Janet Jackson and the Frog
Has our culture gone iredeemably to pot, or can we jump for our lives?
On Saturday night Sept. 8, 2001, I did something unusual. I went to Madison Square Garden to watch the taping of a Michael Jackson special that was soon to be aired on CBS. A friend had come to town with tickets and we decided to meet for dinner and go together. We thought it would be fun because we thought it would be strange.
We had no idea.
The special was aimed at celebrating Michael Jackson's career. He was newly under the heavy cloud of scandal, and his advisors had cooked up a new story--a reunion of the Jackson family--to replace the scandal story.
Thousands of young people showed up, and some people who were not so young. Top tickets went for thousands of dollars. Michael Jackson, dressed in his black glitter suit, came out and danced with his brothers and sang and grabbed his crotch. The crowd screamed and cheered. Liz Taylor came out in a stiff gown, looking like a statue in Madame Tussaud's that had been designed to retain water. She sat silently in a sort of little balcony overseeing the action, saying nothing but waving like the queen mother. Marlon Brando too was a guest star. He sat at the center of the stage with a mike in his hand and spoke for about 10 minutes in a kind of deranged if harmless free association. People booed. They couldn't tell what he was saying, but they didn't spend this kind of money to see a fat man in a chair say things that might be serious. Liza Minnelli came out and did a number that was either an homage to or a wan imitation of her mother. And then Witney Houston came out.
This part you may remember, for photos of her made their way across the newspapers of the world. She was emaciated, like a person in a terrible famine. Just a few years before she had been America's sweetheart, singing with perfect poise and pitch. Now there were repeated reports in the tabloids of drug abuse, and her appearance seemed to buttress them. "Skeletonism," I said to my friend. "I think it's a disease now. You get famous and then turn into a skeleton."
There were other acts and other odd moments, and throughout them the crowd cheered and yelled.
Later, as we got into a cab, we said nothing. It was odd to go from such sound to such silence. But we were both pondering.
It wasn't that any individual moment during the evening was so stunningly bizarre. (Mr. Brando, for instance, was only as bizarre as Brando is.) It was that taken as a whole the night yielded an unmistakable sense of decay and disorder. "I feel like we just witnessed the end of our culture," I said.
"We are," he said. "It's a freak show now. The whole thing, it's just a freak show."
Two-and-a-half days later came 9/11 and the ending of a world. When my friend and I talked again he said, "Remember that night? You could see it coming then."
Why am I treating you to a bad memory? Because I am disturbed about our culture and can't stop thinking about it. I'm embarrassed by our culture too, and made anxious by it. Aren't you?
For a while after 9/11 we seemed to sober up. There seemed a new seriousness. It wasn't heavy and somber, there was a lot of humor and wit, but we were perhaps a little chastened, a little more mature. Sept. 11 was such a shock to the national system that after it the culture's long slide into narcissistic netherworlds seemed momentarily stopped, or at least slowed. But it's picked up again.
Last Sunday night I joined some friends at a Texas barbecue restaurant in Manhattan. We were a football-free zone, marking the birthday of a friend from San Antonio. We had a great time eating what Texans call barbecue and we call brisket. I got home about 9 p.m. and put on the television. It looked like a good game. I logged on to Drudge, and saw the big picture of Justin Timberlake, whose expression could have been described as evil if his face had more intelligence, turned toward Janet Jackson, whose famous breast was exposed to show the famous nipple decorated by the famous Goth-looking metal sunburst.
Oh no, I thought. We're back to the pre-9/11 freak show.
You have all followed the great controversy, although I'm not sure controversy is the right word for an incident the facts of which no normal human would debate. Was it deliberate? No, the Goth pastie, the lyrics "I'll have you naked before the end of this song," and Janet Jackson's slowness to cover her breast and quickness to enact what she thinks is a look of shame, make it clear it was all an accident. Did MTV know it would happen? No, when they put out the announcement promising "shocking moments" from Ms. Jackson, they didn't mean anything by it. Did the--let's be generous--perhaps retarded Justin Timberlake realize he'd gone too far? Of course--that's why he issued the winking statement about "wardrobe malfunction." Was the NFL taken aback? Gosh, they must have been--who would think MTV would do something vulgar and highly sexualized? Will an FCC fine of $27,500 stop the networks? Oh sure, in their tracks.
Now they're saying the answer is a tape delay. Believe me, half the country would like to put the entire culture on a tape delay.
Why was the piggy paganism of the Super Bowl so obnoxious? Our culture has been sick for a while--highly sexualized, violent, inspirational to the unstable. Our media have for decades been robbing our children of the not-knowingness that is the hallmark of childhood. It's not new; it's just worse, or perhaps I mean more obvious. This was the Super Bowl, after all, a football game in early-evening prime time with children watching, and nice people who hadn't bought into the concept of seeing a sex show.
Blogger Mickey Kaus raised most quickly some big points. "The issue isn't nudity but the implicit endorsement of acting out male fantasies of violent and invasive non-consensual sexual behavior. Never mind the message it sends to international audiences--say young, angry Muslims, to pick a random example, who may have been wondering whether America really is immoral." He added that this year's game was telecast to 229 countries and territories, including China for the first time.
But at least indignation is broad and deep. So broad and deep there may be hope in it. Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, in stepping over the line, could wind up being remembered as the entertainers who reminded us there is a line, or should be.
This might be a frog-in-the-water moment. You remember: You put a frog in a nice cool pot of water, and he's happy and swims around. But if you put a flame underneath the pot and slowly raise it, chances are he'll boil to death. On the other hand, if you dump a frog in a boiling pot of water, he'll jump right out and be saved.
Our culture has been on a boil for years. Then it cooled a bit. The other night at the Super Bowl they put the flame higher and the water began to boil. The frog--that would be us--is still alive. And may, in his shock, jump out of the water.
But the question is: How? How to turn it around. I wonder if all the sane adult liberals and conservatives couldn't make progress here. But how. Readers?
Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Another great column from the blonde attack dog of the right:
Boobs in the News
By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 5, 2004
Just to give you a snapshot of the current Democratic Party, in the primaries this week, Dennis Kucinich got three times as many votes in North Dakota as Joe Lieberman did.
After that, Lieberman quit the race. In sympathy with Lieberman and facing similar odds – I'm quitting the race too. To my supporters: Hey, we didn't go all the way, but just look how much we accomplished! In his concession speech, Lieberman thanked each one of the Democratic presidential candidates for contributing to the race and thanked Al Sharpton in particular for inciting no additional violence against the Jews.
Former front-runner Howard Dean sat out this week's primaries, but still managed to make news by ridiculing the FCC's plan to investigate MTV's halftime show at the Super Bowl. Dean pronounced the proposed investigation "silly." He explained that, as a doctor, a naked breast is "not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me."
