In regards to the Palin pick, Krauthammer doesn't like it, Frum doesn't like it, the Powerline guys don't like it, Heather Mac Donald doesn't like it. They aren't the only conservatives to express concern over Palin but they represent some of the main arguments against her selection. They are also some of the smartest people on the planet so their concerns deserve to be taken seriously.
Let's take them in order. The Krauthammer and Frum concern has to do with the election. The Palin pick, according to Krauthammer, "undercut[s] the remarkably successful 'Is [Obama] ready to lead' line of attack" which has worked so well for McCain thus far. Frum believes it will allow the Obama campaign to push the theme "that it's John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance."
The Powerline argument against Palin has more to do with governance post-election. Over a series of posts they express concern that she is seriously lacking in experience. "I'm very disappointed that John McCain would put someone as inexperienced and lacking in foreign policy and national security background as Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency," says Paul Mirengoff. There is a legitimate concern out there that if something happens to John McCain early on, the presidency would be turned over to someone with little to no foreign policy and national security experience. (UPDATE: Actually, rereading the Powerline posts now, while all three of them Powerline guys express concern over Palin, it seems that the post-governance argument is only made in Paul Mirengoff's original post. But I have read many arguments against her based on her lack of experience if something were to happen to McCain, so it's out there. Still, in the interest of accuracy, let's call it the post-election governance argument rather than the Powerline argument.)
Ms. Mac Donald's argument against Palin is that it brings identity politics, which conservatives normally loathe, to Republican presidential contests forevermore: "[F]rom now on, any presidential ticket that consists solely of white males—no matter their qualifications—will likely be dead in the water." She also states that, "Has...Sarah Palin...been named Stanley, she would have had exactly zero chance of ending up in the Oval Office in the next four years."
Others have dealt with the first two issues and both support and refutations to them are easily found if you're interested (scroll through the past few days of posts over at The Corner or check out The Weekly Standard site, including Bill Kristol's column, if you're interested). I think there are good arguments on both sides. But it is Heather Mac Donald's argument that I want to address this morning.
I need to state right off the bat that I love Heather Mac Donald. Her writing in City Journal has helped make it the finest magazine in America. She is right almost always and if I were president she'd be my Secretary of Homeland Defense (based on her qualifications, not her gender.)
That said, I don't think that Sarah Palin can be seen as a pure diversity pick. Yes, it is true that the hypothetical governor Stanley Palin, with the same qualifications as Sarah Palin, probably would not have been picked for the VP slot. But a governor Stanley Palin of Alaska who had been governor for, say, six years, following a House or Senate stint where he dealt effectively with some foreign policy and security issues. may have been. That Stanley Palin, with the same expertise on the drilling issue as Sarah Palin, who had fought corruption within his own party and won, as Sarah Palin has done, who was as strong a pro-lifer as Sarah Palin is, who was as genuine and refreshing as Sarah Palin is, would certainly have had a shot at the VP slot. I agree that given her lack of experience, her being a woman probably tipped the scales in her direction. But her gender was not the sole reason for her being picked. She has obvious advantages to the ticket in other areas and some clear expertise on critical issues of the day that made her eligible in the first place. If she did not have those advantages and expertise, the fact that she is a woman would have mattered not at all. She would never have been considered.
But perceptions mean a lot and it's true that many will see her as a pure diversity play, selected solely to grab the Hillary voters and other women. But there appears to be much more to Sarah Palin than the fact that she's a woman. It's now up to her to go perform and show America that her abilities are up to the job and her judgement can be trusted. If she performs the way we all hope, she can reinforce the conservative belief that people should be judged on their merits, regardless of race or gender. It could play out to have the opposite effect than the one Ms. Mac Donald worries about. A perfect scenario would emphasize to all that while she may be a woman, she'd better be good if she expects to play the game at this level.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Palin Effect
This is working out even better than I thought. The conservative base is energized by the Sarah Palin pick like it hasn't been in years. There are so many sides to her story: the woman who has lived both the second amendment and the abortion issues, the self-made woman who got to where she is via her own talent and drive, the hockey-mom, the reformer who took on her own party and won, the mom with a son headed to Iraq, the wife who's husband is a man's man, the (and this is only partially a joke) naughty librarian. Like Rush said yesterday, we're the ones with a babe on the ticket. She is truly a dream pick. Like my own very talented babe said to me this morning, even the McCain people must be surprised at the reaction.
The main concern among conservatives is that she is untested in national politics. They are afraid of a deer in the headlights moment, a stumble where she gets something completely wrong, anything that might expose her as unprepared for the office. Now it could happen and if it does the biased media will make all the hay they can out of it. But in my mind a more likely scenario is that she will expose Joe Biden to be the one out of touch, the one who is offering the same old liberal nonsense, the one who is locked into the inside-the-beltway mentality. She is so quick, articulate, confident, optimistic, bright-eyed (oh, those eyes) and genuine. If Joe Biden had any sense he'd be sweating bullets right now.
But the point is that for the first time in years the conservatives are revved-up. Palin also helps with the Hillary voters, the independents, the soccer-moms, the blue-collar swing voters. She rounds out McCain like no one else could and she has the ability to change the tone of the race. McCain-Palin is the reform ticket, the change agents. Obama-Biden is the ticket of Washington insiders offering the same old thing.
What a difference a day makes.
The main concern among conservatives is that she is untested in national politics. They are afraid of a deer in the headlights moment, a stumble where she gets something completely wrong, anything that might expose her as unprepared for the office. Now it could happen and if it does the biased media will make all the hay they can out of it. But in my mind a more likely scenario is that she will expose Joe Biden to be the one out of touch, the one who is offering the same old liberal nonsense, the one who is locked into the inside-the-beltway mentality. She is so quick, articulate, confident, optimistic, bright-eyed (oh, those eyes) and genuine. If Joe Biden had any sense he'd be sweating bullets right now.
