A Future Dominated By Forced Choices-- Like Debbie Wasserman Schultz vs Paul Ryan! How Appetizing Is That?

Pick yer poison

Last night we talked about how Republicans are already looking at ways to reconstitute their party after Trump is crushed in November. That, however, is certainly easier said than done. John Harwood, writing for the NY Times quoted Avik Roy a serious conservative policy advisor first for Romney and then for Rubio as saying that "the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism." That's not going away overnight just because Trump loses, unless he loses in a landslide, which is not indicated by any current polling. The Republican Party is shattered and it's likely to remain shattered. All that keeps it afloat is the jaw-dropping incompetence of a sclerotic, bungling Democratic Party.

After Mr. Romney’s 2012 defeat exposed the limits of relying on white voters in a diversifying nation, the Republican National Committee called for outreach to Latino voters through new immigration policies. Hostility from working-class conservatives, irate over cultural change and diminished economic prospects, scuttled that effort.

In the 2016 primaries, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, two champions of Latino support, were punished, and the party was left with Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, two finalists for the presidential nomination that Republican officeholders loathed but could not stop.

Mr. Trump prevailed by channeling Republican anger most skillfully-- against foes inside the party, like Mr. Cruz, and out. To the chagrin of fellow Republicans now facing general election battles, he hasn’t stopped.

Since securing the nomination, Mr. Trump has openly denigrated a Mexican-American federal judge, the Muslim parents of a fallen American soldier and a former Miss Universe. He offers sweeping condemnations of life in African-American communities.

The rise of Mr. Trump threatens fellow Republicans who must appeal to broader constituencies, now and in the future. Prominent voices within the party, including editorial writers at conservative newspapers and top officials in past Republican administrations, have strongly denounced him.

Asked in a debate this week whether Mr. Trump represented a role model for children, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, answered “absolutely.”

Within hours she found that answer such a liability that she withdrew it, explaining “I misspoke.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, in theory allied with his party’s nominee, tried this week to avoid that pitfall altogether.

Asked to discuss Mr. Trump, who currently draws support from more than eight in 10 Republicans, Mr. McConnell told reporters, “I choose not to.”

David Letterman has been interviewing Trump on TV since the 1980s. This week David Itzkoff interviewed Letterman about Trump, who Letterman feels needs a psychiatrist.

I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time and I always thought he was exactly what New York City needed to have: the big, blowhard billionaire. “By God, I’m Donald Trump and I date models and I put up buildings, and everything is gold.” Nobody took him seriously, and people loved him when he would come on the show. I would make fun of his hair, I would call him a slumlord, I would make fun of his ties. And he could just take a punch like nothing. He was the perfect guest.

...The thing about Trumpy was, I think people just were amused enough about him to keep him afloat in the polls, because nobody wanted the circus to pull up and leave town.

Today, the circus was supposed to move to the Walworth County fairgrounds outside of Elkhorn in Paul Ryan's congressional district, but last night Ryan disinvited Trump because of his attitude towards women. Pence is going instead. Ryan would like to spend 2017-2020 sabotaging President Hillary so he can run against her next time around. Writing for the New Republic yesterday, David Dayen explained how someone whose very toxic never-changing-agenda could even be in such a position. "The Paul Ryan budget, rolled out in 2011," he reminded his readers, "was initially synonymous with Republican cruelty and trickle-down economics. The virtual starvation of programs for the poor, the extreme tax cuts for the wealthy, the privatization of Medicare-- these all became anchors that could have, should have, weighed down Republicans forever. But somewhere along the line, Ryan wriggled off the hook. So much so, in fact, that he could announce in public on Wednesday that he intends to jam through the Ryan budget next year under a procedure that bypasses Democratic opposition in Congress-- and make that vow without fear of reprisal, right in the heat of election season."

Who’s responsible for detoxifying the Ryan agenda, for legitimizing his radical views on government? Democrats let their foot off the gas when it came to Ryan, after first tarring other Republicans successfully with supporting him. But the press also deserves blame for helping Ryan rehabilitate his discredited positions, by bestowing on him the honorary title of Serious Man of Washington.

What Ryan promised on Wednesday is that if Republicans control both Congress and the White House come January, he’ll use “budget reconciliation” to implement most of what he now calls his Better Way agenda (it used to be the Path to Prosperity). Under reconciliation, Congress can advance anything that primarily affects the budget bottom line with a simple majority vote, including in the Senate, which normally would require beating a 60-vote filibuster to proceed. “This is our game plan for 2017,” Ryan said.

Fortunately, voters appear to have other plans. Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency, and denying Ryan unified control, are growing. And Senate races are tight enough to flip either way, with Democratic control very possible.

But if Ryan, Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell did run Congress, they could unquestionably use reconciliation to ram home the Ryan budget. And that agenda is as radical an overhaul of the federal government as anything that’s come out of Trump’s mouth.

The Better Way repeals most of Obamacare, from the individual and employer mandates to the Medicaid expansion to subsidies for consumers to purchase insurance. It would cut at least $6 trillion in federal spending, with 62 percent of that coming from programs that help low- and moderate-income families. It would “block-grant” a number of anti-poverty programs, giving fixed sums to the states to manage without any federal restrictions (and without the ability to get expanded funding based on need). It would raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67 and cripple the program by offering “premium support” for seniors to buy private insurance, fracturing the market and breaking a system that works pretty well. And Ryan’s plan would cut individual and corporate tax rates, with 99.6 percent of the benefits going to the wealthiest 1 percent.

...Why did Democrats fail to hang Ryan’s wildly unpopular plans around Republicans’ necks? Partly because, by the time he was nominated, Ryan had become somebody Democrats could work with, relative to the Tea Party conservatives who’d swept into the House in 2010. Ron Wyden had joined with Ryan in late 2011 to endorse his Medicare plan. After the election, Patty Murray engineered a “Bipartisan Budget Act” with Ryan in 2013, to avert a government shutdown. When Ryan became Speaker last October, he ushered through another Bipartisan Budget Act. The flack he took on his right for that deal, which increased discretionary spending modestly while offsetting that with other cuts, established him as the sensible alternative (again, relatively), the guy Democrats could deal with in the opposition party.

And this is where media culpability comes in. Reporters and pundits have historically gone to bat for Ryan, exalting him as a legitimate thinker trying to solve problems rather than a dangerous ideologue. Politifact helped negate Democrats’ Medicare attacks by calling them the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Nobody in Congress gets more loving profiles, dating from before he became the Veep nominee or Speaker to the present day. That Ryan’s budgets were mainly snake oil, that his plans would have dire consequences for every American without a trust fund, usually get edited out of the story.

