Virginia’s First Lady of swag Sunday, Jun 30 2013 

Ethics and Language and Politics , , victorgold 2:58 pm

Have you taken notice of the New Language of Culpability? People are no longer guilty of willful wrongdoing. Like Anthony Wiener, the current front-runner – as distinguished from viral front-shower – in the New York mayoral race, they have either been “stupid,” or “dumb,” in their misconduct.

No moral or ethical factor involved, understand, no reflection on the wrongdoer’s character. He – or she, as the case may be – is guilty only of “staggeringly bad judgment,” the staggeringly fatuous phrase applied by The Washington Post to the First Lady of Virginia’s (1) ordering a $6,500 Rolex watch from Virginia businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. to present to her husband, Gov. Bob McDonnell; and (2) persuading Williams, in the strongest First Lady-like terms, to take her shopping at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan (a “jaunt,” as the Post called it, that “rang up $15,000 on Mr. Williams’s tab”).

This is the same McDonnell couple, keep in mind, that “persuaded” Williams to pick up the $15,000 catering tab for their daughter’s wedding, in return for which, according to the Post, “the known quid pro quos include the luncheon at the governor’s mansion, hosted by Ms. McDonnell, to help launch the signature product of Mr. Williams’s struggling company, and a plug for the same product delivered by Ms. McDonnell at a conference in Florida.”

All of which, the Post concludes, constitute “damaging revelations” that threaten to destroy Bob McDonnell’s “otherwise admirable legacy as governor.”

Too bad, isn’t it? A good governor and his otherwise admirable wife embarrassed – is that the right predicate, or am I being judgmental? – for merely suggesting and accepting what, in my native Louisiana, we call “swag” from favor-seekers.

No, that’s not right. Comparing Bob and Imelda McDonnell to, say, Louisiana’s last great political hustler, Edwin Edwards, is unfair. To Edwards, that is. Fast Eddie would never have had the bad judgment to take a $6,500 Rolex from a favor-seeker. Too blatant. He would have directed the supplicant to give him cash so he could buy his own watch.

Sound bite to remember

“I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it’s somebody else’s secretary, fine.”

– Barry Goldwater

 

The Harry Reid Point Spread Wednesday, Apr 24 2013 

Politics , , , victorgold 11:45 am

Contrary to what you’ve been reading and hearing about the Senate’s gun-control vote last week, the Manchin-Toomey amendment on gun registration didn’t lose. Not unless you factor in the Las Vegas point spread.

For those few innocents unfamiliar with how a point spread works, here’s an example: Say Alabama is playing Ohio University in a football game Saturday. Because Alabama is heavily favored, Las Vegas puts out a line encouraging you to bet by giving the Crimson Tide a 24-point handicap going into the game. This means that if Ohio University holds Alabama to only three touchdowns, though the Tide wins the game it hasn’t covered the spread.

Enter Nevada’s Harry Reid, the senator for Las Vegas. Before the roll is even called on the gun law – or a court nomination, or a Cabinet appointment – Reid makes a deal with his opponent Mitch McConnell that in order to get anything through the Senate it will take not 51 but 60 votes. A nine-vote spread.

That means that even when an amendment like Manchin-Toomey passes by a comfortable margin (54-46), McConnell’s team comes out grinning, while Reid (hypocritically) fulminates.

Why does Reid agree to handicapping his team in this way? Senate Club rules, old chap. Comes the day that Democrats are in the minority, Reid will be grinning while McConnell (hypocritically) goes away fulminating.

It’s been said, by no less an observer than the President of the United States (a former member of the Club), that Washington is broken. Right. And if I were to pinpoint the fracture, it would be in the wing of the U.S. Capitol that calls itself the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

World’s Greatest Debilitated Body would be more like it. See you at the game.

Sound Bite to Remember

It doesn’t take a genius to understand football. You don’t have to be a Norman Einstein.

– Washington Redskins quarterback/Notre Dame graduate Joe Theismann

 

REOPEN THE WHITE HOUSE DOORS Sunday, Mar 17 2013 

Politics , , victorgold 5:33 pm

REOPEN THE WHITE HOUSE DOORS

–Headline, Washington Post editorial, 3/14/13

According to presidential aides, the decision to shut down visitor and student tours of the White House because of the sequester was made by the Secret Service. Along with “I did not have sex with that woman,” this stands as one of the most disingenuous statements coming out of a president’s office since Richard Nixon was in full cry.

To believe this line, we have to visualize the head of Barack Obama’s protective detail entering the Oval Office to announce, “We’re eliminating White House tours until further notice,” the President looking up to say, “Oh? Sorry to hear that.”