That's an interesting standard. Presumably a primetime exhibition of Janet Jackson having a full pelvic exam and pap smear would not be "exactly an unusual phenomenon" for Dean either. Let's just be grateful Dean's not a proctologist.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country was not so copacetic about being flashed with what the New York Times called Janet Jackson's "middle-aged woman's breast." Janet Jackson said she decided to add "the reveal" following the final rehearsal, which I found pretty shocking. Not the reveal – the fact that the number in question was actually rehearsed. Even CBS executives were enraged by MTV's halftime show, saying they could have gotten the identical show from National Geographic for a fraction of the price.
Speaking of boobs, after sustaining his first losses in two primaries Tuesday night, senator and trophy husband John Kerry has said he's going to concentrate on solidifying the support of his base. People like David Gest, Claus von Bulow and Tom Arnold. Liberals laughed at George Bush for citing Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher, but are impressed that John Kerry's favorite philosopher is Louis Prima ("Just a Gigolo").
Kerry thinks people are dying to hear his economic plan. In fact, the only economic plan most male voters want to hear about is how Kerry snookered two babes worth hundreds of millions of dollars into marrying him.
Kerry may as well start giving out dating tips. He's running out of other ideas. A few weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that Kerry has taken more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years. In a face-saving move, Senator Botox has quietly dropped the part of his stump speech where he inveighs against Washington special interests: "We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out." Interestingly, these were also Sen. Kerry's words to his first wife after he hooked up with Teresa Heinz.
Not only that, but according to Kerry's principal cheerleaders – Teddy Kennedy and the New York Times – Kerry absolutely refuses to talk about his Vietnam service. Kennedy insists that Kerry "just won't talk about" Vietnam. Apparently Vietnam was a brief, death-defying interlude that Kerry would simply prefer not to discuss. You might say it's his Chappaquiddick.
In the objective part of a factual news story, the New York Times reported that Kerry "has been careful to avoid being seen as exploiting his service politically." He simply will not do it. This came as a shock to most Americans who were discovering for the very first time that Kerry had served in Vietnam.
While there is indisputably nothing cooler than having fought for your country, John Kerry's status as a Vietnam veteran is unlikely to change a single vote. Military guys will support Bush, and liberals don't admire bravery. The only reason Democrats will tolerate someone who fought on the same side as the United States is to fuel their rage against Bush.
After starting the Vietnam war, the Democratic Party suddenly decided it was an illegal, immoral, undeclared war, and soldiers like John Kerry were baby killers. Today, vast majorities of Democratic primary voters tell pollsters they opposed the war in Iraq – which their darling Kerry voted for. Kerry's sole appeal is that he gives pacifist cowards cover to fume about Bush.
Just a few years ago, the Democrats thought a pot-smoking draft-dodger would make a splendid president. But now they are enflamed at the thought that Bush didn't fight in Vietnam! In other words, it's honorable to march in anti-American protests in Europe when America is at war, but not to be a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.
Democrats know they can't beat Bush, but they intend to enjoy being hysterical about him throughout the campaign. Calling Bush a draft-dodger, which he is not, will join the Democrats' list of other cogent, reasoned arguments, such as "You're stupid" and "Halliburton!"
Democrats think they invented war heroes, but being a war hero didn't help Bob Dole. It didn't help George Herbert Walker Bush. It didn't help John McCain. The Democrats didn't invent war heroes. What they invented is the scam of deploying war heroes to argue for surrender.
Boobs in the News
By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 5, 2004
Just to give you a snapshot of the current Democratic Party, in the primaries this week, Dennis Kucinich got three times as many votes in North Dakota as Joe Lieberman did.
After that, Lieberman quit the race. In sympathy with Lieberman and facing similar odds – I'm quitting the race too. To my supporters: Hey, we didn't go all the way, but just look how much we accomplished! In his concession speech, Lieberman thanked each one of the Democratic presidential candidates for contributing to the race and thanked Al Sharpton in particular for inciting no additional violence against the Jews.
Former front-runner Howard Dean sat out this week's primaries, but still managed to make news by ridiculing the FCC's plan to investigate MTV's halftime show at the Super Bowl. Dean pronounced the proposed investigation "silly." He explained that, as a doctor, a naked breast is "not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me."
That's an interesting standard. Presumably a primetime exhibition of Janet Jackson having a full pelvic exam and pap smear would not be "exactly an unusual phenomenon" for Dean either. Let's just be grateful Dean's not a proctologist.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country was not so copacetic about being flashed with what the New York Times called Janet Jackson's "middle-aged woman's breast." Janet Jackson said she decided to add "the reveal" following the final rehearsal, which I found pretty shocking. Not the reveal – the fact that the number in question was actually rehearsed. Even CBS executives were enraged by MTV's halftime show, saying they could have gotten the identical show from National Geographic for a fraction of the price.
Speaking of boobs, after sustaining his first losses in two primaries Tuesday night, senator and trophy husband John Kerry has said he's going to concentrate on solidifying the support of his base. People like David Gest, Claus von Bulow and Tom Arnold. Liberals laughed at George Bush for citing Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher, but are impressed that John Kerry's favorite philosopher is Louis Prima ("Just a Gigolo").
Kerry thinks people are dying to hear his economic plan. In fact, the only economic plan most male voters want to hear about is how Kerry snookered two babes worth hundreds of millions of dollars into marrying him.
Kerry may as well start giving out dating tips. He's running out of other ideas. A few weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that Kerry has taken more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years. In a face-saving move, Senator Botox has quietly dropped the part of his stump speech where he inveighs against Washington special interests: "We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out." Interestingly, these were also Sen. Kerry's words to his first wife after he hooked up with Teresa Heinz.
Not only that, but according to Kerry's principal cheerleaders – Teddy Kennedy and the New York Times – Kerry absolutely refuses to talk about his Vietnam service. Kennedy insists that Kerry "just won't talk about" Vietnam. Apparently Vietnam was a brief, death-defying interlude that Kerry would simply prefer not to discuss. You might say it's his Chappaquiddick.
In the objective part of a factual news story, the New York Times reported that Kerry "has been careful to avoid being seen as exploiting his service politically." He simply will not do it. This came as a shock to most Americans who were discovering for the very first time that Kerry had served in Vietnam.
While there is indisputably nothing cooler than having fought for your country, John Kerry's status as a Vietnam veteran is unlikely to change a single vote. Military guys will support Bush, and liberals don't admire bravery. The only reason Democrats will tolerate someone who fought on the same side as the United States is to fuel their rage against Bush.
After starting the Vietnam war, the Democratic Party suddenly decided it was an illegal, immoral, undeclared war, and soldiers like John Kerry were baby killers. Today, vast majorities of Democratic primary voters tell pollsters they opposed the war in Iraq – which their darling Kerry voted for. Kerry's sole appeal is that he gives pacifist cowards cover to fume about Bush.
