Monthly Archives: September 2008

One of the sillier rituals of political campaigning — they all do it, they should all stop doing it — is when the candidate goes around and shows "he (or she, in this case) is 'one of us'" by nibbling on the local cuisine. It's Al Gore eating a taco on the assumption that's the key to the Mexican vote. It's Mitt Romney proving he understands the needs of Italian voters by wolfing down a slice of pizza. For a while, candidates thought the way to the Jewish vote was to go to New York and be photographed in a deli with Ed Koch.

This is the lowest form of pandering. There might be something significant to the candidate physically going to certain neighborhoods if there was any reason to believe he or she would go to them (or ever return) except as a campaign photo-op. But it always struck me that whether they knew it or not, this wasn't a politician trying to get the ethnic vote so much as the stupid ethnic vote. You'd have to be pretty dumb to believe a candidate shared your views, felt your pain and bonded with your people just because he or she spent an hour in your part of town eating something greasy and fattening.

The essential stop on any such swing is Philadelphia and one of the many fine establishments that offer Philly Cheese Steaks. A fuss is always made when a candidate does this…and like I said, they all do this and they should stop doing this. Not that there's anything wrong with Philly Cheese Steaks. I like 'em, too. But it matters way too much, when it shouldn't matter one bit, which stand they go to (Pat's or Geno's) and whether the candidate has his "wiz wit." Never mind what they'd do about the economy or whichever war we may be in…does the person who wants my vote know to order theirs with Cheese Whiz and onions — and do they know the language of ordering?

This ceremony reached some peak of inanity the year Bob Dole was running for Prez. Senator Dole was hustled to one of the steak shrines and handed a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich dripping with sauteed onions and Cheese Whiz to bite into for the cameras. What's wrong with that? Well, Dole only has one working arm. It is humanly impossible to eat a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich with one hand.

There was a look of panic on his face as the sandwich was thrust at him. I suspect Bob Dole could have faced down nuclear superpowers without flinching but he was genuinely terrified that the press was about to photograph him getting onions and gooey cheese all over his face and clothes.

Fortunately, his aides were ready. One rushed in with a sandwich that had been cut into bite-sized chunks and which had been cooked long enough before that the cheese had hardened somewhat. This just pointed up the absurdity. Grown men had actually planned for this. They'd sat around a conference room somewhere and said, "We need to have our guy photographed eating a Philly Steak Sandwich but he can't eat a Philly Steak Sandwich…what'll we do?" And they worked out that they'd get the photos of him with the entire sandwich, then switch it for one he could take a bite or two of. Reportedly, that's all he ate — a bite or two.

Bill Clinton carried Pennsylvania by 9%. I'm glad he won but I sure hope it wasn't just because he was able to eat his sandwich with two hands.

Anyway, I mention all this because yesterday, Sarah Palin made her stop on the Cheese Steak Tour. She did not go to either of the two biggies, Pat's King of Steaks or Geno's. She went to Tony Luke's. While there, she actually answered a question. Someone asked her about what we might do in Pakistan and she took much the same position that her running mate called reckless when it was voiced by Barack Obama. That's a bit of news…but I fear it mattered more to some people that she had her cheese steak "wit" Cheese Whiz and onions.

Here's a little more on that story about KNBC (the local NBC channel in Los Angeles) deleting that train collision joke from an episode of Late Night With Conan O'Brien.

There's a lot of discussion on this around the Internet. What the discussers don't realize is that the deletion under discussion — the one I linked to where KNBC newsperson Colleen Williams interrupted — was the second time this was done.

The first was Friday, September 12, the day of the Metrolink crash. Conan did this bit called The Celebrity Douchebag Collider which involves two model trains having a head-on collision. He taped the gag well before the Metrolink accident and later that evening, KNBC got a call from New York that said, in essence, "Hey, take a look at this before it airs in Los Angeles. It might be a problem." The folks at the local station took a look and decided it would be bad taste. Bodies were, after all, still being hauled out of the wreckage of a real head-on train collision.

So they did a live news cut-in during Conan's show…an update on what was going on at the accident site, I believe. Whatever it was, it caused the train joke not to be seen in Los Angeles. They did not explain that the news insert was being done to avoid broadcasting a possibly-offensive joke.

On the show for Monday night, September 22, Conan did another Celebrity Douchebag Collider bit. Again, KNBC decided to not air it but instead to insert a news cut-in. This time, they had the anchor (Ms. Williams) explain that they were doing a news update to avoid telecasting a possibly-offensive train collision joke. I would assume they mentioned it this time because it seemed so bizarre and out of place. (The first time didn't seem so odd because the report from the crash site was relevant and timely news.)

Remember I said I wasn't sure how I felt about KNBC doing this? Now that I know more of the story, I'm more inclined to think they did the right thing. It was right to do it the first time. A lot of people were still in shock over the accident, in some cases because they'd lost friends or loved ones. And since it was right to do it then, it seems a little more right to do it the second time.

