“Doctor” Glenn Beck’s so-called Restoring Honor rally falls into the category of “no harm, no foul.” Playing the role of Martin Luther King in white face, Beck and his featured speaker, Sarah Palin, steered clear of politics Saturday by supporting God, the military, America and mom’s apple pie.

Crowd estimates ranged from 75,000 to half the population of the United States, depending on the politics of the people making the estimate. An airborne crowd count commissioned by CBS News settled on a figure of 87,000. But we all know about the liberal leaning network. After all, its chief anchor, Katie Couric, asked Governor Palin all those slanted questions about the newspapers and magazines she read, and the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions. What did Ms. Couric think she was doing, judging a beauty queen pageant. Obviously, the CBS estimate was wrong.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014993-503544.html?tag=stack

A Washington Post columnist described the turnout as the whitest crowd ever assembled on the mall at the Lincoln Memorial. But again, the damn liberal media will say anything—even going so far as to report facts. Tea Partiers, Beck supporters and my right-wing family members are sure to point out that there were a few black faces at the rally. But in a crowd of 87,000, there were probably a few space aliens. Or at least people who believed they were from different planets, or after a few minutes of conversation about President Obama, judged to be from outer space.

The “few” African Americans attending the rally included a niece of Martin Luther King—a “white sheep” of the King family, perhaps. Having her speak was a blatant attempt to excuse Beck’s despicable decision to hold the event on the date of Martin Luther King’s ”I have a dream” speech 47 years earlier. Beck, a self-proclaimed historian, claims the choice of the date was an accident. But he modestly declares the accident was the work of God. Thus, with the acquiescence of the Lord, “Martin Luther Beck” tried to appropriate the civil rights crusade of Dr. King. For Beck to align himself with King is an insult to the memory and sacrifice of the civil rights leader during a volatile time his American history.  

I have to give credit, though to the former rock and roll disc jockey. He has gigantic cojones. Too bad his brain doesn’t match. He has aptly described himself as a “rodeo clown,” saying in effect that people who believe his rants need to have their heads examined. Hopefully, ambulance chasing psychiatrists took him at his word and passed out business cards during the rally.

Although Glenn Beck pissed off a lot of people simply by being Glenn Beck, he caused no great harm over the weekend. Indeed, he may have inspired a few people to go to church on Sunday. But being Glenn, he couldn’t rest on his laurels. In a Fox “News” interview following the rally, he offered his views on President Obama’s Christianity. He described Obama’s beliefs as “liberation” theology—the oppressor against the victim. I thought the New Testament was about liberation from Old Testament oppressiveness. But what do I know? I’m a Presbyterian.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/29/AR2010082903889.html?hpid=topnews

Admittedly, I don’t possess the high fallutin background of Glenn Beck, who holds a distinguished honorary Doctorate in Humanities from the late Jerry Falwell’s prestigious Liberty University—one of the nation’s beacons of bigotry. And I have to also keep in mind that “Doctor” Beck is the President of his own university (by the way, I haven’t seen the pre-season football ranking of Beck University’s football team).

However, one aspect of  ”Doctor” Beck’s résumé makes me curious about his mental machinations. As a Mormon, why would he question the Christianity of another believer. I have nothing against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The denomination engages in noble outreach. However, its doctrine has regularly been criticized by mainline religious leaders who question its Christian roots. LDS was founded in 1830 in upstate New York by Joseph Smith, an early abolitionist of slavery, as well as a polygamist. And throughout the church’s history, Mormons have been identified with plural marriage, a practice that was abandoned many years ago. Polygamy is now limited to small Mormon splinter groups. 

The Mother Church, however, has been criticized for its views on civil rights. Until 1978,  blacks were prohibited from entering the priesthood or even participating in LDS ceremonies. More recently, the church was sharply criticized for secret funding the campaign in support of California’s Proposition 8, the controversial measure banning gay marriage. Because of the church’s sensitivity to public perceptions and misconceptions, it seems odd that Beck questions Obama’s faith. But Beck is odd and apparently never read the Biblical verse, Judge not lest ye be judged.

What a waste a time writing about Beck. I need more self-control. Actually, I intended to skip the subject of Beck’s weekend rally entirely. But since the mainstream media tends to forget that he is nothing more than an ex-disc jockey, who struck gold by exploiting the anxieties of people too lazy to do their own thinking, I figured that I—a failed disc jockey and former mediocre talk show host—should at least remind readers of his credentials. Or lack thereof.

And besides, I didn’t want to disappoint right-wing family members. They believe I dislike the mad “doctor,” which is not even close to being true. How could I not love a guy who gives me so much material to fill the blog?

