Sidebars

The Dark Side By Jane Mayer: Reviewed by Bob Sanders

Seven years after the attacks of September 11, only one terror suspect held outside of the U.S. criminal court system, has been tried and sentenced.  Salim Hamdin, Osama bin Laden’s driver, was sentenced in August to five and one-half years and eligible for parole in five months.  The prosecution in the military trial of limited rights had asked for 30 years. Of the 759 detainees acknowledged to have been held in Guantanamo, approximately 340 remain with but a handful charged as a result of the Bush Administration’s controversial anti-terrorism program. 

Exhaustively researched by New Yorker staff writer and best-selling author Jane Mayer, The Dark Side examines how key people in the Bush Administration took advantage of this country’s state of chaos and fear to make radical decisions while destroying constitutional protections. 

Hardly a page can be viewed without a reference to or, at the very least, acquiring a sense of the lurking shadows of Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s creepy lawyer David Addington and, to a lesser degree, cocksure Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  Addington, a humorless loner and true believer, develops a relationship with the VP much as Cheney with Bush and becomes known to his peers as “Cheney’s Cheney.”

Appearing on Meet the Press on the Sunday after the attacks, Cheney offered insight into how the administration viewed the threat and how it planned to respond.  Cheney also provided the book’s title.

“We’ll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will,” Cheney explained on the TV program. “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.  A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agendas---if we are going to be successful.  That’s the world these folks operate in.  And, uh, so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal basically, to achieve our objectives.”

Those means quickly became torture in such places as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo with Cheney, Addington and others including the loyal and highly inept Roberto Gonzales spending a remarkable amount of time writing self-serving letters to prove their innocence should their agenda to generate greater presidential powers be short-circuited.

The challenge of how to bring terror suspects to justice was accomplished by creating a shadowy War Council, then excluding much of the government with a series of end runs  involving nearly all of the administration’s most experienced experts in military and international law.  What they came up with was an alternative legal system run by the executive branch.  Cheney was in full flight.

Addington’s legal excesses permitted him to, as White House lawyer Jack Goldsmith put it, influence the administration’s legal positions “to a remarkable degree.”  According to Mayer, “some Bush Administration lawyers came to believe the President and Vice President were deeply ill-served by Addington.  ‘He was more like Cheney’s agent than like a lawyer.  A lawyer sometimes says no,’ one lamented.  ‘Addington never said, ‘There is a line you can’t cross.’”   

When Abu Ghraib torture photos and stories were released in the U.S. in April, 2004, it wasn’t long before the public became aware of Guantanamo with the Supreme Court shattering the suggestion that the prison was not under U.S. control but, rather, of existence in some kind of legal black hole.  The Court’s decision, giving detainees a chance to challenge their imprisonment, found arch conservative Justice Antonin Scalia voting against the Bush Administration.  Scalia even thundered at the White House: “Indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive” strikes at “the very core of liberty.”

If The Dark Side has a minor shortcoming, it’s a failure of attribution in some key situations--understandable since the subject is the most secretive White House in history.  Some revealing observations include Colin Powell‘s observation about Addington (“He doesn’t believe in the Constitution”) and from Rumsfeld who, up to his eyeballs in trying to distance himself from charges that torture directives emanated at the top rather than the other way around, comments about Guantonamo: “I don’t do detainees.”

Powell’s take on Bush not being stupid but easily manipulated, while somewhat reassuring, also is alarming.  A confidant suggests that Powell thought it was easy to play on Bush’s wish to be seen as doing the tough thing while making “hard” choices.  “He has these cowboy characteristics, and when you know where to rub him, you can really get him to do some dumb things.  You have to play on those swaggering bits of his self-image.  Cheney knew exactly how to push all his buttons,” Powell confided to a friend.

At the heart of the Bush Administration’s lust for expanded presidential authority is the hardly surprising seeking of power.  According to conservative legal scholar and former Justice Dept. official Jack Goldsmith, they spoke often of a desire for “maximum flexibility.”  Lost, in Mayer’s view, was “any appreciation for the legitimacy in a democracy that stems from winning consensus, including the consent of the governed.  Also overlooked was the original reason for checks and balances; they were designed to offset human fallibility.”

Goldsmith is one of the heroes of the book and there aren’t nearly enough.  Many of the good guys are conservative lawyers who knew better than to subvert laws and deeply held American ideals in this wickedly disturbing book about bullying at the highest levels of government.  Goldsmith, once the President’s private lawyer, was an early whistle-blower on the Bush/Cheney approach to domestic spying “the way they dealt with other laws they didn’t like: They blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations.”  Goldsmith eventually was forced to quit following a series of humiliations by Addington.  In a turn of high irony, Goldsmith was greeted with protests when he started teaching law at Harvard.  His problem was the painful linkage to the Bush Administration.

