It was a quiet week. Clarence and Arlene Bunsen disagree about autumn yard work, Brad Bunsen visits during a break from his studies at Macalester College, and a trio of drunken deer creates an impromptu parade.
0 Comments
Here's a particularly nice 3rd & Fairfax podcast from the Writers Guild this week. The fellow being interviewed is writer/director Billy Ray. As a writer alone, his credits include Captain Phillips, the first in The Hunger Games series, State of Play and Hart's War. As a writer/director, he did two riveting and highly-recommended films based on true stories, Breach and the wonderful Shattered Glass, which I wrote about here. The podcast also has a conversation with Richard Stayton, the very talented editor of the WGA's magazine, Written By, who has a long career in journalism before joining the Guild.
Okay, let's head back to What's My Line? -- but not for a Mystery Guest. No...for TWO Mystery Guests. Actually, only one is official, but that's only semantics. The first special guest is special enough to require that the panelists wear blindfolds, and that's because it's Walter Cronkite. He comes at long at the 3:30 mark, if you want to jumpt to him. As you'll seen, he's having a fun time here. He only disguises his voice a very little, but still they don’t get it right off, even given how recognizable that voice is. And then around the 15-minute mark, you can jump forward and catch the official Mystery Guest -- Art Carney.
The biggest issue that Hillary Clinton has always had is "likability." But after 11 hours of grilling -- and her holding
up with quiet calm -- the GOP may have remarkably just changed that. (Not for partisans who purely hate her, of course, and no doubt continue to, but for most others who are in the middle, undecided, who don't even know much of what "Benghazi" hearings are all about.) But the pure image of a mature, thoughtful, woman being yelled at by angry men for almost half the day and never rising to the bait, while never getting flustered and patiently responding to every slam can only create a deeply positive reaction. A friend commented that watching Mrs. Clinton testify so calmly and intelligently, the thought occurred to him that he would feel really comfortable with her being president. Again, I'm sure that not everyone felt that way -- but they were never going to, whatever she said. The thought that occurred to me while watching former-Secretary Clinton testifying for 11 hours was -- what if If was Donald Trump up there?? I almost can't even imagine it. I mean, he couldn't handle Megyn Kelly asking him one pointed, but polite question, and got nasty petulant for a week. Then again, imagine most any of the leading GOP candidates if they had had to testify for 11 hours and be grilled by congressmen trying to shred them. Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, even Marco Rubio, or Jeb! Bush. Every time a Republican representative on the committee asked what they believed was a blistering question, I was really hoping that Hillary Clinton would pause a moment and then say -- every single time -- "You do realize, Congressman, that Republicans cut $300 million out of President Obama's budget for U.S. embassy security funding?" How tough was it today for the GOP? If you needed any evidence how well Hillary Clinton did, just know that "Fox News" cut away from the hearings about halfway through. And the Drudge Report was at such a loss to find something critical to write that the best they could do was to tweet -- and I swear this is true -- no, wait, I'll embed the tweet, because even saying you must believe me, some of you still probably wouldn't --
Seriously.
I saw a lot of people responding to this with logical arguments, and I just shook my head. I mean, seriously, how to do you argue with someone who wrote that by using a logical argument. Instead, I replied -- "It's ace medical diagnosis like this that's why I go to @DRUDGE for all my health advice. That and the free suckers." Sometimes, overflowing ridicule and dripping sarcasm is the only way to fly. By the way, after the hearing was over, another campaign-related news story made its way through the morass. And it was near-impossible to not just stare in wonderment at the depth the circus could go. On the same day that Hillary Clinton testified for 11 hours against angry grilling, Donald Trump deleted a really bad tweet he’d written and blamed it on a non-existent intern. Giving his campaign a new slogan, I guess, that the Buck Stops There. After just now finishing watching Hillary Clinton answer questions for 1 freaking hours -- and I'm exhausted just watching, so I can't even imagine how she held up -- think I need a breather and some sunshine and a song. And the best one I can think of at the moment is a talk from my fave British musical, Pickwick, starring Harry Secombe, with a score by Cyril Ornadel and Leslie Bricusse.
This number is sung by Teddy Green, as Mr. Pickwick's butler, Sam Weller, explaining his philosophy of life. It's entitled -- "Talk." I turned on the Benghazi hearings this morning, and within literally two minutes, I realized two problems that the GOP created for themselves.
1) Their leading candidates Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson didn't want to participate in a 3-hour debate because it was too grueling. And none of their fellow-candidates slammed them, perfectly happy to go with the easier, more comfortable 3-hour event. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton agreed to be grilled for 10 hours by opponents out to do their best to shred her and ruin her run for the presidency. And whatever one thinks of her answers, she's handling things with seriousness, specifics and calm. And will be doing this for 10 hours. The contrast in presidential stature was pronounced. 2) When Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) began thoughtfully and pointedly asking serious questions, it suddenly occurred to me that she's running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois against incumbent Republican Mark Kirk. It's a very tough race, and by all accounts Ms. Duckworth is actually leading. And not only leading, but the respected PPP polling firm had her up by six points in late June, Roll Call listed Mr. Kirk in late March -- even before that poll -- as an "underdog," and a Chicago polling firm Ogden & Fray had her up in late July by 16 points. And the GOP just gave Tammy Duckworth (a former Army helicopter pilot in Iraq who has had her two legs amputated and an injured arm) a huge national platform to raise her profile. Prior to this hearing, she's had some national attention, having served in the Obama Administration. But basically, until now, she's largely been a local congresswoman, not even a significant statewide figure. Yet she is still in the lead in the Senate race. And now the Republicans gave her this spotlight. Few people will remember any specifics from today's hearing, and it's unlikely anything "new" will come up from yet another inquiry. But people will remember that Hillary Clinton sat there for 10 hours and held her own, and they'll remember Tammy Duckworth. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|