Even today, the media assists Ryan when he tries to distance himself from Donald Trump-- when in reality, Trump would likely be little more than an autopen as president, signing whatever noxious policy Ryan shuttled through the House and put on his desk. Despite this, the media almost affords him sympathy for his plight about dealing with Trump (he’s campaigning with Trump on Saturday, so it can’t be that wrenching), rather than recognizing his role as the author of the agenda the next Republican president will carry out.

The normalization of Ryan as a serious, honest figure allows him to put out as radical a budget as would ever be initiated in American history without anyone batting an eyelash. This may not come back to sting the country next year, if Trump falls the way his poll numbers currently suggest. But at some not-too-distant point, when conservatives capture the entire government, they’ll be able to implement this blueprint, the Ryan budget, that should have been made into nuclear waste long ago.

Is there a way to stop that? Sure, winning congressional seats. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership is just not up to it. Pelosi is too old and out-of-it and all the power rests with her. She's appointed one incompetent imbecile after another to run the DCCC, starting anti-progressive fanatic Rahm Emanuel, through bumbling idiot Chris Van Hollen, crooked Blue Dog Steve Israel and now, a foolish simpleton with one qualification, a Latino last name. I hate to be a downer, but once they carry Pelosi (and Hoyer) out of there, the next level of failure-as-an-ideology leadership ready to take over is far worse than either Pelosi or Hoyer: Queens County machine boss Joe Crowley and crooked national disgrace Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If Pelosi and Hoyer would each announce their retirement today-- it would be fantastic... except that either Crowley or Wasserman Schultz would be elected leader and, there's a good chance that the two them would wind up in charge the Democratic congressional party the way Pelosi and Hoyer run it today. The Democratic Party would become an engine for creating ads-- like the Ami Bera one below-- for the Republican Party.



The candidates on the page this thermometer leads to are all winners of their primaries and all are in districts that can be won in November-- and are all that the Pelosi and her wretched DCCC are either ignoring entirely or actively sabotaging. Unless you want to see the Ryan scenario become reality-- and remember, even if the Democrats somehow manage to take the Senate back in November, they will certainly lose it again, massively, in 2018-- please stretch to help elect progressives like these to the House. We have to bethinking about a post-Pelosi/Hoyer Congress... one that isn't Crowley/Wasserman Schultz.

Trump's Character Revealed By One Of His Former Attorneys

One of the reasons relatively few people have come forward with stories about how the Trumpanzee has cheated them is because he makes everyone sign insanely unconstitutional non-disclosure forms. And he's sue-happy. Even if you win a case against him, it can cost a fortune and a tremendous amount of time and energy. And who likes jumping into a pit filled with mud and excrement to wrestle a mad pig? That's why I was surprised this week to see a post by Thomas Wells, an attorney who the Trumpanzee once hired. Wells' case was simple and straight-forward: "I know him and he's unfit to be president; don't vote for him." His problem with Trump isn't about ideology or politics; it's about character.

In 1987, when Wells was 35 years old and the Trumpanzee was 41, the latter hired the former to represent him in a case involving the Trump Centre mall in northern New Jersey. Wells was impressed with his new client... at first.

He seemed to me smart, business savvy, decisive. He had a very impressive office, a fancy and very big boat, an airline, a helicopter shuttle and several casinos. Within a few years, virtually all of this would be lost because of bad business decisions. Lots of lawyers have worked for Donald Trump; lots and lots. I am no Roy Cohn-- neither as aggressive nor (hopefully) nearly as ethically-challenged-- but I did know well how to get very tough land use matters through an always challenging application process in New Jersey. I was thrilled when he hired me.

After the initial interview, my client contact with Donald was actually not very much. One low point I do remember (actually will never forget) is a limousine ride to a meeting with the editorial board of a New Jersey newspaper in which my married client sought to regale me with the number and quality of eligible young women who in his words “want me.” I was just plain shocked and embarrassed, but I kept smiling. I wanted and needed this client happy.

While I was working for Donald, various press reports had Trump and his then-wife Ivanna living in a personal apartment in the Trump Tower of 8, 16 and even 20 or 30 rooms. Genuinely curious, I once asked him how many rooms the apartment actually had. I will never forget his response to me: “However many they will print.”

Donald Trump was then, as he is now, larger than life, particularly in his own eyes, and at the same time frighteningly small, with very little moral grounding. He was then, and still is, all ego and show.

Wells came up with 20 character flaws in the Trumpanzee that make him unfit for the White House-- or any other public office or position of trust-- irrespective of his political views, many of which Wells admits agreeing with.

1. The man lies all the time.

Like the skilled liar he is, he does it with impunity. “I watched in Jersey City, NJ when thousands and thousands of people were cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed.” “The last quarter the gross domestic product was less than zero.” “The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is 30 million, it could be 34 million.” “The Mexican government forces bad people into our country.” “The unemployment rate may be as high as 42 percent.”

All these things have been said by Donald, actually often yelled by him, and many times over and over in front of large crowds. How about the whopper, “Crime statistics show blacks kill 81 percent of white homicide victims”? One has to wonder why this lie would be conceived, much less told. Donald Trump says all of these things forcefully, so they must be true. But they are not!

Unambiguously, they are what is described as “pants on fire” untruthful, as in, not a shred of truth. In passing, you have to ponder whether yet another of Donald Trump’s oft made statements about the fervor of his Christianity and the Bible being his favorite book are also not grounded in truth. Clearly, “thou shall not lie” is not his favorite of the Ten Commandments.

2. It is actually not all about the candidate.

“It’s amazing how often I am right?” “I alone can fix this.” “I have a big brain.” “I advise myself.” “I am very, very rich.”

Donald really said all these things. His ego seems to know no bounds. When Donald feels insulted by someone, he obsesses without control. He fusses, he fumes, and he says unbelievably inappropriate things. He is in his glory when he can bully his way to a result he covets.

Did you ever notice that those real people stories other candidates are always telling about someone they just met, struggling with a difficult problem, are just not in the Trump lexicon? He keeps telling us he is all about winners. I guess these folks don’t qualify. Said another way, Donald Trump doesn’t play well in the sandbox with others. First, he has his own ideas as to who can be in the sandbox with him. He also wants to run the sandbox. He is the kid who gets his way or stomps off in a huff. What happens when he figures out, even our nation’s highest office is not all about him? Do we want him with the codes to nuclear weapons?

3. U.S. presidents are by design not kings.

The Constitution makes them share power. Donald Trump who uses the “I” word more than anyone who has ever aspired to the job, has a brazenly authoritarian bent. He wants to be a “strongman,” not a president.

One has to wonder what would happen if he actually had to govern or make one of his deals in a zero sum world of politics where the other side just says no. What then of his notoriously short attention span, temper or non-stop need to tweet his every frustration?

4. The devil IS in the details.

“Winning so much we will get tired of winning,” “Make good deals with China,” or even “Make America great again” are slogans that don’t actually say anything. We are not stupid; share some details with us, so we can figure out whether you know what you are talking about. For Donald, however, in the few instances when specifics do follow, like perhaps the 1,000-mile, 35-55 foot wall or the deportation of 11 million immigrants, the details never come.

