Bombshell

Have you ever worked for somebody who had a secret life?

America Wants To Know has had that experience a couple of times.

Whether it's a mistress or illegal drug use or a personal life that is different than the image presented in public, an employer's secret life is something that employees learn to keep secret if they don't want to find another job.

And that brings us to the strange case of the Secret Service and the state dinner crashers.

It seems inexplicable that in the post-9/11 environment, anyone would be allowed into the executive mansion without proper authorization.

So if we want to figure out how two aspiring reality TV stars crashed a state dinner at the White House and got this close to the vice president...



And this close to the president...



...we should begin with the assumption that very capable and competent people -- Secret Service checkpoints are not staffed by part-time mall cops -- had a reason to believe that Tareq and Michaela Salahi were expected inside the White House even though their names weren't on any list.

It is probably an indication that people often come into this White House without having their names on the kind of document that can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

It might be a clue that the president keeps certain visitors secret from his wife and anyone in the White House social office who is loyal to her.

When you work for someone who has a secret life, you learn quickly that some people cannot be questioned and some questions cannot be asked.

Suppose you worked for the Secret Service during the Hypothetical administration. Suppose President Hypothetical had a series of mistresses who darted into the White House at all hours. Suppose one evening you're working the checkpoint when a pretty young thing shows up for a White House event and says, "The president's expecting me."

Should you: a) Turn her away; or b) Call the White House social office and tell the first lady's staff the young woman's name.

It's a trick question. It's career suicide either way.

The right answer, of course, is: Don't call anybody who's not supposed to know, and don't put anything in writing. Just run the woman through a metal detector and send her in.

We'll probably never know the full story of why the Secret Service allowed the former Redskins cheerleader and her husband into the White House. It's easy for government officials to argue that the details of presidential security can't be publicly disclosed.

But you'll know we've guessed correctly if the Secret Service declines to fire anybody over this incident and instead transfers the responsible employee to another job.

Smart people with secret lives never release disgruntled ex-employees into the wild, where they might be hunted down by TMZ.com or the National Enquirer. They keep them on the payroll in jobs that keep them happy.

Is ambassador to France still open?


Copyright 2009

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Billboard on the One Term Expressway

Not that it required any special psychic power, but America Wants To Know predicted that the Fort Hood shooting had the potential to be a big political problem for President Obama.

If you remember, in a post titled "Obama picks a church" we bet everybody a hundred bucks that the president would attend services at St. John's Episcopal the Sunday after the Fort Hood massacre, just to demonstrate to a queasy public that the White House occupant who spent part of his childhood as a Muslim in Indonesia harbors absolutely no doubt about where he stands now.

We lost that bet. President Obama spent the weekend at Camp David.

We said it was "no time for fuzzy statements about multi-cultural understanding."

Good thing we didn't put any money on that.

"They are Americans of every race, faith, and station," President Obama said, describing the members of the U.S. Armed Forces during his weekly address following the Army psychiatrist's solo jihad, "They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendants of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America."

Some might argue that what makes this America is a set of beliefs and principles that transcends ethnic identity, religion and "station," but let's not quibble about it now.

This is a picture of a billboard that just went up in Wheat Ridge, Colorado:



KDVR in Denver reports that the sign belongs to a car dealership.

Maybe the president should have gotten those cash-for-clunkers reimbursements mailed out a little faster.

Yes, of course, the sign is obnoxious and whatever else anybody wants to call it. But when a local businessman is willing to put up a billboard like that and stand by it, the president has a political problem.

President Obama's detached reaction to the bloodbath at Fort Hood (he was in the Rose Garden the next day to "caution against jumping to conclusions" about the gunman who shouted "Allahu akbar," and he warned Congress against holding public hearings, which he described as "political theater") is just one of many peculiar actions on his part that seem to stem from some deep-seated belief that America deserves what it gets, due to past sins.

What did you make of that bow to the emperor of Japan?

It's as if he's always trying to make the point that America isn't better than any other country and in many ways is a lot worse.

He's certainly entitled to his opinion but if that's what he thinks, he's really in the wrong job. If you work for Coca-Cola and you're always trying to level the playing field for Pepsi, you're going to be president of Harvard in no time.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the previous posts, "Barack Obama, angry colonial," "Certifiable," and "Tabloid update: "Where Obama was really born!"

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Killing ourselves: Why terrorists should be tried in military courts

In 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the convictions of three black Mississippi sharecroppers who had been viciously beaten by sheriff's deputies until, broken and bleeding, they confessed to the murder of a white planter.

