Category Archives: Uncategorized

Paul Jacob explains that when Senators say they're against pork-barrel spending, they mean "in any state but mine."

Here's a link to a free read of the Maureen Dowd column I mentioned in the previous message. Thanks, Bruce.

I suppose it's too much to hope for weekend indictments.

It's kinda fascinating to watch the public mea culpas and recriminations of The New York Times. Clearly, the Times made a lot of errors and misjudgments on both the Valerie Plame story and all the stories that parroted and/or validated Bush administration claims that got us into the Iraq war. Clearly too, I think, other newspapers made and often make these kinds of mistakes and never admit them, which is less healthy than what the Times does. In many ways, the measure of a newspaper is in not how much they get wrong but in what they do when that's pointed out to them. Today's Maureen Dowd column, which I'd link to if I could find you a free route, basically says that a lot of Judy Miller's headline stories were journalistic malpractice. I wonder how many papers would allow a columnist to say that the people editing the front page screwed up royally. Not many, I'm guessing.

We're thinking only good thoughts for those in the path of Hurricane Wilma. I read somewhere else on the 'net — I forget where — that what with tsunamis and quakes and floods and fires and hurricanes, a certain amount of Disaster Fatigue is settling over people lately. It's almost like, "Ho-hum…another few cities destroyed."

A lot of people have now donated as much money to relief efforts as they can afford for a while. Last week, a man came to my door soliciting donations for a downtown mission. Now, I have a policy: I don't like people coming to my door without an invite. I don't care what you're selling, how much good you're doing. Knock on my door and I won't sign your petition, donate to your cause, vote for your candidate, convert to your religion or buy your Thin Mints. I'm especially firm with regard to charity donations. I make all I can justify to a couple of recognized, established funds that I know do good work with what I send them. Why give money to strangers with no office? Anyway, when I told the mission solicitor that I wouldn't be giving him any cash, he did a little body language that I'm pretty sure meant, "Another one who won't donate" — like he was doing much, much worse than he usually did with these rounds.

It reminded me of an old Jewish joke that, some of you may recall, turns up in Fiddler on the Roof. A beggar asks a man for a handout and the man gives him one coin. The beggar says, "One? Last week, you gave me two." The man says, "I had a bad week" and the beggar says, "Because you had a bad week, I should suffer?" I got the feeling the fellow who came to my door wanted to say, "Because the people of New Orleans had a bad week, my mission should suffer?"

My pal Tom Stewart writes…

About the movie of The Producers being compared to, well, the movie of the musical, The Producers. While I'm a huge fan of the original movie, I think the musical solved a problem I always had with the first version: it has no real third act. I've always felt that it was 2/3rd of an excellent movie. After Max, Leo and Franz blow up the theatre, the movie runs out of the invention that drove the first part, and peters out. The play comes up with the terrific "Betrayed" number, the courtroom scene, and truly lives up to the promise of the first 2/3rd of the movie version.

The real comparison I think would be between Zero Mostel, Nathan Lane, Gene Wilder, and Matthew Broderick. For that, I'll reserve comment until I see the movie, but I don't think anyone will make me forget Mostel and Wilder.

I don't know how many people know this but The Producers (the original movie) had some severe changes made to its last reel or two after it first previewed. Mr. Brooks's first "final cut" had a much longer "blowing up the theater" sequence with Bialystock, Bloom and Liebkind crawling around and fussing with dud bombs and quick fuses and such. Some of that still exists in some TV prints but most of it was excised to make room for the courtroom scene, which was added later. This is the scene where Bloom makes his little speech about how much Bialystock has brought to his life and it was filmed a few months after the rest of the film. In fact, by then Kenneth Mars was unavailable so they wrapped some other guy in bandages to play Franz. I think you may be right that the stage version does it one better.

I don't think anyone can ever "replace" Mostel and Wilder in the minds of anyone who loved the first movie but I'll tell you an interesting thing. Just before the musical opened, there was a 2-hour documentary (infomercial) that ran on New York TV — scenes from rehearsals, interviews with everyone working on the project, etc. And in there was an interview with Gene Wilder in which he said, so help me, that he thought Nathan Lane was better in the role than Zero. I had to replay the tape three times to make sure he'd said that but he did. He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but it struck me as an odd conclusion to reach and an odder thing to say aloud. I'm a tremendous fan of Mr. Lane but that's a comparison that doesn't help him, doesn't help the memory of Mr. Mostel and doesn't help fans of the original movie to appreciate the musical version.

I'm probably posting way too much about this movie. I guess that's the kind of thing you do when you don't have any indictments to write about. But I was fascinated in how they transferred the film to the stage so I'm naturally fascinated with how they're going to transfer it back.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has set up his own website…but there are still no indictments. Come on, Pat. Indict someone…anyone. Indict the guy in the suit covered in question marks in those commercials. Nobody likes him. Indict Martha Stewart again. That was very popular. Indict the Los Angeles Dodgers for impersonating a baseball team.