Just a few years ago, the Democrats thought a pot-smoking draft-dodger would make a splendid president. But now they are enflamed at the thought that Bush didn't fight in Vietnam! In other words, it's honorable to march in anti-American protests in Europe when America is at war, but not to be a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.
Democrats know they can't beat Bush, but they intend to enjoy being hysterical about him throughout the campaign. Calling Bush a draft-dodger, which he is not, will join the Democrats' list of other cogent, reasoned arguments, such as "You're stupid" and "Halliburton!"
Democrats think they invented war heroes, but being a war hero didn't help Bob Dole. It didn't help George Herbert Walker Bush. It didn't help John McCain. The Democrats didn't invent war heroes. What they invented is the scam of deploying war heroes to argue for surrender.
Outside of the urban legend sounding story at the end of the article, this is a pretty good piece:
THE REAL KERRY
By HOWIE CARR
February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON
ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.
The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"
And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress.
Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest.
The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).
It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.
Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."
"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.
But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).
Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.
At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.
Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.
Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."
For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.
In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."
Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.
The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question.
"Do you know who I am?" Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.
"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."
John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.
THE REAL KERRY
By HOWIE CARR
February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON
ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.
The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"
And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress.
Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest.
The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).
It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.
Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."
"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.
But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).
Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.
At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.
Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.
Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."
For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.
In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."
Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.
The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question.
"Do you know who I am?" Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.
"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."
John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
From the hard-core right wingers at the Columbia Journalism Review. Confusing the moveon.org types with facts:
An Information Deficit
In a nearly numbers-free New York Times "News Analysis" of the federal budget Elisabeth Bumiller describes the projected federal budget deficit ($477 billion for 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office or $521 billion by the White House's estimate) as "record-high."
The truth? Yes, in raw dollar terms.
The whole truth? No.
As a percentage of the gross domestic product -- which many economists consider a better measure than simple dollar amounts -- the currently projected deficit, at 4.2 percent according to the Congressional Budget Office or 4.5 percent according to the Bush administration, is equal to or smaller than those recorded in six years during the 1980s and 1990s (6.0 percent in 1983, 4.8 percent in 1984, 5.1 percent in 1985, 5.0 percent in 1986, 4.5 percent in 1991, and 4.7 percent in 1992).
But then, like many reporters, Bumiller doesn't appear to be particularly good when it comes to numbers.
Hey -- none of us got into this field because we were strong in math.
--Liz Cox Barrett
An Information Deficit
In a nearly numbers-free New York Times "News Analysis" of the federal budget Elisabeth Bumiller describes the projected federal budget deficit ($477 billion for 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office or $521 billion by the White House's estimate) as "record-high."
The truth? Yes, in raw dollar terms.
The whole truth? No.
As a percentage of the gross domestic product -- which many economists consider a better measure than simple dollar amounts -- the currently projected deficit, at 4.2 percent according to the Congressional Budget Office or 4.5 percent according to the Bush administration, is equal to or smaller than those recorded in six years during the 1980s and 1990s (6.0 percent in 1983, 4.8 percent in 1984, 5.1 percent in 1985, 5.0 percent in 1986, 4.5 percent in 1991, and 4.7 percent in 1992).
But then, like many reporters, Bumiller doesn't appear to be particularly good when it comes to numbers.
Hey -- none of us got into this field because we were strong in math.
--Liz Cox Barrett
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
An especially perceptive essay by an eminent historian, published in The Telegraph:
Inquiry is pointless – intelligence is always open to interpretation
By John Keegan
(Filed: 03/02/2004)
The Government is facing demands for yet another investigation of the part played by the intelligence services in leading Britain to join the United States in the Iraq war. Two questions should be asked about such demands. The first is about the usefulness of intelligence in general to the inception and conduct of military operations. The second, more difficult to answer, is what specifically such an investigation might reveal.
The usefulness of military intelligence has a very mixed history. I say that with confidence, having recently published a long study, Intelligence In War, which set out to answer the question: how useful is intelligence? It consists of a number of case studies of intelligence operations from more than 100 years of military history chosen because evidence was available and clear-cut.
The studies yielded very varied conclusions. Among the most striking were that even the possession of perfect intelligence may not avert defeat. In May 1941, the British, having intercepted and deciphered the complete German plan for the airborne invasion of Crete, including date, time, place, strength, methods and aims, were still unable to mount an effective defence and lost the island to a weaker force.
Excellent intelligence may, contrarily, appear to have been the key to victory, but closer inspection reveals that other factors were more important. At Midway in June 1942, the American Navy had again correctly identified the Japanese intentions for the operation and its date, location and timing; but, when action was joined, it was accidental factors that won the battle. In practice, the Japanese were winning the battle until the very last moment.
Usually, however, intelligence does not provide unequivocal answers, but only indications, which require imagination to interpret correctly. Interpretation inevitably leads to disagreements among the intelligence officers concerned. Before Midway, the most important naval battle ever fought, the heads of the naval plans and communication departments in Washington were at open war over interpretation.
An even more striking example of disagreements, bearing directly on the current Iraq controversy, was over intelligence of German secret weapons. A strange leak, the Oslo report, had warned the British in 1940 that Hitler was developing pilotless aircraft and rockets. It was ignored until, in 1943, reports from inside occupied Europe referred to the subject again.
A committee was set up, chaired by Duncan Sandys, Winston Churchill's son-in-law. Its findings were reviewed by another committee, of which Lord Cherwell, Churchill's scientific adviser, was the most important member. Cherwell absolutely denied the possibility of Germany having a rocket, and produced the scientific evidence to prove it. He persisted in his denial throughout 1943 until June 1944, when remains of a crashed V2 were brought to Britain from neutral Sweden. Shortly afterwards, the first operational V2 landed on London. Churchill was furious. "We've been caught napping," he burst out in Cabinet.
Worse than napping. More than 1,500 V2s landed on London, killing thousands, at a time when Hitler was also trying to develop a nuclear warhead. The whole pilotless weapons episode demonstrates that, even under threat of a supreme national crisis, and in the face of copious and convincing warnings, intelligence officers can disagree completely about the facts and some can be 100 per cent wrong.
Little or nothing about the past, even about such a well-known episode as the V-weapons, has influenced those who have so violently denounced the Government over the so-called September dossier. Its critics have taken the view throughout that intelligence can and ought to be perfect, and that the editing of the dossier's contents amounted to systematic falsification. Not only does that attitude reveal the critics' complete ignorance of how intelligence is collected and assessed, it also suggests that they have not bothered to read the dossier, included complete in the Hutton report.
Almost all the material in the dossier is uncontroversial, a well-substantiated survey of Iraq's development and use of chemical and biological weapons and missiles (based, as it happens, on the V2) before 1998. What strikes anyone who has taken the trouble to read other intelligence dossiers, which exist in thousands in the Public Record Office, is what a completely normal document it is. If anything, it is remarkable for the sobriety of its tone and the caution of its conclusions.
