Camelot And Sacred Cow–Tipping

May 7, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Entertainment, History, Media, Presidents, Richard Nixon, TV, U.S. History, UK Politics | 2 Comments 

Whatever his obvious faults and flaws, it is somewhat understandable that Richard Nixon would ruminate about how Jack Kennedy got away with a lot during his assassination-shortened presidency. And there is no doubt that the 37th President of the United States saw all of the “Camelot” hype as mythology born of cynical public relations. While Nixon was being criticized for conducting a purported “Imperial” presidency by the likes of Arthur Schlessinger (a pro-Kennedy historian), he no-doubt resented the cult of personality that survived his old rival’s violent death.

RN would be 97 today—JFK would be 93 in a couple of weeks. It’s hard to envision the forever-young Kennedy as an old man, though we saw Nixon live into his 80s. They were friends at first, with Nixon the early-on transcendent figure. Then came the rivalry marked by increased and enduring bitterness. But it was always more complicated than that.

Americans too young to remember either man have been taught the party line that Kennedy was a great man and Nixon was a bad man. JFK was the hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis—Nixon was the villain of Watergate. JFK had charisma; Nixon had no charm—and so it goes.

The truth is actually quite different.

The History Channel is moving forward with production of an eight-part mini-series scheduled to air next year called, The Kennedys. Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine) will play JFK and Katie Holmes will play Jacqueline. The producer is a man named Joel Surnow, who is the creator of the highly successful and soon to expire series, 24.

Surnow is also reputed to have politically conservative tendencies (Gasp! Horrors!). Reportedly, the upcoming dramatic portrayal of the years of the New Frontier will include material about some of Kennedy’s flaws—and the guardians of his image are mobilized to “stop the smears.”

I say it’s about time that popular culture is exposed to the truth about the man behind the Camelot myth—before fact is fossilized.

The John F. Kennedy who will be portrayed in the new series will, reportedly, be a real life character—warts and all. And some of those warts had the potential to morph into cancer. In fact, there is a credible case to be made that had Kennedy lived beyond that fateful fall day in 1963, and managed to be reelected in 1964, he may not have survived a second term, legally and politically. That’s right. As Hugh Sidey suggested before his death in 2005—the same Hugh Sidey, who as an editor at Time Magazine during the Kennedy years, was also a Camelot insider—JFK’s various and sundry moral, ethical, and judgmental, pecadillos might very well have led to his actual impeachment.

Was the Kennedy administration a Watergate waiting to happen?

Possibly this new mini-series will popularize information that has long lain dormant in histories that are hardly read anymore. All the pieces of the puzzle are long established matters in the public domain—hiding in plain sight, but obscured by the powerful rays of cultish brilliance. But finally, those pieces are being assembled in a way that may accurately characterize a man who was likely guilty of actions much worse than what brought Mr. Nixon down in 1974.

From the improper use of the FBI in matters of surveillance and investigation in matters not at all related to national security, to misuse of the Secret Service, to his affair with a mistress of a major crime boss with its attendant compromises, Mr. Kennedy played by his own rules against the backdrop of the last gasp of an age of media mercy. He lived on the edge, from his monumental sexual addiction, to his experimentation with illicit drugs, to his dependence on substances that, while not illegal, seemed grayish—John F. Kennedy’s time was running out. People were always covering for him (some of the same ones still are). But was it only a matter of time before someone broke rank?

If Watergate taught us anything, it was that it is hard to keep a lid on a big story—even in the White House.

The story of Jack’s faults is, though, more than the tale of a bad boy—he may very well have compromised national security. Mr. Kennedy’s fascination in 1963 with an unfolding scandal in Great Britain likely had to do with the fact that he was beginning to worry about his own bailiwick. British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s government was then being rocked by a sex scandal involving one John Profumo, the Minister for War, and a notorious woman named Christine Keeler who had at least two boyfriends: Profumo and a Soviet naval attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov. And there were other women.

Why would this discomfit JFK? Well, because he had been flying rather close to the same kind of flame at the time. In fact, among the “other women” involved in the British scandal were two trollops, Suzy Chang and Maria Novotny. Both had been involved “romantically” with Kennedy. So it was quite possible that the scandal that eventually led to MacMillan’s government being voted out in 1964 might have by that time tarnished the name of the President of the United States.

Interestingly, while John F. Kennedy visited the United Kingdom and broke bread with MacMillan one Saturday in the summer of 1963, a story was beginning to break stateside. It appeared briefly in the New York Journal-American (Hearst paper) and spoke cryptically of “a man who holds ‘very high’ elective office” who was involved with some of the women being mentioned in the Profumo matter.

The story was pulled after one edition following pressure from U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

But beyond this, there was actually another “bimbo” problem plaguing JFK, and this one had to do with a German girl by the name of Ellen Rometsch. Said to strongly favor actress Elizabeth Taylor, she was a 27-year old prostitute who regularly “serviced” Mr. Kennedy in 1963.

Rometsch was from East Germany and had been a member of the Communist Party and many thought she was, in fact, a spy. She was paid by JFK for sex and participated in what could only be described as orgies in the White House pool. The party girl visited Kennedy at least ten times that spring and summer. When confronted by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, about the fact that Rometsch was likely a spy, Bobby Kennedy worked feverishly to have her deported—and she was soon en route to her homeland behind the Iron Curtain.

The story went away, but not all that far away. Less than a month before Kennedy’s fateful trip to Dallas, one Iowa newspaper broke a story: “U.S. Expels Girl Linked to Officials.” In the article was the tidbit that this woman had been involved with “some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of the government.” But those were the days before White House reporters went for the jugular asking tough questions.

Why is any of this important now? It matters simply because there tends to be a measure of selective amnesia when it comes to iconic figures. If a myth better serves current political purposes this trumps truth.

Had John F. Kennedy lived and had his shortcomings been investigated and written about with Woodward-Bernstein-like passion, he may not have been reelected in 1964. And if he did manage to win that race, and investigators did their jobs, JFK might very well have been impeached or brought to the place of resignation.

Then again, that may be fantasy, because it was unlikely that Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post in those days, and inbred Kennedy crony, would have allowed any such story to go forward. At any rate, it all went away that sad November day and we are left with a legend that does history, not to mention the American people, a disservice.

Stephen Kronish is the screenwriter for upcoming mini-series, The Kennedys, and he insists that they are “not out to destroy the sacred cow.” But as Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency, recently wrote:

In an age when Americans periodically swoon for imperial presidents, a little sacred cow-tipping would be a public service.

PJB – C-SPAN – 5.2.10 – NOON EST

May 1, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Ideas, Media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Politics, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Pat Buchanan will be the guest tomorrow on C-SPAN’s monthly three hour interview and call in show In Depth.

Back in the day: PJB in his EOB office.  RN recruited the youngster —his first hire for his new presidential campaign— in 1967 from the editorial page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.  He served on the White House staff until 1975.

Air America: A Memory

January 21, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Media | 2 Comments 

The last 48 hours have been rough ones for Democrats and liberals, starting with Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts and concluding, this afternoon, with the news that the left-leaning radio network Air America had gone into Chapter 7 bankruptcy and would air its final broadcasts on Monday. At Gawker.com, some who posted about AA’s passing mourned it, while others were less sorrowful:

My wife often woke me up accidentally in the middle of the night with Air America — back when showing seated in-studio on-air blab shots of talk-radio hosts was the “in” thing on wee-hours cable — in an effort to get back to sleep. I always got hit in the face with Al Franken, and always at three o’clock in the [expletive deleted] morning. Sometimes I fell back asleep before Don Imus came on. Sometimes there was trouble.

Huh, no big loss.

