VP?

Mere hours after the official text message went out around 3am this morning, the Republicans have already distributed this ad:




I sure hope Obama's Brain Trust has a great counter for this very simple, very fair, and, unfortunately, likely very effective ad. Let's see what happens in Denver next week!

Put up or shut up

From the New York Times:

"Mr. Obama has run for the last 18 months as the candidate of hope. Yet party leaders — while enthusiastic about Mr. Obama and his state-by-state campaign operations — say he must do more to convince the many undecided Democrats and independents that he would address their financial anxieties rather than run, by and large, as an agent of change — given that change, they note, is not an issue."

" 'I particularly hope he strengthens his economic message — even Senator Obama can speak more clearly and specifically about the kitchen-table, bread-and-butter issues like high energy costs,' said Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. 'It’s fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas that bring hope and change to life.'

"Or, in the blunter words of Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee: 'Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.' "

"Some men just want to watch the world burn"

Early reviews of The Dark Knight have been raves, and tickets are already selling out on Fandango and Moviefone. Piles of money will be made (and torched?!?) opening weekend and strong word of mouth should continue healthy box office throughout the summer...I'll be at an IMAX theater near midnight very soon!

But as we get closer to opening night, I only have one question: where is a key U.S. Senate member and lifelong Batman fan in this next Clockwork Orange-esque clip?

Lady Liberty

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel."

-Patrick Henry

Tim Russert 1950 -2008

In late November 2004, I saw John Fogerty at the 930 Club. I arrived late and couldn't get up near the stage like I normally do. So I went downstairs to the bar. After a while, I noticed Tim Russert was down there at a table. He was very friendly and chatty with those around him, including me. A real everyman in every sense of the word.

A bit later, rock and roll thundering above us, we waited in line together for the bathroom. I was in front of him. I turned and said I enjoyed his book Big Russ and Me. I asked him what his favorite Creedence song was.

"'Fortunate Son,' " he told me without hestitation. "My dad was a truck driver."

I let him cut in front of me to the bathroom. (And I really had to go, too.)

He'll be missed for many reasons. I only wish he could put Cheney on the hotseat one more time...

"Another chance has been engaged"

R.E.M. talked about the passion at Merriweather Post Pavilion Wednesday night. Their studio records for the past decade have dangerously drifted to detached irrelevancy. With 2004's listless, lifeless Around the Sun, they had lost nearly everything that endeared them to millions, including me. They remained strong as a live act from 1999 to then, but with the new material from last April's Accelerate album, they're back near the top of their game.



I enjoyed strong opening sets by The National and Modest Mouse, particularly the latter's during "Float On". Modest Mouse now features The Smiths alumnus Johnny Marr. Here he is jangle rocking alongside similarly iconic alternative guitarist Peter Buck during "Fall on Me"



Since they were just a handful of miles away in Columbia, of course, you knew Mike Mills would break out a cowboy hat and sing "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville"



Nobody rocks the Andy Capp in Blade Runner look like Michael Stipe. To be fair, nobody else probably wants to, either.


Few performers are on or can even figure out his frequency. A real original. (Special thanks to my sister-in-law for my concert ticket - a fantastic early birthday present!)

Hypocrisy and the City

Something to think about when you ask your girlfriend or wife to iron your "Bros before Hoes" tee-shirt.

A Laurel and Hearty Handshake

Congratulations to Barack Obama on being the Democratic Nominee for President in 2008.

Now go out there and live up to your campaign promises. Be the change you said we've all been waiting for. Today he's officially kicking off his campaign throughout my home state of Virginia:

"David 'Mudcat' Saunders, a Roanoke-based strategist who has advised politicians on how to reach out to rural voters, said southwest Virginia is 'a logical place' for Obama to start because he will need to appeal to those voters in other crucial battleground states as well.

" 'If Virginia truly is in play, it's a practical move for him because he can get the western Pennsylvania bunch, the southeast Ohio bunch,' Saunders said. 'It's the same region. It's the same bunch of people; they just live in different states.'

"He added, 'These are the people around the country who decide the president of the United States, and they are neglected. The Republicans take them for granted, and the Democrats don't try to come get 'em. God bless Barack Obama for for trying to go get 'em.' "

Good luck turning my state purple, Senator. (I'll be your Waco Kid if you need help with the locals down there.)

Romanes Eunt Domus

My father-in-law is featured in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's current production of the Tragedy of Julius Caesar. He's officially a paid Equity actor in the ensemble. He's even on stage as a Senator when Caesar finds out who his friends are. Steve doesn't pile on and stab away, but he does look believably horrified when the blood starts gushing.