But the point is that for the first time in years the conservatives are revved-up. Palin also helps with the Hillary voters, the independents, the soccer-moms, the blue-collar swing voters. She rounds out McCain like no one else could and she has the ability to change the tone of the race. McCain-Palin is the reform ticket, the change agents. Obama-Biden is the ticket of Washington insiders offering the same old thing.
What a difference a day makes.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sarah Palin
I'm glad John McCain is finally listening to me. If they need any other advice I'll be happy to help. I'll guide them along all the way through election day (and beyond if necessary.)
Seriously, I think she is an excellent pick. There are downsides for certain, but lots of upside. Having seen her in a couple of long interviews with Larry Kudlow, I find her tremedously articulate and appealing. I think America will too.
UPDATE: I just watched Sarah Palin speak after being introduced to the nation as McCain's running mate:
Is it too late to put her at the top of the ticket? Well done Ms. Palin, and well done John McCain.
Seriously, I think she is an excellent pick. There are downsides for certain, but lots of upside. Having seen her in a couple of long interviews with Larry Kudlow, I find her tremedously articulate and appealing. I think America will too.
UPDATE: I just watched Sarah Palin speak after being introduced to the nation as McCain's running mate:
"When it came to that Bridge to Nowhere, I said 'thanks, but no thanks.' If we need a bridge, we'll build it ourselves."
Is it too late to put her at the top of the ticket? Well done Ms. Palin, and well done John McCain.
The Party's Over
And thank goodness for that. But give me credit. I watched a lot of the Democratic convention, including the entire speeches of Boss Clinton, Slow Joe Biden, and the Messiah himself - and my television is still in one piece.
I thought Obama's speech was lousy. He was polished, poised, and professional but the speech itself was dishonest and without substance. And that's no surprise for he must hide his record and his real opinions from the country or else he's doomed. While he can get away with a dishonest and substance-less speech in front of his adoring crowds - he's been doing that for over a year now - he did little to sway the people he must sway, the Hillary voters and the independents. He sounded like your typical liberal Democrat last night, with his list of grievances and give-aways and his promises to expand the nanny-state. Some of his rhetoric regarding all the things he thinks the federal government should be doing I found truly disturbing. Even more disturbing is the reaction from the crowd - they love hearing that the government is on its way to help. We live in an age that expects the government to take care of our every whim and concern. This attitude exists to some extent even on the right. I am utterly at odds with this corrosive mindset. At a certain point Obama told us that under the George Bush's policies we were "on our own." YES! I said. That's how it should be in America, and that's how I want it. I want to be on my own. I don't want the government's help. Go away and leave me alone. Whoever is elected president should return to being the head of the executive branch of government and tend to the executive's limited constitutional mandates, and DO NOTHING ELSE. Stop trying to be father, a priest, a social worker, and a psychiatrist. It's not your job.
Okay, enough ranting. My main impression of the convention as a whole is that speaker after speaker tried to make the case that Obama is ready to be president - including Obama himself - and none of them came close. Of course, they couldn't because they had nothing to work with for Obama has done next to nothing of significance in his life. Hillary Clinton's now famous line about what Obama has accomplished ("He gave a speech in 2002") was not an exaggeration. Whether it was his work as a community organizer (I still have no idea what that is), in the Illinois Senate, or the U.S. Senate, there are virtually no specifics anyone is willing to talk about. Apparently the little legislation he worked on in Illinois was so far-left it was wisely left out of the story this week. So the Democrats ended up with a whole bunch of people making bold statements about how ready Obama is to be president but nothing to back it up. You'd have to be totally under the Obama spell not to notice this. The whole week reinforced the notion that Obama is an empty suit.
I thought Obama's speech was lousy. He was polished, poised, and professional but the speech itself was dishonest and without substance. And that's no surprise for he must hide his record and his real opinions from the country or else he's doomed. While he can get away with a dishonest and substance-less speech in front of his adoring crowds - he's been doing that for over a year now - he did little to sway the people he must sway, the Hillary voters and the independents. He sounded like your typical liberal Democrat last night, with his list of grievances and give-aways and his promises to expand the nanny-state. Some of his rhetoric regarding all the things he thinks the federal government should be doing I found truly disturbing. Even more disturbing is the reaction from the crowd - they love hearing that the government is on its way to help. We live in an age that expects the government to take care of our every whim and concern. This attitude exists to some extent even on the right. I am utterly at odds with this corrosive mindset. At a certain point Obama told us that under the George Bush's policies we were "on our own." YES! I said. That's how it should be in America, and that's how I want it. I want to be on my own. I don't want the government's help. Go away and leave me alone. Whoever is elected president should return to being the head of the executive branch of government and tend to the executive's limited constitutional mandates, and DO NOTHING ELSE. Stop trying to be father, a priest, a social worker, and a psychiatrist. It's not your job.
Okay, enough ranting. My main impression of the convention as a whole is that speaker after speaker tried to make the case that Obama is ready to be president - including Obama himself - and none of them came close. Of course, they couldn't because they had nothing to work with for Obama has done next to nothing of significance in his life. Hillary Clinton's now famous line about what Obama has accomplished ("He gave a speech in 2002") was not an exaggeration. Whether it was his work as a community organizer (I still have no idea what that is), in the Illinois Senate, or the U.S. Senate, there are virtually no specifics anyone is willing to talk about. Apparently the little legislation he worked on in Illinois was so far-left it was wisely left out of the story this week. So the Democrats ended up with a whole bunch of people making bold statements about how ready Obama is to be president but nothing to back it up. You'd have to be totally under the Obama spell not to notice this. The whole week reinforced the notion that Obama is an empty suit.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Mad Men - Episode 4: Three Sundays
I have much to say about last Sunday's episode of "Mad Men" but, alas, little time to say it. I've been busy all day today and I'll be gone all day tomorrow. Suffice to say that the episode was brilliant, packed full of interesting things - I'd need all day to get in everything it brought to mind.