The Case For Catastrophic Agnosticism

January 15, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Ethics, Faith, Lifestyle, Media, Religion | 14 Comments 

Here we go again. While the world watches unspeakable horror unfolding in the wake of the beyond-words tragedy in Haiti, and as millions of people sift through the rumble searching for their loved ones and lives, the predictable idiocy of self-anointed neo-prophets is ever present to tell us exactly why God “did” this. As a minister of the gospel (now in my 33rd year) I am deeply offended each and every time some big giant talking theological T.V. head weighs in and speaks for God as some kind of insider heavenly hedge fund trader.

Of course, you know what I am talking about, right? The other night, Televangelist Pat Robertson waxed un-eloquent about the earthquake in Haiti.

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal—ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.

So, there we have it. From the mountain. True story (Pat said so). Take it to the bank. Because the Haitians wanted to get out from under “You know, Napoleon III, or whatever,” God sent a great earthquake to kill tens of thousands.

I have a suggestion for Mr. Robertson and others who seem to just wait for opportunities to step up to insert feet in mouth during moments of inexplicable tragedy. Stop and pray—pray a sort-of Serenity Prayer, one that says:

God, grant me the humility to not try to explain what I don’t know; the courage to bear witness to what I do know; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Personally, in such moments as these, I find myself saying, “I don’t know—I simply don’t know,” when asked by a congregant or man on the street about why things like the earthquake in Haiti happen. Sometimes that answer is met by a look that seems to say, “But I thought you were an expert on God?”

No one is an expert on God. That’s what makes him God and me, not.

It is, of course, understandable to want to know why bad things happen to people, but to try to apply anything other than general observations to specific troubles is an exercise in the worst kind of subjectivity. And when a member of the clergy speaks, doing so with the air of authority, it is a grievous sin to give absurd information. While it is never a good idea for the trumpet to give an uncertain sound, it can be just as bad to blare forth with a certainty unwarranted by facts, wisdom, or revelation.

The word “agnostic” literally means, “I don’t know,” and sometimes that’s the best we can do.

But sadly, too many people—especially some who should know better—decide to play the part of Job’s wacky “friends,” explaining it all, the whys and wherefores of trial and triumph. Having suggested a prayer for Pat Robertson, et al, I now have a text. It comes from that very Book of Job, near the end, when reality is starting to make sense to the suffering man.

Job answered: “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should never have opened my mouth! I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”
 Job 40:3-5 (“The Message”)

Some might wonder about the fact that there were cases back in Bible times, where calamity would come to a city or region as a clear indicator of God’s displeasure. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, and even determined captivity in Babylon for the children of Israel. But what must be noticed is that these things never happened without ample warning—complete with undeniable specificity—and merciful opportunity to repent (change their ways).

In fact, in the case of Nineveh, he sent Jonah, a Jewish prophet, with the judgment message, one that included a timeline—in 40 days the city would perish. Jonah was a complicated man, who initially ran from the job. And no one was more surprised than he was when the city bathed itself in warning-driven waters of remission prompting the Lord to stay the city’s execution.

Of course, Jonah wasn’t a happy camper. He wanted the city to burn. The scenario that unfolded before his eyes—one of a faith-driven cultural renewal—didn’t please him at all. And when I hear those who profess faith purporting to explain why God “did it” when bad things happen, I also pick up a hint of Jonah: “They deserve what they got.”

But, some might counter, didn’t Jeremiah preach a message of judgment? Yes. And he wept all the while. There is a vast difference between weeping and the saying of “Amen!” (Which means “so be it” or “I agree” or, in some cases it seems, “see, I told you so!”). There is not a dime’s worth of difference between what Pat Robertson recently said and the ravings of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Both preachers presumed to pronounce judgment; only the reasons and regions were different.

And both preachers crossed the line between fair and foul, wisdom and folly, truth and conjecture, and authentic witness and abusive demagoguery.

I have no direct line from God as to why bad things happen, nor does any other preacher today—liberal or conservative. When tragedy comes I don’t ask “why?” —I ask “what for?” And I try to help people through pain. And out of it. The Good Samaritan didn’t launch into a theological or philosophical journey to figure out how such a bad thing could happen to the man on the road, he simply poured in the oil and the wine.

That’s what all people of faith should be doing right now. We don’t know why it happened, but we know what we should do—find a way to help.

No Laughing Matter

November 15, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Culture, Entertainment, Media, Popular Culture, TV | Leave a Comment 

“A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

The philosophy of Chuckles  the Clown.

Comedy writer David Lloyd died last week at his home in Beverly Hills; he was 75.  A fitting epitaph was provided by Cheers co-creator Les Charles (for whom Lloyd wrote many episodes):  ”I do think he was the preeminent writer of television comedy.  If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he’s got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world.”

Many of those laughs were concentrated in the seventh episode of the sixth season of the Mary Tyler Moore Show: “Chuckles Bites the Dust.”  In this script, the rarely seen Chuckles —host of a kid’s show at WJM, the Minneapolis TV station at which the series was set— meets a sudden and tragic end.

As Grand Marshal of the annual circus parade, he dresses as one of his many beloved characters Peter Peanut.  Station manager Lou Grant (Ed Asner) informs the shocked newsroom that, in this goober incarnation, Chuckles was shelled by a rogue elephant.

Here, from the show’s script, is that memorable moment:

               Lou enters, genuinely stricken.

                                     LOU
                              (Mutters)
                         Oh my! Oh, dear...!

                                     MARY
                         Mr. Grant...?

                                     LOU
                              (Really shaken)
                         Something terrible has happened.

                                     MURRAY
                              (Sober)
                         What is it, Lou?

                                     LOU
                         Someone we all know is dead.

                                     MARY
                         What! Mr. Grant--who?

                                     LOU
                              (Getting control)
                         No... I won't tell you about it now...
                         I don't want to upset you...

                                     MARY
                              (Frantic)
                         Mr. Grant!!...

                                     LOU
                         Where's Ted? I gotta tell Ted...

                                     MURRAY
                         He's on the air, Lou. What happened?
                         Who died? Tell us!

                                     LOU
                              (Still dazed)
                         Chuckles. Chuckles the Clown is dead.
                         It was a freak accident. He went to
                         the parade dressed as Peter Peanut...
                         and a rogue elephant tried to shell
                         him.

               They are both stunned.

For many years “Chuckles Bites the Dust” stood at the top of TV Guide’s list of the Top 100 Episodes of All Time.  (It has now been edged down to Number Three by Seinfeld’s 1992 “The Contest” and The Sopranos’ 1999 “College” episodes.)

Here’s TV Guide’s citation:

3. THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW
“Chuckles Bites the Dust” 10/25/1975
Take one unlucky peanut-clad clown, a rogue elephant, an irreverent newsroom, an Emmy-winning script and a virtuoso performance by one of TV’s greatest comedians, and you get one of the biggest laugh-out-loud sitcom episodes ever. When kiddie-show host Chuckles the Clown has his tragic culinary misadventure, it’s catnip to the WJM-TV crew—except for a disapproving Mary Richards. The comic payoff comes with Mary’s unsuccessful attempts to stifle her snickers during a eulogy celebrating Chuckles’ alter egos Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo and Auntie Yoo-Hoo. The pièce de genius: When the minister gives Mary permission to laugh, she begins to bawl. Amazingly, not everyone was on board, recalls star Mary Tyler Moore. The series’ usual director opted out of the episode “because he thought it was not in good taste,” says Moore. CBS also had misgivings about the show’s tone, she says, “but we knew it was something special. It’s not just about laughing at the funeral, but also the tensions and talking about it in the newsroom. It really is a uniquely funny episode.”

Here are links to the first, and second parts of “Chuckles Bites the Dust.”  And here is the final segment (which is even funnier if you watch the set up).   The audio is slightly out of sync but the laughs still arrive on time.