Somehow I don’t think that’s the way it came about. More likely, at a morning session of the Obama staff gathered to consider how best to embarrass Republicans for bringing on the sequester, one of Obama’s prime Spin Doctors, in balloon-floating mode….but let’s listen in on the colloquy:

SPIN DOCTOR: We could close down the Washington Monument.
CHIEF OF STAFF: It’s already closed down for repairs.
SPIN DOCTOR: What about cutting off Saturday mail?
CHIEF OF STAFF: So what? Who’ll miss it?

Long pause. Then….

SPIN DOCTOR: What say we cut off White House tours?
CHIEF OF STAFF: What’s that got to do with saving money? People come in, move out, no charge.
SPIN DOCTOR: But doesn’t the Secret Service have to –
CHIEF OF STAFF: Screen them. Right. Great idea.

So it was, by my way of thinking, that the Secret Service, once the most unpolitical agency of the government, was brought in to flack for the White House, its spokesman explaining that by eliminating White House tours, they’ll save up to $2 million between now and September, the remainder of the fiscal year.

Two million dollars. Let’s see. That’s about what the President’s new political PAC picks up with a five- – no, make that two-minute phone call. But that’s another issue for another day.

For now, let’s leave it at this: If you’ve lived in Washington as many years as I have, the White House is a familiar part of the landscape. But for millions of Americans, most especially young people who come to their nation’s capital to touch history, a visit to the home where Madison, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan lived is an unforgettable experience.

For the current resident, who once spoke of “empathy” as being a key part of leadership, to shut down White House tours as a political ploy isn’t, as some would say, disappointing. No. A more appropriate word is revealing.

Sound bite to remember

It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.

–David Mamet, dialogue from “State and Main”

 

Friday, Mar 8 2013 

Politics victorgold 11:12 am

NORTH KOREA THREATENS
NUCLEAR STRIKE
AGAINST “AGGRESSORS”

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday threatened a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States and other purported aggressors, describing Washington as a “criminal threatening global peace.”

– Online article, Washington Post, March 7, 2013

Isn’t it about time for some historical revision? As a veteran of the Korean War, permit me to say: MacArthur was right – Truman, Acheson, Marshall and the know-it-alls at the State Department were wrong.

Sound bite to remember
“There is no substitute for victory.”
– General Douglas MacArthur, 1951

 

About Lincoln’s Body Language…. Tuesday, Oct 23 2012 

Media and Politics , victorgold 6:56 pm

Wolf Blitzer here with CNN’s elite panel of political experts to dissect what we’ve just seen in the first of seven planned debates between Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, and his Democratic opponent, Stephen A. Douglas.

First we go to our senior analyst David Gergen who, having worked for both candidates at one time or another, is guaranteed to be—

GERGEN: Objective, which allows me to say in all fatuity that while both candidates get high grades for making their case, I think Douglas did a better job connecting with the back rows because of his—

BLITZER: Projection?

GERGEN: Exactly. I don’t know how many times I’ve told Abe he has to do something about that tinny voice—

GLORIA BORGER: I couldn’t agree more, David, but I think Lincoln’s inability to speak from the diaphragm is the least of his worries. I got the distinct impression he felt he was above it all, didn’t even want to be there.

PAUL BEGALA: Yeah, right, I mean pulling out his pocket watch in the middle of Douglas’ peroration was bad enough, but that habit of looking down at his opponent, it’s a definite no-no.

MARY MATALIN: Hey, he’s a foot taller, what do you expect? Though I have to admit, Lincoln’s body language wasn’t all his base could have hoped for. Not to mention that fuzzy reference to a house—how did he put it?

ARI FLEISCHER: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I think that’s what he said. For a moment I thought he was going to get into the housing crisis but—

CANDY CROWLEY: May I say something here? I thought the same thing, that he’d get in a personal touch about growing up in a log cabin with his mom Nancy Hanks, then splitting rails—

JOHN KING: A missed opportunity there, no doubt about it. Our focus group by a 3-to-1 margin gave Douglas the edge in likeability and having a personal narrative more like their own.

BLITZER: Fascinating stuff, John. Next, our CNN poll telling us who won, Lincoln or Douglas, after this brief station break . . .

 

Sound bite to remember 

“You will find out that you cannot do without politicians. They are a necessary evil. But the thing for the school people to do is that if the politicians are going to steal, make sure they steal for the schools.”

–Huey Long to the faculty of LSU, April 12, 1935

 

The 47 percent solution Monday, Oct 1 2012 

Politics victorgold 5:26 pm

Before the Great Debate takes place, one last word on Mitt Romney’s writing off nearly half the electorate as trough-feeding welfare moochers: He at least gives Obama supporters credit for knowing what they’re up to.