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014993-503544.html?tag=stack

The revelation came to me in a dream. I was dozing in a recliner after consuming a delicious 14-inch pizza with all the toppings and drinking two liters of coke.  Three slices of pecan pie à la mode caused me to feel drowsy and I soon fell into a dream state. Then came my vision of an African doctor wearing a loin cloth and carrying a spear that he plunged into the ground causing a blinding cloud of dust and smoke. When it cleared, the doctor held a newborn in his hands. 

Using a machete, he deftly cut horns from the baby’s head while chanting, “Barack Hussein Obama, I anoint you in the name of Karl Marx to go forth and spread socialism in a faraway nation that worships a system called free enterprise.” But first, you must go to an island in the great ocean and learn to surf.  However, I warn you to avoid descendants of a tribe that invaded the islands many moons ago. They were called Christian missionaries. 

Before my vision began to fade, I saw horns being removed from another child. But I awoke after hearing only a portion of the ceremony. “Glenn Beck, I anoint you in the name of Bozo the Clown……”

Ordinarily, I would be reluctant to share my revelations. But while reading the New York Times today, I discovered I was not alone. Recent polls disclose that nearly 25% of Americans believe President Obama was born in Africa. This means 75% of our nation’s population are fools. Based on the thin evidence of an official birth certificate and contemporary newspaper accounts in Honolulu, these deluded people believe the rumor that Obama was born in Hawaii.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/us/politics/19memo.html?th&emc=th 

It is really sad to think that three/quarters of the people in this country accept official documents as fact. Hopefully, all these confused folks will pick up a copy of the Globe tabloid magazine in the check-out lines of local supermarkets. Although the Globe has never published story that was proven to be correct, there is a first time for everything. The tabloid claims to have evidence that the President’s Social Security card is phony and the publication hopes to produce the evidence one day. No doubt, Obama is alarmed. He is counting on receiving his social security checks in sixteen years. That is, if the system survives. GOP hysterics say it’s doomed.

For anyone who doubts my revelation about the birth of our President, let me point out that I’m an award-winning investigative and the proud recipient of four George Foster Peabody medallions and multiples of every other major broadcast journalism award. No telling how many more awards I would have won if I had eaten more giant pizzas.

Since my semi-retirement, my post-pizza eating visions have produced other revelations. For example, I learned that Neil Armstrong never reached the moon. The hoax took place in the Nevada desert where he actually said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for more casinos.”

I wish I could reveal details of another vision identifying the mysterious man on the grassy knoll. But out of respect for the Warren Commission, the shooter’s name must remain secret. I will disclose, though, that he was wearing a loin cloth and armed with a blow dart weapon.

Sadly, the time has arrived for me to leave. I promised my pyschiatrist I would check into the hospital for the weekend. It’s really fun because I always encounter lots of birthers and Tea Party members there. During recreation breaks, attendants unstrap straightjackets so we can toss around all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Meantime, if you are hoping for pizza revelations, skip the anchoves. They have a bad after-taste.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I grew up in a family and in a part of the country where I heard the familiar refrain, ”I’m not prejudicedbut negroes need to stay in their place.” That was the polite way of making the statement. In reality, the word “negro” was usually mispronounced, or intentionally twisted into a well-known epithet. 

In recent weeks, I’ve heard echoes of the old Dixie mantra in the ongoing debate over the location of the Cordoba cultural center and mosque in lower Manhattan near the site of the Twin Towers. I don’t mean to belabor First Amendment points I made yesterday about freedom of religion, but Harry Reid’s miniscule balls prompts me to add a couple of observations. The Senate Majority leader declared yesterday that the center should be built in a another location. In other words, Muslims “should stay in their place.” And that place ain’t in lower Manhattan.

Earlier, President Obama crawfished on the location of the mosque. A day after courageously defending religious freedom of Muslims, he said his statement was not an endorsement of the proposed site. Is the President now saying it’s better for Muslim worshipers to “stay in their place?” 

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court kept African Americans “in their place. Ferguson v Plessy—the “separate but equal” decision involving accomodations on passenger trains—upheld segregation in states, most of which were in the south. The laws remained in effect until the 1954 Brown decision leading to the desegregation of schools, and setting off another wave of claims, “I’m not prejudiced, but negroes need to stay in their place.” 

Indeed, moving the proposed mosque would probably end the controversy and “keep Muslims in their.” As I noted yesterday, I can understand why families and friends of WTC victims are upset. Still, it seems to me that allowing the mosque to be constructed at the proposed site is an important statement of our American principles and values. Maybe my belief is influenced by the fact that as a journalist I share the same First Amendment privileges as the promoters of the Cordoba center.   

From all I’ve read and heard, the selection of the location is not an act of defiance. Just the opposite. According to the cleric leading the drive to build on “hallowed ground,” the overriding purpose of the center is to push back at terrorism. Iman Fesal Abdul Rauf foresees the project as a showplace of modern Islam.

