have become extremely close. To give you an idea of how close we are, he told me that next year — maybe, just maybe — he’s going to give me his blackberry email address. … But the Obama Administration really is a good team. I am the experienced veteran. Rahm can be an enforcer. And Tim Geithner is always there when you need to borrow money. And no questions asked.

You know, I never realized just how much power Dick Cheney had until my first day on the job. I walked into my office, and you know how the outgoing president always leaves the incoming president a note in his desk? I opened my drawer and Dick Cheney had left me Barack Obama’s birth certificate. … I now realize that we have to be extra careful when we annunciate new policy ideas to make sure they don’t look like they’re personally motivated. For example, the other day there were a whole bunch of stories about the President’s hair going gray; the next day there’s a story about a Vice President who’s trying to grow new hair, and then the day after that, the two of us come out in favor of stem cell research. That looked bad.

I’d like to address some of the things I said: Like when I said that ‘JOBS’ is a three-letter word. I did say that. But I didn’t mean it literally. It’s like how, right now, most people think AIG is a four-letter word. … Or when I announced our stimulus package website, I was asked how you get to it: All I said was I didn’t know the website number. What I really meant to say was, ‘Ted Stevens didn’t tell me what tube the website is in.”

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

March 22, 2009 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, around the time Richard Nixon became President in 1969.

SHEILA (TOMMY ROE) and DIZZY (TOMMY ROE + FREDDY WELLER) performed by TOMMY ROE

(Tommy Roe’s two Number One hits were  1962’s “Sheila” and 1969’s “Dizzy.”)

Forty years ago this week, the Number One single on the Billboard Hot 100 was (as it would be for the next month) an infectious bubblegum-based song called “Dizzy.”   

The performer was Tommy Roe, whose other Number One hit had been several years earlier (with a song he had written several years before that when he was fourteen) — “Sheila.”

(Cover art for the ABC-Paramount single of “Sheila” with the B-side “Save Your Kisses.”  This re-recording produced by Fenton Jarvis shot to Number One.)

Roe had adopted the throbbing drumbeat of his hero Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue,” but his “Sheila” was able to stand on her own two feet as one of the best and most influential pop songs of the early 1960s.  (Including a lyric whose concision and elegance of expression makes it one of my favorites of all early rock: “Man, this little girl is fine.”)

In 1960, the eighteen-year-old native Atlantan Roe first recorded “Sheila” —with his backup group the Satins— for the local label Judd Records.  This barebones version, in its Holly hommage stripped down style, survives and allows an interesting before-and-after comparison of the role that great production can play in the success of a song.  (The misspelled title on the Judd 45 —”Shelia” instead of “Sheila”— makes this an Inverted Jenny of early rock recordings.)

In 1962, Roe signed with the powerhouse ABC-Paramount label and went into the studio with a young producer named Felton Jarvis.  Jarvis went on to produce Gladys Knight’s first hit (“Every Beat Of My Heart”) and  to work with other fledgling artists including Willie Nelson, Floyd Cramer, Jimmy Dean, and Skeeter Davis.  He had been inspired to learn how to play guitar after seeing Elvis Presley in 1955; in 1966 he became Elvis’ producer.  

“Sheila” was rerecorded with Felton Jarvis’ arrangement, and the result was a worldwide hit then and a rock classic now.

Sweet little Sheila, you’ll know her if you see her
Blue eyes and a ponytail
Her cheeks are rosy, she looks a little nosey
Man, this little girl is fine

Never knew a girl like-a little Sheila
Her name drives me insane
Sweet little girl, that’s my little Sheila
Man, this little girl is fine

Me and Sheila go for a ride
Oh-oh-oh-oh, I feel all funny inside
Then little Sheila whispers in my ear
Oh-oh-oh-oh, I love you Sheila dear

Sheila said she loved me, she said she’d never leave me
True love will never die
We’re so doggone happy just bein’ around together
Man, this little girl is fine

Never knew a girl like-a little Sheila
Her name drives me insane
Sweet little girl, that’s my little Sheila
Man, this little girl is fine

There’s an early bootleg recording of the Beatles performing “Sheila” on New Year’s Eve 1962 at the Star-Club in Hamburg.

Roe chugged along throughout the ’60s.  He managed to hit the Hot 100 —and even to break the Top 10— several times.  In fact, he ended up with more Top Ten hits than any other singer-songwriter of the decade.   But it wasn’t until 1969 that he returned to  the top spot.

This time the song —”Dizzy”— was co-written with Freddy Weller, the guitarist for the Boise-based band Paul Revere and the Raiders.   And for the young uns, with all their iPods and MP3s, this video provides an insight into how the cutting edge rock and roll was delivered back in the day (although the space age parallel-arm turntable was only available to space aliens or terrestrials who could afford to buy Bang and Olufsen).

