For A Rising 2009

The good people at "No Depression," the best-titled magazine in the universe, are not unexpectedly exulting about the PE's impending inauguration. All power to them and him. We are especially one nation under God at these times, and all Americans of good will wish our new President and his family Godspeed, just as they give thanks for the best efforts of President Bush.

"No Depression" also posted this Bruce Springsteen appearance at an Obama rally just before the election, a little speech followed by a solo accoustic performance of "The Rising." The song doesn't fit well with politics. It's about the sacramental self-sacrifice of brave firefighters and police officers, both Democrats and Republicans, on Sept. 11. But it's his song, and it's a magnificent one, so here goes:



***

On the New Nixon version of this post, an Episcopal Church colleague and I had the following exchange of comments:

1. thomas bushnell, bsg on December 30th, 2008 9:24 pm

   what about the possibility that president Bush did not give his best effort? or the possibility that a little more humility might have saved, oh, thousands or more of needlessly lost lives?

   i recall Bush having declared, early on, that “responsibility” was a call-word for him and his party, that the party of “accountability” was supposed to be his. well, at what point, exactly, does he get held accountable?

   i’m all for responsibility and accountability. it is sad that the republican party is so firmly set against it. i wonder today if Bush were asked if he could think of any mistakes he has made, whether he could come up with a better answer than last time?

2. John H. Taylor on December 30th, 2008 10:27 pm

   We may go ’round and ’round on Iraq, with the war’s congressional supporters, including the secretary of state-designate, and media boosters such as Andrew Sullivan and “The New Republic,” I’m sure, wanting to join in the accountability process. Mine was a modest suggestion that we give thanks for W.’s best efforts, whatever we take them to be. In recent weeks I’ve read articles praising him for dramatically increasing funding for community health clinics, the HIV-AIDS project in Africa, and the absence of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11. I suppose it’s possible to argue nonetheless that he made no best effort of any kind. It’s a free country!

Was RN "Forced Out?" Ask Mark Felt

An intriguing UPI interview with director Ron Howard. Reading Peter Morgan's play "Frost/Nixon" and then seeing it on stage, he began to ask himself some good scholar's questions about RN:

"I was rediscovering (the interviews by) watching the play, sort of realizing how brilliant a man Nixon really is," the filmmaker said. "Realizing he had a lot of tough decisions to make. ... (Going through in my mind:) 'Did he step down because it was the politically expedient thing to do? Was he forced out by political enemies -- the media. What really went on?'"

Neocons Waxing Neolib?

As historians get to work studying how foreign policy neoconservatives captured the heart and mind of the Bush administration, Jacob Heilbrunn argues that the neocons themselves may be getting set to run home to mamma -- the Democratic Party in general and the interventionist secretary of state-designate, Hillary Clinton, in particular. According to Heilbrunn, who also writes for the Nixon Center's "National Interest" (this article is in "The American Conservative"), the neocons never much liked Republicans:

There can be no doubt that as staunch cold warriors, or, if you prefer, liberal internationalists, the neocons viewed the Republican Party, which was led by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, both realists and promoters of détente, with unease. The neocons, who had started out as Trotskyists, espoused a social-democratic program in domestic policy. Essentially, they were Hubert Humphrey Democrats. The neocons clustered around Sen. Scoop Jackson, whose adviser was Richard Perle. They didn’t want détente with the GOP itself; they beseeched Democrats to decry their opponents as selling out human rights and American ideals.

Ron Howard And I, Molding Young Minds

Occasionally I get questions about President Nixon from middle- and high-school students. In the interests of transparency, and so people don't think we're too cravenly exploiting such access to impressionable young minds, here's the latest exchange:

How did the complications after the burglary affect Nixon's presidency? Please Explain.

The Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, was solved pretty quickly. The burglars were arrested and put on trial. The problem for President Nixon was the appearance that he had participated in a cover-up of the degree to which people working at his re-election committee and in the White House itself were involved in the burglary by knowing about it in advance and even planning it. There is no evidence that President Nixon knew about the burglary ahead of time. Until his death in 1994, he never really understood why it had even taken place. But he did acknowledge after his resignation in 1974 that he had not worked hard enough to get to the bottom of it. On the White House tapes in June 1972 and again in March 1973, he is heard seeming to agree to a cover-up. I don't believe that he had criminal intent. But many people believe he did.

If the Watergate never happened, how do you think history would have judged Nixon's presidency?

Without Watergate, Richard Nixon's Presidency would be remembered as a great success because of his opening to China, improved relations with the Soviet Union, nuclear arms limitations, ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam and return of our prisoners of war, and course-changing policies in the Middle East, plus his progressive domestic policies including the war on cancer, establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, and peaceful desegregation of public schools in the deep south.

How badly did Nixon damage the country? How long did the country take to heal?

The United States suffered because of President Nixon's actions during Watergate as well as the severe cultural, social, and political strains placed on it during the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially our argument with ourselves about the Vietnam war, which he inherited from the Johnson and Kennedy administrations. In a way, the argument over Vietnam continues, as you perhaps have seen in the debate over the Iraq war.

What problems occurred in the economy after the burglary? How did they resolve the problem?

While Watergate had no direct economic consequences, the deteriorating economy in 1973-74, especially rising gasoline prices and a recession, made President Nixon more unpopular than he would have been if Watergate had unfolded in good economic times.

Perfect Songs: "Six Days On The Road" (1963)

Steve Earle and the Dukes (song by Carl Montgomery and Earl Green)

Castro/Nixon

As the Cuban government celebrates the proud achievement of perpetuating Stalinism for 50 years, a reprise of a couple of my New Nixon blog entries from early 2008, as Fidel passed the fatigues to Raul. The first, posted on Feb. 23, was written after a distinguished journalist tried to lay what he characterized as the failure of U.S. policy at the feet of you-know-who:

In this NPR commentary, Daniel Schorr (a distinguished reporter and commentator and regular participant in Nixon Center programs in Washington) argues that 50 years of misguided U.S. policy toward Cuba began when Vice President Nixon, after meeting Fidel Castro, said he was “incredibly naive about communism.” Schorr implies that every misstep in U.S. Cuba policy, from the Bay of Pigs invasion to the Kennedy Administration’s assassination schemes, grew from RN’s observation. That’s hard to believe based on Mr. Nixon’s complete analysis, contained in a long memo he sent President Eisenhower after meeting alone with Castro for three hours in April 1959:

Whatever we may think of him he is going to be a great factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly in Latin American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere. He is either incredibly naive about communism or under Communist discipline — my guess is the former, and as I have already implied his ideas as to how to run a government or an economy are less developed that those of almost any world figure I have met in 50 countries. But because he has the power to lead to which I have referred, we have no choice but at least to try to orient him in the right direction.

When Castro argued that his people didn’t want free elections because they’d produced bad results in the past, Mr. Nixon replied that he should therefore hold elections as soon as possible “to restore the faith of the people in the democratic processes.” Castro soon demonstrated that he had no interest in redeeming Cuban democracy. As for the naive faith in communism Mr. Nixon identified, it laid waste to Cuba’s economy and turned it into Moscow’s pawn (and a potential ground zero) in the missile crisis of 1962.

Mr. Nixon acknowledged the force of Castro’s personality, predicted his regional influence, and tried to persuade him to serve his people. How could he have done better?