A moderate Surfi imman, Abdul-Rauf has been criticized from the right as a man of two faces. However, William Dalrymple—an award-winning historian, author and expert on the Islamic religion—disputes the characterization in a New York Times Op-Ed column published today.

Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra. But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.

For such moderate, pluralistic Sufi imams are the front line against the most violent forms of Islam. In the most radical parts of the Muslim world, Sufi leaders risk their lives for their tolerant beliefs, every bit as bravely as American troops on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul do. Sufism is the most pluralistic incarnation of Islam — accessible to the learned and the ignorant, the faithful and nonbelievers — and is thus a uniquely valuable bridge between East and West.

Fesal Abdul Rauf has, no doubt, made statements and associated with notorious characters in the past that makes him vulnerable to criticism if taken out of context. But that can be said about nearly every prominent religious figure.  I venture to say that Abdul-Rauf pales in comparison with opportunistic Christian TV preachers like Pat Robertson. His diamond deals with African despots and outrageous attacks on politicians of a different stripes (mostly Democrats) raise questions about Robertson’s “Christian” conscience, as well as his sanity. 

I have the same questions about the character and sanity of “famed historian” and political hate-monger Newt Gingrich. He has uttered gutter criticisms of the Cardoba project, the Islamic religion and the President. It would be nice to say, “Who the hell cares what Gingrich says?” But Fox “News” is still alive and distorting. That’s okay, though. I have to remember of the First Amendment. It sure cramps my style sometimes.

Anyway, this is unrelated to the mosque, but a Gingrich profile in this month’s Esquire magazine provides a peek at the true character of a man who has probably done more damage to political civility in this country than any human alive. Don’t get me wrong. I will fight to the death to protect Gingrich’s First Amendment privilege of free speech. Uh, huh.

I’m not prejudiced, you understand, I just wish the son-of-a-bitch would “stay in his place.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

Did you hear the one about the guy who feeds 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread? Read all about it in Mark 6: 30-44. I know this opening line makes me sound like a religious zealot. So I will analogize by referring to a more secular character—the guy planning to provide health coverage to 32-million uninsured Americans without raising taxes on middle-class folks. Are Jesus and Obama socialists, liberals, progressives, miracle workers, or all of the above? Whatever the label, I would rather be like them than the Party of No Conscience and Compassion.

Before you criticizze, be assured that I’m certainly not comparing myself with Jesus or anyone of note. I leave those comparisons to Sarah Palin and her self-proclaimed links to William Shakespeare, who she cited as a justification for making up words like “refudiate.” My references to Jesus and Obama is a ?clever? way of arriving at the central point of this missive. I try to answer the question of how an under-educated redneck like me drifted from right to left. It has been a strange transformation and I sometimes wonder why my politics are so different from family and friends. 

In the beginning (don’t you love my use of phrases from the bible), my daddy was a “yellow dog Democrat.” The characterization stems from an old southern expression, “I’d vote for a yellow dog before I’d vote for a Republican.” However, voting for Democrats in daddy’s day was a far cry from being a “liberal.”

In Alabama where I grew up and in my family, racism was rampant. Black people were expected to stay in their place at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. My family was only a few rungs above, separated from the bottom by a class called “poor white trash.” Still, the “N” word was part of my vocabulary, as well as that of every kid in the low income projects and neighborhoods where I lived.

As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger and have mentioned in a previous blog post, my first memory of flinching at the word followed a brief encounter with Jackie Robinson.

I was thirteen years old and working as “roof boy” for the minor league Mobile Bears, retrieving foul balls that landed on top of the grandstand. A screen at the rear of the roof prevented them from going into the parking lot. Before and after games, I ran errands for players. I was paid fifty cents a night, plus tips, to watch baseball games and hang around professional athletes. It was great.

On trips north from Florida spring training in those days, major league teams played exhibition games in the cities of minor league farm clubs. The Bears were affiliated with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. And when the team bus arrived at Mobile’s Hartwell Field in 1949, I helped the Major League’s first black player carry his equipment bag to the clubhouse. When I excitedly told daddy, he was not impressed.

“Hey, Marie,” he called to mother. “Come and listen to Johnny brag about carrying a nigger’s suitcase.”  It was supposed to be a joke―a symptom of culturally ingrained Southern prejudices.

In dad’s defense, when I took up the civil rights banner years later, he bragged to friends about my support of the cause.

So what caused a radical change my in racial, societal and political attitudes? Actually, there was no sudden epiphany or single event that formed my views. Indeed, it was a gradual evolution that probably began in the military. For reasons I don’t recall, I became close friends while station in Okinawa with a young black airman from Washington D.C. In 1954, Jesse James White and I became the first mixed race roommates in our barracks. Although the military had been fully integrated for six years, we were considered oddballs—especially me, an 18 year old kid with southern redneck roots. J.J. and I didn’t hang around much outside the base, but we respected one another as equals and that was an important lesson for me.

