SEETHING WITH GOOD WILL

Dear Readers,

Washington is quiet now as the politicians, exhausted from their 'workload' stagger back to their home districts for a little R&R (I had no idea that the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas were so well-represented). And even President Obama has headed off for the state of his birth, Hawaii, for some well-deserved down-time amongst the grass skirts and pineapples. In-between the parties and committing a solid majority of the seven deadly sins, the beltway pols can take a look at it's accomplishments and shortcomings from a position of extreme comfort and tally up the numbers. As everybody loves to keep score, there will be more scorecards for the new President's first year than returned sweaters to department stores. But I will resist the temptation to add to the pile by simply saying 'he made it'.

Whatever one says about Mr. Obama and the successes and/or failures of his first year, you gotta admit that the guy kept his cool. The people who expected the new President to wave a wand and change the D.C. culture in a instant have serious issues with the way things have gone to be sure. The left-wing Democrats, who seem to have expected him to govern to the left of Fidel Castro, and the lunatic right wing (i.e.,the leadership of the Republican Party), who were crying 'socialism' at every turn like trained circus bears, were the most vocal. Even the vast, centrist, piano majority seemed uncertain as to how to react to a President who promised change, yet wound up governing like a veteran bureaucrat, calmly surrounding himself with the Geitners', Summerses' and Clintons of the world. Yet, contrary to popular belief, things did get done, like the stimulus package, the Afghan 'surge', the auto rescue and the framework of the health care reform bill, just to name a few. Plus, the guy won a Nobel Prize for gawd's sake, without breaking a sweat. Much was left hanging though, like unemployment and banking reform (don't hold your breath), and dealing with those issues will make Finnegan's Wake seem like a beach novel. But even as tsunami after tsunami of criticism, unwanted advice and hasty judgements poured down on him, Obama maintained a calm, steady and confident demeanor, which at least gave off the impression of a man in firm control. While citizens of many stripes might have an awful lot to complain about this administration, you can't say he didn't stand up and do his job with a lot of aplomb.

Obama, who spent considerably more time as a candidate than as a senator during his two-thirds of a term in the upper body, certainly made the best use of his majority in the sense that he let congress be congress - with all it's slimy deal-making, porkbarrel ways - and got something out of it on a core issue like healthcare, a trick that no other president has been able to pull off. While other chief executives have tried to use their election victory momentum to dictate terms to the Congress, Obama just gave them a general idea of what he was after and let them churn out the sausage, using their own, traditional, unsanitary recipe. Considering that Obama was so little regarded (and little-seen) by his peers in his 4 years as a U.S. Senator, his approach borders on the brilliant in dealing with such a group of self-important, puffed-up group of insatiable grabbers.

So, while the business of governing in 2009 has had it's little successes, the coming year in the nation's capital promises to be an argy-bargy of epic proportions. The Republican rump may seem beaten and constantly outvoted, but it would be a serious mistake to take them lightly and dismiss them as a bunch of teabagged lunatics. While the left may be wary of the administration, and the center may be confused, the right-wingers are unshakable in their paranoia about Obama, and the infection can easily spread. It's worth noting that political Washington broke camp for the holidays with the 'loyal' opposition in a bitter high dudgeon over the health care bill, certain to return to work refreshed and committed to revenge. In between the presents and the parties, the Jacobins at Fox News will be banging away at Obama nonstop between the showings of "A Christmas Story" and "New Year's Rockin' Eve", and while most of the Republicans in congress are probably several time zones away from anybody resembling a constituent during this holiday break, no doubt they'll be 'hearing it', one way or another. Obama may be feeling good about how the year in Washington wound up, but it would be foolhardy to ignore an opposition that will return in 2010, tanned, rested and ready - and hell-bent on destruction.

Read more...

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

Dear Readers,

Some inspirational quotes for you to help get through the required jolliness of the holiday season.

"Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed and the rejected." - Jimmy Cannon

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad." - Douglas Coupland

"Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive." - Stephen Fry

"I beg to present to you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah." - William Tecumseh Sherman

Read more...

SINK THE BISMARCK!

Dear Readers,

The old saying about there being two things you shouldn't watch being made - sausage and legislation - is never more true in the case of this current attempt at health care reform. Except as the US Senate meat-grinder churns on, it seems like as many ingredients are being taken out as put in, and this bill looks like it's going to be quite an unappetising banger.

Gone are the better ideas like single-payer provisions, the public option, medicare buy-in and any sort of cost control which, to my way of thinking, should have been at the very heart of the legislation.

In fact, this bill has no heart. It's a freakish monster, written largely by the medical and drug lobbies and the !#$%^&! minority party, the left-for-dead GOP.