       Organ music stops and Reverend Burke steps to the lectern.

                                     BURKE
                         My friends... "Any man's death
                         diminishes me, because I am involved
                         in mankind. Therefore, ask not for
                         whom the bell tolls--it tolls for
                         thee."

                                     TED
                              (Sotto: scandalized)
                         Hey, Lou, he stole your poem!

                                     BURKE
                         Chuckles the Clown gave pleasure to
                         millions. The characters he created
                         will be remembered by children and
                         adults alike: Peter Peanut, Mr. Fee-
                         Fi-Fo, Billy Banana, and my particular
                         favorite, Aunt Yoo-Hoo.

               Mary stifles a laugh.

                                     BURKE
                         And not just for the laughter they
                         provided--there was always some deeper
                         meaning to whatever Chuckles did.
                         Remember Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo's little catch
                         phrase, remember how when his arch
                         rival Senor Caboom would hit him
                         with the giant cucumber and knock
                         him down? Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo would always
                         pick himself up, dust himself off
                         and say, "I hurt my foo-foo."

               Mary again stifles a laugh. The others in the row glare at
               her.

                                     BURKE
                         Life's a lot like that. From time to
                         time we all fall down and hurt our
                         foo-foo's.

               Mary again stifles a laugh. Other people turn to look at
               her.

                                     BURKE
                         If only we could all deal with it as
                         simple and bravely and honestly as
                         Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo. And what did Chuckles
                         ask in return? Not much--in his own
                         words--"A little song, a little dance,
                         a little seltzer down your pants."

               Mary has great difficulty in stifling herself here. Many
               people turn to look at her.

                                     BURKE
                              (Looking right at
                              Mary)
                         Excuse me, young lady... yes you...
                         would you stand up please?

               Mary, with no alternative, stands up.

                                     BURKE
                         You feel like laughing, don't you?
                         Don't try to stop yourself. Go ahead,
                         laugh out loud. Don't you see? Nothing
                         could have made Chuckles happier. He
                         lived to make people laugh. He found
                         tears offensive, deeply offensive.
                         He hated to see people cry. Go ahead,
                         my dear--laugh.

               As Mary bursts into tears, we:

                                                                   FADE OUT

                                      END OF ACT TWO

Bruce Weber in The New York Times and Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times offered excellent obituaries. One of David Lloyd’s sons, Christopher, is co-creator of Modern Family —- the superb sitcom which, along with FlashForward, will save the 2009 season from the trash heap of TV history.

Subscribe To The New Nixon Podcast Via I-Tunes

November 2, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Media, The New Nixon | Leave a Comment 

You can now subscribe to The New Nixon Podcast via I-tunes, enabling you to listen to the current one and all future editions on your I-Pod or similar device. Here is a direct link – or you can go to I-Tunes and search in Podcasts for The New Nixon.

The New Nixon Podcast Is Up And Running

October 31, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Advertising, Foundation News, Interviews, Media, New Media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Center, Nixon Foundation, Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Podcast, Popular Culture, Richard Nixon, Social Networking, Technology, The National Interest, The New Nixon | Leave a Comment 

During a recent visit to the Nixon Library, I had a discussion with several people about the potential for a podcast, something designed to highlight the events at the library, as well as the larger work of the Nixon Foundation.

We determined to use the recent visit of Sonny West and his talk about the day Elvis came to see President Nixon in the Oval Office for the premier production of the podcast.

This podcast is being registered with I-Tunes and will be available through them by the end of today. This, of course, makes the podcast portable. It can be downloaded to I-Pods and other such devices. In the meantime, here is a link to the first episode of what we hope will be a regular feature.

A couple of provisos: First, the theme music is from “VICTORY AT SEA” at the recommendation of Sandy Quinn. He told me how much Mr. Nixon enjoyed it – so it was an obvious choice. Second, some of the audio during Sonny’s remarks is a little difficult to hear and I suspect he pulled a Fran Tarkenton and scrambled out of the pocket, straying from the microphone, at times. These technical difficulties will be addressed and corrected for future events and podcasts.

But even with a few “glitches” – this podcast will be, I think, a welcome edition to the wonderful media expressions of the Nixon Foundation.

It is my privilege to host and produce this and I look forward to working on new editions about once a month – so, stay tuned! My special thanks to Philip Bassham, on my staff in Fairfax, for his vital help with this project.

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.

Download on iTunes

Roger Ailes For President?

October 26, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2012, Media, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Over at the Nixon Center’s  The National Interest, Jacob Heilbrunn is echoing Frank Luntz’s recent nudge, urging Fox News President Roger Ailes to make a run for the Oval Office. Who better, Heilbrunn argues, than the guy who helped RN make his comeback in 1968:

Ronald Reagan did it. Arnold Schwarzenegger did it. Why not Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News?

The “it,” of course, is running for high political office. Both the Gipper and Arnold made the leap from the silver screen to the governorship of California and, in Reagan’s case, the presidency. Ailes, prodded by his buddy Frank Luntz, is rumored to be considered moving from the plasma screen to the White House. Ailes himself is denying it, which is usually the first sign that someone is seriously considering making a go of it. Hillary Clinton dismissed the idea recently as well. They’re all content. No reason to run for the presidency. Meanwhile, the exploratory committee gets set up on the side.

In Ailes’ case, there are compelling reasons to go for it. He’s already shaken up the Obama administration. President Obama and his janissaries have made no secret of their antipathy for Fox News. They don’t dislike it. They hate it. Charles Krauthammer noted the other day that the administration seems on its way to creating an enemies list that has Fox at the top.

Ailes’ genius has been to tap, not the silent majority, but the raucous minority, which is big enough to swell the ratings of Fox. These days almost any president seems to elicit deep animosity. Bill Clinton was regarded as a rogue imposter by his detractors. So was George W. Bush. Now Obama is regarded with a mixture of fear and loathing by many on the Right.

It was not always so. Initially, the Right was bewildered by Obama. His message of peace and brotherhood, coupled with his astute rhetorical skills, had it floundering. But I would date the beginning of the Obama backlash to the musings of Jerome Corsi’s book The Obama Nation. With its battalion of talk-show hosts, Fox essentially picked up on the Corsi message—illegitimate president, suspicious birth, socialist, radical steeped in the texts of Frantz Fanon, and so forth—and helped further mainstream it.

Which brings us to Ailes. Yes, Rupert Murdoch is the money behind Fox. But I would argue that no media figure has personally had a bigger impact on American politics in the past two decades than Ailes. Maybe even longer. It was Ailes who helped reinvent Richard Nixon after his disastrous run against Pat Brown in the 1962 race for California governor. Liberals dismissed Nixon as so much roadkill. They were wrong. Nixon made his comeback. Ailes also helped Reagan during his run for the presidency in 1980. But it is at Fox that Ailes has truly come into his own. He has become a central figure in liberal demonology, a kind of Dark Lord, an invincible Voldemort terrorizing the innocent.

At a minimum, Ailes is prepared for battle. According to today’s Los Angeles Times profile of Glenn Beck by Matea Gold, Ailes was unflinching when Beck told him he might be too much for him to swallow. Ailes would have none of it. The Times reports: “I see this as the Alamo,” Ailes said, according to Beck. “If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired, we’d be fine.”

How would Ailes himself fare as a candidate as opposed to impresario of the conservative movement? Whether Ailes has the willigness to undergo the grind of campaigning is a question-mark. He may decide that he’s already succeeded so well in helping to reshape the conservative movement that he has no desire to toss his hat into the presidential ring. But if he runs for the presidency, Obama might find that what ails him is Ailes.

What Would Marconi Tweet?

