Category: Politics

On Sunday, the front page of the Trib editorial section had a weird piece of nonsense about the “issue” of Barack Obama’s smoking habit. The normally sensible Charles Madigan strung together a patchwork of non sequiturs that made me think I was reading a tract directed at junior high kids rather than the rational thoughts of an adult. The thrust of Madigan’s argument was:

1. Smoking is bad for you.
2. The president is a role model, and might encourage others to smoke.
3. Addicts don’t belong in the White House.

After some comments mocking Eastern European countries and their smoking habits, Madigan stated that Obama wouldn’t be able to govern the country because, as a smoker, he wouldn’t be able to stand up to Big Tobacco:

The last thing we need is someone on the campaign trail who cannot answer questions about tobacco honestly because he is, himself, addicted, no matter how much he tries to minimize the frequency of use.

Personally, I’d rather have a smoker in the White House than a dry drunk. And if you want to talk about political addicts, how about the politicians who consistently raise taxes on tobacco products? They themselves are addicted to the taxation shell game of exploiting people who are addicted to tobacco. If there were more smokers in politics, maybe they’d have a little pity and try to find another captive audience on which to balance the budgets.

What I can’t figure out is why Obama decided to wait until now to stop smoking. Not enough stress in his life? Burned too many holes in his coats? Hell, I say let the guy have a cigarette so he can relax and think a minute (something else missing from the White House).

What I think Obama should do now is have a formal B&W portrait taken, like one of those old Hollywood glamor shots of Gary Cooper or Claude Rains, of him in a very tailored suit, with a burning cigarette in his big, graceful hands. It would be a way to say, “Y’know what? I’m human, I smoke, and frankly I like it. All the image doctors tell me to stop–probably more insistently than my medical doctors–and I’m tired of it. I’m not going to die of cancer in the next four years, I’m a young man, and I want to do my job. And if needs be, I’ll step outside the Oval Office on the porch and smoke there, just like every other Joe in an office. Just leave me alone to have a drag once in a while. I promise I won’t start a fire in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

(I don’t want any lectures about making light of the dangers of smoking. My father smoked for 30 years and died at the age of 50. I got to watch its effects up close. Of course it’s bad for you. But to worry whether it can affect a president’s job is asinine. Find something substantive to judge him on.)

The end-of-the-year newsmagazines invariably contain pages of photos of notable people who have died in the previous 12 months. And following that, every holiday break seems to have its share of famous and infamous deaths that casual observers either miss or notice by accident because of the busyness of the season. One of those deaths was very hard to get away from this year, especially in Michigan: The passing of Gerald Ford.

Because Jerry was from my wife’s hometown of Grand Rapids, every newspaper we picked up during Christmas week had lionizing articles about his wisdom, his statesmanship, his decency. (As Jack Schaefer pointed out in Slate, it’s a regional cliché to refer to someone from the Midwest as “decent” in their obituary. Just as someone from New England would be called “flinty”, Californians would be “laid back” and Texans “A bit of a maverick, with a heart as big as all outdoors.” The whole thing feels like a backhanded compliment sometimes, as if people in the Midwest are too stupid to be anything but hard-working and decent.) It was great fun to tease my wife every time the commentators mentioned the “small town” where Ford grew up and learned all his Midwestern values. (Grand Rapids has about 200,000 people.) But this “small town values” script is part of the national character. Our leaders must rise from humble beginnings to greatness, and always make it look like a reluctant journey. Every leader cast as Cincinnatus. The last presidents I can recall from large population centers are JFK and FDR. Don’t call Grand Rapids a small town, pal–they’ve got a symphony, an opera company AND an arena football team.

Towards the end of vacation, we decided to take the chill’uns up to Grand Rapids and possibly stand in line to pay our respects. It meant skipping a day of school, but everyone said that this was a part of history, something that the kids will never forget. And anyway, it might be the last funeral for a president in the Great Lakes until Obama cashes out sometime around 2050.

The casket was placed in the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum, which is right downtown on the Grand River. (Ford didn’t feel the need, apparently, to construct a monument to his greatness in the form of a library/conference center, and instead left his papers to the University of Michigan.) The viewing was from 5 pm til 11 am, so we watched the news to see how long a wait it was to stand in line. For most of the evening, it was an 8 hour wait, so we decided to nap and regroup closer to midnight. At that time, one talking head said it was still an eight hour wait, then it was corrected to a four- to six-hour wait. We went downtown to see for ourselves. The kids were less than thrilled, but we piled them in the car anyway.