And from Feb. 19:

One of Richard Nixon’s last acts as an elder statesman was calling on the U.S. to drop its generations-long embargo of Cuba. In his book Beyond Peace, published posthumously in 1994, he said that it was time for those who hoped squeezing Castro would drive him from power to cry uncle. Fourteen more years of the embargo have amply proved Mr. Nixon right. Instead, he wrote in ‘94, since Castro no longer posed a threat to the U.S. or its interests, “[I]t is time to shift the central focus of our policies from hurting Cuba’s government to helping its people….This means we should drop the economic embargo and open the way to trade, investment, and economic interaction, while insisting that ideas and information be allowed to flow as freely as goods.” Until now, U.S. policymakers have chosen to wait Castro out. As he leaves the stage, perhaps it’s set for a last-act flourish by President Bush: A visit to Havana, Nixon-in-China style.

Too late for W. An opportunity for O?

The World Has Seen A Great Light

Star tip to the Rev. Cn. Joanna Satorius

Hard Times Are Theologically Neutral

As Episcopalians leave the church in disputes over women's ordination and the sacramental status of gay and lesbian people, much is made of the financial difficulties sometimes faced by those who remain. But in hard times, those who have left suffer, too, as this Wall Street Journal article shows:

The rector of [St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Easton, Maryland], Bishop [Joel Marcus] Johnson, attracted like-minded conservatives who disliked Episcopal innovations, such as ordaining female priests. In 2005, the church borrowed $850,000 to buy a much larger space that had once belonged to a Roman Catholic parish.

The 1868 Gothic revival structure was large for Bishop Johnson's congregation of 50 people. But the gregarious Midwesterner, who once raised money for a ballet troupe and orchestra, said he was confident his ministry and donations would grow. "I'm well liked, I'm a lucky man," he says he felt at the time. He wooed real-estate agents, bankers and well-heeled locals -- some of whom didn't even attend the church -- and received pledges worth $200,000.

Some donors said they were impressed with the bishop's generous food pantry and help given to local Hispanics. For a time, Bishop Johnson said Mass in Spanish on Friday nights for workers at a crabmeat processor, and the parish also offered English classes.

"He served a part of this community that often times does not get served well," says Lee Denny, president of the local General Motors dealership. Mr. Denny, an elder in Easton's Presbyterian Church, donated $10,000.

But expenses mounted. There were mice in the basement and bats in the belfry. It cost about $45,000 to stanch creeping black mold. Once the local Catholic parish began saying Mass in Spanish, it drew off most of St. Andrew's immigrant members. Weekly donations dropped to about $600 from $1,425 three years ago, says Bishop Johnson. And many of those who had pledged $200,000 toward the mortgage payments told the bishop they needed to delay their gifts, saying their stock portfolios were down.

Last February, the church couldn't meet its monthly interest payments. The lender, Talbot Bank, a unit of Shore Bancshares Inc., foreclosed in August, seeking $950,000, including principal and unpaid interest. It was one of five properties Talbot foreclosed on in the last two years, but the only church, says W. David Morse, a vice president at the bank.

Hat tip to Kris Elftmann

Sino-U.S. Ties, Like Marriages, Strained by Money

AP's survey of the approaching 30th anniversary of the establishment of U.S.-PRC relations, which began under Richard Nixon:

The countries have now developed a more "complex and mature" relationship — one that can withstand the inevitable frictions that will arise, said Zhu Feng, director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

But it is the level of economic interdependence that has become most striking. China now owns more than $500 billion in U.S. government bonds, more than any other nation. During the presidency of George W. Bush, as Chinese exports to America boomed, China's trade surplus hit $163.3 billion in 2007.

The biggest challenge going forward will not be political so much as economic, experts say. With the countries' economies so deeply linked, the continuing global financial crisis will take top priority for Barack Obama when he assumes the presidency Jan. 20.

"Both of us are feeling the pain of the economic slowdown. The question is whether we're going to be able to find a way to work cooperatively or whether we fail and move toward blaming each other," [veteran diplomat and China watcher J. Stapleton] Roy said. "If anything has been shown, it's that our economies are so closely linked now, neither can punish the other economically without inflicting pain on itself."

Applying vs. Manufacturing Band Aids

Body Parts:

The New Deal never ended the Great Depression, though it prevented the collapse from spreading like a contagion beyond its 1933 limits. That needs to be understood. Government welfare saved lives by preventing starvation, e.g., but government welfare did not bring prosperity. The economy began to rebound when war broke out in Europe, creating a market for American military manufacturers--ships, airplanes, tanks, guns, ammunition, clothes, food. Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and China began to buy American weapons and munitions through Lend-Lease. When the US entered the war in 1942, the American economy was unthrottled and prosperity returned (though consumption was restrained by defense policy limits on consumer goods). It was not that war itself brought prosperity; it was the unleashing of the economy. The war required that as much food and goods be produced as Americans could produce by working 24/7. It was agricultural and industrial productivity that made the nation prosperous. That is the lesson for today and a lesson that Obama and his economic advisors need to learn.

The Tragic Cycle Of Middle East Violence

As we pray for a just end to the violence in Gaza and elsewhere, two divergent perspectives.

Yosi Klein Halevi:

It was Israel at its best. In response to random attacks aimed at its civilians, Israel launched precise attacks aimed at terrorists. In place of political schism, Israel suspended election campaigning, and initiated coooperation between government and opposition. Instead of illusions about an imminent peace agreement with Bashar Assad or about half a negotiated peace agreement with half of the Palestinian leadership, we exhibited sobriety and a willingness to defend ourselves. And instead of military confusion and ineptitude, as we displayed in Lebanon two years ago, we showed the most impressive display of our intelligence, air power, and psychological warfare in decades.

Pat Buchanan:

About Israel's right and duty to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, it must expect retaliation. Nor can Hamas claim some right to dictate the limits of that retaliation.

Yet the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question. And crass Israeli politics seems to be behind this premeditated and planned blitz.

With Likud's hawkish "Bibi" Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor's candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas.

Kadima Party candidate and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has an even greater need than the highly decorated Barak to show toughness. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, departing in scandal, wants to exit in a blaze of glory, to blot out the memory of a botched war against Hezbollah that he launched in the summer of 2006.

***

Pat Buchanan's assertion about the lack of casualties from Hamas rockets seems strange in view what Alan Dershowitz writes:

The rockets are designed exclusively to maximize civilian deaths, and some have barely missed schoolyards, kindergartens, hospitals, and school buses. But others hit their targets, killing more than a dozen civilians since 2001, including in February 2008 a father of four who had been studying at the local university. These anticivilian rockets have also injured and traumatized countless children.

Bruce's New Tune: "My Lucky Day"

From the new album "Working On A Dream," out Jan. 27

The Deficit Non-Terminator

Opposing spending cuts at any level of government in the teeth of the recession, Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Krugman awards the booby prize to budget-cutting governors, especially California's:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, in particular, deserves some jeers. He became governor in the first place because voters were outraged over his predecessor’s budget problems, but he did nothing to secure the state’s fiscal future — and he now faces a projected budget deficit bigger than the one that did in Gray Davis.

I Guess. But What Was That Third Thing?

