Author: DOuG pRATt

Jon Stewart’s mental gymnastics

The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) was a huge success — a quarter of a million people huge. It was obviously a response to Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore America, and I don’t understand why Jon Stewart won’t acknowledge that. I know he didn’t feel well during his interview with Rachel Maddow a few days ago, but I’m still surprised by how many of the points he made were exercises in mental “gymnastics” (I’d like to use another word, but I’ll resist the temptation).

Stewart apparently felt slighted by Bill Maher’s criticism of the rally. I suppose that could be taken as a sign of respect for Maher, whose style is too snarky to do what Jon does, and his appeal isn’t as broad, so he never could have gotten 250,000 people to gather together. Maybe Maher is jealous of Stewart’s success. Maher sure was delighted when he was at the center of an election recently, with his video clips of Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell.

The moments with Maddow when Stewart was joking he did fine, but when he got into the particulars of how he views political media, he got lost in his own internal dialogue. He was particularly bogged down in his discussion of how Bush got us to invade Iraq. Stewart seemed to be saying that Bush’s fervent belief that Saddam Hussein must have had WMD somehow absolves the former President of blame. He really lost me 35 minutes into the interview, with the line, “It’s true depending on where you start the pursuit.” He had to go all the way back to FDR and the internment of Japanese-Americans to find a moral equivalent to Bush not taking the chance that Iraq wasn’t actually a threat??

In the past, Jon Stewart has taken the media to task for not doing its job, and for failing to ask the tough questions. Then he got CNN to cancel the rancorous show Crossfire because it was just a lot of shouting. His complaint with MSNBC doesn’t seem to be with the content, as much as the way Olbermann and Maddow present it. Stewart’s insistence on having meaningful interviews after the jokes and skits on The Daily Show attracts a surprising array of guests, but he doesn’t have a monopoly on style or substance.

I wouldn’t say that Jon Stewart has let success go to his head, but the gist of his attitude is, “I’ve got it right, and the rest of you are just poisoning the political well by shouting from opposite ends of the political spectrum.” If Stewart wants quieter, less emotional, discussions, then he should look beyond cable TV and promote the always excellent PBS News Hour. He could have brought a copy of that network’s guidelines to read during the interview with Rachel. It’s interesting that Leher included the comment, “I am not in the entertainment business.”

  • Do nothing I cannot defend.
  • Cover, write, and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
  • Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
  • Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.
  • Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
  • Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.
  • Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.
  • Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions.
  • No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
  • And finally, I am not in the entertainment business.

They must be Belgians

As has been my habit for the past 2+ years, when I’m in a foul political mood, I indulge some light-hearted K3 songs. Somebody was nice enough to put good quality K3 videos on YouTube, saving my site from the storage and bandwidth burdens. These are two of my favorites, with the original line-up, Kristel Verbeke (black), Kathleen Aerts (yellow), and Karen Damen (red) — the colors of the Belgian national flag.

In Love

Is There Somebody on Mars?

Aww, what the heck, here’s Tele-romeo…

These are two of the most versatile, talented, hardest-working and, yes, sexiest women in show biz. I am certain the only reason Karen and Kristel aren’t internationally famous is because they aren’t from England or America.

The deficit and trickle-up economics

I prefer to post fun stuff on this blog, but sometimes political happenings really get me going. Right now it’s the Republican fight against the scheduled expiration of the tax cuts, combined with Alan Simpson’s apparent dominance of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Simpson is the man who, this past August, said…

“Yes, I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ’em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits!”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014698-503544.html

Social Security is not, at this time, counted as part of deficit. It simply isn’t in the budget that is proposed by the President every year. Here, read it for yourself:

1- Social Security was off-budget from 1935-1968;
2- On-budget from 1969-1985;
3- Off-budget from 1986-1990, for all purposes except computing the deficit;
4- Off-budget for all purposes since 1990.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html

During the Bush years, Republicans had a habit of pretending Social Security could be used for computing the deficit. Why? Because it had a surplus and made the deficit appear smaller. After Bill Clinton left office with a true budget surplus, what did Bush do? Instead of applying it to the national debt, he cut taxes. This is why I don’t believe Republicans when they say they’re desperately concerned about the deficit.

Something else that bugs me about the need to adjust Social Security, is that I keep hearing how much longer Americans live than they did when Social Security was introduced. Well, we do live longer, but only by about five years.

…the average life expectancy at age 65 (i.e., the number of years a person could be expected to receive unreduced Social Security retirement benefits) has increased a modest 5 years (on average) since 1940. So, for example, men attaining 65 in 1990 can expect to live for 15.3 years compared to 12.7 years for men attaining 65 back in 1940.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

As expected, liberal economist Paul Krugman isn’t happy with the commission’s recommendations.

Matters become clearer once you reach the section on tax reform. The goals of reform, as Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson see them, are presented in the form of seven bullet points. “Lower Rates” is the first point; “Reduce the Deficit” is the seventh.

So how, exactly, did a deficit-cutting commission become a commission whose first priority is cutting tax rates, with deficit reduction literally at the bottom of the list?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/12krugman.html

Here is a discussion on the Fiscal Responsibility and Reform commission, from Friday’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook, a Boston-based NPR program. Jack Beatty sums it up succinctly.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/NOV/OnPoint.mp3]