This is a little different from the way I felt some time ago regarding a somewhat similar incident. In that instance, an episode of The Tonight Show did not air as planned due to a large airplane crash. I thought then the concern was a needless worry but this matter of the train crash is different. I think KNBC made the proper call.

My longtime buddy (since high school) Bruce Reznick sent me a link to an article by Stefan Kanfer about how younger audiences have too often rejected motion pictures for being in black-and-white. Like anyone with a smidgen of taste or brains, I think it's bonehead foolish to not want to see a film because it lacks color…but I also think we sometimes make too much of that as a reason. To some extent, the folks who avoid black-and-white do so because they associate it with movies that are so old as to seem irrelevant to them. It's the remoteness of the material that's scaring them off, not the black-and-white. If we're going to fault people for not appreciating great movies, let's get their mindset straight. They wouldn't be any more eager to see that hoary Bette Davis film if she were in Technicolor.

Frankly, in this piece, I think Kanfer overstates his case. I don't see the nine Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals in black-and-white as inferior to color pictures like Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris. I just think he likes Fred better than Gene Kelly…a preference I do not share but can understand. I also think the glories of Mr. Astaire would have been just as bountiful if those movies had been made in color.

The point is that many younger folks do have a prejudice but it's mainly to the fact that a movie is unknown and features people they haven't heard of functioning in a world they don't know. Black-and-white is usually just the indicator of that. Once the recalcitrant filmgoer is forced over that hurdle — once someone makes them experience something new — there's a good chance they'll like it. In Kanfer's article, a bunch of high school kids reacted negatively at first to the notion of watching Twelve Angry Men because it was in black-and-white. But they watched it and they liked it and I don't see what the problem is here.

I mentioned a few items back that last night's Late Show With David Letterman was taped on Monday. It was…but I have since learned from someone who was in the audience that a few chunks of Friday's show were retaped on Thursday following the taping of that evening's episode.

Also: The decision to tape next Friday's show on Friday is apparently because the Vice-Presidential Debate is on Thursday. They feel Dave needs to be able to comment on it. After that, they'll probably go back to taping Friday's show on Monday, which I still think is a mistake.

This is…uh, well, I'm not sure how I'd categorize it. The other night on his show, Conan O'Brien did a joke about trains colliding. The joke was not seen in Los Angeles, where we recently had a nasty train collision. When they came to that moment in L.A., the local station did a news cut-in and explained that they weren't showing us Conan's joke about a train collision. You can see how it looked on screens all across Los Angeles here. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Sam Wyskocil writes to ask…

I'm completely puzzled by this matter of McCain cancelling on Letterman and then doing an interview with Katie Couric. Joe Scarborough said on Morning Joe that the video Dave showed of McCain being made up to do Kouric's show was not live but was old tape from six hours earlier. I haven't heard that any other place. What do you think of McCain's decision to bail on Letterman? What are the ethics in a situation like that?

Well, the ethical thing to do is to show up and honor your commitment. If there's a reason not to, the ethical thing is to be utterly honest. If McCain had called Dave and said, "I'm sorry but I think it would be inappropriate for me to be on a comedy show today so I'm going to do an interview with Katie Couric instead," Letterman might still have been angry but it wouldn't have been due to what was apparently a lie. I say "apparently" because we didn't hear the Letterman-McCain phone conversation and can only go by Dave's report on what was said. He claimed McCain insisted he had to fly right back to Washington…and then the Senator stayed in New York to do the CBS interview and, the next day, to address the Clinton Global Initiative over at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan.

Scarborough was wrong. It was a live internal network feed, as proven by the quotes coming out from CBS folks who are ticked off that Dave used it in his show. (As far as I know, no network has any rule about this…but they may institute one now.) You wonder what would have happened if Letterman had grabbed up the phone and at least tried to phone Katie Couric's studio at that moment. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten through to McCain or even to Couric but I bet it would have been amusing if he'd just been turned away by some CBS operator as he told her, "But you don't understand! John McCain told me he had to race to the airport and fly back to Washington…"

Letterman tapes at 4:30 in the afternoon. The cancellation from McCain came between 3:00 and 3:30, which is very tight. Over on a Dave newsgroup, Don Giller (probably the world's foremost authority on Letterman) reports that at the time, he was in Rupert's Deli, the little sandwich shop around the corner from Dave's studio that figures into so many remotes. According to Don, "[Rupert] told me that secret service had instructed him to close his shop early, so he sent his workers home. Just minutes before, he had just learned that McCain had cancelled, so he had lost a lot of business."

It would be interesting to know if Keith Olbermann was their first choice as a last-minute fill-in. Every show like that has a little list of people who are nearby and friendly and who can be called upon in an emergency. In the past, I believe Letterman's #1 go-to guy has been Regis Philbin. They may have called Olbermann first on this one because Dave wanted to spend the segment bitching about McCain so he needed someone who would join him in his disdain for the Senator. Chandra Wilson was also added as a guest. (The McCain interview had been scheduled to take up most of the show.)

