Tom Watson

By the Arno River

Arno River scull, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

Humanism clangs against the cold armor of authoritarianism in Salman Rushdie's short and golden-eyed The Enchantress of Florence, which I devoured last week in my tiny Air France coach cocoon 38,000 feet over the north Atlantic on my way to the fertile Tuscan workshop of the Medici. That Air France calls its steerage section "Voyageur" adds little glamor - and no legroom - to the grinding tin-can journey, much as "Transformers II" viewed in airline seatback mode doesn't advance Rushdie's soft humanism vs. machine-like authoritarianism theme by more than a rivet or two. It's a sensualist's book, really. Florence isn't the ordered high-minded laboratory of the Renaissance of repute; it's a swirling cesspool (and Machiavelli's a good guy).

The city I encountered was neither. The ancient city core, with its alleys and 500-year-old palazzos, is surrounded by hills and suburbs. The walk along the Arno, across and back on the bridges, in the evenings and on the last morning - my kind of stroll. By the Duomo of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore or the Palazzo Vecchio (aka city hall) or over at the Medici Chapel, I whisked by at a glance. Just across from the hotel, where my room came with a huge balcony and view across the towers and domes, was the Chiesa di Ognissanti, burial place of Boticelli. I heard the bells but had not more than a few moments to study the facade.

I was in Florence with a group of about 40 NGO executives, political leaders, social entrepreneurs, corporate philanthropists, educators, and media gurus convened by Vital Voices Global Partnership,  working to develop a framework for economic, cultural, and political change powered by women. The days were spent in the hills, at Villa La Pietra, the Tuscan home of New York University thanks to the will of Sir Harold Acton. It was a fabulous place, and the work was stirring - my story is up at The Daily Beast (thanks to Tina Brown, who moderated the panel I was on and recruited me to write the account). It was only three days, but fascinating nonetheless - and not enough time to absorb all the Renaissance art.

On the Cold Tarmac of History

Four years ago, I castigated the Bush Administration on this blog for what seemed a public lack of regret over the mounting war losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush visited families in private, but unlike Presidents Reagan, Clinton and his own father, he refused to attend solemn rites for actual soldiers - like standing at an Air Force base as the remains of sons and daughters fighting America's wars are brought home. Those posts stirred a bit of controversy; one compared our official disdain for national public mourning to the memorial for a slain Italian security officer. Perhaps because I'm headed for Italy tomorrow, those images came back at me. More likely: President Obama's overnight visit to Dover Air Force Base to stand at attention as the bodies of 18 Americans were carried from a transport plane, and to comfort the soldiers' families and comrades.

Without doubt, the President's timing carries real policy import; he is on the verge of a major decision on the continuing conflict in Afghanistan, a seemingly endless battle to stem what  seems unstemmable. Yet the image of President Obama standing on the tarmac at Dover is important, whatever his strategic decision. That is because he is not a figurative commander-in-chief, a mere head of state who leaves the conduct of American military action to the generals. No, he - and every president - is the literal commander, the immediate supervisor of the vast defense establishment. Ever since President Washington took the field to crush the Whiskey Rebellion, American President's have run the military directly. Nowadays, Presidents can direct the virtual battlefield from the highly-wired command center under the White House. Indeed, modern Presidents are often called upon to give the order to kill enemy combatants.

For the President to be seen publicly mourning his own comrades-in-arms - however tenuous and thinly constitutional that bond sometimes feels - is ethically vital. As their commander, he is responsible for their actions and must bear the burden for their deaths. But symbolically, he is also a direct link to the people who elected him - and who he is sworn to protect. When he stands before the bodies of fallen soldiers, he represents us. For whether or not we support or oppose this war, or other wars, the President and his soldiers act in our names.

Bush's refusal to be seen near the caskets of dead soldiers, and his Administration's ban on photographs of those returning remains, willfully broke that link. I think it attempted to remove Americans from responsibility for the war - to make it seem like a distant event. And to hush up the cost.

Whatever you think of President Obama's foreign policy, you cannot argue that he turns a blind eye to the terrible price of war. I understand that his visit was symbolic. But in the middle of the night in Dover, the President walked the walk.