If you're not ready yet to indict a person, how about a house pet? Maybe a nice indicted hamster or parrot? You could indict the parrot for refusing to talk.

How about a ham sandwich? Prosecutors are always supposed to be able to indict them. (It apparently has something to do with the disproportionate number of lawyers who are Jewish.)

Come on, already. You can do it. We're counting on you.

Earlier, we linked to one online trailer for upcoming movie of The Producers. Here's a link to another trailer. One might note, as I did, that almost all the non-singing dialogue in this trailer consists of lines that were in the original movie.

Michael Kinsley on free speech: Your right to talk and a reporter's right not to.

Not long after the death of Tommy Bond, who played the bully in the Our Gang comedies, we now have word of the passing, on October 16, of the actor who played Porky. He was known off-screen as both Eugene Lee and Gordon Lee…born in 1933 in Ft. Worth, Texas. He joined the Our Gang troupe at the age of two, chosen for his resemblance to George "Spanky" McFarland, who had become the real star of the series. Porky (as they called him on-screen) never had a lot of dialogue and when he did speak, it was usually to mispronounce "okay," which came out, "otay." It became a kind of catch-phrase both for him and Bill "Buckwheat" Thomas.

He stuck around until he was six, which is when he left Our Gang, and his place was more or less taken over by a young actor named Mickey Gubitosi. (Mickey later became more famous under the name, Robert Blake.) Lee's parents took him back to Texas and he eventually grew up to become a school teacher living in Minnesota and to occasionally turn up at autograph conventions and Our Gang reunions.

Over the years, there have been quite a few Our Gang impostors — adults who make personal appearances and who sign autographs claiming falsely to have been in the films. Usually, they make up a character name but sometimes, they insist on having been a specific on-screen player. In the sixties, Mr. Lee's earlier, brief moments of stardom were stolen by an unusually brazen identity thief who not only claimed to have played Porky but actually published an autobiography based on that premise. The fraud was finally unmasked by several film buffs who reminded the world that there was only one "Porky" Lee. Sadly, today we don't even have that.

No one indicted yet? Aw, shucks. Well, maybe it's just early.

Going to bed now. Hope someone (anyone) will be indicted by the time I wake up. Hey, how about Leonard Nimoy? He hasn't had his name in the news for a while.

I'm not sure I mentioned it but I wrote an article that will appear in Maximum Fantastic Four, a deluxe hardcover reprinting of the first issue of what Stan Lee was soon calling, in all modesty, "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine." I have not seen one bit of this book apart from what I sent in but I'm told it's a "panel-by-panel exploration of the entire issue that captures every single detail and nuance of Jack Kirby's groundbreaking artwork." The historic comic has been digitally-remastered and will be presented in an extra-large format with commentary by Walter Mosley and I'm eager to get my hands on a copy. It's supposed to be out in the middle of November and if you'd like to get your hands on a copy, you might want to pre-order it from Amazon.

One P.S. to what I wrote in the book. In my essay, I addressed the question of the uncredited inker of F.F. #1 and after running through a list of suspects, I wrote, "For now, this author's money says it was [George] Klein who did the decent, but somewhat ordinary interpretation of Kirby's pencils." This is a little more definite than what I've said before but it's even less definite than my current position. I've since seen some additional samples that have convinced me, probably once and for all, that the first two issues of Fantastic Four were inked by George Klein…and probably without assistance. In an upcoming Jack Kirby Collector and somewhere on this site, I'll explain what brought me to this position and present some visual evidence.

This is from Jef Peckham…

Lately, you have been opining quite a bit about the Plame/Rove story and the DeLay indictment. Please allow me to opine a bit.

It's all boring, and IMO means next to nothing, no matter which side of the political spectrum one happens to fall on.

Ultimately it comes down to the 'Bush-haters' trying to do just what the 'Clinton-haters' did during his presidency. The biggest difference to me seems to be that the current crowd is after revenge only, while the previous bunch seemed to at least have some scruples or principles. Plus, at least some of the Clinton crowd did actually break some laws. So far, that has not been shown to be the case with the Bush crowd, although I am sure some of them probably have done so. They are politicians in Washington, after all. (I only wish I were joking there.)

Now about those two specific cases:

DeLay: I have no doubt that guy is a crooked as a three-dollar bill. But what has he been charged with in this case? Conspiracy to violate a law in Texas two years before that law was passed. This indictment sounds mighty fishy to me. Could he still be convicted? Sure he could. Remember, Martha Stewart was convicted for lying to the Feds about a crime that the jury decided did not happen.

