Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A Brief Political-Type Thought

Between now and the election, let's all try not to fall for the following myth: That it's a news story and a possible trend if there's a shift of two points in a poll that has a three point margin of error.

• Posted at 10:15 PM · LINK

Today's Political Musing

Here's a link to another campaign commercial that's in the "I'm not sure what I think of this" category. Like the Michael J. Fox spot — which I'll be writing more about when I have the time — the commercial advocates a viewpoint that coincides with mine. In this case, it's that Joe Lieberman should not be in the U.S. Senate. Like the Fox commercial, my initial reaction was that there was something of a cheap shot being taken in advancing that view...but I'm not sure how to define it or that it's really all that cheap.

The commercial draws some striking parallels between things Joe Lieberman is saying about Iraq and statements that Richard Nixon made in defending Vietnam War policies...and most of the Nixon quotes seem to be from the period when the war was over, only we were letting more soldiers die so we could make a slow exit and try to not look like we'd failed there. The match-ups are amazing, almost as if one of Lieberman's speech writers was cribbing from Nixon. And yet, it's Lieberman on the ballot, not Nixon...and if Lieberman's positions are wrong, as I believe them to be, they're wrong because they're wrong; not because they resemble things Richard M. Nixon once said.

(I think one thing that put me off with this commercial was the shot of Nixon's face morphing into Lieberman's. That's almost becoming a cliché in attack ads, trying to link A to B in folks' minds by morphing A into B. The technology is fascinating but just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.)

On the other hand...

You could argue that a solid point is being made; that Nixon's rhetoric was shallow and dishonest, and that the comparison points that out about Lieberman's invoking of nearly-identical phrases. Iraq is only Vietnam II up to a point, but this analogy strikes me as being well within those boundaries. We do have a lot of politicians out there lately trying to have it both ways...trying to argue to the pro-war voters that the situation is still manageable while simultaneously pacifying those who believe it is not. What Lieberman's been saying lately in his speeches strikes me as the worst kind of pandering, "tell 'em sorta what they want to hear" claptrap that any office-seeker has ever attempted. So why not prove to people, via side-by-side comparison, how Nixonian it is?

Even if I ultimately decide I don't like his commercial, I hope his opponent — Ned Lamont — wins. Among the nightmare scenarios some have suggested is that the Senate winds up split and that Lieberman wins and then opts to caucus with whoever offers him the most perks and promises...which would probably be the Republicans. I have no problem with elected officials switching parties but given some of Lieberman's recent statements and question-dodging, I think the voters of Connecticut need to ask themselves if he really is an Independent or even a Democrat. Maybe that's what oughta be in these Lamont ads instead of Nixon's face.

• Posted at 1:22 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Let's flashback to 1989 and the 61st Annual Academy Awards. Someone gets the idea to hire producer-manager Allan Carr to produce and manage the festivities and the show goes down in show business history for an opening number of jaw-dropping awfulness. As I recall, the remainder of the telecast was generally decent (or as decent as they ever are) but all people talked about thereafter was that opening number. It left Rob Lowe, a lady dressed as Snow White and a lot of stars who are still — even if they're now dead — embarrassed about their participation. A bevy of notable Hollywood stars, including Julie Andrews and Gregory Peck, signed a much-publicized letter to the Academy demanding that such "tastelessness" never again be allowed to despoil their beloved Oscar ceremony.

Imagine: Tastelessness at the Oscar ceremony. That had certainly never happened before.

Carr was a fan of the outrageously-costumed musical revue, Beach Blanket Babylon, which opened in San Francisco in 1974 and still seems to be playing there. (I've never seen it but here's a link to its website — with a warning that music plays the moment you get there.) He conscripted its creator, Steve Silver, to invent the Oscar moment, adapting some elements of the stage show. Our link today is to that number, which runs close to ten minutes.

You can decide for yourself if it's the horror that some thought. My view, then as now, is that it's a bad production number but so what? How often did that ceremony ever start with a not-bad production number? When Billy Crystal first hosted the following year, the broadcast was lauded for dispensing with the opening musical extravaganza...and not just because of the Carr-spawned disaster. Those numbers were usually pretty gruesome. Obviously, though no one said this aloud at the time, the objections to the start of the '89 event, were not that it was too grotesque but that it was too gay. Back then, that mattered more than it would today. Today, I suspect, people would just say it was a lousy number and be done with it.

Oh, yeah — and the Disney folks would threaten a lawsuit for copyright infringement as they did then. Some things never change.

The person I felt sorry for in all this was the luckless actress who played Snow White. Her name was Eileen Bowman and she later told interviewers that she'd never seen an Academy Award ceremony before performing at one. She was a veteran of Beach Blanket Babylon and quite wonderful in it, everyone said. She was actually quite wonderful in this awful number, too. A quick scan of the 'net shows that she's still performing — or at least, someone with that name is — in the occasional theatrical production in California.

Thanks to several folks who sent me this link. The first was Paul Blankenship so he gets his name in the weblog.

• Posted at 11:06 AM · LINK