First, a few personal notes. Years ago we visited my Dad and he told us that a young lady of our acquaintance had gotten engaged. We asked about the guy. "Nice guy," my dad said. "A little weak." Well, we met the guy a few days later and my dad nailed him. My wife said "a little weak" was the perfect description for the guy, who was a nonentity with little to say and completely subservient to his future wife. When Roger Sterling is at dinner with his wife Mona, his daughter Margaret, and his daughter's future husband, I thought of the "little weak" statement. The future husband is "a little weak." If you've seen the episode you know what my dad meant.
Little Sally Draper's comment to Joan, "You've got big ones. My mommy has big ones too. When I grow up I'm going to have big ones," gave my wife and I a big kick. When my niece - whom I love, love, love, love, love, love, love - was about four years old she encountered my wife in a state of undress. After gazing at her for a moment she said, "You've got big ones. I've got little ones." We've told that story for years and Sally's comment made us laugh out loud because of its association with our niece.
Also, the scene of the priest with Peggy in the car in front of the pizza parlor reminded me of a scene that was cut from The Godfather II, the scene where they kill Fabrizio, who'd been Michael's bodyguard in Italy and was responsible for Appolonia's death. When they finally discover his whereabouts years later he's running a pizza parlor in Buffalo. The next scene has Fabrizio locking up the store with a pizza box in hand, presumably bringing it home to his family for dinner. He gets in the car, starts it, and the bomb goes off. The scene was cut from the original release but can be seen in uncut versions of the movie. It probably wasn't deliberate on the part of the producers but the Father Gill and Peggy scene sure reminded me of that.
I also note a recurring theme this year is that of parenting styles. When Sally steals a drink during her Sunday at the office and falls asleep, presumably drunk, no one says a word. Don simply picks her up and brings her home - no big deal. Nowadays they'd be rushing her to the hospital, and perhaps later taking her to a psychiatrist in order to get to the bottom of her behavior. Kids were not fretted over back then the way they are today. "Full-court press" parenting, to steal a phrase from Joseph Epstein, was still way off in the future, and any parent who acted then like most do now would have been thought to be smothering. So this is another thing the show gets right.
Roger Sterling loves the chase, whether its chasing new business like the American Airlines account, or a prostitute like Vicki, and played by the astonishingly beautiful Marguerite Moreau, who can blame him? "I want everything I want," he tells her, in one of my favorite lines of the show, and it sums Roger up perfectly. Will Vicki mean trouble for Roger? He's had plenty of women before but he seems completely smitten with Vicki. If he's going to fall, it would be entirely believable if it were for a girl like her.
I've read elsewhere in a few places that Peggy's interest in Father Gill was not sexual. I disagree. I think it was. Peggy's sister Anita might have sabotaged her budding relationship with the priest by telling him about her child during confession, but she was right about Peggy - she does what she wants without regard to what others think. The look on Peggy's face when Father Gill drops the Easter egg in her hand and says, "For the little one" was priceless. It was Father Gill's way of telling her she needs to take responsibility for her boy. But until this moment I thought Peggy was sexually interested in the priest. "Sexual predator" was my thought while watching the episode for the first time. I thought perhaps that was the direction they were taking the character. (I thought she was becoming a younger version of Bobbie Barrett, who again seduces Don Draper, this time in his office, and only a few short weeks after his rough treatment of her.) Now, with the priest clearly uninterested but also his subtle suggestion to her, perhaps their will be some internal struggle within Peggy between her son and her selfishness.
Speaking of internal struggles, we saw more clearly than ever the internal struggle between Don Draper and Dick Whitman. Betty Draper implores Don to discipline their son Bobby, whom Betty seems to dislike intensely. Don is reluctant and in the end we - and Betty - find out why. "My father used to beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." But Don is not without violence. We saw it last week with his near assault of Bobbie Barrett, and we saw it again this week when he pushed Betty after she has pushed him. He pushes her hard. I immediately thought that January Jones, the actress who plays Betty, might not have had to act real hard to show her anger - he really nails her. Here we see Dick Whitman come out like we never have before. We see the man who's father used to beat the hell out of him, the man Don Draper is trying to escape.
I loved the Sunday scene in the Draper living room. Betty is reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, probably "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", the story Arthur asked Betty if she had read last week at the stables. She hadn't but now she's reading it. So Arthur has had an influence. I'd mentioned in my "Mad Men" post before this season started how Don Draper reminded my of Jay Gatsby and the old American story of remaking yourself into who you want to be, regardless of the circumstances of your birth. The Fitzgerald influence is all over "Mad Men" - glitz, glamour, the promise of being young in America with the world on a string, the betrayal felt if those promises don't work out, "the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us."
I - and everyone else apparently, including the people who keep up the official Mad Men page - thought it was Bing Crosby singing Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart's "Blue Room" but now I'm hearing it was Perry Como. Well, Perry never sounded better - a beautiful song and the perfect choice for the scene.