"The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand," Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote. "It would be difficult to conceive of methods more revolting to the sense of justice than those taken to procure the confessions of these petitioners, and the use of the confessions thus obtained as the basis for the conviction and sentence was a clear denial of due process."

The case of Brown v. Mississippi established a precedent in both U.S. and state courts. The Constitution's guarantee of due process of law was not mere rhetoric; it had teeth.

Will the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knock any of those teeth loose?

Having no intention of ever bringing the 9/11 plotter into a U.S. criminal court for trial, the Bush administration authorized very severe "enhanced interrogation techniques" to be used against him in order to obtain intelligence information about the al-Qaeda organization and any future plots against the United States.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was reportedly "waterboarded" 183 times.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees due process of law and the equal protection of the law to all persons, which means any law or procedure that applies to the rest of us will apply to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

And vice versa.

If the U.S. District Court rules that some of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's statements made while in custody are admissible evidence against him, will that upend the precedent of Brown v. Mississippi?

Will "enhanced interrogation techniques" be evaluated on a case-by-case basis when Americans are arrested?

Suppose a suspected gang member is picked up on the streets of Los Angeles and the police, believing he has information about an imminent murder, beat him up during an interrogation in an attempt to save somebody's life.

Or suppose a child kidnapping suspect is arrested and the police, believing he has left the victim somewhere to die, break his arm in order to find out where he abandoned the child.

Now suppose they arrested the wrong guy by mistake.

You see the problem.

It is too dangerous to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a U.S. court, not just because terrorists might attack the courthouse, not just because he might be let off on a technicality, and not just because the trial will give him a platform to spew his repulsive rhetoric. It is too dangerous because the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could easily undermine the legal precedents that protect Americans from abusive practices and wrongful convictions by law enforcement officials.

In 1934, Arthur "Yank" Ellington was pulled out of his house by a deputy sheriff, hanged by the neck from a tree, let down, ordered to confess to the murder of Raymond Stuart, and hanged again when he refused. Then he was let down, tied to a tree and whipped. When he still refused to confess he was allowed to return home, but a day or so later he was arrested and taken from his home, whipped viciously, and warned that the beating would continue until he confessed to the murder. He confessed. On no evidence other than his confession he was convicted in a Mississippi state court. The conviction was upheld in the state appeals court and by a divided state Supreme Court.

In 1936, the United States Supreme Court said the treatment of Yank Ellington did not meet the Constitution's standard for due process of law.

Is that a precedent this administration wants to overturn?

Well, Nixon went to China.


Copyright 2009

Source notes: Brown v. State of Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936). The spelling of Raymond Stuart's name is given as "Stewart" in the Brown v. Mississippi decision, but the local newspaper in Meridian, Mississippi, reported it as "Stuart," as cited in Richard C. Cortner, A "Scottsboro" Case in Mississippi, page 13 (1986). The brutal details of the case were recorded for history in the dissenting opinion of Mississippi Supreme Court Judge Virgil A. Griffith, joined by Judge William D. Anderson.

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "The trouble with waterboarding" and "The innocent tomatoes," and in the novel, The 37th Amendment, the story of a man convicted of murder in the year 2056, forty years after Americans repealed the Constitution's guarantee of due process of law. The 37th Amendment is currently in use in Northern Arizona University's Department of Criminology in an undergraduate class on wrongful convictions.

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Tabloid update: "Obama Lung Cancer Drama"

America Wants To Know runs like a gazelle from the first sign of news about anything medical -- don't ask, why should we both have nightmares -- but today in the supermarket checkout line the Globe tabloid lifted itself into the air and swan-dived into the cart, so we might as well tell you what it said.

"Obama Lung Cancer Drama," the cover announces in grotesque yellow letters. "Coughing fits - Chest pains - Alarming 25 lb. weight loss."

Inside, the tabloid reports that White House insiders estimate the president's weight is down from 180 pounds during the campaign to about 155 pounds now.

"Everyone fears he has lung cancer because of his smoking and coughing," the Globe's source says, "And he often can't keep food down. In fact, at the last White House banquet he left the room suddenly and vomited."

That's not good.

"He's had a lot of dizzy spells lately," says another source. The Globe reports that the president suffered a "shocking collapse" during a late-night meeting at the White House.

That's not good either.

The tabloid says the president is refusing to see a doctor despite "prolonged coughing fits, dizzy spells, chest pains and a loss of appetite" and is continuing to "smoke up a storm."

"Michelle is livid because he keeps sneaking ciarettes and she can smell the smoke on his breath and clothes," an "insider" tells the Globe.