Only in Chapter 3 of Part I does it include false information - that Iraq had procured nuclear material from an African country - and claims about Iraqi capabilities, such as the range of some missiles, that are exaggerated. As to the first, that seems simply a mistake, based on what is now known to be a forged document; at least one mistake in a large intelligence assessment might be expected. The exaggerations are regrettable, but assessment is inherently relative. Intelligence officers deal in a balance of probabilities and must sometimes err on the wrong side.
Above all, it must be remembered that British intelligence was attempting to penetrate the mentality of a man and a regime which were not wholly rational. It now seems probable that most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed in the early 1990s, either by the first UN inspection team (UNSCOM) or as a precautionary measure on Saddam's own orders. Saddam was, however, unwilling to admit to such a loss of power, because of the prestige his possession of WMD brought him in the region. His policy of disposing of his WMD while refusing to admit the disposal was completely illogical.
But then almost nothing in Saddam's megalomaniac world was logical. What logical ruler would deliberately provoke two disastrous wars, either of which might have been avoided by the practice of a little prudence?
Finally, what purpose would be served by a further assessment of the dossier? Any inquiry would shortly resolve into a semantic argument about the nature of text editing: a sentence here, a phrase there.
It is supremely ironic that the BBC is demanding such a semantic argument, when the trouble it has got itself into was caused precisely by its failure to undertake any sort of editing at all of an unscripted text by a reporter with a less than perfect reputation for reliability.
Inquiry is pointless – intelligence is always open to interpretation
By John Keegan
(Filed: 03/02/2004)
The Government is facing demands for yet another investigation of the part played by the intelligence services in leading Britain to join the United States in the Iraq war. Two questions should be asked about such demands. The first is about the usefulness of intelligence in general to the inception and conduct of military operations. The second, more difficult to answer, is what specifically such an investigation might reveal.
The usefulness of military intelligence has a very mixed history. I say that with confidence, having recently published a long study, Intelligence In War, which set out to answer the question: how useful is intelligence? It consists of a number of case studies of intelligence operations from more than 100 years of military history chosen because evidence was available and clear-cut.
The studies yielded very varied conclusions. Among the most striking were that even the possession of perfect intelligence may not avert defeat. In May 1941, the British, having intercepted and deciphered the complete German plan for the airborne invasion of Crete, including date, time, place, strength, methods and aims, were still unable to mount an effective defence and lost the island to a weaker force.
Excellent intelligence may, contrarily, appear to have been the key to victory, but closer inspection reveals that other factors were more important. At Midway in June 1942, the American Navy had again correctly identified the Japanese intentions for the operation and its date, location and timing; but, when action was joined, it was accidental factors that won the battle. In practice, the Japanese were winning the battle until the very last moment.
Usually, however, intelligence does not provide unequivocal answers, but only indications, which require imagination to interpret correctly. Interpretation inevitably leads to disagreements among the intelligence officers concerned. Before Midway, the most important naval battle ever fought, the heads of the naval plans and communication departments in Washington were at open war over interpretation.
An even more striking example of disagreements, bearing directly on the current Iraq controversy, was over intelligence of German secret weapons. A strange leak, the Oslo report, had warned the British in 1940 that Hitler was developing pilotless aircraft and rockets. It was ignored until, in 1943, reports from inside occupied Europe referred to the subject again.
A committee was set up, chaired by Duncan Sandys, Winston Churchill's son-in-law. Its findings were reviewed by another committee, of which Lord Cherwell, Churchill's scientific adviser, was the most important member. Cherwell absolutely denied the possibility of Germany having a rocket, and produced the scientific evidence to prove it. He persisted in his denial throughout 1943 until June 1944, when remains of a crashed V2 were brought to Britain from neutral Sweden. Shortly afterwards, the first operational V2 landed on London. Churchill was furious. "We've been caught napping," he burst out in Cabinet.
Worse than napping. More than 1,500 V2s landed on London, killing thousands, at a time when Hitler was also trying to develop a nuclear warhead. The whole pilotless weapons episode demonstrates that, even under threat of a supreme national crisis, and in the face of copious and convincing warnings, intelligence officers can disagree completely about the facts and some can be 100 per cent wrong.
Little or nothing about the past, even about such a well-known episode as the V-weapons, has influenced those who have so violently denounced the Government over the so-called September dossier. Its critics have taken the view throughout that intelligence can and ought to be perfect, and that the editing of the dossier's contents amounted to systematic falsification. Not only does that attitude reveal the critics' complete ignorance of how intelligence is collected and assessed, it also suggests that they have not bothered to read the dossier, included complete in the Hutton report.
Almost all the material in the dossier is uncontroversial, a well-substantiated survey of Iraq's development and use of chemical and biological weapons and missiles (based, as it happens, on the V2) before 1998. What strikes anyone who has taken the trouble to read other intelligence dossiers, which exist in thousands in the Public Record Office, is what a completely normal document it is. If anything, it is remarkable for the sobriety of its tone and the caution of its conclusions.
Only in Chapter 3 of Part I does it include false information - that Iraq had procured nuclear material from an African country - and claims about Iraqi capabilities, such as the range of some missiles, that are exaggerated. As to the first, that seems simply a mistake, based on what is now known to be a forged document; at least one mistake in a large intelligence assessment might be expected. The exaggerations are regrettable, but assessment is inherently relative. Intelligence officers deal in a balance of probabilities and must sometimes err on the wrong side.
Above all, it must be remembered that British intelligence was attempting to penetrate the mentality of a man and a regime which were not wholly rational. It now seems probable that most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed in the early 1990s, either by the first UN inspection team (UNSCOM) or as a precautionary measure on Saddam's own orders. Saddam was, however, unwilling to admit to such a loss of power, because of the prestige his possession of WMD brought him in the region. His policy of disposing of his WMD while refusing to admit the disposal was completely illogical.
But then almost nothing in Saddam's megalomaniac world was logical. What logical ruler would deliberately provoke two disastrous wars, either of which might have been avoided by the practice of a little prudence?
Finally, what purpose would be served by a further assessment of the dossier? Any inquiry would shortly resolve into a semantic argument about the nature of text editing: a sentence here, a phrase there.
It is supremely ironic that the BBC is demanding such a semantic argument, when the trouble it has got itself into was caused precisely by its failure to undertake any sort of editing at all of an unscripted text by a reporter with a less than perfect reputation for reliability.
Excellent post from Instapundit:
INTERESTING PIECES BY BOTH CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS and David Warren on Saddam and WMD.
