TWTW2/5

March 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under TWTW | Leave a Comment 

TWTW2/5

23-29 MARCH 2008

The week began with a UPI story (picked up by very few papers — go figure) about a study by two Harvard economists indicating that “publicly voiced doubts about the U.S. occupation of Iraq have a measurable ‘emboldenment effect’ on insurgents there.” In fact, they found that a 5 – 10% increase in insurgent battlefield attacks following spikes in home front anti-war rhetoric.

The study noted that increased attacks were more pronounced in areas —such as Anbar province— with more or better access to international news. They tracked what they termed “anti-resolve statements” by American politicians and news reports covering declining US domestic support for the war, and found that “in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases.”

As a reporter for the Harvard Crimson noted:

The most important result of the study, according to the authors, is that the insurgent groups are rational actors responding to a perceived decrease in American resolve “rather than groups driven by ideological concerns with little sensitivity to costs.”

This news will fall into the “and what exactly is your point?” department for those who remember how the North Vietnamese war machine played the US domestic opposition like a cheap fiddle.

The study, completed last month by Radha Iyengar and Jonathan Monten, is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It is titled: “Is There An ‘Emboldenment’ Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq”. The authors were concerned that their research might be appropriated by supporters of the Iraq war as a way of silencing the war’s opponents. In clearly conflicted academese, the increased attacks and casualties are described as “a small but measurable cost to open public debate in the form of higher attacks in the short term.”

Abe Greenwald wrote about the study’s findings it in his Commentary magazine “contentions” blog:

But maybe the media executives who’ve been so eager to run photos of flag-draped coffins and the journalists who start each day thinking of a fresh way to cover America’s demise could keep this in mind.

Particularly now. We are in the midst of a “five years on” media riot. The number 4000 is suddenly everywhere. Yes, a free press is a cornerstone of our democracy. But it shouldn’t be exploited for the sole purpose of lamenting out military efforts. The success of the troop surge was barely acknowledged for half a year, and yet the 4000th U.S. casualty in Iraq made it into the headlines at the speed of light. And here’s something worth considering: If random criticism of the war causes spikes of insurgent violence, imagine the effect of a U.S. president whose guiding principle is the wrongness of this war.

AT THE TIME, SOME SKEPTICS SUGGESTED THAT NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR JAMES MCGREEVEY’S DISCOVERY OF HIS TRUTH AS A GAY AMERICAN ALLOWED HIM TO GET OUT OF TRENTON ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE SHERIFF. Investigators and journalists were about to bring Mr. McGreevey’s non-stop jamboree of financial corruption to a grinding halt. When confronted with the choice of being hanged for a sheep or hanged for a lamb, lamb was decidedly the plat du jour on Mr. McGreevey’s menu.

Similar questions may occur regarding Governor Spitzer’s sudden spectacular flameout. Now retreated into the fortress of solitude of his immense personal wealth —and undoubtedly finding solace in the sexual addiction treatment that an insider claims he is undergoing— the suddenly former Empire State supremo will apparently no longer be liable for a lot of the punishment that might have otherwise have befallen him.

The New York Times reported that the pesky Troopergate scandal has risen phoenix like —or for Mr. Spitzer, albatross like— from the grave too hastily dug for it by Mr Spitzer’s erstwhile ally, New York Attorney General David Soares. The Governor had claimed under oath that he had no knowledge of the attempts to slime and slander the State Senate’s Republican leader Joe Bruno. Now some of his former aides (and particularly his long time communications director Darren Dopp) are more than ready to deal, and are supplying some colorful details in the process:

Friday’s report said that at first, in May 2007, Spitzer just wanted to ”monitor the situation” after Dopp said a reporter asked for Bruno’s flight records. But in June, when Bruno was blocking Spitzer’s initiatives in the Legislature, top Spitzer aides discussed providing the flight records to ”the feds” after they read in the newspaper that Bruno was being investigated by the FBI for business dealings.

Dopp said that on June 25 or June 26, governor’s Secretary Rich Baum told him, ”Eliot wants you to release the records.”

Dopp said he went into Spitzer’s office to make sure. ”According to Dopp, the governor replied, `Yeah, do it,”’ the Soares report said.

”Dopp asked Spitzer: `Are you sure?”’ noting Bruno would be angry.

Dopp said Spitzer then used vulgarities to describe Bruno and ordered Dopp to ‘’shove it up his (expletive) with a red-hot poker.”

”He was drinking a cup of coffee,” Dopp told investigators, ”as he was saying it, he was like spitting a little bit. He was spitting mad.”

The New York Post, which broke the Spitzer story, is understandably proprietarial and is following up on why many people involved in Troopergate still have their jobs, and on the unconventional investigatory techniques of DA Soares. The paper even supplied a colorful chart of some of the material that is about to hit the fan. But with Mr. Spitzer now ensconced on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan rather than on Eagle Street in Albany, the fan has been pretty effectively unplugged.

THE OTHER BIG STORY THIS WEEK WAS THE IMPLOSION (OK, THE LATEST IMPLOSION) OF HILLARY CLINTON’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. The Bosnia booboos should have been manageable; containable; sustainable. But partly because they were handled so badly, and partly because even the media finally has a breaking point where egregiously insulting treatment from Democrats is concerned, they have ended up unleashing a tsunami of anti-Clinton feeling that runs both wide and deep.