Before everyone on Wall Street gets their hopes up -- did you ever hear the 1930s-era joke about the businessman who looked searchingly at the newspapers every day as he walked by the newsstand until finally the owner asked him what he was looking for, and the businessman said he was looking for an obituary, and the newsstand owner said they were inside the papers toward the back, and the businessman said, no, the one I'm looking for will be on the front page -- President Obama may be suffering not from lung cancer but from the symptoms of nicotine overdose:

"[Nicotine] overdose symptoms may include nausea; vomiting; diarrhea; stomach pain; cold sweat; headache; dizziness; problems with hearing or vision; confusion; uneven heartbeats; chest pain; seizures; and death," the Drugs.com website advises.

If President Obama is using nicotine gum or patches and continuing to "smoke up a storm," he might be experiencing symptoms of nicotine overdose.

Anyone who's doing that and experiencing those symptoms should either quit or stop pretending to quit.

Or buy Philip Morris stock and let the chips fall where they may.


Copyright 2009

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The Museum of Non-Denial Denials

Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC's "This Week" today and was asked about rumors that she's thinking about running for governor of New York.

"That's another one of those stories that never will die and I'm hoping we can put it to rest today," she said. "I'm committed to the job that I have. It is an extraordinarily important time to be secretary of state of my country and to work with President Obama to pursue our interests and advance our values around the world, and that's what I'm going to continue doing."

Exquisite, isn't it? It sounds like "I'm not running," and it looks like "I'm not running," and yet art historians working with the most advanced scientific techniques could peer at it for a year and never find "I'm not running" anywhere in it. This is the kind of artifact that collectors trample historic ruins to scoop up and spirit back to their warehouses.

Actually, though, it's not all that rare.

When the Smithsonian Institution opens its National Museum of Non-Denial Denials, Hillary Clinton will have her own wing.

If you do business in the state of New York, and if you think it would be useful to be on Hillary Clinton's list of people whose calls get returned quickly, here's the link where Secretary Clinton is still accepting campaign contributions for her 2008 presidential campaign:

www.hillaryclinton.com

"As we take the next steps in our journey, I know you'll be right there with me, as always, in my heart and by my side," Secretary Clinton says on the web page. She's vague on what those next steps will be, but it looks like the art department is ready for anything:



Incidentally, the latest Federal Election Commission reports from the Clinton team show that Secretary Clinton has already raised enough money to pay off her remaining campaign debt.

But don't let that stop you if you want to donate to her debt-reduction fund. She still has to pay the ongoing salaries of her campaign staffers, eight of them as recently as June 30 of this year.

During the same period, Sen. Chuck Schumer had just three campaign staffers on the payroll, and he's making no secret of the fact that he's running next year.

That's no way to get your own wing at the Smithsonian.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "Tabloid update: Hillary's shocking secret illness."

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Tabloid update: "Michelle & Obama adopting baby boy!"

Under the heading, "More than we want to know," this week's Globe tabloid blasts supermarket shoppers with the news that the "First Lady CAN'T get pregnant."

"And believe me," the Globe's source tattles, "she has tried and tried to get pregnant but just can't."

That's why the president and the first lady have decided to adopt a child, the Globe reveals in a "World Exclusive."

"Michelle sees a baby as the answer for all their ills," the Globe's source explains, "She says a baby makes their family complete -- and helps them politically."

Yes, "the Obamas are convinced a new baby will divert the nation's attention away from the country's troubles and improve his popularity."

Not unless they adopt one of the Reagans.

The Obamas "are working with adoption attorneys and have sent out a three person team across the country searching for the perfect baby," one of the tabloid's sources said (writer Randy Jernigan said there were two sources for this story).

"The secret search for a child isn't said to be focusing on the infant's race," the Globe reports.

So the Reagans are still in it.

"They have set only two criteria -- the baby has to be American and have an underprivileged background."

Aw, the Reagans are out. Two for three, what can you do.

The tabloid insists in a big red headline across pages 34 and 35 that the first couple will adopt by June, but the story really isn't very credible. It goes on and on about the difficulty of finding the right baby, and it never even mentions that Malia's allergic.

More interesting is the story across the bottom third of pages 34 and 35, headlined "Obama Trick Squad ROASTS Limbaugh!" It appears to be a payoff to the White House "insiders" who gave the Globe the intimate details of Mrs. Obama's pregnancy tests.

"Rush looks RIDICULOUS after he falls for presidential scam," the Globe gloats in bold type.

"Egg on his face," the tabloid sneers.

This story is about a hoax thesis, allegedly written by Barack Obama when he was a student at Columbia University, which was posted on the Internet and then "fed to Limbaugh as fact by people secretly working for Obama," according to the Globe.

