Tom Watson

Dirt-Bombing Obama

Hey, you. Did you catch the rumor about Barack Obama? Psst. Yeah, you buddy. Guess what I heard about the junior Senator from Illinois? Did you know he might have once been...a Muslim? And dig this, he may - only may, I stress - have once received "training" in Islam while a child in Indonesia? Yeah, it's what they're saying. It's out there.

So went the lead (I paraphrase only slightly) in the national newspaper based in our nation's capital, one of the two or three leading souces for mainstream, deeply researched policy and politics coverage in the United States. The Washington Post and its "reporter" Perry Bacon, Jr.  slimed Obama by reporting - and therefore legitimizing - a vicious smear campaign based on rumors of childhood religion. The paper discredited itself, and debased its reputation. Here's a taste:

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

This is horrendous. Regular readers know I'm in the tank for Hillary, and indeed, I don't think attacks on her by Obama and John Edwards have been generally fair or good for their own party. Sometimes they sound like Republican hit jobs. Fine. But while this may, in some warped way, help Clinton, I think it's reprehensible. Sure, it's been a topic on right-wing blogs and the loon Limbaugh. We all know the "oops, I said Osama when I meant Obama" factor. But I agree with Digby:

I guess we should be grateful that the paper allowed Obama to "dispute" and "deny" the "charge" but considering that he isn't a Muslim, it might have been a teensy bit more responsible if they'd simply written that it's a lie and let it go at that. Instead, it blandly suggests this will hurt him more than the Romney since the polls show that even more people won't vote for a Muslim than a Mormon --- failing to note that Romney is actually a Mormon and thus could be expected to suffer from these prejudices more than someone who isn't actually a Muslim!

Then again, I didn't think the anti-Mormon whispers about Romney were fair either.

More from Huffington Post, TPM,   Carpetbagger, Kos, and Taylor.

Valley of the Ashes

Today I had a pleasant and productive meeting in a coffee shop just a fungo shot from the Elysian Fields, that sacred patch of downtown Hoboken where legend tells us the first game of organized baseball transpired. In 1845, lower Manhattan's fields were no longer deemed roomy enough for the Knickerbocker Club, so they ferried across the Hudson and a  year later, took on the New York Nine in what was reputed to be the first game between two rival clubs. Less than a decade later, the National Association of Base Ball Players used the grounds for their new league, and New York Times cricket writer Henry Chadwick wrote this account, before becoming an ardent promoter of the new sport:

"I chanced to go through Elysian Fields during the progress of a contest between the noted Eagle and Gotham Clubs. The game was being sharply played on both sides, and I watched it with deeper interest that any previous ball match between clubs I had seen. It was not long before I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans."

This account the game's evolution toward professional status has always been a more credible story than the Abner Doubleday "founding" myth from 1876, which had the former Union general from New York formally inventing our pastime. Silly, but then again the Doubleday heirs did own half of the New York Mets until the Wilpons bought them out, so perhaps silly is as silly does.

As I rode the ferry to lower Manhattan (and what a fine afternoon for the ride), it seemed to me that the Mets' story during this long, dark off-season is even less compelling than Abner's mythical founding. The news from Shea is as dreary as this time of year, while in the Bronx the second generation Steinbrenner has resigned A-Rod, and Posada, and Rivera and is in keen pursuit of Johann Santana. The Mets? The big Yorvit Torrealba-Johnny Estrada dance for platoon catcher is all the waltzing we've seen in Queens.

The Mets are moving to also-rans in a division they gave away two months ago, falling behind the Phillies - from Philadelphia, for heaven's sake! Outside of the core Wright-Reyes-Beltran ring of gold, this team is notable for what it lacks, for the gaping holes in its pitching staff. Tom Glavine is back in Atlanta (and good riddance on the lackluster lefty) and the coming stars (the Humbers and the Pelfreys) haven't panned out. Pedro and El Duque are older than Brooke Astor (combined) but more injury-plagued (the grand dame still clocked in the high 80s on the philanthropy gun when she checked out, and hadn't missed a gala start in 82 consecutive seasons), and that leaves two terrific three-four type starters in John Maine and Oliver Perez. The pen, of course, is much worse -it cost the Mets the division title and needs an almost total overhaul.

In the field, outside of the golden three, we've got age and production problems at first, injuries at second, and gimpy 74-year-old Moises Alou in left. Rightfield? Lastings Milledge perhaps, though he remains the team's greatest trade bait - itself a sad story when you're competing for Santana with the young, talent-hungry Twins.

This is a thin year for free agent material and dangling trades of team-changing talent, it's true, but Omar Minaya can hardly use that as an excuse. He has to produce a high-quality team and fast, especially in this last year of Shea Stadium - a thought that depresses me almost as much as darkness at 4:30 in the afternoon. Sure, it's a massive pitted pile of concrete with narrow seats, bad sight lines, and a constant cold wind off of Flushing Bay. Still, I've spent so many pleasant afternoons pondering the deep green grass and Jerry Koosman's prodigious sweat glands, that the notion of the wrecking ball seems like an executioner's song for my baseball childhood.

And then there's the new park. Another short journey last week put me on the train between the city and Great Neck, and I took a gander at the rising stadium. It grows quickly, and the upper deck seating is taking shape.  Citigroup gets the name - to me, it's like spelling the great catcher's name Jeri Grote, but what do I know about brands - and can obviously afford a stadium while laying off up to 45,000 people in the next few months. Which is a hell of an irony because that's exactly how many people the new bandbox will hold! Maybe Citigroup can hold a fired employees day with free tickets as part of its severance package.

The new place is small, and covered in brick. Fred Wilpon thinks of the stadium as a new Ebbetts Field, which was a whole borough over and far away. The rotunda, hard by the Flushing line, will be named for Jackie Robinson, who famously retired rather than play for the Giants. Those were the days - times that flashed briefly during the very early days of the Mets, when Yogi Berra caught and Duke Snider played centerfield. Gil Hodges played a little first base during his last playing days, and later managed the greatest squad in team history, just four years before another National League championship team was graced by the dotage of Willie Mays.

The throwback impulse isn't necessarily a bad one, but the Mets need a perennial contender to pay for it - or they risk being a a kind of Gothamite Seatttle Mariners franchise: nice little team, gorgeous field, never wins it all.

