Near the Finish: at Last, the Last 2012 Presidential Debate
• October 23, 2012

Well, this last in a series of three presidential debates—all of them the debates that will change-alter-decide (pick one) the election—is over. It was not the debate to end all debates—however much we might cheer such a prospect—nor was it an election decider. For some of us, and perhaps for the debaters themselves, the end is a relief.

On the face of it, the debate, ostensibly on foreign policy, but always slipping like a brazen pickpocket into other areas and old arguments, claims and counter claims despite the best efforts of moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News, will probably change few hearts and minds and the agonizing indecision of the purported undecided. As for who won—well, even some Romney supporters might agree—President Barack Obama won, but to what effect is more difficult to say.

It was pretty clear early on that Mitt Romney’s main mission was to give the appearance of being presidential. To that end, he resisted the combative and aggressive tactics he had shown in the two previous debates. If not the picture of moderation and reasonableness, Romney nevertheless appeared to have put some thought into the foreign policy issues at hand or was coached to within an inch of his memory.

The result, unfortunately for Romney, was that he and the president appeared to share similar viewpoints and approaches on Middle Eastern affairs. Both promised they would never allow Iran to have a nuclear capability, both agreed to leave Afghanistan within the stated time frame and both said that military interference in Syria was not an option. Gone was the red line option so favored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the disdain for diplomacy and sanctions. Romney wants tougher tightening of sanctions and wants to indict the Iranian president as a war criminal now.

Startingly to many, Romney resisted attacking the president on the ongoing Benghazi, Libya, controversy, an arena in which the president remained vulnerable to attack. Instead, Romney invoked a broad vision for dealing with emerging and new regimes rising out of the ruins of the old. All well and good, but as is often the case with Romney, the vision lacked details—for example, how do you make a legally elected regime, such as that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, agree to American interests and human rights?

By contrast, Obama seemed to be itching for a fight, often going after Romney boldly or with saracasm, as when Romney repeated his oft-told complaint that the U.S Navy was at its lowest strength in number of ships since 1917. “We also have fewer horses and bayonets in our armed forces as we did then,” Obama countered with an Internet-inspiring zinger. “We have such things as submarines and aircraft carriers where planes can land.”

Obama once again lauded his administration’s success in killing Osama bin Laden, but Romney said that the problems in the Middle East are such that “You can’t just kill your way out of them.”

They contended to be sure, but the fight seemed not quite so vehement as the thriller-in-Manila atmosphere of the last debate during which both men seemed ready to come to blows. This time, they fought over the auto industry, a discussion which once again Romney muddled through without clarifying. They fought over Romney’s accusation of an Obama “apology tour,” to which Obama responded with vehemence, all but calling Romney a liar. “My first stop on a tour when I was a candidate was a visit our troops. In Israel, I went to the Holocaust Memorial, not a meeting with fundraisers.”

There were glitches of all sorts—arguments over China, over the economy. But as has been the case with all four of the debates, including the vice-presidential debate, these reality shows were about appearances—not so much about flubs, truth and consequences, even facts. They were exercises in part-truths, not total truths. They were media extravaganzas. NBC News framed the drama against a 47-47 deadlock in one national poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Still, some interesting things emerged. Obama was still fighting his way out of that deep, awful hole he had dug for himself in the still difficult-to-comprehend first debate and so was more energized than a Romney playing it somewhat safe, trying not to lose the momentum, the edge that he may appear to have—at least in his mind. The score, as a colleague of mine, said was two close wins for Obama, one major, game-changing win for Romney.

Still, there was that picture of Romney that the GOP standard bearer couldn’t quite erase. He remains someone who changes and moderates positions, and even appearances, on a dime. There was the aggressive Romney, there was the pugnacious Romney, and now the sagacious, statesmanlike, presidential Romney who suddenly expressed a concern about the Taliban coming down the mountains from Punjab in Pakistan. You had to wonder when Punjab ever came up at the dinner table in the Romney household as in “Well, geez, Ann, I’m really worried about Punjab, you know.” Much as flex scheduling, or a sudden interest or an embrace of pre-existing conditions coverage, and his mysterious magical ability to reach across the bi-partisan divide, these are things that seem to come out of nowhere, with no factual history.

Schieffer proved to be a brisker moderator and —except for bringing up the drone issue and once saying “Obama’s Bin Laden”—did a professional CBS-news-anchor job.

Not so for some of the reactions on the blogosphere. On the net, we found the sweetheart of Limbaugh University, Ann Colter call the president a “retard” and, mysteriously, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell saw the “horses and bayonets” reference by Obama as an insult to American sailors.

Unlike the previous debate, this one ended with a semblance of sweetness and light as the usual gathering of the large Romney clan on stage was joined by Barack and Michelle Obama. It seemed to startle some of the Romneys, but not one of the grandchildren, who seemed fascinated by Obama and ending up shaking his hand, a tender and spontaneous moment of sorts.

But, after four debates, and much gnashing of teeth and stress, I knew that it was past my bed time and that I could safely turn off the local news, because most of them would be talking about the return of Chris Cooley to the Washington Redskins.

