Next Year’s News?

NEXT YEAR’S NEWS?

Here is the news.  November 23, 2010.  One year into the future.  What a difference a year makes.

- President Obama got tough today, issuing a stern warning to the government of Iran who has now developed ten nuclear warheads.  “Develop anymore,” warned Obama, “and the U.S. will lead a motion before the United Nations calling for public censure.”  Sources say that the White House is “actively considering” sanctions.

- The president told member of the press today that he is much closer to a decision about the September 9, 2009 recommendation submitted by general McChrystal that calls for 40,000 more US troops in Afghanistan.

- New healthcare guidelines announced today suggest that no medical procedure of any kind are warranted for persons over the age of 65.  In a government study death rates did not significantly increase for those who had no government healthcare compared to those who did.  The HHS Secretary predicted the findings could save trillions of dollars in wasted taxpayer money.

- The unemployment rate decreased slightly this month to 23.1%.  The Obama White House welcomed the news and said that it was further evidence of a recovering economy.

- White House records now show that the Obama administration has created 311 million new jobs since the passage of its Stimulus Program.  This amounts to 5 million jobs more than the entire population of the country.

- A school district in Colorado was told to up the number of gay students in its classrooms or see an end to all government funded programs including school lunches.  The U.S. Justice Department has made the district a test case for enforcing the new version of the Hate Crimes Bill.

- The Fox News Channel was issued a warning from the FCC for publicly revealing the religion of the killer in the Boyton Beach bombing episode.  FCC Chairman Mohmmed Isamaren reminded the media that “bigotry of any kind is intolerable in our society and religious bigotry is the most reprehensible of all.”

Sarah Palin finished the 390th day of her book tour signing copies for 15,000 fans in Kokomo, Indiana, who waited hours in the rain for a chance to meet the former governor.

Brett Farve announced his retirement from the NFL.

NBC announced that the new Jay Leno Show will debut next week in the 3 A.M. EST time slot.

Charlie Weis, head coach of the Notre Dame fighting Irish, denied rumors that his 4-8 record had put his job in jeopardy.  Said Weis, “I think people can see that we could easily have won 6 of those games and then we would be sitting here with a record of 10-2.  But 4-8 is not good enough.  It is not good enough for Notre Dame and it is not good enough for me.”

 

Wead on Obama stimulus plan: Fox News

Obama and Leno? Wead on CNBC

Obama hesitates on McChrystal decision. Wead on Fox News

Jenna Bush debuts on the Today Show

Heeeeres Jenna!

Jenna Bush will debut this Friday, September 18, 2009 as a correspondent on the NBC Today Show.  It will not be the first time a presidential kid crossed over to the Fourth Estate.  Call it “Stockholm syndrome” if you will, but these kids who suffer for years at the hands of the media and watch their fathers suffer even more, quite frequently find security by joining the ranks of their tormentors.

Most recently Ron Reagan, Jr. co-hosted the talk show Connected: Coast to Coast with Monica Crowley at MSNBC.   That ran from February to December, 2005 and followed a brief stint by Mr. Reagan as a late night host on a syndicated show.  Both Ron and brother, Michael Reagan, still have their radio shows but hailing from the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Nor did this start with television.  In 1945, Anna Roosevelt, daughter of FDR, was a super powerful White House aide to her ailing father.  When the president died Anna joined her mother, the former First Lady, as co-host of an ABC national radio program.  For years Anna attempted to launch her own newspaper from Arizona.

Anna’s brother, Elliott Roosevelt, teamed up with William Randolph Hearst, the media magnate and his father’s most bitter enemy.  And this while the president was still in office.  Elliott became director of a Hearst owned syndicate of radio stations in Texas that routinely pilloried the president.

The kids of presidents do very well as educators.  Lyon Tyler was president of William and Mary. Harry Garfield was president of Williams College.  Helen Taft Manning ran Bryn Mawr College. Today, David Eisenhower, grandson of a president, has a successful academic career at the University of Pennsylvania.

And children of presidents have written hundreds of books, award winning books.  John Eisenhower is one of this nation’s greatest military historians.  Two of the country’s most beloved and prolific mystery writers, Margaret Truman and Elliot Roosevelt, were children of presidents.  There have been a slew of great warriors, including generals and two Medal of Honor winners. Most of all, they often succeed in their family business, politics, where they have a head-start in name recognition and sometimes fund-raising potential.  But, alas, try as they may, there have not been many successful media figures, either as business persons or correspondents.

