Since the holiday season is one of the periods when TV airs the Oscar-winning Going My Way -- repeatedly -- I thought that this would be a proper time to have the great character actor Barry Fitzgerald as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line?  (Among the eight Academy Awards the film won, including Best Picture, Barry Fitzgerald won as Best Supporting Actor.)  Given his incredibly-distinctive and highly recognizable thick Irish brogue, the big question was how on earth would he disguise it.  Rather than tap the table or work around it, he actually comes up with a fun, fake voice -- though at one point he almost slips up but immediately recognizes his gaff.)  If you want to jump right to his segment, it starts at the 16:30 mark.

This didn't make a great deal of news, but it was a critical occurrence nonetheless.

Over the weekend, conservative pollster and Republican consultant Frank Luntz appeared on the MediaBuzz "Fox News" program with host Howard Kurtz.  Just to refresh your memory, Luntz is a messaging guru for the GOP, the fellow who came up with naming George W. Bush proposal to remove environmental protections as "the Clean Air Act."  He was one of the forces behind Newt Gingrich's Contract with America.  And in 2010, PolitFact gave Luntz its "Lie of the Year" award for his pushing Republicans to call the Obama Administration's healthcare reform as a "government takeover."

Okay, so, yes, that Frank Luntz.

Luntz was unexpectedly downbeat when discussion the state of his party. “It’s hard to be a partisan warrior when you see the damage that’s done,” Luntz commented. 

In fact, he was so discouraged that host Kurtz asked him, “Do you still consider yourself a Republican?”

“I don’t know,” Luntz answered.  He then quickly recovered by trying the ol' "Both Parties" (tm) gambit, but the best he could do was criticize Republicans and Democrats about inner-city policies.

So, that leaves us with "I don't know" as Frank Luntz's response to being asked "Do you still consider yourself a Republican?"

When the Republican Party has lost Frank Luntz as a guaranteed "Yes," and can no longer count on their longtime message expert to provide their message, then the party has officially crossed the line into the abyss and are rolling downhill out of control towards the vortex of the netherworld.

​I got a note yesterday from my pal Dr. Greg Van Buskirk, one of the funnier chemists you'll find.  (And yes, the list is longer than you'd think -- I say that based on the assumption that most people probably think the list is zero.  So, Dr. Buzz has the field pretty much to himself. And to his credit, he's worn the mantle well.)  Anyway, he noted that he has long-loved the work of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and thought her acceptance monologue for the Mark Twain Prize was wonderful -- althhough he noted that as great as he thinks she is, he has a hard time rationalizing her receiving the Prize over some legends who have been overlooked.

And I agree.  To be clear, this is just a totally subjective honor, and in the grand scheme of things it's not a huge deal who receives it, and everyone who has done so far has been a wonderful comic talent.  That said, the Mark Twain Prize is different from an industry award honoring itself.  It's a national honor.  And so I do think it deserves a step back to put it in perspective.

Much as I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus (and I absolutely adore her and her work, and she gets big bonus points for having gone to the beloved Northwestern) and some of the other recipients, like Will Ferrell, I do question them getting the prize above some legends who set a groundwork for comedy. Like the AFI award, which I gave up watching many years ago, the Mark Twain Prize lately has seemed to be turning into an award for acting given to star names in order to get TV ratings.  To be clear, comic acting is a terrific skill, and I always appreciate it when comic actors receive the prize.  But given that Mark Twain, who the prize, after all, is named for, was...a writer, I personally like it when recipients also have some involvement writing. I don't "insist" on it, but I do think it adds foundational substance to the prize when disciplines overlap. 

I also think such a prize is best-served when those received it aren't just wildly talented, but legends in their field who had an impact on generations after them, honoring the fullness of their influential career.  After all, they only give one Prize a year.  It's not like a sports hall of fame where they can vote in half a dozen at a time.  If you're really great in your prime, that standard will always be there, and hopefully you'll get even better and perhaps more adventurous.  So, you'll be high on the list in five years, or 10 -- or more.  Jonathan Winters was brilliant in his prime -- when he received the Mark Twain Prize, there was a richness to his being honored at that point instead.

We all can have personal favorites who think would have highly deserving of receiving the prize in years past, after it began in 1998.  And listing them is just a Name Game.  But it's an enjoyable game, and my list tends to focus on legends who pushed the field of comedy forward.