In the thesis, titled "Aristocracy Reborn," Obama supposedly wrote that the U.S. Constitution fits people with the "shackles of hypocrisy" and is an inconvenient "obstacle."

Before he realized he had been hoaxed, Rush told his listeners that the document supported the argument that President Obama is a "closet socialist."

Of course that's ridiculous. Barack Obama is a closet socialist the way Lindsay Lohan is a closet partyer. The way Alex Rodriguez is a closet Yankee. The way Rush Limbaugh is a closet Republican.

The most interesting thing about the Globe's nasty and insulting story on Rush Limbaugh is the picture they chose to illustrate it, which shows the radio legend looking slim and tanned and just great.

Why did the Globe use such a flattering picture? Could it be because they promised the White House they'd run an embarrassing story about him ("Radio loudmouth Rush Limbaugh was soundly humiliated in front of millions of Americans after falling for a scam masterminded by President Obama's dirty tricks squad!" the story begins) but in fact the editors have no desire to make the talk show host look bad?

How bad does it look for the White House to have a "dirty tricks squad" running around trying to "humiliate" broadcasters?

Maybe it's pointless to read tea leaves in a tabloid. Maybe it's all fiction.

On the other hand, this is the second straight week the Globe has splashed the Obamas on the cover and as of this writing the tabloid has not yet been nationalized, or threatened with an antitrust prosecution, or blamed for the unemployment rate or the foreclosure crisis or the premature deaths of Americans without health insurance. So they must be doing something right.

Last week the Globe headlined a "Dramatic White House meltdown" that had "Michelle in tears" as "Obama goes berserk!" over his falling popularity.

"Obama Explodes!" the Globe reported in a world exclusive, "White House sources say Obama erupted during a late-night meeting in the Oval Office that left his inner circle stunned and his wife in tears."

No wonder she can't get pregnant!

"You people aren't doing your jobs," the president told his stunned staff, according to the Globe's source, "Get it right or get another job! Turn this thing around!"

Then the president demanded to know why people hate him. "Right now, he's a broken man," an insider told the Globe.

Aww, that's too bad.

Maybe the adoption attorneys can find him a new economic policy. One of those little flat taxes from Eastern Europe would be just darling.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "The hit on Rush Limbaugh" and "Tabloid update: Clinton! Parkinson's! Michelle! Baby Tragedy!"

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History, and history

When the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, it established a tax on jobs that would be paid by both employers and employees in order to provide payments to retired workers.

The law set the tax at 2 percent of wages, half paid by the employer and half by the employee, for employment during the calendar years of 1937, 1938 and 1939.

"The term wages means all remuneration for employment, including the cash value of all remuneration paid in any medium other than cash; except that such term shall not include that part of the remuneration which, after remuneration equal to $3,000 has been paid to an individual by an employer with respect to employment during any calendar year, is paid to such individual by such employer with respect to employment during such calendar year," the law stated.

In other words, only the first $3,000 of wages in any one year was subject to the tax, reflecting the generally held view that Social Security withholding was a kind of pre-payment for personal retirement benefits, and not simply another tax on income.

The law provided for the tax to increase every few years until 1949 when it capped at 6 percent, half paid by the employer and half by the employee.

Do you know what it is today?

The current Social Security tax rate is 12.4 percent, half paid by the employer and half by the employee, unless you're self-employed, in which case you pay the entire 12.4 percent all by yourself.

Medicare is an extra 2.9 percent.

And that $3,000 limit on wages subject to Social Security tax? For 2009 it's $106,800. There's no limit on the wages subject to Medicare tax.

But there's a problem.

The programs are still insolvent and projected to go bankrupt.

Social Security and Medicare are funded by a 15.3 percent tax on wages and it's still not enough.

Unemployment in this country is currently 10.2 percent according to official government statistics, so raising the payroll tax again and making it even more expensive to hire people is not an idea whose time has come.

What about cutting benefits? Good luck. When word came this year that there would be no cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefit checks, President Barack Obama proposed sending every senior a check for $250.00, just to help make up for it.

How will the government find the money to pay promised benefits? By taking on more debt. That will put financial pressure on future generations and make it harder and harder for them to save and invest for themselves. That's what has happened to us. We are paying a 12.4 percent tax that our great-grandparents were told would rise no higher than 6 percent. How much more will your children and grandchildren have to pay, and what will happen to their jobs and their economy and their retirement?

On Saturday night, between eleven o'clock and midnight, the House of Representatives congratulated itself on barely passing a health care reform bill after a day of hard lobbying by the President of the United States.

All day long, Democrats likened the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935.

They were trying to say it was controversial when passed, but universally acclaimed as a success today.