Ron Reagan’s syndicated talks show folded under pressure from competition.  Anna Roosevelt’s ABC network program fizzled after a year.  And she and her husband were never able to get their newspaper off the ground. Michael Reagan, finding his own place in talk radio has been one of the more successful.  So when Jenna Bush takes to the air waves this Friday, we will all cheer her on and wish her the best but expectations will be quite low and that will likely bring a smile to her father’s face.  The Bush family has always done well when the expectations were low.

A Chelsea Clinton Wedding?

Can a child of the White House be married in peace?

The fox and the hounds are at it again.

Rumors are flying that Chelsea Clinton will be marrying her beau, Marc Mezvinsky, the last week of August on Martha’s Vineyard.  The Clintons deny any such plans.  But the National Enquirer insists that all the signs are there—including President Barack Obama’s scheduled vacation, also on Martha’s Vineyard.

If the rumors are true, Chelsea and Marc are doing their best to have a private wedding—in the fine tradition of many other White House brides throughout history—with media hounds pursuing in full cry.

When future ambassador Frank Sayre was courting Jessie Woodrow Wilson, they would “escape the eagle eyes of reporters,” by meeting at a canal’s bank and paddling away in a canoe.  Reporters clustered around the White House for Jessie and Frank’s wedding, awaiting the new married couple’s exit, but the newlyweds sneaked out the south entrance and escaped. 

Six months later, sister Eleanor married Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo, and the press was determined not to be fooled.  But Mac, as he was called, parked four cars in various places around the White House with the shades drawn.  At the appropriate moment, Jessie and Frank jumped into one car, with three other conspiratorial couples diving into the others.  In a whirl, all four cars sped away, “pursued,” Eleanor said, “by wild-eyed reporters.”  When all was quiet at last, Mac and Eleanor calmly got into the “real” car and motored serenely away.

But can a child of the White House be married in peace if they get married after their father has left office?  For example, Ms. Clinton?

Margaret Truman said, in 1956, “I feel that marriage vows are sacred, and I hope that mine will be spared the hurly-burly attending a news event.”  She and her husband, Clifton Daniel, managed it, allowing only ten invited reporters into the church in Independence, Missouri. 

Julie Nixon was married just before her parents moved into the house on Pennsylvania Avenue, insisting on a private ceremony closed to the press, and officiated by her favorite minister, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. 

In a secret ceremony that defied all odds, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his bride, Carolyn Bissette, pulled an impossible coup on the media and wed on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, in a church that didn’t even have electric lights.   

But these are exceptions to the rule.  Ten-year-old Fanny Hayes was the same age as Malia when she entered the White House, but her wedding, which came long after the family had moved out of Washington—even after her father had died—still commanded stellar attention.  The sitting President and his Cabinet took trains to Ohio to be present as Fanny Hayes, daughter of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19^th president, was wed.

And the wedding of Esther Cleveland to minor English gentry at Westminster Abbey in London was a huge international event, even though her father, President Grover Cleveland, had long ago passed from the public stage. 

So the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, whenever it comes, will be a biggy.  The nation still sees her walking across the White House lawn, flanked by her mother and father, quietly taking each of their hands in her own, a teenager, holding things together.  And the nation loves her for it.  When the daughter of any former President and sitting Secretary of State gets married it is a big deal around the world. But a wedding for Chelsea?  It will be a moment for history.

Chelsea Clinton Coming out. CBS interviews Doug Wead.

And Chelsea Clinton for president? Wead on Fox.

The Obama’s: A functional family on the move

Some journalists are making a big deal out of how the Obamas are traveling to foreign ports together as a family unit. After the dysfunctional Clintons, Reagans and Roosevelts and even the Bushes, with their arcane rules of one at a time in the limelight, which meant a former president could not even be told his son was invading Iraq, it is a bit of a shock to see a working family, happy together, with dad doing his thing. In that sense, the journalists are right. This is something new.

On the other hand it is very irritating to read stories claiming that children of presidents have never traveled abroad during their father’s presidencies Anna Roosevelt was a major planner of Yalta and was there on board the Quincy, as were children of Winston Churchill. Notably, First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was not allowed to come. Eighteen children of presidents actually served on their father’s staff at the White House and had full time jobs, some as the personal secretaries to the president.