I don't have time to get into the American Airlines account fiasco, except to note Don once again is at odds with Duck. Duck wants to put all three marketing ideas on the table when they meet with the AA execs, while Don wants a single one - and of course he comes up with the perfect one for an airline that's just had a plane end up in Jamaica Bay. "That crash happened to someone else. We've got nothing to apologize for. American Airlines is about the future. Let's pretend we know what 1963 looks like." Of course it's all for naught - Duck's contact at AA is fired the day of the presentation, killing Sterling-Cooper's shot at the account. "We hired him in to bring in new business, not lose old business" comments Don. I like it that the show makes Duck a very nice guy. Clearly we root for Don in these matters - he's the heart and show of the show - but they don't set Duck up as an unlikeable villain, making it easy for us. His gesture to the secretary, and his overall behaviour throughout this season, is that of a decent guy. He just has a different way of doing business than Don. But I think it will end badly for Duck.
First, a few personal notes. Years ago we visited my Dad and he told us that a young lady of our acquaintance had gotten engaged. We asked about the guy. "Nice guy," my dad said. "A little weak." Well, we met the guy a few days later and my dad nailed him. My wife said "a little weak" was the perfect description for the guy, who was a nonentity with little to say and completely subservient to his future wife. When Roger Sterling is at dinner with his wife Mona, his daughter Margaret, and his daughter's future husband, I thought of the "little weak" statement. The future husband is "a little weak." If you've seen the episode you know what my dad meant.
Little Sally Draper's comment to Joan, "You've got big ones. My mommy has big ones too. When I grow up I'm going to have big ones," gave my wife and I a big kick. When my niece - whom I love, love, love, love, love, love, love - was about four years old she encountered my wife in a state of undress. After gazing at her for a moment she said, "You've got big ones. I've got little ones." We've told that story for years and Sally's comment made us laugh out loud because of its association with our niece.
Also, the scene of the priest with Peggy in the car in front of the pizza parlor reminded me of a scene that was cut from The Godfather II, the scene where they kill Fabrizio, who'd been Michael's bodyguard in Italy and was responsible for Appolonia's death. When they finally discover his whereabouts years later he's running a pizza parlor in Buffalo. The next scene has Fabrizio locking up the store with a pizza box in hand, presumably bringing it home to his family for dinner. He gets in the car, starts it, and the bomb goes off. The scene was cut from the original release but can be seen in uncut versions of the movie. It probably wasn't deliberate on the part of the producers but the Father Gill and Peggy scene sure reminded me of that.
I also note a recurring theme this year is that of parenting styles. When Sally steals a drink during her Sunday at the office and falls asleep, presumably drunk, no one says a word. Don simply picks her up and brings her home - no big deal. Nowadays they'd be rushing her to the hospital, and perhaps later taking her to a psychiatrist in order to get to the bottom of her behavior. Kids were not fretted over back then the way they are today. "Full-court press" parenting, to steal a phrase from Joseph Epstein, was still way off in the future, and any parent who acted then like most do now would have been thought to be smothering. So this is another thing the show gets right.
Roger Sterling loves the chase, whether its chasing new business like the American Airlines account, or a prostitute like Vicki, and played by the astonishingly beautiful Marguerite Moreau, who can blame him? "I want everything I want," he tells her, in one of my favorite lines of the show, and it sums Roger up perfectly. Will Vicki mean trouble for Roger? He's had plenty of women before but he seems completely smitten with Vicki. If he's going to fall, it would be entirely believable if it were for a girl like her.
I've read elsewhere in a few places that Peggy's interest in Father Gill was not sexual. I disagree. I think it was. Peggy's sister Anita might have sabotaged her budding relationship with the priest by telling him about her child during confession, but she was right about Peggy - she does what she wants without regard to what others think. The look on Peggy's face when Father Gill drops the Easter egg in her hand and says, "For the little one" was priceless. It was Father Gill's way of telling her she needs to take responsibility for her boy. But until this moment I thought Peggy was sexually interested in the priest. "Sexual predator" was my thought while watching the episode for the first time. I thought perhaps that was the direction they were taking the character. (I thought she was becoming a younger version of Bobbie Barrett, who again seduces Don Draper, this time in his office, and only a few short weeks after his rough treatment of her.) Now, with the priest clearly uninterested but also his subtle suggestion to her, perhaps their will be some internal struggle within Peggy between her son and her selfishness.
Speaking of internal struggles, we saw more clearly than ever the internal struggle between Don Draper and Dick Whitman. Betty Draper implores Don to discipline their son Bobby, whom Betty seems to dislike intensely. Don is reluctant and in the end we - and Betty - find out why. "My father used to beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." But Don is not without violence. We saw it last week with his near assault of Bobbie Barrett, and we saw it again this week when he pushed Betty after she has pushed him. He pushes her hard. I immediately thought that January Jones, the actress who plays Betty, might not have had to act real hard to show her anger - he really nails her. Here we see Dick Whitman come out like we never have before. We see the man who's father used to beat the hell out of him, the man Don Draper is trying to escape.
I loved the Sunday scene in the Draper living room. Betty is reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, probably "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", the story Arthur asked Betty if she had read last week at the stables. She hadn't but now she's reading it. So Arthur has had an influence. I'd mentioned in my "Mad Men" post before this season started how Don Draper reminded my of Jay Gatsby and the old American story of remaking yourself into who you want to be, regardless of the circumstances of your birth. The Fitzgerald influence is all over "Mad Men" - glitz, glamour, the promise of being young in America with the world on a string, the betrayal felt if those promises don't work out, "the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us."
I - and everyone else apparently, including the people who keep up the official Mad Men page - thought it was Bing Crosby singing Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart's "Blue Room" but now I'm hearing it was Perry Como. Well, Perry never sounded better - a beautiful song and the perfect choice for the scene.
