Category Archives: Current Events

My pal Bob Elisberg wrote such a fine primer on the WGA Strike over at The Huffington Post that I hereby offer to take him back to my favorite barbecue restaurant for ribs.

Michael Kinsley on how everyone's calling for "change" but some of them really don't want to change much.

Jay Kogen writes a good explanation of why the WGA cannot and will not give in.

Ralph Nader says that John Edwards stands out from all the other Democratic contenders. Is this the same Ralph Nader who in 2000 said he couldn't see a bit of difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush?

About this time in every presidential election, some prominent journalist writes pretty much the same article about how the Iowa Caucuses are a sham masquerading as a real primary, and how the outcome doesn't even begin to reflect what Iowans think, let alone any significant block of voters in this nation. This year, Christopher Hitchens takes a stab at that article. No one, insofar as I can tell, disputes his thesis or the facts supporting it. But no one does anything to change the set-up, either.

David Brooks on why Mitt Romney can't possibly win in '08. I suspect that if you do a little web-surfing, you can find a reasoned argument for each of the candidates, Democratic or Republican, telling why that person has no chance of winning. But this one strikes me as a pretty solid case.

Brooks, by the way, is the man soon to be known as the New York Times Conservative columnist who's occasionally correct. That's what they'll be calling him after William Kristol's new column begins appearing in the paper. You just know that hiring came about because someone said, "We need a new right-winger…who should we get?" And someone else said, "I dunno. Let's see if we can find someone who's never been right with one single prediction about American foreign policy!"

Also: I should mention, in light of some e-mail I'm receiving, that I am not opposed to Barack Obama. I'm not particularly for him either, or for anyone. I figure I've got plenty of time to decide which person I will reluctantly back and then have to cringe as they often disappoint me. Why start that process now?

Reza Aslan writes of the challenges that await our next President and in so doing makes an interesting case against Barack Obama. He makes no case for any particular candidate but the argument would seem to lead one towards Clinton…Bill, not Hillary. I don't see anyone on either party's ballots who seems to know anything about these rather serious issues, let alone how to solve them. Joe Biden, maybe — but Joe Biden has about as much chance of being elected President as Michael Vick. I don't want to have to vote for Hillary and hope that she turns a lot of her job over to her hubby but it may come to that.

I guess what I'm wondering here is: Are the candidates not talking more seriously about what to do in Iran because they really don't know? Or is it that they expect America will elect its next leader based on matters like abortion and guns and immigration and maybe how tough they sound when they mention Iraq or how religious they seem to be? And then we'll hope that whoever sounds good to us on those fronts can figure out what to actually do about the Middle East?

Just watched Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, an HBO documentary about the late senator from Arizona and 1964 presidential candidate. I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it…in fact, here's a link to a page that tells all about it, including when it airs again.

However, I had the faint sense of maybe (just maybe) witnessing some after-the-fact whitewashing of a man's life; of Barry Goldwater being repackaged for posterity as the somewhat non-partisan elder statesman he became, not as the darling of the extreme right that he was in '64. I suspect, just based on a distant observer's perspective, he would have approved of such refurbishment…and to its credit, the film does give us a good glimpse of the 1964 model Goldwater.

Still, one overwhelming message of the film is that ol' Barry was such an honest, outspoken maverick that even his old enemies loved and respected him. That may be true to some extent — the on-camera interviews praising him are full of Democrats and Liberals — but it's the later Goldwater they loved. They liked the guy who was no longer a force of any note in the Republican party and who said things like "Nixon was no damned good" and that gays should be allowed to serve in the military. They liked him because when he said such things, he couldn't be dismissed by the right as some wacko Liberal. He was, after all, Mr. Conservative, the one-time pin-up boy of the John Birch Society and defender of Joe McCarthy.

In fact, the main theme of the film — apart from the one about Barry being such a swell, candid guy — is that he was Mr. Conservative and those who now represent that movement are not. (This is also the main thesis of the new John W. Dean book, Conservatives Without Conscience, that I just finished. The book, Dean says, started out as a collaboration with Goldwater.) The documentary even offers us testimony from present-day right-wingers like George Will to wish that Conservatism was more like it was in Goldwater's day…though I doubt Will would sign on to every view that Barry voices in the old footage.