As to children of the president traveling abroad? It is very common, one of the perks of power, and the further away from the White House the more they thrive. A trip to Europe has been almost a rite of passage for children of presidents in modern times and in earlier years, when it required a rather lengthy sea journey, it was the place where many lived both before and after the White House.

The Bush twins visited Europe during their father’s presidency, as did children of the Carters and Fords and Nixons and Eisenhowers. I actually traveled with Neil Bush to Europe during his father’s presidency. And he was all over Asia. The Kennedy kids visited Europe with their mother during JFK’s presidency.

FDR had sons in Europe during his presidency, of course in the war, but even before as tourists and businessmen. Joe Kennedy dragged Jimmy Roosevelt around with him when he sought contracts with liquor companies, anticipating the end of prohibition. And Johnny Roosevelt was in the headlines for accidentally insulting the mayor of Cannes, France.

With great fanfare, Theodore Roosevelt sent his daughter, Alice, on a foreign cruise to China and the Philippines. It captured headlines and diverted attention from his secret efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War. So this was a formal, secret use of his daughter in American foreign policy. Having Malia and Sasha along on these trips is not new.

Likewise, President Ulysses S. Grant sent his daughter on a European cruise to get her out of town. He was determined to keep the attractive Nellie from marrying someone on his staff. Like Alice Roosevelt, Nellie Grant had an on board romance and ended up marrying the man she met on the high seas.

When the Grant presidency ended the whole family took a trip around the world. The youngest, Jesse, was so impressed by the experience that he made world travel a fulltime career. Heads of state were told that the visiting young Jesse Grant was a likely future American president himself and so he milked it for all it was worth, wine, women and song.

Webb Hayes, son of Rutherford B. Hayes, was a multimillionaire, founder of what became the Union Carbide Corporation and a soldier of fortune in wars in China (the Boxer Rebellion), South Africa and the Crimea. When his father was president he was his personal secretary and bodyguard.

The Lincolns had planned a trip to Europe but America was in the middle of a terrible Civil War. Their dream trip never happened. The president was assassinated. But the First Lady made the trip years later and took their young son, Tad Lincoln, with her.

Some presidential children were raised in Europe, like Liza Monroe, who ran the White House for her father and a couple of John Adams’ sons and one of Jefferson’s daughters. George Washington Adams was born in Europe. His father and grandfather were both presidents.

When George W. Bush ran for president journalists wrote stories claiming that his foreign travel was limited to a quick visit to Israel with two other governors and a one week jaunt to China when his father was the American representative to the People’s Republic. In fact he had traveled many times to South America and Europe. His sister, Doro Bush, daughter of George H. W. Bush, was baptized in Communist China.

So Europe and foreign travel is no stranger to children of presidents. Just to the know-it-all journalists who don’t pay attention. Malia and Sasha are actually following a very predictable path. Perhaps the reason people are seeing this as new is because the Obamas are new. There were no headlines when Jenna Bush shopped the Champs Elysee but Malia and Sasha would attract a crowd of thousands.

What should we expect next? A guest appearance on a popular sitcom. Another common rite of passage for the children of presidents. And again, journalists will assure us that this too is new. “Unprecedented,” they will say, Malia and Sasha on a television show. Don’t you believe it.

What is new is that we have a functional family in the White House, a marriage that works and children who are not abused or neglected. Regardless of one’s politics, that is a bit of a new thing for Americans and that makes them fun to watch.

Ron Paul Shall Rise Again

Yesterday on Meet the Press they reviewed the declining prospects for the Republican Party.  And the yawning conclusion was that no one can really challenge Barack Obama in 2012 and no one can revive the G.O.P.  They assessed the prospects of all the possible candidates but there was one glaring omission.  Guess who?

Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham were the Republican guest commentators.  Romney has already made it clear that only an Obama owned recession will allow him back in.  And if Obama can’t get a temporary bump in the stock market, after trebling the money supply, well, we might as all start selling apples right now.  And one by one, on the Russertless Meet the Press, they ticked off all of the reasons why Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee won’t be returning after all.

Of course, the weekly news dominated and they bemoaned the loss of yet another possible G.O.P. standard bearer for 2012.  Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, is now out.  His dalliance in Argentina means he is damaged goods.  Can’t you just see the governor sitting at a side walk café in Buenos Aires, with this nagging worry in the back of his head, “What if they are looking for me right now?  What if I am on CNN? Naaa.”  Indeed, the Sanford episode brings back all the painful narrative surrounding the infidelities of Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Giuliani. Is there no one left to lead the G.O.P.?