Dizzy, Im so dizzy my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool it never ends
And it’s you girl making it spin
You’re making me dizzy
First time that I saw you girl, I knew that I just had to make you mine
But it’s so hard to talk to you with fellows hanging round you all the time
I want You for my sweet pet, but you keep playing hard to get
Im going round in circles all the time

I finally got to talk to you and I told you just exactly how I felt
Then I held you close to me and kissed you and my heart began to melt
Girl you’ve got control on me, cause Im so dizzy I can’t see
I need to call a doctor for some help

 

(Cover art for Freddy Weller’s 1969 solo debut: Games People Play.)

Freddy Weller launched his own solo recording career in 1969.  His first album —Games People Play— reached Number Eight on the country charts, and his cover of the title song was a mainstay of country radio.  At the same time, the song’s composer —Joe South— released an identically titled album that reached Number Twelve on the pop charts.  South’s version of his song won the 1969 Grammy for Best Song of the Year.  (He won a second Best Song Grammy two years later, for Lynn Anderson’s “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden.”)

(Joe South’s Capitol album Games People Play reached Number Two on the pop charts.  His title song won the Grammy as the Best Song of 1969.)

The phrase —”Games People Play”— was already familiar as the title of a best-seller by psychiatrist Eric Berne.  This short self-help book explained in non-technical terms the form of therapy  —”transactional analysis“ — that he had developed.  Published in 1964, the book stayed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for the next two years.   (Some of the games Berne identified were: “If It Weren’t For You,” “Why Does This Always Happen To Me?,” “See What You Made Me Do?,” “I’m Only Trying To Help You,” and “Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of A Bitch.”)

Here’s the South original:

Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean

And they wile away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they’re covered up with flowers
In the back of a black limousine

La-da da da da da da da
La-da da da da da de
Talking about you and me
And the games people play

Oh we make one another cry
Break a heart then we say goodbye
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame

Neither one will give in
So we gaze at our eight by ten
Thinking about the things that might have been
It’s a dirty rotten shame

People walking up to you
Singing glory hallelujah
And they’re tryin to sock it to you
In the name of the Lord

They’re gonna teach you how to meditate
Read your horoscope, cheat your faith
And further more to hell with hate
Come on and get on board

Look around tell me what you see
What’s happening to you and me
God grant me the serenity
To remember who I am

Cause you’ve given up your sanity
For your pride and your vanity
Turns you sad on humanity
And you don’t give a da da da da da

Tommy Roe’s website includes a biography and a discography.  As do Freddy Weller’s and Joe South’s.

Featured Articles — March 22, 2009

March 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

AIG and Our Embarrassing Congress By Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
Congress is outraged. Really, really outraged. Unbelievably, incredibly outraged. And there are certainly grounds for anger. Not at the insurance company AIG, which paid bonuses that are seen as intolerable, but at Congress, which blithely declined to prohibit them but is now shocked to find AIG doing what it was allowed to do.

Hamas’s free lunch By Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post
Today Hamas stands on the cusp of international acceptance. It may take a week or a month or a year, but today Hamas stands where Fatah and the PLO stood in the late 1980s. The genocidal jihadist terror group is but a step away from an invitation to the Oval Office. Two events in the past week show this to be the case.

The Trouble With Subsidies By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
I’m certainly not going to defend those AIG bonuses. But the trouble with populist outrage is that it bubbles over, sweeping from one justifiable issue across to many others. Waves of populism are now working their way through the American government on several fronts.

The Folly of the ‘Hundred Days’ By David Greenberg, The Wall Street Journal
So great were the hopes for the launch of John F. Kennedy’s presidency that even before his inauguration, the president-elect was griping about the pressure he felt to work magic. “I’m sick and tired of reading how we’re planning another ‘hundred days’ of miracles,” Kennedy complained to his chief aide, Ted Sorensen, as they composed the inaugural address. “Let’s put in that this won’t all be finished in a hundred days or a thousand.”

Geithner can still pay off for Obama By Doyle McManus, The Los Angeles Times
Is Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner becoming a toxic asset for the Obama administration? It’s a question people in Washington are starting to ask.

Kidnapped by the Cartels By George F. Will, Washington Post
Police Chief Jack Harris, a solid block of a man with a shock of thick gray hair, is stolid and patient, but there are limits. Clearly he is weary of explaining that this is one of America’s safest large cities, with declining rates of violent crime and property crime, even though it has one of the nation’s highest rates of home foreclosures. Unfortunately, there are the kidnappings.

We are about to take the war against terror to a new level By Gordon Brown, Guardian UK
Two weeks ago, the world woke to the grim reminder that fringe terrorists in Northern Ireland still put fanaticism before innocent lives. These brutal acts, so devastating in their impact on the families of those murdered, have led the people and politicians of Northern Ireland to stand as one against any return of the terrorist threat.