Incidentally, this whole episode points up one of the weaknesses I think Letterman has had in his show for some time. He's been taping his Friday episodes on Mondays so he can't address current events on them. A lot of folks probably tuned in last night to hear him continue his McCain bashing…but not a word, of course, was said. I'm hearing that this is not going to happen next week; that Dave is going to back to taping Friday's show on Friday, at least for a while.

The McCain folks have a new ad out today filled with clips of all the times Obama said, "I agree with John" and "My friend John is right." Exactly how do they think that helps their guy? What I think most swing voters will take away from that is that Obama is gracious and that on some points, the two men are in agreement. Shouldn't McCain's selling points have something to do with where they think Obama doesn't "get it?"

Seriously. Not that I mind one bit when McCain has an ineffective ad up…but I'm generally baffled as to what they're thinking. McCain is starting to remind me of that nutty dictator in the Woody Allen film Bananas who starts announcing that all underwear must be worn on the outside and all children under the age of sixteen are now sixteen…

An e-mail this morning writes, "Eager to see the stories you'll have about Paul Newman." Wish I had one for you. I never met the man and somehow never even saw a majority of what they say were his best films. What I did see I liked, of course. I guess I was most impressed by the fact that opinions on Newman were so close to unanimous: Everyone admired him as both an actor and a philanthropist. I've heard "bad" stories about almost all the major stars misbehaving on the set or treating others poorly. Not Paul Newman. He leaves behind a legacy of good movies, good food products and good feelings. You can't do much better than that.

Fred Kaplan reviews the debate and gives high marks to Obama. Kaplan does mention a few points where I thought Obama could have and should have hit back a lot harder than he did. There should have been a moment when in speaking of Iraq, he said something like, "I'm sorry you don't like my timetable idea, Senator…but everyone else, including the Iraqi leadership and much of the Bush administration, has decided that's the way to go."

As you all know, I'm for Obama and I think McCain would be a disaster. So it feels a little weird for me to say that I don't think Obama did as well as some of the polls this morning say he did. McCain, I thought, did much to counteract the evolving portrait of him as a reckless drama queen. He looked more "presidential" at that podium than he has for a long time. On reflection, I thought it was closer to a tie than the polls say — not that I'm complaining. And I guess in this case, a tie would be a win for Obama since Foreign Policy was supposed to be McCain's strong suit and since McCain is the one who needed to land a knockout blow and didn't.

So…what excuse are they going to come up with when they try to cancel the Vice-Presidential Debate? The McCain people wouldn't even let Sarah Palin go on the news, as Joe Biden did, to spin for the top of the ticket. That kind of thing is doing more damage to Governor Palin's credibility as a candidate than anything the Democrats are saying about her.

I'm channel-hopping and I just heard Chris Matthews say something that sounds so right to me that I had to pause the TiVo and transcribe it. He was rambling a bit but I like what I think he meant…

I thought John McCain made a terrible point tonight. He said if someone dies in battle, someone serving their country because they were ordered to do something in battle, because they were out on a mission…you don't pick your missions. You don't pick your wars. When someone dies for their country, they have done that. It's over. They have served their country. They are patriotic. They deserve forever to be remembered and honored. It's not a question of what happens later in that war, or whether that battle was a good one or not, or whether you should continue to fight. By the definition John McCain gave us tonight — and it was a heinous definition — we must continue every war we ever start. Every time we suffer a casualty, we must fight that war indefinitely to achieve the initial objectives set by generals who may well be wrong.

I think that's a very hard argument to make morally 'cause it suggests that war must never end. It suggests that every war that's begun must continue indefinitely until it achieves the political or the military objectives set in the initial context. Contexts change and sometimes wars have to end. The Korean War ended. It was not dishonorable for General Eisenhower to come to Korea and end the war in 1953 that had begun in 1950, ending a war without final victory. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing dishonorable about it. You don't have to complete the mission. You simply have to serve your country honorably when called to do so. So I think John McCain is wrong, demonstrably wrong. I wish sometimes someone would call him on that. Unfortunately, Barack Obama did not tonight.

If the case for staying in Iraq is that we have to justify the past deaths…well, that's ridiculous. I started out as a supporter of the Vietnam War and protested the protesters for a long time before finally joining them. Nothing sent me over towards their side of the street like hearing someone say we had to stay there because if we left, the ones who'd died would have died for nothing. It's an argument, of course, for sticking with any war, regardless of its wisdom, doing the human equivalent of throwing good money after bad. There's got to be a better reason than that.

Every time John McCain uses that line about how he never won "Miss Congeniality," I think, "Neither did the former beauty contest runner-up you think should be a heartbeat from the presidency."