Category Archives: Current Events

Here's a newspaper article from 1959…an interview with Carl Reiner done while he was a regular on Dinah Shore's weekly variety program. He did that post-Caesar and pre-Dick Van Dyke Show.

Hey, remember the item a few days ago about how Apple had rejected an iPhone application featuring political caricatures by Tom Richmond? Well, they're reversed their decision. Good for them.

My pal Nat Gertler writes to remind me that Carrie Prejean was not Miss California. She was Miss California USA. Nat also adds…

Oh, and I should follow that up with a note that if you ask anyone to name a Miss America from the 1980s, odds are pretty dang good that they'll name Vanessa Williams…the one who was made to resign due to nekkid photos. She's a successful actress with Grammy, Emmy, and Tony nominations, and, a regular on Ugly Betty. I just looked down a list of the rest of the names from that decade, and only recognized one other (a Fox News host). Scandal works.

That was kinda my point. Whatever her sincerity or intent, the fact is that Ms. Prejean has turned a "who cares?" beauty crown into a ticket to celebrity…and, it wouldn't surprise me, some lucrative jobs. She may become the role model for most future beauty pageant winners.

I figured that when Lou Dobbs departed CNN (apparently not by choice), he was still dickering with Fox News for a job there. His spin on the day's events would fit right in, plus he'd have the added value to them of being able to denounce his old employers as commie news-slanters. But Joe Conason thinks it's not out of the question that Mr. Dobbs may have his eyes on the White House.

Carrie Prejean, the ousted Miss California, has been making the rounds, getting a lot more airtime than any state-level beauty queen in history to complain that everyone's trying to silence her. She's one of a lot of people in the news lately who remind me of that line on the tape where now-ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich was saying, of the chance to appoint a U.S. Senator, something like "I've got this thing and I'm going to find some way to profit from it." And in a way, I have trouble faulting Ms. Prejean for what she's trying to do.

I think beauty pageants are shallow and bogus but I certainly understand why an attractive 21-year-old lady might see one as her best opportunity to make some money, attain some fame and maybe springboard to a lucrative career. And while I find her politics repugnant, I also see the sums of cash some are making by pandering to the Palin boosters and I get where she's coming from there, as well. If she'd done what a proper Miss California was supposed to do, no one would ever have heard of her. She wouldn't have a book coming out that a lot of right-wingers will buy. She wouldn't be receiving whatever offers and deals she's going to wring out of all this. Whether she winds up lecturing on the Bob Jones circuit or marketing sex tapes — not that there's a huge difference between those two options — she'll make more than if she'd just been a nice, non-controversial pageant winner appearing at boat shows.

Her appearance last night on Larry King Live was a two-way train wreck. She didn't want to answer questions and he, as usual, didn't know what to ask. Still, the spot served both their purposes. He got some tune-in. She sold some books. I don't see that there's much more happening there than that.

The one thing she said I could believe was sincere was that Sarah Palin is her role model. A former beauty contestant who's becoming rich and famous saying vapid, baseless things and firing up the rabid right? Yeah, sure. I can see where she gets it.

Fred Kaplan on what Obama really has to decide with regard to Afghanistan.

Daniel Larison writes about people who want to claim that Barack Obama doesn't love his country. Larison's a pretty solid Conservative but I find myself agreeing with him often and I agree with him on this. I also think that a lot of folks who profess to love America love it the way Ike Turner loved Tina.

Ruth Marcus lists some of the flat-out lies that Republicans are making against the Health Care Reform Bill.

Some Republican Senators are proposing a constitutional amendment that would put term limits on Congress — two terms (12 years) for a Senator, three terms (6 years) for a Congressperson.

I recognize that proposed constitutional amendments have about a one-in-more-than-a-thousand chance of ever going anywhere, and that they get introduced just to get attention and look like someone is doing something. That said, I've always thought term limits were a rotten, anti-democratic idea. If I'm happy with my Congressman — and I am with Henry Waxman — and he wants to serve another term, why should someone else say I can't have him? If the problem is that he amasses too much power by staying there, then change the seniority system. That's a lot easier than a constitutional amendment would be.