Garrison Keillor:

We have a new president coming in and I'm delighted about that and also pleased that he's a man of great discipline and decorum and isn't full of himself or vindictive and righteous and he invited that evangelical guy to give the invocation at the inauguration. Bravo, Barack. Enormous progressive changes have been wrought by mannerly people in ordinary clothing.

Who's Kindled? Hugh's Kindled!

We got another one, and influential, too. Among Hugh Hewitt's '09 resolutions:

I intend to master my Kindle and my iPhone...

"RN Seemed Very Human To Me"

A moving observation by Maarja Krusten, historian and former Nixon tapes archivist at the National Archives:

As to why it took ["Frost/Nixon"'s Frank Langella] acting largely on intuition to present a Nixon to whom people could relate, rather than having a writer capture that in a book of popular history, I'm not the best person to explain why that was. I voted for RN and sent him a letter of support to his home in San Clemente when he resigned in 1974. Two years later, I joined the Archives as a NARA employee. I spent some time working with his White House documents. But mostly, my career at NARA centered on the tapes. I spent ten years working solely with his tapes, listening to thousands of hours of his conversations. Some I found sad and even wrenching to listen to. I felt a great deal of sympathy for him, even though he bore some responsibility for some of what happened. Obviously, RN long has seemed very human to me.

The Ghost Of Beijing Future?

An "Economist" writer, passing Christmas in a Beijing bookstore, reflects on the interrelatedness in China of economic and political stability:

Earlier in the week the authorities had arrested one of the country’s best known political activists, Liu Xiaobo, after he and some 300 other academics, lawyers, journalists and other intellectuals circulated a petition known as Charter 08 (echoing Charter 77, a document signed by dissidents in Czechoslovakia in 1977 calling for human rights protection).

The petition called for sweeping reform, including freedom of the press and the right to form opposition political parties. As the economy sputters, a pillar of the party’s legitimacy (its ability to deliver growth) is beginning to wobble. Such demands are the last thing the party wants in these anxious times. Officials are desperate for the middle class to get out and shop in order to help take up the slack caused by plummeting demand for China’s exports.

There's An Alternate View Of Watergate...

...that smells a little like a coup d'etat. It's creepy, so if you're still in a Christmas mood, don't go here.

An African Priest's Tough Love

Laurie Goodstein's touching article about the four-year pastorate in Oak Grove, Kentucky of a Roman Catholic priest from Kenya, Rev. Chrispin Oneko. In his prior ministry, people had evidently not felt as sorry for themselves:

He confessed that he had an easier time relating to white Americans than African-Americans because he did not understand why blacks carried such resentments toward the United States.

“Their ancestors are long gone,” he said. “They are bitter for I don’t know what.”

He has little tolerance for what he sees as unnecessary self-pity. When an unemployed Vietnam veteran told him he blamed his war experience for his poverty, Father Oneko said he told him: “I blame you, because military people have so many opportunities. You are getting some pension from the government, so you should not complain.

“There are some poor people, poorer than you, somewhere, in Africa, in Jamaica,” Father Oneko said. “But you, at least you have freedom. You have somewhere to sleep.”

And of course there were the inevitable civics lessons from his devoted laypeople:

“My husband was driving him down 41A and there was a big old statue of Uncle Sam,” said [Marie] Lake, who owns an accounting business and keeps the church’s books. “He thought it was Sam from Sam’s Club wholesale.”

Perfect Songs: "Promised Land" (1965)

Chuck Berry

Salvation Of Journalism Begins At Home

I got my daughters, 20 and 24, Kindles for Christmas. The elder has signed up for the two-week trial subscription to the New York Times.

No Heavenly Middle Ground

Showing how modern Christian evangelicalism is rooted in early 20th century fundamentalism, Pastor David Stokes says that a rapprochement between evangelicals and political liberals is almost impossible:

Evangelicals, those who take the Bible and their faith seriously, need to realize that when it comes to issues like gay marriage – even abortion – there is not really any middle ground with those on the left, even the so-called Christian left.

Rick Warren has spent a great deal of time and money, investing his ministry in initiatives that are outside of the normal evangelical box. He has worked tirelessly in Africa and elsewhere on the issue of AIDS – and has cultivated a compassionate and understanding persona when it comes to dealing with issues and ministry challenges stemming from same-sex attraction.

What Warren has not done, nor will he ever do, is to reach the point where he declares that homosexual behavior is not sinful. He will not do this because he is a Biblicist....

Unless evangelicals are willing to say that the Bible does not call homosexual behavior sinful, no amount of posturing will change anything.

It is sort of like the Israeli-PLO land-for-peace narrative. It will never work because the PLO does not think Israel should exist. Conceded acreage will not assuage that.

You Know, If It Had Been Palin...

Robert Nedelkoff on Caroline Kennedy's interview with the New York Times:

In what must have been a conversation lasting about 40 or 45 minutes, she uses “you know” no less than 138 times. Especially impressive are two occasions where she uses the words five different times in one sentence - or what would be a sentence, if it were not, in both cases, a chain of clauses with no grammatical conclusion....

And while it is true that quite a few Senators, past and present, have been as inarticulate as Ms. Kennedy, very few among them have used what facility of speech they had to assert, as Ms Kennedy more or less does in this interview, that they should be in the United States Senate, well, because they want to be there, whether or not there are more qualified candidates for the job.

"Frost/Nixon" Defrosts The Historical Nixon

The most riveting scene in "Frost/Nixon" is completely fabricated, as playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan has candidly admitted. A tipsy former President (Frank Langella) calls David Frost (Michael Sheen) and describes them as a pair of overachievers out to show the world that they were good enough. He says that by "our success" in their televised interviews, they'll prove their critics wrong.

Frost gulps and agrees with RN's analysis. You get the feeling that he'd never voiced his own fears and motivations or even admitted them to himself. Imagine that: A fun-loving child of the 1960s bowing to the superior introspection of the most introverted and outwardly stoic of Depression-bred public figures. He then warns Nixon, "Only one of us can win."

About that, the fictional Frost is wrong. Thanks to the original Frost-Nixon interviews, the British TV personality won the fame and riches he craved. Thanks in part to Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon," the historical Nixon is beginning to win the measure of redemption he never dared hope for in life.

As my New Nixon colleague Frank Gannon has noted, Langella's gripping Nixon, like the statesman's milieu he occupied and the world he changed for the better, is large and consequential. He dominates almost every scene in which he appears. (One exception is his awkward, imaginary appearance before something called the Orthodontists Society of Houston, the kind of speaker's circuit event that he never did.) When Nixon passes through a room in the movie, the factotums and crew members part like the Red Sea. It's obvious why alarmed Nixon critic Elizabeth Drew called Howard "dishonorable." His Nixon shatters the confines of marginalization, one-dimensionality, and caricature thrust upon the historical Nixon as the result of Vietnam-era passions. It's the first film Nixon worthy of the real thing, the first that will help younger audiences begin to understand him and his tumultuous era.

Not surprisingly, the film doesn't convey much Watergate understanding. Its main conflict, between TV lightweight and political heavyweight, depends on fudges. Morgan and Howard misconstrued RN's famous "if the President does it, that's means it's not illegal" as being about Watergate rather than a plan to increase surveillance of domestic militants during wartime. As for Watergate itself, the movie Frost accuses Nixon of having claimed he didn't know about the break-in until June 23, which is obviously untrue. He read about it in the paper on June 18, along with the rest of the world.

