Monthly Archives: September 2004

E.L. Doctorow has some withering criticism of George W. Bush. (Thanks to Mike Groman for the link.)

I thought Kerry did well, though maybe not in a way that will translate into more votes. He looked presidential and he gave what were mostly short, easy-to-follow replies. I don't understand how people can look at Bush's "deer-in-the-headlights" blank stares and see a leader. But then I never understood how women can look at Mick Jagger and see a sex symbol.

Bush and his spinmeisters seem to be throwing up a number of arguments that almost argue that someone in Bush's position can never be criticized. Rudy Giuliani is on The Daily Show, saying "I don't know how you tell those young men and women [serving in the military] to continue to carry on this war if [you're saying] it's a mistake." Well, okay, but what happens if our leaders do err? Doesn't that argument work to quash any sort of criticism of any military effort?

Bush kept reminding people that Kerry said Saddam Hussein was a threat who should be removed. I kept waiting for Kerry to say, "Yes, but that didn't mean that I don't care how many Americans were killed, how much money was spent and how our forces were taken away from more pressing business to accomplish that removal."

Question: If the studio audience is not allowed to react to anything, why even have them there?

I thought Bush was better at the end of the debate than he was at the beginning. There were moments, especially in his last few statements, where he sounded statesmanlike and like a guy who wanted to be a "uniter, not a divider." I thought Kerry may have gone a long way to debunking claims that he doesn't have actual plans or that he can't give a straight answer.

And I think tomorrow, the polls will be all over the place.

I'm going to go get something to eat.

I'm watching live. Bush looks defensive. He's the one who wanted the strict rules on how long they could talk and how they could not address each other. But he's the one who keeps wanting the 30 second follow-ups so he can say more.

I think he loses points just because so much of the discussion is about what he may or may not have done wrong. And a few more points for using, over and over, certain talking points like the one about Kerry saying, "Wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." But I'm sure his followers will think he kicked Kerry's heinie.

As I may have suggested here, another thing I don't like about debates like the Presidential one tonight is the use of the word, "win." It's easy to discuss who won the World Series or the Super Bowl or a game of Candy Land. There are explicit rules and official scorekeepers who operate according to those rules. After the Lakers play the Pacers, you don't have representatives of both teams out arguing that their side shellacked the opposition.

But tonight, even before the podiums are cold, partisans and reps will be out in full force, arguing that their guy "won." And I suspect that no matter what the polls say tomorrow morning, most of those folks will still be insisting that the numbers prove the overwhelming victory. (Though they'll argue this more forcefully after the final debate. They still have to lower expectations for their candidate's performance in the next two.)

With a couple of exceptions, I have not been too impressed with John Kerry's speeches lately. On the other hand, I've never been too impressed with any of Bush's public statements, especially in those very rare occasions lately when he's put himself in the position of answering a question from someone who wasn't out to throw him a softball.

I'm not sure if I'm going to watch the whole thing, straight through. I'm recording it on the TiVo and I may go out, take a walk and get some dinner. I may come back, watch the spin first, then watch the debate and see how it measures up. Or maybe I'll skip the whole thing and watch DVDs. I just got The Complete Honeymooners and that could have a lot more to do with the world today than anything Bush or Kerry is likely to say.

Jon Stewart, who is probably getting a lot of interesting phone calls this week, will be doing The Daily Show live tonight following the Presidential Debate. And here's an interview with him.

If you order it through this Amazon link, they'll tell you that the second volume of The Complete Peanuts is not out yet. But I got my copy the other day and I'm enjoying it just as much as the first version, which I reviewed here. Pretty much everything I said about Volume 1 applies to Volume 2, except that it doesn't have as much text material and the foreword is by Walter Cronkite. It's still fun to watch Mr. Schulz's style and characters develop, especially in this one which covers 1953-1954 — years in which Schulz invented a lot of phrases, concepts and kids he used for decades. I've heard a few folks grumble that the books in this series are too small. They're forgetting that Peanuts was always intended to be run small. I've heard a few others complain about the art direction. They're nitpicking. And I've heard a few moan about how much it will eventually cost to collect them all. They're right, but it'll be worth it. End of review.

My longtime pal Jim Korkis writes to say, "I assume that many animation scholars other than myself will write to remind you of Johnny Carson's animated appearance on The Simpsons where he could superhumanly lift a car among other things." No, Jim, you're the first.