But you know, location is everything in New York real estate and Shea's site - excuse me, Citi Field (shudder) - has quite the literary pedigree. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg no longer glare from a billboard near the railroad, but the Valley of the Ashes still shows its smudges at times, especially during rainouts and Aaron Heilman meltdowns. It was here that F. Scott Fitzgerald placed his great symbol of refuse on the ride from East and West Egg (Manhasset and Great Neck) to the city, along the class line from old money to new money to just plain poor. (Has anyone ever plumbed the irony of Arthur Ashe Stadium and its locale?)

These strange connections wander in, given a sports section and bit of time on the railroad to Long Island or ferry from Hoboken. Still, I wonder if the Mets have reached their high point with this particular vintage, if the statuesque pose of Carlos Beltran in the 2006 championship series at its last money will symbolize a team moving into a new stadium with old problems, and older hamstrings. If Citi Field won't be some diamond-shaped nightmarish version of:

"...a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through powdery air."

UPDATE: I should have worked this in higher up, but if you're looking for the best off-season baseball rumor site in the world, click here. 'Tis great.

Do You, Mr. Jones?

My review of I'm Not There, the new Dylan film, is up over at newcritics; here's the lead:

A lengthy and elegant mess of a film, Todd Haynes’ not-so-experimental I’m Not There is nonetheless a beauty of a wreck, a “non-biopic” about Bob Dylan that mainly ignores that facet of Dylan that always hides in plain site when analysts look for meaning in the minstrel poet’s own life - his music.

Jason counters with his (more positive) review here.

Runway Bravo Newcritics

When I head to the office, I never know what to wear on any given weekday. In winter, the blue suit or the gray suit? The pinstripes or the, er, pinstripes. In summer, the navy or the olive green. Tie for clients, no tie for no clients. Weekends, which sweatshirt with those jeans? Hmm...what's the color this season? So okay, my personal fashion sense is somewhat limited - but that doesn't mean I don't admit fashion's role in popular culture, its thousands of years of history and vital importance, the strange, coltish nature of those darned models, and that weird cross-toe runway walk. So who was I to object when newcritics bloggers Jennifer and Claire teamed up to go all live-bloggy on Bravo's popular Project Runway reality series, which began its fourth season last week? Why pass up the chance to caper "with cameo appearances by some of the nicest bloggers ever to caper in a catsuit in homage to Honey West," as Jim Wolcott put it. I'm up for vicious fashionista snark and the low, low necklines of pret a porter putdowns as much as the next guy! And what better way to follow on our Mad Men Thursday night blogfests - now in hiatus - then with Wednesday night fashionfests. So I'm on board, right there in the front row, looking up the ... I mean ... at the skirts, and dresses, and blouses and lingerie (yes, Lance, lingerie!) of the newcritics Project Runway live-blogging party. 1o EST, Bravo and newcritics.com.

Tinkering With 'Democracy'

President Bush says that General Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf "truly is somebody who believes in democracy." Perhaps he does; he just doesn't practice it. His declaration of martial law and his war on the opposition does not demonstrate that belief, but as Ralph DeMarco points out, perhaps that makes the perfect partner for this administration:

Of course, Musharraf is not the first leader whose rhetoric does not match his record, especially on fighting extremists. But, you see, the war on terror demands that today's rule of law and democracy be suspended in order to preserve the rule of law and democracy in the future (I'll bet you anything that Cheney is sitting back toasting Pervez with a glass of 30 year old Scotch every night after dinner).

Musharraf is full of contradictions. During his rule the Pakistani press has opened up and more voices are being heard. At the same time he has cracked down on the press when it suits his interests. Now it seems that some of the outside pressures have pushed Musharraf to release 3,400 detained since martial law was imposed. Let's hope that he steps down before the scheduled elections and restores the constitutional government in Pakistan. The moderates are the only ones who can save Pakistan, and they have lost all faith in Musharraf.

Ralph also reminded me that one of my personal heroes, Mukhtaran Bibi, faced up to Musharraf and his bullies. Perhaps she's the best symbol for the troubled nuclear nation.

Another Political Rivalry on the Left

From my review of The Deal, HBO's  portrayal of the political rivarly of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, over at newcritics:

The best scenes are filmed in claustrophic spaces - the tiny shared office of newly-elected MPs Brown and Blair, the stifling and smokey train coaches to Scotland, the middle class kitchens and sitting rooms of the English, and the angular pubs and wine bars of London. This isn’t soaring politics; Frear only shows that in clever video clips. This is deal-making or, more accurately, a fine portrayal of the kind of personal compromise that is a necessary ingredient to attaining political power.

Jim Wolcott has his take - and some commentary on British politics - here.

Tunnel Exit Street

My favorite couple of blocks in all of New York (from the existential perspective, I mean) has no doorways, no stoops, no storefronts, and barely any sidewalk to speak of. Indeed, by rights it shouldn't have a name. But it does.

Tunnel Exit Street.

There was no famous denizen of Murray Hill named Tunnel Exit whom the City Council saw fit to honor with a sign. No legendary saloon keeper or actor or civil rights lion. Though as a name, come to think of it, Tunnel Exit has certain cinematic quality that I like.

No, Tunnel Exit Street is the barren stretch of roadway running north between East 37th Street and East 41st Street. It begins outside the west-bound exit of the Queens Midtown Tunnel and is essentially a conduit between Second and Third Avenues with the sole purpose of diffusing rumbling trucks onto less-congested side streets rather than a single, already grid-locked avenue.

There are no addresses on Tunnel Exit Street, yet there is a thin sidewalk on the east side and pedestrians - oh, say those making a quick trip to the Frontier Coffee Shop from the old News Building, just for argument's sake - often use it as a shortcut.

And the city, in its wisdom, has seen the justice of placing formal green street signs on every corner. They hang there each day on their bleak couple of blocks where no mailman needs to tread, no delivery trucks pull up, and they speak their simple message with some strange, civic pride.

Mister, every street in this town has a name even if it has no addresses. No dwellings. No places of business.

And you, sir, are on Tunnel Exit Street.

War Is Hell (Until It Gets Boring)

Pity the neocons. Their war against Islamofacism just drags on and on, the Bush Administration resembles the New York Jets running out the clock in the fourth quarter of yet another blow-out at the dreary Meadowlands, and the reports out of Iraq just don't hold the same manly drama they once did. So many have moved on.

Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz brings his must...bomb...Iran...now mantra to the campaign of Rudy Giuliani, who proclaims that "civilization itself" is in danger from Islamic fascists. Paul Wolfowitz grew bored with warfare early, ran the World Bank into the wall, and is hiding out at the American Enterprise Institute. Richard Perle apologized and disappeared into the think tanks. And talk about move on - Karl Rove is advising Democrats.

But one famed neocon - the best writer of the bunch - has really let his snarling, gung-ho, kill 'em before they kill us war vision slip away, in favor of...cosmetic waxing?!

Yes, Christopher Hitchens, the reformed liberal who became knee-shakingly fearful for western civilization after 9/11, has spent two full issues of Vanity Fair engrossed (le mot juste) in extreme personal grooming. While the fighting men he urged on (and mourned, I must say) continued to go door to door in the worst neighborhoods in the world, Hitch had an appointment at the studio of "the renowned 'J Sisters,' the seven girls from Brazil who have pioneered the waxing technique that bears their country’s name." What followed?

The male version of the wax is officially called a sunga, which is the name for the Brazilian boys’ bikini. I regret to inform you that the colloquial term for the business is “sack, back, and crack.”

I wonder. With the neocons otherwise occupied as the war drags on, what next for Rumsfeld?

UPDATE: It's always so wonderful when they turn on themselves, isn't it? And this guy is touting the leading Democrat!

Dowd's Warped 'Analysis' - My Letter to The Times

Here is the letter I've just sent to the public editor of The New York Times and to its letter section:

Mr. Hoyt,

I am well aware that opinion columnists in The Times are granted  more leeway in their writing than reporters. Even so, tomorrow's Maureen Dowd column on the sexual roles of the major Democratic candidates for President is well beyond the pale for a family newspaper, and for any paper of national repute that claims to be a major voice of the republic.

Her explicit and wholly imagined "account" of the sexual motivation behind how the candidates behaved in a televised debate brings nothing but shame to the Times, and betrays the newspaper's long-held responsibility for public discourse. Her two-bit "analysis" of a specific sexual fetish as the reason for the candidates' lively give-and-take during the CNN debate coarsened that discourse and the reputation of The New York Times.

How can a paper like The Times continue to run these strange sexual imaginings week after week and refer to them as political coverage? What a disgrace.

Sincerely,

Tom Watson
Mount Vernon, NY

Intolerance in the GOP Ranks

Now, I wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney for dog-catcher, but I think what's happened to him in New Hampshire and Iowa is disgraceful and deeply un-American. In case you haven't followed this, Romney was the target of push polling targeting his Mormonism. The other Republican campaigns have decried the tactic, but it's likely one of them is behind it. Creating doubts about a candidate's religion is clearly out of bounds. The New Hampshire Attorney General has launched an investigation; it's illegal there. For once, here's a statement from the Romney campaign I cannot disagree with in any way:

"Whichever campaign is engaging in this type of awful religious bigotry as a line of political attack, it is repulsive and, to put it bluntly, un-American. There is no excuse for these attacks."

And then there are the scurrilous insinuations in the mainstream conservative media of anti-Semitism against insurgent Republican Ron Paul...

Bitch Is Back

Poor, poor Andrew Sullivan. Hillary Clinton's "bossy screechiness" drives him wild.

She grates on me more with every minute I have to listen to her. And that whole passive-aggressive crap about "throwing mud" and "Republican talking points" drove me once again up the wall.

I love how Hillary Clinton makes Andrew Sullivan drop his erudition like a feeble fluttering fig leaf, and how she drives certain male media figures to near-crazy depths. It's what the marketing pros call "value add" from my candidate. Yeah, I want her to win because she's the strongest candidate among the Democrats and a ready to run the country after the Bush wilderness years (you know my position), but damn ... it's a swingin' variety show out there watching Chris Matthews bluster, and Andrew Sullivan fluster.

Last week, Sullivan (who I admire on other topics) went into full freak when Bill Clinton defended his wife, and the insanely overblown "stiffed waitress" story hit the blogs:

The one thing I learned about them is that they lie. It's reflexive to them; after decades of the lying that tends to infect the households of addicts, they don't have a normal person's understanding of truth and falsehood. They have an average sociopath's understanding of truth and falsehood. They lie about big things; they lie about small things; and they lie about things that are so trivial you can't believe anyone would bother lying about them.

Woo-wee. As old Samuel Johnson put it, people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. So I'd remind Sullivan that the eight years under Bill Clinton were an American paradise compared to the last seven; he might also come to understand a verity of the political arena he covers: truth is a moving target. For instance, Sullie, did Bill Clinton lie as he coaxed Sinn Fein and the Ulster Protestants to the peace table, and browbeat them into a peace that has lasted? This Irishman is happy he did, even if he had to shade the truth with Gerry Adams a time or two.

Last night had to kill the Hillary haters, because she so clearly dominated the Democratic debate.  She smacked Obama (who referred to her as Cheney-lite in recent weeks) and Edwards (who hesitated to commit to endorsing her if she wins the nomination) roundly, and deftly handled the gender issue - which is clearly a strength for her. Tonight, Matthews tried to knock a few chips out of the nearly-unanimous "Hillary wins" verdict from last night - like Sullivan, he is bothered by Senator Clinton's voice. It's "shrill." As in "Shrillary," a close cousin to "Hitlery" in the name-calling swamp of places like Little Green Goofballs and FreeRepublic.

Or, let's face it - "bitch."

That was the name Senator Clinton was called in a public forum with a major Republican candidate this week, an act that received no public correction at all. John McCain once again showed just how far he'd stoop from his once-proud status as truth-teller. “How do we beat the bitch?” asked one supporter. "That's an excellent question," McCain responded.

That was the backdrop when Campbell Brown asked Clinton what she meant by the "all -boys club?" last night. It provided the signature moment. Clinton tilted her head, smiled and just said "Campbell." As in, are you kidding me, girlfriend? And Brown laughed, and everyone got it immediately - every women in the audience and on television, and every man who'd kind of like to see a woman in the Oval Office for a change.