The medical lobbies and the Republicans have played this one beautifully. First, they got ahead of the curve by distilling easy-to-digest sound bite lies (like the Obama death-panels) out of complicated facts, scaring the bejesus out of and mobilizing the Republican 'base'. Then, with the help of the big medicine lobby and a handful of pusillanimous Democrats, they threatened a feckless Majority Leader of The Senate, Harry Reid, into making huge concessions in order to gain his 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. So, not only have the Republicans gotten most everything that smacks of real reform out of the bill, but have contrived a scenario where the Democrats will get the blame when voters realize they've been had. Pure (evil) genius. Ernst Blofeld of 'James Bond' fame could not have done better.

When the Democrats watch, grinning, as President Obama inks the legislation, we'll probably have a bill - largely re-written by big medicine - that requires, under penalty of law any uninsured person or family to buy health care that basically allows insurance companies to charge what ever they want. Even the removal of the 'pre-existing condition' excuse for denying coverage is a poisoned chalice. Big insurance has to cover you, but can charge you big time for having, say, something like high blood pressure (a condition I'm acquiring as I type). No more deciding between the mortgage and paying your insurance premiums, no more choice between eating and settling your health care account, pay up or be heavily fined by the US Government. 'Death Panels' will no longer be a paranoid fiction - they'll be real and manned by big health insurance executives.

Why the Democrats decided to try and reform everything in one bill remains a mystery to me. Wouldn't it have been better to address each area of concern separately? They could have gained a sense of momentum by passing bills to remedy easy targets, then used that momentum to push through more controversial items. But no. They, like the German Kriegsmarine during World War II, just had to construct and put to sea an enormous, vulnerable, lumbering, huge-target Battleship Bismarck, heavy in firepower, but eventually doomed by a couple of well-aimed torpedos from old, slow, clapped-out, obsolete bi-planes. Surely, the Dems (who ought to act more like they run the government) would have been more successful by sending out a pack of legislative U-Boats, moving stealthily under water and picking off targets one at a time. Sadly though, unlike the original, this modern Bismarck will probably survive, severely damaged, but with it's still-powerful guns aimed squarely at the people it was designed to protect.

Read more...

I'M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUTTA HERE

Dear Readers,

Fame, ain't it a b**ch.

In a week where a very weird couple apparently gate-crashed an official state dinner at the White House, another crash was taking place about 1,000 miles away. Inadvertently, golf great Tiger Woods has turned a humble fire hydrant near his Floridian gated community estate into a cultural icon merely by crashing into it at 2:30 in the morning. Woods, who may be the most world-famous sports celebrity since Muhammad Ali, is now signalling to the rest of the planet that he would like to be left alone (and probably crawl beneath that hydrant) and have everybody just forget about the whole thing. But that's not possible when you are as well-known as he is, and for those who are just dying to be celebrities, it ought to be a morality tale-like warning, easily on a par with Aesop.

The wealthy goofballs who circulated at the White House state dinner apparently had it all - money, social status (of a sort), fairly good looks, good health and the savoir faire sufficient to blend in with the invited guests. Even with all that, they were suffering from a 'disease' that more and more Americans seem to be coming down with -they weren't famous. Forget the 'swine flu', 'Fame Flu' is a condition there seems to be no vaccine for, and it's spreading.

If your stomach is still strong enough to watch TV, you must have a number of 'reality shows' on your favorites list, and they are invariably populated by completely talent-free, utterly banal human beings who somehow grabbed the public's (and the TV producers) attention and attained the ultimate accolade - a hit TV show featuring themselves. The list is too great and nauseating to review, but when nobodies like Jon & Kate (plus 8) become cable-ratings kings and wind up on the cover of every publication from People to Popular Mechanics (having watched it once, one can only imagine what the lower-rated shows must be like), then you know that the 'fame coin' is seriously debased. Yet reality-show stars are actually only useful to the media until a real star like Tiger goes and screws up and blows them off the headlines.

So Mr. Woods hides out while speculation and unsourced gossip about what caused the wee-hours accident (and why he's reluctant to explain the circumstances around it) swirl around all media from TV to Twitter. The complete ordinariness of Woods's situation stands in stark contrast to the astonishing lack of security revealed by the White House gatecrashers, and yet his story won't die. Being famous for being famous is one thing, but real celeb-juice (based on talent, mostly) is still a rare commodity. Despite this truism, I can hear it even now, in some midwestern livingroom - "Ma, call the press, I think junior's trapped in an out-of-control hot-air balloon. And don't forget to call Hollywood, too". Andy Warhol didn't know the half of it.

Read more...

SOON TO BE SNAIL MAIL

Dear Readers,

Here's my newest promotional postcard. Please feel free to save it and print it out for later use, as I need to cut back on stamps. I think it's rather cute, don't you?

Read more...

A LINCOLN, NOT A FORD

Dear Readers,

Needless to say, it's been a rough few months for Barack Obama. In a nation obsessed with apps and American Idols, change must happen with the speed of thought, and with so many bottomless problems to deal with, it seems that people are quite willing to sacrifice sense on the altar of swiftness.