Jonathan Alter vented; Frank Rich piled on. And Mark Steyn skewered:

Where did the magic go? Well, the show got miscast. I wrote a decade ago that Hillary was like Margaret Dumont to Bill’s Groucho Marx. He goes around leering at cocktail waitresses, waggling his eyebrows and his famously unlit cigar. And Hillary would stand there seemingly oblivious to the subpoenaed dress and DNA analysis and all the rest: In double-acts, the best straight men (or women) are the ones who appear never to get the joke, and that was Hillary in the late Nineties, standing on stage alongside Bill night after night with her rictus grin and droning in the robotic cadences of that computerized voice in your car that tells you to fasten your seatbelt that “I. Am. So. Proud. Of. My. Husband. And. Our. President. Bill. Clinton.”

But you can’t recast: You can’t put Margaret Dumont in the Groucho role. In their heyday, the Clintons ran a thuggish operation fronted by an ingratiating charmer. Now the charming facade’s gone, and the backroom thuggery is ineffective. The Clinton campaign’s letter to Nancy Pelosi suggesting that she might like to “reflect” (if you know what we mean) on her call for the super-delegates to support the winner of the popular vote (i.e., Obama) was notable not for its menace but for its clumsiness: Few sights are more forlorn than an enforcer who can no longer enforce. The Clinton letter reminded me of Elena Ceausescu still trying to pull the don’t-you-know-who-I-am routine even as the firing squad were taking aim.

But on she staggers. Even if she can’t win, she can deny victory to Obama, and to her party. As they say in showbusiness, it’s not important for me to succeed, only for my friends to fail.

Perhaps the most important analysis came from The Wall Street Journal’s excellent columnist Kimberley A. Strassel. Her “Potomac Watch” column on Thursday —“The Whitewater Proxy”— explains all you need to know about Mrs. Clinton’s current troubles and future prospects. It’s the week’s must-read.

AND SPEAKING OF MUST-READS, IT IS WITH MIXED EMOTIONS (BUT CONSIDERABLE RELIEF) THAT I ANNOUNCE THAT TWTW2/5 WILL BE TWTW2/LAST. Thanks to my colleague Jonathan Movroydis’s eagle eye, and to the lively and wide-ranging posts of my fellow TNN bloggers, most of the columns to which I link in these weekly potpourris have already appeared in the daily “Featured Articles” or been dealt with in far greater depth than I am capable of supplying. Besides, many of my readers read the same things I do each day —NYT, WAPO, WSJ, LAT, Drudge, Politico, Wonkette— so with the exception of some occasionally titillating charts from the New York Post or some deliciously unsourceable rumors from one of the louche gossip blogs I frequent, I’m plowing already well tilled fields. Plus it’s not as easy as (a) it looks or (b) as I thought it would be when I blithely announced that it would be a weekly feature.

So, TWTW2 —- we hardly knew ye —- and it looks like we aren’t going to get to know ye any better. Ave atque vale.

TWTW2/4

March 23, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under TWTW | Leave a Comment 

TWTW2/4

16-22 MARCH 2008

FOR A DAY OR SO IT LOOKED LIKE PASSPORTGATE WAS GOING TO GROW SOME LEGS. The revelation that three State Department contract employees had made unauthorized visits to Senator Obama’s passport file led the news and the dudgeon immediately ran high in all the predictable places. State’s apparently phlegmatic approach to the story added to the outrage. Two breaches had occurred in January and February and the third on 14 March, but the Senator’s office had only just been informed. State’s in house investigations rendered a verdict of “imprudent curiosity” on the part of the contractors, two of whom were canned and the other suspended. Many politicians and all media clearly found this suspect and inadequate.

News stories referred to the incident during the 1992 presidential campaign when a Republican operative got into Bill Clinton’s passport files. Curiously, there were no references to Filegate — when hundreds of raw FBI files on Republicans found their way into the hands of Clinton political operatives. One reporter pulled out all the stops and noted that “The security breach also has echoes of the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration.”

On the assumption that the simplest explanation is often the best explanation, I would have thought that the echoes were more redolent of the recent breaches of Britney Spears’s psych unit files by almost two dozen curious employees (including at least six doctors) at the UCLA Medical Center.

Passportgate suddenly lost its traction when the story took an ecumenical turn with the discovery that both the Clinton and McCain passport files had also been accessed by some or all of the same contract employees.

Besides, common sense should have counseled that passport files —which comprise, basically, vital statistics and home addresses— contain little of political interest. (Wonkette saucily suggested that “John McCain should be especially worried —- that passport file probably has his real age on it, which insiders estimate to be 102.”)

Of course, passport files do include the record of all foreign trips made by the holder. But back in December the Clinton campaign had already revealed that, aside from his sartorially celebrated trip to Kenya in 2006, Senator Obama’s only foreign travel was a single brief official visit to London in 2005. The Obama response to this revelation was priceless: the Senator had an “intuitive grasp” of the world because he spent part of his childhood abroad. (And, come to think of it…..exactly how did the Clinton camp get that info?)

IN THE ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT IT’S BALONEY DEPARMENT, THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF HILLARY CLINTON’S WHITE HOUSE PAPERS WERE RELEASED AND AMOUNTED TO WHAT OUR BRITISH COUSINS WOULD CALL A DAMP SQUIB. A document dump of thousands of pages signifying next to nothing nonetheless produced a dash to find a headline — and the result was the less-than-monumental: “Hillary at White house on ‘Stained Blue Dress’ Day”. (And the subhead added a pesky qualifier: “Schedules Reviewed by ABC Show Hillary May Have Been in the White House When the Fateful Act Was Committed”. Come again? “Fateful Act”? Is Thomas Hardy now writing subheads for ABC News?