As Jim Wolcott noted last evening, "Hillary seems to be doing a good confident job of speaking for herself tonight" and then he pointed me in the direction of the excellent Anglofille blog, where the ex-pat blogger in residence lets loose fusillade that can only cheer the Clinton camp:

Even though I haven’t been following the coverage closely, if I had to pick the person I’d choose to represent the Democrats, I’d choose Hillary Clinton.  Why?  Because she’s a woman.

Gasp!

Yes, I know that’s not the “correct” thing to say. Most women I know trip all over themselves to declare that they would never (never!) vote for a woman because she’s a woman, that a candidate’s gender does not influence them at all.

My question is, why the hell not?

With every toss of "bitch" from the Republicans and every "screechiness" from the mainstream pundits, the gender question in this race is pulled relentlessly from the shadows. And that's a good thing. Anglophille's public thoughts mirror private considerations of millions who understand completely Senator Clinton's description of "the highest and hardest glass ceiling."

But I also think the big question for Senator Clinton's campaign is simple: is this loony, desperate bashing the last gasp of anti-feminists and irrational Hillary haters? Or is it just the beginning?

UPDATE: Oh hell, just go read Digby (as usual) - "Yeah, keep it up fellas. The bitches are, like, totally loving it."

The Great War

Lt. Thomas J. Quinlan in France 1918, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

My grandfather flew fighter planes in the First World War, and instructed the flyers of the Second World War. So I was moved by today's column by Richard Rubin in The Times on the last living combat veteran of what was once known as the Great War, 106-year-old Frank Buckles. Rubin's take:

It’s hard for anyone, I imagine, to say for certain what it is that we will lose when Frank Buckles dies. It’s not that World War I will then become history; it’s been history for a long time now. But it will become a different kind of history, the kind we can’t quite touch anymore, the kind that will, from that point on, always be just beyond our grasp somehow. We can’t stop that from happening. But we should, at least, take notice of it.

My kids were off from school this Veteran's Day, but I worked. There were no big parades, no real recognition of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. I'm not sure we honor our veterans in proportion to what they deserve. I think we hide them away all too often. Why isn't Veteran's Day a national holiday any longer?

Professional Clinton Hatred (Not the Republican Variety)

Back in the 1990s, there was good money to be made - and certainly fame to be won - in the boom market for Clinton hatred among conservatives. Many a media career was launched on the simple business premise of attacking the President and First Lady with whatever could be found (legitimate and plain old crazy), and then repeating the process over and over and over.

Fast-forward. Clinton hatred still pays, and right now it's playing for certain media figures on the left. Certainly, Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington and Chris Matthews simply cannot stand Senator Clinton. They just don't like her, and they wear that dislike on their sleeves. When she slipped late in the Philadelphia debate, they went public with their hatred.

But let's face it, they have an economic interest as well. I'll plainly say what many on the left have been quietly suggesting for months - that DailyKos and Huffington Post and Hardball make more money when there's a real, close, tense race for the Democratic nomination for president. They get more eyeballs, their traffic goes up, and ratings are bigger. It's pure reality programming; what will draw more people - a relentless and  inevitable march toward the nomination next summer or three months of vicious infighting with Senator Clinton as the target.

Hell, I'd watch more of the latter and I endorsed her.

So if you're pro-Clinton and your blood pressure leaps when you see Chris Matthews go on and on and on about her strange clapping habits or the so-called gender card or how she'll be a "pariah" in the White House without the majority support of married men, don't think "blond, male Democratic Lucianne Goldberg on steroids." Remember, it's profitable schtick.

And if you love Barack Obama and get all crazed with hope when Arianna Huffington leads her mega-blog with the Illinois Senator's incredible performance in this speech or that debate, don't think "the lefty Drudge knows all." Remember the page views. And when Markos goes wild over a missing-not missing-maybe missing tip in an Iowa diner, don't necessarily think the Captain of All Netroots is onto the big story of the campaign. Remember the comments and the links and the BlogAds.

Look, their evident dislike of Hillary Clinton is real. But it also happens to line up perfectly with building a bigger audience. And perhaps that's what accounts for the sheer repetition, for the prominent placement of links and headlines, for the repetition (I said that already).

Over at OpenLeft, Chris Bowers knows what's happening here - and why (whatever mixed motives the big liberal media outlets may have) the coming out of those with Clinton hatred is dangerous to the cause of electing a Democrat:

I imagine most people reading this blog are either happy that Clinton is     somewhat down, or at least not disappointed. However, they should be careful     what they wish for. In this case, what appears to be a Clinton drop in the     polls was largely fueled by the same media machine that, most of the time,     happily reinforces Republican narratives as conventional wisdom. The lesson     here, I think, is to remember that the corporate, established media is still     very good at creating national convention wisdom as they see fit. While in     this case that conventional wisdom might make many people in the netroots     happy, most of the time it won't. It is still a powerful institution that     Republicans and conservatives are better able to control than Democrats and     progressives, and we shouldn't forget that. After the fact re-branding of     debates remains of the biggest reasons George Bush is President instead of     Al Gore, for example.

 

Laugh Till You Die

Sure, there's plenty of comedy in politics - most of it entirely unintentional - but to take a break from the fascinating pre-primary focus of late, I'd like to point out the that the comedy blogathon at newcritics runs through tomorrow. Thanks to the planning and editorial work of MA Peel and Jason Chervokas, a trove of links, one-liners, reviews, and essays on comedy will distract you from the talking heads for a few hours. Here's the rather impressive lineup:

A Peek into the Writers’ Room by MA Peel

Comedy in Character by Self-Styled Siren

The Comedy of The Office: Humor, Familiarity and Ambition by Tom Watson (that's me)

Chekhov’s Cup of Coffee by Lance Mannion

It’s Just This Little Chromium Switch Here:  Channelling The Firesign Theatre by Rory Mach

The Essence of Comedy: Leslie Nielsen’s Umpire Moondance by Levi Asher

Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia by Lance Mannion

The Shamus Takes ‘Manhattan’ by The Shamus (of course)

Woody Allen: Television Days  by David Bushman

Wil Sylvince: New York’s Funniest Comic by Jason Chervokas

The Late, Great Mitch Hedberg by Viscount LaCarte

A Short History of British Radio Comedy by Steve Bowbrick

Funny Ha Ha? by Dan Leo

My Favorite Comedy, Explained by Jon Swift

The Best Stand-Up Comedy Albums by Jason Chervokas

Phew, and there's still a day to go. This is really an incredible roster of bloggers, I have to tell you. And there are more great bloggers in Ms. Peel's links round-up. So get yer hee-hee on and your chuckle in full throat, and get over to newcritics.