October 3, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Culture, Lifestyle, Media, Social Networking, Technology | Leave a Comment 

Next to Jack The Ripper, whose identity remains unknown to this day, the most infamous murderer in British history was a man by the name of Hawley Harvey Crippen. He was a self-styled doctor who practiced a version of homeopathic medicine. He was also married to a woman he grew to hate, eventually killing her and dismembering the body. The quack told friends and neighbors that she had gone to America and died.

Soon, however, suspicion grew that something was awry. Crippen fled across the Atlantic with a paramour, while Scotland Yard investigators examined his home. They found partial remains of the body and began searching for the traveling couple. This was in 1910, just as wireless radio communication was being popularized. In fact, the capture of Crippen was largely due to the use of Mr. Marconi’s technology. Ship after ship passed word along across the Ocean, like runners passing a baton in a relay race, to be on the lookout for the doctor and his companion.

The captain of the SS Montrose had been keeping his eye on a suspicious looking couple on board his vessel, and finally sent the message: “”Have strong suspicions that Crippen London cellar murderer and accomplice are among saloon passengers. Mustache taken off – growing beard. Accomplice dressed as boy. Manner and build undoubtedly a girl.”

Long story short, the law was waiting for Dr. Crippen and company when they arrived in Canada. This story is told famously in Erik Larson’s 2006 book, Thunderstruck. It was a world changing moment. A revolution in communications was underway.

Spark by spark, dot by dot, and dash by dash, the world was becoming smaller.

Recently, while in a hospital waiting room with family members of a wonderful lady who was about to undergo surgery for a serious health issue, I called the group together for prayer. A girl in her late 20s asked me to wait a moment as she fished through her purse.

I wondered why.

Then she held up her combination cell-phone, I-Pod, computer, and device of all trades – one of those hi-tech whachamacallits – and pushed a button. Then she said, “Alright, go ahead.” I prayed, but I was at least a little curious about that gadget. My first thought was that it was a camera. So I kept my eyes closed – you know, to look more spiritual in the picture. But I soon found out that the prayer had not been recorded as an image. Rather it was captured as an audio file via the device’s voice memo feature. Then this prayer was emailed to the patient awaiting surgery. It was my first experience with cyber-supplication. Hers too.

Just when many of us who have been around the proverbial block a few times have made our peace with so many changes in how we live our lives, now comes along a whole new genre of technology and practice to sweep the world and invade our homes, businesses, parishes and pews. And while some are still debating the merits of methods and technologies now already obsolete, we are faced with the challenges and opportunities presented by newer social media vehicles immensely popular right now – like Facebook and Twitter.

But can anything of real and lasting value come from technology that limits information to a mere 140 characters?

Certainly. We regularly see examples of how social media can play a constructive role in society. Last year when a hotel in Mumbai, India was attacked and held for a time by terrorists, the world first found out not via FOX NEWS, CNN, or any other mainstream media outlet. Instead, someone sent a Twitter message (called a “tweet”):

Mumbai is in chaos. 18 dead, 40 held hostage at Oberoi, a five star hotel, firing going on at a JW Marriott.

That message was 107 characters long, and it got the word out about the emerging and ongoing story several hours before any traditional news organization went on the air with it.

Earlier this year, as thousands of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran and elsewhere to protest a clearly corrupt election process, the preponderance of any news we were getting here in the west came via Twitter as courageous people sent messages all over the world.

I am a grandfather six times over. This, by definition means I am an old dog who has difficulty learning new tricks. It is a proven fact that the older we get the harder it is to acquire knowledge and skills on a conceptual level. If you doubt this, prepare to be humbled soon as some five year old gives you a tutorial on a video game.

How much of our resistance to any change is more about the fact that new things intimidate us instead of the well-articulated arguments we pontificate about? “Well, back in my day, we didn’t have sliced bread, or running water. We even had to grow our own oxygen.”

Scott Bettinger, is the President of Echo Media in the Detroit, Michigan area – his company specializes in helping organizations – even churches – tap into the power of technology. He suggests that, whether or not leaders use “social media, at the very least they need to understand it to better understand” their clients and customers.

The first thing we need to know about social media tools is that we must understand their limits – what they can and can’t do. They are designed for attention spans that are very short. And while the Biblical passage John 3:16 in the classic King James Version would fit in one “tweet” at 117 characters, fans of longer literary passages would find themselves increasingly frustrated. The Shakespearian concept that “brevity is the soul of wit” has a found a home in the 21st century.

My personal experience with social media tools started slowly; largely because of generational reluctance. But once I learned my way around, it opened many doors to help me get to know people in my congregation better – and for them to get to know me better. I find it especially rewarding to connect with young people this way. On a daily basis, I can keep up with them, a few sentences at a time. And it usually works out that I am able to have a real conversation the next time we meet in person. “Hey, how was the zoo?” or “Are you feeling better?” or “I read that article you linked to from your Facebook page, very interesting.”

Joe Sangl is a financial planner and author of the wonderful book, I Was Broke – Now I’m Not. He travels across the country conducting seminars. He is also a big fan of social media tools such as Twitter. In fact, he sent me a tweet directly on point as I was writing this article: “Social media amplified the individual voice and allowed us to follow our heroes and learn from them at a distance.”

Of course, as with anything, we must be careful about being preoccupied with anything. We should never worship at the altar of any tool or technology. Twitter, Facebook, computers, televisions, cars – all and any of it can become too important to us. But if we remember to keep such things as servants and not let them become masters our lives can be enriched.

A few months ago, our youngest daughter and her husband gave us our sixth grandchild, a beautiful boy named Tiernan. I was at the hospital, but keeping a wise distance from the festivities. When the baby arrived, I sent out a tweet: “eight pound boy – red hair.” Anyone up at 4:13 a.m. that Saturday got the word. Soon came a picture.

Congratulations poured in – via Twitter, of course.

Then at 7:26 a.m. the very next morning I sent a different kind of message: “Pray for Tiernan Michael Zizolfo, my grandson born yesterday, he has made his way to the NICU. Nothing alarming, but possibly an infection.” All turned out well, but it was comforting to be able to get word to people that quickly.

What Marconi unleashed on the world is still on the march. Sure the lingo can be confusing, I mean who would have guessed 10 years go that we’d have a word like “tweet” in our regular vocabulary? But then again, Mr. Morse’s code was, I’ll just bet, a little hard to figure out at first, too. And remember, when the first telegraph message was sent a little over 165 years ago, between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, the words were taken from the Bible as a reminder of the potential power of any tool and of the hand of God in and over all: “What God hath wrought.”

If you sent that today as a tweet, you’d have 117 to spare.

9.26.60

September 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Media, News media, Public Opinion, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Forty-nine years ago tonight —on Monday  26 September 1960— the first televised debate ever held between presidential candidates was broadcast coast-to-coast.   Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy faced off in the studios of WBBM-TV, the Chicago CBS affiliate, and together they forever changed the face of American politics.

For some reason the first of the four YouTube videos of the first Nixon-Kennedy debate is disabled.  You can see it here.

Here are parts 2-4:

A transcript of the first Nixon-Kennedy debate can be found here.

The influence of the TV debates in general —and of the first one in particular (viewership declined with each subsequent rematch)— in changing voters’ minds has become a subject of some debate.  But in what would become the November 8 cliffhanger, any factor was bound to be significant.  As Erika Tyner Allen described it:

At election time, more than half of all voters reported that the Great Debates had influenced their opinion; 6% reported that their vote was the result of the debates alone. Thus, regardless of whether the debates changed the election result, voters pointed to the debates as a significant reason for electing Kennedy.