Meet the Press cannot be blamed for omitting the one man who is still on everyone’s lips, as in “you know, I think he may have been right, after all.”  The one man who predicted the economic collapse, who suggested that the Federal Reserve needed an audit itself, who warned that electing a Democrat or Republican was pretty much the same thing; there would still be a war where we don’t need one.  The lobbyists would still rule.  The government would still intrude.

On May 18, 2009 Time magazine ran a cover story on the Republican Party, entitled “Endangered Species.”  They had a Michael Grunwald article on “How the Republicans Lost Their Way.”  And an article by Joe Scarborough on “How They Can Come Back.”  Not once did the magazine even mention the name of the man who raised $32 million with a single call.  The man who was first to recognize and announce that Republicans had lost their way, their heart, their soul.

What made the Mark Sanford loss so regrettable to many in the press was the fact that he was emerging as a bit of a populist figure.  He had been able to articulate some of the views and the ideas of the one man whom Meet the Press and Time Magazine and the rest of the establishment so studiously ignore.  And Sanford had been able to pick up the mantle without all the odious, dangerous extra baggage that makes the people at the television networks recoil in horror.  Like actually auditing the Federal Reserve.

The fact is that Mark Sanford was never really a true clone to that man, who like Lord Voldemort, cannot be named.  The man who would shake Wall Street and Capitol Hill to their foundations.  I am speaking, of course, of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas

No, he is not dead, much as Meet the Press and Time would have you believe.  Tim Russert is dead. Michael Jackson is dead.  Farrah Fawcett is dead.  And now even, Billy May is dead.

Ron Paul lives.

And as long as Ron Paul lives, the heart of the Republican Party beats strong and an alternative to the new Socialist Republic of America still exists.

Make sure you read…. Is Ron Paul too old?

And see Reagan and the age issue.

Glenn Hauman and lies on the internet

Glenn Hauman and lies on the internet.

The internet, like the playground in grade school, is full of bullies and if a teacher is not looking, they will hurt you for no other reason than that they can.

There is the famous story of John Seigenthaler, who woke up one morning to find an entry about himself on an Internet encyclopedia. It claimed possible involvement in the assassination of both John and Robert Kennedy. And the entry stated other bogus “facts” about his life, saying for example, that he had lived in the Soviet Union for 13 years. It was all false.

Seigenthaler was the 78-year-old former publisher of The Tennessean, and he had led a distinguished public career. The story had been on the web for four months before Seigenthaler could get it corrected.

Yancey Hendrieth was not so lucky. His creative film work was hijacked by pornographers who not only allegedly stole his special effects and popular science fiction creations, but apparently stole his name too, claiming on their websites that their hardcore, triple X pornography was directed by Yancey Hendrieth, himself. Yancey, who had no contact or knowledge of his tormentors, went to the FBI to report copyright infringement but his long term struggle with Google was instructive. It didn’t matter if the material was true or not true, he was told, they could not pull the sites that were destroying Yancey’s life. He would have to find another way. His pleas are almost pitiful. (See sources below.) He had to stand by, watching helplessly, as his reputation and his life slipped away from him through no action of his own.

I know the feeling. My tormenter, Glenn Hauman writes a blog with the promising banner, “elevating the discourse.” But it was not very elevating to me and my family to read his false story about my life and now for four years he continues to ignore the facts and proudly proclaims his bogus post about my life.

Glenn Hauman claims that I am a Baptist minister, which is false. He claims that I co-founded a company in France, which is false. That I supplied this company with re-packaged Amway products, which is false. (And rather odd.) He says that an arrest warrant was issued for me in France and that I have never been back to the country since, which is false and a bit of a stretch, since according to Glenn Hauman’s post, all of this happened in 1986 and “this man is the same Doug Wead, who 2 years later, would become a White House Aide to the first President Bush, and spiritual adviser to the second.” Spiritual advisor? Hmmm, that sounds interesting.

Imagine that? Imagine sneaking all of that past the FBI and the CIA and ending up on senior staff as Special Assistant to the President? Imagine sneaking it past the Washington Post, Time, U.S. News and Newsweek and all the other news outlets which continually used me as a source over the years only to be caught by a comic book “guy” who operates a blog, which is “elevating the discourse.”