Hitchens:
So Saddam Hussein finally got his reward for all the unpunished times. Well, history doesn't move in a straight line, and irony is a dialectical hairpin. But if he really didn't have any stores of unlawful WMD, it was very dumb of him to act as if he still did or perhaps even to believe that he still did. And it seems perfectly idiotic of anybody to complain that we have now found this out (always assuming that we have, and that there's no more disclosure to come). This highly pertinent and useful discovery could only be made by way of regime change. And the knowledge that Iraq can be finally and fully certified as disarmed, and that it won't be able to rearm under a Caligula regime, is surely a piece of knowledge worth having in its own right and for its own sake.
Warren:
Unnoticed to the gliberal media in North America, Mr. Kay's reports have cleared the Bush administration of the charge of "sexing up" threat assessments in the same way Lord Hutton's inquiry into the suicide of David Kelly have cleared Tony Blair. It is clear as day after both inquiries, that the respective governments acted sincerely upon intelligence assessments that were as disturbing as they were wrong. Moreover, they could only be proved wrong because of the invasion of Iraq. Had that not taken place, Mr. Kay's massive search for the truth, under every discoverable desk and rock, would have been impossible.
Though some people are prone to have a laugh at Bush's, or the CIA's, expense, when you couple this with the intelligence agencies' inability to spot the Pakistani nuclear program in advance, and with the surprisingly advanced state of Libya's program, the real lesson is a grim one: In an age of easily concealable weapons of mass destruction, the only way to be safe is to invade first, and answer questions later.
UPDATE: Here's more from Melanie Phillips:
For the fact that Saddam was actively engaged in WMD programmes, large-scale or not, shows he was indeed in breach of the UN resolutions, and was indeed the threat he had been assumed to be from his record, temperament, regional ambitions and links to terrorism.
How much ricin, after all, do you need to kill thousands of people? To listen to anti-war critics, it would seem that modest amounts of biological agent somehow don't count as WMD, or a re-started nuclear programme is no threat because it is only rudimentary.
To Dr Kay, the war was absolutely necessary because Saddam had become "even more dangerous" than had been realised, and, he said last week, "it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat". Yet virtually no one has reported these remarks. Instead, Dr Kay is being quoted out of context to sustain the charge of Government duplicity by the anti-war brigade.
INTERESTING PIECES BY BOTH CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS and David Warren on Saddam and WMD.
Hitchens:
So Saddam Hussein finally got his reward for all the unpunished times. Well, history doesn't move in a straight line, and irony is a dialectical hairpin. But if he really didn't have any stores of unlawful WMD, it was very dumb of him to act as if he still did or perhaps even to believe that he still did. And it seems perfectly idiotic of anybody to complain that we have now found this out (always assuming that we have, and that there's no more disclosure to come). This highly pertinent and useful discovery could only be made by way of regime change. And the knowledge that Iraq can be finally and fully certified as disarmed, and that it won't be able to rearm under a Caligula regime, is surely a piece of knowledge worth having in its own right and for its own sake.
Warren:
Unnoticed to the gliberal media in North America, Mr. Kay's reports have cleared the Bush administration of the charge of "sexing up" threat assessments in the same way Lord Hutton's inquiry into the suicide of David Kelly have cleared Tony Blair. It is clear as day after both inquiries, that the respective governments acted sincerely upon intelligence assessments that were as disturbing as they were wrong. Moreover, they could only be proved wrong because of the invasion of Iraq. Had that not taken place, Mr. Kay's massive search for the truth, under every discoverable desk and rock, would have been impossible.
Though some people are prone to have a laugh at Bush's, or the CIA's, expense, when you couple this with the intelligence agencies' inability to spot the Pakistani nuclear program in advance, and with the surprisingly advanced state of Libya's program, the real lesson is a grim one: In an age of easily concealable weapons of mass destruction, the only way to be safe is to invade first, and answer questions later.
UPDATE: Here's more from Melanie Phillips:
For the fact that Saddam was actively engaged in WMD programmes, large-scale or not, shows he was indeed in breach of the UN resolutions, and was indeed the threat he had been assumed to be from his record, temperament, regional ambitions and links to terrorism.
How much ricin, after all, do you need to kill thousands of people? To listen to anti-war critics, it would seem that modest amounts of biological agent somehow don't count as WMD, or a re-started nuclear programme is no threat because it is only rudimentary.
To Dr Kay, the war was absolutely necessary because Saddam had become "even more dangerous" than had been realised, and, he said last week, "it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat". Yet virtually no one has reported these remarks. Instead, Dr Kay is being quoted out of context to sustain the charge of Government duplicity by the anti-war brigade.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
I've been reading George Will for 25 years, and he's as good as he ever was. This is one of the best, most realistic, and succinct descriptions of the difference between the two major parties that I have ever read.
Freedom vs. equality
by George Will
February 1, 2004
This may be the most nation-shaping election since 1932, not only -- or even primarily -- because of the parties' foreign policy differences. Those differences, about sovereignty, multilateralism, preemptive war and nation-building, concern vital fundamentals. But 2004 may secure the ascendancy of one of two radically different ideas of the proper role of government and the individual's proper relationship to it.
This will be the first election since candidate George W. Bush made explicit in 2000 what had become implicit in conservatives' behavior. As recently as the 1994 congressional elections, Republicans had triumphed by preaching small-government conservatism, vowing to abolish four Cabinet-level departments, including Education.
By 2000 conservatives knew that even Americans rhetorically opposed to "big government" are, when voting, defenders of the welfare state. Social Security and Medicare are the two most popular and biggest components of government (together, a third of federal outlays and rising as the population ages).
Candidate Bush promised to strengthen the New Deal's emblematic achievement (Social Security) and to add a prescription drug entitlement to the Great Society's (Medicare). Since 2001 he has increased federal spending 48 percent on K-12 education.
Today "strong government conservatism" -- "strong" is not synonymous with "big" -- is the only conservatism palatable to a public that expects government to assuage three of life's largest fears: illness, old age and educational deficits that prevent social mobility. Some conservatives believe government strength is inherently inimical to conservative aspirations. This belief mistakenly assumes that all government action is merely coercive, hence a subtraction from freedom. But government can act strongly to make itself less controlling and intrusive, enacting laws that offer opportunities and incentives for individuals to become more self-sufficient.
Today, as for two centuries, the left-right divide is defined by different valuations of equality and freedom. Liberals favor expanding government controls, shrinking the sphere of freedom of choice, to promote equality -- equal dependence on government-provided education, health and pension entitlements.
Conservatives say this produces a culture of dependency. It diminishes individual competence and dignity and impedes the progress that results from competing social alternatives -- in education, health care and pensions. Conservatives say inequalities of outcomes are manifestations of freedom and prerequisites for progress.
Both parties understand the political calculus: People dependent on government tend to vote for liberals promising to enlarge government. Hence the intensity of Democratic resistance to four facets of Bush's strong-government conservatism: school standards and choice; medical savings accounts; choice in investing a portion of Social Security taxes; and cuts in individual income taxes.