The Fall of John Edwards

When I was Bronx political reporter half a lifetime ago, I sometimes saw longshot candidates for local office who refused to give up, believing their own aura and energy were enough to push them past better-funded, better-connected politicians. To a person, they were all stunned by their defeats and I was left with one of the great lessons of politics - once engaged in the race, every candidate thinks he has a date with destiny.

Some turn to desperation, simply denying reality when faced with their own worthiness for the post, their own superior ideas, their own plans and destiny. Such a man is John Edwards, former nominee for Vice President of the United States, and the most desperate candidate in the Democratic race for President.

Edwards trails very badly in the polls, and has turned to ever-hotter and more personal attacks on the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. The national pundits goaded him into going negative, to be sure. But the collision of reality with the candidate's view of himself and his destiny - that's what pushed him over the top, and into behavior that no top tier Republican candidate would ever engage in, lest the ghost of Ronald Reagan smite them for violating his cherished 11th Commandment.

These attacks help Edwards not at all - he's a flat line tilting toward the floor. They may have improved the odds of a real horse race between Clinton and Barack Obama. And, of course, they merely drive up the negatives of those he attacks and benefit the Republicans, a party he professes to despise.

Some believe it's a conspiracy. At the Left Coaster, Jeff Dinelli says that Edwards adviser Joe Trippi - the man behind Howard Dean in 2004 - joined the campaign only six months ago and is "close friends with Obama adviser David Axlerod."

The theory goes something like this: Axlerod and Trippi decide Edwards can't possibly win, so Axlerod sends Trippi to Edwards' campaign to put on a full-blown attack, and like a suicide bomber, Edwards blows up his own campaign, dragging Hillary down in the process with a rallying cry of "Hillary Must Not Win." Hey, stranger things have happened.

So Trippi convinces Edwards - fully in the poll-disbelieving, locked-and-loaded destiny mode I've seen so many times before - to go on and blast Senator Clinton, and then moves over to Obama later on?  "Talk about your triangulation,” quips Pamela Leavey.

I liked John Edwards and thought he was a great addition to the Kerry ticket four years ago, and I think some of his populist vision of the country's political arena is much-needed and along the lines of where Jim Webb has gone in Virginia. Maybe he turns it around with a surprising victory in Iowa and New Hampshire, but at this stage, I wouldn't feel very good about that - not in light of how desperate he's acted in the last few weeks. Right now he's lost it, and I agree with Taylor Marsh:

The thing is that John Edwards is a smart man and came to the '08 campaign with a full arsenal, plus experience in Iowa. That's why I never understood when his campaign decided to take a sharp negative turn against Clinton, which includes an ad that is factually incorrect. Iowans hate this type of politics, and Edwards needs Iowa or his presidential hopes are toast. The reviews are in and it's not helping him.

Finally, any Democratic whooping it up over the attacks on the frontrunning Clinton and her slight slippage in the polls should read Chris Bowers' post from OpenLeft:

In short, Clinton is now down a bit because the press told everyone for several days that, because of the attacks, poor debate performance and by "playing the gender card," she should be down. And so, they can move on from the boring, played-out inevitability narrative.

I imagine most people reading this blog are either happy that Clinton is somewhat down, or at least not disappointed. However, they should be careful what they wish for. In this case, what appears to be a Clinton drop in the polls was largely fueled by the same media machine that, most of the time, happily reinforces Republican narratives as conventional wisdom. The lesson here, I think, is to remember that the corporate, established media is still very good at creating national convention wisdom as they see fit. While in this case that conventional wisdom might make many people in the netroots happy, most of the time it won't. It is still a powerful institution that Republicans and conservatives are better able to control than Democrats and progressives, and we shouldn't forget that. After the fact re-branding of debates remains of the biggest reasons George Bush is President instead of Al Gore, for example. Their after the fact coverage of Howard Dean's concession speech in Iowa, or General Petraeus's rosy portrayal of Iraq are even more gratuitous examples. Most of the time, it feels as though the conventional wisdom machine works against us, and even in instances where we might enjoy the conventional wisdom that is being created (and I admit that I enjoy it simply because a blowout campaign is a boring campaign), we shouldn't forget that.

It's true, of course, though I was blasted here for suggesting the media had "colluded" with Clinton's rivals last week. It may have been more accurate to suggest those rivals were manipulated by the media - which has a financial interest in a closer race - and that the leading sucker (I'm sad to say) was former Senator John Edwards.

UPDATE: Today, Edwards compared Senator Clinton to George W. Bush - a foolish thing to do to another Democrat. He did this because Clinton's campaign staffers stupidly tried to plant a question in an audience in Iowa. So Clinton equals Bush, who never faces an unfriendly audience? Who never goes before a non-canned group of people? By that logic, Edwards is another Dick Cheney. After all, they're both super-rich and they both ran for Vice President.

What's Conservative?

The so-called pure conservative in the race for President has long argued for a massive increase in domestic Federal spending, unprecedented in our history - I speak, of course, of libertarian Ron Paul's consistent argument for a flood of tax dollars to be spent on  huge new Federal program to curtail illegal immigration along American borders. Paul's libertarianism only stretches so far - on immigration and abortion (let's get the Feds into private lives, says he), the purist Paul cherry-picks a few social issues. Hard to get elected to Congress from Texas without 'em.

Then there's the opposite side of that coin - the social, religious conservatives and their newly-found blind side. Take Pat Robertson's endorsement today of Rudolph Giuliani, the liberal pro-choice, pro gay rights former mayor from New York. This is a right-wing Christian who laid the blame for the September 11th attacks on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way." Hard to resist those polls, Reverend?

And Mitt Romney has only to enter a room - alone - to entirely represent the splintered shards of the shallow opportunistic notion of Republican conservatism and what it shifts to represent on any given day.