I have kindly written Glenn Hauman twice since 2005, letting him know the personal damage his false story has done to my career, my children, my wife and her family. (My wife’s family is French.) I have kindly asked him to verify his “facts” and correct his false story. I have directed him how to correct it, to simply call the French Embassy, that I have passports showing entries in and out of France, that the Amway corporation will answer his questions, that the managers of the company in France are still around and can answer him. That I will gladly answer any questions he has.

One of my letters to Mr. Hauman, correcting the story, was written when he was in Italy and for a long time it was posted on his own website as a “comment” but now I can’t find it either. Has he taken that down? He recently came on one of my blogs and invited me onto his website to “present my case.” Is this his motivation? He wants little hits on his posts? Would that be worth destroying a life with false information? Hey, controversy is good. Hurt someone, punch them in the nose and see what happens. You will get some attention.

He said in his comment that I should take my case up with his sources, apparently  Evelyn Pringle who writes for “Scoop New Zealand” and Eric Scheibeler. Well, I have done that. Scheibeler’s book is invoked at the beginning and end of Pringle’s story and appears to be her main source but when I finally tracked down Mr. Scheibeler he denies it all. He points out that my name does not even appear in his book. Not once. And this is “the source”?

So why? Why would someone I have never met want to hurt me and my family? One can understand a mistake. But why would it persist? Could it be my politics or my religion? If so, Glenn Hauman is wasting his hatred. I hardly know what I believe about those things myself. How could he know?

Seigenthaler saw his entry corrected in four months. I am now four years into my ordeal with Glenn Hauman, a person whom I have never met and many years more with Pringle. And the question that keeps coming back is “why?” Who gains? What did the person who vandalized Seigenthaler’s online entry gain? Why did the pornographers want to use Hendrieth’s name? And to the desperate reader, who has googled “internet lies” who is seeking answers to a false rumor spread about them on the internet, why is this happening to you? What did you do wrong? What do they, the people who are spreading this, want?

Someday a psychologist or a good reporter will make a study out of this and they will stumble across this story and others that deal with false stories on the internet and they will figure it all out and give us some profound answers. In the meantime, we will have to accept what our mothers told us in grade school. “There are bullies out there. And they will hurt you. They don’t have to have a good reason. They simply do it because they can.”

Next see: Amway and the tools.

Sources for the above story:

The John Seigenthaler story

Yancey Hendrieth and his plea

MLM Watchdog and Evelyn Pringle

The sad state of television journalsim

 Some are saying that American television journalism is dead.  That entertainment has risen in its place.  And while that makes for great viewing, with long legged beauties reading scripts prepared for them by short baldheaded, young men, fresh out of graduate school, it represents all kinds of new dangers.

For one, American may be headed toward wars we don’t need and shouldn’t have to fight.  A recent example is the widely carried story of Russian warships visiting Cuban ports.  It made headlines here but there was sadly no context.  The long legged beauties and handsome young men of TV Land assured us that this was yet another Russian provocation.

What was not reported was that the Russians were only responding to the visit of American warships to Sevastopol.   In fact, if news is still defined as “man bites dog,” then how our provocation went unreported is itself a news story and lets you know just how far we have fallen.

Yep, several months ago, American warships blew into the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Ukraine.  This is the same port city that the Soviets hung onto for 250 days as the Nazis laid siege in World War II.  And this recent American visit, with guns gleaming in the sunshine, was such an affront to Russia, that even the Ukrainians were appalled.  What was America doing?  Was this a decision made at the presidential level?  A lame duck, George W. Bush, saber rattling? Or some loose cannon in the Pentagon acting on his own?  Not likely on Robert Gates’ watch.  But what did Bush seek to do?  Did he want to signal an American military presence in the Black Sea?  Was this part of the program of “defending the world for democracy?”

Ukrainians, which our news media assures us are “next” on the Russian hit list were so outraged that a spontaneous crowd jammed the port and stood in candlelight vigil to protest the Americans.  The poor American sailors were rushed off to hotels away from the port but the Ukrainians found the new location and started a demonstration, with pots and pans banging throughout the night, the crowds spontaneously taking turns to keep the Americans from their sleep.