Never are we told that to build the wall, even to the lower 35 feet, (by actual construction estimates) would cost $25 billion dollars, even if you could get the land to build it (most of the border Trump wants to wall is in the middle of a river and land in many cases could not even be secured for a fence).

His magic to make Mexico pay for it? The only suggestion I have heard is take it out of remittances from folks mailing money back home or one of his “45 percent tariffs.” How is that going to work for the Americans sending the money to relatives or all of us paying 45 percent more for Mexican-made merchandise or the American company doing the manufacturing? How about the fact that the wall would do little to stop illegal immigration, more of which is “overstays” of visitors than “over the border” and likely will generate few, if any, jobs for the folks Trump has whipped up into a xenophobic frenzy.

Then let’s take the deportation and just focus on the big stuff. How exactly do you round up and deport 11 million people? Is he going to use stadiums and nationalize cruise ship lines? Who will be doing the rounding up, certainly not the police, the army perhaps? The children left behind? How about the fact that American farms, restaurants, not to mention landscaping and construction labor jobs will go unattended? Vital jobs for sure, but are these the jobs that Trump plans to provide for his “real Americans” to make America great again?

5. Words matter.

Everything is not a “disaster,” “stupid” or a “disgrace.” Neither is it “tremendous,” “huge,” “fantastic” or “amazing.” Everyone is not a “loser,” “low energy” or a “bimbo.” Talk of former presidents being liars-- or his favorite, “a disaster”-- and foreign dictators being great leaders does not advance the discourse.

Americans are mostly not prudes, but vulgarity from the dais, penis size allusions, reveling in sexual conquests, menstruation-based criticism and crass insults of every shape and form just does not cut it from a president. We have children.

6. Reading is good. So is studying.

Donald Trump recently told us that he does not read much. We know from the recent revelations by Tony Schwartz, his ghost writer on The Art of the Deal (yes, I do have my copy from when it first came out, autographed with Donald telling me to “keep up the great work”), which Donald says is second only to the Bible as the must-read book, that he certainly has not written a book-- at least not that one.

Even though for many years I owned a bookstore and would not let my kids watch TV on weekdays to help them become readers, I do not believe you must read to lead. I do believe, however, that those who seek to lead us need to study hard, seek to gain wisdom from others, and try to master very complex ideas and relationships. I think being president is hard. I am glad that after a long day, President Obama retreats to his private study almost every night for 3 or 4 hours of quiet study... and reading.

Any fair interpretation of Trump’s many bizarre statements and flip-flops makes it clear he has not the slightest inclination to read or study. In his own words, he makes decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I already had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have lots of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.” It is a special and unique form of arrogance to think you could even consider being literally the leader of the free world without doing the work to deeply understand the job.

7. The new vocabulary we are adjusting to is not a good one.

Xenophobe (intense dislike or fear of people from foreign countries); misogynist (strong prejudice against women); nativist (preference for established inhabitants as opposed to immigrants); fascist (authoritarian and dictatorial); bigot (intolerance for those with a different opinion); demagogue (inflaming passions based on popular desires not on rationale arguments); dystopian (describing a place, typically totalitarian, where everything is unpleasant and squalid); racist (oh, you know what this one is).

We have all had to get the dictionary out to understand many of the not household terms that had to find their way into print to describe the unique phenomenon that is Donald Trump. The scary thing is that these strange words are at least close to the mark. What happened to statesmanlike, well-qualified, or even brilliant, as words we can use to describe people we want to elect to high office? Haven’t heard any of these associated with the Donald.

8. We need to be careful with “tough.”

Donald Trump said of a protester at one of his rallies, “in the good old days they would have carried him out on a stretcher.” His world reveres this brand of toughness. This toughness is not about the strength it takes to use restraint or to make really hard decisions. It is about “punching that guy in the face,” or at a minimum, saving face-- his.

I will resist the temptation to belabor the nuclear codes point again, and rather just query do we really want a thin-skinned president who, as he suggested, if a government leader (Castro) was not on the tarmac to meet his plane, “would turn around Air Force One and come home.” Or one who when confronted with the fact that whether or not his careless re-tweet of a white supremacist-created Jewish star and dollar bill-backed attack of Hillary Clinton was anti-Semitic, can’t even just give one of those non-apology-apologies, “I am sorry if I offended anyone.” A “tough-guy” who instead declares major newscasters stupid and sick and makes it all about the media who dare to criticize him, with never a word to David Duke and the ugly element high-fiving him and resending his initial offensive post.

Whether or not the post was intended to even more firmly entrench this segment of support, Trump demonstrates his version of tough, one that glorifies his opinion and his being right over all else. Nowhere in his world can tough be humble, respectful, restrained or diplomatic.

9. Success does matter.

Donald Trump’s business success is greatly exaggerated and his skills limited. Donald Trump is a great salesman and a showman/promoter in a league only with PT Barnum. This we can give him. He has also been very good at making his name a brand and selling its use. For a while, he had some pretty high TV ratings by telling out of work celebrities they were fired. However, even in his own playing field, ask any large New York real estate developer, of which-- surprise, surprise-- he is not one, at least not as to large (14th in New York City on the latest list), and you will learn his successes are few.

Four business bankruptcies (1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009), the Plaza Hotel, Trump Air, all three casinos (a couple times) the steaks, the water, Trump Centre in New Jersey that I worked on, Manhattan’s West Side rail yards (where buildings do bear his name as a consolation), the much-hyped $35,000 get-rich scheme Trump University-- all failures by any measure except of course to Donald, who “has no regrets, whatsoever.”

Then there are basic business ethics: 3,500 lawsuits, the fact that he has penchant for not paying bills fully or on time, or that he calls himself the “King of Debt”-- a king made rich by running up debt, then renegotiating it. Is this the skill set we want for the president?

Even with Trump’s fabled net worth, always exaggerated by billions more than others calculate, one has to wonder if his true net worth wouldn’t be just as much if he took his considerable inheritance from father Fred and just passively invested it. We’ll never know from Donald-- certainly not from those tax returns he won’t release.

10. We could not be the great country we are without the First Amendment, but our media may kill us.

The media is not Donald’s enemy as he keeps announcing from the stage. It may be the enemy of the rest of us, however. It sure feels like it lately. The air time Donald gets, and his ability to phone in his rants (especially with the cable media) is nothing short of, to use one of his words, “disgusting.”

Donald, who lives by polls and ratings, understands it is ratings and not news worthiness that dictates what is on the airwaves. Donald dominates almost every news cycle, simply by being more outrageous than anyone or anything else. The “false equivalency” created by point-counterpoint talking heads then makes over-the-top positions seem legitimate. It is reality TV writ large and it is very out of control.