My recollections of Goldwater in '64 — and remember, I was twelve at the time — is that he was the poster boy for those who wanted to slow down the advance of Civil Rights (like, to the point of moving backwards) and those who wanted the U.S. to find an excuse to drop serious nuclear explosives on those dirty commies in Russia…or maybe not even to wait for a reason. Those might not have been his views. In fact, they probably were not, but he sure did little to distance himself from that mindset and whatever votes it could bring him.

I also recall thinking his campaign was just plain feeble. There's a skill to running for office…a skill that has nothing to do with whether the candidate is any good or not. It has to do with fund-raising and advertising and presenting the product (the candidate) in a saleable context. Lyndon B. Johnson and his operation were just better at it than the folks marketing Goldwater, especially when L.B.J. was armed with a powerful weapon: A martyred president whose legacy he could claim to be trying to carry forth. (You can hear and read Goldwater's '64 acceptance speech here. It's somewhat less radical now than it was at the time.)

I don't know whether this country would have been better off if it had elected Barry Goldwater that year…probably not if he'd governed as per some of the campaign speeches he made. Once it was clear he'd never get another shot at the presidency, and maybe once it was apparent that Arizona voters would keep him in the Senate as long as he wished to serve, the man changed. He became the iconoclastic, beholden-to-no-one gadfly that the documentary makes him out to be. I wish they'd obtained footage of an appearance he made on The Tonight Show shortly before his death in 1998. Jay Leno was the host then and Goldwater had that wonderful attitude of "I don't care what people think…I'm going to say what I believe." It was a wonderful chat as he bashed Nixon and Jerry Falwell and anyone who opposed gay rights, then turned right around with equally strong words against several prominent Democrats and their efforts. I think that guy might have made a much better president than Johnson.

Alas, I can't think of a single politician today who ever became half as famous and who would absent himself from partisanship that way and just say and do what he thought was right. Which is why I'd like to believe the Barry Goldwater they sell us in Mr. Conservative was the real Barry Goldwater.

I believe that a person has a right to end his or her own life. I do not think it should be done frivolously or without safeguards or on a whim. But I do believe that if a human being's deteriorating medical condition reaches a certain stage of their own selection, they should be able to end the pain, the suffering, the drain on their loved ones, etc. You should be able to designate that if you reach that certain stage and cannot take your own life, it will be done for you. I think the infamous "Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, is a hero who should not be sitting in a prison cell. His style was a bit eccentric but his viewpoint is more compassionate and committed to human dignity than the ravings of those who insist that all lives must be preserved at all cost.

This is not a viewpoint I came to out of sheer theory. It evolved out of watching a beloved neighbor deteriorate in old age. Long past the time he might ever again utter a coherent word or be able to do anything for himself, he remained technically "alive" in a manner that was sheer torture to his wife of more than fifty years. Taking care of him became a 24/7 job that destroyed her health and bank account. I am sure that if he ever did have a moment of lucidity, he would have been horrified at the harm that his condition was inflicting on a spouse he loved and he'd have jumped out the window or something.

One often hears people, especially of the "religious right," insist that life is sacred; that no one but God has a right to end it and that humans must preserve it, no matter what. In theory, that sounds noble to me but I cannot reconcile the principle with what I witnessed in the lives of those neighbors. Prolonging that heartbeat meant nothing but pain and personal destruction.

I used to think that the worst possible thing in the world would be to wind up like that man…to live in pain and to destroy the lives of those you loved. I was wrong. After reading all about the Terri Schiavo case, I think the worst thing would be to wind up like her or my old neighbor and to become a political football. A lot of people who don't know the poor woman are suddenly weighing in on her situation and trying to resolve it in favor of whatever view they hold about euthanasia.