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball in Newsweek were two lonely voices crying “foul” in the wilderness. He pointed out that the whole event amounted to a big feint. The really important documents weren’t released; and the ones that were released were heavily (and erratically) redacted. But the Clinton campaign can now steamroller all questions by pointing to the quantity, confidently leaving the few conscientious reporters quibble on the back pages and in the blogosphere about the quality.

As Mr. Isikoff wrote, “anybody looking through Hillary Clinton’s newly released White House records for clues as to how she handled this personal crisis will find … absolutely nothing.” He continued:

…the documents include only Hillary Clinton’s public schedules, not her private calendar. And even those appear to be heavily redacted to exclude almost anything that might be of interest to historians and the inevitable posse of “oppo” researchers. The January 1996 records show Hillary Clinton appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and numerous other TV and radio shows to promote her just-published book, “It Takes a Village.” But they show no meetings whatsoever about the Rose Law firm billing records, no sessions with her lawyers to prepare for her grilling by Starr. The calendar for Jan. 26, 1996—the day crowds of reporters and TV cameramen gathered at the courthouse to watch Hillary Clinton enter and exit the grand jury—is totally blank. “NO public schedule,” it states simply, wiping out any reference to one of the more embarrassing public episodes of the First Lady’s days in the White House.

The Clinton campaign is on the way to carrying off a classic Tinker to Evers to Chance play by claiming that Senator Clinton has urged complete disclosure of her First Lady records (liar) as has the former President who can set limits on access (liar, liar), and that the delays and redactions are attributable to the National Archives (liar, liar, pantsuit on fire). If a Republican were involved, this story would be firmly ensconced on the front page above the fold, and be indignantly interpreted as an affront to the reporters covering the story and a gross insult to the intelligence of the American people.

HOWEVER TROUBLED SENATOR OBAMA MAY HAVE BEEN BY THE BREACH OF PRIVACY INVOLVING HIS PASSPORT RECORDS, HE PROBABLY BREATHED A SIGH OF RELIEF THAT THE STORY HAD MANAGED TO NUDGE THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT AT LEAST SLIGHTLY OFF CENTER STAGE. Senator Obama’s speech about America and race, superbly crafted and elegantly delivered, hit a home run with the press. Columnist Mark Steyn was less impressed. He found the Senator’s statements that he hadn’t heard many of Pastor Wright’s most outrageous statements, and that he didn’t agree with some that he had heard, less than convincing.

Mr. Steyn wrote:

Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree, flown-the-coop nuts.

The Rev. Wright believes that AIDS was created by the government of the United States – and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Rev. Wright knows the truth. “The government lied,” he told his flock, “about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

Does he really believe this? If so, he’s crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years.

Or is he just saying it? In which case, he’s profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDS is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you’ll know that it’s within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you’re told that it’s just whitey’s latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it’s out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama’s 40-minute speech in Philadelphia managed to rack up an impressive YouTube record of over two million hits in less than two days.

THE CLEAN AS A WHISTLE ADMINISTRATION OF DAVID PATTERSON, NEW YORK’S NEW GOVERNOR, LASTED ALL OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. He was inaugurated on Monday amidst sighs of relief and promises of bipartisan good government. But on Tuesday he called a press conference and announced that he had had hotel assignations with “a number of women” — at least one of whom was on the state payroll. And there was still another shoe to drop because it turned out that the Quality Inn accommodations might have been paid for with campaign funds. In fact, there were still more shoes and belts and neckties to hit the ground (although, at least so far, not the fan).

The Washington Post ran a colorful but curiously complacent profile of the man the New York Post was already calling the new “Luv Guv”.

Maybe the age old question posed by Chubby Checker in “Limbo Rock” — “How low can you go?”— has now been answered, at least in terms of political sex scandals; make that American political sex scandals. But if that is true, how to account for New Jersey’s contribution of the Ted Pederson Factor. Perhaps the fact that both McGreeveys have become so unsympathetic and unappealing accounts for how little traction this story —which is otherwise so sleazily irresistible in almost every imaginable way—- has received.

SENATOR OBAMA RECEIVED AN ENDORSEMENT FROM NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR BILL RICHARDSON —- WHO MAY BE HOPING THAT HIS NEWLY SPORTED GOATEE WILL CONFUSE THE CLINTONS WHEN THEY FIND HIM LATE SOME NIGHT IN SOME DARK ALLEY. James Carville achieved a new nadir of tastelessness that revealed the depth of the Clinton camp’s feelings when he observed that “Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic.”

Although Governor Richardson is more noted for his resume than for his voter appeal, he has been publicly courted by both the Clinton and Obama camps and mentioned as a possible running mate for both.

Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny’s account in The New York Times has a chilling undertone; if Governor Richardson is a praying man he should initiate some novenas that Senator Clinton doesn’t win:

Mr. Clinton helped elevate Mr. Richardson to the national stage by naming him his energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. And Mr. Clinton left no doubt that he viewed Mr. Richardson’s support as important to his wife’s campaign: He even flew to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Mr. Richardson as part of the Clintons’ high-profile courtship of him.