That’s not always the case in partisan argument during an election year. Consider the following, from a recent Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Henninger, a frustrated partisan who thinks “the content and course of the Romney campaign does not feel equal to an historic mandate election.”

“Barack Obama is asking voters for a mandate to pursue the visions and policies he outlines in speech after speech,” writes Henninger. “As of now, if Mr. Obama wins, it will be because a confused electorate gave him their default, not their mandate.”

Now that’s more like it. Check the record, whenever hot-eyed (and dull-witted) idealogues take stock of why their side isn’t doing well in (or at) the polls, it’s always a case of their candidate’s not getting his Message across. Why else would the electorate not see the “historic mandate” at stake in this year’s election and come down on Romney’s side? The idea that voters might actually get the Message and reject it – how many years has Mitt Romney been campaigning? – is out of the question.

You know, like the dogs that, despite millions in advertising, don’t like the dog food. The mutts are obviously “confused.”

Sound bite to remember (circa 1955)

“With all respect, counselor, I’d rather blow the f—— case.”

Mafia don Frank Costello on being advised by his lawyer to wear Sears Roebuck suits at his trial for tax evasion.

 

Artur Davis and the Schmooze Factor Monday, Sep 3 2012 

Politics , victorgold 2:12 pm

So now that Artur Davis has delivered back-to-back speeches at two national party conventions – the Democratic in 2008 praising Barack Obama, and the Republican in 2012 blistering Barack Obama – what are the odds he’ll go for the hat trick, three in a row, at the Libertarian convention four years from now?

Sad, sad, sad. Just two years ago, there was talk that Davis, who represented the state’s Birmingham district, might become Alabama’s first African-American governor. As a candidate for the Democratic nomination, he had the support of none other than George  Wallace’s daughter, Peggy. That he nevertheless lost the nomination – to a candidate who in turn lost the general election to Republican Robert Bentley – obviously left him embittered.

In over half a century in politics (yes, that long), I have yet to meet a losing candidate, other than Barry Goldwater, who took personal responsibility for his loss. They are either (1) let down by people they depended on, (2) victimized by the lying tactics of their opponents, or (3) misrepresented or otherwise treated unfairly by a biased media.

Davis, for his part, chose Option (1): He blamed his loss on what he perceived as the backstabbing treachery of Alabama’s Democratic establishment. That in mind, he packed his bags, left Alabama, and headed for Northern Virginia, within a local phone call’s distance from the White House where his friend and former Harvard law school colleague Barack Obama now lives. What happened next – Davis’ switch to the Republican Party, his endorsement of Mitt Romney, and his appearance at the GOP convention – can best be explained by what didn’t happen.

To the point, can you imagine this sort of political embarrassment being visited on a White House run by either Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton? Obama’s campaign aide Stephanie Cutter attributes the defection to Davis’ being a self-interested, attention-seeking opportunist – as if that tells us anything we didn’t know about anyone (including the man she works for) who runs for political office.

No, whatever Artur Davis’ egocentricity, my bet is that he wouldn’t have switched parties, endorsed Romney, or shown up in Tampa if the man whose nomination he seconded four years ago, and/or members of his White House staff aimed the slightest bit of – to borrow a once-favored Obama term – empathy  in his friend’s direction.

A job offer? Possibly, though presidents like Johnson and Clinton knew that reaching out to wounded egos often means simply a private lunch or dinner; a weekend at Camp David; a flight aboard Air Force One; or merely a photo, autographed, taken with the president.

Ah, but this president, as Jane Mayer revealed in her recent New Yorker piece “Schmooze or Lose,” isn’t much for that sort of empathy. He has no time for posed, autographed photos with guests at White House holiday parties. Little time for table-to-table schmoozing at fundraising dinners. Not even, as Maureen Dowd tells us, a thank you note to supporters who make their homes available for fundraising events.

How to explain a president who sees and practices politics this way? Looking back (before my time), I can think of only one model. Not Kennedy, as Obama’s admirers would have us believe, or Carter, as his detractors would argue, but Woodrow Wilson, another cool professor with no time for the nitty-gritty.

Of course, for all that, Wilson did win a second term – but narrowly. Whatever that bit of ancient political history tells us, it would be well for Artur Davis’ erstwhile friend in the White House to remember that Tip O’Neill had it only half-right: All politics is local, yes, but more than that, it’s personal.

Sound Bites to Remember (in translation):

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”

–Charles de Gaulle, circa 1965

“You kiss ass one day so you can kick it the next.”

–Alabama Gov. Big Jim Folsom, circa 1955

 

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