For starters, I'll add a personal choice, and though I was friends with him and am biased, but I'm also right, and that's putting Larry Gelbart on the list -- I mean, all he did was write A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Oh God!, Tootsie, Barbarians at the Gate, the Tony-winning City of Angels, Your Show of Shows, develop the TV series M*A*S*H, and on and on. Or here's a few legends who are either still alive -- Mel Brooks (he's 92, I'm not quite sure what they are waiting for), Mike Nichols and Elaine May (alas, they missed Nichols by four years, but May is still around to accept on both their behalf). Woody Allen. Jerry Seinfeld. Garrison Keillor.  All of whom write. As did Billy Wilder. Robin Williams.  And Stan Freberg, all of who were are around after the award as initiated.   Or for that matter, if you're going to give the prize to someone who has largely acted (and for all her other work is mainly known for two TV series), why not Tom Hanks? Or Dick Van Dyke. (He too is 92, so perhaps he's also fallen in the "Let's wait and see" category...) Or Mary Tyler Moore, who they waited too long and missed by a year. (And not just for her two classic series, but running a production company that created a couple dozen comedy series -- hey, they gave the prize to Lorne Michaels.) Or Goldie Hawn. Or hey, here's someone they overlooked -- Bob Hope! (Hmm, think he'd done enough comedy?)  Or Sid Caesar. Jack Lemmon. And...well, fill in your own blank.

Again, I adore Julia-Louis Dreyfus, and I've liked all the people they've honored. But liking someone's work -- and even loving it -- are not the same as thinking they're close to legend status deserving (yet) a national prize.  And much as I love her work, I not only don't think she's at the status of "legend" that these others are -- I suspect that she'd say she isn't either.  And to be clear, I'm not singling her alone out.  There are others who, for me, don't reach that level -- yet.  Like Will Farrell, Jay Leno, and a few others.  Very talented, funny, terrific careers.  But there's a higher bar for me, and there are still other steps to get there.

Back in 1998, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton made reference to a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband President Bill Clinton.  Not shockingly, she was roundly lambasted and ridiculed by the right-wing.

And yesterday, only a mere 20 years later, Trump's former deputy campaign manager, David Bossie, a long-time mainstay in far right Republican politics, confirmed that she was right.

No, I don't mean he sort of acknowledged something along the lines of what could be construed as admitting it, if you looked between the cracks.  I mean that he specifically confirmed it.  And then even corrected the "Fox News" host who presumed Bossie was merely speaking metaphorically.  

On Fox News Sunday, Bossie -- who was a past-president and chairman of the conservative activist group Citizens United (during which, besides the infamous Supreme Court case, he oversaw the making of several documentaries, including an attempted take-down, Hillary: the Movie.) -- was talking with host Chris Wallace, when he began slamming liberals and then sought to put it in perspective:

“There is a vast left-wing conspiracy that has been going on since the president [Trump] won this election," he said, "All throughout the transition and through his first two years.”  To which he added to clarify the point -- “A vast left-wing conspiracy, similar to what Hillary Clinton used about a right-wing conspiracy.” 

That's when host Wallace interrupted him to make sure the audience understood that what Bossie was saying was being ironic. “Which incidentally didn’t turn out to be true,” Wallace thought he was clarifying.

“No, it did turn out to be true,” Bossie quickly corrected him. “Chris, there was a vast...there was an effort by the conservative movement to undermine President Clinton.”

And in case you're thinking, "Oh, c'mon, but how would he know...?", David Bossie's first job in Washington was when he was hired in 1997 by Dan Burton (R-IN), then chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to be chief investigator looking into possible campaign finance abuses by President Bill Clinton. 

That's how.

Gee, go figure.  Who would have imagined.  Hillary Clinton was right.  There was a vast right-wing conspiracy against her husband.  And against her.  Kind of puts the wounded howls by the far-right in hypocritical, lying perspective.

(Here's the video of his "Fox News" appearance.)

Fun historical note for the sake of comparison:  the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that Hillary Clinton spoke about was a secret one, operating in the shadows that took 20 years for David Bossie to finally acknowledge.  On the other hand, the supposed "vast left-wing conspiracy" that Mr. Bossie tries to equate with it is, in fact, known as The Resistance and is very intensely public and above board.  And there is nothing conspiratorial about that.  It's protest marches.  It's protest meetings.  It's get-out-the-vote campaigns.  The only thing he has correct is that it is vast -- as witnessed in the mid-term elections, where Democrats cast 8.7 million more votes than did Republicans.