But Mr. Richardson stopped returning Mr. Clinton’s calls days ago, Mr. Clinton’s aides said. And as of Friday, Mr. Richardson said, he had yet to pick up the phone to tell Mr. Clinton of his decision.

The Governor said he called Senator Clinton late Thursday to inform her of Friday’s endorsement. “It was cordial, but a little heated,” he said of their exchange. “Let me tell you: we’ve had better conversations.”

Marc Ambinder, in his Atlantic blog, reported a mildly embarrassing but highly amusing gaffe involving the Richardson endorsement. The Obama campaign distributed copies of Governor Richardson’s endorsement speech to the press without having removed the stage directions:

I know Senator Obama well.

I first got to know him when I chaired the last Democratic National Convention, where he gave that wonderful keynote address.

And then, last year, as we campaigned against each other for the Presidency, I came to fully appreciate his steadfast patriotism and remarkable talents.

I also felt a kinship with him because we both had one foreign-born parent and we both lived abroad as children.

In part because of these experiences, Barack and I share a deep sense of our nation’s special responsibilities in the world.

[Turn toward Obama and smile]

Barack Obama, you are an extraordinary leader who has shown courage, sound judgment and wisdom throughout your career.

You understand the security challenges of the 21st century, and you will be an outstanding Commander in Chief.

“And smile” —- what’s not to love?

SPEAKER PELOSI WAS IN INDIA VISITING THE DALAI LAMA AND, WHILE MAINTAINING STYLISH COLOR-COORDINATION, MANAGING TO MUDDY THE SINO-AMERICAN WATERS. And take a look at some of the members of her Congressional delegation enjoying Easter recess in exotic locales. They include Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee George Miller of California, and Representatives Jim McDermott of Washington, Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, Anna Eshoo of California, Jay Inslee of Washington, Rush Holt of New Jersey and Hilda Solis of California.

Wonkette, in demi-gonzo mode, mocks the Speaker, but many a true word is spoken in jest. (Readers not familiar with Wonkette’s characteristically colorful ways of overstatement should not be alarmed; appalled if they choose, but not alarmed.)

Oh Nancy Pelosi’s so cool, she’s the first female Speaker of the House! She wears chic outfits! She’s from San Francisco! She hates China and loves freedom! And now she’s palling around with the Dalai Lama, because she is the most sanctimonious California libtard since Richard Gere got exiled to a hamster sanctuary in Wyoming.

Fame-whore Pelosi went to Dharamsala to meet with the exiled Tibetan leader, get a high colonic, and hug it out with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. She told reporters, “If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against Chinese oppression and China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world.” That’s latte-liberalspeak for “I have never paid Social Security taxes for my maid.”

AT LEAST TWO STORIES THIS WEEK SERVED TO CONFIRM ONE’S FAITH IN HUMAN NATURE (OR, MORE PRECISELY, ONE IN HUMAN AND ONE IN CANINE NATURE).

Veeramuthu Kalimuthu —aka Kali— an engineer who works at Columbia University in New York City, was on the subway platform at 116th Street waiting for the train to take him home to his wife and two kids in Queens. On the opposite platform —and 116th is a wide station— he saw a man fall onto the tracks. During rush hour, trains roar through on the station’s three tracks every three minutes.

While others frantically dialed 911 on their cell phones, Kali instinctively acted. He jumped down and skittered across the three sets of tracks whil avoiding the three third rails each packing 600 volts of electricity — enough to power a 400 ton train. Kali, 5’5” and 150 lbs., found the man totally unresponsive and weighing in at least 30 lbs heavier. But he managed to get him into a fireman’s carry on his shoulder and people helped lift him to safety on the platform. Whereupon Kali ran back across the tracks and caught the next train home. He was only found later when the story got picked up by local TV news.

He told reporters: “People should help people. If all of us get along well in this world then we’ll get a better world to live.”

Kali says he would like to meet the man he saved, but that seems less than likely. The dude was falling down (literally) drunk and either doesn’t remember what happened or remembers it only too well and is too embarrassed to step forward to salute the hero who saved him.

THE SECOND STORY INVOLVES NUBS, A DOG OF BAGHDAD (AS AN ABC NEWS SUBHEAD WRITER MIGHT DESCRIBE HIM), WHO HAD THE GOOD SENSE TO ADOPT SOME MARINES. Major Brian Dennis found the puppy, weak and freezing, with his ears cut off (hence “Nubs”), and a deep wound (which turned out to be from a screwdriver) in his side. The Major rubbed antiseptic cream on the wound and let Nubs sleep on his cot for warmth, but he didn’t expect him to make it through the night.

But Nubs survived and thrived — until the day the Major’s unit was ordered to a new camp 70 miles away. There were some tearful farewells — which apparently affected Nubs as much as the Marines because he reported for duty at the new camp a few days later. As Major Dennis put it, “I won’t even address the gauntlet he had to run of dog packs, wolves, and God knows what else to get here. When he arrived he looked like he’d just been through a war zone.”

Major Dennis figured this kind of loyalty should be rewarded, and……I’m sure you already see what’s coming……Nubs has now arrived in San Diego and is awaiting reunion with Major Dennis. The pictures are worth these thousand words. And the motion pictures even more so.

