Showing posts with label Bob Schieffer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Schieffer. Show all posts

Friday, February 8, 2019

For me, he was simply THE master politician of my 15 years in Washington, D.C. Remembering John Dingell and what legislators used to do and be











WDIV-TV, Detroit BREAKING: Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell dies at age 92

John Dingell writes a note to his younger self
CBS This Morning
Published on Dec 10, 2013
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., begins his 58th year as a member of the House of Representatives. At age 87, he is the longest serving member of Congress in history. In the "CBS This Morning" ongoing series, "Note to Self," Dingell write about his personal connection to Pearl Harbor.






















Make sure you read the pillow he's holding!
Longest-serving Rep. Dingell on how Washington has changed
Longest-serving Rep. Dingell on how Washington has changed
Video: CBS News, Published on June 9, 2013 

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest-serving congressman in American history, discusses how Washington has changed since he arrived on Capitol Hill more than 57 years ago, particularly the gradual loss of bipartisan cooperation.

Updated February 11, 2019

Upon my arrival in Washington, D.C. in February of 1988, the day after the Super Tuesday presidential primary election day in Florida, the Southeast U.S. and a few other states, I was more than elated to finally be in the city that I had always wanted to live and work in, and I made a promise to myself.
That vow was that I’d do everything in my power to expand my base of knowledge of policy and process on many different issues in a way that would also help me get a job in a very competitive environment. Growing up in North Miami Beach in the 1970's sans the Internet, I always believed that information was power and always strived to be a person “in the know” whom other smart and savvy people turned to for advice or counsel. And all throughout high school at NMB Senior High and college at Indiana University in Bloomington, and various national and state political campaigns I worked on at a pretty high level, that’s exactly who I was and the reputation I garnered.

I have always had a crazy memory for trivia and context that always helped me recall details that others didn't know or recall. Yes, I was that guy who often won trivia contests at spring break events, at hotel bars or restaurants or get-together at parties in Dc and suburban Northern Virginia.
And thanks to a lot of hard work and diligent effort, I became a well-connected person that was in-the-know. Or so it seemed to me. But who can really know. right?
Growing up in South Florida, because of my personality and interests, I always knew LOTS of TV and print reporters and columnists and editors, when I was in high school at NMB -spent hundreds of hours at the late Miami News at both their Sports and Entertainment desks- and that was also true at IU where college newspaper, the IDS, was one of the best managed in the country, housed in a building named for a journalism icon, Ernie Pyle, an IU alum.

I knew nearly everyone who was anyone at the ids and frequently attended get-to-gethers with many of them on Sunday nights in the Fall after the last NFL football broadcast. We'd meet around 7:30 pm in the school library cafeteria on the ground floor, and there, over burgers, fries, cokes and pizza, we'd discuss what was REALLY happening on campus.
The stories that few students on campus knew about but should be talking about, ones we often knew a bit too much about to keep quiet for very long.
By the end of my freshman year at IU I knew and was friends with lots of influential people at the I.U. Varsity Athletics Dept., and gave camous tours for them when VIPs were in town, often before a big game, and knew as well some of the more influential students on campus at the various student groups, including the three most important: student government, Student Athletic Board and Student Alumni Council, being especially devoted to the latter two when not in class, spending hundreds of hours a semester doing things to help them prosper and have fun at the same time.

All in all, I'd done pretty well to create a well-oiled little network for myself in Blooomington, and I hoped to replicate someting similar in Washington, D.C., however difficult that would seem at the outset. Because of my insatiable curiosity, I was always digging to know a little bit MORE than most people about what was really going on below-the-radar and how the sausage was put together if you will.
That led to people noticing that I had a way of getting things done and get the results I wanted more often than not. Plus, in keeping with my outgoing ENFP personality, I was able to do that without grating on people, a not uninmportant ability that I knew would help me qa lot in Washington, based on conversations with friends who already worked there.
But I knew that there were LOTS and LOTS of people in Washington my age who knew a great deal more than me about specific subjects, and that while my general knowledge may've been better than most, I needed to figure out a way of getting MUCh BETTER informed on those subjects that I was clearly lacking in.
To help accomplish that, from 1988-2003, I took copious contemporaneous notes of what I observed first-hand at myriad events with policy makers, journalists and news makers at the Brookings Institution, CSIS, SAIS at Johns Hopkins, AEI, the Wilson Center, the Goethe Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the IMF and The World Bank -BEST wine!-the Economic Strategy Institute, et al. 
There I'd hear subjects and stories that, for whatever reason, rarely saw the light of day in the pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. Not even mentioned by friends of mine who worked at those media groups. 
This, naturally, had the entirely predictable ripple effect of making me realize that this would only ensure that these stories and issues almost NEVER made the airwaves of the TV networks, cablenets or, even NPR, either.
So, combined with my own personality and interests, the nature of my jobs in DC and the kinds of friends I had, and all those days and nights I was going to forums and events ariound town, I wound up with a front-row seat and below-the-radar perspective on many of the most contentious and implacable issues in Washington, D.C.
That was especially true for the sorts of policy debates that would take place on Capitol Hill, and their resultant fallout at DC-area think tanks, industry groups and public policy groups.

