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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.)

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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.]


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