All in all, "Frost/Nixon" is conventional in its failure to communicate that Watergate and Vietnam were inextricable. Whether Mr. Nixon ever intended a criminal cover-up of the June 17 burglary is doubtful. The preponderance of the White House tapes from 1972 show that he believed that anyone involved in the burglary itself (as opposed to previous national security matters) should own up. Russ Baker's intriguing if highly speculative new book, Family of Secrets, asserts that President Nixon correctly assumed from the beginning that the botched burglary was a CIA setup, but that's a blog for another day.

At the film's climax, Langella's Nixon owns up by saying he let the American people down, a moment that occurs after adjutant Jack Brennan (portrayed by the less-entertaining-than-the-real-McBrennan Kevin Bacon) panics and interrupts the final taping. Afterward, James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell), the most anti-Nixon of Frost's team members, exults at seeing the former President's face "ravaged by self-loathing and defeat."

It's a deceptive denouement, since it was actually Frost who interrupted the taping after misunderstanding a sign the real Brennan was holding up that said "let him talk." Mr. Nixon had chosen to make a statement of accountability. Neither Frost nor Reston maneuvered him into it.

Besides, self-loathing wasn't in Mr. Nixon's nature. By his death in 1994, he was at peace with what he had achieved in the nearly 20 years since his resignation, both personally and publicly. What mattered most, besides his family, was having the ears of his successors, and at that he succeeded, advising each one from Ford to Clinton and even playing a decisive role in U.S. relations with Russia and China.

Contrary to most conventional wisdom, he never expected broader rehabilitation during his lifetime. He said it would take at least 30 years before he began to get a fair shake. Yet again, he called it about right.

Pastor's A Big Hit With Singer

When Melissa Etheridge learned that she and Pastor Rick Warren would be appearing together at a Muslim Public Affairs Council conference, she called him "in the spirit of unity," and he called back:

On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with Prop. 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about Prop. 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife's struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Directors And Historians, Getting It Wrong

Richard David Boyle, writing about "Nixon" and "W" director Oliver Stone:

Roosevelt was crippled and could not walk, [and] John F. Kennedy had White House swimming pool orgies with his secretaries "Fiddle and Faddle." The press protected presidential secrets until Richard Nixon broke the law so openly, by ordering burglaries and destroying evidence, that occupiers of the Oval Office became fair game to people like Stone, who also directed the movie, "Nixon."

While I can't speak about Fiddle and Faddle, there's no proof Richard Nixon ordered either of the burglaries that destroyed his Presidency, though Boyle isn't the first journalist or historian to assert otherwise without any evidence. Respected historians Stanley Kutler and Rick Perlstein are among those whose sleight of hand with sources has earned them membership in the Non-Smoking Gun Club.

According to Boyle, Stone also reports that Bill Clinton told him that the unbearably pedantic "W" was "right on." How disappointing. I wonder how he'll feel when they make a movie about him sitting on the toilet. Here's my Oct. 31 review from The New Nixon:

In Oliver Stone's "W.," you can see George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) wipe himself after defecating. You see him eating constantly and showing hunks of food oozing between his teeth, spitting it at people as he talks, and nearly choking on a pretzel (true story). The constant sloppy drinking before he turns 40 goes without saying.

Stone and his writer mock Bush's faith, suggesting that he embraced Christianity after losing his race for the House so he wouldn't be "out-Texas'ed and out Christian'ed" again. They make up "Dallas"-like dialog between Bush and members of his family designed to show that he was jealous of his brother Jeb and obsessed with invading Iraq to show his father up as well as obtain his affection.

Everybody is a caricature except Laura ( Elizabeth Banks), the elder Bush (James Cromwell), and especially Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), shown strenuously resisting the Iraq War. Along among Bush's advisers -- Rice, Rumsfeld, and Rove are carefully rendered in cardboard -- Gen. Powell comes out of "W." smelling like a member of Barack Obama's cabinet.

And yet "W." isn't really about Bush at all. It's about the subterranean vein of bloodthirsty imperialism Oliver Stone identifies as an integral part of the American character. In "JFK," the darkness took the form of shadowy business interests whom Stone falsely said were behind the President's assassination (in which Stone disgustingly accuses Lyndon Johnson of complicity). In "Nixon," which didn't contain a single completely honest moment, the evil gremlins provoked the invasion of Cambodia.

In "W.", the third film in Stone's paranoid trilogy, the evil finally has a face. Dark America is personified as Dick Cheney, self-proclaimed architect of a new empire of oil. During a Dr. Strangelove turn in the situation room, Cheney tells the President and his aides that since the U.S., with five percent of the world's people, consumes a quarter of the world's energy, the obvious solution is an invasion of Iraq as a prelude to conquering Iran and colonizing the Middle East. "Good meeting," says Bush, who nonetheless is shown believing that there really are WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein's fall will bring democracy to the region.

As it may yet do. When Stone was making the movie and planning an autumn release, Iraq was going so poorly that everyone assumed it would dominate the election. It hasn't, both because of the economy and the success of Bush's policy over the last year. The Vietnam-obsessed Stone assumed Iraq was going the same direction as South Vietnam and Cambodia. As of now, it isn't. In this sense, W. looks smarter than "W."

As for Stone, now that he's made this mean, boring movie, 129 minutes of relentlessly detailed "Mother Jones" historical and policy analysis, maybe he'll do us and especially history a favor and lay off the Presidents. After all, no one will want to see Obama going to the bathroom while talking to his wife. Instead, Stone should use his vast influence to get Richard J. Barnett's early books back into print -- the ones about how the United States started the Cold War instead of the Soviet Union -- and finish out his career doing the work for which he was truly born: Teaching international relations at Sarah Lawrence.

Back To School With Nixon

Matt Miller in the New York Times on a Nixon policy blueprint that may have found its time.

His Suspicions Have Been Kindled

Timothy Noah is skeptical about Amazon's upbeat holiday sales reports, especially regarding the Kindle:

The New York Times reported on Dec. 23 that "the e-book has started to take hold." We "know" this "in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com's Kindle device," which is "out of stock and unavailable until February." The Post fronted essentially the same story in its business section on Dec. 27. But these newspapers were unable to report how many Kindles Amazon sold, much less how much revenue these sales generated, because Amazon won't release that information. We don't even know whether Amazon sold more Kindles this year than last. Amazon is famously stingy with financial numbers generally. This Christmas season, that's proving to be a winning strategy in dealing with a business press that, between layoffs and the usual holiday vacations, appears short-staffed to the point of utter witlessness.

"The Fix Is In"

Bill O'Reilly on the PE's relations with the media:

[I]f the liberal press didn't scream about the conservative preacher Rick Warren praying at the inauguration, you know the fix is in.

Quote Of The Day

The AP asked Caroline Kennedy about the elections she hasn't voted in since registering to vote in New York in 1988.

I was really surprised and dismayed by my voting record. I'm glad it's been brought to my attention.

"Doubt" About The Church's Future

You may have to love the church really to enjoy "Doubt," starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a priest and nun who clash over whether love or authority will prevail in Christ's earthly home. The story is set the year after JFK's assassination, as the world begins to go mad. You can't quite hear the guns in Vietnam, but the winds of change are gusting all around the parish school in the Bronx where she is principal and Fr. Flynn, played by Hoffman, is priest. (That's Hoffman above with Amy Adams, who plays Sister James, a young teacher who is tortured by her own uncertainty about him.)