Have I mentioned lately what a smart guy Ben Varkentine is?

From Mike Groman comes this response to something I posted six hours ago…

I can't speak about Democrats, because I don't know too many of them, but I think you're wrong that "most Republicans would admit they wish they had a guy who could speak better English and hadn't led us into a dual quagmire of Iraq and The Deficit." The Republicans I know — not all from here in Texas, btw — look upon Bush and his administration as defenders of the faith, bastions against the Democrats and the rest of the anti-American liberals. They revel in the tax cuts, completely dismissing the record deficit, strained economy, and increased joblessness as being unrelated, and ignoring the facts that the greatest beneficiaries of the cuts are those who need them least. They glory in the defense of the right to bear arms, asserting that any abridgement of these rights — such as the poorly conceived ban on assault weapons that recently expired — is unconstitutional. They look upon the invasion of Iraq as being a just war and discount the worsening situation during the post-war occupation as being unrelated to Bush's policies and methods. They applaud the application of religious morality to the governance of the country, from "conservatization" of federal courts to restriction of scientific research. They still think Rush Limbaugh is the new Moses.

Am I a Democrat? No. I'm an independent. Until the last two presidential elections, beginning in 1972, I've voted Democrat only once, and I regretted it. My liberal friends say I'm a conservative and my conservative friends say I'm a liberal. I'm neither. I'm a male, straight, pro-choice, concealed handgun toting, pro-science, widowed and divorced, comic book reading, retired military pilot who served in Southeast Asia. I vote on the issues. I don't particularly like Kerry; he seems only marginally more competent, based on his public appearances and speeches, than Bush. However, he's our only hope, Obiwan. For the good of the United States, we need to replace Bush before he and the Republicans do any more damage. Let's just hope Kerry and the Democrats aren't any worse.

Well, you may be right about "most Republicans"…or I may be right and the denial is deeper than I suggested. I don't know how anyone could think that what's happening in Iraq is unrelated to Bush's policies and methods, but I can certainly understand how some couldn't bear to admit it, even to themselves. I'm a little more confident in Kerry's ability than you are, but not a lot. With the kind of voter you describe, it may not matter. They have a vision of Liberals and America that isn't going to change. The best I think Kerry can hope for with them is that they may begin to feel that George W. is not the man they think he is. That won't make them vote for Kerry-Edwards but it might make some of them a little less eager to run out and vote Bush-Cheney on Election Day. Still, I can't help but believe there's no one in their ranks who wouldn't be a lot happier if their guy was the war hero and he seemed to have a better handle on Iraq and the economy.

As we predicted here, Conan O'Brien is planning to do his last Late Night broadcast six months before he takes over The Tonight Show so he can have a vacation and lots of prep time. He'll tentatively close out the 12:35 show on Dec. 31, 2008 and then the handover of power will probably be timed to coincide somehow with the "sweeps" rating period.

Oh — and before I forget, I wanted to mention this: For some time now, David Letterman has put in a four-day week. On Thursdays, they would tape two shows, one to air on Friday. They've just changed, and now the Friday show is being taped the previous Monday — which means that throughout the election season, Dave's Friday shows will have to be largely devoid of current events. He's already taped the show that will run this Friday, following the Thursday night presidential debate.

The move may seem necessary for Dave's health or staff fatigue or some other reason, but I think it's also a step in the wrong direction. Audiences in this Internet/cable news age are becoming more demanding of immediacy. Once upon a time, J. Carson could air one rerun a week (plus another on the weekend), and eight whole weeks of reruns per year…and those reruns were generally a year old. In today's late night market, that would be suicide. Dave and Jay air reruns sparingly and rarely reach back more than six or so weeks for them. Eventually, I'll predict, even that won't be enough. One of these days, someone's going to do a talk show which will not only be done live but will do away with prepared conversational points. It will also attempt stunts and bits that just might not work, and it'll be up to the host to keep things afloat. If they get the right host, that will become the new Gold Standard for late night TV.

(By the way: If all this seems trivial…well, it is. It's just my way of not getting a headache by trying to figure out the presidential election. Hmm…maybe Dave has the right idea…)

The last few presidential elections, I spent a lot of time watching (and not necessarily believing) the polls. My philosophy was to more or less double the margin of error and take it more literally. In other words, if a given survey had a three point margin of error, I considered it meaningless if the candidates were less than six points apart. I'm not sure this was statistically sound but it saved a lot of wear and tear on my emotions, fretting when my guy was two points down, getting my hopes up when he was three ahead, having them dashed when he then fell four, etc.