Broad Street to Broadway

Jimmy Rollins is wrong. The Phillies won't beat the Yankees in five games, in what promises to be a fascinating Jersey Turnpike pileup of a baseball affair beginning tonight in the faux House That Bloomberg Built in La Belle Bronx.

Nope, it'll take six games.

I am boldly predicting a Philadelphia win in a classic World Series, featuring two terrific and interesting baseball teams - both of them, unfortunately, teams that New York Mets fans love to hate. It gives me no pleasure to pick the Phils, who have the clear makings of an NL East dynasty just 90 miles south of the GWB toll booths. But I think they'll edge the Yanks in dramatic fashion, and here's why.

First, I give the Phillies the edge at more positions than the Yankees. The quick run-down goes like this:

Catcher - Yankees, but not defensively.

1B - Almost shocking to put anyone above Texeira, but Ryan Howard's better (but not defensively). Phils.

2B - Easy choice - Utley and the Phils.

SS - Jeter, Yanks. Always.

3B - The New A-Rod, NY.

LF - I'm going with Ibanez over Damon. Philly.

CF - Not close, Victorino outclasses Melky. Phils.

RF - Again, easy - Werth's better than Swisher.

So that's 5-4 for the Phillies. Now, on to the starters. Philadelphia did a little patching this season after last year's championship run and the starters weren't nearly as good. Yet, at this stage it's pretty even. The two brilliant aces, Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia, may go head to head three times, while the Yanks may face a suddenly much-younger Pedro Martinez (who dominated the Dodgers) even as Andy Pettitte continues to show post-season toughness. The key to the series, starter-wise may well be the difference between eratic whipped-cream flinger A.J. Burnett versus the come-backing Cole Hamels - I'm giving the edge to Hamels in that match-up based on his work last year, and thus the very slight edge to the Phillies among starters.

Where the Yankees totally outclass the Phillies is quite obviously the bullpen - Rivera's the best of all-time and Philly closers were awful. The Yankees have a better supporting cast as well. Big edge to New York from the seventh inning on.

That said, some of the Yankees' bullpen effectiveness is blunted by the strange managing of the ever-hyper Joe Girardi, who loses the managerial match-up to Philly's Charlie Manuel, who is perfectly matched to his team and drives that squad like AJ Foyt used to run Chevy's.

On that basis - and because the Phillies have quite simply "been there before" as a unit while most of this Yankee team hasn't - I'm giving the edge to Philadelphia. They're a tough bunch that doesn't quit, and the extra game in New York won't bother 'em.

Now back to looking forward to Omar Minaya's next move, and the latest on the Wilpon-Madoff saga. Oh, baseball joy.

Crazy Like A Fox

There are fans of President Obama who insist that every move made by the Administration has eight-thousand levels of three-dimensional chess choreographed by the grand master of karmic jujitsu. I'm far too cynical to buy into that particular fable. But I do want to take note of a pretty obvious strategic campaign on the part of the White House that hasn't generated much comment.

Here's the executive summary for you bullet point types:

1. Health care reform is quickly gaining strength after a horrendous summer of political malaise on the left.

2. The right is increasingly outraged by the Administration's box-out of Fox News, and its reframing of mainstream political argument in general.

3. These  two trends are not unrelated.

Strip away a lot of the noise and heat surrounding the public diss Obama is laying on Fox News, and what you're left with is a classic misdirection. It's Patton's phantom army massing to invade the Pas de Calais. It's Peyton Manning's audibles and play fakes before pounding it into the endzone. It's Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown.

Over the summer, the President and his party was in full, disastrous backpedal. This was decidedly not jujitsu - this was poor planning, a drift in framing the storyline. A tiny minority of Tea Party types, sporting all manner of racist and divisive signage and spewing the infectious sputum of know-nothingitis, grabbed the momentum away from a Democratic Party that seemed increasingly splintered. The President's popularity dropped. The public option, centerpiece to the most important initiative of Obama's domestic agenda, lacked even a faint pulse. What to do?

Feint and jab for the fleshy and painful midsection. Who could have known the punch would hurt so much - and be such effective strategy? You see, the people at Fox News actually believe that "fair and balanced" malarkey. Enervated and slowed to slurred and drunken speech by eight years of Bush-favored ascendancy, Roger Ailes and Company actually began to believe their own press clippings; they thought they were part of the mainstream establishment, a "real" news organization respected by their peers and feared by the very government they covered.