As the Republican race in 2008 continues to take shape with five candidates capable of gaining the nomination, the old definitions of conservative have been splattered by the fist of failure, wielded by one particular branch of the old right-wing river, neo-conservatism. Military adventurism and wild spending and the abandonment of American civil rights are a formula for making some who call themselves conservative stand up and try and change that definition, to bring it back to some kind of imagined Reaganesque consistency that never existed in the first place.

So against the backdrop of those five men, what is conservative? Who is the consistent conservative in the race? And does it really matter? Has conservatism just become the thinnest of all ideological mantles, allowing for attacks on poll-tested "issues" - or does it mean something?

A while back, I read Andrew Sullivan's crisp and well-written The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back, which began with the author's adolescent memories of Margaret Thatcher and his realization that he was - in his soul - a conservative. It's rather cozy, the British lad with a Reagan button in 1980, but Sullivan gets to one central truth quickly - his idea that conservatism is based on a sense of the past, on things that have happened and facts that cannot change: history, events, culture, religion. Indeed, that sense of the past has always fueled the conservative cry of "moral relativism!" That sense of past, Sullivan argues, informs a realism that is conservatism's greatest strength:

There is a little conservatism in everyone's soul--even those who proudly call themselves liberals. No one is untouched by loss. We all grow old. We watch ourselves age and decline; we see new generations supplant and outrun us. Every human life is a series of small and large losses--of parents, of youth, of the easy optimism of young adulthood and the uneasy hope of middle age--until you face the ultimate loss, of life itself. There is no avoiding it; and the strength and durability of the conservative temperament is that it starts with this fact, and deals with it. Life is impermanent. Loss is real. Death will come.

Sullivan's book is a good read, and he's particularly tough on the modern Republican Party, which is supposed to be the party of Reagan (by way of the godfather, Barry Goldwater). To a liberal Democrat, some portions are delicious indeed. And I do take some pleasure in the ever-evident split in the modern American conservative "movement." Because, as is becoming ever clearer, it wasn't a movement at all. It was a loveless marriage of convenience, at best.

So, in the context of this 2008 Republican field, what's conservative?

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

You won't see much about Republican congressman Ron Paul's insurgent candidacy for President on the big TV gabfests or on the front page of your major newspapers. But what occurred over the last two days in the longshot Paul campaign may be the most important single chapter in the Republican race thus far.

To recap: casting his 5th of November online fundraising plea as a not-subtle Guy Fawkes attack on the entrenched political powers in his own party, Paul's campaign raised an astounding $4.2 million in about 24 hours from more than 37,000 contributors nationally. His campaign calls it "the largest single-day online primary fundraising effort by a presidential candidate in United States election history."

Paul polls in the single digits and his constitutional conservatism runs counter to most Republican mainstream issues - he's like another species entirely at the GOP debates - but I believe his candidacy has one overriding aspect to it that even admiring political analysts are overlooking.

I don't think Ron Paul intends to quit his campaign after Feb. 5, or after the first week in March when most of the big states will have voted. I don't think he'll quit after the Republican National Convention. I don't even think he'll quit after Election Day.

I think Ron Paul and his followers are a semi-permanent feature on the conservative-Republican landscape, and I believe his importance will grow. The guy clearly has legs (I've been getting Paul emails for months now), his message is resonating, and not just on the right. Here's Glenn Greenwald:

Regardless of how much attention the media pays, the explosion of support for the Paul campaign yesterday is much more than a one-time event. The Paul campaign is now a bona fide phenomenon of real significance, and it is difficult to see this as anything other than a very positive development.

There are, relatively speaking, very few people who agree with most of Paul's policy positions. In fact, a large portion of Americans -- perhaps most -- will find something in his litany of beliefs with which they not only disagree, but vehemently so. Paul has a coherent political world-view and states his positions clearly and unapologetically, without hedges, and that approach naturally ensures greater disagreement than the form of please-everyone obfuscation which drives most candidates.

I agree with everything Glenn says, but I'd add this. Ron Paul won't become President, or even the GOP nominee. But I think his real aim is to tear down the modern Republican Party, to dismember the aging conservative movement, and rebuild it entirely along a set of principles he believes in. And there, he may well have a chance. And what does that mean for the 2008 race?

UPDATE: Markos calls it "biggest example of people-power this cycle" and a "beautiful thing to behold." Jerome Armstrong notes: "Already at over 6.5M this quarter, Ron Paul is on track to raise more money than any other Republican candidate, and probably will raise more than either Clinton or Obama in the 4th quarter," and goes on to point out that the Paul effort makes the biggest and best use of open-source content and social networks of any campaign.

Clinton for President: One Blogger's Case

A year from today, Americans will go to their local polling places in schools, community halls, and firehouses around the country to choose the 44th President of the United States. As a lifelong Democrat and a committed liberal on social issues - and as a blogger - I believe Senator Hillary Clinton from New York is quite clearly the best choice as our nation's next chief executive.

I say "as a blogger" because that distinction matters. The 2008 election is our first national vote to be truly influenced by the lightning-quick communications of intertwined social networks, weblogs, and online communities; 2004 and its Howard Dean boomlet was a mere appetizer. That cycle anticipated the digital weave of political organizing but it pre-dated the actual loom itself, and many of the innovations - particularly in the area of video-sharing - that we've all enjoyed over the last three years.

Further, endorsing Senator Clinton as a blogger is in many ways far more important than endorsing her as a consultant, as a writer, as a local Democrat. My small online network of friends, and readers, and correspondents links me to a much wider network of networks, and the link to this endorsement will reach further than any phone call or email or pamphlet. It may not influence a single vote. Indeed, I don't expect it will. But I do believe it will cause some small sub-group of readers to think a bit, and some smaller group of them to write. And so the conversation continues.

In truth, I've been for Clinton since the morning of November 3, 2004 when we awoke to the terrible news that the failed and outrageously immoral administration of George Bush and Richard Cheney would continue for four more long and painful years; the news that we Democrats had failed to nip the neo-con scourge closer to the main branch of Republicanism, that it would metastasize and drag our national reputation farther from the sunlight into the gloom of slow disaster. I thought then (as I do now) that former Vice-President Al Gore would not run again for President, and that he was engaged more successfully farther upriver from electoral politics. And I've been telling people who care about politics for the last three years that I believed the Democrats would nominate Clinton and that she would win election.