The outcome of the first, and most important, debate ended up turning on appearance rather than substance.  RN had only been out of the hospital for a couple of weeks, and  had carried on a grueling campaign schedule right up until he arrived at the studio.  He had lost an inch in collar size but hadn’t bought any new shirts.  He looked tired and gaunt.  To add insult to injury (literally) RN wore a light suit because he had been told that the background would be dark.  It wasn’t, and he faded into it while Kennedy popped vigorously out.

JFK, who had a recently-refreshed Palm Beach tan, had spent the afternoon resting, in one way or another,  in a hotel room.

Marshall McLuhan famously analyzed the debate, ascribing Kennedy’s victory to his objective, disinterested, “cool” persona; while RN’s arsenal of talents (resonant voice, rigorous logic) were better suited to the “hot” medium of radio.  Indeed, polls showed that people who listened to this debate on radio considered RN the winner.

Several years ago, the late Don Hewitt, who produced that first debate, recalled some of the determinative atmospherics.

And RN, in RN, agreed:

It is a devastating commentary on the nature of television as a political medium that what hurt me the most in the first debate was not the substance of the encounter between Kennedy and me, but the disadvantageous contrast in our physical appearances.  After the program ended, callers, including my mother, wanted to know if anything was wrong, because I did not look well.

What turned out to be a telling range of skin tones: On stage on the night of 26 September 1960, JFK, producer Don Hewitt, and RN.

9.23.52

September 23, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, History, Media, News media, Pat Nixon, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Taking matters into his own hands:  On 23 September 1952, RN went on radio and TV to answer charges of financial impropriety.   The phenomenal success of his speech assured Ike’s victory and put RN’s bench mark on the emerging medium of television.

Today is the fifty-seventh anniversary of the speech that changed the course of RN’s life and of politics as practiced in America.

It was also the first of the remarkable comebacks from defeat or adversity that marked his long career.

Garry Wills described the spectacular risk RN took, and the stunning success he achieved:

Nixon first demonstrated the political uses and impact of television. In one half hour Nixon converted himself from a liability, breathing his last, to one of the few people who could add to Eisenhower’s preternatural appeal — who could gild the lilly. For the first time, people saw a living political drama on their TV sets — a man fighting for his whole career and future — and they judged him under that strain. It was an even greater achievement than it seemed. He had only a short time to prepare for it. The show, forced on him [by Eisenhower's advisers], was meant as a form of political euthanasia. He came into the studio still reeling from distractions and new demoralizing blows….[A]t the time he went onto the TV screen in 1952, he was hunted and alone.

It had all started several days earlier.  On 14 September 1952,  just as RN was launching his campaign as Ike’s VP  with a whistlestop train trip aboard the Nixon Special, up the coast from Pomona to Seattle.  Three thousand miles across the continent the New York Post ran a headline: Secret Nixon Fund!  Secret Rich Men’s Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary.

Under Dorothy Schiff’s ownership and Jimmy Wechsler’s ownership, the Post in those days was a proudly-identified left-wing tabloid.   The story was completely bogus, and the rap was totally bum.  Far from being secret, the fund had been solicited by letters to hundreds of supporters throughout California, individual contributions had been limited to $500, and the account was administered by a trustee and was regularly audited.

But the reporters smelled blood in the water, and the story soon overwhelmed all campaign coverage.

Not the least of the many ironies of the Fund Crisis was that the Democratic presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson, did have an unreported secret slush fund of campaign contributions that he had used for purely personal expenses.

It was finally decided that RN should take his case directly to the American people with a speech to be broadcast both on the radio and the new medium of television.  Depending on the popular reaction to the speech, he would either remain on the ticket or voluntarily withdraw.

The approach he took to this situation was as inspired as it was unprecedented.  Instead of the self-serving boilerplate blather usually produced in such situations, he decided to take his national audience on a guided tour of his net worth.  In addition to proving that he clearly met Ike’s ethical standard of being “clean as a hen’s tooth,”  the speech showed that he was just a regular guy, like most of his viewers.

While Adlai Stevenson’s ‘52 campaign slogan was “Let’s talk sense to the American people,” his rhetoric was often elegant bordering on highfalutin.  But RN’s plain speech put everything right out front right up front:

I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and — and integrity has been questioned.

Now, the usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details. I believe we’ve had enough of that in the United States, particularly with the present Administration in Washington, D.C.  To me the office of the Vice Presidency of the United States is a great office, and I feel that the people have got to have confidence in the integrity of the men who run for that office and who might obtain it.

I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth. And that’s why I’m here tonight. I want to tell you my side of the case. I’m sure that you have read the charge, and you’ve heard it, that I, Senator Nixon, took 18,000 dollars from a group of my supporters.

Nothing like this had ever been seen or heard before.  The effect was immediate and electric.

From the moment RN’s image faded off the screen, the Checkers Speech —as it immediately became known— was controversial in direct proportion to its success;  in other words, off the charts.

Nixon supporters reveled in the tsunami of national warmth and support for this honest and plainspoken young man who had, by risking all, turned the tables on his foes.  And his foes, not surprisingly, carped that it had been mawkish and unseemly and embarrassing.

RN preferred to talk about the “Fund Crisis” — because the speech, important as it was, was only part of a greater and no less significant story of a badly wronged man fighting back and coming out on top.  But although the Fund Speech was RN’s preferred term of art, that tale continues to wag the dog, and it has gone down in history as the Checkers Speech.

The drama of those September days has been described by many authors — including RN himself, who made it the second of his Six Crises.   More than four decades later, Six Crises presents incomparably the most vivid and dramatic account, and it still makes exciting reading.   In the first volume of his Nixon trilogy, Stephen Ambrose surveys a lot of the press coverage.  And Conrad Black’s recent magisterial biography supplies both drama and analysis:

Abandoned by everyone except his wife, his mother, [political adviser Murray] Chotiner, [RNC Chairman Arthur] Summerfield, [RNC public relations director Robert] Humphreys, and a few others, put right to the wall and verging on nervous and physical exhaustion, Nixon had staged a political version of MacArthur’s Inchon landing.  He had destroyed his enemies, given the vice presidency a political significance it had never had in 164 years of the history of the office, sacked his judge and the kangaroo court around him and replaced them with his friends in the National Committee, while impeccably restating the greatness of Eisenhower.  Dwight D. Eisenhower was, by most measurements, a great man, but his greatness was not in evidence on this occasion, and that was not the description of him uppermost in Nixon’s thoughts at this time.

The role played by PN throughout the Fund Crisis was pivotal and inspirational.   And it wasn’t easy for her, as Julie Nixon Eisenhower revealed in her biography of her mother; and as RN described in the interviews I conducted with him in 1983:

The homely and memorable example of the cocker spaniel has come to dominate —and characterize— thinking about the speech.  In fact, aside from RN’s heartfelt peroration and the central core of reporting his net worth, the speech was an example of extremely sophisticated and hard hitting political rhetoric.  As RN wrote in RN, even  the pooch had a political pedigree:

On the plane [a night flight from Portland to LA where the speech would be delivered], I took some postcards from the pocket of the seat in front of me and began to put down some thoughts about what I might say.

I remembered the Truman scandal concerning a $9,000 ink coat given to a White House secretary, and I made a note that Pat had no mink — just a cloth coat.  I thought of DNC CHairman Mitchell’s snide comment that people who cannot afford to hold an office should not run for it, and I made a note to check out a quotation from Lincoln to the effect that God must have loved the common people because he made so many of them.  I also thought about the stunning success FDR had in his speech during the 1944 campaign, when he had ridiculed his critics by saying they were even attacking his little dog Fala, and I knew it would infuriate critics if I could turn this particular table on them.

“It isn’t easy to bare your life”:  When RN arrived in LA, he refined his thoughts for the speech on a yellow pad.