11. Temperament, demeanor and character are important.

In many ways, Donald represents the very worst in all of us, or at least many of us. He is all about continuous gratification. He is the petulant child who wants his way. He is the selfish teenager with no big picture yet. He is the spoiled young man of privilege with the “right” race and religion, education, good looks, and family fortune to succeed easily, and who looks down on others lacking in any of the above who do not.

He is a man who thinks it is okay to call someone fat or ugly or stupid or to make fun of a person with a disability. He is the collector of trophy wives and trophy properties, the guy who wins, or so he thinks, because he has the most toys.

12. The emperor and his clothes.

Donald says he knows more about the military than anyone else. Why? Because he went to an expensive prep school where they wore uniforms and sometimes marched? How about, “I know more about ISIS than the generals.” Please, can some real soldiers evaluate this?

Donald says America never wins anymore. Compared to whom, and at what? No doubt we have problems. Democracy is messy. Witness the present campaign, and the long slow recovery from the 2008 recession has not included the middle class nearly enough. And, yes, trade in a world that is now fully connected and integrated is hard to figure out. But by what measure is America, as Donald tells us, a “disaster”?

How do you actually say and believe, “This country is a hell-hole. We are going down fast.” Compared to whom? Mexico, China or his most bizarre new favorite, Russia, that he tells us “beat us all the time ... because our leaders are stupid”? Give us a break.

13. Sophomoric speech tricks don’t work-- at least not with most of us.

Says Donald, “I am not going to talk about” the libertarian VP candidate’s alcoholism. “I refuse to say... I cannot stand to say... that I cannot stand the sound of Clinton screaming into the microphone all the time.” You just did, Donald. We get it that with these statements, even you know you are on shaky ground so you are trying to play it both ways. Doesn’t work. Nor does your even more insidious, not-so-clever trick of attributing to others wild accusations that even you are afraid to make, but that you want to advance.

How about when discussing the Orlando massacre, “there are a lot of people that think [President Obama] doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it I happen to think he just doesn’t know what he is doing, but there are many people that think maybe he just doesn’t want to get it. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.”

Who are these “people” who have placed the president on the side of the terrorists? Perhaps the same people who, with Trump, saw the masses in New Jersey celebrating the destruction of the twin towers, or those convinced Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster, that Ted Cruz’s father was working with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill President Kennedy, or that President Obama was not born in the United States nor did he graduate from Harvard or Columbia.

Two possibilities. The likely one: “lots of people are saying” is just Trump code for “I want to now float something so outrageous” even red-faced Donald can’t get it out without this qualifier. Or perhaps the “lots of people” is a select group, the closed loop of the loyalists who attend his rallies that heard it from him!

14. A thin skin does not work for a president.

“The politicians have again chosen this presidential pigmy as their nominee.” So said the long-defunct New York Herald about Abraham Lincoln, now nearly everybody’s choice for our nation’s best president. Consider the statement when George Washington left office: “the time is now arrived for the source of all misfortune of our country… [to be] reduced to a level with his fellow citizens.”

U.S. presidents, all of them, have had their critics, and in our land of wonderful free speech, the critics get to have their say. Thank goodness. That Donald does not do well with criticism is not really open to debate. Ask Megyn Kelly (“third-rate talent”), Rosie O’Donnell (“nice little fat Rosie,” “total loser”) or Elizabeth Warren (“Pocahontas”) or for that matter virtually any of his recently vanquished adversaries: Cruz, Kasich, Rubio or Bush, in just the first tier. Even the one most like him (now apparently looking for a post-New Jersey job with him), Chris Christie felt his sting when he suggested Donald was “thin-skinned.” He just can’t let anything go ever. He obsesses even when he wins.

Republicans who broke “the pledge” to support him, they “should not be allowed to run for office again.” In Donald’s world, disagreeing with him has to have a consequence-- a serious one-- and pursuing this goal is worthy of effort and energy, even when it makes no difference.

Do we really think our president has time for this? Do we really want a man with such sensibilities and such an authoritarian bent in charge of, say, the FBI or the IRS? Does the concept of “secret police,” a favorite of leaders of this type elsewhere, seem too extreme? Probably, yes. But if I was Donald, I would float it with one of his “people are saying” declarations. There, I just used his trick. See how easy it is. 

15. Bullies will always exist somewhere, but the White House should not be that somewhere.

What does a bully do? Most of all he or she seeks to intimidate, physically or at least verbally. So far this character trait of Donald’s has been exclusively verbal and aimed at business adversaries and more recently politicians and journalists-- and, of course, then ex-ghost writer of his book and ex-employees or contractors he cheated (those who do not have anti-disparagement contractual handcuffs) who dare to candidly assess his conduct.

What happens when this guy gets the world’s strongest army at his disposal, and a bully pulpit that guarantees him notice? Seem like a bad idea to anyone else?

16. Law and order.

Before it was an Emmy-winning TV show, “law and order” was a campaign theme used by Richard Nixon in 1968 to get himself elected in a year when our country had two very public assassinations and destructive demonstrations, even riots, in 110 U.S. cities. Nixon sought to mobilize what he called the “silent majority” around the need for more police. He also tapped into the racial and economic divide between black and white and working class and “elite Eastern liberals,” and the evil media that his vice president, Spiro Agnew, called “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Is Donald Trump seeking to bring this back? Of course yes, yet no.

Yes, he wants to separate and mobilize angry voters who feel left behind by an increasingly diverse culture. No, because his dystopian version of lawless, besieged, pitifully weak America is not what Nixon preached, nor for that matter Ronald Reagan. It is unique to him, at least in our country. It is, however, a textbook version of the rallying cry of countless dictators and strongmen. It is a demagogue’s basic tool, to gin up a problem then declare he is the “only one who can fix it.”

As bad as all this rhetoric is, what next? He tells us, “On January 20, 2017, the day I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced... crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon-- I mean very soon―come to an end.” How’s this work, Donald? Martial law? Does he honestly believe President Obama, and for that matter all of his 44 predecessors, would not have liked to have all laws effective and fully followed? If only wishing could make it so! However, since the states, not the federal government, hold sway over most criminal law, the president acting alone has no Constitutional power to do any such thing. What then? More of the water boarding and killing families of terrorists logic? “I alone can fix it!”

17. Incoherent rants, often contradictory, does not a foreign policy make.

Convince Japan and South Korea to seek nuclear arms. Eliminate NATO. Crush ISIS but do it without Muslim allies and no troops on the ground. Sometimes attack Libya, sometimes not. Sometimes attack surgically, but don’t let it come out the way it did. Sometimes it’s good we attacked Iraq, sometimes not. Do not nation build, but fix Syria. Stop Iran by making better deals.