Sister Aloysius Beauvier, Streep's character, is shown closing her office windows to keep the wind out. As far as Fr. Flynn is concerned, as he tells his congregation, the wind is propelling him toward new challenges. Whether those doing the huffing and puffing are church leaders covering up sexual abuse, the viewer never quite knows, which is what helps give the movie its power. The rest comes from John Patrick Shanley's story and script, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, as well as the work of two of the greatest actors in the world.

The post-Vatican II priest stands for "progressive education and a welcoming church" as well as the transcendent power of love. Complicating the picture is ambiguity over whether his enlightenment extends to man-boy affairs. Sister Aloysius is ambiguous as well -- slapping the boys upside their heads at mass while showing exceptional kindness to an aging nun as well as prophetic passion about protecting Donald Miller, an African-American 8th grader, from Fr. Flynn. She's convinced he's abusing the boy or planning to, and it's not just that Flynn's reform-minded and she's not. She really believes it; and yet you're never sure she's right. All you know for sure is that he's hiding something from his past. Then again, as it turns out, so is she.

The movie just won't let you take sides, even when it comes to civil rights vs. feminism. There's a powerful scene between Streep and Viola Davis, playing Donald's mother, who's desperate to get him into a decent high school and college and away from his abusive father. Her shy, isolated, sometimes bullied son is the first black child in the school, and he's come to depend on the priest's support. For complex reasons, even after Streep tells her that Fr. Flynn may be abusing Donald, Mrs. Miller can't bring herself to despise him. I was aching for the nun and mother to bond. Both were second-class citizens and victims of unjust systems. And yet Davis finally tells Streep, "I don't know if you and I are on the same side. I'll be standing with my son and those who are good to my son."

It's not just whether Fr. Flynn's love for the boy is appropriate. The movie also tangles with the question of whether God is just love, as some progressive Christians will tell you. Streep's character stands for the sometimes under-emphasized godly values of righteousness and discipline. As for deciding which values are supreme in the church, now, as 2,000 years ago, it's all about the sources of authority. Who decides what the rules are? Do we look to the Bible, the pope, or the General Convention of the Episcopal Church? Who's right, the progressive priest or the stern nun? It no doubt bespeaks Shanley's deep church roots that the movie won't say.

The story is set in the moment in American history when national authority also began to be up for grabs, as an accidental President is decisively elected in his own right and is preparing to escalate the war whose consequences are with us still. For most in the audience, the movie was a fascinating if frustratingly inconclusive struggle between two stubborn characters as they lived through the tensions between tradition and modernity. It's also about the continuing struggle over the governance of Christ's church. We don't quite believe in authority anymore ourselves; and yet we can't survive without it.

"Frost/Nixon" Praised By Close Nixon Colleague

Over at The New Nixon, the discerning and thoughtful Frank Gannon -- who sat at Richard Nixon's bedside taking notes when the former President thought he was dying in 1974 and, a few years later, helped him write his memoirs -- gives "Frost/Nixon" TNN's highest (and indeed first) movie rating of "five Checkers":

Frank Langella gives a serious and stirring account of RN. He wisely eschews imitation, much less impersonation. Aside from some of the obviously applied physical characteristics, and the adoption of a recognizably husky vocal timbre, Mr. Langella’s Nixon is convincing not because it is derivative, but because it is complete. In fact, quite unlike RN whose locution was formal and whose diction was precise, this Nixon speaks casually and colloquially and often even drops his “gs.” Mr. Langella uses his brain (and undoubtedly his heart) to embody the balanced elements of confidence, formality, toughness, shyness, insecurity, and vulnerability, and then renders them into a character that must move and compel even the people who knew RN, and have that high standard of comparison. Of course, that’s what acting at this exalted level is all about.

And Ron Howard, much of whose work has been open and optimistic and straightforward, has turned out to be the ideal director for this complex, essentially cerebral, and decidedly dark two finger exercise. He is above all a story teller, and he keeps his eye on Frost/Nixon’s clear, compelling, and chronological story line. And while he knows how to keep the story moving forward, he also shows a willingness —and the confidence— to slow things down and take the time it takes to let the story also sink in. This is brilliant directing — authoritative and unobtrusive.

RIP James, Alicia, and Sylvia Ortega

To talk his way into his mother- and father-in-law's Covina, California home on Christmas Eve, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo wore a Santa suit. We'll probably never know if he was also being ironic, whether he hoped to magnify his experience by delighting children and others at the party just before terrifying and murdering them. He killed nine people in all.

Whatever Pardo's intentions, irony had its way, as it so often does. As the world knows, Pardo had planned to escape to Canada after the assault, but because he'd been burned by the fire he set, he took his own life instead. Police said his Santa suit was fused to his body.

The photograph above of the home of James and Alicia Ortega, who died along with their daughter Sylvia (Pardo's estranged wife), was taken by the AP's Nick Ut, whose photo of a little girl who had been burned by napalm became emblematic of the Vietnam war.

Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

"DAAAAADDDDDYYYYYYYY, PLEEEEAAAASE!"

Parents of little girls will immediately understand how it happened that the PE's staff appear to have misled the press pool, which is supposed to follow him everywhere, that there would be no more news today. The terse report that went out this afternoon from pool members to the rest of the media:

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt issued the following statement to your pool: "With no further scheduled events for the day, a lid was called until further notice. The President-elect decided to take the girls to a water park and we assembled the pool as quickly as possible."

Would Two Kennedys In London Make A Right?

Steve Clemons, distinguished founding executive director of The Nixon Center, has written to friends promoting his intriguing idea that the PE should end the awkwardness created by Caroline Kennedy's senatorial ambitions by appointing her as ambassador to the Court of St. James's.

One potential problem is that her grandfather Joseph served in the same post, from which he notoriously resisted Winston Churchill's warnings about Nazi aggression, supported appeasement, tried to meet with Adolph Hitler without President Roosevelt's permission, and opposed wartime aid to Great Britain.

Londoners of a certain age may still wish to give an Ambassador Kennedy a piece of their minds.

Fancy Senator-Presumptive, Fancy House

Calling on Democrats, even as they massively expand government, to make sure it's FDR-style good government, Paul Krugman frowns:

And I have to say that Democrats are off to a bad start on that front. The attempted coronation of Caroline Kennedy as senator plays right into 40 years of conservative propaganda denouncing “liberal elites.” And surely I wasn’t the only person who winced at reports about the luxurious beach house the Obamas have rented, not because there’s anything wrong with the first family-elect having a nice vacation, but because symbolism matters, and these weren’t the images we should be seeing when millions of Americans are terrified about their finances.

Speak For Yourself, Richard

Self-flagellating nonsense from Richard Reeves:

Now, some of us, part of what history will almost certainly call a failed generation, will have to get out of the way: Many of us turned out to be more the problem than the solution. We are all in this together, but, like immigrants on the Lower East Side a hundred years ago, we are dependent on our children because they speak the new language and many of us cannot.

A Cousin In The Business

This photograph of Frank Langella and Michael Sheen from "Frost/Nixon," and all the stills from the production, were taken by my cousin Ralph Nelson, veteran of dozens of feature films. Check out his portfolio.