But enough exposition — here is the speech itself.  After all this time, and despite the outdated and stilted production values of the hastily mounted production  (the opening and closing titles were RN’s Senate calling card)  its human honesty and emotional intensity can still pack a punch.  Imagine what it must have been like when there had never been anything like it.

The complete text of the speech and an mp3 audio will be found here.

Every Dog Has Her Day — And Checkers’ Was 23 September 1952

In my 1983 interviews, I asked RN if he had ever played a practical joke on anyone.  He thought for a moment and replied:

Yes. Oh, I remember, for example, the — the Gridiron speech that I made in 1953.

This was, in effect, similar to a practical joke. That was after I had made what was called the Checkers speech in the fund controversy.  And so, the Gridiron had a very rough skit on me about Checkers, and I knew that it was going to be rough. And I had learned it in advance, thanks to them.

[Political columnist and later best selling novelist] Fletcher Knebel came on set.  He was dressed as a dog, and he cried, and so forth and so on.

And so what I did was to get the real Checkers, our Checkers, and I arranged to have that dog brought to the — backstage in the Statler where the Gridiron was held, and when I made my speech, I started out in a way that really scared my supporters to death.

I remember [newspaper publisher John S. Knight] Jack Knight, who was a great supporter of mine at that point, was just sitting there saying, “He mustn’t do it. He mustn’t do it.” — because I started out and I said, in a very serious way, “I know that everybody is supposed to take whatever barbs are thrown at the Gridiron dinner in good form”, and so forth and so on, “and not respond. But this is one time you’ve gone too far.  Fun is fun, particularly when that is directed against a lady.  And now I want you to see the real Checkers.”

And then Knebel came out holding Checkers.  Checkers, of course, was a female. Well, it brought the house down, and my supporters thought,  ”Well, he’s not as serious as we thought.”

The Way We Were

September 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Art, Lifestyle, Media, Popular Culture, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Bernie Fuchs, who showed middle class America the way it wanted to live during the 1950s and then changed the ways Americans looked at sports, died on Thursday at the age of 76.  He was one of the most —if not the most— influential illustrators of the last second half of the 20th Century.

An excellent obituary by Adam Bernstein in today’s Washington Post limns his life and describes his influence:

Mr. Fuchs was adept at balancing art and commerce. He met the needs of mass-circulation magazines accustomed to Norman Rockwell-style realism, but he injected a fresh vitality and impressionism that became hugely popular and transformed the illustration field. He even experimented with bold designs based on the abstract expressionism movement popularized by painters Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

Norman Rockwell’s 1943 painting “Freedom From Want” —from his Four Freedoms series painted for the Saturday Evening Post based on FDR’s 1941 Message to Congress— is still the idealized iconic version of that American holiday.  (In the same way that his “Freedom of Speech” was, at least until its recent brush with reality, the ideal of what town hall meetings would look like.)

Fuchs’ illustration for a story in the December 1962 issue of  McCall’s magazine paid homage to Rockwell’s vision while updating it and adding some homely touches of reality.

This late-50s ad —one of his many illustrations for Coca-Cola— is full of rich details of the carefree and glamorous middle class lifestyle few attained and most coveted.  Today it looks charmingly innocent; back in the day it was the epitome of hip:

The WaPo obit deconstructed the creative elements of a Fuchs illustration for a McCall’s short story:

One vivid example, commissioned by McCall’s magazine in the late 1950s, was a portrait of two young couples relaxing in a small room after dinner. One man is lying on the ground, his head nestled on a woman’s lap and smoking a cigarette as she strokes his hair.

While the image has the control and realism of Rockwell, it also has several more dynamic features taken from avant-garde techniques: the vigorous brush strokes; the tilted horizon that heightens a sense of drama; a lampshade in the foreground that appears slightly distorted; and, most strikingly, the placement of the couples in the distance instead of being the center of the picture.

By the age of 30, Fuchs had been named Artist of the Year by the Artist’s Guild of New York — the first of many honors that included being one of the youngest inductees into the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame, whose company included Rockwell, N. C. Wyeth, Winslow Homer, and John James Audubon.

Men With Hats: A Fuchs illustration for a late ’50s Seagram’s ad.

Don Draper Please Call Home: a Fuchs Seagram’s ad that could be a story board for Mad Men.

In an interesting obit on his blog Illustration Art, David Apatoff describes the next phase of Fuchs’ career:

So Fuchs was feeling pretty cocky by the time Sports Illustrated called him in the early 1960s to ask him to illustrate an article. Fuchs met with the legendary art director of Sports Illustrated, Richard Gangel. A tough minded visionary, Gangel gave Fuchs an assignment, but as Fuchs was leaving, added– “Oh– and I don’t want that shit you do for McCalls.”

Fuchs could have walked off in a huff. It would have been easy for him to continue working for other clients in the successful style he had already developed. Instead, he rose to Gangel’s challenge and became even bolder and more innovative.

The result was the introduction of an impressionist immediacy that quickly became the gold standard for sports illustration.

Bernie Fuchs painted Sandy Koufax for the cover of SI’s 1964 Baseball Issue.

A Fuchs illustration of a golf match in the rain.

Bernstein quotes illustrator-educator Murray Tinkelman about Fuchs’ long run as the beau ideal of illustration art:

He became the most emulated and imitated illustrator in the field through the 1980s . . . when the vogue turned to more decorative, whimsical, punkier illustrations that were influenced by underground cartoons like those of Robert Crumb.

Fuchs continued to draw and paint into this century.  A retrospective including his later work can be seen here.

Bernie Fuchs’ drawings were used as the cover art for Frank Sinatra’s 1967 LP The World We Knew.

One Of The Stories He Told

August 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, In Memoriam, Media, News media, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 5 Comments 

60 Minutes devoted its entire hour on Sunday to its progenitor and long-time executive producer Don Hewitt, who died a week ago today.  In typical 60 Minutes style, the program was informative, provocative, and entertaining.

Hewitt always said that his editorial criterion could be reduced to four simple words: Tell Me A Story.  And that’s what he named his 2002 memoir which was, not surprisingly, informative, provocative, and entertaining.

He devoted two pages of his book to CBS’ 1984 broadcast of ninety minutes of the thirty-eight hours of interviews I had conducted with RN the year before.  My interviews, unlike those conducted by David Frost in 1978 —which were adversarial in nature and which had been taped before RN finished writing his memoirs— captured a more analytical, reflective, and, generally, accessible Nixon.  Although he didn’t know what the questions would be, the project was intended to be part of a video encyclopedia of biography, and the template involved talking him through his memoirs.

Hewitt felt that the result represented a hitherto unseen Nixon —at least at such length and breadth— so he bought the broadcast rights for CBS.  Thirty minutes of the material, introduced by Morley Safer, was aired on each of two subsequent editions of 60 Minutes, and the remaining thirty minutes were shown of American Parade, a Tuesday night news magazine program hosted by Charles Kuralt.

Hewitt took the thousands of pages of typed transcript to his weekend home at Sag Harbor and did the editing personally.  Several times that weekend my phone would ring, and he would say, without any salutation, “This is great.  Listen to this…” and he would then read an entire exchange.  An hour later: “Now listen to these…we can put them together to explain that….,” and then he was gone again.

This was, of course, very flattering; but it was also very instructive.  On his first reading of that mass of material, and with broadcast deadlines looming, he unfailingly picked out the best excerpts (or, as I liked to think of it, the best of the best….) and instinctively saw the ways to organize and relate them.  And his enthusiasm was invigorating.  From even this very limited exposure I sensed how he could inspire, improve, and, at least occasionally drive crazy, the people with whom he worked.

In the end, the three 30-minute segments he produced, which seemed so seamless to the viewers, in fact each represented the hundreds of cuts he made.  I finally got to meet him, for the first time, after the shows were broadcast, when he invited me to his office to talk about Nixon — a subject he found fascinating and frustrating.