I don't have time to get into the American Airlines account fiasco, except to note Don once again is at odds with Duck. Duck wants to put all three marketing ideas on the table when they meet with the AA execs, while Don wants a single one - and of course he comes up with the perfect one for an airline that's just had a plane end up in Jamaica Bay. "That crash happened to someone else. We've got nothing to apologize for. American Airlines is about the future. Let's pretend we know what 1963 looks like." Of course it's all for naught - Duck's contact at AA is fired the day of the presentation, killing Sterling-Cooper's shot at the account. "We hired him in to bring in new business, not lose old business" comments Don. I like it that the show makes Duck a very nice guy. Clearly we root for Don in these matters - he's the heart and show of the show - but they don't set Duck up as an unlikeable villain, making it easy for us. His gesture to the secretary, and his overall behaviour throughout this season, is that of a decent guy. He just has a different way of doing business than Don. But I think it will end badly for Duck.
Slow Joe
Prediction: come mid-November one of the reasons cited for Barack Obama's loss in the general election will be his selection of Joe Biden as his running mate. I don't mean because Biden is a gaffe machine, though he is. His comment about Obama being 'the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean' won't hurt the ticket, nor will his 'you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent' comment. It's been well-observed that Biden has about as much control over what comes out of his mouth as an infant has over what comes out of his rear-end. But unless Biden unleashes a real whopper during the campaign, none of this matters much.
What matters is that Joe Biden screams Washington establishment. When he flashes those teeth he's the epitome of the smarmy, insincere Washington politician. Obama's whole story was that he was something new, an alternative to Washington, post-racial, post-partisan, and all that other nonsense. That story has been falling apart for some time now, what with his associations with Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers, his comments about the rubes who 'cling to guns and religion', his head-snapping turn to the center after gaining the nomination, his evasiveness and downright lying on issues such as his vote in the Illinois Senate on the Born-Alive act. He got down in the dirt with Hillary Clinton during the nominating campaign and now he is doing the same with John McCain. He's exposed himself as just another pandering politician who stands for nothing except his own success. And now he picks Biden as his running-mate, which pretty much drives a nail into the coffin of the Barack the reformer story. What you have left once that story is gone is a man who knows little and cares less about policy, an empty suit with a radical left-wing past, a pompous gasbag with almost no national experience
It's pretty clear that the Russian invasion of Georgia, and Obama's pathetically weak initial reaction to it, is the reason for the Biden choice. Slow Joe has been the head of the Senate Foreign Relations committee for sometime now and Obama badly needed to shore himself up on foreign policy, about which he appears to know nothing. But just think of this: Obama-Biden. It stinks of establishment in a way that Obama-Kaine, or Obama-Bayh do not.
I actually have a soft spot for Biden. His verbal gaffes have given me much glee over the years, and I actually think there is something decent about the man - he is not vicious in the manner of a lot of Democrats, like Leahy, or Reid, or Dodd. But I think in the end his selection to be Obama's running mate will be seen as a mistake.
McCain can capitalize on this moment. He shored himself up with conservatives last week at the Rick Warren Saddleback interview with his answer on when life begins (the question Obama refused to answer, saying it was 'above his pay grade'.) And with the drilling issue so prominent in the minds of voters right now, picking Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate would help in a number of ways. She's pro-life, which would firm McCain up with the conservative base. She is pro-drilling in ANWR (as almost everyone in Alaska is) and extremely articulate on the issue - she can swing McCain and a lot of others over to her opinion. Plus she's a woman which would help get the Hillary voters who are upset that their girl lost. Add to this that she's a reformer - something the state of Alaska is in dire need of - and it seems to me that she'd make a very nice fit for McCain and his pitch for Washington reform.
And finally, she is very easy on the eyes. That can't hurt.
What matters is that Joe Biden screams Washington establishment. When he flashes those teeth he's the epitome of the smarmy, insincere Washington politician. Obama's whole story was that he was something new, an alternative to Washington, post-racial, post-partisan, and all that other nonsense. That story has been falling apart for some time now, what with his associations with Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers, his comments about the rubes who 'cling to guns and religion', his head-snapping turn to the center after gaining the nomination, his evasiveness and downright lying on issues such as his vote in the Illinois Senate on the Born-Alive act. He got down in the dirt with Hillary Clinton during the nominating campaign and now he is doing the same with John McCain. He's exposed himself as just another pandering politician who stands for nothing except his own success. And now he picks Biden as his running-mate, which pretty much drives a nail into the coffin of the Barack the reformer story. What you have left once that story is gone is a man who knows little and cares less about policy, an empty suit with a radical left-wing past, a pompous gasbag with almost no national experience
It's pretty clear that the Russian invasion of Georgia, and Obama's pathetically weak initial reaction to it, is the reason for the Biden choice. Slow Joe has been the head of the Senate Foreign Relations committee for sometime now and Obama badly needed to shore himself up on foreign policy, about which he appears to know nothing. But just think of this: Obama-Biden. It stinks of establishment in a way that Obama-Kaine, or Obama-Bayh do not.
I actually have a soft spot for Biden. His verbal gaffes have given me much glee over the years, and I actually think there is something decent about the man - he is not vicious in the manner of a lot of Democrats, like Leahy, or Reid, or Dodd. But I think in the end his selection to be Obama's running mate will be seen as a mistake.
McCain can capitalize on this moment. He shored himself up with conservatives last week at the Rick Warren Saddleback interview with his answer on when life begins (the question Obama refused to answer, saying it was 'above his pay grade'.) And with the drilling issue so prominent in the minds of voters right now, picking Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate would help in a number of ways. She's pro-life, which would firm McCain up with the conservative base. She is pro-drilling in ANWR (as almost everyone in Alaska is) and extremely articulate on the issue - she can swing McCain and a lot of others over to her opinion. Plus she's a woman which would help get the Hillary voters who are upset that their girl lost. Add to this that she's a reformer - something the state of Alaska is in dire need of - and it seems to me that she'd make a very nice fit for McCain and his pitch for Washington reform.