Chimerica

That's what one expert calls the umbilical link between Chinese cash and reckless borrowing by Americans that helped spell doom for the economy. Mark Landler has a complex but helpful (I think I understood it!) primer in the New York Times, part of the paper's seeming effort to lay as much blame for our crisis as possible at the clay feet of free marketeers at the Fed and in the Bush Administration.

In such articles, there's never much if anything about the irresponsibility of individuals who bought more house or more stuff than they could afford. It will be the government's job to save us from ourselves in the future, I guess, through improved economic manipulation and social engineering.

Landler's article started off sounding like a call to get mad at the Chinese. Better not, since, having allegedly helped cause the recession, they'll also be financing the recovery:

For China, too, this crisis has been a time of reckoning. Americans are buying fewer Chinese DVD players and microwave ovens. Trade is collapsing, and thousands of workers are losing their jobs. Chinese leaders are terrified of social unrest.

Having allowed the renminbi to rise a little after 2005, the Chinese government is now under intense pressure domestically to reverse course and depreciate it. China’s fortunes remain tethered to those of the United States. And the reverse is equally true.

In a glassed-in room in a nondescript office building in Washington, the Treasury conducts nearly daily auctions of billions of dollars’ worth of government bonds. An old Army helmet sits on a shelf: as a lark, Treasury officials have been known to strap it on while they monitor incoming bids.

For the past five years, China has been one of the most prolific bidders. It holds $652 billion in Treasury debt, up from $459 billion a year ago. Add in its Fannie Mae bonds and other holdings, and analysts figure China owns $1 of every $10 of America’s public debt.

The Treasury is conducting more auctions than ever to finance its $700 billion bailout of the banks. Still more will be needed to pay for the incoming Obama administration’s stimulus package. The United States, economists say, will depend on the Chinese to keep buying that debt, perpetuating the American habit.

Doggedly Resisting Snow Job

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan

The Twin Pillars Of The New Nixon

This post was originally published at The New Nixon on Dec. 25, 2008:

In the ongoing Bush vs. Nixon debate, Veteran political reporter Jules Witcover draws a distinction:

[T]hrough it all, Nixon’s image has managed to survive the kind of assault on his intellect to which Bush has had to suffer. Nixon continues to be widely regarded as having had a shrewd political mind, sustained perhaps by the books he wrote on foreign policy in his post-resignation years.

I’ve long believed that the two pillars of the restoration of Richard Nixon’s reputation in history are the recognition of his seriousness of purpose when it came to the pivotal issue of East-West relations and his effectiveness as a wartime commander-in-chief. More than a keen political mind, Mr. Nixon had a reconciling vision that contributed to a reduction in tensions between Moscow and the U.S. as well as the end of the Cold War. As for Vietnam, he and Gen. Creighton Abrams managed to turn a sure loser into a possible winner, and do so against titanic political odds.

By all accounts, “Frost/Nixon” takes Nixon seriously as an intellectual. One down. A few good books on Vietnam will help with the second pillar.

Christmas And "The Redemption Of Time"

Charles Moore on the lessons of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

When Scrooge is shown his own name, unmourned, on his tombstone by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, he repents and exclaims, "I shall honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year". And when he awakes on Christmas morning in a state of joyful commotion, he realises that "Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!"

It is a great psychological insight that after you have done something terribly wrong, and acknowledged it, you feel that you can regain your ownership of time. You feel free. In a recent newspaper interview with a nun who had emerged after 50 years in an enclosed convent to do a course as an art student, her strongest impression was that "People in London are rushing, always rushing – as if time were a tyrant rather than a gift." This Christmas would be a particularly good moment to throw off the tyranny and accept the gift. The doctrine of Christmas is that it is the redemption of time.

Hat tip to Larry Seigel

A Humanized Nixon? Bah, Humbug!

If you can't count on your home town newspaper, whom can you count on? But for its Christmas Day review of "Frost/Nixon," the Orange County Register used copy purchased via a news service from the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Colin Covert, who was appalled at director Ron Howard's worthy attempt to be fair to the 37th President:

[Actor Frank Langella gives] Nixon sympathetic, humanizing dimensions the man never possessed in real life....Ron Howard is too nice a guy to comprehend the cruelty that coexisted with Nixon's formidable intellect, so he becomes a co-conspirator in romantic revisionism.

"A New Horizon For Us All"

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas sermon:

[God] he has become flesh. He has come to live as part of a world in which conflict comes back again and again, and history does not stop, a world in which change and insecurity are not halted by a magic word, by a stroke of pen or sword on the part of some great leader, some genius. He will change the world and - as he himself says later in John's gospel -- he will overcome the world simply by allowing into the world the unrestricted force and flood of divine life, poured out in self-sacrifice. It is not the restoring of a golden age, not even a return to the Garden of Eden; it is more - a new creation, a new horizon for us all.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas e-card from the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation. That's Pat, Tricia, Julie, and Richard -- and, of course, Checkers.

The Twin Pillars Of The New Nixon

In the ongoing Bush vs. Nixon debate, Veteran political reporter Jules Witcover draws a distinction:

[T]hrough it all, Nixon's image has managed to survive the kind of assault on his intellect to which Bush has had to suffer. Nixon continues to be widely regarded as having had a shrewd political mind, sustained perhaps by the books he wrote on foreign policy in his post-resignation years.

I've long believed that the two pillars of the restoration of Richard Nixon's reputation in history are the recognition of his seriousness of purpose when it came to the pivotal issue of East-West relations and his effectiveness as a wartime commander-in-chief. More than a keen political mind, Mr. Nixon had a reconciling vision that contributed to a reduction in tensions between Moscow and the U.S. as well as the end of the Cold War. As for Vietnam, he and Gen. Creighton Abrams managed to turn a sure loser into a possible winner, and do so against titanic political odds.

By all accounts, "Frost/Nixon" takes Nixon seriously as an intellectual. One down. A few good books on Vietnam will help with the second pillar.

"Love Came Down At Christmas"

Jars of Clay, performing in December 2007

Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.

- Christina Rossetti

Everyone Go Home And Pay NY's Soda Tax

Your host as Emperor Augustus during the St. John's annual Christmas pageant, ordering everyone in the Roman Empire to go to the place of their birth to be registered (Luke 2:1). Paul E. said the plastic sword was not scary and that Russell Crowe should not feel threatened. Photo by Mike Cribbin

Next Year, We Tax Candy Canes and See's

To help battle obesity -- and, oh yeah, raise more money for the state -- New York's governor, David Patterson, has had this inventive idea:

In 2009 consumers will have to pay an 18% tax on non-diet sodas and sugary drinks.

Perfect Songs: "Merry Christmas From The Family"

Robert Earl Keen (1994)

The Non-Smoking Gun Club

Promoting his theory that the Bushes are the Texas devils of American politics, Russ Baker writes:

One of the fastest ways to raise eyebrows in politically savvy company is to suggest that Richard Nixon was not the villain of Watergate. Everyone knows that Nixon himself set loose the Watergate burglars and then oversaw the attempted cover-up that followed. We know this because the most famous journalists of the last fifty years—Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein—made their careers on that story. I thought I knew it too.