The Center Cannot Hold By Edward Hugh, Foreign Policy
As Leo Tolstoy might put it, all of Europe’s economies are feeling pretty unhappy right now, but each is unhappy in its own unique way. Nowhere have the effects of the crisis been felt more acutely than in the “peripheral” countries on Europe’s southern, northwestern and eastern edges

I Also Dig Nixon Analogies

March 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

My colleague John Taylor notes below President Obama’s conciliatory tone and possible attempt at wedging Iran from its revolutionary roots akin to President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.

But are Obama’s media rounds and appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show following the pattern of another ‘watershed moment’ in political exercise? In a 2004 article in The New Yorker, NBC producer George Schlatter describes Richard Nixon’s ‘68 appearance on Laugh-In as a factor in the race against Hubert Humphrey:

“While his advisers were telling him not to do it, Paul was telling him how much it would mean to his career,” Schlatter recalled. “And we went in, and he said, ‘Sock it to me.’ It took about six takes, because it sounded angry: ‘Sock-it-to-me!’ After that, we grabbed the tape and escaped before his advisers got to him.

“Then, realizing what we had done—because he did come out looking like a nice guy—we pursued Humphrey all over the country, trying to get him to say, ‘I’ll sock it to you, Dick!’ ” Schlatter went on. “And Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election. We didn’t realize how effective it was going to be. But there were other factors in the election, too—I can’t take all the blame.”

Nixon on “Laugh-In” is often cited as a watershed moment in the history of television—the unthinking man’s version of Nixon in China. What had once seemed antithetical—parody and power—had proved not to be. Was the joke on Nixon or on his hosts? Who could say? But, if the episode announced the new order, many people, including Nixon himself, seemed not to have noticed.

If Hubert Humphrey believed he could get away with what RN could do, aside from a lapse in taste, what exactly immunizes the likes of Michael Steele from overexposure?

Bowling For Atonement

March 21, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, Entertainment, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

The one truly embarrassing moment in President Obama’s sit-down with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show came when Jay asked the Chief Executive if he had followed through on his promise, often articulated on the campaign trail, to replace the bowling lane installed at President Nixon’s request in 1969 with a basketball court. (The comedian was apparently unaware that Obama had announced back in December, after a chorus of dissent from the nation’s bowlers, that he’d decided to keep the lane.)

Obama replied that he’d been practicing his bowling but was still scoring so low that his game was “like the Special Olympics or something.” This lapse in taste quickly resulted in the President apologizing to Tim Shriver, the head of the Special Olympics. And, yesterday, at least one Special Olympian offered to take Obama on at the White House lane, and though the President has counterproposed a basketball game, it appears a sure thing that bowling will be staying in the Executive Mansion.

Last December, the Washington Post’s Marc Fisher half-whimsically suggested that RN’s lane be changed to accomodate duckpin bowling, the century-old variation on the game which originated in either Baltimore or Lowell, Massachusetts, and which is played mainly in areas fifty or sixty miles east or west of I-95 in Maryland and here and there in New England, as well as some parts of southern Quebec. Duckpin uses a much smaller ball than regular bowling, cupped in the hand rather than held, and it could be that the President would find it easier to excel in this sport than in standard bowling.

We Naturally Dig “Nixon In China” Analogies…

March 21, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under China, Iran, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

…but while the Chinese evidently didn’t meant it when they said, “Death to America,” what if Iran does?

Reaganites Discover Nixon’s Virtues

March 21, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Presidents, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

Kim Holmes at the Heritage Foundation:

Once upon a time, American liberals loved to hate foreign-policy realists. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger – the uber-realists of their day – were the betes noires of the left. In the liberal view, stability and Realpolitik were the source of everything wrong with U.S. foreign policy.

No more. In an ideological shift that should make Mr. Nixon turn over in his grave, liberal internationalism is making peace with its erstwhile intellectual enemy, the tradition of realism in U.S. foreign policy. Liberals and realists are joining hands to forge a new vision of American leadership that President Obama may be tempted to embrace.

Why would Holmes think RN would be upset by this development? After all, it was he who went to China, dramatically improved relations with the Soviet Union, ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and balanced our unstinting support for Israel with a new acceptance of the legitimate interests of its neighbors. If RN were rolling over in his grave because President Obama is being tempted to make friendly gestures toward our current antagonists such as Iran, it would presumably be because Holmes and the Heritage Foundation feel that tough old 37 would think 44 was too soft. That’s ironic, since at the time, the Goldwater/Reaganites who would soon found Heritage — as well as their own tactical partners, the nascent neocons — all feared that it was the vigilantly anti-communist Nixon who had gone soft. Pentagon hawks were so worried that they were actually spying on him.

Holmes sees a coalition forming between liberals (who would’ve been interventionists in the Kennedy era but now think America’s world-changing days are behind her) and Brent Scowcroft-style realists intent on making sure the U.S. doesn’t overextend itself on moralistic or otherwise misguided adventures such as Iraq.