And finally, she is very easy on the eyes. That can't hurt.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Rock and Roll's Greatest Songs
Notice the title says Greatest Songs, plural. Not Greatest Song, singular. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, for example, "Maggie Mae" is a better song than "One Way Out", or vice versa. It's not possible. They are both simply great songs. Whether one is better, or greater, than the other is a question that can't be answered.
But we can make distinctions between the good and the bad, the great and the good. As you know from my greatest albums posts you'll find no Doors or Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix here. These artists/bands were, by my lights, all overrated, some by a little, some by a lot. So we all make different distinctions. If you look at just the top ten songs on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, one can immediately start to take exception. Is "Hey Jude" really the best Beatles' song ever? Not by a long shot. Is an unquestionably great song like "Satisfaction" nonetheless a better Rolling Stones' song than "Gimme Shelter" or "Tumblin' Dice" or even "Sympathy for the Devil"? Some would argue. Is "Good Vibrations" really a better Beach Boy song than "I Get Around" or "Don't Worry Baby"? I can name a dozen Aretha Franklin songs that I prefer to "Respect".
I know where Rolling Stone was coming from with their list. They took into consideration not only the song's pure musical value but also the cultural and musical importance the song had at the time of release. By these standards, yes, "Satisfaction" probably deserves the top spot among Stones songs. It was "Satisfaction" that put them on the map as the second greatest band of the time, the song that started the Beatles vs. Stones argument. It's still their best known song. You can also see the RS method in the selection of "Imagine" in the number three spot on their list. Though I love John Lennon, I despise "Imagine", which achieves its spot on RS's list clearly due to its socialist, atheist, world-government, utopian point-of-view. There is no way that it could land at number three based on musical values alone. John Lennon simply produced too much superior music with The Beatles. I mean, who wants to listen to "Imagine" when "Twist and Shout" is available?
Anyhow, to my own list. What are the rules? No rules, really. Just my own view of greatness. The song has to be big to begin with, big in the sense that the artist was clearly going after something more than they'd achieved before, big also in the musical sense of having a huge, enormous sound. Songs that were clearly landmarks at the time of release and still seem so. Songs that have lost nothing over the years, that when listened to today conjure up their period but still have something to say to us now. Or it could be none of those things but simply a song that blows you away, good and hard, because as I've suggested in this space before, that's the raison d'etre of rock and roll, to take you outside yourself, to take you further than other music can.
So with that said, here's my top ten:
10. "Twist and Shout" - The Beatles
9. "In The Still of The Night" - The Five Satins
8. "Maggie Mae" - Rod Stewart
7. "One Way Out" - The Allman Brothers
6. "Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen
5. "Let's Stay Together" - Al Green
4. "Be My Baby" - The Ronettes
I'll pause here before announcing my top three. Like my greatest albums post, these seven songs are in no particular order. They can be rearranged at will, depending on the day. In fact, depending on the day, all of these songs (except "Be My Baby") might actually fall out of my top ten and be replaced by something else. If I wrote this post tomorrow some of these songs might be replaced by Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On", or Smokey Robinson and The Miracles' "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage", or CCR's "Green River", or "Since I Don't Have You", by the Skyliners, or "Only The Lonely" by Roy Orbison, or any one of a couple dozen other great songs. These lists vary from person to person and from day to day.
As I noted parenthetically above, "Be My Baby" will never drop out of my top ten. It is a solid number four on my list and I nearly included it in my final four. I adore that song. It's "our song", my wife's and mine, and it has been since we began dating over twenty-five years ago. Actually, our first 'our song' was "Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite", by the Spaniels, in the very early days of our love affair but it was soon replaced by "Be My Baby". The sound Phil Spector gets on this record is enormous, the epitome of his "wall of sound": the layered, buried, instrumentation pure assault; the vocals, all up front, pure seduction.
Okay, so what are my top three songs? The three songs competing for the title of greatest song of all time? Again, I won't choose among them because that's impossible. I can say that they seem to me the obvious high-points of recorded rock and roll music, undeniable in their greatness and grandeur. Here they are, in no particular order:
3. "Gimme Shelter" - The Rolling Stones
2. "Layla" - Derek and the Dominoes
1. "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
"Gimme Shelter" was given the 38th spot on RS's list, behind such songs as "Light My Fire", "Stairway to Heaven", "River Deep - Mountain High", and "Dock of the Bay", among other unworthies. Now, you already know my views on The Doors and Led Zeppelin so I won't elaborate here. But "River Deep - Mountain High" has always had an unduly high reputation among rock critics. Phil Spector was trying for the ultimate "wall of sound" and while he does achieve a deep, rich resonant sound here, the song itself is not that good. Years later it's clear that "Be My Baby", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Baby I Love You", "He's a Rebel", and a dozen other Spector songs are much more satisfying records. And while I love Otis Redding, "Dock of the Bay" is way down on his list of great songs. It's only included on RS's list for its crossover value, the great soul artist making it big on the pop charts. In the liberal mentality of RS this fact elevates the song far above where it actually belongs on the list. Stripped of its cultural importance, "Dock of the Bay", judged purely as music, is overrated. Can anyone today listen to "Dock of the Bay" followed by "Gimme Shelter" and then truly maintain that the former is a better song than the latter? "Dock of the Bay", as lovely as it is, is a trifle, while "Gimme Shelter" is probably the toughest, most menacing song in rock and roll history - there's simply no getting out of its way. The long, slowly unfolding intro which culminates in Charlie Watts' rifle-shot drum beat, which in turn signals Keith Richard's rhythm guitar - the best rhythm guitar piece in rock and roll history - will never be topped.
