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.

Is U.S. Senator David Vitter brain dead or what? The Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar is making a career out of breathtaking stupid  stunts. As I reported yesterday, the Sarah Palin brain epidemic has infected Louisiana Governor Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal—another Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar. However, I expect him to partially recover after television cameras leave the Gulf Coast and he quits saying stupid things that contradict experts.

Senator Vitter is a more challenging case. He has been haunted by hookers throughout much of his political career—first in his hometown of New Orleans and later in the nation’s Capitol where he was identified as a prostitution client of notorious D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The irony of the disclosure is remarkable. Vitter’s voice was among the loudest in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. 

Despite world class hypocrisy—a level of which challenges a title long held by TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart—Vitter’s voting record causes far-right conservatives to wet their britches in glee, an appropriate reaction to a politician whose paid paramours claimed he had a diaper-wearing fetish.   

If any doubts remain about Vitter’s quirks and misogyny, he erased the questions by allowing an aide with a criminal record of domestic abuse to act as the “women’s issues” representative in his Washington Senate office. 

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/06/23/vitter_aide_abuse 

At a photo op last week when Vitter officially registered as a candidate for re-election, he refused to discuss the aide’s misconduct and position on his staff. The Senator abruptly ended an impromptu news conference and fled from the courthouse. In an editorial today, the Baton Rouge Advocate took him to task over the issue and his unwillingness to offer an explanation.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/98293574.html

I figured Vitter would lay low for a couple of days. But I learned long ago that desperate politicians are apt to embrace any issue they believe consituencies support. The Republican Senator obviously believed he was standing before a rally of morons Sunday evening when he voiced his support for lawsuits by so-called birthers, who continue to question whether President Obama was born in Hawaii.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100713/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_republican_senator_birthers

And the now the video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/13/david-vitter-birther-gop_n_644031.html

Because the nation’s mental institutions are already overcrowded, birthers have been deemed harmless to our health and safety, and are allowed to run free in society. In fact, a good number of these folks were cured of the birther delusion by learning to read something besides viral e-mail. Vitter and former CNN commentater Lou Dobbs—another Harvard graduate, believe it or not—may be last “educated” people in the country to exploit the birther issue.

Anyway, I wait with bated breath for Senator Vitter’s next stupid stunt. He is far more entertaining that Governor Smarty Pants. Even though he has a comfortable lead in the most recent polls, I am naive enough to believe voters will recognize his shortcomings and allow him to become a lobbyist—an advocate perhaps on behalf of ladies of the evening.

I will certainly miss him when he is gone. But if  re-elected by some strange set of circumstances, I can then ask the same question I posed at the beginning of this post. But with a slight variation.

“Are Louisiana voters brain dead, or what?”

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.

The dumbing down of America continues. In 2008, I expected former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to go away and devote her time to shooting wolves from helicopters. But like a persistent virus, her simple-minded populist solutions to complex problems spreads among a discontented segment of society, as well as opportunistic politicians and wild-eyed pundits on radio and television.

The latest victim of populism fever is Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. For nearly three months, Governor “Smarty-Pants” has spent nearly every waking hour in close range of television cameras that are covering the unfolding oil spill tragedy on the Gulf Coast. No doubt, he should be a leader in the battle to save the environmental and economic future of south Louisiana. But somewhere along the way, he seems to have been infected with Sarah Palin disease. Jindal has taken the attitude that he doesn’t need the advice of no stinking scientists, environmentalists and biologists.

For an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar, Governor Smarty Pants insistence that he knows more than all the experts seems curious. A mark of intelligence is a willingness to listen. But apparently, the only thing Jindal hears is his soaring fabvorability polls—most recently at 74 percent.

The man who would like to be President could probably add a few more points to his popularity rating by shooting BP executives from helicopters. Come to think about it, though, Palin has already cornered the market on shooting unarmed creatures from above. Maybe Jindal can lure BP officials into the churches where he trolls for votes when not jumping in front of TV cameras. His prey would then have a fighting chance since the Governor’s signature is now on a bill allowing concealed weapons in church sanctuaries. I know there are certain restrictions, but who reads the small print.

Anyway, I’m digressing into silliness. Back to the more serious business of political exploitation of the oil spill disaster. Baton Rouge’s Sunday Advocate has a front page story that does not speak well of LSU scientists, nor the Jindal Administration. An LSU professor and advisor to the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration told the newspaper that he and panel members had the same concerns as the federal government about the Governor’s insistence of constructing sand berms and rock jetties to block the flow of oil into marsh lands.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/98183534.html

In effect, Louisiana’s coastal “protection” panel of experts remained publicly silent because of the political ramifications. In other words, don’t rock the populist boat of Governor Smarty Pants, even though they believed his plan would have hurt more than help protect the fragile marsh land.