TWTW2/3

March 17, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Democratic Party, Entertainment, TWTW | Leave a Comment 

A summary of the major events of last week —9-15 March— would include the ongoing internecine war consuming the Clinton and Obama camps. So far at least the Clinton campaign has been the principal offender in this regard. James Carville published an interesting article in the Financial Times —“Halt the political hara-kiri”. Deeply embedded in the Clinton high command as he is, the colorful Mr. Carville’s op-ed may turn out to be the first public hoisting of a white flag. Or it may just be a sanctimonious feint (and in view of Mr. Carville’s background one would be excused for assuming the latter to be the case until events prove otherwise).

In 1816 Stephen Decatur became a hero by expressing the sentiment “In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” It will be interesting to see whether, in 2008, Barack Obama is seen as heroic by saying “In his sermons may he always be in the right; but Wright or wrong, my Pastor!”

Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory pulpit pronunciamentos have been coming back to bite his parishoner on his posterior. In light of his ranting oratory, which is widely being written off as the unfortunate rambling of a somewhat ignorant and superannuated man (the “crazy uncle” excuse), I think it’s interesting to consider Reverend Wright’s formidable academic background. After joining the US Navy in 1961, he received a BA and MA in English from Howard University. He received another Master’s in theology from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1975. In 1990 he received a Doctor of Ministry Degree from the United Theological Seminary, a graduate-level Methodist school in Minneapolis.The United Theological Seminary describes the purpose of the D.Min degree in this way:

The Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program at United Theological Seminary brings together religious leaders to pioneer new models of ministry that empower both minister and context to transform society.The D.Min. program provides an advanced professional degree in the practice of ministry, undergirded by action research methods to call participants toward deeper spiritual and intellectual synthesis that strengthens prophetic and pastoral competence.It empowers religious leaders to strengthen both their prophetic and pastoral competence while also equipping others for ministry in the church, in religious education and in a variety of community-based ministries.

According to the school’s catalog, the D.Min. degree is designed to:

Empower people in ministry to become more self-reliant and to take responsibility for their own project needs from within the contexts of active ministry* Emphasize learning as a process of action and reflection, or praxis, taking place in the context of daily living* Embody the principle that learning needs and interests determine the structure and content of learning* Invite learners to test their perceptions through processes of mutual inquiry* Challenge doctoral participants to discover insight for themselves as well as profiting from their mentors and peers

It will be interesting to see how prominently Dr. Wright features in the “distinguished alumni” columns of the institution’s publications. As new examples of ranting Wright sermons keep surfacing, it’s difficult to reconcile this impressive resume with the superficial and inflammatory uses to which it appears to have been put.

And, of course, any review of the week’s events would have covered the continuing fall of Eliot Spitzer —- a man so genuinely unpopular that even his friends were finding joy in his downfall.

All these, and a few others, were the events that would be included in any roundup of the past week’s news. And, indeed, I had diligently assembled links to illustrate and elucidate all of them. However, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And, in any enterprise with which I am involved, the weakest link is me.I am currently writing from an amazing art-filled adobe house in New Mexico where I am daily —indeed, hourly— experiencing new worldclass standards being set for the care and feeding houseguests. But this morning, when I sat down to write TWTW2/3, I discovered that all the notes and links that I thought I had emailed myself from Maryland turned out to be a blank document. So here I am, at the last minute plus one —- pampered but nonplussed and trying to meet my commitment to provide these weekly news summaries.

Fortunately my loss of all the links regarding the above is less important because, in my mind incomparably the most important event of the last week was the induction of Leonard Cohen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Although the honor itself is of dubious pedigree and questionable significance, anything that honors the seventy-three year old Cohen and serves to bring him to a wider audience is to be saluted and encouraged.The ceremony itself, broadcast on VH-1, was no less ludicrous than usual. One of the other inductees this year was Madonna. Beginning with barely a modicum of talent, an ounce of wisdom, and a point of gall, Madonna Louise Ciccone has fashioned a truly remarkable career now entering its third decade. History, I believe, will view her main contribution to the popular culture as having been to bring debauchery and debasement to a pre-adolescent demographic. I realize that one could argue that American society was ready for just that, and that if Madonna hadn’t existed she would have to have been invented.

One would have hoped that the passage of time and the attainment of almost unparalleled worldwide success and celebrity would have occasioned some insight if not even some wisdom. Instead, her induction speech was excruciating. From such a consummate showwoman, it was a surprisingly badly read and appallingly badly written mishmash of self-reference and self-indulgence with an underpinning of what must be a truly innate coarseness. For a taste, try here (she in introduced by Justin Timberlake). For the masochists among you (and you know who you are; and for those of you who are in doubt in this regard, this will settle the question) here is the rest of her blathering.The performance for the Cohen induction was his song “Hallelujah” by the Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice. I have never been a particular fan of Rice’s, but he does a creditable job by pretty much getting himself out of the way and performing the song as it lays —- right up until some unnecessary histrionics at the very end. For those interested in plumbing the lyric’s multitude of biblical, religious, and other references, here is —of all things— a karaoke version of the song (Rufus Wainright’s version) with the words highlighted.Unlike Madonna’s interminable and embarrassing speech, Leonard Cohen’s was a model of modesty, brevity, and profundity. After some self-deprecation, he simply quoted the lyrics for his song “Tower of Song.” (At the beginning he refers to Lou Reed, who introduced him. For the quoted lyrics only, forward to 2:05.)