I guess the next major step toward my enlightment occured in the early 1960’s during my tenure as a radio newsman in California at stations in the Sacramento Valley. Luckily, I have another opportunity to plug my book with an excerpt. 

I was influenced in large part by seeing societal ills first hand, such as migrant worker abuses and poverty. Nearby ghetto-like labor camps were the underbelly of agriculture. Already paid low wages, migrants were assessed outrageous rents for shacks with no running water or electricity.

I also saw first hand the gloom of farm workers in my daily stops at the Marysville Police Department. Because of the volume of arrests on skid row, a makeshift courtroom was set up inside the jail to avoid stinking up the courthouse. A judge conducted daily proceedings. He imposed sentences that were practical and compassionate. If a drunk showed symptoms of DT’s, he was sent to the county penal farm to get medical attention. If still able to navigate, he was usually cut loose after paying a small fine, which was determined by the amount of money in his pockets. Most were white male Americans, rather than blacks or Hispanics. Illegal immigration had not yet become a big issue in the country.

Simply seeing the plight of these people instilled in me a degree of compassion. I knew that they were victims of necessity and a lack of opportunity.

After leaving California in the mid-sixties to become News Director 0f a Baton Rouge radio station, my politics were already moving to the left of center. In Louisiana, I moved farther left during the civil rights era, especially after becoming a radio talk show host. For three years, race and poverty were regular topics on the show. My guests included civil rights leaders like John Lewis, then head of Voter Education Project and desciple of Martin Luther King. At the other extreme were the hate-mongers like David Duke and the late Judge Leander Perez. In addition to the talk show, I was covering civil rights, poverty and other societal ills on the street and becoming convinced of the need for radical changes in the country.

Adding an exclamation point to my political transformation was an “opportunity” to spend a year in a mostly black workplace—though it was not by choice. In 1971, my broadcast career almost ended as a result of booze. After landing on skid row in New Orleans, I was jobless and seemingly unemployable. My career was salvaged by a black programmed radio station in Baton Rouge that hired me to start its first news department.

Being a shameless self-promoter, I will add another excerpt to describe experiences that had a significant impact in shaping my politics.

It didn’t take me long at WXOK to realize that my “enlightened” understanding of discrimination was superficial at best. I had never been the victim of blatant bigotry. Nor had I experienced the humiliation of being turned away from a segregated school, public facility, or denied a job because of my skin color. I came close―an experience that was more comical than sinister.

In the course of building a news department, I had an ongoing dialogue with a black-owned syndicated news service that provided the station with national material for our newscasts. In turn, we fed Louisiana stories to the network. Since Louisiana was then a civil rights hotspot, there were plenty of stories to pass along. Indeed, my feeds became so frequent that the New York based company made a job overture.

“You realize I’m white,” I asked the recruiter. There was a long pause. I heard him take a deep breath. “Yes, of course,” he said unconvincingly. “We’ll be getting back to you real soon.” I’m still waiting.

Sadly, many young blacks faced the same wait from white-owned companies. Also disheartening was the ignorance and bigotry of friends. My barber once asked if the body odor of co-workers bothered me. Such misconceptions were deep-rooted in Baton Rouge and most parts of the South. Working at WXOK taught me lessons that I could only learn in predominately African-American surroundings.

It also helped me later on to empathize with a black high school girl I interviewed while producing a documentary on poverty in Baton Rouge. Breaking into tears, she told of missing the senior prom at her integrated school because her mother couldn’t afford a nice dress. In the same program, a teen-aged boy said his most memorable meals were leftovers momma brought home from her job as a maid at an LSU sorority house.

More tragic were the struggles of poor and elderly blacks in getting medical care. “I don’t know how I gonna breathe if the welfare don’t get me my medicine,” an asthmatic woman cried in the documentary. Six hours after the interview, she died of heart failure while waiting for a welfare worker to deliver the prescription. 

But despite my self-proclaimed empathy for those deprived of the American dream, I was a phony. My outsized ego had been severely damaged by the tumble from News Director, ace reporter and talk show host at Baton Rouge’s leading radio station to my job as WXOK’s token white boy. And instead of feeling gratitude for a career reprieve, I began fabricating an excuse for my presence at the station. I would tell former colleagues that the job was an assertion of my commitment to civil rights―foisting myself off as a self-sacrificing Peace Corps journalist.

The opportunity to promulgate the fiction presented itself at an NAACP news conference. For the first time since my failed attempt to succeed as a skid row bum I was about to come face-to-face with reporters that I had avoided since my day of reckoning. The prospect of seeing them at a Baton Rouge hotel was so unnerving that I sat in the parking lot for several minutes trying to summon the courage to go inside. Entering the lobby, I immediately ran into Louisiana’s Associated Press bureau chief, Charles Layton. He greeted me with a smile and a handshake.