In fact, come to think of it, that is the solution to almost everything: “just make better deals” everywhere. Oh, yes and never apologize for anything. We are America, very, very rich and beholden to no one. Like us or else. Sound like someone we know?



18. How will anyone effectively be president if we don’t at least respect the office?

In the 1960s during an unpopular war, we all endured a president adorning himself with a flag pin and declaring anyone who did not agree with him (which include a heck of a lot of young people on campuses all across America, including me) somehow un-American. Although political opposition is as old as our nation, we begin to slide down the slope of dangerous disrespect when disagreement is replaced with vilification.

This Republican nominee for the presidency thinks it is okay to accuse a former president of his own party of intentionally going to war on false pretenses and the current President of being in conspiracy with Muslim terrorists. Any thoughtful American of either party or no party, of any political philosophy must see that this must see that this must stop.

Truth, or at least a semblance of some, has to come back. Outrageous lies just have no place in meaningful discourse-- outrageous liars even less so. They cannot become the backbone of a point-counterpoint talking-head media circus that is so much more about ratings than truth.

19. Rich and powerful guys have to play by the rules, too.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Trump University was not an academic institution, far from it. It was a get-rich-quick scheme by a guy selling a get-rich-quick scheme. It is not the first or the last of its type. Late night, cheap-advertising-time-television will always feature this fare. Donald’s efforts, however, were on so much a grander scale-- $35,000... “a university.” Really? What this was is an out-and-out fraud scheme by a man now trying to become the leader of our country and the free world.

We all know, or at least have read, that suckers are born every minute. But can’t we at least disrespect those who prey on these poor folks, and when they really go too far, sue them? “No,” says Donald Trump. The court case brought by a whole class of plaintiffs against his scam is only still in court, Donald says, because the long-time and distinguished federal judge is a “hater” not capable of giving him justice because his parents are from Mexico.

In Donald’s world, the only individual capable of judging him would not be Mexican or related to anyone from Mexico, likewise folks of the Muslim faith, and, oh yeah, likewise women. In this world rich, entitled, egotistical, ethically-challenged older white men should then only be judged by rich, entitled, egotistical, ethically-challenged older white men.

20. We must stand for something.

Donald Trump’s version of America does not include folks not like him. Instead, he is all about what Sarah Palin labeled “real Americans.” The fact that all us others seem to be utterly expendable is deeply troubling. Targeting an entire religion-- Islam, with 1.6 billion adherents, 3.3 million being U.S. citizens-- for extra scrutiny or worse is patently inconsistent with traditional American values, if not those of the “real Americans.”

It is also unconstitutional, and, beyond all this, incredibly counterproductive as it hardens the lines of controversy by wholesale moving of the allies we need to solve terrorist problems into the enemy camp. Other similar strategies championed by Donald, like waterboarding and other forms of torture, not to mention targeting families of an enemy, are not just illegal. They are, to use another one of his words, “stupid”. They do not work, very likely making situations worse and our enemies more numerous and passionate.

One has to wonder, what does the America of the “real Americans” look like? A bunch of intolerant, hyper aggressive, folks behind a big wall, isolated (not trading with anyone and thus with a sick economy and very expensive goods) and with a lot of enemies. No “Shining City on the Hill,” for sure. Hard to see anything but ruin ahead for such a place.

We can do so much better! For me, better comes easily in the form of former Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For those who do not come to that conclusion easily (I get it), this year it will have to be the lesser of two evils. No matter what, don’t even think about taking us into the abyss that is Donald Trump. 

Any hint of Trump actually ascending to the presidency freaks out American allies. Yesterday French President François Hollande showed himself to be on a very different page about the Trumpanzee than Putin, who appears to be working furiously to get Trump elected. "His excesses," said Hollande in a response to a reporter's question, "end up giving a retching feeling, even in the US, especially when-- as was Donald Trump's case-- he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier." He added ominously that if Trump were to somehow get elected, democracy itself could be "a major issue considering the authoritarian temptation that we see arising."

This is a new song/video by a band, The Symptoms, that was on my indie label, 415 Records back in the early 1980s.

TV Watch: Stephen Colbert continues the countdown to September 8

Since we haven't seen much of each other since December, Stephen asks, "What've you guys been doing?" ("Me, I've been busy," he says.) Here he shaves off the beard he adopted after finding it by the highway, which helped earn him the cover of Homeless Sea Captain Monthly. The beard had to come off, he explains, because on CBS, it turns out, "Tom Selleck's moustache has a noncompete clause."

by Ken

I know I just saw a post somewhere by someone who couldn't believe he'd only just discovered that Stephen has started a podcast. But I lost the link, and in trying to refind it, I stumbled across this nytimes.com "ArtsBeat" post by Dave Itzkoff. I know it's 7½ weeks old, but it turned out that what I had thought was a third-party link, and hence free, wasn't, and I had unthinkingly used the 9th of my 10 free NYT clicks for the month (really? this doesn't sound right -- how sure are we that we can we really trust their counting gizmo? can we demand a recount?), and it's only the 12th, so what the hell, here's the whole damned thing. Note that even though you should now be able to get to the page for free using my link, I have painstaking re-created all the links. At least I think I have, and even if they're not quite right, it's the thought that counts, right? (It's part of the service, and tips are appreciated but not requireed.)

What we could do here is to pretend that it's still June 3. If it helps, you can probably find an online weather report for where you live, to help set the mood. (I'm just going to make something up.)

Stephen Colbert Debuts ‘Late Show’ Video, Podcast and More

By DAVE ITZKOFF
June 3, 2015 3:39 PM

As he prepares to take over CBS’s “Late Show” on Sept. 8, Stephen Colbert now has a beefed-up online and social media presence – but he no longer has a beard.

On Wednesday, Mr. Colbert, who bid farewell to Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” in December, made a long-awaited return to the Internet by announcing various new online offerings for his new CBS late-night program, and saying goodbye to the shaggy salt-and-pepper facial fuzz he had grown during his television hiatus, which had come to be known as “The Colbeard.”

In a video comedy bit, Mr. Colbert gives us some sense of how life will continue without the fatuous Stephen Colbert pundit character he played on Comedy Central. While the beard allowed him to go incognito, Mr. Colbert says, “Now that we’re gearing up for the beginning of the ‘Late Show,’ I need to be more cognito.” He adds, “Plus, CBS is making me shave it off because Tom Selleck’s mustache has a non-compete clause.”

In the video, Mr. Colbert tries out a few other looks before shaving off the beard altogether. (You’ll have to watch until the end to learn its final fate.)

Other new media sites and applications that Mr. Colbert introduced on Wednesday include a Twitter feed, @ColbertLateShow; a Facebook page, facebook.com/colbertlateshow; a YouTube page, YouTube.com/ColbertLateShow; a podcast; and an iOS application called Colbr.