So the freeze-out on Pennsylvania Avenue actually hurt, inducing tears of pain and rage beyond even the salty ducts of Glenn Beck's hateful nativist tribe. It hurts not to be invited to the party.

Neutralizing the largest media outlet of the opposition - by inducing a great sob of self-pity - is simply good strategy. Meanwhile, there's a whole lotta policy shakin' going on. The Fox Hunt, the Great Rush Limbaugh NFL Blitz, and the White House's new willingness - nay, eagerness - to throw the penalty flag on crazy right-wing stuff in the media - it's all good strategy.

It also has others in the so-called mainstream press - your ABC News, your Joe Kleins - tut-tutting about the rights of their "sister" news organization, or providing false advice on how the President's taking his eyes off the ball.

But the opposite is true. The Administration, after a tough summer, has its eyes on the ball and it's moving down the field with some momentum. Meanwhile Fox News is tangled in a pile of slow-moving linemen about 20 yards behind the play.

Si Mi Sangre Piden, Mi Sangre les Doy

Here's a great Los Lobos cover from the early 80s of the traditional Mexican revolutionary ballad Carabina .30-.30:

Let the Wild Rumpus Start

There is nothing like a preemie Nobel Peace Prize to set the polity ablaze. I'm sure Barack Obama smelled the political smoke when awakened with the news this morning that the Nobel committee had essentially named him "Worldwide Statesman Most Likely to Succeed" - and White House sources tell me his initial reaction went pretty much like this: "whaaaaa?!"

The President is a smart enough politician to understand he'd been slapped into a pretty neat box by those well-meaning Europeans spending down the old arms maker's endowment. Despite calls to contrary, he had to accept the Nobel - anything less would have been far less than gracious. So he handled it pretty well, with statements like this one:

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

Exactly right. Obama clearly didn't deserve the Nobel, which should be awarded not for aspiration but for real accomplishment. But it's not Barack Obama's fault that the Nobel Committee went goofy. The White House was entirely blind-sided by the announcement, understanding perfectly well the day-to-day challenge of transforming the President's inspiring electoral victory into the kind of real change he promised for nigh on two years on the stump. Even hard-core Obama supporters like Gara LaMarche spoke plainly:

I am delighted for any good thing that comes to Barack Obama, and people need to look at this in terms of the sea change it represents in international opinion about the U.S., but giving it for aspiration and effort at such an early stage is, let's admit it, a bit weird.  Attention,  Pulitzer Prize jury:  I've sketched out the opening pages of a novel I'm thinking of writing...

As Richard Kim wrote in The Nation,  whose covers last year seemed permanently devoted to an iconic notion of the candidate, the committee's sentiments on the President's small body of work "are aspirational in my view. Obama doesn't deserve the prize, yet." The shorter version from Peter Beinart: "I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce."

Yet the natural reaction of some was to try and counter the predictably screeching hellwraiths on the right - "He's basically emasculating this country and they love it!" screamed Limbaugh - and perhaps the desire to rationalize the Nobel choice overcame common sense. It certainly pushed the DNC into throwing terrorism around lightly. There was a bit of strain in the reasoning. Some voices on the left actually stooped to point out that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hadn't yet witnessed the signing of the Voting Rights Act when he won his Nobel, or that Bishop Desmond Tutu hadn't yet seen the formal end of Apartheid. But those arguments diminish Obama by easy and simple comparison; it does the President no favors to call to mind 1950s Birmingham and 1980s Johannesburg in the context of his inspiring - but hardly revolutionary - political career in Chicago.

I think the prize will stick to Obama, and not in a good way. Sure, you can observe that the Nobel committee was rewarding the passing of the neocon era and the end of a foreign policy run on arrogant think tank dreams of American "exceptionalism." But any thinking person knows it's too much, too soon. It puts an even brighter target of expectations on a President in his first year and on an Administration struggling to pass healthcare reform, sort out Afghanistan and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. On his Philanthrocapitalism blog,  the Economist's Matthew Bishop argued that President Obama should defer his acceptance:

At first glance, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is absurdly premature. Beyond his fine words, it is hard to demonstrate conclusively that President Obama has yet added a net ounce of peace to the world, and although hopefully he will ultimately do so, the record of past US presidents, including well-intentioned fellows like Messrs Carter and Clinton, suggests that they do more for peace once they leave office.