“Where have you been, John?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” My answer was so stunning I thought it was the voice of another person.

“WJBO fired me for being a drunk,” I blurted out. “I’m working at WXOK, trying to get things back together.” Had I actually made this humbling admission to someone? I could not believe my own words. Charlie took the sting out of my confession.

“That’s great. I knew you were having problems. I hope things work out.” It was no big deal to him. Like most Baton Rouge reporters, he knew about my drinking. Acknowledging my alcoholism outside of AA meetings was an important step in maintaining sobriety. 

It was significant in seeing my deep-rooted hypocrisy and seeing myself as others saw me. For anyone who has read this far, my apologies for the length of the post. At least you will know the experiences that are the basis of my political views and opinions.

I wish I could say my rants fall within the realm of WWJD. But I’m certain that is not the case. By the same token, observing the actions of the Party of No Conscience and Compassion—aka Republicans and tea partiers—I have a strong sense they represent what Jesus would not do.   

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

After the NCAAP adopted a resolution this week calling on the so-called Tea Party to quit giving aid and comfort to racists and hate groups, Sarah Palin immediately came to the defense of the movement. Bigots? What bigots?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/07/naacp-tea-party-sarah-palin.html

I am not surprised by Palin’s reaction. As Mayor of a town in which only one resident in 50 was a person of color and serving as Governor of a state with an African American population of less than four percent, she probably believes that a single black face in a crowd of a thousand represents diversity. 

The former Vice Presidential candidate obviously closes her eyes when racially charged placards are displayed. And since her reading is limited to glamour magazines and comic strips, she failed to see the Iowa tea partiers hate filled billboard showing President Obama flanked by Hitler and Lenin. But give the woman credit. She has pyschic powers. Although Palin was not present at the Washington rally when racial epithets were hurled at Congressman John Lewis, she labeled him a liar for making such a claim. Given Lewis standing as one of the most respected civil rights leaders in the nation’s history, I will take his word over the denials of a bunch of redneck bigots.

Anyway, today something new. Following the lead of television, I will occasionally post reruns of previous missives that remain relevant to recent events. I begin with a slightly edited February post titled, The Tea Party Klan…Oops, I Mean Clan.  

I apologize for the gaffe. My slip was intentional. Just wanted to piss off some of my right-wing relatives. I realize that Tea Partiers don’t dress in sheets and pillow cases, although a few wear the garb depicted in accounts of  the original Tea Party in  1773, when colonists in Boston revolted against British imposed taxes. Also let me quickly clarify that Tea Partiers don’t hang people. They only hang signs portraying President Obama as a modern day Hitler, complete with a mustache. 

Fortunately, the placards were not on display during a Tea Party convention at Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee. Nor were any black faces on display. At least as far as I could tell from watching CNN (I know, my former employer is supposed to be a liberal media outlet and would not show African-Americans, even if they were in attendance). It seems, however, that GOP National Chairman Michael Steele would have agreed to be a token black in a sea of white voters, who generally pull the Republican lever. But he had a “conflict.”

I recognize that most tea partiers are not blatant racists. But the movement has attracted a fringe element that undermines civility. Protest groups are a vital part of our nation’s history. They most often gain momentum when the country is in the throes of change and hard times. Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee by a small group of defeated Confederate soldiers, and subsequently became a force to deal with politically. Membership peaked at five-million. And despite a murderous and dispicable history, it had sufficient influence to force the 1924 Democratic Presidential Convention to abandon a party plank outlawing the KKK. Today, there are still hate-filled Klan lunatics who wrap themselves in sheets and scream epithets at blacks and other minorities. But the violence has subsided and the Klan’s main role is wearing regalia that amuses those of us with perverted senses of humor. 

More enduring from the standpoint of historial impact on the country is the Share Our Wealth Society, which was founded in 1934 during the depression era by the “Kingfish”—Huey P. Long. Prior to his assassination in 1935, he simultaneously served as U.S. Senator and Louisiana Governor. Relying on national radio broadcasts and a motto, Every Man a King, Long developed a following so large that historians credit him with forcing FDR to expand New Deal proposals out of fear that the Kingfish would  become a third-party candidate in 1936 Presidential election, thus handing over the White House to the GOP. In more contemporary times, off-brand populist movements have also played a role in shaping politics.

As CNN’s senior investigative correspondent in 1992, I was assigned to dig  into the background of Ross Perot—the declared, then undeclared and finally re-declared independent Presidential candidate. His rehearsed sound-bites garnered him eighteen percent of the vote. And according to many experts, cost George Herbert Bush a second term. The results of the election prompted Perot to create Reform Party USA. Its greatest success was electing Jesse Ventura as Governor of Minnesota in 1998.