Nothing thou proved more valuable to me in widening my horizons than actually attending Congressional hearings and becoming familiar with not only the well-known public issues at hand, but also issues below-the-radar, and comparing and contrasting how the individual Members, their staff and the news media in attendance, all performed and interacted -or didn't- to either help illuminate or obfuscate an issue, for better or worse.

I heard pinpoint criticism of policies by members of Congress that I never saw mentioned in the press, and heard analysis that I hadn't heretofore known existed, found out that ideas that I always thought were popular had actually evaded public scrutiny, transparency or accountability for years, and I heard lots of well-aimed personal brickbats. 
Every week, I was able to see examples of the proverbial case of the media watchdog that doesn't bark, or see examples of why the latest case of media conventional wisdom had -again- been proven wrong, and why.
So on Capitol Hill, especially before the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994 that saw so many of my Democratic friends on Congressional committees get the heave-hoo, I saw first-hand how some Members chose to be earnest and diligent work-horses.
People like Lee Hamilton or Dante Fascell, my own Members back in Bloomington and Miami.

Members who did their hardest work behind-the-scenes, which was apparent by their choice of questions and their ability to intelligently follow-up  and elicit interesting answers from the people testifying, to get to the larger truth of an issue.
Others, of course, the Congressional show-horses, the majority, were largely content to simply show up and read the questions their well-informed but partisan staff had written for them, missing obvious follow-up opportunities. I also saw something I never imagined -Members who seemed to be bored with such a great job. A job I and so many others in the crowd would kill to have.

There were a few, though, who combined the work ethic of a work-horse and the showmanship of a show-horse, and one of them was John Dingell, the veteran Michigan Democrat who had held his Detroit-area seat since 1955, succeeding his father, who'd been swept into power during the first FDR presidential victory of 1932.
Dingell’s voluble style and legendary ability to generate both passion and news headlines were famous long before I arrived on the scene in Washington in 1988, of course, so I knew that whenever possible, I needed to attend one of his hearings so that I could see him operate in-person if I wanted to see how things could really work on the Hill, because those rare moments when he was properly engaged and enraged were truly magic.
I saw that Dingell magic for myself many times in the fifteen years I lived and worked in Washington, spending thousands and thousands of hours at/on/around Capitol Hill.

The hearings that made the most powerful impression on me came in April of 1988, just months after my arrival. I was fortunate enough to grab a seat at a Energy & Commerce committee hearing he chaired, after waiting in line for hours to get one of the coveted 30-plus seats inside, where Drexel’s Michael Milken was to testify before what seemed like most of the Beltway press corps.
A hearing where tension was already thick even before it started and then only seemed to grow once Milken publicly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as camneras all over the room clicked, refusing to respond to the committee’s very pointed and explosive questions.
This, despite the fact that his attorney, the legendary Edward Bennett Williams -the Williams of the famous D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly, as well as the cantankerous owner of the Washington Redskins football team and Baltimore Orioles baseball team- had already told the committee in advance that his client would not answer its questions because Milken was already under grand jury investigation. John Dingell, though, had bigger fish to fry that day, and was cagey enough to see Milken’s refusal to talk publicly for what it really was -for Dingell.
An opportunity for John Dingell to make a point much larger than the simple one being written about by the legion of journalistic lemmings in American newspapers and business magazines regarding whether Michael Milken and his business approach were a force of corporate good or evil. Dingell used his opening statement -which came before anyone else spoke- to outline what he perceived to be the “evils” of Drexels’s junk bonds, and their use in corporate takeovers that had led to the collapse of longstanding companies, thousands of productive jobs in towns large and small throughout America’s heartland.
People whose lives Dingell believed could never be made whole again. That was to be the drama.
April 27, 1988  Securities Markets and Federal Laws
The subcommittee held a hearing relating to the operations of the nation’s securities markets and the effectiveness of the federal securities laws. Following members' opening remarks, Mr. Milken invoked committee rules preventing television cameras from recording his testimony. After cameras left the room, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination. He was under investigation for racketeering and securities fraud.