Three years ago, I had one overriding reason for hoping Clinton would run for President: her ability to win as a progressive Democrat.

I have to admit that it sounded crazy to many I sounded out on the possibility. Doesn't the right-wing despise her? Isn't she polarizing? Aren't people sick of the Clintons and their baggage?

But I believed then - and frankly, I've been rewarded in that belief - that Senator Clinton was tough enough, and mean enough, and organized enough to deal with what had become the snarling monster in our midst: the conservative smear machine, the ministry of disinformation that has infected the Republican Party. I saw what happened to John Kerry, an accomplished enough liberal Senator from Massachusetts. Money wasn't enough. A resume wasn't enough. And I'd also seen what Clinton accomplished in New York - overcoming the carpetbagger image, brushing aside the snide anti-feminist caricatures, and turning her so-called "baggage" into strength. I saw her polling numbers rise and not just in the city, and when Giuliani stepped aside (sick but also trailing badly in the polls) I saw her easily dispense with a lightweight named Rick Lazio.

I've spoken with Hillary Clinton on exactly two occasions, once in a rope line for a simple handshake greeting and once after a prominent charity dinner in New York the year before the 2004 election. That conversation lasted perhaps 45 seconds, but I was immediately struck by just how far off the media caricature of her personality was; we discussed a mutual friend and talked about the night's speeches. She was engaged and smiling and I recall she made a small joke about another Democratic politician, and then she was moving off to shake other hands and crack other small jokes. Hillary Clinton, I'd just learned, was charming.

And that charm is something of a secret weapon. It accounts for her wildly successful retail politics in New York State, where she took every Republican upstate county save one a year ago. It accounts for her popularity in the Senate, even among political enemies. And it accounts for her performance thus far in this race for the Democratic nomination. Quite frankly, Hillary Clinton is the most compelling personality on the stage.

She is also cunning. Shrewd. Quick. Calculating. Opportunistic. All strengths, you see. Sure, there are those who will say combining those traits with her gender creates an unflattering, unfeminine portrait - the kind of woman Americans instinctively dislike.

To which I say: baloney. There are two answers to the gender conundrum created by the first serious female candidate for President, and neither of them is good for Republicans. The first is obvious, but understated by the national media - it's a demographic strength. In the primary, 60% of Democratic voters are women. And in the general election, the largest group of independent voters consists of women. Hillary Clinton was never going to get the older, male, conservative vote. It literally doesn't matter to her at all. Getting a huge percentage of independent women and an overwhelming turnout from Democratic women is a vital strategic advantage, quite possibly an election decider. Secondly, demographics. Okay, that's twice. But I mean less immediately obvious ones. For the first time in our history, female graduates of U.S. colleges outnumber males. In New York, women have caught up to men in compensation. Women dominate the growing nonprofit sector, increasingly more active in causes and policy than men. And for the first time ever, there are more single women than married women in the United States.

This is not to say that Senator Clinton should be elected to the Presidency because she is a woman, satisfying as that may be to feminists. It is to say, however, that being an accomplished, charming, well-funded, and eminently capable woman increases the likelihood that she will be President. And it may increase the possibility of an effective administration.

I do not wish to diminish the other Democratic hopefuls. I admire Senators Dodd and Biden and could easily vote for them. Senator Obama is a dramatic big-picture speaker, and his generational view can be compelling. Governor Richardson has not appeared comfortable as a national candidate and may well run for the Senate from New Mexico. Former Senator Edwards has appeared desperate and his strategies have permanently damaged his reputation, but there is some truth in his populist message. And I believe that efforts to attack and diminish Senator Clinton just before the primary season have the smell of panic and failure about them, and they provide ammunition to the right-wing machine to exploit next fall.

Many of my fellow bloggers, Democrats, and progressives will find this post cynical and sadly lacking in both specific policy and greater vision. They have a right to feel that way; nowhere in this post is there a defense of Clinton's Iraq vote, her husband's mixed record as a progressive, her recent Iranian sword rattling, and other areas where my view may diverge from the Senator's. I've written here mainly about Senator Clinton's ability to win. Other posts will follow. But conservatives and Republicans should, I'd suggest, quietly put down that stone if they've cast a vote for President in either of the last two elections. Nothing can equal the win-at-all-costs cynicism and dishonesty - the disgraceful lack of vision - of this administration and its cronies.

Nor should this endorsement suggest any formal connection to her considerable campaign apparatus; there is none. I have blogging buddies in several campaigns, and indeed a considerable number of friends who would prefer Gore, Obama, Bloomberg or even Giuliani. This is just my personal view, a year away from the national election.

Hillary Clinton is not a perfect candidate for President, nor is she the guardian of some imagined liberal purity. She's a hard-nosed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, and she compromises on a daily basis to maintain that status. The hard right accuses her of being a socialist who wants to create an all-powerful Federal hegemony over individual liberties. Many on the left accuse her being an extension of Cheney-Bush. In reality, she's a progressive Democrat with wide streak of political realism about what can and can't be accomplished within the realm of national policy - a viewpoint that was hard-earned on the national stage, I might add.

To all the doubting progressives out there, I'd ask: who's your favorite Democratic President? FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton? Which one was pure, didn't compromise ideals, didn't moderate his personal views? And of that group, who accomplished the most? I'd suggest it was the man who was the most cunning. Shrewd. Quick. Calculating. Opportunistic.

Briefly, to policy. It is my belief that President Hillary Clinton’s administration would mean the following:

• No Supreme Court justices like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts or Alito
• National health care
• A sane foreign policy built upon constant negotiation and real intelligence
• Competent management of the Federal government
• A best-possible-under-the-circumstances exit from Iraq
• No torture and the return of habeas corpus
• A stronger dollar, less deficit spending, and the end of the Bush tax cuts
• A greener national energy policy
• Federal funding for stem cell research

And that’s about it. Compare that list to where we are now. Who wouldn’t take it, nine from years from now? What more do you hope for? Again, think of what Presidents do, and who they are. They're not preachers or wizards or dreamers.

To recover from these eight horrific years, we must be realistic. To pull the United States from its international stagnation and quagmire, we must turn a cool and calculating – and progressive - eye to the world. We need a competent hand at the tiller. We need someone who not only believes in "big shoulders government" but can put that belief into action.