Holmes is hopeful that Obama will find a Nixonian middle way:

He seems to sense a need to impose some limits on the inherent pessimism of the new liberal-realist fusion. A vision of America riding off into the sunset of geopolitical decline does not square with his message of hope and change. Americans may not want the U.S. to be the world’s policeman, but they also still believe their country has a transformative role to play in the world.

Of course that was precisely Richard Nixon’s view and legacy. It is good that the heirs of his often mistrustful conservative friends have come to appreciate it.

Featured Articles — March 21, 2009

March 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Dodd’s actions speak louder than his words By Aaron Kennon, Connecticut Times
Washington D.C. has failed us on many levels over the last many decades. We have allowed our elected officials to serve as politicians instead of principled leaders. Far from being “statesmen,” they embarrass themselves and mock our democracy by spending time raising money across the nation, instead of indicating interest in their job, which is to govern, not constantly run for office. Why does this happen? Most of them have such a strong desire to win re-election that they will corrupt the system and abort their duties as stewards to see to it that this happens.

‘We Have a Lot of Work to Do’ By Ted Balaker, Reason Magazine
John Stossel is the best-known libertarian in the news media. As the co-anchor of the long-running and immensely popular ABC News program 20/20, auteur of a continuing series of specials on topics ranging from corporate welfare to educational waste to laws criminalizing consensual adult behavior, and author of best-selling books such as Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, Stossel brings a consistent message of liberty to millions of viewers on a weekly basis.

New Deficit Forecast Casts Shadow on Obama Agenda By Jackie Calmes, The New York Times
The Congressional Budget Office placed a new hurdle in front of President Obama’s agenda on Friday, calculating that the White House’s tax and spending plans would create deficits totaling $2.3 trillion more than the president’s budget projected for the next decade.

Why South Carolina Doesn’t Want ‘Stimulus’ By Mark Sandford, The Wall Street Journal
America’s states are laboratories of democracy. They are both affected by, and relevant to, the larger national debate. What we’ve found in our own corner of the country is that carrying a substantial debt load limits our options when it comes to running government.

The Russia Opportunity By Bill Bradley, Foreign Policy
Barack Obama has an opportunity to establish a new relationship with Russia that will make the world a safer place. With ties between the two countries being the most strained they’ve been in decades, the U.S. president seems to recognize there must be changes in his country’s approach to Russia.

The Revenge of Karl Marx By Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic
The late Huw Wheldon of the BBC once described to me a series, made in the early days of radio, about celebrated exiles who had lived in London. At one stage, this had involved tracking down an ancient retiree who had toiled in the British Museum’s reading room during the Victorian epoch.

The West Stares into the Abyss By Ullrich Fichtner, Der Spiegel
Afghanistan is on the brink of chaos: That is the stark message from local leaders, the US military and development workers in the troubled country. The elected government, they warn, can no longer compete with the Taliban.

Happy New Year, Mullahs By William Kristol, The Weekly Standard
“Liberty” isn’t a word you’ll find in President Obama’s Iranian New Year message to “the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Nor is “freedom.” Nor “democracy.” Nor “human rights.”

Iran’s Axis of Nuclear Evil By John Bolton, The Wall Street Journal
While President Obama’s unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn’t really this week’s big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector — Iran’s former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari — disclosed Tehran’s financing of Syria’s nuclear weapons program. That program’s centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

March 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

RN’s Hundred Days

March 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

David Greenberg, author of Nixon’s Shadow and history professor at Rutgers, has an essay up at the Wall Street Journal’s site comparing the expectations generated by President Obama’s first hundred days (or the first 60 or so that have gone by so far) and what’s been accomplished to the way previous Presidents have handled the initial 3 1/3 months of their terms.

The article is titled “The Folly of the ‘Hundred Days’” and subtitled: The term has been an unreliable indicator for presidential success; Nixon’s public-relations strategy. But the only real reference to RN comes in one paragraph deep in the piece:

[Nixon] had a bunch of his advisers form a “Hundred Days Group” to figure out how to sell the idea that his administration was a hive of activity, while trying, as he said, to get him “off the hook on quantity of legislation being the first measure of success.”

For a really careful and considered examination of RN’s approach to his Hundred Days, the reader is referred to Nixon speechwriter Lee Huebner’s essay “Richard Nixon’s First Hundred Days.”

Annals Of The Obama Administration

March 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration, Humor | Leave a Comment 

As has been noted here before, some British newspapers have a peculiar penchant for lists — some of them peculiar, some of them diverting, some of them exhausting.

And all of them, of course, completely tendentious and made up by ink-stained wretches in order to meet a deadline.

Here’s one from today’s Telegraph: “Top 10 gaffes by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”

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