In a statement, Mr. Colbert said: “Say what you will about the Internet, I think it’s here to stay! Launching ColbertLateShow.com puts me in the same league as Google.com, Facebook.com and ferretfancier.blogspot.com!”

MEANWHILE, HERE'S STEPHEN BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR

Angelo's Pizza is used to nestling under the protective
shelter of the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater. . . .

But while the Ed Sullivan's undergoing rehab for its soon-to-
be tenant, the new guy gives Angelo's a marquee shout-out.

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TV Watch: Two excellent things about CBS's choice of Stephen Colbert to succeed David Letterman

Rush asks over and over, do we really care what he thinks about it? Great point, Rush! Who in his right mind could possibly care? Except for the fact that you've got still got a lot of people listening to you who aren't in their right mind.

by Ken

It really seems as if some note should be taken of the news that Stephen Colbert has been named to succeed David Letterman as host of CBS's Late Show -- at some date to be determined next year after Dave finally packs it in.

Two things occur to me -- both good, let me hasten to say. I'm certainly not claiming that they're profound. In fact, it mayt be their very obviousness that makes them so, well, obvious.

(1) Stephen C is wicked smart, and wicked funny, and a long-experienced entertainer, and also has an uncommon awareness of the world around him and a seemingly deep-rooted attachment to truth, as opposed to the commodity of "truthiness" he gave a name to. What's more his worldview is (and I'm sorry that these are terrible words; they're just the best I could come up with) idiosyncratic and offbeat relative to the run of career comics who tend to slide into network late-night chairs -- in other words, a really apt successor to Dave. (And I speak here as someone whose experience of Dave-watching goes back to his NBC daytime show.)

(2) We really don't know who the Stephen Colbert of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (or whatever CBS chooses to call the extravaganaza) will be. The standard word is that he will be dropping the persona -- of a fake-right-wing blowhard -- that he created for his Comedy Central show. But then, that persona wasn't all that different from the personae we saw during his time with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where his tone was carefully modulated to that of the story he was presenting.

I don't doubt we're going to see a different Stephen C from the ones we've seen before, and since we haven't seen it yet, we can't know what it's going to be. Given the list of qualities/qualifications I listed above, I'm not at all bothered by this. In fact, I think it's rather fun. I'm guessing, though, that whoever or whatever the new Stephen C turns out to be, he's not going to be all that unrecognizable.

In this connection, you might want to take a look at washingtonpost.com's Alyssa Rosenberg's "Five parts of Stephen Colbert's fictional persona he should bring to 'The Late Show.'" My guess is that Stephen C isn't going to abandon anything he thinks might work for him in the context of his new format and audience. After all, he has to hope that one important component of that audience is going to be his present one.

Meanwhile, there's a question getting attention that I probably wouldn't have troubled with on my own but that seems to me to have legitimacy, and undoubtedly was agonized over by the responsible CBS executives: What about the Right?

One answer is Rush Limbaugh's already-famous one, as discussed atop this post by The Young Turks. In case we care about the view of a giant sack of stinky caca. By contrast, Aaron Blake of washingtonpost.com's "The Fix" blog has addressed this question in a fairly interesting way (lots links onsite):

Conservatives largely silent on CBS’s pick of Colbert

BY AARON BLAKE

April 10 at 3:04 pm

In its new "Late Show" host, CBS has picked someone who has been bashing conservatives for years using his faux-conservative newsman persona.

But to this point, conservatives have been largely quiet -- and some have even been favorable -- about the pick of Stephen Colbert.

Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh is about the one big-name conservative to speak out against Colbert so far. On his show Thursday, he called the selection of Colbert the equivalent of declaring "war on the Heartland of America."

"No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatives," Limbaugh said. "There's no unity in this hire. They've hired a partisan, so-called comedian to run a comedy show."

But as Chris Cillizza notes over on The Fix, one conservative radio host even appeared to praise the pick:



Despite regularly lampooning conservatives, Colbert has often been somewhat cagey about his own personal politics, as Cillizza notes.

But he has also said quite clearly that he's liberal.

During an appearance on NPR in 2005, Colbert said he discovered his liberal politics while building his persona as a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

"Jon asked me to have a political opinion, and it turned out that I had one," Colbert said. "But I didn't realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices, as opposed to necessarily successful comedic choices."

In the end, I think a good part of the answer to the question "What about the Right?" is another question: How many hard-core right-wingers have been serious Dave-watchers?

Lotsa luck, Stephen C! It should be interesting.

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"David Letterman's Top 10 Political Top 10 Lists" (Jaime Fuller, washingtonpost.com)

"Extra Credit": Not a Top Ten List, but . . .


Remember the time Young Johnny McCranky blew Dave off the night he had suspended his campaign because of campaign finances, and appeared with Katie Couric the same day? Jaime Fuller writes: "It wasn't a good idea, as Letterman proceeded to spend the entire time reserved for his McCain interview for a long roast of the presidential candidate, saying 'somebody must have put something in his Metamucil.' He recruited Keith Olbermann -- McCain's replacement -- to join the grumblefest."

by Ken

As you probably know, on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman Dave announced that he'll be retiring from the show in 2015 (more or less). To celebrate the occasion, the Washington Post's Jaime Fuller compiled for "The Fix" what she calls "David Letterman’s Top 10 Political Top 10s." I thought we should share some of them.


10. RICK PERRY



"Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses"

10. “Actually there were three reasons I messed up last night. One was the nerves, two was the headache and three was, and three, uh, uh. Oops.”

9. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think things went well.”
8. “Hey, I was up late last night watching 'Dancing With the Stars.'”

7. “I thought the debate was tonight.”

6. “Hey, listen. You try concentrating with Mitt Romney smiling at you. That is one handsome dude.”

5. “Uh, El Nino?”
4. “I had a five-hour energy drink six hours before the debate.”
3. “I really hoped to get on my favorite talk show, but instead I ended up here.”
2. “Hey, I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain.”
1. “I just learned Justin Bieber is my father.”


9. PAUL RYAN

"Top Ten Little-Known Facts About Paul Ryan"

10. He's only the 23rd white guy to become Republican Vice-Presidential nominee
9. Was runner-up on season 3 of "The Bachelorette"
8. Always shampoos once, conditions twice

7. Got his start in Congress as John Boehner's tanning boy
6. Claims to be "a lady in the street, but a freak in the sheets"
5. Like the rest of America, wonders what Romney is hiding in his tax returns
4. Has a good feeling about this Jennifer Aniston marriage working out

3. Eats nothing but plants, berries, and small turtles

2. Even before working at Oscar Mayer, had reputation for "driving the Weinermobile"

1. Born in Kenya


8. ANTHONY WEINER



"Top Ten Other Anthony Weiner Pseudonyms"

10. Carlos Dangler

9. Peter Tweeter
8. Eliot Spitzer
7. Perv Griffin
6. James Wand
5. Dwight Thighsenhower

4. Throb Reiner

3. Donald Hump
2. The Notorious Not-So-B.I.G.
1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejunk


7. NEWT GINGRICH

"Top Ten Signs Newt Gingrich Is Losing It"

10. New campaign slogan: "What up, Gingsta?"

9. Since losing Iowa, he's married and divorced eight different women.

8. Has EMTs standing by at all times.

7. Quit campaign to buy a zoo with Matt Damon -- still in theaters, people.
6. When he hears the word "caucus," drops his pants and says, "I'll show you a caucus!"
5. In every speech, he attacks Walter Mondale.
4. His New Year's resolution? Be doughiest man he can be.