This time out, I'm lost. The polls are all over the place and even within one survey, the national numbers sometimes paint a very different picture than if you go state-by-state. We also have some pockets of unprecedented new voter registration, and that may render some of the old polling models inoperative. I once heard some member of the Gallup family say that the main reason that some polls miscalled elections was that they were based on obsolete profiles of what constituted a Likely Voter.

I don't get that there's a lot of enthusiasm out there for either candidate. There's a lot of enthusiasm for winning…and since we're stuck with the guys we're stuck with, we'll pretend our guy is a great leader and that we have unwavering confidence in him. But I think if you could give a massive dosage of Sodium Pentathol to the electorate, most Republicans would admit they wish they had a guy who could speak better English and hadn't led us into a dual quagmire of Iraq and The Deficit. And most Democrats would admit that they wish they had a guy who could utter a clear, declarative sentence and offer solutions that didn't come with so many disclaimers attached.

I have no idea who's going to win, and I suspect that, more so than usual, the people who are paid loads of money to know who's going to win don't know who's going to win. I'm also real sick of this election.

The last few days, I've written a lot about the Late Night battles, and had at least twenty calls from friends and reporters who wanted to discuss it. When I reached a lull in the topic, I went to catch up on all the political websites I routinely browse…and I couldn't face them. The Leno-O'Brien situation is trivial and silly and it was such a nice vacation from the Bush-Kerry one that I didn't want to go home.

As I've written here, it's tough to find good, real improv comedy work these days. Too often, you get a "fill-in-the-blanks" performance that resembles one of those old Mad-Libs games, rather than improv. But I think there's going to be real improv at a two-night-only event in Pacific Palisades on October 8 and 9. A group of seasoned performers will be doing "An Evening with the Spolin Players" and their ranks include Eddie Allen, Dan Castellaneta, Donna Dubain, Deb Lacusta, Danny Mann, John Mariano, Anna Mathias, Gail Matthius, David McCharen, Edie McClurg, Pat Musick and Gary Schwartz. Darned good lineup, there. For more info, go here. Then, to see some brilliantly talented folks making it up on the spot, go to Pacific Palisades that weekend.

I spent some time this A.M. scanning the Internet for comments about the Jay/Conan/Dave situation and I was struck by the extent to which fans balk at accepting that their favorite performers evolve and there's nothing they can do about it.

The Beatles did not spend their careers singing songs that went "Yeah, yeah, yeah" and Woody Allen moved beyond jokey films like Bananas. As a talk show host gets older and as the world around him changes, it is inevitable that his act would change. A lot of Conan fans seem fearful that, five years from now when he takes over The Tonight Show, he won't feel he can bring along Preparation-H Raymond and the Masturbating Bear. What I don't think they realize, or want to face, is that five years from now, Conan probably wouldn't be doing those bits, or bits like those bits, anyway. He will change, and NBC's banking on him changing in a way that will work at 11:35 in the year 2009. It's a gamble but it may not be as big a gamble as some other possible scenarios which would involve him competing now with Jay and/or Dave.

I have a friend who thinks that both Letterman and Leno are doing very weak programs that ought to be advertised, "Watch our show! Our host used to be real funny." And he suggests that neither host is doing the once-traditional prime-time anniversary special with highlights from the previous year because neither host can fill out an hour with highlights from the previous year. I wouldn't go that far but I wouldn't argue much that Jay and Dave are both coasting on a certain amount of momentum. Both have matured past their old, more irreverent styles and they're not going back to them, any more than Steve Martin's going to put on the arrow-thru-the-head prop and return to doing stand-up.

Once upon a time, it looked like Carson could go on forever…but television has changed. For most of his run, Johnny had little or no competition. In fact, when he stepped down, an NBC exec theorized to me that Mr. Carson quit because he'd realized that the game was intensifying; that to stay in it would have meant reinventing his act, doing more shows per year and beating back challengers a lot more formidable than Alan Thicke and Pat Sajak. Just as Dave can no longer be Number One, there will soon come a time when Jay can't be, either.  Or if either is, it will only be by default.