Unfortunately, what had been intended to be a coup was turned into a contretemps by the widespread liberal outrage that CBS was paying RN  to talk —that he was benefitting from checkbook journalism— and that, to add insult to injury, he was talking with me. The controversy even reached the level of an unfriendly editorial in The New York Times.

Hewitt was surprised and offended by the onslaught; he was certainly unused to being attacked from his left flank.  He considered many of the critics to be hypocrites; and in Tell Me a Story he addressed both charges in typically direct style:

The first issue is nonsense.  Print journalism pays for book excerpts and other writings by political figures all the time.  In a letter to The New York Times on March 14 that year, I mentioned its own purchase of the rights to something Winston Churchill wrote — and even the Times’s acquisition of serial rights to an earlier Nixon memoir.  More recently, Newsweek published an excerpt of a book by George Stephanopoulos, the former top aide to President Clinton.  The truth is that reputable newspapers and reputable news broadcasts pay for interviews all the time, not in cash but in something more valuable — newspaper space and airtime for an author to plug a book or a movie star to plug a movie or a politician to plug a pet cause.  Who in his right mind sits down to be interviewed without getting something in return?  And let’s face it, “getting something in return” is the equivalent of “getting paid.”  And we all willingly go along with it, because if we don’t, 20/20 will, and if The New York Times won’t, The Washington Post will.  Is there something wrong with it?  No!  Just stop all this “holier than thou” jazz that we don’t pay for interviews because everybody does, all the time.

The second issue: Gannon was not a newsman and didn’t pretend to be, so the tape we bought was not a journalistic interview.  It was an effort to get from Nixon some things he’d never said before publicly, or quite so frankly.  We made sure our viewers knew exactly what the tape was and what it was not, and that Gannon was not a reporter, but someone close to Nixon who got him to say more than anyone else had up to that point.  We also weren’t restricted to any portion of the thirty-eight hours.  It was our choice to select from that tape anything we wanted to.

One of RN’s conditions for doing the interviews with me was that all the material would be available for use in the Nixon Library — which then still lay several years in the future.  The interviews became the basis of what was, when the Library opened in 1991, a state of the art interactive exhibition —the Presidential Forum— in which visitors could choose from an extensive menu of questions and then watch RN’s answers (with the interviewer mercifully edited out) in the comfort of a theater setting.

On Politico last Wednesday, Roger Simon wrote “The birth of political television” — an excellent appreciation of Don Hewitt’s unique contribution to the development of broadcast journalism back in the day when events (like conventions) still contained some element of authenticity, before they became choreographed commercials.

The Future Lies Ahead

August 4, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Lifestyle, Media, Technology | Leave a Comment 

Here is Jason Kilar, Hulu.com’s CEO filling in Charlie Rose on the shape of things to come.  Hulu, which is a joint venture of NBC, ABC, Fox Entertainment, is the Google of the latter day (and remember where you heard about it).   And what’s not to love about a company whose motto is: “An evil plot to destroy the world.  Enjoy.”?

If for nothing else, Hulu should be saluted for providing a replacement for the now tired old chestnut about the Chinese character that means both “crisis” and “opportunity”:

In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to “gourd,” and in ancient times, the hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is “interactive recording.” We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu.

Spinning The Dial

May 27, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Media, Music | Leave a Comment 

As I have noted before, when I am, at last, put in charge of everything*, one of my first actions will be to double funding for NPR’s arts programming.

Half of the additional dollars will be realized by abolishing the news division; and I’ll scrounge up the other half from somewhere as a bonus for a job well done and an incentive to keep up the good work.

During only half an hour of this afternoon’s drive time “All Things Considered,” there were two segments that demonstrated the invaluable —and incomparable— service that NPR at its best provides.

The first was a piece on “People Really Like Milk” —  the kind of children’s song that only an adult can truly appreciate.  You’d have to be tune deaf —or lactose intolerant— not to smile at Billy Kelly’s catchy ode to the drink that comes from a big thing that says moo.

Here’s the link:  ”People Really Like Milk”

The spotlight may have been focused Mr. Kelly’s way a tad too soon — because as his myspace page indicates, the video he is creating for “Milk” looks promising but is still a work in the earliest stages of development.

The second terrific piece, elegantly written and produced by critic John McDonough, was about the upcoming (on Saturday) centenary of the birth of the King of Swing, Benny Goodman.

You can read it here; and hear it here.

*A moment which, purely in terms of the good of mankind, should come very soon; and which, in purely actuarial terms, had better come very soon.

Everything Newsweek Is Old Again

May 22, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Lifestyle, Media, News media | 1 Comment 

In The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, who knows his way around a magazine, dissects the underwhelming new Newsweek.

In his editor’s letter–one of many traditional newsmagazine features that have survived the scythe of change–Jon Meacham says, “We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age,” which concedes a lot of ground from the get-go. Why not at least pretend? Why else would people pick it up, let alone subscribe? The newsmags face a choice. Actually, they’ve faced it since long before the Internet. Should they try to provide a complete picture of what happened last week? Or should they stop worrying about that and hope to find appeal in trends, service pieces, fine writing, muckraking exposes, provocative argument, and other traditional non-news magazine fare? Whenever they have an existential crisis–and this is not the first–they always make the wrong choice.

Meacham–a very smart and thoughtful guy, which in my experience is not necessarily true of all newsmagazine editors (all two, that is)–actually says that his model is “the great monthlies of old” like Harper’s and Esquire. He says the building blocks of the new Newsweek will be “two kinds of stories”: the “reported narrative” and “the argued essay.” So what’s wrong with that? Well, to start, those grand old monthlies at their primes had a smaller paying readership than Newsweek has at its supposed nadir. So duplicating their greatness could be a pyrrhic victory. Furthermore, while it’s not impossible to get readers by peddling sheer enjoyment, it’s a lot easier to peddle necessity, or at least usefulness: You need this magazine to sort out the world for you and to make sure you haven’t missed anything. In short, you need it to be your guide through the chaos, as Meacham so eloquently describes what he intends to avoid. And when something like the Internet comes along to make the chaos even more chaotic, you need your trusty guide more, not less. Possibly the dumbest slogan ever for a newsmag was one used briefly by Time a few years ago: “Make time for Time.” Make time for Time? Who has that kind of time? If you can convince people that reading Time will save them time, then you may have a deal.

The President At Notre Dame

May 16, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, California politics, Congress, Culture, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Election 2008, Lifestyle, Media, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Public Opinion, Religion, Republican Party, Supreme Court, Vice President Biden, economy, education | 1 Comment 

Tomorrow President Obama will receive an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s quintessential Catholic institution of higher learning, and will deliver an address to the assembled graduates. The invitation extended by the school’s president has stirred considerable controversy (and plenty of vocal protests) because of the President’s espousal of the pro-choice viewpoint on abortion throughout his career. (It has been noted here and there that other pro-choice politicians like New York’s onetime Governor Mario Cuomo and the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan appeared at previous Notre Dame commencements without much incident. But it may have helped that they were lifelong Catholics, unlike Obama.)

The Chief Executive’s appearance tomorrow is an opportunity for him to extend a conciliatory hand to the large number of Americans who, whether or not they voted for him in November, are not supporters of some of the radical programs being espoused by a considerable number of Democratic-affiliated groups, such as an expansion of legal abortion, decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs, and gay marriage.

It seems to become more evident by the month that when voters sought “change” in voting for Obama and Vice President Biden last month, a substantial percentage of them were mainly concerned with the economy, health care, and perhaps increased opportunity of education, and were not that keen on the other aspects of “change” as defined in the agendas of MoveOn.org or other groups. This would especially apply to voters in the states surrounding the Deep South, large portions of the Catholic electorate, and churchgoing African-American voters nationwide.