And speaking of horrified, watching this play again for the first time since high school, I had some ferocious 9th grade Latin flashbacks.



It's a very exciting and relevant production at the new Sidney Harman Hall If you can't make it, or are just pressed for time in general, there's always 60 Second Shakespeare over the BBC website.

On a related note, one of my favorite sketch comedy troupes of all time was recently in DC. The Kids in the Hall were at Warner Theatre as part of their Live As We'll Ever Be Reunion tour. I didn't go, as I have seen them twice live (once at the Warner and once at Town Hall in New York) but I heard they were good.

KITH alum Mark McKinney recently was in a great CBC series called Slings and Arrows. I enjoy and recommend it highly, particularly if you enjoy seeing thea-tah types fret.

The Merchant of Venom

The inimitable Don Rickles turned 82 on Thursday. The master insult comedian of all time, no one was safe from his wrath. Not Sinatra. Not Carson. Not even future presidents.



I'm not sure what this comic is or what it's about, but I wish I had the magic power to insert Don Rickles into random comic panels. Imagine how much more entertaining Mary Worth and For Better or For Worse, among countless others, would be.



If I could give one birthday present to Mr. Rickles, gosh, I dunno. Hmmm. How about having the avuncular, innocuous guy , who endeared himself weekly to millions as we listened to him on American Top 40 over the years, dress up as Hitler and viciously roast him?

Naa. I'm pretty twisted, so like that would ever happen...

"Reachin' out for something to hold..."

Alan Hurwitz, with the North Star Writers Group, articulates my similar concerns on this most recent Obama gaffe:

"Does he understand that some people who like their guns and believe in the Second Amendment do so for reasons other than their frustration? In fact we ought to be happy that more of those guys aren’t more frustrated, with their loaded weapons at their sides.

"Does he mean that if I have strong religious beliefs and want to keep my guns, that I’m also against blacks? Or am I just against someone who doesn’t understand my point of view? Now that’s frustrating. This last piece carries with it the first suggestion of sour grapes I have heard from this very centered man and candidate.

"These statements caused me some concern, even as a strong supporter. I can imagine the reactions of people who might have already had their doubts, especially if those doubts were about the seriousness of his religious belief, or his desire to understand the positions of the working class people, whose votes he needs just now to clinch the nomination and avoid the wrecking of his party and devaluation of its nomination for the presidency at Hillary’s hands."

This one could be pretty serious. If this doesn't somehow lead to an even more contentious , fractured, and, yes, embittered Denver convention, then against McCain, coupled with Reverend Wright-gate, Democrats could be looking at an even tougher general election this fall.

The Night James Brown Saved Boston

On this weekend marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., VH-1 decided to briefly abandon its ratings driven and often tawdry descent into incessant and embarrassing reality programming with a great new music documentary: "The Night James Brown Saved Boston". (Remember, at one time in the 20th century, and even some of the 21st, VH-1 used to be about actual music.) NPR discussed this documentary this week.

I blogged about MLK earlier this year regarding pop music's impact on and reaction to Black Power as well as King's nonviolence movement.

As the documentary explains, while other American cities and urban centers were descending into chaos after King's killing, James Brown helped keep Boston from its own inferno.

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Here's a bit more about 60s Black Power:




Excerpts from King's last speech on April 3rd:



Lastly, some raw footage from Boston '68 with James Brown:

"He says 'I gotta see a joker/And I'll be right back...' "

Well, they gotz the Spitz. The Fedz, I mean. Of course, it was man's age old foe far prior to organized government that really did him in. The same one that does us all in, eventually.

You fellas know what I'm talking about. So beguiling. So deadly. Always a wild card....

Chicks, man. Why must they tempt us so?

I was just in Washington, DC's Mayflower Hotel recently on business. (Not that kind of business, fortunately.) To commemorate this spectacularly sordid, this staggeringly sad demise of an otherwise dedicated public servant, here's Steely Dan's caustic yet poignant tale of a similarly disgraced, lost soul in the Empire State: "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More".

Lash me to the mast, boyz. I can see them! I can hear them! They're calling to me...

The Kingfish

I'm reading All The King's Men again this political season. It's always apt to revisit this masterpiece when one needs reacquainting with the dark side of ambition and avarice masked as altruism. I also recently watched a Ken Burns documentary on Huey Long.

So this naturally made me think of some of Randy Newman's early work. Six years ago, in a cramped studio on New York's Lower West Side, I had the privilege of attending two tapings of the now defunct Bravo show "Musicians," hosted by the critic David Wild. (Wild was rumored to be the inspiration for the actual Critic.) Anyway, Randy Newman was one of the guests. (Elvis Costello was the other). What a gloriously garrulous old crank Newman was! I sat right behind him. Salty and hardly sentimental, you'd never guess this Rabelais of a composer wrote all that sweet kiddy movie music.