By the time the party was formed, voters had already tired of Ross Perot’s repetitive blabbing. And I can understand why. In 1992, I spent a miserable hour with the little barking lap dog while gathering material for a segment that aired as part of  a CNN series titled, Democracy in America. In my on-camera interview with Perot, several questions deviated from his tightly scripted message. However, the questions were well-researched and considerably more substantive than Katie Couric asking Sara Palin what newspapers she read.

I thought Perot was going to throw me out of his office when I pointed out the many contradictions in his  manufactured myth of being horseback riding paperboy, who grew up to become a billionaire heroically rescuing his employees from an Iranian prison. Still, Perot was far more coherent than Sarah Palin. Ross could even put a noun, verb and object in a sentence.

Is Palin an inarticulate Perot? Darned if I know. Golly, gee, she just confuses the heck out of me. But there was a woman speaking at the Tea Party convention who claimed to be Sarah Palin. However, it could have been Tina Fey doing her dead-on Saturday Night Live impression.

Sarah Palin reportedly asked for $100,000 to appear at the convention. Goodness gracious alive, that sure is a lot of money. I worry, I mean really, really, really worry that maybe Tina Fey was sub-contracted for $75,000, allowing Ms. Palin to pocket the remainder and spend the weekend in Alaska shooting moose.

Bizarre speculation. But not as bizarre as some of things I hear coming out of the mouths of Tea Party folks—such as questions about President Obama’s birthplace. Aside from the lunatics, I hope the Tea Party anger is being directed at both sides of the aisle. There are plenty of targets in Congress, regardless of  political persuation. Everybody I know, left, right and in the middle agrees with Tea Partiers that partisan gridlock must end.

And I know for certain that tea partiers did not exclude blacks from its convention in Nashville. Reliable sources have told me that several African-Americans were allowed to serve food and clean-up after the meals.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Against my better judgment many years ago, I signed off on hiring a relatively inexperienced wire service reporter to work with me in a television investigative reporting unit. It turned out to be a disaster, especially when I allowed her to conduct an important on-camera interview with a character vital to an ongoing exposé. She didn’t allow man a chance to complete a single sentence. Her constant confrontational interruptions rendered the interview useless. I don’t blame the reporter. It was my mistake in hiring her. She was simply trying to do a Mike Wallace imitation, not realizing that he allowed people to rattle on until their egos entrapped them. The Mike Wallace technique, by the way, won me a lot of journalism awards.

Anyway, watching the unbelieveable rudeness of Fox “News” anchor Megyn Kelly early this week reminded me of the long ago interview disaster that I facilitated. Kelly’s boorish interview of New York Post columnist and political commentator Kirsten Powers had all the class of a drunken honky-tonk brawl. Powers—a moderate voice regularly heard on the Republican propaganda network—was not allowed in this instance to express any opinion contradicting Kelly’s obvious racial prejudice.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fnc/megyn_kelly_to_kirsten_powers_with_respect_you_dont_seem_to_know_what_youre_talking_about_167499.asp

Megyn Kelly’s screech on her program, America Live, may explain why she gave up the practice of law to enter broadcasting. Had she displayed similar demeanor in a courtroom, Kelly would be spending time in a jail cell for contempt of court. 

The context of the interview was obviously Kelly’s belief that the U.S. Department of Justice engaged in a form of reverse racism by failing to pursue default judgments in lawsuits accusing members of the Black Panthers of imtimidating voters outside a precinct in Philadelphia during the November, 2008 Presidential election. A malcontent, who formerly worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Right’s Division, claims that the Obama Administration and African American Attorney General Eric Holder are going easy on black activist groups like the Panthers. Media Matters covered the issue pretty thoroughly this week.

In short, conservative media outlets have been aggressively promoting the charge by GOP activist J. Christian Adams that President Obama’s Justice Department engaged in racially charged “corruption” when it partially dismissed a case against members of the New Black Panther Party for allegedly engaging in voter intimidation outside of a Philadelphia polling center on Election Day in 2008.

As we have documented extensively, Adams should not be trusted. He is a long-time right-wing activist with extensive ties to the Bush-era politicization of the Justice Department. Adams himself has admitted that he lacks first-hand knowledge to support his accusations. Additionally, Adams’ charge that the DOJ’s action in the New Black Panther case shows unprecedented, racially motivated corruption is undermined by the fact that the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one of the defendants, and that the Bush DOJ declined to pursue similar allegations against a group of Minutemen — one of whom was carrying a gun — in 2006.

Even the Republican vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called the New Black Panthers case “very small potatoes” and said an investigation into the DOJ’s decision is full of “overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges.”

And yet again, the fact that this is a completely manufactured scandal didn’t stop conservative media figures from engaging in one of their time-honored traditions: attempting to obscure their own problems with race by accusing others of racism.

