There are rumors swirling that McCain may dump Sarah Palin as his running mate. I don't believe them. She could admit to having killed a nun when she was younger and he wouldn't throw her off the ticket...and it isn't just because the "Republican base" loves her. It's because that base doesn't like a leader who ever admits he was wrong. Amidst the dwindling hordes that defend George W. Bush, there's a strong sense that never admitting a mistake is just as good as never making one.
I don't see Democrats (usually) doing the same thing. In fact, among Democrats, it's a sign of reasonableness to back down on positions even when you think you're right. In any case, John McCain can't come out and admit he made the wrong pick without telling the world he's bad at making important decisions. To get rid of Palin now would mean engineering some way in which she withdraws from the ticket over McCain's regrets. Few would believe that and even the ones who did would think less of McCain's executive prowess, calling it a mess of his own making.
By the way: Some Republicans are trying to play the revelations about Palin's pregnant daughter as Democratic dirty politicking. Actually, the news appears to have come out because The Enquirer got wind of it and was about to publish. It's sleazy but that's what that paper does, and they do it to everyone — on a non-partisan basis. (Has anyone noticed they've run a couple of stories about the pending divorce of Laura and George W. Bush? These will probably turn out to be just as true as the stories 8-10 years ago about the pending divorce of Hillary and Bill Clinton.)
Never mind Iraq, the economy, Big Oil, health insurance, Iran, Korea, Bin Laden, global warming or any of those other unimportant matters. I want to know what the candidates plan to do about stores that put out their Halloween merchandise on September 2.
The above photo is of men who wrote for Sid Caesar on the legendary TV show, Caesar's Hour. At left is Gary Belkin. The back row is Neil Simon, Mel Tolkin and Larry Gelbart. The guy in the sweater in the center is Mike Stewart and to the right of him is Mel Brooks.
That leaves the man at the typewriter, Sheldon Keller. Sheldon passed away Monday at the age of 85. The cause of death was complications from Alzheimer's.
Sheldon was a great comedy writer. He was great on the paper and he was great to just talk with. You think I've got a lot of funny show business anecdotes? You didn't know Sheldon. Let me tell you a couple of other things about Sheldon that don't seem to be in the online obits...
At one point early in his career, he was half of an unsuccessful comedy team with Allan Sherman. Later, when Sherman became creator-producer of the game show, I've Got A Secret, Sheldon was the first contestant on the program. His secret was "I'm wearing a girdle."
Sheldon wrote for almost every major entertainer of his day: Sinatra, Hope, Lucy, Bing, Danny Kaye, you name 'em. He wrote for The Dick Van Dyke Show and for M*A*S*H — two pretty good credits and there were plenty of others.
He co-wrote (with Gelbart) a film called Movie Movie, which may be the funniest flick you can't currently buy on DVD. He also wrote songs, including some for Movie Movie. And he was a great musician, playing in several "celebrity" bands.
But mainly I should just tell you what a delightful, funny man he was. Always sad to lose one of those.
I'm swamped for the next few days with deadlines and such. I keep trying to write something about the whole Sarah Palin situation but I can't keep up with the revelations. (Now it turns out that her husband was a member of that group that wanted their state to secede? Nice vetting, John.) Anyway, I can't keep up with the news, and wiser folks are saying all the things I think to say. There was an interesting column the other day from Michael Kinsley that made some pretty obvious arguments against McCain. In the middle of it, Kinsley wrote the following, which I hadn't really thought of before...
The whole "experience" debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him of lacking foreign policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by any chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a "professional politician." When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits.
I think that's all true. "Experience" has become just another topic you twist to justify why your guy is better than their guy. And if you can't find any conceivable way to argue that your guy has more, you argue that his lack of being mired in the old ways is a plus.
Still, I wish Obama had more. I don't think experience is everything but I also don't think it's nothing. Kinsley's right that very few people approach the presidency with all the necessary experience but I do wish Obama was a two or three term Senator, just as folks inclined to vote for McCain must wish he wasn't 72 or didn't have all that past nastiness with divorces and the Keating Five. I also wish Obama had never crossed paths with a couple of past associates, not because I think he did anything wrong or shares any of their views, but because it would be nice if his detractors didn't have that to work with.