Ironically, it's the speed of the progress of the health care bill that seems to have bothered the nation the most. While the President seems to dither on W's war in Afghanistan, he gets slammed for the slowness of action in that problem, and at the same time gets pilloried for pushing too hard and too fast in the massive reform of our medical system. No matter how confident an incoming President may be, the truth is, you just can't win.

Most newly-elected Chief Executives - with the possible exception of FDR - have had rough first years. Even John F. Kennedy, with far less immediate crises to deal with, was viewed by some as not up to the job because of the Bay Of Pigs disaster and his less-than-successful first meeting with the USSR leadership. But JFK didn't have a legion of radio and TV Brownshirts publicly 'hoping he would fail' and even doubting his claim to be a natural-born US citizen. Critics back then grumbled but they didn't attempt to overthrow the new government.

A more apt comparison to Obama's rookie season could be made with the first year of Abraham Lincoln's presidency (not surprisingly, our president's favorite role-model), one in which the nation went to war with itself and Abe had to watch as his poorly-led army suffered defeat after defeat on the battlefield. Lincoln also had to put up with savage attacks on his motives, his character and even how he looked. He was often compared to a simian and some of his less-clever critics referred to him as 'Ape' Lincoln (...c'mon, Rush, I dare you...). But our 16th President kept his cool and instead of pandering to the mob literally baying for his blood, he remained himself, confident (outwardly, at least) that he would eventually find the solutions.

Obama has not only had to hear it from all the media chicken-hawks on how to conduct policy as regards to Afghanistan - but he's also had to stand some fairly inappropriate public comments from his Generals running the hopeless conflict. A lesser man would have ordered wholesale firings, but I think his commitment to rationalism remains firm. While it looks like feckless inaction to some, it looks like thoughtful resolve to me. Lincoln, in the early days of the Civil War bemoaned his lack of a winning General, one who would confront the enemy and fight instead of holding back for fear of losing. Today, it's the Generals who bemoan the lack of a decisive president who won't give them 500,000 more troops to waste in a lost cause. The last president who gave the generals all that they wanted was Lyndon B. Johnson (whom I seem to remember had a fantastic first year in office). So clearly, history, with all it's parallels, is not always the best example to gauge the present by. Last November, we voted for change, and we got it. We replaced a quick-acting, slow-thinking (often no-thinking) President with an intelligent, analytical and deliberate one. Isn't that change enough?

Read more...

HELLO, I MUST BE GOING

Dear Readers,

In the fun house-mirror world of entertainment, nothing becomes a celebrity more than how they make an exit. Many of us have spent obscene amounts of money to attend 'farewell tour' concerts of our best-loved musicians, comedians and other circus acts, only to find out a few years later that the celeb has decided to come out of retirement. Let's face it, all people who have grabbed the brass ring of fame will only give it up when it's prised from their cold, dead fingers. Perhaps the only celebrity who has announced a farewell tour who actually kept their word was Michael Jackson, and he needed quackery and enough meds to knock out a battalion of Cossacks in order to do it.

So, in a tearful statement last week, Oprah Winfrey announced she was leaving her daytime syndicated show -her farewell tour lasting only another eighteen months - and voluntarily stepping down from the gabfest throne. Like her or not, Oprah is a phenomenon. I can't say I'm a regular viewer, but by daytime talk-show standards, she's the best there has ever been in the genre, and the best that probably ever will be. In a Rupert Murdoched media environment, no articulate, telegenic and intelligent person will ever again be allowed access to the airwaves, and we'll be left with meatballs like Dr. Phil and airheads like Tyra Banks to stare at idly while we wait for the unemployment check to arrive. Besides, with on-line playpens like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter, the daytime TV schedule is increasingly irrelevant (along with newspapers). Like Muhammad Ali with heavyweight boxing, Oprah is taking the category of daytime talk-show host with her when she goes.

But wait! While Ms. Winfrey intends to step away from her popular, high-paying gig in about 2 years, she'll almost immediately pop up on her own soon-to-be network on cable. Yes, in the 35 minutes or so between contracts, we'll have the Oprah Winfrey Network to look forward to (I can already see the revolvers, sleeping pills and razor blades emerging from the desks of ABC and CBS executives). Although nothing has been announced in detail, I would lay odds that we shall see Oprah again in a show or two not unlike the one she's giving up.

But I say, good for her. She seems a smart and level-headed lady, and her fame is nothing if not truly deserved. If you give her credit for only one thing, her talk show - and it's by-products, like the Oprah Book Club - have not only raised the national IQ a point or two, but have saved daytime TV from going totally over the Jerry Springer cliff, no mean feat. So, I wish Ms. Winfrey all success, a long life and continued good fortune, but please don't make it seem like you're leaving us. How can we miss you if you never go away?

Read more...