Now, “Tower of Song” is a deep and witty reflection on mortality, genius, talent, reputation, humility, psychology, and posterity. It is also one of the most sinuously insinuating songs you will ever hear. Once you get past the initial shock of his considerably less than mellifluous voice (to which he humorously refers in the third stanza) and his failure to land securely on some of the correct notes, I defy anyone not to be seduced by the singer, his song, his arrangement, and, not least, his back-up singers.The following clip is from a 1988 Norwegian TV show. It shows that the song —which first appeared on his 1990 album I’m Your Man— was written before his life imitated his art and his hair actually turned gray (a fact that makes his recitation at the Hall of Fame induction particularly poignant). The usually laconic Scandinavians unfortunately overlay two snippets of dialogue from an interview in which Mr. Cohen is asked what might be considered a a somewhat insulting question (“Your music is called naïve, its called very honest, a little bit childish, simple…..how do you react to words like that?”). He replies that he considers those nice qualities in music. “After all,” he says, “nobody masters the heart, the heart is never sophisticated, the heart is always just cooking like shish kebab in our breast and nobody has a handle on it. The songs that I’ve loved like ‘Silent Night’ and ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ — they’re very simple and very charming. I like that quality in popular music.”The tune may be superficially simple —that’s what makes it so maddeningly memorable— but the lyrics can truly be savored.

TWTW2/2

March 10, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under TWTW | Leave a Comment 

The revolution may or may not devour its own children. But, at least on the basis of the last week —- 3-9 March 2008 —- the Clinton and Obama campaigns appear to have begun doing just that. And, as the French say, the appetite grows with eating.

The Washington Post created a stir with a front page story by Peter Baker and Anne Kornblut: “Even in Victory, Clinton Team Is Battling Itself”. For political junkies it was truly a wonderful story —- full of knives being sharpened, scores being settled, and oxen being gored.

The primary target (and apparently a big one both literally and figuratively) was Senator Clinton’s uber-strategist Mark Penn. It appears that some of his detractors (a veritable campaign who’s who including names such as Ickes, Grunwald, Carville, Emmanuel, Podesta, and Begala; maybe it would have saved time just to list the people who do like Mark Penn) refer to him as “Schlumbo”. But Mr. Schlumbo apparently continues to enjoy the confidence of the audience of one that really counts: the candidate herself.

In a campaign that has been noted for its profligacy (who could —or would want to— forget the $100K for party platters during the Iowa caucuses? Perhaps that was part of a Penn-inspired strategy of “no deli left behind”), Mr. Penn has not been shy about being rewarded. The Post article makes the distinction (that seems at least a little disingenuous) that while the Penn firm has received some $10 million from the Clinton campaign, “the vast bulk” was spent on polling and direct mail, with only $240,000 having been paid for consulting fees.

But anyone who has the slightest inkling of how these things work —including, presumably, this article’s authors— understands that the 240K is a fig leaf. The real dough is precisely in the polling and direct mail, where, say, a 30% profit margin could put a cool $3M in Mr. Penn’s copious pockets. (But maybe I read the whole thing wrong and “the vast bulk” was simply another snide reference to Mr. Penn himself.)

My favorite part of the article is the eloquent exchange between Mr. Penn and Mr. Ickes during a conference call:

“[Expletive] you!” Ickes shouted.

“[Expletive] you!” Penn replied.

“[Expletive] you!” Ickes shouted again.

IN THE MEANTIME, MANY THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY, Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard prof who poses for Vogue features and who Marie-Claire magazine calls “The Smartest Woman in America,” was giving an interview to The Scotsman’s Gerri Parv. The newspaper, more noted for the column inches it devotes to devolution than to the American primary process, suddenly found itself (thanks to Mr. Drudge) at center stage with a follow spot because of Professor Power’s impolitic honesty.

The story has been told and retold, but here’s the original version. The reference to Senator Clinton as a monster overshadowed what should have been the real headline from Prof. Power’s European jaunt: her interview with the BBC news program HARDtalk in which she let slip that Senator Obama’s much-vaunted plan to withdraw asap from Iraq is….how to break this gently to all the millions supporting him primarily because of it….just a “best-case scenario” that is unlikely to reflect anything he might actually do as President. (The offending exchange begins about 3.30 into the show.) For her honesty and her (unpaid) efforts to assist the campaign, the loquacious and comely Pulitzerian was forced to resign.

Whether or not Senator Clinton is a monster is a matter of opinion (although it seems to be turning out to be an increasingly widely held one). But for Senator Obama’s “senior foreign policy strategist” to ungrease the skids beneath his Iraq withdrawal plan is a very big deal. Ditto his economic adviser’s admission that the Senator’s tough trashtalk about NAFTA is only intended for the gaping masses and not to be taken seriously by anyone with a brain in their head.

ANOTHER CURIOUS MEDIA EVENT THIS WEEK involved the McCain campaign —- which has slipped so far below the fold on the front page that it is only holding on by its bare knuckles to stop from skidding into the B section. The New York Times has assigned veteran reporter Elizabeth Bumiller, its former White House correspondent and an erstwhile biographer of Condoleezza Rice, to cover the Arizona Senator and Republican nominee-in-waiting. Ms. Bumiller managed to hijack an in-air interview with the Senator by asking him a patently disingenuous question which, after saying he wouldn’t answer it, he then proceeded to answer (and answer and answer). Then, unaccountably based on the exchange to that point, she asked him “Why are you so angry?” Watch the clip and see what you think.

The question was a non sequitur and the Senator even had to lean forward and ask her to repeat it. Instead of doing so, however, she said, “Never mind, never mind,” and started to ask another question. But Senator McCain, whose only visible quirk is over-answering the question he said he wouldn’t answer, continues answering it.