The comedy was to come later, when Drexel’s CEO, Fred Joseph, came into the room and testified, apparently oblivious to everything everyone else in the room who counts had heard Dingell say from his seat in the middle of the dais during Milken’s portion of the hearing. In a shocking example of making a bad situation even worse, Joseph refused to address the legitimate points Dingell had raised, instead, claiming that financing takeovers was a small part of Drexel’s overall business.
(As opposed to, say, their percentage of company profits! If it really was so small, logically, you’d think that Joseph would try to address the thornier questions posed to Milken, without the embarrassment of taking the Fifth, but he didn’t.)
By the time Fred Joseph had concluded his testimony, the damage had largely been done. Dingell, ever the master pol, had simply let Milken and Joseph hang themselves on TV: Milken by his silence and Joseph by his inability to see the bigger picture that all of America would see that night on the network TV newscasts, via a narrative written and framed by Congressman John Dingell.
APRIL 28, 1988 Securities Markets & Federal Laws

The subcommittee met to investigate several areas of the securities market with the intent of improving the laws in this area. Subcommittee members were interested in regulating the market while also preserving the confidence of the public in the free market system.

John Dingell Visitation And Funeral Arrangements:



Saturday, November 16, 2013

As U.S. approaches 50th anniversary of JFK assassination in Dallas, our thoughts at the blog are all over the place: JFK & LBJ and Texas and... Bryan Cranston playing LBJ on Broadway in Robert Schenkkan's "All The Way"; UVA Prof. Larry J. Sabato's fascinating new book on JFK, and CBS News' veteran reporter Bob Schieffer, who covered the JFK visit 50 years ago, now busy hosting a Saturday night network special on JFK and hosting 'Face The Nation' on Sunday morning from the scene of the crime

                       
KVUE News video ‏-Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston visited Austin today to talk about his new Broadway role as LBJ.
by KRIS BETTS / KVUE News and photojournalist MATT OLSEN 
Posted on November 15, 2013 at 8:20 AM 
Updated yesterday at 1:41 PM




As some of you reading this blog may well recall from my having told you before in-person, in Indiana, Illinois Washington, D.C. or here in Florida, or even here on the blog, both of my parents actually saw President and Mrs. Kennedy the day before the fateful day he was killed. The reason is that both of them worked over at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, my Mom as a secretary for the Base Commander, and my Dad, who worked in the Medical Corps. 
(I was actually born next door at the hospital at Lackland AFB, one month after JFK was inaugurated.)

They were at Brooks because President Kennedy was dedicating the new School of Aerospace Medicine, which was quite a big deal at the time given the space program, but as things turned out, of course, it was to be his last official act as president.

My Mom still has the official photos that were taken of the welcoming ceremonies there at the base by the vigilant base photographers, and I grew-up knowing those photographs, one in particular, from just a few feet away, like it had always been part of my memory.
Because it had been.


The Last Two Days, November 1963: 21-22
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHF-WHN17.aspx

That's the late Henry B. Gonzalez coming down the stairs off Air Force One behind JFK, to his left, and then again at 01:06 in the film, waving to the crowds.
Henry B. was the longtime congressman from San Antonio and someone I was very fortunate to talk to be able to talk to a handful of times when he was still in Congress when I was living and working in the Washington, D.C. area. 

I was fortunate enough to attend a few of the public birthday parties that got thrown for him that were held outside in one of the House Office Bldg.'s courtyards, as his party was always one of the real highlights of the year I looked forward to, as far as having real fun was concerned. Complete with a kick-ass Mariachi band, attractive and talented dancers and a variety and huge amount of really great food and cold Texas beer, I only wish that I'd taken more photos back then, because besides his very loyal and longstanding staff, other Congressmen and staffers, Democrats as well as Republicans, he had quite a few well-known people come swing by the party to say hello, many of whom he had known for most of their adult life or even before. 
Those friendly get-togethers meant a lot to him, but I grew to believe they meant just as much to the people who attended them, because they were old-fashioned relaxing fun of the sort that 95% of the events we attended in DC never were, but wished they were.

By the time I got to Washington, Congressman Gonzalez was still a very beloved-yet-controversial figure, and I think for most of the time I went to those events on The Hill, or saw him at other Texas-related events, he was either the Chairman of the House Banking Committee or Chair of one of the important Subcommittees, and even then though there should be an audit of the Federal Reserve, much as Sen. Rand Paul and many others do now. Transparency and public accountability.