The world may be happier with Obama than his predecessor, but it also appears to me that the Nobel machers were a little late to the big rally. It's like they showed up a day late for the blow-out party, ringing the front door and holding out a shiny gift to a bewildered host who's more than a bit hung over and already finished sweeping up the confetti. Like the rest of us here on Planet America, the New Yorker's George Packer has long since moved past the slogans, the balloons and all the glorious hoopla:

This seems like a prize for Europeans, not Americans, and I worry that at home it will damage him politically by reinforcing the notion that he is—and will be—a world icon rather than a successful President. I don’t mind him being the former, but I most want him to be the latter.

Tongues Talk Fire and Eyes Cry Rivers

Richard and Linda Thompson, circa 1975, and the evocative (and ironic, for them) Heart Needs A Home.

Like a Waring Blender

Here's a clip from a rather famous Warren Zevon show at the old Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey back in 1982 - a double track: his classic Poor Poor Pitiful Me and a cover of Springsteen's Cadillac Ranch. Zevon was one of the great live acts, as well as true melodic poet and rare wit. I remember this show like it was yesterday.

Redeemed Through Pain

For a bridge and tunnel kid in 1980 New York...check that...for a Catholic bridge and tunnel kid in 1980 New York, Jim Carroll's Catholic Boy was canonical, a bass-charged liturgy of the word - if the word descended from the Beats and Allen Ginsberg, its bearer transfigured into a poetry-pouting punk rocker with an angry hit record. The record's cover hangs framed in my basement rec room, near the Rock Band video game set-up and my 14-year-old's drum kit. Nearly 30 years ago, it was always in the stack on the turntable and the Jim Carroll Band's shows at the Ritz always brought out the punk royalty, from Patti Smith to Stiv Bators to Richard Hell. At least in my (somewhat gauze-wrapped) memory, they were real events and Carroll - who couldn't really sing per se, but still knew how to sell the story - was treated like an archbishop.

And based on that one record, it didn't seem too much to bend and kiss the ring. It was great, from the iconic People Who Died to the title track (which I quoted in a Lenten post earlier this year).

I was a Catholic boy
Redeemed through pain
And not through joy

Carroll died of a heart attack at 60 last week, and my friend Gerry Howard has a moving tribute in Slate (via Jim Wolcott):

Cognoscenti of downtown culture knew Jim as a literary prodigy who was publishing his poems and diaries in the Paris Review in his teens. He was a fully paid-up member of New York's hip aristocracy, Lou Reed's peer, Patti Smith's lover, Allen Ginsberg's acolyte, Robert Smithson's friend, permanently welcome in the Valhalla of Max's Kansas City's back room. And I had the pleasure of publishing most of his work when I was an editor at Penguin in the '80s.

Tall, slim, athletic, pale, and spectral as many ex-junkies are, Jim was a vivid presence in any setting. He was a classic and now vanishing New York type: the smart (and smartass) Irish kid with style, street savvy, and whatever the Gaelic word for chutzpah is. The line of succession runs from Jimmy Cagney and Jimmy Walker through Emmett Grogan and Al McGuire. In the '30s they would have cast him immediately as a Dead End Kid—he certainly had the unreconstructed accent for the part, an urban rasp that was sweet music to my aboriginal ears. He came up athletically in an era when New York produced the best basketball players in the country—and a lot of them were white. Despite playing his high-school ball for a Manhattan prep school, Jim could more than hold his own on some of the toughest playgrounds in the city against the likes of Lew Alcindor and Dean "the Dream" Meminger. But his street-kid affect never quite hid his essentially generous and vulnerable nature and his poetic soul.

I love that line about the Dead End Kids and Carroll's place in their ranks. Though a literary darling as welcome in the back room of Max's as any of the downtown cognoscenti, Carroll's work covered a different New York entirely. Still, his death does mark yet another great name leaving a city that used to house voices that stirred many a poetic soul. As Wolcott says:

"With his passing, another link to the Beats and the St. Marks poetry scene and the Warhol Factory joins the posthumous fraternity of the starry Kerouac night."

