Wednesday, May 21, 2003

...And Pillsbury Says It Best!

Jason Lethert runs HeroJournalism, a service which reports on the transfer of comic books to the big screen. He just sent me a question that has nothing to do with that...

In your post about the biased reviews of Sid Blumenthal's book, you mentioned the negative review by Joseph Lelyveld, and the subsequent correcting of Lelyveld's errors by Joe Conason. I was wondering if you read Lelyveld's response to Conason here.

Yes, I did. And the most telling part of the response is that he completely skipped over Conason's main point, which was that the 1995 report by the Resolution Trust Corporation had cleared the Clintons on Whitewater and stated that they had cooperated fully with the investigation.

One of the reasons I never gave more credence to those who claimed the Clintons were obvious, provable criminals was that the accusers never seemed willing to address that very exhaustive, exonerating report. A few claimed the report was biased, even though it was a case of a Republican law firm (Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro) being selected by Republicans to pore through the Clintons' financial history. A few claimed it was incomplete, even though the final report by the Independent Counsel issued more than five years later contained not one significant fact or conclusion not included in the R.T.C. report. Most of those who rode the Whitewater story either to journalistic benefit or partisan advantage just kind of pretended the report never existed and changed the subject. They didn't even want to ask why Ken Starr (and later, Robert Ray) took so many years and spent so much to investigate a case that the folks at the Pillsbury law office covered just as thoroughly in a matter of months.

And here once again, you have an example: Lelyveld and his colleagues told us for years in print that there was serious dirt in Whitewater; that the Clintons were heading for the ol' greybar hotel for their nefarious swindles. When that didn't come close to happening, the "spin" became that the Clintons had stonewalled and concealed the damning evidence. So what do you do when someone points out that a rather thorough investigation not only cleared them but said they'd turned over all relevant documents? You just change the subject. I'm less annoyed over this for what it did to the Clintons than for what it says about the news media in this country.

• Posted at 3:26 PM · LINK

Stuff To Buy

Here are two forthcoming DVDs you might want to pre-order or at least save some bucks for. On or about June 24, it will be possible to purchase The Best of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, a 3-disc collection of moments from that ground-breaking comedy show of the sixties. The three discs hold 240 minutes of material from the years 1968-1970, including the famous Richard Nixon cameo, plus interviews with Gary Owens, Ruth Buzzi, and Arte Johnson. I've been watching the reruns of this show on the Trio satellite channel — or I was watching until I got sick of seeing the same small number of episodes over and over — and can report that they hold up very well. Not everything and everyone is wonderful, of course.

A year or so ago, I found myself at a party, surrounded by several members of the cast. I happened to mention that I never understood how Dan Rowan was ever allowed into show business. To my surprise, all of his co-stars who were present admitted that they didn't understand it, either. But most of the performers are terrific, and the songs by Billy Barnes are terrific, and the guest cameos are usually wonderful, and even the poorer jokes are over soon enough. About the only things that don't stand up are the occasional references to obscure news items and advertising catch-phrases of the day...and those are infrequent enough that I suspect that in trimming the Trio reruns to allow for more commercials, someone took the opportunity to excise that which had become obscure. Some of the smirking references to marijuana sound very Junior High School today, but that's sort of charming — as are the fashions, which seem to be coming back into style. So if you don't get Trio, or even if you do, you might enjoy watching four hours of this program, though probably not in fewer than four sittings. Watch for the DVD or pre-order it by clicking here.

Then on August 3, Twentieth-Century Fox Home Video is finally releasing Bob Fosse's controversial All That Jazz. Little has been announced about what will be on this disc but the British DVD which came out a year or so ago included an audio commentary by Roy Scheider, interviews with other cast and crew members, trailers, some cut footage, and a short featurette on Fosse as a director. This is a film I've viewed repeatedly and written about a number of times (here, for instance) and I'm still not entirely certain how I feel about it. It's kind of an almost-naked autobiography that does not always depict truth so much as the way Mr. Fosse might have wished things were or would be.

Its raw occasional honesty is in some ways mitigated by the cowardice in doing it all roman à clef, leaving him the deniability of fiction. Is Leland Palmer playing Gwen Verdon? Well, of course she is. And of course she isn't. The entire movie is made with a certain skill and beauty that makes much of its gossipy nature palatable and I guess ultimately I feel it may not be a great film, and Fosse may not have been a very good friend and mate...but it's a brilliantly-made bit of self-indulgence and a fine conversation piece. I'm buying the DVD largely to study it a few more times and because I want to hear Mr. Scheider's commentary. You might want to, as well...but even if you buy it, keep an eye out for some exhibition where you can see it on a big screen, because it loses a lot on a Trinitron. If you'd like to pre-order, as I have done, click here.

• Posted at 10:33 AM · LINK

Comic Artist Website of the Day

Is there a better renderer of classy comic book covers than Brian Bolland? I don't think so...

• Posted at 10:07 AM · LINK

Tone Deaf

Michael Tomasky writes a good essay on the tactics of the outgoing Ari Fleischer, and at the way the Bush administration has changed the "tone" of politics.

• Posted at 9:57 AM · LINK

But No Amnesty for Gallagher

A group of his fans have launched a drive to earn a posthumous pardon for Lenny Bruce, who was once convicted in New York for obscenity. Here are the details.

• Posted at 1:13 AM · LINK