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May 28, 2007

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Michael Jordan was once asked to speak out against the reactionary senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, and provide an endorsement for Helms’ rival in the race, a civil rights leader named Harvey Gantt. He responded, “Republicans buy sneakers too.” That glib response was similar to his ostrich-head-in-the-sand response to Nike’s Asian sweatshop scandal. And he remained close-mouthed on the issue of gun control when his father was tragically shot. LeBron James, often seen as Jordan’s successor in terms of basketball skills and marketability, was put in a similar position recently when asked to sign an open letter to the...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:33 PM

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December 30, 2006

You? It Should’ve Been Me

"In the harsh climate of the 24/7 media, in which gossip and controversy are so much more newsworthy than real news, people forget." -UK Prime Minister Tony Blair TIME Magazine’s annual Person of the Year issue hit newsstands recently and readers were intrigued to discover that they’d each been named. At first blush, this felt akin to the competitions entered into by children – “you’re all winners today, there are no losers” a grown-up would happily, breathlessly declare so as to spare the kids from the traumatic experience of losing out in the grade school talent show. And then, there...

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November 19, 2006

Music & Politics: The Twain Meet Again

Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the rock band The Killers, recently lambasted alleged ‘rivals’ Green Day in the press, claiming to be upset by the latter’s concert DVD Bullet in a Bible. Mr. Flowers is no stranger to courting mild controversy and telling fellow rockers what he thinks of them through the press. Not two months ago, he was practically pleading with Thom Yorke (of Radiohead fame) to return to a style of music Mr. Flowers preferred and to stop “wasting” his talents on his current projects. For a singer who fronts a band that has enjoyed a marginal amount...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:36 PM

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November 5, 2006

Right-Wingers’ Hail Mary Attack

On Monday October 23, 2006, on his daily radio show, Rush Limbaugh, the implausibly popular conservative talk show host, controversially criticized actor Michael J. Fox for appearing in campaign ads endorsing Democratic candidates who support stem cell research. His initial disgust was at the actor’s purported exaggeration of his condition. Although Mr. Limbaugh later apologized for the statement when many pointed out that the physical manifestation of Mr. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease was in fact not deliberately amplified for the sake of the commercial, he did not relent entirely. He proceeded to lambaste the actor for apparently abusing the power of...

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November 2, 2006

Kerry Misses a Line, GOP Misses the Point

Yes, it’s true. Senator John Kerry botched a joke. While the Republicans dance with glee over the election-eve verbal slip by a Democrat who’s not up for re-election, dwelling on the perceived “attack” on our troops, they continue to attack the troops in more covert and malicious ways. In the years since President Bush was first elected, they’ve revoked veteran’s benefits, have failed to provide them with the necessary armor or weapons, and have asked them to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save their own sorry hides. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow - as usual, focusing on...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:59 PM

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October 14, 2006

Hoisted By Their Own Petard

On his nightly news show, Keith Olberman names the “worst person in the world” for transgressions against the human race. On October 2, 2006, he named as co-winners (losers?) in the category Bill O’Reilly and Matt Drudge. Mr. O’Reilly received the dubious honor for trying to turn Foley-gate/Predatorgate into a “gay issue”. Mr. Drudge tried another tack – he blamed the teenagers for leading Mr. Foley on. Beyond being incomprehensibly idiotic, the strategies used by Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Drudge to protect their own and deflect blame from anything inherently wrong within their favorite organization – the GOP – were...

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September 13, 2006

The Summer of 2001: Take Two

Glancing back at the news headlines of the summer of 2006 – magazines, newspapers, television news, etc – and one theme rings true. We’re back in 2001 again. After 9/11, the nation mourned a horrible tragedy and swore to become less superficial. The summer’s news that year had been dominated by the Cruise-Kidman split and shark attacks (there was not a significant increase in shark attacks, at least not one that warranted the excessive news coverage). Following 9/11, the nation learned that while our federal government was on vacation, literally and figuratively, intel pointed towards a grave threat to the...

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September 8, 2006

From Dominant to Third Place

Sports are often allegorical events, reflecting the political climate of the day, acting as a proxy for our political angst. In the early 1980s, Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands. In 1986, Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal amplified the bad blood between the nations. And in 1998, a second World Cup match introduced another level of ill-will. To this day, the English feel a certain amount of animosity towards the Argentineans, sports and war the cause in equal measure. Thomas Friedman asserts in his most recent book, “The World is Flat”, that other countries are beginning...