If, as has been suggested, the measure of a society is the way its prisoners are treated, then this country’s abandonment of the Geneva Convention is a chilling indictment of an infamy that will stand as George W. Bush’s legacy.

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Joe the Plumber By Bob Sanders

In what could easily be described as Theater of the Absurd, we soon will be able to reassure ourselves that at least part of our latest national nightmare will be over. The reference, of course, is in regard to the present White House occupant and his Presidency of remarkable   ineptitude or worse as historians are likely to write. In a prior episode of White House scariness, it was 38th President Gerald Ford who in 1974 told us that Richard Nixon’s odd approach to the job had been rectified by way of his leaving office in disgrace.

Part of the current nightmare remains. Wall Street, done in by its own greed and government failure to oversee what became a Ponzi game within the financial world’s casino, totters while people regarded as “experts” tinker under the monetary engine’s hood bringing on memories of Ross Perot who told us he had all the answers.

Under a broad and scary umbrella of confusion exists a bizarre Presidential competition in which the McCain campaign has introduced weapons of greatest distraction--a pair of third  bananas who gained momentary resonation with the easily-sold Republican Party base. 

First, there was McCain’s astonishing selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.  This was as preposterous as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, having reached the World Series, choosing to dip into his team’s farm system for a first game starting pitcher. Beyond her adoring fans, Palin comes across as an updated version of Lucille Ball Lucy Riccardo. I guess that casts First Dude Todd as Ricky with a snowmobile team replacing a Cuban band. Babalu aye!

The latest development came during the last Obama-McCain debate and at first blush looked like a Karl Rovian set up. Rove, as you will recall, is best known as Bush’s Brain and the guy who took Ronald Reagan’s success with evangelicals to new heights. The debate night’s insanity was right out of the Rove playbook and involved Joe the Plumber, a self-described conservative, who earlier had challenged Obama in front of a TV camera. Joe the Plumber, initially identified as Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio, got his 15 minutes of instant stardom when McCain decided to adopt him as a trickle down poster boy for small business taxation. The Senator from Arizona used Joe’s name something like 20 times during the debate and it was determined by McCain himself that the night belonged to Joe the Plumber. 

Joe’s success was short-lived. Everything about his story was false. His real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, he doesn’t have the $250,000 to buy a plumbing business, he’s behind on his taxes and, most disappointing in the search for truth, doesn’t even have a plumber’s license. Call him Joe the Poor.

The Joe the Plumber incident, perhaps more than anything, reflects the desperation of the McCain camp. The facts during recent weeks suggest delusional approaches to problem solving made more difficult by Obama’s surge in the polls. McCain’s anger on camera, irrational campaign decisions plus a dramatic departure from the true maverick persona he achieved in the 2000 campaign have contributed to unravel his quest for the Presidency and bring on the most significant question of all: Who is John McCain?

Seizing upon Joe the Plumber as a campaign boost was strange even if Joe had possessed plumbing bono fides. Joe the Cop or Joe the Fireman work much better. Plumbers, in the general scheme of things, are not the kind of people you want to help further your political ambitions. Even journalists or lawyers would be better choices.

I’ll give you a for instance about plumbers. Living on San Juan Island some 15 years ago, I discovered water had collected under my home. I called a plumber, aware of their disinclination to appear as promised, and was told help would soon be on its way. It didn’t, the  water remained , nothing of a catastrophic nature occurred and life proceeded on its isolated island way. Some three months after the phone call, a young man presented himself at the door indicating he had arrived to take care of the plumbing problem. By then, my wife and I had written the experience off to life styles that embrace the obvious: Island Time.

The young man, quite slim, was a perfect fit to wriggle into close quarters underneath the home, and I left him to his diligence. In about 30 minutes, he reappeared and asked: “What’s this address?” I told him 2931 Isle of View Lane and he seemed a bit embarrassed.  ‘I’ve got the wrong place,” he announced, “but I did some good things for you.”

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God’s Harvard By Hanna Rosin Reviewed by Bob Sanders

During a time of negative politics and tell all stories about candidates, it’s reassuring to know that an eminently fair book about the evangelical movement as it pertains to government has been published. God’s Harvard, a look at tiny Patrick Henry College, a Christian school just outside the Nation’s capital, is a riveting read.