Radio host Jim Quinn — who once told “race-baiting” African-American “ingrates” to “get on your knees” and “kiss the American dirt” because slavery brought them to the U.S. — hyped the New Black Panther story by calling the civil rights community “race-baiting poverty pimps.”

Rush Limbaugh — who earlier this week announced that if Obama wasn’t black he’d be a “tour guide in Honolulu” and claimed Obama is using the office of the presidency to seek “payback” for the country’s history of racism — forwarded Adams’ charge that the case was dropped because of racially charged corruption.

Beck, who infamously called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” declared that the Obama administration is “full” of “people that will excuse” the “hatred” of the New Black Panthers. He also relied on falsehoods to try to connect Obama to the New Black Panthers, and claimed today that the New Black Panthers are part of Obama’s “army of thugs.”

If the U.S. Justice Department has adopted a policy of not prosecuting black activists, word of the change has not reached Louisiana. On the west bank of the Mississippi River,African American mayors of Port Allen, New Roads and White Castle were indicted earlier this month, along with a black police chief. A fourth African American mayor is under investigation in the same case. Unless the Justice Department has changed its procedures, the Public Integrity Division in Washington reviews cases involving public officials prior to indictments. Regardless, the recent arrests tends to dispute claims of racial favortism.

Sadly, I sometimes get the feeling that our country is on the verge of returning to the bad old days of race divisions. The NAACP adopted a resolution this week condemning the tea party movement for providing aid and comfort to bigots. If some of the demonstrations are an indications, white hate groups have found a place to spew their hatred. Granted, they are a small minority. But their very presence undermines the legitimacy of the tea party.

I would hope the country had reached a point that resolutions such as the one adopted by the  NAACP were unnecessary. But the election of Barack Obama has triggered the worst in many people. And disgracefully, they are being cheered on by the Fox “News,” its pundits and anchors, and scores of right-wing characters polluting the nation’s airwaves.

Racism is still alive in America. If you don’t believe it, look up the definition of the word in your dictionary.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I resisted the temptation of titling this post, ”A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.” But I am still using the trite phrase because it’s true. The magazine has been around for more than four decades. And the article that resulted in yesterday’s resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as commander of troops in Afghanistan is not the first time Rolling Stone has caused Washington heads to roll—or at least flinch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062305371.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Although most of Rolling Stone’s readership is less than half my age, I used the magazine as a background reference many times in gathering information for investigative stories I tackled. Indeed, an article printed a few years ago in the publication is part of the material I’ve accumulated in connection with a possible book length investigation I am working on(the topic to be revealed in the future).

The downside of Rolling Stone is it reminds me of my age. Lady Gaga graces the cover of the same issue that has created the McChrystal furor. I know she is a performer, but ignorant of what she performs. I’m still in the age of early rock and roll. More traumatic in making me aware of age is the fact that my only encounter with one of the magazine’s star writers occured when he was eight years old. Matt Taibbi’es father, Mike, is an old friend and former colleague in the late 1970’s when I headed the investigative unit at Boston’s ABC affiliate. Mike is currently an NBC correspondent.

One of the memories Mike and I share is a puzzling invitation extended to us and our wives for a party at the home of a top station executive—a Harvard graduate, who was the quintessential preppie. I describe the invitations as puzzling because we were the only station peons invited. Believing it would be a casual get together, we dressed for such an occasion. Instead, it was a formal dinner party of Boston blue-bloods, complete with designated seating. Mike, our wives and I squirmed uncomfortably while listening to conversations about who should be appointed to the Board of Trustees of Wellesly College and other subjects in which our give-a-shit factor was infinitesimal. I told Mike afterwards that I was tempted to ask the matrons on either side of me, “Ladies, do you fart after eating pork’n beans?”

Anyway, back to Rolling Stone. As stated in the Howard Kurtz article I cited earlier in this missive, the success of the magazine’s in-depth reporting is the freedom given writers with respect to length and language. Matt Taibbi, for example, sprinkles his story with the “F” word and other obscenities—presumably to emphasize points for his under-30 readership. Certainly, the women at the aforementioned dinner party would find such language offensive. Then again, I’m jumping to a conclusion. New Yorker, the magazine of sophisticated society, periodically carries episodes in its Shouts & Murmurs section, titled The Cursing Mommy—the most obscene and funniest feature I can recall reading in the publication.

Language aside, Rolling Stone articles are important because they are well-researched and give context to issues. The publisher has been a strong supporter of President Obama, as well as a campaign contributor. Yet, the magazine does not spare him from scrutiny. Taibbi has done some of the best reporting in exposing the duplicity and missteps of the Obama administration. Fortunately, he and other Rolling Stone writers have a venue to fulfill the obligation of journalists in an era of superficiality.