Unrelated to the Gulf oil spill was another weekend news article offering insight about the Sarah Palin syndrome. A study by a bunch of academic pointy-heads concluded that when people accept misinformation as reality, actual facts will not change minds under most circumstances.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full

I know the study was probably conducted by liberal elitists. Even so, how about the birthers? Nothing changes their minds. I wish they were an extreme example. Sadly, the viral e-mail that often arrives suggests otherwise. And as a matter of personal corroboration, I have right-wing friends and family members who spit in the face of facts that dispute beliefs and/or opinions that are patently ridiculous. To be fair, the hardcore left is just as hard-headed. Worse, though, are journalists who never allow facts to get in the way of a good story.

As far as I know, the only antidote to protect against the Sarah Palin virus is reading. But too many people gave up that habit long ago in favor of simply listening. And what they listen to is a carrier of the disease of ignorance.

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.

The distance on a baseball diamond between the pitcher’s mound and homeplate is 60 feet, six inches. From that vantage point, the pitcher can determine the number of fingers displayed by the catcher for a fastball, curve ball, slider, etc. Ideally, the pitcher will then throw the ball within centimeters of his target. It is no big deal. Unless, of course, the pitcher misses the target and a batter sends the ball sailing over the fence.

Having cited this example of distance, I find it incredible that news reporters are whining about the U.S. Coast Guard and BP establishing restrictions that bar them from approaching within 60 feet of active cleanup operations and other activities related to the Gulf Coast oil spill.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/bp-media-clampdown-journa_n_636317.html

Maybe news organizations have assigned near-sighted news people to cover the catastrophe. Or legally blind reporters, who hope the damage can be traced in Braille. Or just maybe the people covering the oil spill need something to bitch about besides the unfolding disaster. Whining is, after all a characteristic of folks in the news business. Certainly, I did enough in 30 years as a reporter/muckraker.

In the past, much of my media bashing has focused on the timidity of the news media. I expressed dismay after learning that reporters obeyed unofficial orders issued by self-important underlings not to approach certain public areas. In my lifetime as journalist, I used an obscene two word phrase when jerks tried to block my access to areas that were clearly public. Not once was I arrested, although I would have welcomed the opportunity to be dragged away in handcuffs. Deep down, I had a yearning to be a journalism martyr. Indeed, in those rare instances when my name appeared in newspapers for taking up some cause, I played the duplicious role of outraged newsman while secretly smiling to myself as I clipped the articles from the papers to show colleagues. It made me feel important. 

Anyway, a restricted 60 foot perimeter seems reasonable, That is presuming that the rule is flexible. In our journalistic arrogance, those of us in the media have always believed that we are above rules and regulations established for lesser beings. As a result, unreasonable expectations on the part of journalists have often brought about tighter restrictions in covering news events.

My career overlapped court decisions that tightened laws dealing with trespassing. Admittedly, I was sometimes a violator of the privacy of people. Many of my early exposés involved gathering undercover video in restaurants, businesses and oher places.  Much of the invasive filming was in Miami where I was staked out in a snoop van painted the same colors as a Southern Bell telephone truck. But teh van camera only reached as far as the doorways of locations. As I write in Odyssey of a Dereilict Gunslinger (I have to plug the book), I bragged in a long ago TV Guide article about orchestrating an undercover filming expedition inside a Miami Beach restaurant to capture pictures of mobster Meyer Lansky meeting with associates.

Getting pictures inside was a problem since my face regularly appeared on Channel Seven. Worse, Lansky and I had several previous encounters. So we recruited a new member to the spy team. Mercifully, the young producer will remain nameless. No need to embarrass him at this late date. But he was terrified of being caught, tortured and killed.

After assuaging his fears, we convinced the producer to dress as a telephone repairman and undertake a mission to get snapshots with a miniature camera concealed in a cigarette pack. Technology had not yet developed tiny video cameras that can be hidden in lapels.

On the appointed day, our nervous spy got out of the van without being pushed. Although a non-smoker, he paused to light up outside the restaurant. In a greatly exaggerated motion, he inhaled deeply and began coughing to near collapse. My photographer and I laughed so hard in the spy van that I feared the movement of the vehicle would attract the attention of passers-by.