Authored by Hanna Rosin of the Washington Post, the book takes the reader inside the halls and dorms of the school where young homeschooled evangelicals are molded into tomorrow’s conservative elite. Richly detailed, Rosin’s book is about the involvement of largely naïve young people trying to remake a world about which they have limited knowledge. Regardless of your politics, the book is an insightful and vibrant look at students and their teachers whose instruction doubtless someday will help put them into key positions in our government. 

Patrick Henry, which opened its doors to 300 students in 2000 (current enrollment is around 500), was founded by Michael Farris. A home-schooling activist, Farris determined that his school would enlist the purest of born-again Christians in a war to “transform America” by training them to occupy the “highest offices in the land.” Christian majority rule would come with a sufficient number of congressmen, governors, and federal judges.

While Farris’ dream seemed a bit delusional then, George Bush’s successful run for the presidency as a born-again former alcoholic made it appear less so. Inspired by Bush’s election, Patrick Henry has become a hot-bed of political activism on behalf of the Republican Party. Much like fraternity hazing, campaign participation is a rite of passage with the best awarded a White House internship. There are 100 such given each year to the school.  

While God’s Harvard concentrates on the students, their learning processes, and confrontations with the real world, a sub-plot keeps the reader additionally involved. The highly-complex Farris wants to train his children to take over the world while shielding them from its evils.  Corruption appears in the form of a few of the teachers he has hired. One, Robert Stacey, is the academic wild card loved by his students and eventually reviled by Farris. Stacey is simply possessed of too much knowledge while delighted to share such information as George Washington’s and Thomas Jefferson’s lack of religious enthusiasm.  

Students (their SAT scores are on a par with the University of Virginia) at Patrick Henry, which bills itself as a liberal arts college, live highly organized and well-behaved lives. The showing of a bra strap (actually, an undershirt) results in a confrontation with the school’s dean; dancing and the singing of improper lyrics are forbidden on campus; and a pro-snitching policy comes off reminiscent of Hitler youth stuff. Rebellious students, flummoxed by the rules, create a “den of sin” for those too drunk from nights on the town to risk running into a Resident Advisor (RA). RAs are snitches with the highest batting averages. The safe harbor is eventually found out with, perhaps, the book’s most dramatic scenes following. 

One of the sinners, Chris, is forced to make a public apology. In an absorbing piece of political damage control worthy of Bill Clinton, Chris both accepts blame and then deflects it completely. His final comment, worthy of a masterful politician, is a powerfully nuanced message: “You can judge me, it’s okay. But now put yourselves in the judgment seat and turn those same eyes back on yourself and say, ’Am I blameless before the Lord?’”

One of the more revealing scenes involves Derek Archer, a freshman of commanding conviction.  His volunteer efforts for failed Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore in the race for Virginia’s governorship find him directing a group of 10-year-old foot soldiers. Placing flyers under windshield wipers of cars parked in a church lot, the youngsters are interceded by a deacon who indicates the worshippers inside would “like a break from all this.” It had never occurred to Archer that a church would consider campaigning and worship to be at odds with each other.

During one year of investigation, Rosin had unlimited access to students in their dorms, classes, at school events, and at the internships. Michael Farris also made it possible for Rosin to seek out professors and administrators. Most were cooperative. 

Throughout the book, Rosin displays deep respect for the subject and those who contributed so richly in its telling. Thoroughly researched, God’s Harvard is reporting at its best. 

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Paul Newman & Romantic Tales By Bob Sanders

Paul Newman’s recent passing and the memorable observations of people who knew him in his various lives told us much about him. It appears that people like Newman, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are leading a charge suggesting that those fortunate enough to have amassed wealth are finding ways increasingly to give back huge parts of their good luck.

I played high school basketball against Newman or at least was told that by college pals while attending Ohio University following World War II. My buddies had attended high school in Shaker Heights with Newman while I had gone to Lakewood High, a suburb immediately west of Cleveland. Lakewood and east side Shaker Heights then were in the Lake Erie League Conference.

I have no memory of competing against Newman, a senior during the 1942-43 season when I was a junior. If it did happen, one thing is certain. We must have been the shortest players on the floor. I was 5’4” (eventually growing five inches in the service) while Newman was probably less than his eventual height of 5’8”. The future actor briefly attended Ohio University in the V-12 program and was allegedly kicked out for crashing a keg of beer into the president’s car before becoming a Navy radioman and gunner in the Pacific Theater. 

I enjoyed Paul Newman’s casual reaction to fame. Possessor of perhaps the world’s most famous baby-blue eyes, the actor once commented: “If my eyes should ever turn brown, my career is shot to hell.” Newman also observed: “I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.”