They may have said more than they intended.


Copyright 2009

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The offense of freedom

On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a news conference to announce the signing of the first commercial lease in the Freedom Tower to be built at One World Trade Center.

CNN reported that the lease "will create the China Center, a 190,810-square-foot business and cultural facility, to be on portions of the 64th floor and the entire 65th through 69th floors of One World Trade Center," with an option to lease two additional contiguous floors under the same terms.

At the same news conference, the Port Authority announced that "Freedom Tower" would be dropped as the name of the skyscraper, and it would instead be called "One World Trade Center."

Was that a coincidence?

"The China Center at One World Trade Center is expected to represent the elite of China's business and cultural communities and serve as a hub for Chinese firms developing United States operations, as well as for U.S. companies that wish to conduct business in China or expand operations," CNN reported.

China is run by a communist government, and nobody joins the "elite of China's business and cultural communities" or conducts business in China without the approval of the government. It's not a free country. Free countries don't issue edicts that people are not permitted to have more than one child.

Did you know that China has pressured Google, Microsoft and other Internet companies to block the word "freedom" when it's entered into a search engine?

"Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors," the Financial Times reported in 2005.

"After complying with Chinese requirements that it censor its search engine results to those people reaching them in China, Google has won a business license to operate in the Communist state," MarketingVox.com reported in 2005, citing a Reuters news story.

On Monday, Germany is hosting a ceremony to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. President Barack Obama declined an invitation to attend.

Once again, in case it didn't quite register with you, the President of the United States declined an invitation to mark the end of the almost fifty-year-long Cold War and the triumph of freedom over Soviet communism.

Next week, President Obama is scheduled to leave for a trip to Asia. "He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea," McClatchy Newspapers reported. "The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia — especially China — to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease control, and containing nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran."

Did President Obama decide to skip the ceremony marking the anniversary of freedom's triumph in Berlin because China might be offended by anything he says in celebration of freedom?

Did he decide to skip it because he doesn't personally think the triumph of freedom over communism in Europe is anything to celebrate?

Did he evict the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office because he thinks the wrong side won the war?

He's on his way to 25 percent approval. No wonder Hillary Clinton hasn't closed her campaign accounts.


Copyright 2009

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Obama picks a church

Betcha a hundred bucks right now that President Obama attends services at St. John's Episcopal Church on Sunday.

What would you do if you were him? What would you do, immediately after a Muslim member of the U.S. Armed Forces cleaned out his apartment, said good-bye to a friend, gave away his Quran and murdered fellow American soldiers at Fort Hood, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" as he opened fire?

Would you begin your closing remarks at a White House conference of tribal nations and then casually segue into a statement of condolence? This is an excerpt from the transcript of the president's remarks, which the White House press office sent out by e-mail:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________
For Immediate Release November 5, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE CLOSING OF THE TRIBAL NATIONS CONFERENCE

Department of Interior
Washington, D.C.

5:02 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Please, everybody have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you. (Applause.)

My understanding is, is that you had an extremely productive conference. I want to thank all of you for coming and for your efforts, and I want to give you my solemn guarantee that this is not the end of a process but a beginning of a process, and that we are going to follow up. (Applause.) We are going to follow up. Every single member of my team understands that this is a top priority for us. I want you to know that, as I said this morning, this is not something that we just give lip service to. And we are going to keep on working with you to make sure that the first Americans get the best possible chances in life in a way that's consistent with your extraordinary traditions and culture and values.

Now, I have to say, though, that beyond that, I plan to make some broader remarks about the challenges that lay ahead for Native Americans, as well as collaboration with our administration, but as some of you might have heard, there has been a tragic shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. We don't yet know all the details at this moment; we will share them as we get them. What we do know is that a number of American soldiers have been killed, and even more have been wounded in a horrific outburst of violence.

These remarks were carried live on cable news networks and did not receive good reviews. "Frightening insensitivity," the NBC station in Chicago said on its website.

If you were President Obama, would you go into the Rose Garden and "caution against jumping to conclusions" about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan?

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the post commander at Fort Hood, told NBC's Today show on Friday that Hasan shouted "Allahu akbar!" before opening fire. If you've missed the news for the past eight or nine years, that phrase is Arabic for "God is great!" and it's the traditional greeting of suicide bombers.

"Hasan's motives remain unclear," reporters were told.

What would they have been told if Hasan had been arrested before he did this? Would the word "terrorism" have appeared in the press release? In the headline?

This is the kind of incident that moves public opinion, and not in a pleasant direction.