Catching his breath, our undercover snooper staggered inside and found a table as far away from other diners as possible. Naturally, Lansky and friends also wanted to sit far away from the crowd. As luck would have it, they chose a table adjacent to the producer. It’s a wonder he didn’t keel over with a coronary. But he sucked it up and snapped off a roll of black and white film. The photographs were important in establishing links between Lansky, a group of bookies and Miami public officials.

Although the pictures were a significant part of my story, video we shot outside the restuarant from our van was equally, if not more important. Prior to going inside, Lansky encountered and embraced a racetrack owner, who had publicly denied on many occasions knowing the so-called “wizard of organized crime.” In fact, he had provided the state racing commission with an affidavit denying he knew the mobster. Our video caught the two men engrossed in a long, animated conversation. It resulted in the racetrack owner having to relinquish his pari-mutuel wagering license.

The restaurant adventure—part of a Peabody-award winning series—was one of my last inside filming efforts. Not long afterwards, the courts made trespassing on private property scarier than defamation and libel lawsuits. So my unsolicited advice to reporters is to know what is public and what is private while covering the oil spill. And if somebody makes an unreasonable effort to block access to public areas, don’t whine about it. Use my two-word response.

We need a few journalism martyrs on the Gulf Coast.

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.

Well, it only stands to reason that Dr. Glenn Beck has decided to establish his own university. After all, he is now the distinguished owner of an honorary doctorate degree bestowed on him by the late Jerry Falwell’s prestigious Liberty University.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/glenn-beck-university-fox_n_635980.html

Beck University is only taking baby steps in the beginning while waiting for accreditation by the American Association of Public Affairs Embeciles (AAPAE). On-line classes begin with three professors, including the Chairman of LSU’s political science department, James Stoner. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, Dr. Stoner is an avowed conservative, who has spoken to tea partiers about constitutional issues. He compared his Beck University lectures to guest appearances on the Comedy Channel’s Daily Show by prominent educators, politicians and authors. Stoner said his lectures would be devoted to educating students on matters relating to the U.S. Constitution. He has written extensively on the subject.

A pro-family activist and an expert on business affairs are also early recruits for Beck University’s faculty. I have a couple of suggestions for other faculty members. Brother Jimmy Lee Swaggart would be an excellent selection for a class titled, “Tears and Sobs on Demand.” And how about a class called, “Ten Ways to Escape a Straight Jacket”. Neither of the two subjects are offered by other colleges, although I must admit that I have failed to check the curriculum of Liberty University.

Dr. Beck’s “institution of higher learning” will not award credits for its classes. But the scam…oops, I meant to say tuition is a bargain—$75.00 a year or $45.00 for six months. Students will receive either an education or an indoctrination. And despite Dr. Glenn’s racism, I’m reasonably certain Beck University has an open door policy. But as a precautionary measure, African Americans, Hispanics and Muslims should mark “No Preference” when questioned about race and/or religion.

Seriously, folks, I can’t decide if Glenn Beck is the craziest son-of-a-bitch on radio and television or the smartest con man since the days of P.T. Barnum whose famous quote, “There’s a sucker born every minute” is personified by a large segment of Beck fans. Glenn never misses an opportunity to exploit his celebrity to earn a few bucks. In addition to radio and TV shows, he writes barely coherent books, does live video appearances carried in movie theaters at jacked-up admission prices, and he merchandises lunacy in every forum he can find.

I suspected for a longtime that Beck fans were in on the joke—that they really didn’t take his ramblings seriously. But he is the guy who claims to have started the tea party movement. And the folks shouting about taking back their government are deadly serious. Thankfully, it has failed to grow beyond the size of the Ross Perot base, if that big. November will tell the tale of the tea party’s influence on elections. Actually, a couple of the candidates they support are eligible to share a padded cell with Dr. Beck. But you never know the mood of voters.

I hate to use this cliché because people will think it is autobiographical, but “Ignorance is bliss.” For anyone that doesn’t get it, my middle name is Bliss. I was named after my paternal grandfather and don’t have a clue of its origin. I like to state that the name reflects the ecstasy of my wives—or should I say wife. The other two kicked my sorry ass out. Read all about it my book. But I digress.

Anyway, our nation has dumbed down—thanks in large part to television. Part of the blissful ignorance that has swept the country is a result of laziness. People don’t take the time to read newspapers, magazines or do a little research on the Internet to determine the truth of fables spread by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Keith Olberman and a whole slew of propagandists on the left and right. Like hogs at the trough, they consume whatever is fed to them.

