Dick Cavett Suffers From Electile Dysfunction (And Doesn't Know It)

Dick Cavett fires the best zinger in his final sentence in this piece about our "Confederacy of Dunces." (RIP, John Kennedy Toole) If this is (fair & balanced) punditry, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
A Potpourri of Pols
By Dick Cavett

I can’t figure out what it is that keeps me watching the current star search for our next president.

It’s not all that compelling or entertaining. Or at any rate it certainly doesn’t rank anywhere near the three riveting television events of my lifetime: the Army-McCarthy hearings, Watergate and the O. J. Simpson trial. Things that, day after day, held you enthralled, afraid to look away for more than a moment for fear of missing the next bombshell.

And yet I dutifully watch Keith and Chris and Wolf and those Sunday morning talk shows Calvin Trillin has labeled “The Sabbath Gasbags.”

Admittedly, it’s all important stuff. But what is missing? We can surely agree there are damn few laughs (see Twain, below). Even inadvertent nastiness (when it is inadvertent) gets quickly apologized for. (Of course, by the time you read this there may have been out-of-control carnage.) Perhaps it’s that inexcusable thing I said in an acting class years ago, after a slight teenage girl had done a speech of King Lear’s: “For me, it lacked majesty.” The laugh it got still pains me.

Maybe it’s just that it is not indubitably and overwhelmingly obvious that a large number of the candidates, arrayed across the stage in bas-relief, are qualified to fill The Hardest Job in the World.

**********

In a much earlier column about John McCain in this space I posed the question: “What has happened to that man?” McCain had just participated in that ludicrous look-how-safe-Baghdad-has-become charade, sashaying around a seemingly unguarded open market. It was impressive and seemed to make its point — right up until it was revealed that just off camera our intrepid John was being protected by a throng of fully armed troops — fore and aft and hovering overhead. One of the shopkeepers seen on camera told a newsman, “Now I am a target.”

Despite that bruise to his integrity, McCain appears to be himself again. I do worry that near the end of the day he appears to be what the British call “puffed.” But so do they all. Isn’t it time some more humane way of campaigning was devised that didn’t nearly wreck the participants, what with the rushed meals and bad sleep and vocal strain (if not injury), and the stuffed-down local kitchen specialties and obligatory ethnic snacks and fatiguing killer schedules? Mightn’t the country miss out on fine, qualified potential presidents unwilling or unable to endure an ordeal that would tax a triathlete? I half-expect McCain to drolly observe that the Hanoi Hilton was at times restful compared to this.

It has to be awful on all of them, with the exception of Fred Thompson, who seems to be campaigning from a Barcalounger.

I find McCain — apart from his unwillingness to detach himself from his “victory in Iraq” mirage — greatly appealing. And, of the flock, he seems to be the one with a genuine sense of humor. He deserves the Best Comic Ad-lib trophy for his remark to Romney during a debate. Referring to Mitt’s so readily adjustable convictions, McCain said, “We agree — you are the candidate of change.”

Romney’s response was the predictably clunky one about getting personal, which has become the habitual refuge of the lackwit.

As a kid, I sent off for a book for performing magicians like myself called “Heckler Stoppers: Snappy Retorts for All Occasions.” Sadly, the wittiest of them were on the level of “Your mother wears army shoes.” But maybe some genuine wit could get rich putting one out for politicos lame in the quick-comeback department. If all those so impaired bought one, it would be an instant best-seller.

Political comic relief is not a trivial subject. All candidates should bear in mind Mark Twain’s edict that “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

**********

John of Arizona seems like a man you wouldn’t be afraid to trust with a preposterously difficult job like the one he is after. Though Dennis Kucinich is an interesting case. Whenever I’ve seen him answer a question he has done so thoughtfully, intelligently, manfully, forcefully and articulately. Yet he’s treated as no more electable than you or I. Is it merely his size and appearance? Where is it written that a candidate bearing a greater resemblance to a garden gnome than to Mr. America can’t be president? Had Dennis been born into Mitt Romney’s body might this campaign be a whole different story?

And what of the current occupant of Romney’s body? He fascinates me. He’s intelligent, knowledgeable-seeming, handsome, well-dressed and groomed, pleasant, and mature in manner. So why does something emanating from him seem to whisper the word “bogus”?