The line on Monroe Avenue was only 50 yards long, much shorter than the map shown on TV, so we all decided to get out and give it a shot. Two hours would certainly be a manageable amount of wait to salute the man. And we still felt that way as we wound our way into the convention center. And wound and wound and wound our way through the concrete cavern. To let visitors stay warm while in line, the convention center was roped up in a maze of switchbacks. A little math showed us it would take close to 3 hours to make it all the way through. But there we were, and a lot of other people too. My in-laws are nothing if not adventurous, so we all stuck it out. Back and forth in the switchbacks, getting to know everyone we passed time and again, by sight if not by quick conversation. (One of the talking heads had commented in wonder how everyone in line was good natured and calm about the wait, not angry or impatient. What did he expect, fistfights and gang rapes? At least he didn’t call us all “decent”.)

We entered the convention center at 1 am, and stepped outside again at 3:45. The kids had taken catnaps on the perimeter of the convention hall, but were still in a daze. Time seemed to both drift away and not move at all. It was almost exclusively a white crowd, although one black man wore a warm up suit from Ford’s high school alma mater, a nice neighborhood salute. There were a lot of young people in the crowd too, lots of college kids from the area. They behaved, by and large–maybe this was an excuse to get out of their parents’ houses for a while before they moved back to the dorm—though I’ll never get used to people who wear flannel pajama bottoms in public or wrap themselves in fleece blankets like burritos from Wal-Mart. Although there were some visitors from out of state–we talked to one person who drove up from Kentucky—most of the crowd was turning out for the hometown boy. They wore UofM jackets, and buttons with Jerry Ford’s picture on them.

For some time I tried to make some sense of the scene, trying to understand what Ford meant to the country, aside from a certain nostalgia for an era of wide ties and polyester suits and Andy Warhol hanging out with Jack Ford. In addition to all the hagiography in the GR Press, I had read Christopher Hitchen’s article in Slate that pointed out some of Ford’s lesser moments, such as the sellout of East Timor to Indonesia’s Suharto, the bungling of the Mayaguez incident, and a few other foreign policy snafus. (Hitchens never fails to pee in the punchbowl. How’d you like that blowhard to give the toast at your wedding? “You may think this fine young couple have a fine future ahead of them, but let’s not forget the wife’s bipolar disorder and the husband’s inability to keep his thing in his pants….”) I didn’t want to dismiss Hitchens’ reminder that Ford was less than a stellar president, but really couldn’t work up much of a lather. Considering the state of the world and the surreptitious foreign policies he inherited, it may be notable that he didn’t botch many things already in motion. While that may sound like faint praise, it’s not meant to be. After a few hours walking back and forth in the convention center, I wasn’t thinking much of anything except how much my eyes burned.

At 3:45 am, we exited the center, passing large oil paintings of Ford on display in front of a large condolence book. Even though I was sure Betty would read every single message, my wife didn’t feel it was worth the extra time in line. We stepped outside and waited another 30 minutes alongside the river to cross the bridge to the museum. All I can say is, for 4 am on January 3, it could’ve been a lot colder. As it was, it was nasty enough. On the bridge, film crews had begun taping off their assigned workspaces, 10 by 25 feet, for their morning reports on how decent we all were, and Jerry Ford most of all. On the bridge to the south of us were about 30 satellite trucks pointed towards the heavens and ready to sing.

Our destination came into sight. I was only praying we would get inside before dawn, because the sight of morning would really make me feel the fatigue. We filed into the Ford Presidential Museum and passed the graffitied chunk of the Berlin Wall like ones in leaders’ museums all over the world (now THAT’S a concession that looks like it was pretty easy and profitable). I took my hat off, like fully 40% of the people did upon entering (How were most of these bozos raised, anyway?). And at almost the exact pace we’d kept up for 3 hours, we all filed past the flag-wrapped casket.

As we exited, some ladies from the museum passed out cards to us and thanked us for paying our respects. (That’s the card above.) On the back it mentioned his degrees and years of public service, and mentioned that we were celebrating “the life of a loving and devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and the 38th president of the United States”. We found out later that the cards were paid for by the Ford family. A nice touch.

And the first thing we found to talk about once we got outside again, was how COMPLETELY AND ABSOLUTELY STILL his honor guard was standing. Four servicemen stood at each corner of the coffin, looking like they had been encased in lucite. It was the most amazing thing we’d seen all evening. Then, while my father-in-law retrieved the car, the five of us walked under the highway to the Big Boy, open late that night for the special occasion, and drank hot chocolate.