It is no time to underplay the seriousness of the threat. It is no time for a president to separate himself from the emotional reaction of a country that has just suffered what feels like a treasonous act of war, an attack on a U.S. military base by a person hostile to the United States.

It is no time for fuzzy statements about multi-cultural understanding.

That will only lead to a harsh and uncontrollable backlash against Muslim Americans who exercise their First Amendment rights. The administration will have to convince the public that it understands the risk posed by radicalized individuals inside the United States, and that it is taking every legally permissible action to protect the American people from them.

This is the nation that locked Japanese-Americans in internment camps, an action that was approved by liberal icon Earl Warren.

Fear does things to people.

What it will do to the approval rating of a president who spent part of his childhood as a Muslim remains to be seen.

St. John's Episcopal on Sunday. Bet on it.


Copyright 2009

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Reading the mind of Nancy Pelosi

America Wants To Know was puzzled that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled a vote on the health care reform bill for this Saturday evening, despite persistent reports that she still lacks the votes to pass it.

"What is she thinking?" we asked Mendel the Mind Reader after he answered our Help Wanted ad in person, having divined the location of our offices through the use of supernatural powers, or a Google search.

Mendel pressed his fingertips lightly against his temples and closed his eyes.

"Well?" we asked, after waiting patiently for more than a minute.

"Re-election," Mendel said in a throaty, other-worldly voice.

"No, you didn't understand the question," we said. "What is Speaker Pelosi thinking by scheduling a vote on the health care bill when still doesn't have the votes to pass it? Can you read her mind or not?"

"Re-election," Mendel growled.

"Look, if you can't read her mind, just say so," we said.

Mendel stood up and extended his arms horizontally, stretching his fingertips as far as they would reach. His eyebrows were scrunched together and his mouth was turned down in a sharp frown of concentration. Slowly he brought his fingertips toward his face and pressed them against his forehead.

"Re-election!" he screamed in a high, shrill voice.

"Thank you for coming in," we said. "We'll let you know."

It is so hard to find good help.

Fortunately America Wants To Know already has an experienced and board-certified Gypsy fortune teller on the payroll. Madame Lyubitshka doesn't read minds, but she does see the future.

The crystal ball and the fringed tablecloth were set up in no time.

"I see," Madame Lyubitshka said softly, gazing into the crystal. "I see Speaker Pelosi. I see tulips. It is spring."

"Where is she?" we asked.

The Gypsy woman beckoned. "See for yourself, " she said.

We peered into the crystal and saw the wavering image of the Speaker of the House addressing a crowd in a hotel ballroom. "It looks like a fund-raiser," we said. Speaker Pelosi's voice faded in and out. We leaned in to try to catch what she was saying.

"...closest we have ever come," the Speaker said. Her voice sounded faint and far away. Here and there we could just pick up a phrase.

"...not a single Republican vote."

"...more Democrats in the House to push us over the finish line."

"...need your support to make it happen."

"...so close."

The image faded away. Madame Lyubitshka leaned back with a self-satisfied little sigh.

"But what does it mean?" we asked.

"I'll tell you what it means." The voice belonged to Lieutenant Columbo. "I just came by to pick up my check," he said. "The post office is so slow in Los Angeles."

Not as slow as the acting business.

We took an envelope from the desk drawer and handed it to him. "Okay," we said, "What does it mean?"

Lieutenant Columbo smiled and slipped the envelope into the pocket of his raincoat. "It means she'd rather promise health care than pass it," he said. "It means that one way or another she's going to get rid of the bill before the Thanksgiving recess. She doesn't want to spend the next twelve months telling the voters that they're now required to buy health insurance. She'd rather spend the next twelve months telling them that health care reform was killed by the Republicans."

"That's absurd, Lieutenant," we protested. "The Democrats have a huge majority in the House and sixty votes in the Senate. They control everything. The Republicans don't have enough votes to block a hallway."

"Maybe not," he said. "But she'll blame the Republicans. The president will blame the Republicans. The media will blame the Republicans. If that doesn't work, they'll blame the insurance companies. They'll blame the Tea Party activists. They'll blame Wall Street. They'll blame George W. Bush. And all the while they'll keep repeating that they can reach the goal if they can just elect more Democrats in 2010. They don't have to convince anybody but their base. They think if they can raise enough money and turn out their base, the Democrats will all be re-elected."

Madame Lyubitshka emitted a low whistle. "He's good," she murmured.

"So what you're telling me is that Speaker Pelosi doesn't care if the bill goes down to defeat on Saturday? She just wants to be rid of it?"

"By Thanksgiving," the lieutenant said. "There's only one thing on her mind and that's re-election."