And speaking of "out of control": One of the things NBC has done with this move is to change the rules of the game. They're now planning way ahead and this will probably force CBS to do likewise. Right now, the execs at NBC have their 11:35 show set through the year 2011 (Jay's five years plus two guaranteed to Conan), and they have plenty of time to figure out 12:35 and find the right occupant. They can even sign someone way in advance. Jon Stewart — the name most often-mentioned when folks speak of new combatants in the late night arena — is signed to The Daily Show through 2008. Right this minute, NBC could be offering him a deal to replace Conan at 12:35, effective in '09.

By contrast, CBS is sitting there with no real host for their 12:35 show next month, let alone down the line…no idea how long Dave will elect to remain at 11:35…and no idea who they might get to replace him when he departs. During the last decade or two of Carson's marathon run, there was usually someone ready to go in for him — someone who, if Johnny suddenly dropped dead or quit, was the obvious choice to take over The Tonight Show. Usually, that was a frequent guest host and for the last five or so years of Johnny's run, they had two strong arms in the bullpen: A frequent guest host (Jay) and the guy who followed Johnny (Dave), both poised and ready. Throughout Letterman's stint on CBS, however, there has been no one on student stand-by. Dave resisted guest hosts and, when hospitalization forced the issue, most of the folks picked were names unlikely to ever be considered for a permanent position in that time slot. The same has been true of the occupiers of the 12:35 slot after Dave — Tom Snyder and then Craig Kilborn. At one point, Letterman's company had Jon Stewart under contract but apart from filling in a few times for Snyder, he did not get on the air.

This situation of having no one "on deck" for Dave's time slot will now have to change. He can probably stay there as long as he wants but at some point soon, the network's going to come to him and say that he cannot be an obstacle to them signing and grooming a successor. Moreover, like Conan, that successor may have to be able to see that the 11:35 job will be his within some reasonable length of time. Late night has become too important for CBS to say they'll wait 'til Dave's ready to leave, then they'll look around and see who's available and see what kind of deal they can make with that person.

Which makes you wonder how, if at all, this relates to the sudden abdication of Kilborn, who recently vacated the 12:35 slot. I'm told by folks at CBS that it was of his own free will and that it really did come as a surprise to everyone. Still, Kilborn's not dumb. He had to know that the issue of who was going to replace Dave would someday rear its head, that he wouldn't be considered, and that there were those at CBS determined to install Conan or Jon or some potential 11:35 talent in that position. I think Leno's smart to plan out his future as well as he has. I think O'Brien's smart to hang in there and get The Tonight Show for himself. And I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Craig Kilborn, consciously or not, didn't do the smartest thing of all by getting out when he did.

William Saletan explains the essential problem with Bush's policies on the economy and Iraq.

Several folks have written to ask me if I thought Johnny Carson would appear on Leno's show tonight or ever, or on Dave's…and I recall that when Dave was out for medical reasons, a lot of his devout followers had the fantasy that Johnny would come in and guest host. My understanding is that it is currently Mr. Carson's intention to never, under any circumstances or for any reason, appear before a camera. Obviously, he could change his mind but close associates doubt this will happen. (On the other hand, there was a time when it seemed just as unlikely that Woody Allen would ever appear on an Academy Awards broadcast…) When Carson left The Tonight Show, he figured on finding some new niche in show business…but he never did.

He appeared on a cable award show special (an old promise) and did two silent cameos on Letterman's show. He also showed up when he received his 1993 Kennedy Center Honor…but that's it. He decided there was nothing he wanted to do and, according to one person who knows him pretty well, he discovered he liked being free of planning his next performance. The friend said, "Johnny likes that he can now go to dinner or play poker with whoever he likes without worrying that the person is going to start hitting him up to appear on his show or to get involved in some project. His pals all understand that he's out of show business and that's that."

Since then, he's turned down every invitation, every offer, every opportunity — and when you think about it, why shouldn't he? The man has no book to promote, no movie opening next Friday. He stands to gain nothing but an ego-boost he apparently does not need, at least not at the expense of a lot of people saying, "Look how old he's gotten." If he did appear again, it would not be on The Tonight Show, and not because he holds any ill feelings towards its present host. (I'm told that's all soothed over and, anyway, the problem was with NBC and Leno's then-manager, not with Jay.) It would have to be something really, really special. I can't imagine what that might be.