Standards that measure schools' performances enable parents, exercising the right to choose, to differentiate education products. Medical savings accounts would empower individuals to pursue preferences and, by making individuals into price-sensitive shoppers, the accounts would serve medical cost-containment. Private investment of Social Security taxes would democratize access to wealth creation, reducing dependence on government-provided retirement security. Low taxes expand each earner's freedom by enlarging discretionary income and focus society's attention on improving well-being through individual creation of wealth rather than government redistribution of it.
Understood as antidotes to the culture of dependency, these four facets of Bush's strong-government conservatism explain a paradox of today's politics: Partisan heat has increased while differences between the parties, as traditionally measured ("big" versus "small" government), have narrowed. The traditional measurement misses two new realities.
First, Democrats are now largely a party of providers of government services (public school teachers, government employees unions) and people dependent on those services. By deepening the culture of dependency, Democrats expand their political appeal -- and serve the left's traditional preference for equality of condition over freedom.
Second, Republican strong-government conservatism contracts the dependency culture and expands the sphere of choices, thereby enhancing the individual's competence and responsibility. This validates Republicans' claims to power -- and serves the right's traditional preference for freedom over legislated equality.
So Bush's presidency, which seals his party's coming-to-terms with the need to put strong government in the service of conservative values, is neither a surrender to the liberal agenda nor an armistice in the struggle over whether social policy should emphasize equality or freedom. Rather, it liberates Republicans to adopt reforms in the provision of education, health care and pensions. Such reforms will drive Democrats into reactionary liberalism: defense of the dependency culture and its increasing constriction of individuals' choices.
Republicans plan to sacrifice some equality to promote individualism. Democrats want to limit freedom of choice in order to promote the social solidarity of equal dependence on government provision of services. Nov. 2 may indeed reshape relations between the individual and the federal government that was born after 1932.
©2003 Washington Post Writers Group
Freedom vs. equality
by George Will
February 1, 2004
This may be the most nation-shaping election since 1932, not only -- or even primarily -- because of the parties' foreign policy differences. Those differences, about sovereignty, multilateralism, preemptive war and nation-building, concern vital fundamentals. But 2004 may secure the ascendancy of one of two radically different ideas of the proper role of government and the individual's proper relationship to it.
This will be the first election since candidate George W. Bush made explicit in 2000 what had become implicit in conservatives' behavior. As recently as the 1994 congressional elections, Republicans had triumphed by preaching small-government conservatism, vowing to abolish four Cabinet-level departments, including Education.
By 2000 conservatives knew that even Americans rhetorically opposed to "big government" are, when voting, defenders of the welfare state. Social Security and Medicare are the two most popular and biggest components of government (together, a third of federal outlays and rising as the population ages).
Candidate Bush promised to strengthen the New Deal's emblematic achievement (Social Security) and to add a prescription drug entitlement to the Great Society's (Medicare). Since 2001 he has increased federal spending 48 percent on K-12 education.
Today "strong government conservatism" -- "strong" is not synonymous with "big" -- is the only conservatism palatable to a public that expects government to assuage three of life's largest fears: illness, old age and educational deficits that prevent social mobility. Some conservatives believe government strength is inherently inimical to conservative aspirations. This belief mistakenly assumes that all government action is merely coercive, hence a subtraction from freedom. But government can act strongly to make itself less controlling and intrusive, enacting laws that offer opportunities and incentives for individuals to become more self-sufficient.
Today, as for two centuries, the left-right divide is defined by different valuations of equality and freedom. Liberals favor expanding government controls, shrinking the sphere of freedom of choice, to promote equality -- equal dependence on government-provided education, health and pension entitlements.
Conservatives say this produces a culture of dependency. It diminishes individual competence and dignity and impedes the progress that results from competing social alternatives -- in education, health care and pensions. Conservatives say inequalities of outcomes are manifestations of freedom and prerequisites for progress.
Both parties understand the political calculus: People dependent on government tend to vote for liberals promising to enlarge government. Hence the intensity of Democratic resistance to four facets of Bush's strong-government conservatism: school standards and choice; medical savings accounts; choice in investing a portion of Social Security taxes; and cuts in individual income taxes.
Standards that measure schools' performances enable parents, exercising the right to choose, to differentiate education products. Medical savings accounts would empower individuals to pursue preferences and, by making individuals into price-sensitive shoppers, the accounts would serve medical cost-containment. Private investment of Social Security taxes would democratize access to wealth creation, reducing dependence on government-provided retirement security. Low taxes expand each earner's freedom by enlarging discretionary income and focus society's attention on improving well-being through individual creation of wealth rather than government redistribution of it.
Understood as antidotes to the culture of dependency, these four facets of Bush's strong-government conservatism explain a paradox of today's politics: Partisan heat has increased while differences between the parties, as traditionally measured ("big" versus "small" government), have narrowed. The traditional measurement misses two new realities.
First, Democrats are now largely a party of providers of government services (public school teachers, government employees unions) and people dependent on those services. By deepening the culture of dependency, Democrats expand their political appeal -- and serve the left's traditional preference for equality of condition over freedom.
Second, Republican strong-government conservatism contracts the dependency culture and expands the sphere of choices, thereby enhancing the individual's competence and responsibility. This validates Republicans' claims to power -- and serves the right's traditional preference for freedom over legislated equality.
So Bush's presidency, which seals his party's coming-to-terms with the need to put strong government in the service of conservative values, is neither a surrender to the liberal agenda nor an armistice in the struggle over whether social policy should emphasize equality or freedom. Rather, it liberates Republicans to adopt reforms in the provision of education, health care and pensions. Such reforms will drive Democrats into reactionary liberalism: defense of the dependency culture and its increasing constriction of individuals' choices.
Republicans plan to sacrifice some equality to promote individualism. Democrats want to limit freedom of choice in order to promote the social solidarity of equal dependence on government provision of services. Nov. 2 may indeed reshape relations between the individual and the federal government that was born after 1932.
©2003 Washington Post Writers Group
From the Raleigh News & Observer
"It Was Forty Years Ago Today..."
By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
Growing up in the 1960s, Phil Melton remembers a lot of evenings gathered around his family's television set in Greensboro. Usually, it was because of something awful -- John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, or the shooting death of Martin Luther King Jr., five years later.
But the event he remembers most vividly wasn't awful at all: the Beatles playing the "Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964. Melton was 10, and from the first note of "All My Loving," the Beatles rocked his world.
"It was a very formative thing," says Melton, now a marketing director for Audio Advice in Raleigh. "It was one of the few good things you did remember from back then, if you saw it. I was in the fifth grade, and I remember being just completely -- I don't know if 'awestruck' is the right word, but it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
"Next day at school," Melton adds, "it was the only thing everybody was talking about."
It wasn't just Melton's fifth-grade class at Greensboro's Curry School, either. About 73 million Americans watched the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" that night, almost 40 percent of the entire U.S. population, and they rocketed the Beatles to the toppermost of the poppermost overnight.