And if the premise is that by serving multiple terms, a rep becomes too susceptible to bribes from lobbyists…well, I don't understand that at all. It seems to me that if I got elected to Congress and I knew there was no way I could build a whole career there, I'd immediately start lining up my next job. That would mean cozying up to big companies that might hire me when I left office.

I can sorta/kinda buy the idea of limiting the president since it might not be grand to have the whole executive branch configured around one person so long. It could mean that when the next Chief Exec came around, he or she could never eliminate the influence of the previous Chief Exec. But no member of Congress shapes the legislative branch that much and when a long-term seat occupant finally departs, the replacement doesn't seem to have that much trouble taking over.

So I really don't get the argument for Term Limits. We trust the electorate to vote in the right people when there are openings. Why can't we trust them to just vote out the wrong people because they've been there too long?

My pal Bob Elisberg writes about How to Hate the President. I'm linking though I don't agree completely with Bob on this one. Like, I don't think George W. Bush was wrong, per se, to cut taxes during a war. Cutting taxes can be a very good thing. I think Bush was wrong to cut taxes without cutting spending, which is difficult to do during a war. Slight difference. I also think he was wrong to shift too much of the burden from the wealthy to the middle and especially the lower class. And I don't "hate" him for that. I just think he did a very good thing for his friends and a very bad thing to the rest of us.

This may be a small, obvious point but I think we've cheapened a lot of words and metaphors lately. Hitler and Nazis used to have a specific historical reference and now they've kind of become freeform insults for anyone you don't like for any reason. If Obama goes out for cheeseburgers, he's Hitler. If my gardener overtrims the hedges, he's a Nazi. If someone ever comes along again who arranges for mass genocide, it's going to be very difficult to compare them to anything meaningful. I'm also bothered by the way some are tossing the word "hate" around.

Fred Kaplan on what it meant when the Berlin Wall came a-tumblin' down.

Like all of you, I don't know what (if anything) to make of the Fort Hood shooting spree yesterday. It's worth noting, as Glenn Greenwald does, how wrong much of the early reporting was. We seem to now be in Phase Two, where still no one knows anything except maybe how to spin things to support their pet causes. I'm thinking of arguing that the shooting proves that 6'3" comedy writers should be paid better.

Because of the Internet and cable news, we now have much faster access to "facts" and "analysis" (note the quotes) when something like this happens. I find myself going the other way with it; to be less likely to follow the story right away because the early picture is so incomplete and distorted. Like the columnist Jack Germond once said, "One of the things wrong with news coverage is that we're not paid to say 'I don't know.' So we have to make like we know even when we don't."

One of my favorite political columnists, Gene Lyons, writes about how in some circles, it's more important for our leaders to be "tough" than it is for them to be right.

This is one of those political issues that has a resonance in my own life. Over the years, the folks I've encountered who liked to talk tough were usually substituting that "virtue" for other, more efficient tactics like thinking first. I've also found that the ones who like to talk tough are usually the strongest in talk and the weakest in action.

One thing that I increasingly believe about elections in this country is that they're all about the "hot button" issues — bank bailouts, health care, gay marriage, etc. — and nothing else. If you ask the average voter, "Do you think the moral integrity of the candidate is important?," they invariably say yes. If you ask them, "Do you think it's important that a candidate be competent and knowledgeable?", they all answer in the affirmative. Absolutely, positively yes. Those two qualities are vital, they'll say.

And then, when it comes time to pick the candidate they'll vote for, they pick whoever says the "right" things about gun control, immigration and the death penalty — and that's about it. The other stuff either gets ignored or assumed…

They ignore the fact that the candidate might not know how to do the job or accomplish the goals. They assume that because he or she says the right things, he or she must be smart enough to make things happen.

They ignore the fact that the candidate might be lacking in honesty and integrity. They assume that because he or she says the right things, he or she must be a pillar of virtue, at least compared to the moral degenerates who have different views.

Maybe this dawned on you a long time ago. But the other day on CNN, I saw someone going on and on about the genius and high ethics of the candidate they're voting for…and all I could think was, "You don't really believe that about him. You just think a vote for him is a vote against Obama."

Joe Conason tells us why Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh just might be interested in scuttling Health Care Reform. It has to do with how their spouses make money.