"Layla" fares a bit better on RS's list, coming in at number 27. But it's a monumental song, rock and roll channeling Beethoven, and it makes most of the other songs ahead of it on the RS list seem somewhat slight. I mentioned Lester Bangs' marvelous description of Van Morrison's "Cyprus Avenue" in my Van post - "rapture, and despair." "Layla", turns this around in its two distinct sections - it's all despair in the first section, pure rapture in the second, a man wounded and then healed. The song would be deserving of the 27 spot if it consisted merely of the blazing, Eric Clapton and Duane Allman guitar-fueled first section. But it is in the sublime second section where it achieves a grandeur unlike any other rock and roll song. The stately piano is truly Beethovenesque and the transcendent guitar work is like heaven itself. Listen closely to the guitars behind that piano as the section culminates. It's like the angels singing. If I make it to heaven, I expect those guitars to be playing when St. Peter opens the gates.
Finally there is "Like a Rolling Stone" and here the RS list gets it right - it's number one on their list too. I talked about the song in my greatest album post and I suppose if you took a count, this song would be the one I've listened to most often in my life. I loved it when it was on the radio when I was a little boy and I rediscovered it when I was a young teen and began rediscovering rock and roll. It is clearly Dylan's best song, the moment when everything came together for him. He knew it, the band knew it, and they produced a song that will live for as long as music lives. It never fails, it never fades, it always delivers. I won't say it's a better song than "Gimme Shelter" or "Layla" or even "Be My Baby" but it is their equal and better than the rest.
So what have I left out? Where's Elvis, you may ask? Wasn't he the greatest rock and roller of them all? How can he not have a song in the top ten? Sorry, but no. "Hound Dog", his greatest single, doesn't make the cut. If Elvis ever made recorded music that deserved a spot on the list it was the bootlegs of his 1968 Christmas special, when he decided, the Beatles be damned, to prove to the world that he was still the greatest rocker of all time. The bootlegs of those sessions are some of the greatest music ever recorded - "Baby What You Want Me To Do", "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", "One Night With You", and "Trying To Get To You", can stand right alongside "Gimme Shelter" as some of the toughest, take-no-prisoners rock and roll ever. But few people have ever heard this music. You can get some of it here but not all the takes, and it's missing some of the best stuff. It's still great though. You want Elvis at his best, here it is.
What about The Beatles? They were the greatest band ever, so why aren't they represented right up top with Dylan and Clapton and the Stones? Well, they could be, very justifiably. It may be that their sheer voluminous output - so many great songs over so short a period - works against them in picking a single song for while they produced hundreds of great songs they produced no song that seems so much greater than all the rest. I've chosen "Twist and Shout" for my top ten list but I could just as easily have chosen "Money", or "What You're Doing", or "There's a Place" or "If I Fell" or "In My Life" or a dozen other songs. The Beatles' true value is in their prolific presence in our lives, the presence of their exuberant and joyful voices always there, never far away. During the 1960's you could not get away from them - they dominated the radio waves at the time - and they remain a presence to this day, no matter what song is playing. The Beatles were then, and remain, the greatest band in rock and roll history.
So there you have it ladies and gents, my guide to the greatest rock and roll. Discuss among yourselves.
But we can make distinctions between the good and the bad, the great and the good. As you know from my greatest albums posts you'll find no Doors or Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix here. These artists/bands were, by my lights, all overrated, some by a little, some by a lot. So we all make different distinctions. If you look at just the top ten songs on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, one can immediately start to take exception. Is "Hey Jude" really the best Beatles' song ever? Not by a long shot. Is an unquestionably great song like "Satisfaction" nonetheless a better Rolling Stones' song than "Gimme Shelter" or "Tumblin' Dice" or even "Sympathy for the Devil"? Some would argue. Is "Good Vibrations" really a better Beach Boy song than "I Get Around" or "Don't Worry Baby"? I can name a dozen Aretha Franklin songs that I prefer to "Respect".
I know where Rolling Stone was coming from with their list. They took into consideration not only the song's pure musical value but also the cultural and musical importance the song had at the time of release. By these standards, yes, "Satisfaction" probably deserves the top spot among Stones songs. It was "Satisfaction" that put them on the map as the second greatest band of the time, the song that started the Beatles vs. Stones argument. It's still their best known song. You can also see the RS method in the selection of "Imagine" in the number three spot on their list. Though I love John Lennon, I despise "Imagine", which achieves its spot on RS's list clearly due to its socialist, atheist, world-government, utopian point-of-view. There is no way that it could land at number three based on musical values alone. John Lennon simply produced too much superior music with The Beatles. I mean, who wants to listen to "Imagine" when "Twist and Shout" is available?
Anyhow, to my own list. What are the rules? No rules, really. Just my own view of greatness. The song has to be big to begin with, big in the sense that the artist was clearly going after something more than they'd achieved before, big also in the musical sense of having a huge, enormous sound. Songs that were clearly landmarks at the time of release and still seem so. Songs that have lost nothing over the years, that when listened to today conjure up their period but still have something to say to us now. Or it could be none of those things but simply a song that blows you away, good and hard, because as I've suggested in this space before, that's the raison d'etre of rock and roll, to take you outside yourself, to take you further than other music can.
So with that said, here's my top ten:
10. "Twist and Shout" - The Beatles
9. "In The Still of The Night" - The Five Satins
8. "Maggie Mae" - Rod Stewart
7. "One Way Out" - The Allman Brothers
6. "Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen
5. "Let's Stay Together" - Al Green
4. "Be My Baby" - The Ronettes
I'll pause here before announcing my top three. Like my greatest albums post, these seven songs are in no particular order. They can be rearranged at will, depending on the day. In fact, depending on the day, all of these songs (except "Be My Baby") might actually fall out of my top ten and be replaced by something else. If I wrote this post tomorrow some of these songs might be replaced by Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On", or Smokey Robinson and The Miracles' "The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage", or CCR's "Green River", or "Since I Don't Have You", by the Skyliners, or "Only The Lonely" by Roy Orbison, or any one of a couple dozen other great songs. These lists vary from person to person and from day to day.