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June 12, 2006

The Shrill Right

Matt Lauer and his Today show cohorts are no strangers to difficult interviews. In the past they’ve handled their interviewees with varying degrees of success – Katie Couric’s oft-saccharin, attempt at seriousness mixed with perkiness has never really revealed much beyond Ms. Couric’s ability to remain largely clueless about even the most inane topics in the world around her. Mr. Lauer’s infamous interview with Tom Cruise in the summer of 2005 is still spoken of today with Mr. Cruise’s image having suffered greatly, but as a member of Hollywood’s A-List, Mr. Cruise is hardly considered to be an intellectual heavyweight...

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June 11, 2006

Once Again ‘The Next President of the United States of America’?

Since his departure from politics following the presidential election in 2000, former Vice President Al Gore has surfaced on various occasions to give speeches and university lectures. Recently, he turned one of those presentations – a slide show on the topic of global warming – into a movie entitled “An Inconvenient Truth” . For a film presented by a career politician, it manages to remain largely non-partisan with almost no mention of politics barring a couple of jabs at the current administration and its Republican predecessors. Far from being a belligerent polemic, Mr. Gore focuses on the bare facts about...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 6:54 PM

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May 14, 2006

The Quality of Punditry

Having recently read Moneyball, the excellent book by Liar’s Poker author Michael Lewis, it struck me that the biggest theme that came to the fore and was then underscored in the afterword, was that those self-appointed baseball geniuses who feel most qualified to comment on the game were probably those who were in fact the least well-informed and the least likely to embrace the true reasons behind why the outcome of the game was as it was. A prime example of this was the portrayal of Joe Morgan, the longtime baseball commentarist, as a pundit who believed anything he said...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 5:38 PM

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March 18, 2006

Darfur: The 21st Century’s Holocaust

For too long now, the world has stood idly by while almost half a million people in the Darfur region of Sudan have been murdered in the genocide being carried out by the janjaweed militia. The slaughter has raged for a while now, but the feeble response of the international community has emboldened the janjaweed and they have taken their murderous ways into neighboring Chad. While some of this slaughter has been racially fueled (Arabs attempting to eliminate the various African tribes of the region in order to take over the land) some of it is being carried out by...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 7:11 PM

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February 19, 2006

All Apologies

It now emerges that Vice President Dick Cheney’s first words to shooting victim Harry Whittington were, “Harry, I had no idea you were there.” The Vice President, at long last, spoke publicly about last weekend’s hunting accident in an interview on FOX News. Despite the regrets he offered up, there was less a sense of mea culpa and more a sense of self-pity. Though the words he spoke professed sorrow and remorse over the incident, his contrite words lacked sincerity, and it was clear to the viewer that the interview was transparently orchestrated to conjure up an image of a...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:27 AM

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February 12, 2006

The Veep’s Latest Accident

It emerged today that Vice President Dick Cheney unintentionally shot and injured a fellow hunter on February 11, 2006, while out on a quail hunt. The vice president apologized to the injured hunter, 78-year-old Harry Whittington, and provided him the use of his vast traveling medical team – presumably who are on hand should the Vice President suffer a sudden illness. The details are still emerging, but it appears that Whittington suffered flesh wounds – which drew blood without causing any serious injury from the Vice President’s shotgun pellets – to the face, neck, and chest; the Vice President’s office...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 9:16 PM

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January 22, 2006

Cowardice and Bravery: the Twain have Met

Mukhtar Mai should be an inspiration to people the world over. In 2002, her younger brother was accused of bringing "dishonor" upon her family. A court of tribal elders decided to punish Ms. Mai for her brother’s alleged crime by sentencing her to a brutal gang-raping. Somehow the village elders felt that this supreme act of violence and violation would restore the honor to the family and to their community. Ms. Mai’s reaction to this horrific act was nothing short of heroic. In a country where freedom of expression is not a right, where women are subjugated and forced to...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 11:23 PM

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December 20, 2005

Un-warranted Spying

It was recently revealed to the American public that its government has bestowed upon itself the ability to tap into phone calls and e-mails without a warrant. President Bush deems this power necessary in order to protect the American people from the spector of terrorism. Although the National Security Agency previously held a similar authority in phone tapping and e-mail eavesdropping, the expanded rules on the subject now allow for spying without the cumbersome requirement of obtaining a warrant prior to the event. Despite there being a special court that acts not only swiftly (within a matter of hours) but...