Here's a video of the Jim Carroll Band hammering through People Who Died on Friday's (h/t Dennis Perrin):

And the Moon Rose Over an Open Field

Here's David Bowie opening the incredible Concert for New York in October, 2001 with one of my favorite Paul Simon songs. One of the things that struck me about this show (which was the moving cultural experience of my life) was deep appreciation of New York City and its position and role in the world by British musicians like Bowie, Jagger and Richards, Townshend and Daltrey, Elton John, Clapton, and Paul McCartney, who organized the concert. In some ways, their emotion and empathy drove the entire evening - and provided a release to the cops and firefighters who packed the Garden. It's almost as if - like the Queen, who ordered the Star-Spangled Banner played at Buckingham Palace - these British rockers really took the meaning of "America" (as they call call it) to heart. Anyway, Bowie:

Labor Daze

The last time Americans celebrated this long holiday weekend - first convened in 1882 to publicly applaud "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" - Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee and trailing after a long, drifting summer that knocked his impressive, disciplined campaign off message and off kilter. Then September dawned, Lehman Brothers died, the swirl of the world economy began its grand flush, the electorate took a longer look at Sarah Palin, and John McCain opened his mouth to say the country's financial structures remained strong.

Obama counter-punched on the economy and didn't stop hitting till McCain was on TV thanking his supporters and (rather deliciously, from a spectator's view) freezing out Palin.

In truth, that's mainly who Obama is as a politician: a man who sees an opening, who doesn't panic against the ropes, who occasionally works the clock. Writers who resort to boxing metaphors should spend a term of no less than a year in re-education camps, but I'll risk it just this once and date myself at the same time: the President's always been more Ali than Frazier, a synthetic blend of talent and tactics.

Come Wednesday night and the Confab on Capitol Hill, Obama attempts to shift away from the ropes on healthcare reform and go on the offensive once again - really, the first time he's attempted this pivot since coming to power. The odds aren't great: last year, he was allowed six months between turning to embrace the half of the Democratic Party that fought for Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the electorate. This time, he has to fire the combo in rapid succession.

And he doesn't exactly have the collective wisdom on Angelo Dundee in his party's corner, either. Let's listen in on Howard Cosell, uh, that is to say, James Wolcott:

There are times when Democrats remind me of the episode of Seinfeld where, after a slapstick chain of mishaps, Kramer finds himself pinned against the wall like a soldier about to be executed as a tennis-ball machine bops one ball after another off of his head, until he groggily collapses and slides out of frame. The history and velocity and modus operandi of conservative attacks on elected Democrats are out there in the screaming daylight open and yet time and again they find themselves in a passive, stationary, unprepared position, getting pounded into mush, going down in - well, it's too early and wimpy to talk about defeat. But stale defeatism is definitely loose in the air.

To borrow a word Democrats generally shrink from - the word that launched Ted Kennedy's 1980 campaign - there is general malaise settling over town these days, a kind of wimpy (to borrow Wolcott's invective) deflation in expectations from Democratic Washington, beginning with the White House. At Obama's urging, thousands of Facebook users posted this as their status last week:

No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare. No one should go broke because they get sick, and no one should be tied to a job because of pre-existing condition. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

What's remarkable isn't the clarity of the language, or the fact that it became so instantly widespread. No, what's remarkable is that it comes so late in the game. If the White House - and its obsession with avoiding the mistakes of '93-94 - was really on the kind of A-plus game plan that defeated Clinton and McCain, this message mastery would have been in evidence during the over-hyped "first 100 days." Or even the second. Or even during the summer. But as I wrote a month ago, the Democrats surrendered the narrative to the opposition - the canny, strategic, money-wielding insurance lobby and the crazy, throw any insanity against the wall right wing.