3. Makes cameo appearance in Casey Anthony's new video blog.

2. Losing it? When did he ever have it?
1. Claims he was born in Kenya.


6. MITT ROMNEY

"Top Ten Things Mitt Romney Would Like to Say to the American People"

10. "Isn't it time for a president who looks like a 1970s game show host?"
9. "What's up, gangstas? It's the M-I-Double Tizzle."
8.  "I have no proof, but I have a feeling Canada is planning something."

7. "Actually, I'm only here to meet Tom Cruise."

6. "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"
5. "My new cologne is now available at Macy's. It's Mittstified."
4. "I just used all my campaign money to buy a zoo with Matt Damon."

3. "I can do a lot, but even I can't fix the Indianapolis Colts."
2. "Newt Gingrich? Really?"
1. "It's a hair piece."


5. ROB FORD

Five lists!


4. DAN QUAYLE

"Many a Top Ten list," including --

"Dan Quayle's Top Ten Pickup Lines"

10. Didn't we almost flunk out of school together?

9. How about a drink with a historical footnote?
8. I sure would have gone to Vietnam if the Cong looked like you

7. Can my father buy you a drink?

6. You could close your eyes and pretend I'm Jack Kemp

5. I think I saw Elvis last week at the Stuckey's on the interstate
4. Look! I've got a bunch of balloons with my name on them!

3. A girl like you could help a guy forget the irreparable damage he's done to the Republican Party

2. I'll be Vice President after we beat Dukakis and Lloyd Bridges
1. Why, yes, I am Pat Sajak

"Top Ten Reasons Dan Quayle Would Make a Great President"

10. Would not seem like brainy egghead when visiting nation's injured professional wrestlers. 

9. Boyish good looks would cause Mrs. Gorbachev to fall in love, reveal state secrets.
8. His willingness to don inspiring Eagle Man costume on national holidays. 

7. Secret Service agents wouldn't have to take their jobs so seriously.
6. Hilarious hijinks when mischievous staffer tells him to go stand in corner of Oval Office.
5. State of the Union Address would be three minutes tops. 

4. Might really enjoy the part where after signing a bill into law, he gets to pass out a lot of souvenir pens. 

3. Would satisfy little-known constitutional requirement that Chief Executive be "dumb as a tree."
2. We'd get to watch him grow up on TV. 

1. Impossible to pick himself as Vice President.


3. VLADIMIR PUTIN


2. HILLARY CLINTON




"Top Ten Reasons Hillary Loves America"

10. We have more Dakotas than every other country combined.
9. Canadian bacon: soggy and chewy; American bacon: crisp and delicious!
8. Thanks to the Internet, I can order new pantsuits 24/7 – there’s your pantsuit joke, Dave. Are you happy now?
7. 232 years and not one cookie shortage.
6. TiVo
5. Did I mention the soup? Mmm, soup.
4. Did you know former President Teddy Roosevelt was an American?
3. Where else can you get a car painted for $29.95?
2. Is this the part where I say, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”?
1. Apparently anyone can get a talk show.


1. SEN. BARACK OBAMA (January 2008)



"Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises"

10. "To keep the budget balanced, I'll rent the Situation Room to Sweet Sixteens"

9. "I will double your tax money at the craps table"
8. "I'll appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Looking Good"
7. "If you bring the gator to the White House, I'll wrassle it"
6. "I'll put Regis on the nickel"

5. "I'll rename the tenth month of the year Baracktober"

4. "I won't let Apple release the new and improved iPod the day after you bought the previous model" (So much has changed since 2008...)

3. "I'll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece"

2. "Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear"

1. "Three words, Vice President Oprah"

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Food Watch update: Living the dream (despite freezing temperatures) -- NYC's Cupcake ATM opens for business

Top Ten Things Overheard In Line for the Cupcake ATM. "Why the rest of the world hates us!" says Dave. "A new, more convenient way to get fat -- an ATM machine, for the love of God." (Actually, Dave, as we noted Friday, Sprinkles has previously tried the machines out in Beverly Hills, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Dallas.)

by Ken

On Friday this department reported ("The long wait is over -- fancy-shmancy 24/7 cupcakes from a vending machine come to the Big Apple"):

In a matter of days, if all proceeds according to schedule, it will be possible for any credit-card-toting New Yorker within striking distance of Lexington Ave near 60th Street (myself, I could probably get there from home in an hour, with favorable subway connections) to partake of a fresh Sprinkles cupcake.

"Come Tuesday," we noted, "the miracle machine is supposed to be ready for service." Since we try to stay on top of these breaking news stories, we can now report that the deadline was met, and on Tuesday, according to DNAinfo New York's Lindsay Armstrong, "A Sprinkles employee said that the line formed even before the shop opened at 9 a.m."


It's like, you know, a miracle. (On Tuesday, "a Sprinkles employee said that the line formed even before the shop opened at 9 a.m.")

Here's Lindsay's report:

Cupcake ATM Opens for Business on Lexington Avenue


By Lindsay Armstrong, DNAinfo.com
on March 25, 2014, 5:05pm

UPPER EAST SIDE -- For New Yorkers, cupcakes are now just an ATM swipe away.

Sprinkles bakery's 24-hour Cupcake ATM opened on Tuesday at its Lexington Avenue store to the delight of treat-seeking city dwellers and tourists alike.

"I follow them on Facebook and I've been really excited about this because I love Sprinkles," said Zoe Lee, 14. "I probably come here at least once a week."

Not even the freezing temperatures could deter people from trying the device on its first day in operation.

A line of people consistently 12 to 15 deep waited in the cold for their chance to punch their order onto a touchscreen and have a robotic arm fetch their cupcake of choice.

A Sprinkles employee said that the line formed even before the shop opened at 9 a.m.

Mary Ann, 65, stopped by Sprinkles in the morning before the machine was up and running two buy two cupcakes, but came back in the afternoon to try out the ATM. She said she makes frequent trips to New York City from North Carolina to look after her friend's dog.

"I can look forward to this every time I come back now," said Mary Ann, who declined to give her last name.

The machine is stocked every few hours with Sprinkle's cupcake flavors of the day and can serve up to four cupcakes at once, according to the company.

