Media: February 2008 Archives

My one-time boss, my mentor, and my dear friend William F. Buckley Jr. has passed away. According to the reports, Bill died in his study -- at work. For those who knew him, this will not come as a shock. Whether sick or on vacation, Bill was always diligent about keeping up with his writing. But then, he was always diligent about keeping up with his recreation -- and his friends -- too. His was an ordered life, to say the least, and a life lived to the fullest.

To say "he will be missed" is not only to resort to the sort of cliche which Buckley despised, it's also to be guilty of understatement. I can't think of anyone with more friends to leave behind. The world knew WFB as a great intellect and writer, which he certainly was, but he was also as decent, gentle, kind and loving a man as those of us blessed to make his acquaintance would ever know.

It will take some time for me to formulate my thoughts and write something more about this extraordinary life, but till then I offer this excerpt from a profile I wrote about Buckley for Salon nearly nine years ago:

One almost forgets, when WFB refers to lunch with Henry, a stroll with Ronald or a trip with Milton, that he is speaking of a former secretary of state, a former president or a Nobel Prize-winning economist. But if Bill Buckley walks with kings, he has not lost the common touch. At a recent celebration commemorating Ronald Reagan's 88th birthday, Buckley, the keynote speaker, was seated at the head table with Nancy Reagan, two former cabinet secretaries and the ex-governor of California. The moment the dinner ended, he ditched the dignitaries, dodged hundreds of autograph seekers and sneaked out to the parking lot to meet old friends for a nightcap.

Many conservatives say that government is unimportant, but behave as though every legislative or electoral defeat is a personal disaster. Buckley is different. He loves politics, he's intrigued by its sport and he enjoys wrestling with big ideas. But he has other passions -- sailing, skiing, playing the harpsichord, studying the English language and, of course, being with his friends, who are legion and just as likely to include a former research assistant as a former president of the United States.

Before all of them, however, comes Pat, his wife of 49 years, a Vassar-educated one-time Miss Vancouver. Whenever she admonishes Bill to fix his tie, or sends a dinner party into a fit of laughter with a well-timed wisecrack, he gazes at her with relentless affection. They are unembarrassed to call each other by pet names, no matter who else is present. Their son, Christopher, is the father of two and a successful humorist -- facts that Pat and Bill proudly advertise.

But the work that helps to explain Buckley's character more than any other is his 1997 book "Nearer My God: An Autobiography of Faith." "It seems to me," he once said of his faith, that "a balanced life begins by acknowledging the insufficiency of purely materialistic considerations, and therefore one instinctively looks out for the other dimension that religion supplies you with." His is a quiet devotion, which he'd previously made little effort to discuss publicly. But his generosity, his patience, his compassion are all indicative of a grace that strives not only to believe the faith but to live it -- even if humility bars him from saying as much.

Requiescat in pace, Bill, and say hi to Pat for me.

Faithful readers will know that I am a proud liberal and am unlikely to vote for Sen. John McCain under any circumstances that I can foresee. However, the hints and attacks by the New York Times are beyond troubling.

There is certainly a scandal, but I do not know if John McCain is involved. What is clear is that there is a scandal in journalism. When the New York Times runs a story like the one on McCain, they better have more than they printed.

On the surface it seems that the issue is McCain being reckless in his confidence in his moral compass. However, when the Times puts the sexual innuendoes in the third paragraph, that becomes the story. And what is their standard for raising the possibility that he had an “improper relationship” with a lobbyist? Some of his staffers were concerned and thought that it might have become a romantic relationship. So concern begets speculation that begets a not so thinly veiled allegation? This is outrageous.

Given this standard, or rather lack of a standard, should a paper be able to print anything about which they might have an idea, inkling or suspicion? Can they protect themselves by saying, “Friends of Dobrer’s are worried that he might be (Fill in the blank)_____. Pick one or more: Sick, Perverted, Fascist, Communist.”

If it is true that some friends of mine are worried, talking or speculating, is that good enough for the “paper of record” to go with? It could be true that there is speculation but that doesn’t imply a fact.

I have no idea if McCain did anything wrong. I am very clear that the New York Times did something very wrong. If they have more, show it. If they don’t, then be ashamed, very ashamed! Meanwhile journalists the world over are speculating if the New York Times reporters and editors have lost their moral compass and their minds.

The first time I set eyes on Los Angeles Police Department Officer Randy Simmons, he was lifting a 200-pound man off the ground. In an enthusiastic bear hug.

Simmons, a large, gregarious rock of a man was warmly embracing a long-time friend, and fellow LAPD SWAT officer, who had graciously invited me to take a peek inside their fraternity, at the annual SWAT Dinner.

That was barely 10 days ago. No one in that room at the Police Academy, no matter how tactically cynical, could anticipate that less than two weeks later, Simmons would be the first man from the Metropolitan Division’s “D Platoon,” as SWAT is officially known, to die in a gun fight.

Simmons, with more than 20 years on the team, was hardly the picture of a SWAT cop the media would have you believe. You certainly would not think him to be one of the Neanderthal brutes that LAPD brass considers them. While he looked every part the former pro-football player he was – a rock-solid athletic physique that, though nearly two-decades my senior, put mine to shame – he was warm, tender even, to those around him.

As he and my host spoke, I looked around the room and noticed 20-feet away a graying man of Asian descent at a table of mostly Hispanic officers. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “I wish I could have brought the LA Times Editorial Board down here. Let them see the brutal, racist, lily-white LAPD that they so often blast. Let them see a black cop hugging a white cop like long lost brothers.”

That Asian cop, Jim Veenstra, now lies in the same hospital where Randy Simmons succumbed, a bullet having felled him in the same fusillade.

Will liberals still hate her?

