Saturday, June 5, 2004

Recommended Reading

If we are to believe Frank Rich, when Republicans visit New York for their convention, they will be avoiding shows like The Producers and Hairspray that contain gay characters.

• Posted at 11:47 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here's Lou Cannon, Reagan's most visible biographer, writing about the man's life for The Washington Post.

Incidentally, I've already received one e-mail from someone who described the previous post as "a tasteless attack on a man whose body is not yet cold." Read it again, fella: The only thing I said about Reagan was that I believe many of his followers have erected an image of him that does not reflect the real man. I was criticizing them, not him, and also criticizing people who will try to exploit his death for their own causes. Like you just did.

• Posted at 5:04 PM · LINK

Honoring the Dead

I never thought Ronald Reagan was really the man his admirers made him out to be, but this is not the time to discuss that. What unsettles me today is not his passing — he'd been gone for all practical purposes for many years — but that we're in for a few months of seeing his memory exploited by ostensible followers. Nothing happens in the world today without the partisans saying, "Hmm...how do we use this to push our agenda?" So we're going to have to put up with folks arguing that it would be disrespectful of Reagan's legacy not to enact certain tax cuts or to repeal the ban on assault weapons or whatever.

I wish people would fight more honestly and not load their arguments with emotional issues, but I guess that's asking too much. Lately on Crossfire, Robert Novak has been insinuating that anyone who finds fault with anything currently being done in Iraq is someone who wishes Saddam Hussein were back in power. (The hypocrisy in that ploy is even more glaring if you read Novak's columns away from Crossfire, where he publishes negative assessments of U.S. efforts overseas. But in a one-on-one debate with liberals, he feels compelled to brand them as pro-Saddam.) I'm really tired of people wrapping their arguments in the flag or the Bible or the memory of our dead soldiers or the people who perished on 9/11. And yes, Democrats do it too, arguing to carry on the legacy of Paul Wellstone and such, sometimes even reaching back to Kennedy, dragging in all sorts of irrelevancies, hoping the current proposals can coast on the emotional appeal. Whatever happened to campaigning for a cause on its own merits?

If one wishes to honor Ronald Reagan, a dandy (and totally appropriate) way would be to open up stem-cell research and fully fund it. Nancy Reagan has been crusading for this for years, saying that it might prevent others from contracting Alzheimer's as did her husband. Somehow, I suspect his fans won't want to waste the opportunity on something like that. We'll probably hear that we need to respect Reagan's legacy by re-electing George W. Bush. And someone will even be shameless enough to say, of the November election, we need to "Win this one for the Gipper."

• Posted at 4:21 PM · LINK

The Price of Justice

Mention of O.J. Simpson reminds me of a story. A few years ago, a bit after the civil trial where Simpson was fined all that money he's never going to pay, I met a lady who worked at the courthouse. She was, like anyone with half a brain, convinced Simpson was guilty. She knew that at some point during his trial, she was bound to run into him in a corridor or somewhere, and she wanted to say something to him like, "You're a murdering scumbucket, you murdering scumbucket!" It was very important to her, she said, not to treat this man like he was forgiven or adjudged innocent.

So she rehearsed in front of a mirror. For ten minutes every day before she went to work, she practiced what she would say to Simpson if and when she encountered him. Over and over, she acted it out, fiddling with the wording...

"You should rot in prison, you evil killer..."

"How awful that a murderous slime like you walks free..."

"I don't know how can you live with yourself, you sick butcher..."

And so on. One day, she got into an elevator and before its doors closed, Simpson and a couple of his lawyers got in. She immediately thought, "This is it! This is my chance!" At the time, she was leaning towards a line about how she opposed the Death Penalty but would make an exception for him. She cleared her throat, steeled her nerves, turned to Simpson and said...

"Could I have your autograph?"

Simpson shrugged and pulled a 3-by-5 card out of his pocket. He scribbled "O.J. Simpson" on it and handed it to her just as the elevator doors opened. He and his entourage walked out and she was left standing there, holding the card and muttering, "Why the hell did I do that?"

• Posted at 12:50 PM · LINK