We did manage to get home before dawn broke, and everyone got in about 5 or 6 hours of sleep. For the next couple days, I felt like I had jet lag, which only underscores how rarely I stay out all night.

So there it is, our exercise in civic duty for the day. I don’t want to describe it as “obligatory” because it wasn’t. I’m a proud part of this democracy, as is the whole family, and I’m glad I didn’t pass up the chance to see it in one of its more dignified ceremonial moments. (And kudos to Ford for simplifying his funeral requirements, and having Tom Brokaw speak a eulogy. And having the band play “Hail to the Victors” at the airport.)

All the lionizing of Ford’s record is predictable, of course, and the right thing to do. A lot of it was over the top, and the comments by the local reporters was so inane it bordered on delusion. He didn’t “save” the country, he didn’t put all our hearts at ease with his steady decency. He didn’t lose the presidency because he pardoned Nixon, but because of a whole nest of factors, including his comment during the presidential debate with Carter that Eastern Europe wasn’t under the domination of Russia. The image of Ford as a bungler had been brewing for some time, and comments like that made him seem not up to the task. But you don’t get as far as Jerry Ford got by being a dolt. Perhaps because he lacked the Machiavellian streak of his predecessor, he didn’t elicit enough respect from people. We were lucky at the time to have a president who knew enough about the world that he didn’t feel obliged to prove it all the time. I’d say a good definition of “decent” would be the “opposite of ruthless”. With all the power-hungry SOBs who inhabit every office and cubicle in Washington, we were lucky to have someone in office who had a clear and accurate vision of his role in the republic. Haven’t seen that in a while, you must admit. If that’s what decency is, I’ll take it.

(Remember when they ran ads for this “flavor enhancer”, sprinkling MSG over everything from salads to steaks? Do they still make this stuff anymore? My entertaining has never been the same without it.)

This topic of how to hail people during Saturnalia is getting staler every year, but there was a whole page of Letters to the Editor in the Trib last week about “putting the Christ back in Christmas.” I still have this argument with friends of mine who object to being told “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, so I guess it’s not settled in anyone’s mind yet.

For an engaging examination of who can really claim this time of year as their own, check out Eric Zorn’s column today.

One December pastime is to take stock of the previous 11 months and see where you are and where you’ve been. If that is the case, the people screaming about how they’re dissed when someone says “Happy Holidays” must have a steel trap memory for perceived slights. Maybe they have a persecution complex. They must save up all their bile for the year looking for a respectable opportunity to release it, and somehow well wishers are a suitable target. This tone suffused all the Letters to the Editor that insisted “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” It felt less like a call for Christians to reject commercialism and more like resentment that anyone else can crash the holiday party.

Political correctness is not at the core of this argument, although sometimes it does raise its head during school pageants and the like. There was never a magical time when everyone wished each other a “Merry Christmas”, consequences be darned, and anyone who believes there was is delusional. What the past held was a segregated, non-mobile society, in which Christians and Jews rarely mingled (with the exception of places like New York, Hyde Park and maybe Washington DC), atheists kept quiet about their convictions rather than be hounded and fired from jobs, and Muslims and Buddhists lived overseas where they belonged. In that era, it was entirely possible to tell everyone you know “Merry Christmas” without offending anyone. And because you could do it, the phrases “Seasons Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” had no air of capitulation, no feeling of compromise. They all meant the same thing because most of your friends and acquaintances were on the same page.

Everything was all hunky-dory in the past? Check out old newspapers for their seasonal advertising. Examine old photos, and keep an eye out during old movies. “Happy Holidays” was used just as often now as it was 50-60 years ago. It’s just that the atmosphere around it has changed.

You want to boycott stores that use the phrase “Happy Holidays,” go right ahead. As one of the commentators to Zorn’s blog post mentioned, just make sure that when you don your religious armor, you also apply your Christian standards to your shopping choices and avoid products made in brutal factories in China and Indonesia. That would be a fight worth having, one that might produce some positive results.

It was a mere ten days ago that the Detroit Tigers choked so miserably in the World Series and lightened the wallets of many gamblers around the country. It was a depressing thing to watch, and I was planning to post an entry here about the nostalgic pull that a team can have on someone throughout their lives, how what’s imprinted on the minds of young people ten or eleven years old may become weakened or modified during their lives but is never completely expunged. But ten days after the fact makes those kinds of ideas a little stale, or at least worth putting back on the shelf until the next season rolls around.