Consequently, politicians treat voters like simpletons. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote this week about his surprise in learning that a U.S. Senator with a dumb-downed commercial was in fact a pretty smart guy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/05/AR2010070502659.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

In an era when the Internet puts news and background at our finger tips, it is distressing to know that so many people live twitter lives. If Beck University is to succeed, its founder may need to reduce class time to 140 characters.  

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.

Varying shades of truth influence nearly all aspects of our lives. Indeed, there is a lot of truth in the cliché, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” We tend to see many things through the prism of our cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, education, prejudices, and personal experiences and preferences.

As an investigative reporter for thirty years, my job was to discern the always elusive real truth. In fact, the only reason for the existence of investigative reporters is the need to expose truth. Still, my truth often deviated from the interpretations of people with access to the same set of “facts.” As a result, courts sometimesdecided the accuracy of my exposés. Fortunately, I never lost. Which is the main reason I survived for three decades in a career noted for its short shelf life.

I was reminded of my “quest for truth” while reading an unrelated news story about retiring U.S. Representative William Delahunt of Massachusetts. The seven-term Congressman is invoking his lame duck privilege by proposing legislation that would be the equivalent of political suicide for colleagues running for re-election. Delahunt’s bill imposes state sales taxes on goods sold on the Internet. Some states already receive revenue from Internet sales. Delahunt’s measure, which makes the tax mandatory nationwide is probably dead on arrival in Congress.  

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20009603-38.html 

Many years ago, Bill Delahunt and I were comrades in arms in “defending truth and justice.” He was District Attorney of Norfolk County, Massachussets and I was a lame duck investigative reporter for Boston’s ABC affiliate, WCVB, then described in the New York Times as the nation’s best local television station—a title it was willing to relinquish in favor of higher ratings and bigger profits.

Anyway, my swan song WCVB exposé accused various lawmen of subverting the criminal justice system to frame Myles J. Connor, a notorious art thief and career criminal with an uncanny talent for bargaining his way out of prison. But as I wrote in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, a deal he made with Delahunt to help locate the bodies of two murder victims backfired. 

Among Connor’s admirers was one of Walpole Prison’s most dangerous inmates, a mentally deranged vicious killer named Tommy Sperrazza. He occasionally signed letters, “Manson,” in tribute to California’s imprisoned lunatic. Sperrazza was a suspect in numerous homicides, including the murders of two teen-aged girls, who disappeared after witnessing him kill a man outside a Boston bar. Their bodies had not been found.

Looking again for keys to the prison gates, Connor approached Sperrazza with an absurd proposal. If Tommy would tell him the location of the bodies, Myles promised to hijack a helicopter following his release and fly into Walpole to facilitate the killer’s escape. Nobody in their right mind would believe such a proposition. But according to prison psychiatrists, Sperrazza was legally nuts. He drew a map for Myles.

The victims were buried in western Massachusetts, more than a hundred miles from the scene of the murder. Norfolk County District Attorney William Delahunt made a deal with Connor. In September, 1977, he led investigators to the girls’ remains. He was paroled after serving only one year of a four year sentence.

A team of lawmen decided it was time for payback. FBI agents first gathered evidence to charge him with bank robbery. The case was weak and a jury acquitted Connor, even though he later admitted to me that he was guilty.

There is, however, a law enforcement maxim, “If you can’t catch them on the swing, catch them on the slide.” Immediately after the innocent verdict, Connor was linked to the murders of the two girls. The chief witness was none other than Sperrazza. He said Connor gave him a primer in how to kill the victims―a remarkable claim for a guy believed to have murdered a dozen people or more. Myles barely knew Tommy outside of prison. Nor did he have a motive to commit the murders.

Enter on the scene John Connolly, the rogue FBI agent convicted two decades later for his dealings with informants. Connolly promised Sperrazza all sorts of rewards if he linked Connor to the murders, including financial aid for his family. If he didn’t cooperate, the agent threatened to file charges against the murderer’s wife and place their children in a foster home. Sperrazza’s decision didn’t require a lot of deep thought.

Based on the testimony of Tommy Sperrazza and a line-up of witnesses whose pictures should be on Post Office walls, Connor was convicted of murdering the two girls. His conviction flew in the face of an abundance of evidence that he was being railroaded. Justice prevailed when the verdict was overturned because prosecutorial misconduct.  Connor was acquitted following a second trial.

Meantime, FBI agent John Connolly was trying to even scores with Bill Delahunt for making a deal with Connor. He tried to induce one of the trial witnesses into framing the D.A. When I learned of the scheme, I confronted Connolly in an ambush interview that prompted the U.S. Attorney in Boston to label me “a tool of organized crime.”