Then, there’s the thoroughly charming tale of a 45-year-old married woman going into an ice cream parlor in Westport, Connecticut where Newman and wife Joanne Woodward lived between films. The woman, a fervid Newman fan, entered the establishment in search of a double-dip chocolate ice cream cone. The only other customer, seated at the counter having a doughnut and coffee, was Newman. 

The woman’s eyes locked momentarily with Newman’s, her heart began impressive palpitations, and the actor nodded graciously. The clerk filled her order and she took the ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. The woman then left avoiding a glance in Newman’s direction. Reaching her car, she realized that she had a handful of change but her other hand was empty. The woman was stunned. Where was her ice cream cone? Did she leave it in the store? Back she went expecting to see the cone still in the clerk’s hand or somewhere in the store. The ice cream cone was not in sight.

Glancing at Newman, the woman was greeted by the actor’s familiar warm and friendly grin and the words: “You put it in your purse.”

One of my favorite romantic stories involving actors concerns a bag of peanuts, actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur. Shortly after their marriage in 1928, they shared a New York City Central Park bench and, as was often the case, communicated their hopes and dreams that eventually came to exceptional fruition. MacArthur offered his wife the bag of peanuts commenting: “I wish they were diamonds.”

Many years later, the two sat on the same bench. A lot had happened in the interim. His writing successes included The Front Page (written with Ben Hecht) and she had become the leading actress of the American stage with successful forays into motion pictures. MacArthur handed his wife a peanut bag containing diamonds. “I wish they were peanuts” was his touching observation.

My daughter Diane, who also lives in Bellingham, called the other day with a tale of romance set in motion by the computer. The story covered more than 40 years of marriage including some curious twists and turns of plot.

When Diane was a youngster, one of her best friends made more than one reference to her mother’s having been stood up at the altar. The girl’s mother had graduated from a highly-credited eastern university along with the guy who failed to show up at their wedding. Both eventually married other people.

Diane’s friend’s mother lost track of her once-upon-a-time intended and wed a fellow interested in little but golf; indeed, golf seemed the one passion of his life as he became father to three kids. The kids grew up and became non-golfing adults.

While many people past middle-age find the computer baffling at best, the woman learned how to use it. So did the guy who failed to show at the wedding that wasn’t and whose wife had recently died. Remembering his old flame, he tracked her down via the computer and the two began exchanging e-mails. After a couple of months, the guy escalated the relationship by mentioning an upcoming class reunion.

The golfer, aware of the wedding that never happened and the re-kindled interest made possible by the computer, made a dramatic and magnanimous offer. “Look. Go to the class reunion and get this guy out of your system.” She went and never came back. I suspect the golfer’s only passion is now approaching obsession.

It was while living on Chicago’s North Shore that I became aware of some rather blatant hanky-panky being practiced by the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and what Time magazine used to call “a great good friend.” The subject of the executive’s amour had become beneficiary of a sky-rocketing climb up the corporate ladder; the matter of her business skills was much bruited about by just about everyone at corporate headquarters.

One day I was chatting with a friend who co-authored a personality-driven Chicago Tribune column. One of the staples of the now-defunct column was the blind item. A journalistic oddity still in big city use, the blind item offers just enough information that a small percentage of readers can figure it out or at least think they can. The subject of corporate sexual shenanigans came up in the form of what I knew and I confirmed what she had heard.

Next day, a blind item appeared in the column. It read: “Which CEO of a Fortune 500 Company located on the North Shore is involved in a dalliance within the corporate body?” Note the reference to the North Shore. That was narrowing possibilities down more than a whit.

I checked in with the columnist and learned she had received three phone calls that day from North Shore corporate PR people. All wanted to know how she had found out about their boss’s indiscretion.  

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Future Press: “We Love Sarah” By Bob Sanders

Hollywood--In one of the most heart-warming developments in the history of the Emmy Awards, the Palin Family last night won for Best Documentary with “We Love Sarah” detailing the lives of the Alaskan clan whose experiences have captured the rapt attention of so many.

The award was accepted by Sarah Palin and her entire family. In an  acceptance speech, the unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election gave gracious thanks to the members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences suggesting the Emmy would not have been possible were it not for “my reference to knowledge of foreign affairs being based on being able to see Russia.” The statement was made during what is now known as the Katie Couric Interview, a decisive factor in the election.

As TV devotees know, Palin’s campaign comment inspired the fertile mind of famed TV director Jocko Reel. Reel’s first job in television was as production assistant on the hugely successful “An American Family” on PBS in 1973. The 12-part series became a TV sensation when a camera crew gained 24-7 access to the highly dysfunctional Loud family of Santa Barbara, California.   As Reel tells it: “Wham--Lightening struck a second time with the Palin family. Only in show business. Only in America.”