We took a contract and a pen out of the desk drawer. "Did you pass a mind reader on your way in here?" we asked the lieutenant. "Did you happen to see which way he went?"


Copyright 2009

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As Maine goes

There's an old joke about a little boy who didn't talk, not a word, and his frantic parents had taken him to every doctor for every test and no one could find the cause of the problem.

One day, when the little boy was four years old, he was having dinner with his parents when his mother served him some steamed fresh peas with his hamburger.

The little boy picked up his fork, dug into the bright green peas and shoveled them into his mouth.

"PFFFFFTT!" the little boy said, spitting them out across the table. "That's disgusting! That's the worst thing I've ever tasted!"

His parents nearly fainted.

"Oh!" his mother cried out in joy, "It's a miracle! You can talk!"

"Of course I can talk," the child said.

"You -- you can?" the mother stammered in astonishment, "Well -- then -- why didn't you say anything?"

The little boy looked at her with annoyance. "Up until now," he said, "everything's been okay."

That joke was brought to mind by reports out of Maine that voter turnout in Tuesday's election exceeded all projections.

"Surprised clerks in Maine's biggest cities and smallest towns reported massive turnout more typical of a presidential election for Tuesday's statewide referendums," the Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel reported on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap originally projected that about 35 percent of voting-age residents would cast a ballot. But the actual turnout may have been as high as 60 percent, Mr. Dunlap told reporters.

What happened?

There was a state referendum on the ballot to repeal Maine's new law permitting same-sex marriage, which passed by a vote of 53 percent to 47 percent. That might have been the issue that got voters off the couch and out to the polls.

But if that's what did it, Maine appears to have a lot of never-before-seen conservative voters who have just identified themselves. With a few clicks through computerized public records, conservative candidates will be able to find those new voters and send them mail.

That might make life very complicated for Maine's two GOP senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. They could face primary challenges if their 'moderate' positions on issues like cap-and-trade and health care reform rub enough voters the wrong way.

Maybe it's not likely, but it's not impossible.

Senator Snowe voted for the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform bill. "When history calls," she explained, "history calls."

Maybe if the bill ever makes it to the Senate floor for a vote, she can explain that she was only joking.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the previous post, "The midnight sausage factory."

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Review: "Fawlty Towers" Remastered

Are you tired of unemployment, recession, inflation, Ayatollahs and malaise?

Don't lose heart, something good from the 1970s has turned up at last.

Fawlty Towers - The Complete Collection Remastered has just been released by BBC Video, as if to offer sunny encouragement that it's mathematically impossible for a decade to be a total loss.

The new DVD release includes new interviews with the cast, exclusive commentary by John Cleese and separate commentaries by the series' directors, and all twelve episodes.

Just twelve episodes. If you've seen Fawlty Towers, it is hard to believe that all those gags, all those bits, all those fall-on-the-floor, pound-on-the-carpet funny sequences could be contained in only twelve half-hour episodes.

"The average BBC sitcom is 65 pages," John Cleese tells viewers at the start of the third episode. "We used to do 135 pages. The average sitcom had 200 different cuts, camera cuts. This has 400."

Fawlty Towers stars John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, the outrageously rude, guest-detesting owner of a small country hotel in England, which he runs with his terrorizing wife Sybil and a staff of two.

Connie Booth plays Polly, an art student working as a waitress (actually the show's co-writer playing the role of 'straight man'), Andrew Sachs is Manuel, the Spanish-speaking waiter from Barcelona (actually one of the funniest physical comedians ever to work in front of a camera), and Prunella Scales is Sybil Fawlty (so funny and razor sharp as the shrewish wife that if Oliver Hardy could have cast her, Mae Busch would have been doing dinner theater in Stockton.)

Each episode is a perfectly constructed, hilariously funny, brilliantly performed farce. They don't make 'em like that any more, but then, they didn't make 'em like that before. Fawlty Towers might be the funniest television show ever made.

But wait, there's more.

There's an extra audio track on every episode with John Cleese's commentary, and it is a graduate-level class in comedy writing and performance. No, it's better than that. It's the authentic voice of a comic genius explaining, joke by joke, scene by scene, why the comedy works, why it's funny, and what the actors are doing that is making the written material even funnier. Often he points out things he would have done differently, explaining how and why it would have made the scene better.

Some examples, from the pilot/premiere episode, "A Touch of Class":

"What is absolutely key to Andrew's performance [as the bungling Spanish-speaking waiter, Manuel] is he's always trying his best. If he was in any way sullen or uncooperative it wouldn't be anything like as funny, but it's his sheer eagerness that makes all the incompetence funny."