But when that film above was made in 1963, Rep. Gonzalez was an eager and excitable second-term congressman, albeit one who had already done quite a lot for san antonio and in the texas legislature, often against great odds.
He was the first Hispanic congressman ever elected from Texas, something that he was very proud of in a not-at-all unreasonable way, especially for the times.
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/feature/0611/video.php?connection=dialup

In all my dealings with him, you could not have met a warmer and more sincere person or someone with a better memory, and if you didn't know any better, you'd probably have guessed that he was either a retired pediatrician or veterinarian.
That memory of his was one of his great talents for succeeding in politics, since he remembered my Mother's name from a conversation we'd had many months before, even though I'd said it only in passing when talking about the fact that when JFK ran in 1960, it was the first time that she could legally vote.

At 06:19 and 06:33, not wearing an overcoat, you can see future Speaker of the House Jim Wright, the congressman from Fort Worth.
As U.S. approaches 50th anniversary of JFK assassination in Dallas, our thoughts at the blog are all over the place: JFK & LBJ and... Texas and Emmy Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston of 'Breaking Bad' visiting Austin and the LBJ Library as he prepares to play LBJ on Broadway in Robert Schenkkan's "All The Way"; UVA Prof. Larry J. Sabato's fascinating new book on JFK, and CBS News' Bob Schieffer, who covered the JFK visit 50 years ago, busy hosting a Saturday night network special on JFK and then hosting 'Face The Nation' on Sunday morning from the scene of the crime, with Luci Baines Johnson slated to be a guest
As always, Prof. Larry J. Sabato's wise words and depth of knowledge are a useful antidote to years of revisionist history, both Democratic and Republican, foreign and domestic.

The Washington Post

Five myths about John F. Kennedy
By Larry J. Sabato, Published: November 13, 2013
Most everyone who was alive on Nov. 22, 1963, remembers where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. JFK was the youngest elected U.S. president and the youngest to die. The fascination with him is never-ending: There have been hundreds of books, TV specials and films about his New Frontier, as well as the enduring controversy surrounding his assassination. Let’s debunk some of the most pervasive myths.
Read the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-john-f-kennedy/2013/11/13/bf1d1442-4b1a-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html


fact-filled photo gallery
Is there more to JFK assassination? 
By Larry J. Sabato 
updated 4:32 PM EST, Fri November 15, 2013





















Listening to THE FIRST FAMILY for The First Time. I can see why it was a huge hit - until 11/22/63. #JFK50 http://t.co/e75IplT1Ib

In the early-to-mid 1970's, while living in North Miami Beach, I had a very good friend whose parents still had a copy of this record album, and his father would often play it when his wife was out of the house because he really loved the album and knew the material backwards-and-forwards and would often say the lines along with the actors, and laugh and laugh.

Now I don't recall whether the story was that the father was supposed to have gotten written of the album altogether, or just couldn't have it out where she could see it, but I know that in the hundreds of times I was over there, that album stayed out-of-sight, and NOT with the rest of the records they had near the old-style entertainment center console -with lots of Broadway cast albums I would come to know and love.


It seems that hearing those Kennedy-like accents just made his wife very upset and she'd often start crying and weeping if she heard even some of it.

I know that must sound sort of odd to read right now, but trust me, at the time it was happening, it seemed quite upsetting and turned everything around us upside down.
That was a secret that 12-year old me had to keep on the down low.
The Dad playing the record and the Mom who cried when hearing it unexpectedly. 














http://jfkfacts.org/


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Video: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog hits the U.S. presidential debate in Boca Raton and immediately heads for the media spin room in search of political nuance and intelligent discussion among the assembled media hordes and the party's surrogates...for Triumph to poop on!; Robert Smigel's comic genius returns to the small screen again!



TEAMCOCO video: Conan O'Brien Show on WTBS: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog hits the last of the three U.S. presidential debates held at Lynn University in Boca Raton, and immediately heads for the media spin room in search of political nuance and intelligent discussion among the assembled media hordes and the party's surrogates...for Triumph to poop on! Uploaded October 26, 2012. 
http://youtu.be/I46iwLIF1Fo

http://teamcoco.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph,_the_Insult_Comic_Dog

http://www.vice.com/read/robert-smigel-556-v17n10



Tvrecycled video: Robert Smigel & Louis C.K. doing a comedic bit from a 1993 appearance on the Conan O' Brien Show where they were writers. Uploaded March 15, 2010. http://youtu.be/2FFyNyfOqQQ

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Bob Dole, remember him? Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his White House chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich. Another GOP Establishment lobbyist for Romney to add to his collection!



CBS News video: CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Dean Reynolds reports on "Gingrich feeling heat from GOP Establishment." January 26, 2012.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7396509n

Bob Dole, remember him? 
Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich.
Yes, Bob Dole, the most over-rated member of Congress of the past thirty years, not that it ever stopped his pals in the Beltway news media from the logrolling after he became a lobbyist.


Try this simple amateur detective assignment yourself.
Each day ask five people who don't follow politics as deeply as you do, "Who ran against Bill Clinton in 1996?"

Give them ten seconds to answer, with no clues.
Do this for a month.
The gaping silence you hear, there's your evidence!

Yes, the same person who talked openly about "Democratic wars" in the 1976 Vice-Presidential debate.
Bob Dole.
And yet he ran for president only 16 years ago...
Just saying...

If you saw the CBS Evening News segment tonight that dealt with the Beltway's GOP Establishment falling-in behind Mitt Romney and attacking Newt Gingrich - especially the once-familiar Republican names who for years have been making lots of money from leveraging their connections!- it's not for nothing that their interview was with one of the the poster boys for the old GOP Establishment who resented Newt's tight personal connection with younger members and who have fought the Tea Party tooth-and-nail the past two years: Bob Dole.


And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did the reporter mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?
Lobbying.
Surprise!

I listened to Rush Limbaugh for about two hours today, including when he said this...
Coordinated Avalanche Against Newt Doesn't Match My Memory of Reagan Years
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/26/coordinated_avalanche_against_newt_doesn_t_match_my_memory_of_reagan_years



Dole assails Gingrich in plea to conservatives
Posted by CNN's Kevin Liptak
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/dole-assails-gingrich-in-plea-to-conservatives/

And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did reporter Dean Reynolds mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?
Lobbying.


Seriously, look at who these former GOP congressmen supporting Romney are... Vin Weber, Susan Molinari... 
A largely-forgettable Minnesota Republican and a not-too-bright-but-cute daughter of a longtime Staten Island GOP congressman, who played her feisty thirty-something Mom Congresswoman shtick to the hilt? And then some!
(She later turned being cute-and-precious with a smile into a ticket to host a network TV news program -another CBS News debacle.)


NOT exactly the people who were doing the heavy lifting to make the GOP Revolution of 1994 possible.
In fact, Weber retired in 1992 to... well, lobby.
And after Molinari left CBS and had another kid... well, since 2001, she's been a lobbyist.
What a coincidence!

Seriously, would anyone outside of New York in those pre-Internet days have ever talked about Molinari if Newt hadn't personally led the GOP takeover in 1994, when she'd been in Congress for all of two terms? 
In a word, no.


I was there.
I knew people who knew them, some who liked them and those who didn't, all who had some degree of insight into them and their ilk.
Which is why i ask you simply, quick, name one accomplishment of significance for either Weber or Molinari before 1994 that anyone has ever heard of?
Exactly.
Just saying... 


And if you're one of those few people out there in the blogosphere who think you've heard it all and seen it all before, but didn't know about this story, which I first heard about when I lived and worked in the Washington area, you might want to consider this as a mitigating factor in Molinari's feelings about Newt Gingrich.


The bitter backstory between Newt Gingrich and Romney backer, Susan Molinari
Posted by Marc Caputo on January 18, 2012
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/the-bitter-backstory-between-newt-gingrich-and-romney-backer-susan-molinari.html


Hmm-m... Vin Weber -lobbyist. Susan Molinari -lobbyist. Bob Dole -lobbyist.
Sort of makes you wonder why they don't form a PAC called GOP Silver Spoon Lobbyists for Romney.
They don't, of course, because they don't need to as long as Mitt's Super PAC is around buying up all the air time it can swallow


Dole's comments were almost as laughable as Bob Schieffer's tonight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57367151/schieffer-modern-american-politics-is-vulgar/?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

Do you recall what Schieffer said after Barack Obama's infamous comments in 2008 while in San Francisco about residents of Pennsylvania became public, an incident that I referenced the other day?


Bob Schieffer said nothing about those vulgar and condescending remarks.
Say sayonara, Bob.
Just saying...
-----
I found this after writing the above but it still made me laugh nonetheless...

A question we’ve never posed and likely no one outside of CBS News has ever considered: “We wondered what Bob Schieffer thinks of all of this?” 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/01/26/appalled-schieffer-blasts-vulgar-and-rude-brewer-we-re-better-people