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December 18, 2005

The Great Debate

The United States has a long and celebrated history as a country that cherishes and encourages intelligent debate. Be it amongst opposing candidates in an election or in our courts, the First Amendment is exercised to the fullest. Lately though, a series of pseudo-debates have swept the nation, a partial list of which follows:  There’s the intelligent design debate—the theory of evolution versus creationism and which should be taught in the science classes of our nation’s schools is a debate that has returned to the forefront of the news. Apparently those of us who thought this debate was...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 9:51 PM

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November 7, 2005

Blue City, Red Mayor

New York City has long been one of the most politically liberal cities in the country. So much so that in recent memory, one would be hard-pressed to recall the last time the city voted for a Republican president in any large numbers. However, local politics is a different animal altogether. City Republicans are more liberal with their policies than their national counterparts, sometimes skewing further left than Democrats in the south. For the past twelve years, New York City has had a Republican mayor and if current polls are to be believed, that should be the case for...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 6:23 PM

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November 6, 2005

Garden State’s Gubernatorial Debate

Last night viewers tuned in to watch a debate between the two leading candidates in the race for governor. Voters in New Jersey have grown tired of the corruption charges that have plagued Democrats and Republicans alike over the last several years and were likely hoping that the final debate before Tuesday’s election would provide a chance for the dueling candidates put the negativity aside and focus on the issues. However, the tone was similar to that of final debate of the New York Mayoral race—bitter, with several barbs traded back and forth but little clarification of the candidates’...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 11:17 AM

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November 3, 2005

Art Imitates Life, Almost – Part II

On TV’s The West Wing, the source of the leak of NASA intelligence was recently revealed as being Communications Director and pre-election political strategist Toby Ziegler. Upon hearing the news, President Bartlett calls him into the Oval Office. In earlier episodes, the two are shown to have a rocky relationship; but although they are not friends, they greatly respect each other’s opinions and have had heated debates on what is best for the nation. Mr. Ziegler in fact, had been a vocal critic of the President when it was revealed that a life-threatening illness had been hidden from the public....

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:19 AM

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October 31, 2005

Art Imitates Life, Almost – Part I

White House staffers receive subpoenas during an investigation to determine the source of a leak regarding a major government agency. A high-ranking official who is a close aide of the President’s is indicted. The parallel plotlines of hit TV show The West Wing which features a NASA leak and the real White House with its CIA leak are easy to confuse on the merits of their broad themes. It was recently revealed to viewers that the fictitious Communications Director, Toby Ziegler, had disclosed secrets about a nuclear missile to a New York Times reporter. The storyline was undoubtedly set...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:47 PM

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October 24, 2005

Sticks and Stones

Recently, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Mr. Stewart’s guest was Bill O’Reilly of FOX News’ The O’Reilly Factor. One might call Mr. O’Reilly Mr. Stewart’s opposite number at the right-leaning news network, delivering the news with his own particular slant despite his repeated declarations that his show is a “No Spin Zone”. The differences between Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Stewart were stark and immediately noticeable. Apart from their personalities—Mr. O’Reilly’s abrasive manner contrasting sharply with Mr. Stewart’s congenial style—their approaches to reporting the news are polar opposites. While the latter attempts to illuminate his audience via humor,...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 9:24 AM

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October 13, 2005

Get Those Troops into Hair and Make-Up!

In his unremitting struggle to win the war, President Bush once again turned to his favorite ratings enhancer: the video-op. No, the White House did not stage the bi-continental video conference in response to the Iraq War, nor the War on Terror, but the Public Perception War. This morning saw the president engaging in scripted banter with a handful of carefully selected troops stationed in Iraq. What was the message he was attempting to deliver so urgently? That everything is on track, we need to stay the course, etc. In other words, the usual spiel he delivers at every...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 5:45 PM

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October 9, 2005

Lies, Secrets, and Betrayal

Dr. James Dobson, the prominent conservative radio personality and founder of Focus on the Family, commented on the Miers selection earlier this week. Dr. Dobson’s remarks are interesting since they reveal perhaps more than simply his endorsement of Ms. Miers. According to Dr. Dobson, Karl Rove reassured him that the high court pick was one that he could be satisfied with. Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention was equally satisfied with the President’s pick following similar conversations with Mr. Rove. This brings about a couple of points that should concern not just the liberal section of the populous,...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 9:46 PM

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October 7, 2005

Ideology Should Absolutely Not Play a Role in the Confirmation! Hold On, What’s That Nominee’s Position Again…?