But the election tomorrow has me thinking all about the ideas of nostalgia, hope, and idealism all over again. Because just as I used to think that my baseball heroes were paragons of character and effortlessness, I used to think that most adults knew what they were doing and could generally be counted on to do the right thing. And I also believed that democracies worked because, win or lose, everybody involved believed in the process, because the alternative was tyranny.

But to watch the behavior of people during election season time after time descend into such treacherous filthy pits that I can’t talk about elections with my children makes me want to strangle a whole lot of people.

To catalog all the depravity and thievery that’s gone on during the last few elections is too time-consuming and infuriating, and there are many better places to get a more thorough catalog of them. Besides, here in Chicago, a person is supposed to adopt a devil-may-care attitude about corruption, stolen elections, filthy tricks and indicted officials. It shows you’re tough, worldly wise. If we didn’t have our corruption, we’d be no more interesting than Minneapolis.

But the turd du jour in the news—about many districts across the nation where robocalls are pummeling voters and pretending to be from the Democratic Candidate, when they’re actually paid for by the Republican National Congressional Committee—just makes me want to take all these clever dimwits and throw them in a cage with a couple of gorillas in heat. Is it really so hard for these numbnuts to keep their jobs that they can convince themselves this is a good idea?

At the risk of sounding like a motivational poster, I ‘d like to suggest that, before trying some crappy underhanded trick like that, a person would do well to try and explain it in his/her imagination to someone who was important to them when they were 10 years old. A mom or dad, a coach, a cool uncle, someone. And then maybe that person could get over the uneasy feeling that he/she is actually a lizard in human skin.

Or more simply, what would the ten-year-old inside them say?

Andrew Sullivan had a couple of great links since yesterday. Since it’s the middle of winter and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue hasn’t hit the stands yet, a little taste of HOT summer fun is just what the doctor ordered.

So if you like your red hot mamas of the Christian variety, check out the latest pix from the swimwear maker WholesomeWear.

Or, if you go for something a little more exotic, check out the latest from Down Under with Ahiida Swimwear!!

Who says we can’t all get along?

I neglected this blog last week for a number of reasons. For one, I bought a new VAIO to replace my rapidly degenerating Presario (the thing has started to act like HAL at the end of 2001, though it hasn’t started its singing act yet). Too many hours have been spent trying to get the new laptop to act like the old laptop, without all the old laptop problems. Still a long way from finishing the project, so in my little corner of the basement, in addition to every other mess, I’ve got two laptops covering all my available desk space.

I’ve also been in a state of excitement waiting for the new “King Kong” to open. A friend of mine from the Tribune who saw it last week said it was excellent, and doesn’t drag during its three-hour run time. Has anyone else noticed that the movie is opening across the country on National Monkey Day? It’s no coincidence, I’m sure.

Oh, and I was trying to find some sardonic angle to explore on the whole torture business. You know, whether the US does it, and if so, how, and who really believes Bush and Co. give two figgy puddings what Europe thinks about it. (IMO, Condi Rice’s trip is just an excuse to show off her new dominatrix boots.) Torture’s just such a lovely topic to discuss during the Christmas season, isn’t it? Makes you feel all warm and cozy, especially when you bite into a nice, warm gingerbread detainee.

What kind of angle might work? An Andy Rooney curmudgeonly take (“I don’t know what the whole thing about torture is. You want torture? Try opening a bottle of Advil with the child-proof lid”)?

A Garrison Keillor, wistful and reserved (“We liberal arts majors never gave much thought to torture, even as we dissected the Marquis de Sade—figuratively, of course”)?

Unfortunately, I was unable to figure out how to type the onomatopoeic sound of one more part of my hope for mankind being shorn from inside me like guts scraped from a pumpkin, so I just left the blog blank. And vowed to stick with monkeys from now on.

Today, George W. Bush pardoned twoThanksgiving turkeys named Marshmallow and Yam in front of a horde of reporters. By the end of his term, barring any change of heart, or maybe DNA evidence, he will have pardoned 16 turkeys.

And you figure, he’ll probably pardon at least half a dozen people in connection with TraitorGate when his term in office winds down.

Does anyone know how many people on Death Row he pardoned while he was governor of Texas? I’m serious, does anybody have that number?

Too bad those inmates weren’t cute and cuddly and associated with some holiday.