Since then, other shows and events have gathered bigger TV audiences. More than 100 million watched the final episode of "M*A*S*H" in 1983, and a projected 90 million will tune in today's Super Bowl. But there has never been anything quite like the hysteria the Beatles triggered with the five songs they played on "Ed Sullivan" that February night.
" 'Beatlemania' was exactly what it was," says Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, then a 12-year-old living in New York City. "It was total media hysteria, especially in New York. The buildup to their appearance -- George Harrison having a sore throat and showing up at rehearsal in a turtleneck -- every possible thing was covered in a way we take for granted now."
After conquering their native Britain, the Beatles were on the rise in the United States in early 1964. They first hit No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart 40 years ago today with "I Want To Hold Your Hand." But their three-week "Ed Sullivan" run took the Beatles' popularity to a whole new level. By the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had 12 singles on the Billboard charts -- including the top five.
It wasn't just the music, either. John, Paul, George and Ringo's youth, charm, British accents and long hair all seemed impossibly exotic to a young American audience that devoured everything about them. For the rest of the year, pandemonium followed wherever the Beatles went.
Phyllis Gordon was a 12-year-old living in Las Vegas at the time. She and her girlfriends all fell in love with the Beatles instantly.
"They were so smart, so funny, so cute," says Gordon, who now works at a corporate library in Raleigh. "So unlike any musicians we'd ever seen."
Six months after watching the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan," Gordon saw the group live in her hometown. The Beatles played two shows in Las Vegas in one day, and she went to both.
"The hysteria that had built since the 'Sullivan' show crashed onto the stage that day," she says. "I screamed so much at the afternoon show that I had completely lost my voice by the evening. I remember crying because I couldn't shout. Couldn't hear them, of course, at either show. At least on 'Sullivan,' we could hear them."
3,000 screaming fans
Two days before the Beatles made their "Ed Sullivan" debut, they flew into New York City, where a crowd of 3,000 screaming fans greeted them at JFK Airport. All of America was still reeling from Kennedy's death on Nov. 22, 1963, and New York International Airport had been rechristened JFK less than two months before the Beatles landed.
"The Kennedy assassination really was haunting this whole business," DeCurtis says. "The Beatles were young, enthusiastic, articulate, fun. There was an almost Kennedy-esque, Camelot-style vibe about them."
Culturally and politically, America was primed for an explosion in 1964. The baby boom was reaching its first flowering, with 17-year-olds representing the largest single age group in the country that year. As a signpost pointing the way to major changes, the Beatles' "Ed Sullivan" shows happened right in the middle of things.
The day after their first appearance, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Beatles played their second "Ed Sullivan Show," broadcast live from Miami, a week later. Immediately after their opening three songs, Sullivan spotted boxer Sonny Liston in the audience and had him stand up to take a bow. Nine days later, Liston lost his world heavyweight boxing title to a young upstart named Cassius Clay -- a boxer who, under the name Muhammad Ali, went on to become a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam War.
Viewed today, the Beatles' performances on "Ed Sullivan" (available on a two-disc DVD from Sofa Entertainment) make a remarkable period piece, and they're still amazing to watch.
By 1964, Sullivan had ruled prime-time Sunday night television for 16 years, and his variety show had changed little since the late '40s. The Beatles, on the other hand, were revolutionary, a self-contained band of four more-or-less equals who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. The way they filtered American R&B and country stylings through an English perspective sounded brand new. Small wonder that the mostly female studio audience went berserk -- an image that everyone from Nirvana to Outkast has riffed on in videos over the years.
Even more remarkable is the contrast between the Beatles and the rest of the "Ed Sullivan Show" -- commercial spots for Anacin and Pillsbury, unfunny comedy sketches, starlets singing standards from Broadway, puppet shows, acrobats. In context, the culture clash of the Beatles' performance almost seems like a sneak attack on the mainstream.
"That was the period when network TV truly was the single cultural trough from which everyone fed because you had no other choice," says Robert Thompson, a pop-culture professor at Syracuse University. "Kids who wanted to see the Beatles had to sit through Mitzi Gaynor, and parents who wanted to see the crooners had to sit through the Beatles. So you had a bad comic, a puppet show and the Beatles all in one show, and nobody batted an eyelash.
"The whole structure now with demographic programming mitigates against that," Thompson concludes. "As Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles, he was planting the seeds of what would make shows like his impossible."
Treated as 'a fad'
If the kids understood the Beatles, it's worth remembering that the group was not universally acclaimed.
Melton remembers that his father's reaction to seeing the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" was to vow, "My sons will never have hair like that!"
Nobody seemed to think the group was more than just another craze, like Hula Hoops or Davy Crockett hats. No one imagined that people would still be listening to the Beatles 20, 30 or 40 years later.
"It was very much treated as a fad," DeCurtis says. "Nobody was saying they were great artists or anything like that. It was more about crazy English kids with their silly haircuts."
Ray Block, music director for "Ed Sullivan," had a similar take on the foursome: "The only thing that's different is the hair, as far as I can see. I give them a year."
The mainstream American media covered the Beatles with a withering tone that registered somewhere between condescension and panic. Newsweek magazine described the Beatles as "loud beyond reason and stupefyingly repetitive." A columnist for the New York Herald Tribune wrote that they were "75 percent publicity, 20 percent haircut and 5 percent lilting lament." The Washington Post called them "imported hillbillies who look like sheep dogs and sound like alley cats in agony," and the Miami Herald brushed them off as "wailing weirdies."
Given the coarser tone of popular culture since then, it's almost quaint to think of the Beatles as threatening. But there may have been an element of wishful thinking to the early dismissals of the group -- even though the mainstream eventually won out. If you view the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" as the beginning of the '60s, their performance also represents the beginning of the end of rock 'n' roll as a subversive force.
"Really, the Beatles playing 'Ed Sullivan' was an act of domestication," Thompson says. "It took this power that was emerging with rock 'n' roll and defanged a potentially dangerous sub-cultural moment with the Ed Sullivan seal of approval. By then, it was generally accepted that the rock 'n' roll menace was not gonna be stopped.
"So Sullivan had the Beatles on and said they were 'fine and decent young men,' and many people perceived that as an antidote to the 'poison' of rock 'n' roll. It was the beginning of rock as we've come to know it in subsequent decades -- as just another part of the entertainment-industrial complex."
"It Was Forty Years Ago Today..."
By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
Growing up in the 1960s, Phil Melton remembers a lot of evenings gathered around his family's television set in Greensboro. Usually, it was because of something awful -- John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, or the shooting death of Martin Luther King Jr., five years later.
But the event he remembers most vividly wasn't awful at all: the Beatles playing the "Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964. Melton was 10, and from the first note of "All My Loving," the Beatles rocked his world.