Lee said the real appeal of the ATM was that it offered the chance to eat cupcakes anytime.

"I think it's really great that it's 24 hours," she said, "and I can come here whenever to get a cupcake." she said.

As for my own personal cupcake needs, these days the only times I seem to be in that neighborhood are walking between the subway and my dentist, and a cupcake doesn't seem like an opportune purchase en route to her office, and afterward I'm usually in too much (financial) pain. Cupcake-wise, though, it occurs to me that tonight I'm headed out to Astoria for a screening of Darren Aronofsky's Noah (with Russell Crowe -- who else? -- as Noah) at the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Rite Aid across from the subway entrance sells boxes of TastyKake goodies.

The obvious problem is that during the long trip home (manageable by as few as two trains only if I make my own unlimited-Metrocard free transfer) there's great risk that most of the box will be consumed. That's my kind of cupcake.

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"The worst Super Bowl party ever": Should the White House switch its policy-making apparatus to Dave's Law?

by Ken

I watched about 10 minutes of the Super Bowl (about when the Saints came back from their 10-0 deficit to take the lead), and it mostly served to remind me why I took this season off from football. (It's gonna be a tough call when training camps open in the summer to see whether I can get it up for the Giants' uphill battle to match this season's 8-8 record.) Later I had to make a trip to the supermarket before it closed, and they had the radio feed on, but that was easy enough to ignore.

I bring this up only to explain how it happened that I didn't see the Letterman spot. I've caught up to it, and I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I just keep hitting that YouTube "Replay" button.

Tom Shales has the story behind the story in his WaPo column today:

The spot, which aired in the second quarter, opened with Letterman sitting on a couch, eating chips and watching TV. The camera pulled back to reveal two companions watching with Dave: Oprah Winfrey, who appeared in a similar spot in 2007, and the totally unexpected Jay Leno, Letterman's rival since Leno snatched NBC's "Tonight Show" out from under him in 1992.

"This is the worst Super Bowl party ever," Letterman says. "You're just saying that because I'm here," Leno counters. Viewers had to be wondering if their eyes deceived them -- why would Leno and Letterman be appearing together? -- and if the whole thing was some diabolical computer-generated trick.

Letterman himself dreamed up the spot and wrote it, according to Rob Burnett, president of Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company. "Dave is ruled by one law," Burnett said from the Super Bowl. "Is it funny? And if it's funny, let's do it." The notion of having an NBC star on CBS air was cleared by CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves, executives at NBC, and Leno, who when contacted by Dave's people, agreed immediately, reportedly telling a Letterman staffer, "This is what show business should be."

The spot was taped Tuesday night in the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, where Letterman's show is performed. Winfrey was smuggled in unnoticed and Leno arrived in a disguise that included dark glasses and a fake mustache. "We were desperate to keep this a secret," Burnett said. "All three of them were professional, friendly and cordial for the 28 minutes or so that it took to do the spot."

"Everybody wins in this," Burnett said -- partly because all three performers, especially Leno and Letterman, who've been sniping at each other in recent monologues on their shows -- come off looking like good sports.

I wonder whether the Obama White House would benefit from adopting Dave's Law ("Is it funny?") for its policy- and decision-making process. I know this isn't an approach you'd want to see taught in civics classes, but it could hardly produce much worse results than whatever the hell process it is Master Rahm is using now.

SPEAKING OF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE

Have you heard about Financial Times reporter Edward Luce's piece, "A fearsome foursome"? (There may be a link somewhere that will take you directly to the piece, but if you've already used up your one free hit per month, this one requires that you be registered on ft.com. It doesn't cost anything to register, though, and that bumps you up to 10 free articles per month.)

Luce set out to discover "what went wrong?" in year one of the Obama adminstration that left the president at the helm of "a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington's ways"

Pundits, Democratic lawmakers and opinion pollsters offer a smorgasbord of reasons - from Mr Obama's decision to devote his first year in office to healthcare reform, to the president's inability to convince voters he can "feel their [economic] pain", to the apparent ungovernability of today's Washington. All may indeed have contributed to the quandary in which Mr Obama finds himself. But those around him have a more specific diagnosis - and one that is striking in its uniformity. The Obama White House is geared for campaigning rather than governing, they say.

In dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington - most of them given unattributably in order to protect their access to the Oval Office - each observes that the president draws on the advice of a very tight circle. The inner core consists of just four people - Rahm Emanuel, the pugnacious chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, his senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief.

As a colleague points out, this tight loop doesn't account for the White House economic axis of Larry Summers and Timmy Geithner. You get the feeling that they don't have to worry about having their input filtered through Master Rahm. Nevertheless, for those of us who have been wondering how the administration got so seriously off course. Digby has already been here, and Howie will have more to say about the Luce piece, with particular reference to Master Rahm, in the morning.

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What Would A Maverick Buy For $150,000 In Donations?

Last night while Letterman was treating Sarah Palin as though she is some kind of bozo instead of the candidate for the vice presidency (of the United States... of America), our pals at BraveNewFilms were rescuing the good name of a fine American family, the Mavericks.

Top Ten Sarah Palin Excuses For Spending $150,000 On Clothes

10."Need to look good for the Russians who can see me in Alaska"
9."The old man spends more on Polident"
8."Auditioning to be Paris Hilton's BFF"
7."Wanted to impress the American voters in the evening gown competition"
6."Maverick, Joe the plumber, maverick, maverick, William Ayers, you betcha!"
5."I fell for the liberal retailers' 'gotcha sales tactics'"
4."Because the dollar is so weak, it's really like I only spent $50,000"
3."Hmm...excuses? I'll find some and I'll get right back to ya!"
2."In addition to every newspaper and magazine, I also read every catalog"
1."The difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick, Prada shoes, a Gucci handbag, and a few $3,000 suits"

Top Ten Extras

11."Relax, I dealt with it by firing the entire Wasilla police force"
12."Oh like you've never dropped a hundred G's in Neiman Marcus"
13."Buying sensible, reasonably priced clothes didn't seem very mavericky"
14."I'll pass a law against such outrageous spending once I'm in charge of the Senate"
15."Come on, it's not like we're going through a recession or anything"

Meanwhile,according to today's NY Times "prominent conservatives" take her seriously. They claim they're looking for a leader, but what they mean, of course, is they want their own puppet who is a convincing mime for their crazed ideas and are salivating because Palin draws many time more mindless zombies to her rallies than McCain or any other dull GOP empty suits do. One of the most odious of the far right lunatics, Brent Bozell "called it a 'top order of business' to determine Ms. Palin’s future role. 'Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proven that she can electrify the grass roots like few people have in the last 20 years,' Mr. Bozell said. 'No matter what she decides to do, there will be a small mother lode of financial support behind her.'”