Ms. Bumiller can hardly be unaware of the rumors about the Senator’s volcanic temper, nor can she have been surprised about the way their actually anodyne exchange was reported. After all, her own paper headlined the story: “McCain Grows Testy on Question about ’04 and Kerry Partnership”; “McCain Flashes temper at Reporter” was how the Washington Post described it; and “McCain clashes with NYT reporter” according to the ostensibly savvy Politico. Note to self: check Merriam-Webster to see if “set up” is one or two words or requires a hyphen.

ON SATURDAY, THE NEW YORK POST RAN A STORY that reminds one what twelve years of Clintons Redux will be like. The headline read: “Bubba’s Mystery 700G Stock”. Apparently this is the amount the former President received for a single speech he made to help a new internet startup that was founded by a convicted felon and backed by Chinese government money.

The former president was apparently (everything is only apparent because the whole transaction is shrouded in secrecy) paid in stock that he sold in May 2006 for $3.50 a share —- well above what it was believed to be worth. (The internet company itself was suffering some $60 million in losses during this period.) The Clinton Foundation, which received the 700K, will only say that the transaction was handled by a securities broker. To find out who paid such an inflated price……you’ll have to stay tuned. And I hope you have a lot of time and a great deal of patience.

Even for Mr. Clinton, whose speech fees are ordinarily in the range of $150,000, 700K is the kind of payday that attracts attention. The speech was made in December 2004 at New York’s Tavern on the Green. 2004! And we’re only just finding out about it in March 2008. By the end of the Clinton Restoration it will be 2016. Just imagine all the stories we’ll have to tell by then.

The Clintons have more lives than cats and more feet than millipedes, and the sound you hear is only the first of many shoes dropping.

THERE WAS A STORY THIS WEEK THAT UNDERLINED how truly and deeply different we are from Europeans in general and the French in particular. The reports of the only-just former Mme. Sarkozy’s upcoming re-nuptials matter-of-factly described the prospective groom as her “longtime lover”. And the wedding announcement itself was made by the fashion house of Versace which will “dress the couple”. Only three words can adequately describe the blasé recounting of such details: (1) oh (2) la (3) la. (Please try to find it in your heart to forgive the grammatical lapse of the headline writer; he was probably distracted by the story.)

In the very French way that manages to involve couture and infidelity in tantalizing amounts, the ex Mme. Sarkozy managed to add insult to injury because the whole brouhaha erupted, or what ever it is that brouhahas do, at the worst possible time. M. Sarkozy, it seems, has been trying to mount a charm offensive and overcome some of the unfavorable publicity from his own somewhat hasty remarriage.

Ever since Sarko was elected there has been a dearth of a once much-beloved sub-genre of jokes. When a French President finally does all the right things —vacations in New Hampshire, marries a leggy super model, and walks out on Leslie Stahl — it seems somehow ungrateful to tell about the AP and UP report that the French Government raised its terror alert level from “run” to “hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “surrender” and “collaborate.” The heightened terror alert level was apparently the result of a fire that destroyed one of France’s white flag factories, thus disabling the nation’s military.

And if it were ungrateful to tell that story, it would be downright churlish to ask how many French people it takes to defend Paris —- and to reply that no one knows because it has never been attempted. Or to ask why the French planted trees on both side of the boulevards in Paris —- and to answer so that the Germans could march down them in the shade.

As Marge Simpson put it: “We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.” I, for one, plan to do something about it. But not until next week.

TWTW2: This Was the Week that Was

March 2, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under TWTW | Leave a Comment 

Here’s my idea: Every Sunday post a blog highlighting, with appropriately informative and/or entertaining links, some of what strike me as the most important —or at least the most colorful— events of the preceding seven days. Now as everybody knows, a good idea is only as strong as its weakest link. So I will be interested to see if I’m able to keep this up beyond this first entry. Maybe it will be an intermittent rather than a weekly feature.

My first instinct was to call it TW3 in honor of the classic weekly news-comedy TV show That Was The Week That Was. But in order to avoid embroiling the Nixon Foundation in any messy legal problems that might result from even such a sincere hommage, I plan to call my weekly and/or intermittent posts TWTW2.

And so, with maximum optimism but minimum fanfare, here is Vol.1 No. 1:

24 FEBRUARY – 2 MARCH 2008:

TWTW2

SUNDAY 24 FEBRUARY

In what was clearly a case of effect and cause, the 101-day writer’s strike was settled just in time for the annual Oscarfest. That meant that Jon Stewart, who had been doing very nicely on his own at the Daily Show, could now depend on the legions of writers available for that high-prestige but high-risk gig. (Because Senator Obama already knows Oprah, Mr. Stewart had only to resist introducing him to Uma.)

Here, with a tip of the hat to Daniel Kurzman’s Political Humor are some of the highlights of JS’s opening monologue:

“Julie Christie was absolutely amazing in Away From Her. Brilliant movie. It was the moving story of a woman who forgets her own husband. Hillary Clinton calls it the feel good movie of the year.”

“Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq war, let’s face it, did not do as well. But I’m telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don’t care if it takes 100 years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win.”

“Oscar is 80 this year, which makes him now automatically the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.”

“Democrats do have an historic race going. Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama. Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.”