As I noted parenthetically above, "Be My Baby" will never drop out of my top ten. It is a solid number four on my list and I nearly included it in my final four. I adore that song. It's "our song", my wife's and mine, and it has been since we began dating over twenty-five years ago. Actually, our first 'our song' was "Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite", by the Spaniels, in the very early days of our love affair but it was soon replaced by "Be My Baby". The sound Phil Spector gets on this record is enormous, the epitome of his "wall of sound": the layered, buried, instrumentation pure assault; the vocals, all up front, pure seduction.
Okay, so what are my top three songs? The three songs competing for the title of greatest song of all time? Again, I won't choose among them because that's impossible. I can say that they seem to me the obvious high-points of recorded rock and roll music, undeniable in their greatness and grandeur. Here they are, in no particular order:
3. "Gimme Shelter" - The Rolling Stones
2. "Layla" - Derek and the Dominoes
1. "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
"Gimme Shelter" was given the 38th spot on RS's list, behind such songs as "Light My Fire", "Stairway to Heaven", "River Deep - Mountain High", and "Dock of the Bay", among other unworthies. Now, you already know my views on The Doors and Led Zeppelin so I won't elaborate here. But "River Deep - Mountain High" has always had an unduly high reputation among rock critics. Phil Spector was trying for the ultimate "wall of sound" and while he does achieve a deep, rich resonant sound here, the song itself is not that good. Years later it's clear that "Be My Baby", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Baby I Love You", "He's a Rebel", and a dozen other Spector songs are much more satisfying records. And while I love Otis Redding, "Dock of the Bay" is way down on his list of great songs. It's only included on RS's list for its crossover value, the great soul artist making it big on the pop charts. In the liberal mentality of RS this fact elevates the song far above where it actually belongs on the list. Stripped of its cultural importance, "Dock of the Bay", judged purely as music, is overrated. Can anyone today listen to "Dock of the Bay" followed by "Gimme Shelter" and then truly maintain that the former is a better song than the latter? "Dock of the Bay", as lovely as it is, is a trifle, while "Gimme Shelter" is probably the toughest, most menacing song in rock and roll history - there's simply no getting out of its way. The long, slowly unfolding intro which culminates in Charlie Watts' rifle-shot drum beat, which in turn signals Keith Richard's rhythm guitar - the best rhythm guitar piece in rock and roll history - will never be topped.
"Layla" fares a bit better on RS's list, coming in at number 27. But it's a monumental song, rock and roll channeling Beethoven, and it makes most of the other songs ahead of it on the RS list seem somewhat slight. I mentioned Lester Bangs' marvelous description of Van Morrison's "Cyprus Avenue" in my Van post - "rapture, and despair." "Layla", turns this around in its two distinct sections - it's all despair in the first section, pure rapture in the second, a man wounded and then healed. The song would be deserving of the 27 spot if it consisted merely of the blazing, Eric Clapton and Duane Allman guitar-fueled first section. But it is in the sublime second section where it achieves a grandeur unlike any other rock and roll song. The stately piano is truly Beethovenesque and the transcendent guitar work is like heaven itself. Listen closely to the guitars behind that piano as the section culminates. It's like the angels singing. If I make it to heaven, I expect those guitars to be playing when St. Peter opens the gates.
Finally there is "Like a Rolling Stone" and here the RS list gets it right - it's number one on their list too. I talked about the song in my greatest album post and I suppose if you took a count, this song would be the one I've listened to most often in my life. I loved it when it was on the radio when I was a little boy and I rediscovered it when I was a young teen and began rediscovering rock and roll. It is clearly Dylan's best song, the moment when everything came together for him. He knew it, the band knew it, and they produced a song that will live for as long as music lives. It never fails, it never fades, it always delivers. I won't say it's a better song than "Gimme Shelter" or "Layla" or even "Be My Baby" but it is their equal and better than the rest.
So what have I left out? Where's Elvis, you may ask? Wasn't he the greatest rock and roller of them all? How can he not have a song in the top ten? Sorry, but no. "Hound Dog", his greatest single, doesn't make the cut. If Elvis ever made recorded music that deserved a spot on the list it was the bootlegs of his 1968 Christmas special, when he decided, the Beatles be damned, to prove to the world that he was still the greatest rocker of all time. The bootlegs of those sessions are some of the greatest music ever recorded - "Baby What You Want Me To Do", "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", "One Night With You", and "Trying To Get To You", can stand right alongside "Gimme Shelter" as some of the toughest, take-no-prisoners rock and roll ever. But few people have ever heard this music. You can get some of it here but not all the takes, and it's missing some of the best stuff. It's still great though. You want Elvis at his best, here it is.
What about The Beatles? They were the greatest band ever, so why aren't they represented right up top with Dylan and Clapton and the Stones? Well, they could be, very justifiably. It may be that their sheer voluminous output - so many great songs over so short a period - works against them in picking a single song for while they produced hundreds of great songs they produced no song that seems so much greater than all the rest. I've chosen "Twist and Shout" for my top ten list but I could just as easily have chosen "Money", or "What You're Doing", or "There's a Place" or "If I Fell" or "In My Life" or a dozen other songs. The Beatles' true value is in their prolific presence in our lives, the presence of their exuberant and joyful voices always there, never far away. During the 1960's you could not get away from them - they dominated the radio waves at the time - and they remain a presence to this day, no matter what song is playing. The Beatles were then, and remain, the greatest band in rock and roll history.
So there you have it ladies and gents, my guide to the greatest rock and roll. Discuss among yourselves.
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