The thing is, eye-opening as this is, this story doesn't stand alone.  When I read the article and saw the video, it immediately reminded me of a somewhat-similar occurrence which has played out even more seriously.

Cast your memories back to 2009.  That was during the Obama Administration when the Department of Homeland Security under Janet Napolitano released an assessment warning about how one of the biggest dangers to the U.S. were right-wing extremist groups.  As the New York Times wrote then --

"The April 7 assessment warned that the faltering economy and the election of the country’s first African-American president could fuel support for right-wing extremist organizations. And it said that proposals for new restrictions on firearms could lead some groups to begin stockpiling weapons and ammunition."

And the reaction from the right-wing?  Yes, once again, we got the same wounded howls of outrage.  This was so unfair and wrong and politically-motivated, they screeched.  Except just nine years later, there we see it throughout the news for the past two years.  A major increase in very public activity by right-wing extremist groups, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.  All of them so pleased to be given a platform thanks to Trump and, among many other dog whistles, him saying that their racist hate groups are made up of many fine people.

It should be noted that this 2009 DHS assessment overlapped with an FBI report only three years earlier in 2006, which addressed the threat of white nationalist infiltrating the police.  PBS described it this  way --

"In the 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists. The bulletin was released during a period of scandal for many law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including a neo-Nazi gang formed by members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who harassed black and Latino communities. Similar investigations revealed officers and entire agencies with hate group ties in Illinois, Ohio and Texas."

So, not only do we have these two, fairly-recent government reports about the threat of far-right white supremacist organizations -- followed by the faux-cries of the far-right claiming they were wronged -- which, to the contrary, we see validated regularly now by a range of right-wing extremist activity, but we also have seen a near-explosion of shooting deaths of unarmed black men and women by the police, so tragically commonplace that it's brought about the Black Lives Matter movement.  Whether there is a connection between these shooting deaths by the police and that 2006 FBI bulletin, that's something which might require another study.  But the circumstantial evidence is palpable.

And each time these reports are released, the right-wing squeals in agony -- only to have it all later confirmed by the actions of reality.

And so in the end, the reports about White Supremacists and conspiracies to undermine the government were right.  Far right.

As I have written often:  this is not about Trump.  This is about the elected officials of the Republican Party who enable it all.  And who squeal in wounded howls.  Trying to be loud enough to drown out anyone hearing their party's hate and racism.  But there is no volume loud enough for that.

​From the archive.  This week's contestant is Mike Freiberg from Golden Valley, Minnesota.  The hidden song is extremely easy, and most people I think will get it about five seconds in, after a very sleight introduction.  And it's obvious throughout, not especially hidden.  As for the composer style, I had a pretty definitive guess early on and was right.  So -- I got both, huzzah.  I think most have a good chance, as well.

If it slipped through the cracks, and you missed it (okay, I admit it -- it slipped through the cracks here at Elisberg Industry, and I missed it), here is the full 85-minute broadcast of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize honoring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  It's often very funny and always endearing, though I've enjoyed some other broadcasts more.  Usually, they show a lot of clips of the person's work being honored, but there was a limit of that here.  Mostly it was funny people telling funny and endearing stories about Ms. Louis-Dreyfus.

By the way, a friend sent me an email about the show, and said if I hadn't seen it I'd like her acceptance speech because she mentions going to Northwestern.  I then watched the full show online.  I have a strong feeling that my friend only saw the acceptance speech and not the entire broadcast. Because my immediate reaction as I watched was --  "Mentioned" being an alum?  For the first 10 minutes, it’s like they’re doing a Northwestern tribute!  The first speaker is Stephen Colbert who they introduce as “a fellow Northwestern alum,” he then talks about NU at length, after that they have another performer classmate on film talking about her at the school, and then they show a minute of footage of her performing there!  All that was missing was the marching band… 

For those who are running around with things to do and much as you might want to watch the entire show, but can't fit the full hour-and-a-half into your schedule, here is Julia Louis-Dreyfus's acceptance speech alone.  

(She gives terrific acceptance speeches, as you may recall from her hilarious BAFTA speech, and her wonderful Emmy-winning speech with Veep co-star Tony Hale joining her onstage that I've posted here previously.)