This website was set up by some members of her family, and it seems to make a strong case that her life should not be ended. As I said, a step like that should not be taken unless the person has indicated they wish it and a rational due process has verified that fact. If I formulate an opinion based on what's being reported in the press, it would seem that this was not the case, and that the officials who stopped her termination took the right step. Then again, I believe so little of what I see reported in the press, I don't feel qualified to assert that. I doubt that anyone is, apart from certain family members, doctors and parties who are intimately involved with the woman's situation. Everyone who is commenting from afar is just pushing their personal views on mercy-killing, for or against, with no real consideration of Terri Schiavo's needs.

So: I believe what I said in the first paragraph above and I have no opinion on whether or not it is proper in her case. But the main thing is that I think I'm going to insert a clause into my will. It will say that if I ever am so ill and infirm that my friends, loved ones and doctors are debating the ending of my life, they should make that determination, knowing that I would never want to be kept alive if there was no real chance I would ever again think and communicate and function and eat pizza. And if it reaches the stage that people on the Internet are joining in on the debate, they should pull the plug on me…immediately. Perhaps they could even hook my life support up to Google News and when the topic arrives there, it would send out a shutdown signal.

In their lawsuit against him, Fox News said Al Franken was "not a well-respected voice in American politics." You sure couldn't prove that by anyone who was in the hall where I was Tuesday evening. Well, there was one guy who seemed to feel that way but we'll get to him. The other eight hundred people present greatly enjoyed hearing Mr. Franken interviewed by an amazingly-svelte Rob Reiner. They cheered as Al talked about his battles with Bill O'Reilly, his criticisms of Ann Coulter and his mixed sympathies for Rush Limbaugh. He also managed to be pretty funny, too. I especially laughed at his description of a political commercial he'd like to see the Democrats air. It would show footage of George W. Bush landing on the aircraft carrier and strutting about. Then in would come a voiceover by Wesley Clark, John Kerry or someone else with actual combat experience who would say, "You know, playing dress-up can be fun…"

About that one guy who didn't like Franken. Maybe it's always been like this but lately, every time I'm at a public event and they have a microphone set up for questions from the audience, the following occurs. The mike seems to attract people who really don't have a question… they just want the spotlight for a little while. Often, they seem to appoint themselves spokespersons for the entire audience ("On behalf of all of us out here, I just want to say how grateful we are that you came here tonight…") or they've figured out some way to tell everyone about themselves in the guise of a question. You have to be especially wary of that one guy who spends the whole speech or panel hovering near the audience mike, waiting for the moment when they throw it open to questions and he gets his big break. He's usually the first one and he's got a speech all prepped for the occasion.

Tonight's first questioner was a gentleman of arguable ethnicity who started reading from a prepared text that quoted several places in Franken's new book where the publication of falsehoods is decried. After other audience members started yelling, "Get to your question," the guy jumped to the last page of his speech and accused Franken of a blatant error. It didn't sound especially significant to me…more a matter of semantics than factual discrepancy. People started booing the guy, more for his stridency than his point (it seemed to me) and the next questioner in line ripped the speech out of his hands. For about three seconds there, it looked like there might be fisticuffs but Franken gave the guy a nice answer, offered to speak with him after the speech, and neatly defused the moment. Later, when Al sat down to sign books for about half the attendees, the rude guy stormed to the front and demanded his personal chat then and there. They made him go to the end of the line, which he did, and from there he held court and lectured largely-uninterested parties on his rather trivial point.

No other questioner was that contentious but some of the others had long speeches that seemed primarily about getting attention and only incidentally about soliciting Franken's thoughts. I get tapped to play Moderator at a lot of events and I have to remind myself to watch out for such folks and to not let them get away with hogging the mike and saying nothing. Or delivering an infomercial about themselves.

I got but have not yet read a signed copy of Franken's best-seller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. When he was on Saturday Night Live, Franken got a rep for being arrogant and rude but I was impressed with his "autograph line" style. He was friendly to everyone, making more conversation than he had to, and going out of his way to shake everyone's hand and make them feel comfortable. Maybe being on the New York Times best-seller list makes a man humble…though come to think of it, that hasn't helped Bill O'Reilly.