Good Old Boys is one of his major works. Released in 1974, and mentioning Huey Long figuratively and literally, it features one of Randy's best compositions, and one heard especially over the past few years since Hurricane Katrina.

"Louisiana 1927"



No mention of Good Old Boys would be complete without a tip of the hat to the devastating "Rednecks". Living in Louisiana for a significant amount of time as a child, Newman consequently brought a critically intelligent perspective on yet a proud acknowledgment of what fellow songwriter Patterson Hood calls the duality of "The Southern Thing". (I can't stand ultra-liberal condescension either.) Savagely satirical here, he indicts soft yet corrosive Northern hypocrisy and racism.

"Rednecks"

Quam Fluctus Diversi, Quam Mare Conjuncti

Last week, I went to an historical signing and talk at Olsson's Books and Records in Old Town Alexandria. While I was waiting upstairs at the bookstore, the author, whom I recognized from the jacket cover, walked by me to the public restroom in the back. As I browsed through another shelf, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the good professor open the door to an occupied bathroom. A very feminine shriek subsequently filled the store and he quickly apologized and backed away, the door slamming shut again. Dick Van Dyke couldn't have handled the situation with more elan. The only thing that could've been more embarrassing would be having this same woman sit right in front of him during his lecture, which, of course, is exactly what happened. It was glorious struggle to not snicker the whole time. It was a good talk, though, and he autographed my book.
















When I was an undergraduate, I did many social things at alma mater. Two of the most memorable were working at the university radio station and joining a debate and literary society. The latter's unique combination of erudition and puerility appealed greatly to me. Oration and onanism in equal measure.

I still go back every so often and am fortunate to still have many of those friendships, especially the ones formed through the annual alumni functions. Every few years, I meet one or two new Washies whom I usually click with right away. They remind me of why I joined way back in the mid-90s.


History of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, Part 1



History of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, Part 2



History of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, Part 3



History of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, Part 4

"You Ain't Gonna Make It With Anyone Anyhow"

So I'm in one of the kitchens where I work the other morning, and I'm filling up my over sized mug with a nice, steaming cup of Vanilla Chai tea. The best way to start the day, in my opinion.

While I'm there, one of my newer co-workers comes in to put her lunch in the refrigerator. She's Chinese and obviously has some difficulty with English. We smile at each other and say mutual good mornings. I've met her a few times in the hall. She tells me she's heard I'm interested in politics and figured she should ask me where she can find information online about the presidential primaries. "I'm trying to learn more about American politics," she says. So I recommend a couple of comprehensive sites I think are informative and worthwhile. I feel pretty good to have passed along some knowledge.

"Thanks so much! You know," she adds,"I was at Tiananmen Square."

"Really?" I say.

"Yes, I was there. The tanks were all around us."

"Tanks," I say, shamed to know vicariously everything she's talking about and suddenly feeling about as small as, say, a lone figure in front of a snarling phalanx of military might.

An awed and awkward silence filled the kitchen. Still smiling at me, she wordlessly watched me sip my big NPR mug sheepishly.

More co-workers came in and we all talked about whatever despite my best efforts to stand slack jawed in admiration and horror. Of course, in these pleasantries, I didn't mention what I had just recently hung on the wall in my condo next to the cats' scratch post.

All right!

"Standard Goody-Bag Politics: Something for Everyone"

Robert J. Samuelson, one of my favorite op-ed authors and someone I consider a non-partisan expert on economic matters and policies, published this today:

"Political candidates routinely indulge in exaggeration, pandering, inconsistency and self-serving obscuration. Clinton and McCain do. The reason for holding Obama to a higher standard is that it's his standard and also his campaign's central theme. He has run on the vague promise of "change," but on issue after issue -- immigration, the economy, global warming -- he has offered boilerplate policies that evade the underlying causes of the stalemates. These issues remain contentious because they involve real conflicts or differences of opinion.

"The contrast between his broad rhetoric and his narrow agenda is stark, and yet the media -- preoccupied with the political "horse race" -- have treated his invocation of "change" as a serious idea rather than a shallow campaign slogan. He seems to have hypnotized much of the media and the public with his eloquence and the symbolism of his life story. The result is a mass delusion that Obama is forthrightly engaging the nation's major problems when, so far, he isn't."

