Sunday, March 6, 2005

Soupy Sez

Speaking of Rhino Handmade, as I did a few items ago, I should mention that they still have copies availlable of their superb Soupy Sales CD set. It contains the full contents of his 1961 record, The Soupy Sales Show, which I played the hell out of when it first came out. It also has the entirety of his '62 follow-up, Up in the Air, plus a few singles and oddments, and the best thing is that Clyde Adler is also heard on it. (You can learn why this matters to me by reading this article.) Soupy's not the greatest singer, and I'd rather see him than listen to him...but his records were still fun.

My occasional items here about the Soupman bring me two or three e-mails per week from folks who fondly remember watching his program, so I know we have a lot of Soupy fans logging in here. If you're one, you might want to order this thing quickly, since they only pressed 2500 copies and can't have very many of them left. Go to the Rhino Homemade site and search for "Soupy."

• Posted at 5:18 PM · LINK

Dan and Dave

This may seem a tad tardy but I just got around to watching last week's episode of The Late Show With David Letterman with Dan Rather in the guest chair. Having read on many a blog that Letterman did a great, incisive interview and that Rather came back with good, dignified answers, I must say I felt let down on both counts. One can forgive Letterman for lobbing softballs since it is a comedy show, since Rather is a fellow CBS asset, and since Dave seems genuinely fond of the guy. I think "real" reporting has gotten so bad in this country that when a David Letterman or Jon Stewart asks something that's the tinest bit challenging, people fall all over themselves to praise it, either because it's such a novelty or because it slams reporters to note that comedians are often doing a better job of covering the news. One of the few comments of Rather's that impressed me was when he talked about the new softness of reporters who don't challenge those in power for fear of losing access.

But for the most part, Dan Rather continues to be a man who disappoints me every time I see him, and who should have left the anchor chair about half-past the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush. He really was a good reporter at one time...or, at least, he resembled a good reporter enough to remind us what that meant. He asked tough questions and he challenged the answers he received. Some folks hated him because they only think it should be done to the other side; that when you do it to theirs it's bias or disrespect or whatever you have to say to discredit the messenger. But I think the press should always be at least slightly hostile to those in power, and to the extent Rather represented that in his pre-anchoring days, I thought he was a good newsman. Back then.

The centerpiece of the man's visit to Letterman was, of course, the discussion of the infamous Bush National Guard Memo flap. Rather admitted error and hid behind the findings of the CBS internal investigation that said it was a screw-up but not one motivated by political objectives. I think that's probably true, but I also thought Rather was dead wrong when he tried to argue that America was not about to turn out an incumbent president in a time of war, and that Bush was going to get in again, no matter what. Did Dan not notice how close that election was? How even midway through Election Day, some of the pollsters thought Kerry was going to win? Even if true, "Bush was going to win anyway" is not an excuse for anything, and I thought Rather said it to respond to a charge that Letterman did not raise but others have: That the CBS screw-up took the focus off Bush's actual, probably-damning National Guard record and instead made him look like the victim of a smear.

Rather also defended himself by noting that the makers of the CBS internal report said they were unable to prove the documents were forgeries. Some bloggers were outraged at this comment, noting that the burden of proof should be on CBS to establish legitimacy, not on anyone's ability to prove the opposite. They're right...and one might note that one expert consulted by the internal investigators was pretty adamant that the alleged National Guard papers were bogus. Still, I think Rather was trying to say that despite what some have claimed, it was not inarguably obvious that the documents were phony. In fact, he still seems to be taking the position that while they should not have been used, there remains some question as to whether or not they were fakes. One wonders if he truly thinks that's so, or if he just figures that it's a less embarrassing stance to hold. Based on his sorry defense of sorry actions, I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Still, I'll make a prediction here that in his new assignments, Rather will return to hands-on investigative reporting; that he will move mountains to come up with some big, sensational scoop that will eclipse the recent, sorry escapade and not leave "Rathergate" as the final chapter of his career. I'm not saying he'll succeed in this. It's been a long time since Rather has been known for anything other than quirky bromides and arousing the ire of the political right. But if somehow, he can tap into the part of him that he lost when he left the White House beat, he just might pull it off.

• Posted at 11:22 AM · LINK

Hackenbush Live!

Gary Sassaman reports on what he did last night, which was to spend An Evening With Groucho. Well, actually, it wasn't Groucho. It was Frank Ferrante. But these days, Frank is a lot funnier.

• Posted at 9:47 AM · LINK