“You have to give Barack Obama credit, he’s overcome a great deal. Not just he’s an African-American. Barack Hussein Obama is his name. His middle name is the last name of Iraq’s former tyrant. His last name rhymes with Osama. That’s not easy to overcome. I think we all remember the ill-fated 1944 presidential campaign of Gaydolf Titler. It’s just a shame, Titler had so many good ideas. We just couldn’t get past the name. And the moustache.”

For those who may have missed it, as well as for the hard core devotees among our readers, here’s Jon Stewart’s entire opening monologue:

Mr. Stewart’s asteroid joke clearly made an impression on veteran actress Joan Collins, who recorded her insider’s take on Hollywood’s big night in her contribution to the (London) Spectator’s weekly Diary.

On TUESDAY 26 FEBRUARY a Democratic presidential primary debate (the party’s twentieth for the 2008 election cycle) was held in Cleveland. By now the participants have been whittled (or, perhaps more literally, worn; or, as Hillary Clinton might prefer it, vetted) down to only two.

Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live had created some stir with a parody of the candidates’ earlier debate in Austin. The stir wasn’t because of the admission of the dirty big secret that the media is gaga for Obama, or the presentation of debate moderators as shallow groupies. Rather, the stir was because Fred Armisen, the actor chosen to play Senator Obama, is not an African-American.

One of the highlights of the sketch (which opened the show and which was, truth to tell, pretty slow moving and funnier in conception than execution) was when one of the moderators, solicitious for Senator Obama’s comfort, asked if he wouldn’t like another pillow.

This obviously got under Senator Clinton’s already thin skin, because she stopped the Cleveland debate in its opening tracks with a misplaced attempt to make rancor sound like humor. Even Jim Downey, SNL’s veteran head writer and author of the sketch in question, second-guessed Senator Clinton’s opening gambit. He said, “It might, on balance, make her look a little whiny. She might have been better off if other people pointed it out for them.”

Donning my conspiracy cap for just a minute: For some reason, the exchange that triggered the pillow fight heard round the world has been edited out of the SNL website; nor will a Google search produce it. What, I wonder, is up with that? The clip that is available at least conveys a sense of the sketch (including its longueurs). I should warn readers with TiVo — before you will be allowed to watch this clip, you will be compelled to experience an art form you probably what was already extinct: the commercial.

On WEDNESDAY 27 FEBRUARY conservative icon, renaissance man, and human polymath William F. Buckley Jr. died at the age of 82.

There were many tributes, but the two best I read were those by David Brooks in The New York Times and Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal —- both acutely observed and elegantly expressed.

TWTW2 turned out to be a good one for rapprochement. On Wednesday it was noted that Raul Castro’s first official meeting as his brother’s successor was not with some other thuggish tinpot dictator, but with Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State. Many commentators read a lot into these diplomatic tea leaves. The New York Times reported (via AP):

Once known as the ”fist” of Cuba’s revolution, 76-year-old Raul Castro may be showing a brush of the velvet glove since taking power.

Just a week into his job as Cuba’s new president, Castro discussed the island’s prisoners with a visiting Vatican official and directed his government to sign two international human rights treaties that his older brother, Fidel, opposed.

Some dissidents and human rights activists see reason for cautious optimism, but others don’t expect improvements.

The next day —- THURSDAY 28 FEBRUARY —- the Times followed up with another front page report, this one from its own correspondent in Moscow, C. J. Chivers, headlined “Putin’s Anointed Heir Shows Hints of Less Icy Style”. Is it possible that the somewhat younger (42) and considerably less buff Mr. Medvedev is carving out his own presidential role? As Chivers sees it, “Now, Mr. Medvedev, the presidential successor personally selected by Mr. Putin, is creating his own public identity according to a choreographed script. And here, in a mix of Soviet and Russian symbols, the man rising to Kremlin power avoided the stern themes that have often accompanied Mr. Putin’s appearances.”

But the apotheosis of this week’s hands-across-the-sea wishful thinking came with the New York Philharmonic’s arrival and performance in Pyongyang. The program included Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”.

The orchestra opened with both countries’ national anthems, but the real show stopper was an orchestration of “Arirang” —- a traditional Korean folk song. The AP’s Burt Herman was clearly moved (either that or he just received an MFA from the University of Iowa’s writers’ workshop):

In Pyongyang, the concert began on a formal note with the North Korean and U.S. anthems, the stage framed by the flags of the two countries.

Such symbols of nationalism rang hollow under the soft strains of “Arirang.” The crowd of North Koreans murmured with surprise and recognition when the Philharmonic strings intoned the well-known theme, harps chiming in with their heavenly twinkling.

The arrangement began with the piccolo mimicking the lone morning call of a bird and rose to its strident chorus evoking a picture of simple, proud village life and a time long before the Koreas were divided.

You can see some of the dueling anthems played under maestro Lorin Maazel’s baton. My Korean is a little rusty and the scroll moves pretty fast, but I thought I saw the characters for “dupe” and “useful idiot” flash by. And I trust that the clip doesn’t end in midnote because the Dear Leader decided to pull the plug on the “The Star Spangled Banner”.

Unquestionably the most important event of this week was also musical and also took place on Thursday.

It was, of course, when Senator Obama danced —and not for the first time — on (if not this time with) Ellen. Having teased it at the opening, he delivered in (and at) the end. To close out this first edition of TWTW2, you can watch the Illinois lawmaker bust his move as he continues comfortably to boogie his way to his party’s presidential nomination.

I better go now. It’s 3 am and the children are safe and asleep. There’s a phone in my house and it’s ringing. Who can it be at this hour?