Rove, Plame, Libby, whoever: From the reports I have heard on the news from TV, Radio (NPR), and the right- and left-wing talking heads, the only law any of them have mentioned that the Grand Jury is looking at for a possible violation is one that makes it a crime to reveal the name of a covert operative at the CIA. Ms. Plame was not a covert operative, and had not been for at least five years from what I have heard. Apparently she was an analyst for the the agency. Revealing that fact would not be a violation of this law. The right-wing talking heads also insist that she was known to be a CIA analyst in the social circles in Washington. If that is the case, then I don't see where any law was violated by the Bush bunch. Now if the investigation has turned to obstruction of justice, or conspiracy to obstruct, and fraud, there may be a chance for indictments. But those should not be limited to Rove or Libby or others in the Bush bunch.

With all of this being "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", I would find it extremely funny if indictments came down against some of the 'Bush-haters' and not just the Bush bunch. (Think about it. Wouldn't it be hysterical if Joseph Wilson is indicted for a crime because of the investigation over his wife's identity? Or would that just be ironic?)

Most of the "opining" I've done about the Plame/Rove squabble has been that I don't think we know as much about the case as we think we know. We're listening to a lot of analysis by folks who are guessing or basing their arguments on rumors of dubious origin. This Special Prosecutor's office and Grand Jury don't seem to have leaked as voraciously as some, thereby creating a certain vacuum that partisans have been able to fill with spin. Being largely unencumbered by the true details of the case, I think both sides have spun in some fanciful (or at least, arguable) directions.

Your explanation of why Valerie Plame was not an operative may be correct but I've also read just the opposite interpretation of her situation and the law (here's one example) and I don't know who's right. Ultimately, I suppose I think that (a) both sides are engaged in a certain amount of wishful thinking and (b) none of the folks making the case either way on Internet forums are the ones who'll make the final determination. I have the feeling that no matter who winds up being "right" in the sense of corresponding to the final legal decision, it won't necesssarily be for the reasons now being stated.

During the Clinton years, we lived through a lot of adamant explanations about how Filegate and Travelgate were certainly crimes that could not help but land Bill and/or Hillary behind bars. That was above and beyond all the years they'd definitely be serving over Whitewater, where there was a "mountain of irrefutable evidence" (to use Bob Dornan's term) of criminal action on their parts. I dunno what laws you think the Clinton crowd actually broke but I'd hope you'd entertain the notion that a lot of the charges against them were politically-motivated bunk. I'm certainly open to the idea that all this "Rove is certain to be indicted" talk is of the same stripe.

I think I'd disagree with you that any (or most) of the folks going after the Bush crowd are after revenge. I don't think revenge ever gets you anywhere in politics and so is rarely a motive. In fact, it strikes me that very few folks in that line of work are ever interested in much more than what will help them and/or their cause tomorrow, and are too eager for advancement to look back. Look at how John McCain, Hillary Clinton and many others have found it advantageous to work with people who, it could be said, were once involved in ruthlessly attacking them.

What I think the anti-Bush folks are after is to make more of America view this administration the way they do, which is as a bunch of thugs who smear their opponents. They also think this scandal will "expose" the many character flaws they see in G.W.B. If he keeps making lame, evasive statements like he made yesterday, he's going to make their job a lot easier.

Overnight this weekend (late Saturday night, early Sunday morn), NBC is rerunning a Saturday Night Live from November 9, 1985 hosted by Madonna, with musical guests Simple Minds. This was the season where the cast included Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller and others, and I don't recall this episode as being that wonderful. The highlight was probably the water tank card trick by special guests Penn and Teller.

Also, next week, the E! Channel's SNL reruns include the 1992 episode hosted by Nicolas Cage. This is the one that includes the sketch I mentioned here wherein Mr. Cage, who just named his kid Kal-El, plays an expectant father rejecting proposed baby names because they'll cause his kid to get beaten up. It runs Tuesday night at either 10 PM or 1 AM depending on what time zone you're in.

The Rhino Handmade website still doesn't have a real announcement about My Son, the Box, the Allan Sherman compilation for which we are all jonesing…but they have put up a tiny squib that says it's coming soon. They also say it's $120, which is twenty bucks cheaper than the Amazon listing. Aren't you glad you followed my suggestion not to order it yet from Amazon?

Two important (I think) articles over on Slate…

Jack Shafer discusses the journalistic embarrassment that Judy Miller's articles have been for the New York Times. I don't know why people say the Times is a Liberal paper. With Whitewater, with the whole "Weapons of Mass Destruction" debacle and maybe with the Wen Ho Lee case, they obligingly published and gave great credibility and momentum to right-wing theories that turned out to be bogus.

And Fred Kaplan, whose online reporting on Iraq has been what the Times coverage should have been (i.e., correct) explains why the results of the Iraq constitution vote are probably more bad news.