With the exception of the PBS Frontline documentary series, television has pretty much abandoned that obligation. As much as I like to brag about my awards and success as an investigative reporter, I know that I was only as good as my employers commitment to in-depth journalism. In Baton Rouge, particularly, I was given the kind of freedom that astonished television reporters throughout the country. One-hour investigative documentaries without commercial interruption were unheard of in TV broadcasting.

At the beginning of my ten years as CNN’s Senior Investigative Correspondent, I was optimistic that I would receive the same kind of commitment in a national forum. That’s why I took another network job after spending seven years in muckraking paradise. But it was not to be. I was an old guy in an environment that gradually began targeting a young audience. Not too successfully, if current ratings are any measure. In the wake of General McChrystal’s resignation, I find it ironic that young guys are now influencing an older generation.

Maybe it’s time for all of us AARP dudes to learn about Lady Gaga.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

For eight years, pundits made exaggerated complaints that George W. Bush was too dumb to be President. Remember Ronald  Reagan? And for two years, the same pundits complain that President Obama is too smart. Remember Bill Clinton? I ain’t got no fine college education, but I’m smart enough to recognize stupidity when it comes from the mouths of no-it-all political commentators, reporters and talk show hosts. 

In the latest stupid episode of the dumbing-down of America, an alleged “expert” on speech patterns characterized the President’s recent Oval Office speech about the Gulf oil spill as too complicated for the average television viewer to comprehend.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/obama-oil-spill-speech-cr_n_615796.html

I watched the President’s speech and understood every word he said. Didn’t go to the dictionary even once. Granted, I went a little bit beyond the 9.9 grade level that the “expert” claimed was required to understand the address. In fact, I’m the proud owner of a diploma from Tuscaloosa, Alabama Senior High School. Graduated in the top 80% of my class. Sadly, I couldn’t maintain the momentum during one semester at the University of Alabama, where I failed every course except ROTC. The school has a dumb rule requiring students to attend classes. A few years later, I attended disc jockey school for four semesters. However, spinning records only makes people dumber. Have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other ex-disc jockeys now make a living by drooling on microphones? 

Anyway, I rated Obama’s speech as okay—though unnecessary. I rate it much higher than saying, “Let’s bomb the hell out of Baghdad and give CNN some visual news to report.” The President did what President’s are supposed to do. He re-enforced his Administration’s commitment to assist people and businesses effected by the spill. Proof came the following day when he shook-down BP for $20-billion—”shake-down” being the decription given the escrow fund by a stupid GOP Congressman (told you I recognized stupid when I heard it). 

The fund will go a long way in diminishing some of the fears of Gulf coast folks whose lives have been put on hold.  It will also help keep the courts unclogged by thousands of lawsuits. Though painful to plaintiff lawyers deprived of their 40% contingency fees, providing an alternative to litigation will expedite the payment of claims.

Obama’s speech notwithstanding, he can say nothing, nor can he do anything at this point to satisfy his critics and/or the people suffering from the tragedy. I hope he regularly recites the Serenity Prayer. If you don’t know words, it’s time to move out of your cave.

Unfortunately, a sizeable segment of society avoids making independent judgments about solutions to ongoing catrastophes, controversial issues and political dilemmas. Too often they are willing to accept the judgments of idiots. I ask again, have you heard of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al?

For most of my career in broadcasting, I worked with people better educated than me. As Senior Investigative Correspendent in CNN’s Special Assignment investigative unit, I was surrounded by reporters and producers with Ivy League diplomas and degrees from several prestigious universities. Earlier in my career, I spent five years an under-educated, redneck ex-drunk in charge of an investigative unit at a highly acclaimed local station in “Blue Blood” Boston. In these and other environments throughout my career, academic shortcomings caused me hang-ups. I compensated for the insecurities by reading everything I could get my hands on, developing a polysyballic vocabulary and a smart-ass attitude.  

My wife, who has two advanced degrees, has jokingly threatened to slap me (I think its a joke) if I repeat one more time, “I ain’t got no fine college education like you,” a phrase I frequently use when pontificating on some obscure topic I read about in books and magazines that are published for readers above the 9.9 grade level. I’ve subscribed to New Yorker for years. I read most articles and even profess to understand many of its cartoons. I hope that makes me seem sophisticated?  

I realize there are other smart-asses, who say I never needed to go beyond the 9.9 grade level. After all, I was a television reporter. Indeed, TV news is responsible for dumbing down America. Investigative reporting has all but disappeared from television. Too complicated. Therefore, most muckraking that is left falls into the category of superficial. In the latter days of my career, reporters were advised by so-called “news doctors” to make stories “viewer friendly.” 

Maybe the President should hire a “news doctor” so he can begin his speeches by saying, “Oil rig went boom, boom.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.