It was an era in which Bill and I seemed to be standing alone in defense of the integrity of the criminal justice system and we have since remained good friends. Although I don’t generally take pleasure in another person’s pain, I couldn’t help myself when John Connolly got caught up in one of the FBI’s biggest ever scandals 10 years after my encounter with the agent. I thought it was poetic justice that he was sentenced to prison for corrupt relationships with informants.  

More recently, Delahunt has been criticized for failing to prosecute Amy Bishop in the 1986 death of her brother. She is the University of Alabama at Huntsville professor accused earlier this year of murdering three fellow faculty members and wounding two others after being denied tenure. The 1986 shotgun death of Bishop’s brother was ruled accidental. In the wake of criticism about the handling of the Massachusetts shooting, Delahunt and his then assistant D.A. claim that investigators failed to provide them evidence that Bishop intentionally killed her brother.

That is their version of truth. And for the sake of old times, I hope it is the real truth.   

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.

My ranking of life experiences is based on whether I will forever recall  events—good or bad. The latter is especially important as a warning sign to avoid repeating doing the same thing over and over and a expecting different result, a well known definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein. 

This past weekend, Annette and I viewed the impact of bad memories on tens of thousands of sober and happy people attending the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Antonio, Texas. I venture to say that none of the more than 50,000+ alcoholics (66,000 registered for the event, counting spouses and friends) joined AA because things were going so wonderfully in their lives. Pain motivates the sufferers to seek sobriety. That was certainly the case in my life—pain combined with a sense of hopelessness and fear.

ttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7094224.html

The AA gathering was San Antonio’s biggest ever convention. And an event that no doubt brought to town the largest number of smiling people. There is a widespread fear among boozers that getting sober means they will never again have fun. That was certainly my mindset. But I learned differently.

And so would anyone present at Thursday’s night’s dance and entertainment program, which was supposed to be held in a park adjacent to the convention center. But remnants of Hurricane Alex forced it inside, probably to the chagrin of the Fire Marshall. The high-energy rock band had a hip-to-hip crowd moving and shaking. A young paralyzed military veteran in front of me was swinging his upper torso so rapidly that I thought he was going to leap out of the wheelchair begin dancing. It was like a Grateful Dead concert for sober people. If Jerry Garcia was looking down from above—or up from Hades for that matter—he would would have been proud of our crowd.   

Sober people do have fun. And even remember what they did the next morning. Caught up in the no-fun syndrome, it took me more than one try to grab hold of the 12-step program. My early failures were a result of lacking a requirement for a full membership in the fellowship, which is a “desire to stop drinking.”

As an alternative to plugging the jug, I tried different experiments. The most notable was eating pizza and bananas before a night of partying. That was my diet prior to attending a party one night. And, lo, I was not arrested, my then wife didn’t leave me, nor did I get fired. In my twisted mind, that was successful drinking.

I was reminded of my weirdness at a Saturday morning meeting titled, Healing Through Laughter. A speaker said she got sick and crazy after drinking screwdrivers. This happened, she rationalized, because of an allergy to citrus fruits. 

Thankfully, I disabused myself of the belief that I would find a way to control my drinking in February, 1971. Today, as the last survivor—a scary thought—of small AA meetings that were instrumental in saving and salvaging my life, I considered myself an “oldtimer” in the fellowship. But my 39 years of sobriety fell seven months short of getting me a floor seat at Saturday night’s ”oldtimers meeting” in the Alamodome. Over 500 recovered alcoholics at the convention had 40 years or more of sobriety. A few were sober for over 60 years, making me a relative newcomer.

A dozen oldtimers each spoke for a few minutes, giving brief accounts of their arrival at AA while expressing appreciation for the sober lives they lived. There was a remarkable consistency in their views and humor. Important to recovery is the ability to laugh at ourselves, God’s pancea for pain.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous. And sitting in the nearly full 65,000-seat Alamodome at Saturday night’s oldtimers meeting, as well as Friday evening’s Flag Ceremony in which 73 countries were represented, was a miraculous experience I will never forget—an optimistic statement at an age when I do periodic memory check-ups to reassure myself that my loss of brain cells remains gradual. So far, so good. 

Miracles, according to my definition, are in the minds of beholders. Seeing more than 50,000 sober, happy alcoholics under a single roof certainly meets my definition.

I know for sure that my sobriety is a miracle.

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. 

celebrated their sobriety at the 75th