"It was a very formative thing," says Melton, now a marketing director for Audio Advice in Raleigh. "It was one of the few good things you did remember from back then, if you saw it. I was in the fifth grade, and I remember being just completely -- I don't know if 'awestruck' is the right word, but it was about the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
"Next day at school," Melton adds, "it was the only thing everybody was talking about."
It wasn't just Melton's fifth-grade class at Greensboro's Curry School, either. About 73 million Americans watched the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" that night, almost 40 percent of the entire U.S. population, and they rocketed the Beatles to the toppermost of the poppermost overnight.
Since then, other shows and events have gathered bigger TV audiences. More than 100 million watched the final episode of "M*A*S*H" in 1983, and a projected 90 million will tune in today's Super Bowl. But there has never been anything quite like the hysteria the Beatles triggered with the five songs they played on "Ed Sullivan" that February night.
" 'Beatlemania' was exactly what it was," says Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, then a 12-year-old living in New York City. "It was total media hysteria, especially in New York. The buildup to their appearance -- George Harrison having a sore throat and showing up at rehearsal in a turtleneck -- every possible thing was covered in a way we take for granted now."
After conquering their native Britain, the Beatles were on the rise in the United States in early 1964. They first hit No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart 40 years ago today with "I Want To Hold Your Hand." But their three-week "Ed Sullivan" run took the Beatles' popularity to a whole new level. By the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had 12 singles on the Billboard charts -- including the top five.
It wasn't just the music, either. John, Paul, George and Ringo's youth, charm, British accents and long hair all seemed impossibly exotic to a young American audience that devoured everything about them. For the rest of the year, pandemonium followed wherever the Beatles went.
Phyllis Gordon was a 12-year-old living in Las Vegas at the time. She and her girlfriends all fell in love with the Beatles instantly.
"They were so smart, so funny, so cute," says Gordon, who now works at a corporate library in Raleigh. "So unlike any musicians we'd ever seen."
Six months after watching the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan," Gordon saw the group live in her hometown. The Beatles played two shows in Las Vegas in one day, and she went to both.
"The hysteria that had built since the 'Sullivan' show crashed onto the stage that day," she says. "I screamed so much at the afternoon show that I had completely lost my voice by the evening. I remember crying because I couldn't shout. Couldn't hear them, of course, at either show. At least on 'Sullivan,' we could hear them."
3,000 screaming fans
Two days before the Beatles made their "Ed Sullivan" debut, they flew into New York City, where a crowd of 3,000 screaming fans greeted them at JFK Airport. All of America was still reeling from Kennedy's death on Nov. 22, 1963, and New York International Airport had been rechristened JFK less than two months before the Beatles landed.
"The Kennedy assassination really was haunting this whole business," DeCurtis says. "The Beatles were young, enthusiastic, articulate, fun. There was an almost Kennedy-esque, Camelot-style vibe about them."
Culturally and politically, America was primed for an explosion in 1964. The baby boom was reaching its first flowering, with 17-year-olds representing the largest single age group in the country that year. As a signpost pointing the way to major changes, the Beatles' "Ed Sullivan" shows happened right in the middle of things.
The day after their first appearance, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Beatles played their second "Ed Sullivan Show," broadcast live from Miami, a week later. Immediately after their opening three songs, Sullivan spotted boxer Sonny Liston in the audience and had him stand up to take a bow. Nine days later, Liston lost his world heavyweight boxing title to a young upstart named Cassius Clay -- a boxer who, under the name Muhammad Ali, went on to become a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam War.
Viewed today, the Beatles' performances on "Ed Sullivan" (available on a two-disc DVD from Sofa Entertainment) make a remarkable period piece, and they're still amazing to watch.
By 1964, Sullivan had ruled prime-time Sunday night television for 16 years, and his variety show had changed little since the late '40s. The Beatles, on the other hand, were revolutionary, a self-contained band of four more-or-less equals who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. The way they filtered American R&B and country stylings through an English perspective sounded brand new. Small wonder that the mostly female studio audience went berserk -- an image that everyone from Nirvana to Outkast has riffed on in videos over the years.
Even more remarkable is the contrast between the Beatles and the rest of the "Ed Sullivan Show" -- commercial spots for Anacin and Pillsbury, unfunny comedy sketches, starlets singing standards from Broadway, puppet shows, acrobats. In context, the culture clash of the Beatles' performance almost seems like a sneak attack on the mainstream.
"That was the period when network TV truly was the single cultural trough from which everyone fed because you had no other choice," says Robert Thompson, a pop-culture professor at Syracuse University. "Kids who wanted to see the Beatles had to sit through Mitzi Gaynor, and parents who wanted to see the crooners had to sit through the Beatles. So you had a bad comic, a puppet show and the Beatles all in one show, and nobody batted an eyelash.
"The whole structure now with demographic programming mitigates against that," Thompson concludes. "As Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles, he was planting the seeds of what would make shows like his impossible."
Treated as 'a fad'
If the kids understood the Beatles, it's worth remembering that the group was not universally acclaimed.
Melton remembers that his father's reaction to seeing the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" was to vow, "My sons will never have hair like that!"
Nobody seemed to think the group was more than just another craze, like Hula Hoops or Davy Crockett hats. No one imagined that people would still be listening to the Beatles 20, 30 or 40 years later.
"It was very much treated as a fad," DeCurtis says. "Nobody was saying they were great artists or anything like that. It was more about crazy English kids with their silly haircuts."
Ray Block, music director for "Ed Sullivan," had a similar take on the foursome: "The only thing that's different is the hair, as far as I can see. I give them a year."
The mainstream American media covered the Beatles with a withering tone that registered somewhere between condescension and panic. Newsweek magazine described the Beatles as "loud beyond reason and stupefyingly repetitive." A columnist for the New York Herald Tribune wrote that they were "75 percent publicity, 20 percent haircut and 5 percent lilting lament." The Washington Post called them "imported hillbillies who look like sheep dogs and sound like alley cats in agony," and the Miami Herald brushed them off as "wailing weirdies."
Given the coarser tone of popular culture since then, it's almost quaint to think of the Beatles as threatening. But there may have been an element of wishful thinking to the early dismissals of the group -- even though the mainstream eventually won out. If you view the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" as the beginning of the '60s, their performance also represents the beginning of the end of rock 'n' roll as a subversive force.
"Really, the Beatles playing 'Ed Sullivan' was an act of domestication," Thompson says. "It took this power that was emerging with rock 'n' roll and defanged a potentially dangerous sub-cultural moment with the Ed Sullivan seal of approval. By then, it was generally accepted that the rock 'n' roll menace was not gonna be stopped.
"So Sullivan had the Beatles on and said they were 'fine and decent young men,' and many people perceived that as an antidote to the 'poison' of rock 'n' roll. It was the beginning of rock as we've come to know it in subsequent decades -- as just another part of the entertainment-industrial complex."
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