If "everybody knows" RN ordered the Watergate burglary, then everybody's been listening to historians and journalists who have said or implied as much, and without evidence. Here's more detail. Rick Perlstein joined the Non-Smoking Gun Club when, in Nixonland, he misconstrued a secondary source and made it appear as though the President had known in advance about the September 1971 break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Some Good News On Christmas Eve

New York Times:

Tumbling gasoline prices gave consumers more purchasing power last month, and led to a rise in real spending, even as personal income slips and Americans worry about their jobs in a rapidly weakening economy .

The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday that consumer spending, when adjusted for inflation, rose 0.6 percent in November, its largest gains in two years. The increase followed a 0.5 percent decline in October.

While the unadjusted rate of consumer spending declined 0.6 percent last month, following a 1 percent drop in October, economists suggested that the relative increase in spending was a rare piece of good news for the faltering economy.

Time Enough For Calvary

Assessing the broad range of Christmas criticism occurring in our opinionated culture, Michael Medved, in a thoughtful column, takes issue with those who say you shouldn't talk about Christ's birth without talking about the Cross:

This seasonal recognition doesn’t mean that preachers and teachers should forever forgo all religious messages more demanding than “peace on earth to men of good will” --- but there are better occasions for those evangelical approaches than office Christmas parties (and “a time to every purpose under heaven.”) For many Americans, Christmas serves as a point of entry (or re-entry) to Godly connection...

More Thinking, Less Understanding

Garrison Keillor on the blessing of worshiping in an unfamiliar church:

[S]lipping into St. Patrick's for Mass in Spanish is pretty wonderful. It's like a big family reunion at which I know nobody and so nobody is mad at me. Nothing said in Spanish offends me doctrinally or any other way. I squeeze into the crowd, under the placid stone faces of saints, the sweet smell of burning wax and a hundred varieties of cologne, and feel the religious fervor, and tears come to my eyes, and I light a candle, say a wordless prayer, and out into the cold I go.

It brought back memories of Christmas Eve in Copenhagen 20 years ago and how beautiful the sermons were before I started learning Danish.

A man gets a keener sense of the divine in a church that is not your own. Maybe Luther and Calvin and Jan Hus and all them were dead wrong and literacy is not the key nor an understanding of Scripture, and maybe the essence of Christmas is dumb childlike wonder and the more you think about it, the less you understand.

Allen, All In

As newly-indexed transcripts of the Vietnam-era White House conversations of Henry Kissinger go on line for the first time, researchers can get a more complete, uh, view of the antiwar movement. As the New York Times reports:

In April 1971, Mr. Kissinger accepted a call from the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who hoped to arrange a meeting between top Nixon administration officials and antiwar activists.

“Perhaps you don’t know how to get out of the war,” Ginsberg ventured.

Mr. Kissinger said he was open to a meeting. “I like to do this,” he said, “not just for the enlightenment of the people I talk to, but to at least give me a feel of what concerned people think.”

Then Ginsberg upped the ante. “It would be even more useful if we could do it naked on television,” he said.

Mr. Kissinger’s reply is transcribed simply as “Laughter.”

For This Particular Goose, Hold The Sauce

Old conventional wisdom: New York Times could imply that Sen. McCain had an affair even though there was no proof. New CW: Times won't report on alleged affair between its publisher and a possible future U.S. senator.

Watch The Guy Give Him A Dollar At The End

From "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music"

Hat tip to Gary "Boom" Baker

Secretary Of Not Eating Much Healthier

A Twitter friend, screen name food_democracy, has a link to a New York Times article saying that advocates of radical changes in the way Americans eat are disappointed by the PE's choice for agriculture secretary:

Last week, Mr. Obama appointed Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, which grows much of the nation’s corn and soybeans. Mr. Vilsack has talked about reducing subsidies to some megafarms, supports better treatment of farm animals and wants healthier food in schools. But his selection drew criticism because he is a big fan of alternative fuels like corn-based ethanol and is a supporter of biotechnology, both anathema to people who want to shift government support from large-scale agricultural interests to smaller farms growing food that takes a more direct path to the table.

A Star, A Star, Shining In The Night

It's Christmas Eve in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and on Dec. 23 in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, an evening star shines over St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church.

Moscow Benighted

Back from a visit to Moscow, Nixon Center president and "National Interest" publisher Dimitri Simes writes that while boutiques and restaurants seem as crowded as ever, all is not well outside the elite cocoon as falling oil prices and global malaise have their anticipated impact on the Russian economy:

[T]raveling by car through the Russian capital’s nightmarish traffic quickly reveals signs of trouble. The vast majority of the numerous construction sites appear frozen, with cranes standing idly and no crews in sight; pages of Russian papers are filled with obligatory bankruptcy announcements; and at the Alexander House, one of Moscow’s most prominent business addresses, there is no normal line in the cafeteria. Many employees of energy and consulting firms in the building have been put on unpaid leaves of undefined lengths. Nonprofits have been hit particularly hard. Few have any meaningful endowments, and with sponsors disappearing, many public policy and charitable organizations have had to cut their staff and programs dramatically.

With oil prices falling below fifty dollars, the figure on which the Russian budget is based, it is clear that 2009 will not be a rosy time for the Putin-Medvedev leadership.

Kome, Kindle, Kome!

The New York Times says it was the year of Amazon's amazing, market-altering, aesthetically pleasing book reader:

Whatever else it’s remembered for in the publishing industry, 2008 may be remembered as the year that e-books finally caught on. Kindles are a regular sight on my train these days, and seem poised to become as ubiquitous as iPods: due to unexpected demand (or shrewd marketing?) Amazon sold out well before the holidays and established a Kindle waiting list, elevating the device to the vaunted commercial realm of Birkin bags and Tickle-Me-Elmos. Meanwhile, executives at one publishing house recently told me they now read all of their manuscript submissions on Sony Readers, not paper, and they may eliminate bound galleys in favor of electronic review copies.

I've read 20 books on my Kindle since last Christmas, plus it's where I read the Times 80% of the time. We've been having a rainy autumn in Orange County. Some mornings my choices for the home town Register are the print edition in a leaky orange plastic bag on the driveway or the Kindle edition, which downloads to the reader on the nightstand before I awaken.

Each of those books cost $10, the newspapers no more than $15 a month. Most commentators, even the Times's Gregory Cowles, who wrote the blog item above, are principally focused on the changing aesthetics of reading. It reminds me of those who still insist that listening to a book isn't quite reading. What makes the Kindle and devices like it so revolutionary is the inevitable alteration of the pricing and financial structures bolstering print. They can save newspaper and book publishing. They can make reading cool again, especially among young people who wrongly insist that they get all the news they need by visiting the web sites they like. With their changeable font sizes, Kindles make every one of the 200,000 books available for download from Amazon accessible to those who can only read large-print books (we might ask those customers, as they survey the limited offers in large-print books compared with the Kindle, how they feel about the big aesthetic issues). And Kindles are as green as green can be.

Give one to a child this Christmas. Give one to a nursing home. And memo to the Times: Instead of just observing the Kindle, buy 100,000 of them and give them away to college students with one-year subscriptions.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan

Restoring Domestic Tranquility

Since July's earthquake, the Nixon Library's White House East Room has looked a little bare. Martha Washington's portrait had come tumbling down, which meant we had to get them both reframed. Long story! Isn't it always? That's Max, Martin, and Adolpho doing the honors, rehanging GW. We're just glad the father of our country made it home for the holidays. And don't worry: The portraits are facsimiles of the ones in the other East Room.