The fact is that this misunderstanding cuts both ways.  Not only are Americans woefully ignorant of the Russian speaking world, but the best Russian analysts are positively brainless about us.  One recent report by a respected former KGB analyst, which received widespread distribution, claimed that there is a 50% chance that America will disintegrate by 2010, with open civil war between the states, and other powers stepping in to take their part.  California and six western states would go to China, Alaska to Russia, 15 states in the great plains would go to Canada, Texas and select southern states to Mexico and the Eastern seaboard would join the European Union.   And remember, there is a 50% chance that this will actually happen.  (The Moscow Times, Jan. 12, 2009, p. 11.)

Now, I am a Republican, and a conservative one at that, but the cobwebs of American diplomacy, the neglect that has been so widespread, makes even me hopeful  that Barack Obama will invoke a more comprehensive and intelligent exchange with our global neighbors.   If we are to avoid wars that we don’t need to be fighting, we need to start with better information and understanding.  And that takes more than an informed State Department.  It takes a news media that is not led by the habits and traditions of its audience but rather driven by the facts.  It may take some work from a Lisa Myers of NBC, or an Ann Comptons of ABC, or a Katie Couric or Bob Scheiffer thrown in at CBS.  We need a little old fashioned, facts gathering news, journalism it was once called, not just a good pair of legs.

Caroline Kennedy? What would Joseph Pulitzer say?

Caroline Kennedy, appointed to U. S. Senate?

When rumors spread that Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, was considering a political career on his own the ever vigilant American print media went ballistic.  No less than Joseph Pulitzer, himself, led an avalanche of stinging editorials warning that the emergence of Lincoln represented a dangerous threat to democracy and that any attempt at a political career would be fiercely opposed.

“True democracy makes no claims of birth or name,” wrote Pulitzer’s paper. “The merits of the man not the accident of his ancestry should be the passport to positions of public trust under a republican government.”  And as the specter of another Lincoln in public life grew more likely, the editorials grew more vicious.  “Rotten Republicanism has learned to reverse things that savor of monarchy and aristocracy,” the paper wrote, “It would transmit the Presidency as their fathers’ successors to crowns.” (New York World, May 10, 1884.)

Today, the same writers who opposed the nomination of Hillary Clinton on the grounds that she was trading on her name and bemoaned the damage to the country of the Bush dynasty are now silent on the imminent appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate.

Media types who were outraged by the inexperience of Sarah Palin are now dewy eyed over the prospect of another Kennedy in power. 

But Sarah Palin had much more experience than Caroline Kennedy.  In a rather partisan and misleading segment shown at the top of an Evening News program, the network anchor interviewed their paid historian, asking if Palin were qualified.  “Actually,” Michael Bechloss intoned with a straight face, “Palin would be the first vice president who has not met with a foreign head of state since Pearl Harbor.”

A more relevant and more fair historic analysis would have pointed out that, love her or hate her, Sarah Palin’s service as a small town mayor and two years as governor, with an 80 % approval rating by her citizens, need not have been terribly troubling to the electorate.  Considering that Theodore Roosevelt was a governor for only two years before taking on the vice presidency and then later moving into the White House.  And Woodrow Wilson was a governor for two years before becoming president.  Roosevelt and Wilson are almost always ranked among the five greatest presidents in American history.

But Caroline Kennedy?  Appointed to the U.S. Senate?

There will be no Saturday Night Live skits calling a fat girl fat, or in this case, having a goofy Kennedy impersonator mumbling “and eh, you know?” ala Mrs. Kennedy in her soft ball interview with a local, handpicked, media person.  Rather expect SNL to offer backhanded compliments.  Nor will there be a condescending, I’m-the-principal-and-you-are-the-student interrogation from a news anchor.  Or a gotcha interview with a top journalist.

 This is a real, live, royal, coronation, folks.  And, those “watchdogs of American democracy,” will be lining the road with flowers and winks.

Actually, Mrs. Kennedy’s interview with the handpicked, local media person, with the pre-approved questions, was rather revealing.  She managed to survive the frightening question, “What would your mother think?”  But she blew the next one, “What would your brother think?”

Said Mrs. Kennedy, “He would laugh his head off.”

Really?  Why?  Is she so unqualified that he wouldn’t be able to picture it?

But Mrs. Kennedy had regained her political savvy and offered an explanation, “Because that’s the way our relationship was.”  We were not allowed to probe further.

Caroline Kennedy is my favorite Kennedy.  She has done well as a child of a president.  Her stature has transcended her White House experience.  No easy feat.  She is almost a social and philanthropic institution. 