In California, the voters in the latter group helped Obama carry the state, but at the same time provided the margin that passed Proposition 8 which reversed the California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. And it turns out that on abortion, the percentage of voters supporting Roe vs. Wade and the pro-choice line, after peaking during the Clinton years, has steadily been declining, to the point that this week, a Gallup poll revealed that a bare majority of those whose opinion was sampled – 51% – described themselves as “pro-life.”

This strongly indicates that a considerable number of voters – perhaps poised on becoming the majority – would not be looking forward to Al Franken taking his seat in the Senate and locking in a (theoretically) filibuster-proof majority that would then fulfill all the left’s fondest dreams in the social arena.

The events of the last few weeks involving Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, might prove a harbinger of things to come. A few weeks ago, during the Miss USA pageant, Ms. Prejean, educated at Christian schools, was asked by the online gossip columnist Perez Hilton, one of the pageant’s judges, what her opinion was of gay marriage. The contestant replied that her own view was that marriage could only exist between a man and woman – which is still officially the view of Congress, as expressed in the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by a majority of both parties and signed by President Clinton a decade ago.

Hilton (followed by an avalanche of bloggers and left-leaning pundits) subjected Ms. Prejean to ridicule. But instant polls soon made it clear that most Americans supported her right to express her opinion, and even Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor who spearheaded the legalization of same-sex unions in his city, acknowledged her right to free speech.

Ms. Prejean was then ridiculed as a hypocrite, after some rather mild and fairly tasteful photos of her in an unclad state appeared online. But Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA pageant, rejected pressure to strip her of her crown, and so in recent days the beauty queen has managed to largely prevail in the court of public opinion.

The way this particular controversy has played out has not been conveniently timed for the supporters of same-sex marriage. As I noted last week in my post “Gay Marriage At The Crossroads,”  the District of Columbia city council just voted to recognize such unions as performed in other states. Under the Home Rule Bill, Congress has a right to challenge this decision – and GOP lawmakers have made it clear that they will pursue this option, which means that in a matter of months each member of Congress will have to vote yes or no on this question.

The issues of abortion, gay marriage, and narcotics delegalization will also be prominent when the President selects a nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. It seems less and less likely that any thoroughly liberal, MoveOn-approved choice would automatically sail through the Senate.

So I think that the best approach for the President tomorrow is not to mouth a series of platitudes predicated on the idea that his listeners (or the American public in general) will automatically accept all of his positions, but to acknowledge that there are differences of opinion and to express a willingness to work within the Constitution to achieve a consensus that will bridge these differences. If he does that, and follows through, he may considerably improve the chances of his party maintaining control of Congress in 2010. If he pursues a partisan path, however, the GOP – perhaps as early as the Virginia election this year – could be on the comeback trail.

The After-WHCA Scene In A Nutshell

May 15, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, Media, Social Networking | Leave a Comment 

Chris Lehmann, once the Washington correspondent for the New York Observer, now contributes to theawl.com, founded by some former staffers of the gossip site Gawker. This week at the site he described a party he attended after the White House Correspondents Association dinner. One paragraph, especially, caught my eye, since it illustrates how wonkery and showbiz are sometimes inextricably linked in Beltway society:

The most engaging conversation of my night, for instance, was with a learned and witty UK economist—“for my sins, I try to teach this discipline to the young,” he explained. We lamented the lack of any systemic approach to health care reform in America, the decline of the 19th century “political economy”—to the detriment of latter-day economics and politics alike—and compared the limitations of the two-party system in America and Britain. It was only when he was fetched away by his brooding-hunk son that my wife informed me that he was the father of Ed Westwick, of “Gossip Girl” fame.

Elizabeth Edwards Talks To Oprah Winfrey

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Ethics, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, Elizabeth Edwards appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show to discuss her new book, Resilience, and the ongoing saga of her husband John’s fall from the pinnacle of Democratic politics and its effect on his family.

It was thoroughly painful to watch, not least when, following 50 agonizing minutes in which his wife spoke of her struggle to come to grips with the scandal involving Rielle Hunter (whose name she asked Oprah not to speak) and of her continuing fight against cancer, it came time for John Edwards to almost nonchalantly show the talk-show host around his family’s palatial home, pointing out the basketball court where “Barack and me” tested their hoops skills.

Rebecca Traister of Salon.com, a self-confessed habitual Oprah-watcher from childhood, says that this was the first Oprah show that ever made her cry; an understandable reaction.

But as cathartic as the appearance might have been for Ms. Edwards, it is also true that the very act of going on national television to express her anger at “that woman,” and to declare that she did not see how “it” (as she called Rielle Hunter’s daughter Frances Quinn) could make any difference in her own life (whether or not it turned out that John Edwards fathered the girl), produces more problems for her husband, as Roger Simon says at Politico.com.

Almost as soon as the interview was taped, the report came from the National Enquirer (which has consistently broken stories about the affair later confirmed by the mainstream press) that Ms. Hunter has decided to seek a DNA sample from John Edwards to establish Francis’s paternity – a sample that Edwards told a nationwide TV audience last year he would be thoroughly willing to provide. (At the time, Ms. Hunter was declining to seek a paternity test.)

But less important than what that test might establish are the questions surrounding the strange and complex directions in which money moved from 2006 to 2008 between Edwards’s campaign, various nonprofits murkily associated with it, and Ms. Hunter. (And, perhaps, other individuals.) As Scott Whitlock points out at Newsbusters.org, apart from some determined newspapers and TV and radio stations in North Carolina, the national media have paid much less attention to that side of the story than to the personal drama involved.

But (as the Chicago Tribune’s site observed today) if the current Federal investigation finds some genuine fire amid the financial smokescreens, and the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential candidate ends up facing a ten-year prison sentence, it would not happen because he fathered a child out of wedlock.

Paging The Hardball Desk

April 10, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Media, News media, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, TV News Personalities, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

At the website of the magazine Foreign Policy, David J. Rothkopf, a Washington-based consultant and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has written about “Five Books That Haven’t Been Written Yet” (but, he continues, “ought to be”). Four of these titles are:

Carla [Bruni] And I: The Early Years

A School For The Differently Humor-Enabled (about the school attended by Mr. Rothkopf’s daughters, which recently staged Mel Brooks’s The Producers, complete with the “Springtime For Hitler” extravaganza but without the swastikas)

Did The News Media Die Or Commit Suicide?

and The Takeover: Goldman Sachs And The Leveraged Buyout Of America.

But it was something Mr. Rothkopf said in his description of his fifth desired title, America’s Real First Family: The Daleys Of Chicago that caught my eye. After referring to Richard Daley’s role in the 1960 presidential election, he adds this parenthetical aside:

It would also be great to see a side-by-side comparison of say John Kennedy and Richard Nixon that would offer a fair evaluation of who really best exemplified the American dream of making it on one’s own, who actually committed the greater crimes in pursuit of their political futures and who actually was the better president. Of all these books…this last Kennedy vs. Nixon idea is the one least likely to actually get written given the machinery that would shut it down.

It’s been 13 years since Kennedy And Nixon by Chris Matthews was published, a book which went a long way toward making readers think about those questions (and answering them, to the degree the archival record permitted at the time), and in the years since then many, many documents have become public which would be invaluable in the writing of another such volume. It’s true that the most recent crop of Kennedy-themed books seeing the presses this year and next – spurred by the illness of Sen. Edward Kennedy – seem as if they’ll have a hagiographic tone, by and large. But not long after that the 100th birthday of RN will be approaching, so it may be the right time for a book such as Mr. Rothkopf describes.

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