The Eau Claire Sound (And Smell)

Being highlighted this week by the good folks at the most aptly named music magazine in the world, "No Depression," is Eau Claire, Wisconsin's Bon Iver, who appeared recently on David Letterman:



Writes Andy Moore:

"Skinny Love" is a gothic campfire lament that features [Justin] Vernon's wood chop-strength steel guitar strumming. The song's intensity is fueled by Vernon's bandmates, all three of whom played drums on this selection: one with sticks over his snare, the other two pounding mallets prehistorically on individual floor toms, using both the head and rims of their drums to cast emotions into the thrall of Vernon's vocal pleas.

Vernon's falsetto is anything but pretentious. On the contrary, it's as though he found this high voice under a Dunn County fieldstone and took it home to tinker with it. He's an expressionist, and the tension in his metallic and pure voice comes from a place we've forgotten, or try to avoid....

[F]or all the band's astral trajectories, Bon Iver is rooted deep into northwestern Wisconsin soil. If patchouli is the smell of a Government Mule audience, Skoal is the smell of a Bon Iver crowd.

Chelsea's Angel

Read about it here.

Poppycock?

Old conventional wisdom: Nixon worse than Bush. New CW: Bush worse than Nixon. New Russ Baker book: Bushes destroyed Nixon.

Lights In Darkness For All God's Children

Mona Charen on Hanukkah:

It's possible that, like Christmas, it is celebrated in the dark of winter not because the events it memorializes happened in December but rather because this time of year demands a warm celebration.

Lisa's Lair

I go to church with superstar Orange County attorney Lisa Hughes, prominently quoted in an Orange County Register story about a decline in divorce filings as a result of the slumping economy.

The FBI's Coup

Why did W. Mark Felt and others in the FBI illegally give government secrets to Bob Woodward and other newspaper reporters? Because they were out to get Richard Nixon for his failure to honor the power-abusing legacy of J. Edgar Hoover. Writes Dan K. Thomasson:

Why was the FBI so obviously determined to bring all this to light outside official channels? A clear reason was the anger many of Hoover's lieutenants felt about Nixon's refusal to pick the director's successor from their ranks. The president appointed a Navy man, L. Patrick Gray, as acting head of an agency he and every other politician in town feared. The idea of continuing the Hoover legacy through the appointment of one of those the dreaded director had tutored was unacceptable. It has remained that way in a succession of directors with one exception, the appointment of former judge Louis Freeh, who had spent a short time as an agent during the Hoover years. His tenure was marked by dissension.

In the end, that fear furthered Nixon's demise. The bureau quite literally bit back.

The 900-Mile Man

Doctors said DJ Gregory would never walk. This year, he walked every step of every hole of the PGA tour. Thanks to John Barr for the link.

An Historic Couple

The New Nixon's Frank Gannon wishes David and Julie Nixon Eisenhower a happy 40th anniversary. They were married by the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale in Manhattan's Marble Collegiate Church.

"Spend Less And Give More"

Most of us base our charitable giving on what we have left over after living our lives. The Christians at Sojourners say we should should deprive ourselves so we can give more. Rachel Anderson writes:

The practice of economic discipleship has four parts: give thanks, spend justly, spend less and give more. Economic discipleship groups start with participants drawing up and sharing their household budgets. (Yes – people share real numbers with each other about household income and spending.) Members commit to personal lifestyle changes – eating out fewer times each month, walking rather than driving, avoiding impulse buys. Then groups select a recipient for a collective gift – drawn from the participants’ commitments to spend less. Altogether, the Lazarus groups have given away more than $100,000 to fund health care in Haiti, midwives in West Africa, and HIV/AIDS relief in Asia. In Boston, many participants are joining in a campaign to bring more ethically produced fair trade products to Boston – a way of working together to make our theme of “Spend Justly” more feasible.

Leave A Voice Mail. We'll Call Back.

Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. wonders if the media Zeitgeist and newspapers' dwindling resources will prevent a future Woodward and Bernstein from uncovering a future Watergate:

As newsrooms rapidly shrink, will they still have the resources, steadily amassed by newspapers since Watergate, for investigative reporting that takes months and even years of sustained work.

No worries. If a powerful federal official wants to dish government secrets illegally to get back at his boss, I'm sure he'll still be able to find someone to take the call.

Sometimes's A Courier's Just A Courier?

Bob Woodward's secret source, W. Mark Felt, who was worried that President Nixon wanted to rein in the FBI, helped destroy him by illegally leaking government secrets. As a naval officer, Woodward met Felt in the office of Admiral Thomas Moorer. Moorer and other Pentagon hawks illegally spied on the same President and his aides as they tried to end the Vietnam war and improve relations with the Soviet Union and China.

You can easily write all that and never even use the word "Watergate." Go figure.

Perfect Songs: "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" (1741)

From the Bethany College "Messiah"

Keeping The Church In Christmas

My Episcopal colleague Michael Bell, a postulant for Holy Orders, took this photograph of the church in which he now serves, St. Augustine-by-the-Sea in Santa Monica, California.

A Blogging Fool's Paradise

Earlier in the year, Matthew Yglesias left the Atlantic Monthly blogpen, settling under the wing of the progressive (I always want to write "self-styled" in front of that word; where does it leave the rest of us?) Center for American Progress Action Fund. If you click here, never again will you see such a group of highly qualified and earnest-looking young people.

At about 10:30 last night, a Fund official posted this on Yglesias's blog:

This is Jennifer Palmieri, acting CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Most readers know that the views expressed on Matt’s blog are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s comments about Third Way. Our institution has partnered with Third Way on a number of important projects - including a homeland security transition project - and have a great deal of respect for their critical thinking and excellent work product. They are key leaders in the progressive movement and we look forward to working with them in the future.

That's because on Dec. 19, Yglesias had written:

[Third Way's] domestic policy agenda is hyper-timid incrementalist [BS].

The brass at Third Way, another think tank, must've asked their friends at CAPAF why they were being trashed on a Center web site. After Palmieri's post, over 500 comments on Yglesias's site ensued, but none as ironic as when Sullivan, back at Yglesias' old hang at the Atlantic, said today that Palmieri's comment is:

What happens when someone mistakes a journalist for a member of some dumb-ass Politburo.

So now the blogger is a journalist again. When Sullivan was defending himself for having republished a lie about Gov. Palin, her minor daughter, and Trig on his own site, he took pains to make distinctions between the rules for journalists and bloggers. For instance, he didn't have to check the Trig Palin story out first, he said. By republishing it before checking the facts and then keeping it alive for months, he was just asking questions (which jounalists do, of course, before they run their stories).

Defending Yglesias against his web site's host's inteference, Sullivan reverts to yet another pillar of the old journalistic paradigm whereby a newpaper publisher was expected to keep his or her hands off the newsroom.

So in Sullivan's blogger's paradise, writers have it both ways. They can publish whatever they want without abiding by old-school notions about accuracy and due diligence. If by their actions they expose their publishers to libel suits (as Sullivan may have by republishing the Trig story at the Atlantic Monthly Group) or interfere with a business or collegial relationship being enjoyed by those paying the bills (as Yglesias evidently did), too bad. We'll have to see how long before paradise is lost in a courtroom.