For an issues that's supposed to represent the Administration's top domestic initiative, the slow and seemingly ad hoc nature of Obama's healthcare plan has been painful to watch unfold. For a politician renowned for "organizing the Presidency," it has all been spectacularly disorganized. And, frankly, unorganized - at least so far. At TechPresident, Colin Delaney voices the tactical despair many Democrats now feel, after watching (and taking part in) Obama's spectacular success last year:

The enemies may be somewhat different this time around, even if their tactics feel familiar, but the biggest gap is between Obama's grassroots politicking then and now.

The ability of the townhallers and death panelists to grab the attention of the media and chattering class caught many by surprise, but that kind of surprise didn't seem to matter so much to the Obamans a year ago. Remember Sarah Palin's VP nomination acceptance speech? The next day, Obama's fundraisers played their list like a musical instrument, ginning up more political donations in a 24-hour-period than anyone, ever.

By contrast, Obama for America has struggled to get into the health care debate in any meaningful way over the past few weeks. In that time, Obama has been punched from all sides -- from conservatives, of course, using both legitimate arguments and the made-up fantasies of the right-wing fringe, but also from the Left, as activists and bloggers try to hold his feet to the liberal fire.

The Organizer-in-Chief hasn't done much organizing, and the choir's getting smaller. And the lineup of bouts after healthcare isn't exactly the last bus from Palookaville either: Afghanistan, the employment crisis, a looming flu epidemic, market regulation. Well, Obama's turned things quickly before. And he's done it with major speeches. Sure, his kidneys must be aching from a thousand rabbit punches, but Wednesday night is clearly the start of the late rounds in the healthcare battle.

And here's the question: do we get a towel in the center of the bi-partisan ring - or some stinging counter-punches?

What's Wrong with You ... You Stupid Child?

I've always been a total sucker for Squeezing Out Sparks, the hook-filled 1979 release from Graham Parker and the Rumour. It wasn't punk and it wasn't really New Wave (Parker being a hair older than those dudes), but it fit the times as perfectly as this record's eight-track fit the ride out to Jones Beach. Here's Local Girls, a wry commentary on man's innate (and ultimately unsuccessful) drive to remain cool and aloof, and a spiffy old school music video besides.

Don Draper: the Anti-Kennedy

From the instant Mad Men blinked on in 1963, you knew the entire season was leading toward a certain late November day. Matthew Weiner telegraphs his punches like Henry Cooper in the ring with Cassius Clay. Cue the foreshadowing. We all know where this is going.

Yet, as we read "son of Camelot" headlines one last time this damp August weekend, the promise of the short Kennedy era is entirely lost on the character designed to look like JFK. Don Draper is handsome and tall in his custom suits and skinny ties, but at the core he's a sour and angry man slumping toward middle age in one long and achingly dull existential crisis. Don looks relentlessly backward; his is a life defined by the 40s and 50s, not the 60s. His "struggle" - in between soft-core poses with strategically-placed sheets and women - isn't even brave in any definable way. This isn't exactly Dr. Rieux in Oran we're talking about here. Draper doesn't so much search and question, as demand and whine. He twists "Is that all there is?" into "that's all there should be."

The sunny optimism of JFK's White House (arguably fetishized in memorial by the nation's myth builders) doesn't permeate the dark center hall in Ossining or the offices of Sterling Cooper. This year's British side plot seems more like post-War meat rationing than the earliest psychedelic light from soon-to-be-swinging London. The Brits and their strange American aversion stand in direct contrast to the actual history: in fact, ex-pats coming to New York in the 60s loved American culture, embraced all the change and technology, and reveled in the merging Anglo cultures that transformerized Elvis into the Beatles. Yet, the imported London boss Lane Pryce goes all Bridge on the River Kwai on Sterling Cooper's girls and guys. "Lemme ask you a question, why'd you buy us?" Draper asks. "I don't know," answers Pryce. Heavy man, real heavy.

Meanwhile, the cold gray meaningless center of Mad Men, the blase and boring Draper household, continues to suck the remaining heat from the stylish series that should (and occasionally does) revolve around the action on Madison Avenue. I'd hoped that in this third season, the show-runners would expand on the only interesting characters: Roger, Peggy and Pete. But their screen time remains carefully modulated and hideously cliched. A divorce turns Roger's daughter against him. Ambition proves a tough ride for Pete. And Peggy does the Ugly Duckling, unfortunately not a new dance on American Bandstand from the summer of '63, but the umpteenth librarian takes off her glasses routine. Ho-freaking-hum. These characters - like the decade Weiner sought to explore - once held real promise in the talented hands of the actors, but the writing lets them down hard. The Patty Duke Show sported more dramatic scripts.