Prior to the nominations of Harriet Miers and the newly appointed Chief Justice John Roberts, many conservatives and Republicans had decried the tactics they feared the Democrats might use in order to block an appointment by Bush administration. Filibustering, that centuries old stratagem used on every side of the political spectrum in order to block appointments and laws when the majority appeared overly powerful, was itself called into question. Judging by some of the conservative propaganda released, one would be forgiven for believing that it was a new invention by the Democrats, thought up purely to impede Congressional proceedings...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 10:37 PM

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October 3, 2005

Bushie & Harriet

President Bush this morning named his nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—Harriet Miers, White House Counsel. Mr. Bush followed much the same pattern as with his first Supreme Court nomination, choosing a nominee with a limited judicial past, and whose past in the public eye gives little if any clue as to the candidate’s views on the various contentious issues that may face a future Associate Justice. But one thing is clear with his nomination of Ms. Miers, Mr. Bush has not given up on his primary guiding principle: to elevate his cronies to high positions in government....

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 6:27 PM

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September 30, 2005

Abortion & Race – This Won’t Be Controversial

On "The Situation Room" on CNN this afternoon, Wolf Blitzer, in the process of interviewing Robert Bennett, Judith Miller’s lawyer, asked as his final question: could Bob please comment on the widely reported remarks made by his brother, William Bennett (former Education Secretary under President Reagan)? Robert Bennett immediately bristled at the question and took issue with Blitzer’s ambush, claiming that up until now, he had held him in high regard and was appalled that he would pull something so egregiously underhanded as to ask him a question without allowing him sufficient preparation. He went on to say that...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 4:26 PM

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September 25, 2005

A Tale of Two Gulfs

“Crisis in the Gulf!” scream our newscasts and newspapers. We see a flurry of images: devastated landscapes, innocents suffering at the hands of a force more powerful than either their frail bodies or flimsy homes could withstand, children crying. We hear the statements: “oil prices skyrocket as the market reacts”, “fuel shortage”, “rebuilding effort”, “no timescale”. We see President Bush congratulating his top brass for their efforts, all the while the masses and the media wonder just what those efforts were and why they are being congratulated. We hear about the formation of an investigatory commission to discover what went...

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September 22, 2005

Not So Lovely Rita

Hurricane Rita is rolling through the Gulf coast region right now, on a collision course for eastern Texas. The Bush administration, determined not to make the same mistakes it made when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, is trying to mobilize an evacuation effort in order to prevent Galveston and Corpus Christi from becoming the next Katrina. He doesn’t get it. We’re witnessing the result of someone who is fighting for his political reputation by simply reacting to his last big public relations failure. He thinks he can recover from the Katrina fiasco by doing now what he didn’t do...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 3:19 PM

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September 21, 2005

Hiding behind Horatio

The US Open entered its second week on Labor Day and in the midst of the American onslaught in the draw, a 25-year old tennis player named James Blake continued his incredible run. Blake’s story is a compelling one due to its classic “guy overcomes tragedy to succeed” storyline. By now you’ve doubtless heard the salient points of this gripping story – Blake was afflicted with scoliosis as a child which required him to spend the majority of the day strapped into a back brace; about a year and a half ago he ran into a net post and fractured...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 7:27 PM

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September 15, 2005

Aren’t These Guys Supposed to be P.R. Pros?

At some point, you have to feel as though even Karl Rove, the King of Spin for this administration, can’t successfully twist the words and actions of his employers in order to paint a rosy portrait. For an administration that has received bipartisan admiration, if for nothing else, its ability to spin any issue and somehow keep President Bush’s approval ratings buoyant despite innumerable deficiencies, they’ve managed to commit blunder after blunder in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, as news stations around the country entered the zone of devastation and pictures of the storm’s refugees...

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Posted by Sam Clemens at 4:25 PM

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