"Obama Christ Superstar" or "The Audacity of Critical Thinking"

I'm as passionate about politics as anybody can be outside of actually holding a substantive elected office, which, hey, may happen someday, who knows? In high school, I was president of the Science Club, after all. How many states of matter could I carry with those credentials? (But seriously, folks...)

So I'm naturally excited as any other moderate or progressive especially would and should be who's ready to move on from eight indelibly horrible years of George W. Bush's criminals and cronies. I still clench my jaw bitterly recalling my vote for Al Gore back in 2000, the same year I also helped elect Hillary Clinton when I lived in New York City. I spent over half a decade in the most urbane city in the world, and I think she's been a fine Senator who has genuinely worked across the aisle to build bipartisan support not just for the Empire State but for all Americans. I liked Obama's speech in 2004 and was pleased he won an Illinois seat in the Senate during an otherwise awful year for Democrats.

I've gone back and forth between the merits of these two candidates quite a bit over the past several months regarding who I genuinely think would be the best president and who I think is the most electable. Sometimes it's the same individual, sometimes it's not. Recently, I read Dreams From My Father and have the Audacity of Hope, as I'm trying to learn more about Obama. I also attended a Clinton campaign rally in Arlington a few weeks back where I was fortunate to meet the distinguished senator, shake her hand, and get her autograph on my copy of Living History.

Voting in the Virginia presidential primaries, Gwen and I deliberately split our votes - one for Clinton and one for Obama. We both really had been agonizing over whom to support. Despite fevered protestations coming from both campaigns, these two really would have quite similar administrations from a policy point of view. For a realistic moderate who is conservative fiscally but leans to the left socially, as I am and I think more of the country is becoming, the question ultimately becomes who is more electable, I suppose, against John McCain. Sometimes I think that's Obama and sometimes I still think Clinton could do it.


One thing, however, has really put me off the Obama campaign. His crusade, if you will. Let me put this in earthy, coarse language so my point isn't lost. And let me crucially note I voted for the Illinois senator in the Virginia primary.

Most Obamamaniacs need to get the fuck over themselves.

From Joe Klein in Time Magazine last week:

"And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — "We are the ones we've been waiting for" — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you." That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."

TPM's editorial "Barack Obama is not Jesus"

"The Obama campaign's instruction to their volunteers to steer clear of policy questions. How can we truly bring about real political change if the movement the Obama people are building is devoid of ideological content, content merely to mouth gauzy generalities about "coming together" and "yes we can"? Such a movement becomes a cult or personality rather than engine for social justice and political transformation. And personality cults can be a huge turnoff to those who are not already drinking the Kool-Aid..."I worry, however, that some Obama supporters have become so emotionally invested in him that they would not support Clinton if she eventually prevails. And that would be tragic. Voters are fed up with Republicans, have moved significantly to the left on many political issues, and are more open to voting Democratic than at any time in years. Democrats are well-positioned to finally to enact a progressive agenda and maybe even achieve long-deferred progressive goals like universal health care and labor law reform...

"So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work."

And from Fred Siegal in the City Journal earlier this month:

"It will be ironic if in the name of post-partisanship we manage, with the contrivance of both Left and Right, to elect Oprah’s candidate, a man with a narrowly partisan record who has never demonstrated a capacity (rhetoric aside) either to lead or to govern. Only Clinton derangement syndrome can explain the alliance of so many otherwise thoughtful people of both parties who speak well of the candidacy of a man with scant knowledge of the world who has never been tested and has never run anything larger than a senatorial office. The question that we need to ask is whether this man—who candidly admits, “I’m not a manager”—can manage the vast apparatus of the federal government. Will packaging be enough to deal with our problems?"



From the Emory University Student Newspaper:

"Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn’t name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved...

"Obama has a history of voting 'present' — which is neither a vote in favor or against — on controversial items so that nobody will know his real stance on an issue. In the Illinois legislature, Obama voted present on bills that would prohibit partial-birth abortions, a bill that reduced the sentence for carrying a concealed weapon and a bill that required adult prosecution for firing a gun on school grounds. In 1999, he was the only member of the legislature not to support a bill that protected the privacy of sex-abuse victims by sealing their court records. This is the man who wrote in his book, The Audacity of Hope, 'You must vote yes or no on whatever bill comes up, with the knowledge that it’s unlikely to be a compromise that either you or your supporters consider fair and or just.' "

Lastly, this article from this week's issue of The Economist:

"None of this is to take away from Mr Obama's achievement—or to imply that he could not rise to the challenges of the job in hand. But there is a sense in which he has hitherto had to jump over a lower bar than his main rivals have. For America's sake (and the world's), that bar should now be raised—or all kinds of brutal disappointment could follow."