Many industry insiders believe “We Love Sarah” owes its origins not only to the Loud family but, also,  to the title character in “I Love Lucy,” a mega hit under various titles that provided the  capstone of Lucille Ball’s remarkable career. “That ‘Half-Baked Alaska’ episode was probably the funniest I ever directed,” said Reel. The show he referenced had Sarah along with fishing /hunting pal Kamchatka (“Kammy”) working in a baked Alaska emporium featuring a dessert assembly line of monumental challenges. Regular viewers may recall the idea for the Half-Baked Alaska Emporium came from Sarah’s husband, genial First Dude Todd. The installment immediately followed one involving manufactured igloo ice blocks for lazy Eskimos. Fans of “We Love Sarah” and, indeed, all of America, witnessed the dramatic backlash created midway through the season by what Eskimos regarded as a politically incorrect depiction of Alaskan originals. Alaska sets-in-use numbers, according to Nielsen, plummeted 48% to 17,498 following the controversial show and ratings continued to languish the rest of the season.   

Sarah Palin, interviewed following her television triumph, had some provocative thoughts about her victory. “Nearly everyone thought I was just a born-again, moose hunting, Troopergating, fly fishing, never-been-there, dog-sledding, back-packing, book-banning, hockey mom. Now, look at me. Motion pictures are calling, Revlon is after me to endorse Pit Bull Lipstick and McDonald’s wants me for commercials about Sarah Moosebergers. Who needs the White House?”

Palen’s innate modesty likely prevented her from commenting on a highly lucrative tie-in with Masses of Passes Glasses whose product has put to rest the old Dorothy Parker line about men who “never make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

Palin’s comments were offered between dancing enthusiastically  to “Doin’ the Wasilla,” the terpsichorean craze that started in Alaska before sweeping into heretofore quiet enclaves of the Pacific Northwest including Bellingham, WA, a community often referred to as The City of Subdued Excitement. Purists of the dance obsession, which pays homage to Palin’s book-banning attempts while mayor of the small Anchorage suburb, insist dance floor gyrations be performed while holding a book over one’s head. Book selection is an individual matter with only the Bible considered in poor taste.

Still governor in spite of an exhausting show business schedule, Palin was questioned about her looming film career. Indicating she has been approached to star in an original story whose working title is “Juno in Juneau.” Palin described the plot as a “teen-age pregnancy amid all the poignant laughter surrounding the obstetric developments that such an event creates.”

Asked about her favorite “We Love Sarah” episode, Palin proffered a preference for “Sarah Goes North,” a spin-off of sorts arising out of “Sarah Walks to Russia” in which she creates political tensions by criticizing Russian cooking and suggesting moose stew is much better--particularly among Alaska’s nabobs of haute cuisine. The unforgettable “Sarah Goes North” may be recalled by viewers as this past year’s Christmas show inspired by a comment parallel to the memorable one about how geographic proximity makes her some sort of expert on Russia. Lynchpin of “Sarah Goes North” is a Palin statement suggesting that “the North Pole is so near it gives me an intimate closeness to Santa Claus.” As viewers know, the show set in Santa’s Palace includes a Hugh Hefner-like fireman’s pole enabling Santa transport from his round bed to an Icicle Bar; it set an all-time Nielsen record among rabbit-eared, cable-connected, Dish-dispatched, Comcast-conductive, Direct-delivered U.S. homes.

Then there are Palin’s book deals that include a How To epic about the vicissitudes of sexual engagement in cold climates. Titled: ”Guv Love or How to be a Hero in Zero,” the soon-to-be-published book is full of creative ways to deal with such problems as what to do when there aren’t enough blankets to go around. A great many of Palin’s solutions were gained through personal experiences, according to word around Anchorage. Brisk sales are predicted for such countries as Finland, Greenland and Iceland in addition to Alaska. A Russian language version is anticipated although distribution will be limited to Eastern Siberia and such communities as Bymyakan and Dweieyecmibunsov near Murmansk. Both have registered temperatures approaching -90 degrees.

Palin’s people are working out details that would make possible the inclusion of a CD of Best Cold Weather Songs including Alice Ghostley’s New Faces of 1952 paean to “Fairbanks, Alaska” and whose lyrics bring heartfelt understanding to those who live there. It’s difficult to forget the last lines of the song: You’ll wake and you’ll discover, a polar bear’s your lover….in Fairbanks, Alaska

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