Ultimately, you pick your guy in spite of certain shortcomings and you argue that his don't matter and that the other guy's disqualify him from the job. One of the fun things about the Palin nomination is how it's forcing advocates of both tickets to modify or at least rephrase some of their assertions about what's important. I can't wait to see how everyone's position changes a little with the next discovery about Governor Palin and her family. And hey, aren't we about due for Joe Biden to say something really amazing? By Election Day, there may be no Talking Points left standing...
My pal Robert J. Elisberg (we call him Bob...or sometimes just Elisberg) has a nice column up about Steve Goodman. If you don't know who Steve Goodman was, you need to click and read. If you do know, you've probably already clicked and read.
I didn't get to see much of the Jerry Lewis Telethon this year. What I saw seemed pretty much identical to recent years except that they raised a million more and Max Alexander was in the hospital so they showed tapes of his past appearances. I did like seeing Frank Sinatra Jr. perform. I did not like seeing Ed McMahon looking a lot less healthy than the people they were raising money to cure.
Hey, are you interested in Jerry's position on stem cell research? He talks about it in this interview about this year's telethon. He also has some interesting thoughts on Vegas, funerals and his popularity in France.
In the worst-kept secret on television since Alan Brady's toupee, a lady won the million dollar prize in the episode of Deal or No Deal that aired last night. Just in case the promos hadn't made it clear, the opening of the show pretty much announced it...and then during the program, there were little spot announcements announcing how much time remained before the spectacular ending of the game. By the time they got to the reveal of the final briefcase, the win was something of a disappointment...not just because they'd blown all suspense but because by now, given what other shows have given away, it's like "A whole hour just to win a million dollars? Drew Carey gives that much away during The Clock Game!"
I'm curious what this is going to do to Deal or No Deal, both in prime-time and in the new daytime version which debuts next week. Will it generate new interest because the game now seems winnable? Or have people only been watching to see if the million would ever get won...and now that it has been, the show has shot its wad? How much interest was there in the second moon landing?
A few weeks back, I wrote here that some of the Deal or No Deal games are deadly dull because the top prizes are eliminated early so the contestant basically spends the last half hour struggling to win a few thousand bucks. One of the prize models has been writing me and she says that they've taped a few games that were so uninteresting that those episodes have been discarded or at least postponed indefinitely. Apparently, there's been at least one session where, rather than let the contestant continue to play for a relatively small amount, they simply stopped the taping, awarded the top prize money to the contestant and threw out whatever they'd taped.
That's one thing they've been doing to keep interest up. I can't help but feel that it won't be enough and that they're going to have to start instituting new rules and gimmicks, as well as ratcheting up the cash giveaways. It's too lucrative a franchise for them to give it up without a fight. Maybe they could bring on a lot of frat boys as contestants and give them the option of taking the amount of money in the case or the lady who opens it. If they haven't thought of it yet, they will.
Should you feel inclined to donate to relief efforts for victims of Gustav — or any other recent tragedies — I would like to remind you about my charity of choice, Operation USA. I looked around at many organizations that ask for money and promise to good with it...and many do. Many, it should also be pointed out, spend way too much on their own bureaucracy and salaries so only a small part of each dollar you give actually helps out folks in need.
After a fair amount of research and asking folks who know this kind of thing, I decided that whatever money I can afford to donate could not be put to better use than it is when I give to Operation USA. They have a small staff (small, considering how much they accomplish) and they don't spend a lot on themselves or on frills. Give them a buck and something like 95 cents of it is spent feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, helping control disease, etc. Not only that but they do it all with a minimum of delay, often before any other organization can get its act together.
As for why you might not want to donate to the Red Cross, read this article by Richard Walden, who's one of the guys behind Operation USA. He's not shilling for the interests of his own charity. He's telling you the kind of bureaucratic hinderances that plague the big charities and prevent them from doing as much good as the small ones.
September 3, 2008