As I said, I voted for Obama in the Virginia primary but I still have concerns. After two terms of what historians are already noting is likely the worst presidental administration in United States' history, Americans deserve better than new age slogans.

These recent Obama plagiarism allegations are nothing to be taken lightly, moreover. For a man whose campaign and vision is based on soaring speeches and being a new and different kind of public servant, to crib words - ironically a "Just Words?" flourish about the power of rhetoric - is disturbing. It doesn't matter if other politicians, including Hillary, do that to varying degrees, as well. He's selling himself as the CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. So far, that change has been words and apparently some lifted, unattributed words.

I can't emphasize this enough: it is not remotely cynical for me to have these concerns about Obama and his campaign. It is VITAL I have these concerns, and I believe it's important for others to have them, as well. Obama fires people up at rallies decrying cynics, but that's a pejorative designed to make his supporters feel good. There are legitimate reasons to be skeptical about him and what he can really do to bring about change to the Washington culture and the American psyche.

Should Obama be forthcoming, admit he's not perfect, and then start offering more realistic, detailed proposals about how to fix the government other than being purposely vague in talking about solutions?

Yes, I hope he can. And, more importantly, yes he damn well should.

Macacalypse Now

I'm still wrestling with whom to vote for on February 12th during the Virginia presidential primaries. Tonight, it's that awful motherfu...I mean, it's lame duck President Bush's last State of the Union address.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius from Kansas is giving the official Democratic Response this evening. A year ago, Jim Webb, the then newly elected Junior Senator from Virginia, gave the response to Bush's penultimate State of the Union.

I am extremely proud I voted for this man and that he represents my family and me in Congress. Thanks, Macaca.

Part One



Part Two

Soulsville USA

The national Martin Luther King holiday is tomorrow. This weekend, I've been thinking about Dr. King's legacy and how it relates to the 2008 elections and where our country is now. How do people my age and younger (Generation X and the Millenials) acknowledge the challenges and struggles of the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s? Do those successes and scars still resonate with my peers of varying backgrounds and ethnicities?

Consequently, I'm reading Senator Barack Obama's two books now - Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope. I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'm voting for him or Senator Hillary Clinton in the Virginia primary on February 12th. So many people, including many I know very well, are swept up in Obama mania, I wonder if they've taken a measure of the man and, more importantly, asked hard questions about what he would actually do to bring about "change".

I admire both of these senators, and I will likely support whoever has the Democratic nomination in November (unless I vote for Bloomberg!) Mostly, I'm concerned with electing who will likely win the November general election (against likely Republican nominee John McCain). Most Democratic candidates adhere to major tenets in their governance that Dr. King was willing to (and did) go to jail for back in the 1960s. His is a legacy worth pausing to consider not just annually but frequently.


Like countless other white suburban kids in the early 80s, I first really connected with MLK's powerful rhetoric via U2's "Pride (in the name of love)" from their Unforgettable Fire album. I doubt if I have to tell you what an inspirational, soaring song it is (if slightly historically inaccurate).

In 1988, when I was seventeen years old, Martin Luther King III came to speak at a Baptist church in my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia. My aunt and I were the only white people there. Well, the city's caucasian vice mayor showed up with his wife and two kids to say a few remarks, as I recall, but then left with his family halfway through the service. (I found hard to believe the Roanoke vice mayor had something so pressing personally or professionally that he couldn't stick around for another half an hour or so. I was embarrassed, but I did see some striking rhetoric that morning, and I felt welcome in that church's congregation.)


Last Thursday night, at the famed Birchmere in Alexandria, I saw the one and only Isaac Hayes perform live in concert. He's one of the greatest singer-songwriters out of Memphis and was a vital instrument in the Stax Records machine that produced so much great music that was a soundtrack for the civil rights movement. He had a stroke some years back, so he was a little unsure and frail walking to the stage in his black robe last week. Once he arrived at his keyboard, his voice was as resonant and strong, as leonine and sexual as ever. With the help of one of his back-up singers, his mashed up cover of Glen Campbell's "By the Time I get to Phoenix" with Bacharach and David's "I Say a Little Prayer" was ingenius and thrilling. It was a fantastic show!

So in addition to reading some of Dr. King's works this weekend or throughout the week, as well as deeply considering whom you're going to vote for this year and why, I'd suggest also watching Wattstax, the documentary about the 1972 concert that was Stax Records' last hurrah before financial insolvency (but not irrelevancy).



Issac Hayes wrote "Soulsville" for the 1971 movie Shaft, as well as that movie's Oscar winning theme. Here is Hayes' moving performance of the former song from Wattstax and it remains, sadly, entirely too current thirty five years later: