When I saw the three news headlines below, I thought back to those little nuggets I used to love seeing in The New Republic in the early '90's -back when they were riding the waves of so many interesting stories before anyone else in Washington- showing wildly varying headlines for the same story.
That was back when I used to read TNR cover-to-cover and would run into Ruth Shalit all the time as she made her way up TNR's masthead, yet still used her Princeton ID card to write checks at the Borders Books on 18th and L Street, N.W., where I worked in the evenings during the week after my day job.
In retrospect, as I've written here before, I think I had a bit of a crush on her, because she could turn on the wit and charm in a nano-second, and could draw you out almost against your will.
See my previous post on Ruth Shalit from South Beach Hoosier on February 17th, NBC's David Gregory's Super Tuesday brain fart; Michelle Cottle the bore; Ruth Shalit is a charmer!http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/02/david-gregorys-super-tuesday-brain-fart.html
Having lived in Chicago and Evanston for a few years not too long before I met Shalit, whom I'd constantly run into all over D.C., esp. between K Street and Dupont Circle, I found her 1993 TNR cover story on one-and-done Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun devastatingly accurate!
Other reporters I knew in Washington, esp. those assigned to Capitol Hill, told me at the time that they marveled at the column's power, sweeping away all the senator's alibis and excuses so deliciously and completely.
Many of them were pre-disposed to like her, but they found her so un-prepared for office that it shook them up that someone like her could become a senator for a big state like Chicago.
See Shalit's interesting essay on pp. 38-43 of POLITICIANS AND ETHICS
http://www.apubb.ro/Documents/Ringsmuth/Cozic_Politicians_and_Ethics.pdf
(Since I mentioned the bookstore, I should say here publicly that by far THE friendliest media personality who was a frequent Borders customer was the late Jack Smith of ABC News, son of the legendary Howard K. Smith. He was very un-assuming and couldn't have been nicer! I was very sad at the time to hear that he'd died of pancreatic cancer, just as NFLPA head Gene Upshaw did on Wednesday. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jpsmith.htm )
New York Times, August 21, 2008
At Rally, Finding Clinton's Aid to Obama Too Tepid
By Damien Cave
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/us/politics/22clinton.html
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 21, 2008
headline above newspaper masthead: Hillary Clinton fires up Democrats in South Florida
headline on story, front page of local section: Stumping for Obama, Clinton calls for unity
By Mark Hollis and Lisa Huriash
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbclinton0822xsbaug22,0,3207003.story
7th paragraph from above reads as follow: (my emphasis in red)
"Obama campaigners were looking to sway minds at Thursday's events. But in characterizing her party as steadfast for Obama, Clinton came across to some of her supporters as overly optimistic. Several said after Clinton's speeches that they know many local Democrats and independents who aren't convinced Obama has the credentials they demand in a president."
So which is it, tepid or overly optimistic?
Miami Herald, August 21, 2008 headline on page 5A: Clinton stumps for Obama in South Florida by Beth Reinhard http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/652652.html
Meanwhile, at midnight, the lead headline at the Herald's website,http://www.miamiherald.com/ is Democrats on the verge of a sharp turn to left
http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/654325.html
I could prove to be wrong -though I doubt it- but I'd be willing to bet that the headline in the actual newspaper will be different in a few hours.
The Herald typically only uses the word "left" in their stories or headlines about Latin America. That's the list!
By the way, pre-Neil innock, I was a Joe Biden supporter in '87, after having written a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Robert Bork confirmation hearings and being surprised to receive a note from him.
Later I received a printed copy of the hearings, which were great to re-read Bork's brilliant points, even the ones I disagreed with.
Over the years that I lived in Washington, I eventually wound up with a complete copy of all the Judiciary Committee SCOTUS nomination hearings from Bork onwards towards 2003.
That included the questionnaire they had to answer, which were fascinating reading on morning Metro rides into downtown D.C.!
To set the scene the day I left on Super Tuesday 1988, let me quote from my January 12th, 2008 South Beach Hoosier post:
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-heels-of-jim-leyritz-arrest-another.html
As it happens, back in the days when he was talking and acting more like a DLC Democrat than the person he's become since then, in 1988 I defied South Florida's supposed Democratic CW (conventional wisdom) about the electability of Michael Dukakis and voted for Al Gore during the FL primary on Super Tuesday, March 8th. (Gore's senior thesis at Harvard was on "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency.")
After voting, I promptly drove up to Washington, listening to election returns on the radio throughout the South on my drive up, which had been my game plan all along. Lots and lots of Charlotte's WBT and Nashville's flamethrower, WLAC, as well as many smaller stations reporting local races with just as much drama, intrigue and backbiting as farther up on the ballot. Lots of talk about whether Gore would be able to win in northern states!
Mostly, they were the very same radio stations I'd always listened to for American Top 40 with Casey Kasem (AT40) during its heyday, so I was a veritable walking-talking Billboard hit list by the time my drive north ended, just as I'd been on my drives down here and back from Indiana for spring break. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40 and http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/index.jsp )
(jingle and lines that are always in my head on long droves by myself)
"Casey's Coast-to-Coast!"
"Hi, I'm Casey Kasem on American Top 40, coming to you on great radio stations like...
We're counting down the top hits...
Now on with the countdown!...
When Sen. Biden entered Walter Reed Hospital because of the brain aneurysms, I wrote him a letter expressing my thoughts and concerns, thanking him for his kindness months before and sent along a (new) cassette of one of my favorite and most relaxing albums, featuring lots of Gershwin, so that he could listen to it in his hospital room when nobody was around.
A while later, after he was back on the Senate floor, completely out-of-the blue, I received a wonderfully penned Thank You note from his wife, Jill, a school teacher, which was about as classy as you could possibly ever imagine, especially given the awful circumstances.That really hit me hard.
As it will otherwise continue to occupy space in my long-term memory, I wanted to share the previously meaningless trivia that after the Biden campaign office moved out of their office over on C Street, N.E., the next tenant was the Church of Scientology.
Given the late breaking news about his selection and where Biden will be in a few hours -Springfield- where Barack Obama made his formal presidential declaration, not far from the original law office of Lincoln and Herndon, http://www.online-springfield.com/sites/lhlaw.html , it's semi-ironic to me that Biden's '88 campaign office was just 2-3 blocks north of Lincoln Park.
Over the years I was living and working in the Washington area, because of my job and my own interests, I was probably at well over one hundred Senate Judiciary or Foreign Affairs Committee hearing where Joe Biden was either the Chair or the Ranking Member, and at everyone, regardless of the topic, he was always well-prepared, voluble and funny.
The latter may prove more helpful than ever over the coming months, as I think it stands in stark contrast to Obama's self-evident thin-skin.
A sense of humor is something you have to acquire by hook or by crook if you're serious about spending any time in Washington getting tangible results for the country.
I'm still going to be for McCain in November because of the experience gap and the personality of Obama, but I have a strong feeling that David Broder's great column from 1988 on Biden's potential political future will be re-read a lot in coming days, with references to it appearing in all the usual places in Washington, print and electronic.
I have it somewhere in a folder with my small circular red, white and blue campaign button that simply says, "Joe."
I'll try to post it here in the next few days.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/654325.html
CAMPAIGN '08
Democrats on the verge of a sharp turn to left
Two days before their party's national convention, Democrats are more liberal than at any time in a generation.
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As a bonus, I'll leave you all to consider this excerpt from UVA (University of Virginia) prof Larry J. Sabato's typically insightful essay from his 1991 book Feeding Frenzy, titled The Media Should Not Sustain Rumors About Politicians, which was selected for inclusion in the aforementioned POLITICIANS AND ETHICS.
It seems even more timely given the news of a few hours ago.
The 1988 Presidential Campaign
• When Michael Dukakis's campaign sent out the "attack video" that torpedoed Joseph Biden's candidacy, Richard Gephardt at first received the blame.
Private speculation about the identity of the perpetrator was unavoidable, but when the conventional wisdom fingered Gephardt and this conclusion seeped into print—as it did almost everywhere—the Missouri congressman's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was dealt a body blow. Gephardt's 1988 press secretary, Don Foley, offered this assessment:
It did us a lot of damage. Up until that time Dick Gephardt was viewed by most people as someone who would not engage in dirty campaigning, and he had a Boy Scout image. But this incident painted him as somebody who was a bit overanxious for the prize;
in the eyes of a lot of people this took the shine off of the Gephardt aura.
Even when Dukakis's staff was revealed to be behind Biden's troubles, the tarnish seemed to stick to Gephardt's image.
See also Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
which I've been subscribing to and reading -and found invaluable- for years since my days living in the Washington area.
And it's FREE.
It's conveniently on the Hallandale Beach Blog link list, too, n'est-ce que pas?
Oui!
"A comprehensive Web site run by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball features analyses of presidential elections, Senate, House and gubernatorial races."
