Entries for August 2009

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Check out this clip of Fox News nutter Glenn Beck. He has apparently themed his show this week around asking questions and in Thursday's episode he tried to tie them all together with an acronym. "I told you that we were, were going to talk about these things," he says in the segment, circling the first letters of the key words on black board. "We're going to talk about Obama, the Left, Internationalists, Graft, Acorn-style organization, Revolution and Hidden agenda."

He then spells his theme out on the chalk board: "O-L-I-G-A-R-H. One letter is missing."

Well yes, the letter "c" is missing from the word oligarch (because if any organization represents moneyed interests, it's ... Acorn).  Except Beck (or is Bek?) adds a ... "y." Oligarhy. Whatever that is. I suppose this is the logical next step in the anti-intellectual strain of conservatism.

It just calls to mind not only Dan Quayle's "potatoe moment," but the Fox News slogan: We report, you de_ide.

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

It is often observed of JFK that his legislative agenda, particularly with regard to civil and voting rights, was stalled on the Hill in November, 1963. The national grief surrounding Kennedy's assassination, the analysis goes, gave LBJ an opportunity to enact many of Kennedy's priorities. Speaking to Congress five days after JFK was assassinated, Johnson observed that the late president had exhorted in his inaugural, "let us begin." Johnson added: "Today in this moment of new resolve, I would say to all my fellow Americans, let us continue."

Ted Kennedy's driving legislative priority was healthcare reform. He used to say that he would see it passed if it was the last thing he did. And as recently as Sunday, Sen. John McCain argued that Kennedy's absence due to illness had critically hampered that push—the Massachusetts senator was a master at legislative deal making and would have known how to advance the process. His absence left a legislative leadership void no senator has been capable of filling.

The nation suffered a great loss last night. This is one of the few times that the wall-to-wall coverage the cable "news" nets will give us over the next few hours and perhaps days is actually merited. (If you doubt it, go over to his Web site and check out the 54 page list of legislative accomplishments posted there.) It seems unlikely that Kennedy's death will have the national galvanizing effect that his brother's did, but I wonder if it could on a much smaller scale, among his 99 remaining colleagues in the Senate.

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Scotland today released terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of blowing up Pan Am 103 on December 21, 1988. The decision was made on the grounds of compassion—let him see his homeland one more time before he shuffles off this mortal coil. And not surprisingly the move has spurred howls of outrage (why should he get more compassion than the 270 people killed in that terrorist attack?).

But there are some who believe that al-Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place, that he was, to use the Lee Harvey Oswald-ism, a patsy. Journalist Nathan Thrall laid out the case here in January, a few days after the 20th anniversary of the bombing. He wrote:

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I fear for my son's political viability. Granted he's a couple of weeks shy of three months old, but it's never too soon for a father to worry, right?

I started to ponder his political future the other day when his birth certificate came in the mail from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Birth certificates of course have been a major topic of political discourse this summer, ever since some incensed Delawarian held hers up (in a Howard Hughes-ian protective plastic bag) in a town hall meeting with GOP Rep. Mike Castle. "I have a birth certificate here, from the United States of America, saying I'm an American citizen, with a seal on it, signed by a doctor, with a hospital administrator's name, my parents, my date of birth, the time, the date," the agitated constituent vented in a moment repeatedly replayed on YouTube.

But my infant—and anyone else born in the Commonwealth of Virginia—would have problems meeting that standard.

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

So Karl Rove and the White House staff were more deeply involved with the infamous firings of federal prosecutors than they had previously acknowledged. Quel supris. I did get a nice chuckle from the New York Times story on the matter, though, where Rove's attorney is quoted as saying that there was "absolutely no evidence" that Bush's Brain and company did anything improper. That assertion is belied by the White House staff's actions and by logic.

The Times notes an internal White House E-mail noting plans to deny that New Mexico prosecutor David Iglesias had been fired because of Republican irritation over his pursuit of voter fraud cases and also to deny that any member of Congress had contacted the Justice Department to make such complaints. Both statements were flatly untrue. So if the Bush folk weren't doing anything wrong, why lie about it? (I suppose one answer is: They were talking to the public, they didn't know any better.)

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

One more thought on conservatives and Hollywood (following this): The conservative fascination with Hollywood, and more specifically the need to perceive ideological messages in cinema is especially surprising given the extent to which the movie industry embraces the free market. While there may be some ideological auteurism at the margins, the bulk of Hollywood's product is market-driven—movies get made with the expectation that they will turn big profits. This is true for children's films, slasher flicks, action adventure blockbusters, scatological comedies ... and so on. The recently-released G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a perfect example:

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez reprints an email from a reader with excerpts from Ferris Bueller's Day Off including one where Ferris tweaks his uncle for being a Vietnam hypocrite, one in which the three main characters hint at being anti-abortion, and a third in which a Russian cab driver says America is better than the U.S.S.R. All of this is presented as evidence to suggest that the late, great director was a conservative. There are a couple of problems with this line of argument.