Man, the Anyone But McCain hysteria is bizarre. And it's amazing, as Jonah Goldberg notes, to see people who once said we had to back Rudy Giuliani -- because national security is all that matters -- turning against arguably the strongest national-security candidate due to old party hatreds.

And then there's Ann Coulter, blasting McCain because he's not pro-torture -- Ann likes that Hillary is (as usual) more equivocal on the issue. Geez, Ann, maybe if you spent 5 years in a Vietnamese POW camp you might understand.

Wow, as someone who's identified as a conservative my entire adult life, I've never been more disgusted by some of the folks in my camp.

Well, if the Hillary campaign is willing to accept Ann Coulter, they can have her. All the more reason to vote for McCain in the general election ...

... and, yes, it appeared in today's Daily News. It's an AP round-up of how much it would cost for a football fan to attend Sunday's Super Bowl, and comes up with the eye-popping price of $5,000.

Five grand! Whoa! But how do we arrive at this figure? Well, some of the expenses are reasonable enough -- airfare, a rental car, hotel. And others are just silly padding, clearly inserted so as to generate a more astonishing price tag, lest this article be not only inane, but boring, too. Some examples:

• $700 for food -- for one person for four days, we must assume that our fan either eats caviar for every meal, is Shamu the whale, or -- most likely -- both.


• $225 for golf, plus another $100 to participate in some golf tournament (which only costs $25, but sells souvenirs -- can't pass those up). Who knew Shamu had such passion for the links?


• $617 for "other entertainment," that is, activities beside the big game itself. That includes $400 "for a ticket to Snoop Dogg's Friday-night Super Bowl party at Axis" -- which is to say, the AP assumes not only that you're an obese golfer, but that you have dreadful taste in music and nightlife, too.

Every year, as the media get more desperate to fill the two-week gap between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, the stories get more ridiculous. But alas, it's a small price to pay.

Are you ready for some football? I sure am. (Go Pats!)

The questions tossed at Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have by now become so scripted and predictable that we can practically give the candidate’s answers to them in our sleep. The CNN pre-Super Tuesday debate was a near textbook example of that. In fact so textbook that the viewers in the room that watched the debate with me squirmed restlessly after the third or fourth go round on Iraq. They tired of hearing the by now familiar, stock responses from both that it’s a wasteful, lethal, terrible Bush war that we need to get out of, and stay out of within sixty days (Obama?) or a year (Hillary?). As for health care, we should make it affordable for all, and on immigration, we back a comprehensive immigration reform law.

OK, but there are five other questions that millions of Americans are thirsting for Obama and Clinton to answer. If they were on the panel they would ask them. The questions are thorny, tormenting, and have deeply divided and inflamed millions of Americans. In past elections they have been defining moments and even make or break questions for presidential candidates.

So here goes. The first is abortion. The GOP presidential contenders have an easier time with this than the Democrats. They’re against it, and have flatly said it whenever asked. The slightest waiver on this question would be the political kiss of death for them with the Christian evangelicals. With Obama and Clinton things are touchier. Both have lightly courted the Christian evangelicals, professing they too are a man and woman of profound faith. This doesn’t mean that they will scrap their avowedly pro choice, pro abortion advocacy. Yet we still need to know how far their pro choice advocacy will go when pressed about full public funding for abortions, stem cell research, and parental consent laws. These abortion related issues don’t just energize Republicans they also trouble many Democrats. The Question to both: Do you fully support abortion?

The same can be said about gay marriage. It helped put Bush back in the White House in 2004 when a significant number of black and Latino evangelicals broke ranks with the Democrats and voted for Bush in the crucial showdown states of Ohio and Florida. Obama and Clinton certainly publicly back the right to civil unions and oppose discrimination against gays in receiving benefits, but what about actual legalizing gay marriage? Obama backpedaled slightly when he took heat for his appearance with one time gay bashing gospel singer Donnie McClurkin in South Carolina late last year. He assured that he supported gay rights. Meanwhile, Hillary has mostly been silent on that question. The question: Do you fully support gay marriage?

In 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis fumbled and bumbled when blindsided during a nationally televised debate with an emotionally laden question about the death penalty. George Bush, Sr. seized on that fumble and it hurt Dukakis. The death penalty is still very much a soul searching and gut tearing problem for many. It has pitted victim’s rights groups, prosecutors and conservatives on one side against civil libertarians, black and Latino elected officials, and death penalty opposition groups on the other side. The question: Do you oppose the death penalty?

Two weeks before the CNN debate, anti-affirmative action crusader Ward Connerly announced that he plans to plop measures outlawing affirmative action on the ballot in a dozen or more states in the fall. This has all the makings of yet another tongue wagging wedge issue, and thus a potential minefield for Obama and Clinton. Being Democrats, a woman and an African-American, the assumption is that both will be staunch champions of affirmative action without any reservation. But would they be? That was also the assumption about Bill Clinton. But he did as much as some Republicans to whittle down the scope of affirmative action. The question: Do you fully support affirmative action?

There will likely be one, maybe more vacancies, on the Supreme Court during the White House tenure of the next president. In the past two decades Supreme Court picks have been among the closely watched, speculated about, and fought over of any of a president’s appointees. And rightly so, they make law and public policy that impacts on the lives of millions for generations to come, and it’s a lifetime job.

Past and present Republican presidents have been notorious for their anti-abortion, pro police power, states rights, and strict constructionist litmus tests for their court nominees. Democratic presidents have placed no such test on their nominees at least publicly. The question: What is your standard for picking a Supreme Court judge?

These questions dangle loosely in the political air and the public’s mind. How Obama or Clinton answers the questions are not necessarily presidential deal breakers for both. But answer they must, and that can’t happen unless the questions are asked. They should be at the next CNN Democratic debate at the end of February.