And it is true, that a perfect storm is upon us, that Republicans dare not complain, they have had their own dynasty.  And who in the GOP wants the Bush family as enemies?  And the Democrats have their Clintons.  So we have this rare moment, when no partisan checks or balances are in play, and we have a historical version of “dynasties gone wild.” 

But none of that excuses this irresponsible abdication of duty by the national media.  The contrast with their partisan mugging of Sarah Palin is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

For everything on children of presidents see…

http://www.upstairsatthewhitehouse.com/

Answering David Black

Some of you send me private e-mails from time to time about that prolific commentator, Mr. David Black.  You wonder why I don’t delete his posts, since they are often contrary to the flow of the conversation. 

Well, if you would take a look at my byline, that’s what this blog is all about.  I myself am a contrarian.  I can’t stand intellectual conformity.  It is so stifling.  So why would I be upset by someone who disagrees with me?  I delight in it.  Unfortunately, I don’t yet know everything, so other opinions are fascinating jewels to me.  Things to treasure and consider and sometimes to elicit wonder.

Of course, sometimes, Mr. Black puts me in a double bind.  I am too much of a sycophant for saying that Jenna Bush is a beautiful bride, but “ungrateful to a friend” if I dare criticize Mr. Bush’s policies.  But that’s okay.  I contradict myself in just about every blog.

Lately, Mr. Black has suspected that you are me.  That is, that you are all my children using pseudonyms to defend me and my positions.  Alas, it is the ultimate compliment.  I wish my kids would get involved.  But to leave this point unanswered is to confirm it and so I am afraid I must speak up. 

The fact is, my children won’t even read my blog, let alone make a comment.  I don’t think one of them has ever read a single one.  They got off MySpace as soon as I joined.  (I haven’t told them I am on Facebook and Twitter.) They never read my books or watch me on television.  Well, sometimes.  And they make me walk a full ten yards behind them at the Mall.  They won’t wear a hat, if I ask them to, or turn out the lights when they leave their bedrooms. 

This is the age of anorexia nervosa, where teenagers commit slow suicide, supposedly in protest of bossy parents.  If Mr. Black has somehow been able to get his kids involved in his blog, God bless him.  He is a better man than I.  But alas, my children of the blogosphere are not my own.  They are free spirits, much like Mr. Black, himself.  They are like the wind.  I don’t know where they come from or where they are going.  But I love to read what they have to say.  Every single one.

Memo to Chuck Todd of NBC: Get a haircut son

 

Since we have all accepted the fact that news is no longer really news, that they are now in the entertainment business, with targeted, demographically selected audiences, that, for example, they can ignore the Georgian attacks on the Ossetia civilian population for three days and then call the subsequent Russian invasion of Georgia a reassertion of the old Soviet Empire, and other such news monstrosities, like going to war in Iraq because of 9-11, then at the very least, we should expect good grooming.

I’m a Chuck Todd fan.  I like his mind.  I like his attitude.  I wouldn’t exactly say he is humble but I would say that he is so genuinely fascinated by the political process and the political players that he often forgets himself, that he is less narcissistic than most in his business.  Including some from other networks with the big, trailer park – Jack Kemp hairdos, that require cans of hairspray in the makeup room.

But, so help me, it is so distracting to watch him.  What is with his beard?  So if the terrorists seize his plane he gets an extra two minutes in the First Class toilet to flush his American Passport?

A little girl once wrote Abraham Lincoln to tell him he needed to grow a beard.  We need a little girl to write Chuck Todd to tell him that he needs to cut his off.  And while he doesn’t need to get a Matt Lauer haircut, he could at least get a reasonable trim.  Right now it looks like he drives in from Front Royal, Virginia.  Or maybe, takes the subway from an immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn.   Either one of which would actually be okay, heck, I get some of the best political analysis from Pakistani cab drivers, immigrants usually know more about the world, but for television, we want “ the look.”

The beard has to come off son.  You know it and we know it and I am sure it was one of the immediate reasons you didn’t make the final cut for Meet the Press, which is a shame because you would have really shaken things up.  Now, shedding your beard, Mr. Todd, just to please your public, won’t edge you any closer to Abraham Lincoln, who grew his for the same reason, but it will go a long way toward making you the next Tim Russert.

All IMHO, from a fan.