Part of it could be his hair. To my eye it just might be an expert colorist job — an indicative lapse in that alleged sine qua non, authenticity — with those artful white flecks here and there and the “Paulie Walnuts” temple patches. I may be doing him a disservice. It may be a case of nature and not artifice, in which case I should be forced to apologize in this space and to down a bottle of Shinola Black in public.

There is one question I have not seen Romney asked. It’s the one a friend dared me to put to John Wayne when he appeared on a show of mine: Sir, how is it that neither you nor any of your multiple strapping sons have ever served a day in the armed forces?

(I confess that I didn’t ask Mr. Wayne because I so wanted the Duke to like me. I sure liked him.)

**********

If Hillary Clinton’s so-called “cry” was planned, she is, along with her other talents, one hell of an actress. But for my money, her greatest moment was that niftily executed and funny response to the boorish query about how she felt about being lacking in the “likability” department. If it was meant to put her off, it backfired. Her “Well, that hurts my feelings” and “But I’ll try to go on” could hardly have been delivered better by Meryl Streep. Or Elaine May.

Barack Obama seems a sort of miracle. He has only frightened me once, when he seemed to have fallen into the royal “we.” The one favored by monarchs and also by athletes, usually in conjunction with their expressed gratitude to God for choosing their side to win. To borrow from Mark T. again, somewhere he said that “only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’”

This campaign seems unusually free of inside dirt and nasty rumors. There have been some touchy moments and less than pure remarks and tactics, but certainly nothing shattering nor comparable to the tactics of the low-brow thugs who gave us Swiftboats. Fortunately there’s plenty of time left for all that. My only possible offering in that regard is from a distinguished friend who worked alongside Rudolph Giuliani on some New York City project. His take? “That is a bad man.”
I irresponsibly throw that in for what it’s worth.

Would anyone be upset if I knocked off at this point? Meanwhile, let’s all remember that there is one blessing that all of the candidates can revel in and enjoy: They needn’t have any fears about being inferior to the incumbent.

[The host of “The Dick Cavett Show” — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the coauthor of two books, Cavett (1974) and Eye on Cavett (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged” “Into the Woods” and as narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show,” and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including “Forrest Gump” and “The Simpsons.” Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.]


Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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More Funeral Etiquette, Courtesy Of Rat

Today's installment of Rat at a stranger's post-funeral meal is LOL funny. Translation: Laugh-out-loud funny. Rat has got to be the worst, most cynical character in the "funny papers." If this is (fair & balanced) synchronicity, so be it.



[x Pearls Before Swine]

Click on image to enlarge [01/22/2008]

[Stephan Pastis is an attorney-cum-cartoonist and a world-class connoisseur of cynicism.]

Copyright © 2008 Stephan Pastis

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Electile Dysfunction? A Word Of Advice From... Tehran?

A good friend sent along a pair of forwarded e-mail messages this AM. The first alarm noted the financial turmoil of the day in overseas markets and the fear that the U. S. market was going down like a runaway elevator.

This very morning, the NY Fishwrap reported: "Stocks Open Sharply Lower Despite Interest-Rate Cut

"Within minutes of the opening bell in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points, or 3.5 percent, and other major indexes also slid. The Nasdaq Composite was down more than 5 percent."

What can be done? Not much, I'm afraid. An Iranian economist (no less) wrote about our national economic malaise and pinned his hopes on U. S. leaders finding "(a)... solution to the U.S. debt problem that requires radical measures, including: the elimination of corporate tax loopholes, a reversal of tax breaks for the ultra-rich, a bipartisan campaign to eliminate budget 'pork,' imposition of stringent limits on corporate debt and speculative lending, a vast reduction in military expenditure and, finally, an additional 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax that would slash the federal deficit, curtail energy waste and spur technological breakthroughs."

My friend also forwarded a new term that describes the potential leaders who would deal with the debt problem that looms like an iceberg in the path of the ship of state:

"Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year."

If this is (fair & balanced) gloom, so be it.