So the 60s continues to stall and its lead character remains a statuesque stick in the mud, the antitheses of the soon-to-be-martyred JFK. Why Draper doesn't even understand branding! The young London Fog scion had it right: brands in the 1960s were the new thing, little pieces of lifestyle gold that could be invested in and expanded upon. Draper gives us his he-man "it will always rain routine" and attempts to doom the business to cyclical raincoat sales. And he gets it wrong. His talent as an ad man is for plying clients with alcohol and taking the safest possible creative course.

Don Draper shilled for Nixon in 1960. He will hate the Beatles. He'll despise the Rolling Stones. He'll ignore the Who, and the Velvets and Hendrix. His brush with Dylan was about getting some beat chick action on the side. He still wears a hat at a time when young men went hatless, in favor of the Kennedy style. He is tempted by the freedom of California, but he won't make the leap. And when Kennedy falls to the assassin's bullet later this season, you can be sure Don will be perfectly framed in a cartoonish pose of faux introspection. He'll turn his prop cigarette, finger the cocktail glass, and stare handsomely into the middle distance - a mere model of someone who cares.

Poor Man Lookin' Through Painted Glass

At least George W. Bush knows from dignity. Tucked snugly into Presidential Row at Our Lady of Perpetual Hope Basilica in Boston, next to the Clintons and behind the Obamas, the Bidens, and the Carters, our immediate past president was a model of decorum and proper ceremony, as the nation's leaders on both sides of the political aisle bowed their heads in stirring Roman Catholic farewell to Senator Edward Kennedy, a legislative giant whose death leaves a hole in our national debate the approximate size of Boston Harbor.

The same praise cannot be extended to the former President's most ardent defenders, the assassination-fomenting and out-of-power right, whose leading online voices descended into a nasty and inbred bully pit of scummy prep school humor, one giant steaming pus pool collected from the scabby adolescent skinned knee of loss and failure, hatred and irrelevancy.

As the Ave Maria rose into the rainy tropical air that has engulfed the northeast this late-August weekend, the party of public Christian values turned its sump pump of hatred to maximum spewage. Oh, it's all the ooze and stuff of the recount rowdies and all those healthcare townies and the machine-gun-toting Obama attendees and the birthers and the Vince Foster liars and the Gore haters. It's all about hatred and anger and the despicable self - because what else could a self-hater write but the kind of slime that appears under the bylines of such thoughtful conservatives as Robert "The Other" McCain, whose diatribes about Senator Kennedy's "bloated corpse" yield clever comments like this one from the Rushbo faithful: "Ted Kennedy is ONE shovel-ready project the Obama administration can claim to have finished by Saturday." [Google it. No links here.]

The "look at me, I'm hateful and proud!" cowardice of such fools - encouraged as they are by the loutish Limbaugh-led conservative establishment, some of whom actually served in the same great chamber as the Senate's last lion - is just another graffito tag of a discredited movement that has devolved into thuggery and caricature. My friend Jim Wolcott has these people well-measured:

I'm struck by the immature, sniggering bravado of it all, as if they actually thought they were being naughty and standing athwart Political Correctness crying, "Eat me." These guys seem to think that if they keep waving around Mary Jo Kopechne's name like a rubber chicken it's a sign of the Swiftian saeva indignatio that justifies their stale brand of insult comedy, which is little more than the usual liberal baiting with an extra topping of ghoulish glee.

Roy Edroso is (as usual) on the case. I think these good right-wing men and women of God should have taken their lead from my friend M.A. Peel and a dignified bit of Latin that is always appropriate at these moments, no matter your politics or personal opinion: Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.

A Song for Senator Kennedy

In honor of the late Edward Kennedy, a bit of vintage Billy Preston, dedicated to the Senatorial soldier in the war on poverty:

So much has already been said, I figured this does the trick. Those who came closest to my feelings about Edward M. Kennedy: Dennis Perrin and Chuck Butcher. The last lion, indeed.