But first, we must win. And that's why this blogger supports Senator Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.

UPDATE: Tons of reaction out there to this piece, almost all of it from Democrats. Starting with DailyKos, where linfar posted a diary consisting of a link here and asked for comments. There were plenty. First, a couple of the anti-Clintons:

Tom Watson does not "say it all".  It's a lot of twaddle motivated mostly by the fact that he was for Hillary early and now wants credit -- if not a decent federal job -- for his prescience. But notwithstanding the froth &f oam of the piece generally, he is right about one thing: Hillary Clinton is the most compelling personality on that stage.  She benefits from the right-wing caricature because now that people are actually seeing her as she is, she's a lot better than they said she'd be. People are pleasantly surprised.

***

Read the blog report and didn't find anything in it about HRC that impressed me one way or another over the other candidates.  Wow, she's not a republican and wouldn't support torture or whatever, but what's the big deal about that? And even more, it goes on to say that she's electable.  Wow, I could go for that if somehow our other candidates were not electable, but that's not the case.

***

Well-written article, Mr. Watson but, again, most of your support for Hillary boils down to horse-race issues, her "ability to win as a progressive Democrat." What makes her more electable than Edwards or Obama, or Dodd if he had the name recognition? You paint her less-than-progressive votes on Iraq and Iran as being the product of a "wide streak of political realism about what can and can't be accomplished" - how does supporting Bush in Iraq (until the polls turned against it) and on Iran qualify as realism? Basically, it seems that you support her because she's the front-runner and the establishment candidate. I guess it's human nature to do that. But after 6.5ish years of rally 'round the President with Bush, I can't think like that anymore.

But there were plenty of Clinton supporters on a site that generally skews anti-Clinton. Here's a couple of snippets:

That Watson guy is right on ... and anyone who thinks the Clinton agenda would be meaningless, or "not real change," is coming pretty close to the National Review caricature of progressives as well-heeled ingenues who think politics is a philosophers' game without real consequences.  Clinton would get the job done--a job worth doing, despite the millenarian views of the Obamistas (who don't see that their candidate is a conservative and compromiser by temperment) and the Edwardsians (who would rather fight the good fight and lose, than fight the OK fight and win).

***

My theory ... is that the Edwards supporters, God love 'em, skew a good bit younger than the norm here. That's the only explanation I can think of for their constant, vociferous and very literal comparisons of the Clintons to the Republicans. No one who came of age in the '90s or earlier would ever commingle the two.

Meanwhile, Matt Ortega - a blogger I really respect - rejects my arguments here in detail. Please read the whole post and give Matt your comments (he makes some excellent points) but here's the gist, I think:

Senator Clinton is certainly not “an extension of Cheney-Bush,” but she is unquestionably the quintessential Washington insider candidate in what is obviously a “change” election following the disastrous Bush reign. Senator Edwards sees this. Senator Obama sees this. She uses the phraseology about “change” in her campaign and messaging but insiders are less likely to push for the significant change that, in my estimation, is desperately needed in the post-George W. Bush era. It seems to me that many Hillary supporters connect her candidacy to President Bill Clinton’s presidency, but it is a false nostalgic return to the ’90s.

I also got some heated reaction over at HuffPo, where this is cross-posted. Thanks to Arianna, HuffPo is also anti-Clinton territory these days. Some samples:

Hillary's only progressive if you believe her rhetoric and ignore her record. Their idea of electability didn't work out so well in 2004, yet here we go again. You may think she can win without my vote, and you may be right. You better hope so, because she won't get it.

***

If Hillary is the nominee, you can say good-bye to people-powered politics, the 50 state strategy, and any role for the netroots, the grassroots, or outsiders of any kind in the Democratic Party. With Team Hillary in command, the party will revert to a strict pay-to-play business model favored by Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe.

***

You certainly learned a lot about Hillary in your 45-second "discussion." And we learned two things about you in your incredibly wordy post: 1) you like Hillary and, 2) you are very naive. Hillary stinks.

***

Some sheep just want to vote for a woman. Nothing else penetrates their thick skulls. I have seen this happen over and over with women candidates. Even the very stupidest and corrupt women get votes just for being a woman.

Yet despite Ms. Huffington's best anti-frontrunner efforts, there was some postive to go with the attacks:

You hit a lot on nails on the head. As a NH Blogger and activist my endorsement of Hillary always brings up the "is she progressive?" questioning. Here in NH all but the most vitriolic lefties are finally looking at her records.  I've also met her. She was generous with her time with me. Five minutes following a major policy speech. I had the same reaction that many who have met her privately in NH have. My goodness, she's nice. She's real.

***

A distinct plus for me, though, is her strength, poise, and mental quickness while "on stage". It's a rare quality, and unfortunately, if a candidate doesn't have it but the opponent does, the opponent often stands a better chance of getting elected. Even if he or she is...well...not exactly presidential material.

Have you ever ridden a bumpy-gaited,startle-prone, stumble-bum horse that you have to guide and prod every little step of the way, as opposed to a smooth-gaited, sure-footed and steady one that can automatically pick the best route? Hillary, for all her imperfections, seems more that second kind of horse.

And Ezra Klein weighed in, as well with a mixed reaction:

Tom Watson makes the case for Hillary Clinton. I don't disagree with much of what he's said. My problem is what he hasn't said. That Hillary Clinton, when she declares that Iran cannot be allowed to procure nukes and military force will be used if necessary, is lying. That and health care are my threshhold issues. Clinton has convinced me on health care. In some ways, I think she's the best of the set on the issue, and the most sophisticated in her political approach to it. But on foreign policy, her advisers, and many of her statements, scare me.

Life in a Small Town

My review of Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs is up over at newcritics.Here's an excerpt, but of course I hope you  pop over and comment:

Yet these small lives had meaning in Russo’s literary vocabulary; they amounted to nothing, barely a headline or two in the local weeklies and never registered to the fast set in the world capital down the Hudson. But Russo dressed those lives in detail, in connections, in the creation of small societies of men and women. So too do they still matter in Russo’s epic Bridge of Sighs, in many ways his most ambitious novel, which occasionally wanders to New York and Long Island and even Venice - but whose beating heart remains in Thomaston, New York, another failing town where the tannery has poisoned the water and boosted the rate of deadly cancers.