[The International Herald Tribune]
A debt culture gone awry
By Hamid Varzi

The U.S. economy, once the envy of the world, is now viewed across the globe with suspicion. America has become shackled by an immovable mountain of debt that endangers its prosperity and threatens to bring the rest of the world economy crashing down with it.

The ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis, a result of irresponsible lending policies designed to generate commissions for unscrupulous brokers, presages far deeper problems in a U.S. economy that is beginning to resemble a giant smoke-and-mirrors Ponzi scheme. And this has not been lost on the rest of the world.

This new reality has had unfortunate side effects that go beyond economics. As a banker working in the heart of the Muslim world, I have been amazed by the depth and breadth of anti-Americanism, even among U.S. allies, manifested in reactions ranging from fierce anger to stoic fatalism. Muslims outside the United States interpret America's policies in the Middle East not as an effort to spread democracy but as a blatant neocolonialist attempt to solve its economic problems by force. Arabs and Persians alike argue that America's fiscal irresponsibility has forced the nation to seek solutions through military aggression.

Many believe that America's misguided adventure in Iraq was a desperate attempt to capture both a reliable source of cheap oil and a major export market for the United States.

The United States borrows a whopping $2.5 billion daily from abroad to service its burgeoning debt. In order to continue borrowing at reasonable interest rates America needs to retain credibility with its overseas creditors, especially Far Eastern nations running huge trade surpluses. A cessation of foreign lending would force the Fed to raise interest rates to attract money, precipitating a collapse of the already weak housing market and pushing the economy into recession.

This is why the Chinese, in particular, have threatened to retaliate against proposed U.S. trade sanctions by reducing their $1.3 trillion in dollar holdings.

The U.S. debt situation is so grave that the Chinese would not even need to "dump dollars" to precipitate a meltdown but could simply refuse to extend further credit: They could cease purchasing additional Treasury Bonds and Treasury Bills, without selling any excess inventory. China has the far stronger hand, because a run on the dollar would merely reduce China's gigantic cash surplus while increasing America's debt burden to astronomical levels.

U.S. debt affects all nations, but in surprisingly different ways: Third world farmers suffer from the effects of gigantic U.S. farm subsidies aimed at reducing the trade deficit, while Russia has actually profited from America's lack of discipline.

Flush with funds generated from a decade of trade and account surpluses, Russia views U.S. sensitivity to its expansionist energy policy as a response to America's own failure to reduce energy waste and exploit alternative energy sources when it had the opportunity to do so. In sum, American economic decadence has become a source of Russian strength.

America's supply-side economists argue that there is nothing wrong with going into debt, but this is valid only as long as a nation and its consumers are gaining something in return.

What have Americans gained from their nation's mountain of debt? A crumbling infrastructure, a manufacturing base that has declined 60 percent since World War II, a rise in the wealth gap, the lowest consumer-savings rate since the depths of the Great Depression, 50 million Americans without health insurance, an educational system in decline and a shrinking dollar that makes foreign travel a luxury.

The best cars, the best bridges and highways, the fastest trains and the tallest buildings are all to be found outside America's borders. Supply-siders ignore the crucial distinction between, on the one hand, debt employed as an investment vehicle to enhance competitiveness and, on the other, debt used to pay off current expenses and to create even more debt.

The bottom line is that America is awash in red ink and seeks the wrong solutions to its debt problems. A return to fiscal responsibility would make America far stronger, both domestically and internationally, than would a continuation of current policies that falsely project strength through idle protectionist threats and failed military aggression.

Current tensions between the United States and the rest of the world will continue as long as America's military bark is louder than its economic bite.

A solution to the U.S. debt problem requires radical measures, including: the elimination of corporate tax loopholes, a reversal of tax breaks for the ultra-rich, a bipartisan campaign to eliminate budget "pork," imposition of stringent limits on corporate debt and speculative lending, a vast reduction in military expenditure and, finally, an additional 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax that would slash the federal deficit, curtail energy waste and spur technological breakthroughs.

Let us hope America heeds the warnings, dispenses with junk-food economics and embraces a crucial diet of fiscal discipline. It remains to be seen, however, whether America's political leaders have the courage to instigate such reforms, and whether Congress is finally willing to do something for the future of ordinary, hard-working Americans.

[Hamid Varzi is an economist and banker based in Tehran.]

Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune

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