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January 24, 2004
ANOTHER COUNTRY HEARD FROM
I just heard from an old buddy whom I haven't talked to in a few months... Steve Johnson is one of my closest and oldest friends; I met him back in 1992, when he was press secretary for the Congressman I was working to re-elect. Steve's got a real sharp political mind, is a damn good communications professional, and is one of the people with whom I have war stories from the old days in the political trenches. I owe him a lot - back in the day, when I was just a 24 year old pup who wanted to make his whole career in political campaigning, Steve took a liking to me and told me that I might be pretty good at this communications thing. He then spent the next couple of years, even after we'd lost the election, teaching me some of what he knew about how to be a communicator and not just a campaigner. So to all of you who work with me, you pretty much have Steve to either thank or blame for me doing what I do.
Steve's other contribution is to have been the one who introduced me to cigars and scotch. Some of the best memories I have of DC are of sitting with Steve and my friend Jay at the National Press Club, the Capitol Grille on Pennsylvania Avenue, or at Maggiano's, practicing our punditry, trying to objectively assess the political landscape, smoking cigars, drinking 12 year old scotch and thinking we were a whole lot smarter than we were. We lost touch a little when he returned home to Minnesota, but his return salvo was classic: responding to a mass e-mail I'd sent to friends, Steve fired back by channeling Howard Dean, deivering a fantastic, timely, and apropos shot at me about the infamous Jeopardy loss. It was classic Steve. Glad to hear from you again, buddy.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS... DUCT TAPE!
This is almost like out of some Mel Brooks farce or something... maybe Dr. Strangelove. There's only one facility in the US for dismantling nuclear weapons. Makes you kind of nervous that there's no "I'll take my business elsewhere" option in case you're not happy with them. Especially in light of the revelation that when they're in mid-dismantle and something breaks, workers there simply use tape to put the pieces of explosive back together again. That procedure risked an explosion - with the old plutonium warheads still attached... and only about, oh, 250,000 people live within 50 miles of this plant near Amarillo, Texas.
It'd be too easy to rip on the lack of Texan intelligence - if the president's not proof enough for you, how 'bout those geniuses who decided to duct tape the nuclear warhead? And think of the changes that country singers would have to make it their repitoire! George Strait, for example, would have to sing, "Amarillo by morning... Amarillo won't be there."
MESSING WITH A GOOD THING
I'm kind of ticked at Evanescence. Why? Why would I waste my energy being mad at a band? Well, for starters let's remember that I waste my energy getting mad at lots of people and things. That's why "curmudgeon" fits me so well. But what this particular little fit boils down to is the way the band (or its label) has screwed with a good thing in the radio version of their new single, "My Immortal."
On their album, the song is a haunting piano ballad, from beginning to end. The tone fits the lyrics, which are all about the haunted, painful feelings one gets when going through a breakup where the other person is the one who wanted out. It very nearly made me cry the first time I listened to it, and I wasn't even going through a breakup. I identified it then as a possible sleeper single - not traditional teen radio fare, but like Jewel's "Foolish Game" a few years ago, even slow and sad songs can sometimes still capture popular imagination.
So a year later, it's been released as a single. And lo and behold... the piano melody lasts only till the bridge, at which point heavy guitars, drums, and a speeded up tempo have been added, apparently to make the song more palatable for the ClearChannel monolith and the teenage sheep who follow it. They've succeeded in taking a really beautiful song that stood out, and turning it into just another power ballad. It's too bad... this could have been a unique single in today's market, instead of the cookie-cutter version that it is now.
YOU KNEW IT WAS COMING
You knew it was only a matter of time before Kobe's slimeball lawyers resorted to this. Apparently, not only is Kobe innocent, but he is a victim of a larger conspiracy by white women.
Using the race card (Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, the recent death of Nathaniel Jones while in the custody of the Cincinnati police, OJ Simpson, etc.), is often a disgustingly cheap copout by attorneys. What, your legal skills are so poor, and your case so weak, that you can't just face the judge and jury with the evidence and win? If Kobe's so blatantly innocent, shouldn't the evidence bear that out in open court? Worse yet, this kind of cheap pandering desensitizes many white people to the legitimate occurances of racism and police targeting that still do happen in this country. By engaging the race play as some sort of default "get out of jail free" card, attorneys like Cochran and now this Pamela Mackey play right into the hands of the outright racists or those who are inclined to racism. It becomes easier for them to make the cynical joke that no black man is ever guilty of anything.
Look, if Kobe's innocent, then the evidence should show that - and with a case that's this high profile, you know that the evidence is going to be highly scrutinized. If Kobe didn't rape that girl, people are going to know it by the review of the evidence. But if he is innocent, then his attorneys are doing him, themselves, and society a disservice by adopting such a cowardly and cynical strategy. And if he's guilty, then this Cry Wolf line of defense is even more reprehensible.
THE STORY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
The headlines this morning are about how the post-Iowa bounce may have run it's course, and the race between Kerry and Dean is tightening again. I agree that this is worthy of attention, but I think the far more interesting story right now is the loss of momentum suffered by Wesley Clark.
My friends who've been talking with me all week can vouch for this: even before Iowa, I was saying that the worst-case scenario for Clark was for Kerry to win strong there. Clark's hopes in New Hampshire seemed to revolve around being the last anti-Dean candidate standing, and if Kerry were somehow to rise from the dead in Iowa, Clark would face stiff competition for the same voters - and the other guy would have the momentum. So I'll take credit for identifying the dynamic before it happened.
But what is just stunning me is the wholeness, the completeness of the shift to Kerry. I figured that the anti-Dean vote might break 50-50 between Kerry and Clark, maybe even 2-1 to Kerry due to the post-Iowa publicity. But Clark has remained stagnant in just about every poll, now a distant third and even in outside danger of losing the 3 slot to a gaining Edwards. Kerry has seemingly been the sole beneficiary of Dean's self-immolation. He's not splitting the anti-Dean vote with Clark - he just went out and took them all. That doesn't bode well for Clark, since he skipped Iowa to focus solely on New Hampshire.
It's too bad. I like Wes Clark, and I love the fact that his presence on the ticket would innoculate us against Republican insinuations that Democrats are somehow less patriotic or weaker on defense. For all his missteps and even as he's had to learn on the fly how to be a politician, I think Clark brought something positive to the Democratic table. It's too early to write his campaign epitaph, of course, but if he doesn't do something in the next couple of days to re-energize his campaign, he's in serious trouble.
Mark it down: Clark is mortally wounded if he doesn't finish top 2 in New Hampshire. A 3rd place finish is less immediately devastating than if Edwards passes him and Clark finishes fourth, but even third place is going to be enough to inflict a fatal wound upon his campaign. He'll do all right in the southern contests coming up, but if Edwards passes him in New Hampshire, then it will be Edwards who becomes the south's regional son of choice. If Clark finishes fourth in New Hampshire, I say he'll be out of the race by Valentine's Day. If he finishes third, he may get enough momentum to limp through the south and hang in a while longer. But if he can sneak up and re-take second, then the dynamic shifts yet again as the campaign heads south... 2nd place for Clark in New Hampshire makes him a formidable and still very viable candidate for the nomination. Stay tuned.