"Now, I have a slight criticism of this scene, which is there's so much plot set-up in it. Latterly I think Connie and I got better at setting up plot because, you see, if you set up plot in such a way that there's not much humor in it, the audience almost at an unconscious level registers the fact that it is 'plot,' and also at an unconscious level perhaps they kind of think ahead and a part of their mind is beginning to see how the story might pan out. So what Connie and I normally did was to try to hide the plot points in humor. Here the plot points and the set-ups are made a little bit seriously, it's as though one, sort of, the comedy backs off for a bit while we sort of set up what's going to happen, and I think we did the subsequent episodes better when we were setting up the plot."

"It's very tricky how rude he [Basil] is, sometimes--you have to be very careful about being rude, rudeness can be funny, but it's usually funnier if it's not direct."

"Notice that the--that line, 'Go away,' is much funnier said very calmly and politely. If I'd shouted it, it wouldn't have been funny."

"Watch this next bit of business, this doesn't work. I back against that thing with my leg and you don't see that I've bumped into it and that I take it as an assault and threaten it, and that's because I didn't focus the attention of the audience on the fact that I was bumping into it. They miss it, so the thing appears to be unmotivated. In fact, it was just wrongly indicated."

And from the episode, "The Builders":

"You see, little lines like that -- 'Oh, all right' -- I love, because in the context, they're very funny, and yet on the paper, of course, they don't look humorous at all. One of the great problems in presenting scripts to film and television executives is that they never see that lines like that have got a comic potential."

"Almost all the comedy in Fawlty Towers, almost all of it, is based in Basil's fear of Sybil. If he wasn't so--what's the word--terrified--so utterly, utterly full of fear of her, then he would never behave so strangely or indeed so badly, and that's [why] when people send me scripts with sort of, attempts, to write Fawlty Towers in it, and make Basil very rude, they always miss out the fact that the rudeness and the insanity is always coming out of this extraordinary fear."

"Now, that's so over the top and so ridiculous but this period, this period in the next few seconds where they're screaming at each other and he's going completely hysterical, it is, I think, funny, but it's only funny because it's motivated by this absolute terror of Sybil."

From the same episode, here's John Cleese on the secrets of physical comedy:

"One of the things about physical comedy, and I mentioned just now that some of the slapping was good but there was one slap that Connie didn't hit me hard enough and another that I overreacted to, what I like about this bit now, is that when I grab Manuel, I really, really grab him and bang him. And Manuel and I had done enough farce to know, it's a little bit like playing football, you are going to get banged if you do this kind of comedy -- now that is really good. And then the way he reacts, I mean, that's hysterical, then he goes down there and I thump him with my knee, that's really good."

"Now that's good, because she really throws that. But there's one problem about dear, dear Pru [Prunella Scales]... and that is, she's just too damned nice. She is so kind and concerned about everyone--and what you'll notice is that when she's being mean and nasty physically she doesn't go at it in the way that Andrew and I do, because Andrew and I know you're going to take a few knocks and expect to bang yourself and hurt yourself a little bit, but you see, she wouldn't kick me properly so we had to shoot it like this [framed from the knees up] so that we could mime it all."

"She hit me well there, that's a good hit."

"Now, you see, the umbrella, in case you think it's a funny shape, it's because it's been padded. And Pru did not hit him hard enough because she's too damned nice. She should have really clocked him. It's like in A Fish Called Wanda when Kevin is to hit me with the bedpan. And he just wouldn't hit me hard enough. We had to--in the end we had to go back and do a final take after we'd actually decided to print the previous one, and the first assistant said to me, 'He's still not hitting you hard enough.' You've absolutely got to go for it in physical comedy. You cannot hold back because it immediately signals to the audience that you're holding back a little bit, and that reminds them that it's not real."

For six hours, John Cleese teaches the techniques he has mastered in the four decades since Monty Python's Flying Circus broke the mold.

It is like watching Rembrandt explain his secrets.

And he's giving this away as a DVD extra.

He should open a university and charge $20,000 a year tuition for it.

Quick, go and buy the DVD before he reads this and figures it out.


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Fawlty Towers - The Complete Collection Remastered
Written by John Cleese and Connie Booth
Directed by John Howard Davies (Series One, 1975)
Directed by Bob Spiers (Series Two, 1979)
Starring John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs and Connie Booth
Number of discs: 3
Feature Length: 347 mins approx
List Price: $49.98
Available from BBCAmericaShop.com
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More for fans:
Fawlty Towers on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fawltytowersDVD
Fawlty Towers on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fawltytowersDVD
Lookalike Contest: http://tr.im/fawltycontest
John Cleese on tour, November 2009: Ticketmaster

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