Their Final Debate Is the Super Bowl for Obama and Romney
• October 22, 2012

In the days after Mitt Romney ran over a seemingly passive, even docile President Barack Obama in the first debate between the two candidates not to mention moderator Jim Lehrer the GOP candidate seemed to bask in the after-glow and poll gains of his victory. Publicly, on the stump, and in his ads, he allowed that he enjoyed himself in the first debate.

In the second debate Wednesday, Romney was still enjoying himself at the outset brisk walk, big smile, happy to hear from the young man worried about finding a job after college, chatting him up per his plan to look more accessible, down-to-earth and personable.

But here’s a fair bet: I’d bet that Romney won’t be talking about this town-hall format debate moderated by CNN correspondent Candy Crowley in terms of how much he enjoyed it any time between now and the next debate of the century, which comes smartly on Monday. It might be that Romney expected the meek and mild version of Barack Obama to show up again. He didn’t. Obama came ready to spar and fight, a little too much so early on, then later, much more in a more measured, self-assured, but still combative way.

Romney once again tried to ramrod his way into taking up more than his share of time by not answering questions and repeating his oft-told tale of the failures of the Obama presidency and touting his five-point jobs plan. Somehow, that didn’t work so well, as could be seen from his early big, and smug smile, turning into a slight smirk, and then, in the end disappearing altogether, his face becoming tense and drawn. He remained, it should be said, aggressive throughout and challenged the president often, especially on his claims on energy issues.

The difference was that the president was no longer staring at his shoes with every Romney assertion. He fought back from the get-go. This debate while getting into new territory and new issues not covered in the previous two debates was not especially substantive, but was special because it revealed the differences between the two candidates as stark in terms of issues as in temperament and personality.

Obama was no Biden, neither Romney nor Clinton, but he stood strong and made it clear that he was passionately fighting for re-election and that this was a battle between two different philosophies of governance. More than that, in this debate, Obama had size, he had passion and he had the gravitas a president should have.

While his supporters claimed that he looked “presidential,” Romney at times had the face of a bully denied a walk in the park. He sounded and looked tense, frustrated and peevish, going so far as to argue with Crowley at one point. He stopped trying to engage the questioners, an interesting lot of 50 individuals who were supposed to be as yet undecided.

One of them brought up the potentially hazardous for the president issue of what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. Romney blasted Obama for going to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser the day after the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens. Obama blasted Romney for making critical statements before the facts were known then took umbrage at the idea that his administration had politicized the events. Obama said that he had on the following day called it “an act of terror.” Romney jumped and all but called him a liar, while Obama repeatedly said, “Check the transcript.” Crowley then corrected Romney and said that the president had indeed used the phrase, “an act of terror,” but that the administration had not responded for two weeks in that manner.

The exchanges left Romney frustrated and not a little embarrassed. Because the exchanges on this point were somewhat pivotal, they’re still being argued about in the media and by Romney reps who said Crowley was essentially biased in what she did.

Not so biased were the new forces in the land on the Internet, the Facebook commentators, the twitterers and texters who latched on to such less earthshaking matters as “binders full of women,” a phrase used by Romney to explain how he had tried to make sure there were more women in his cabinet when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. It was while answering a question on equal pay for women in the workforce that Romney brought up his use of flex time to help female workers, a subject he had never broached through the entire campaign.

Romney repeated his five-point plan to create 12 million jobs ad infinitum. Obama shot back with “He doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan.” What also seemed obvious was Romney’s charting his way toward the moderate middle as best as he could, saying that he would not cut taxes on the wealthy (although continuing or making permanent the Bush tax cuts would do exactly that) and that he wanted to create a path to citizenship for some of the illegal immigrants, although he could not back out of the haunting phrase “self deportation,” which he tried to paint as something benign and innocuous.

What was apparent was that these two men did not like each other even a little. This debate often resembled a bullfight between two bulls they pointed at each, they argued loudly, they tried to steal time, they got into each other’s space, if not face, stopping only at stomping their feet on the floor. For Romney, the aggressive pushing for time was nothing new. For Obama, it was a turnabout he seemed to come out of a deep coma-like sleep and he came out energized which was exactly what he needed to do. He may have stopped the bleeding in the polls, and he may even have started some on the other side. Conservative pundit Gary Wills called it a strategic win for Obama and declared the debate the best presidential debate ever.

Asked as a closer in what way they were misrepresented or misunderstood, Romney brought up the point that he’s been painted as not caring for regular folks, for the common man, the working families. “I care passionately about 100 percent of the American people,” he asserted.

Obama said he was seen as a man who thinks that government can solve all the problems and said the he was not. And then, after Romney’s “100 percent claim,” Obama played the card he’d had all night. He brought the number down to the “47 percent,” which Romney had so easily dismissed in a speech made early in the campaign before a closed-door audience of supporters.

Catch your breath, folks, pollsters and spinners. The third debate comes up Monday, Oct. 22, a debate which many commentators had not considered to be an urgent matter, but has now suddenly became very urgent. It is here we go again the debate that could decide the election. It will concern itself with foreign affairs, which is to say you can expect to hear Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. It will no doubt be great television, and it appears now that this election was really about four debates. All the money spent by both sides on disheartening negative ads, Romney’s primary campaign and the two conventions were essentially meaningless exercises—on the road to four of the highest-rated reality shows ever staged. I guess the first three were the playoffs, and Monday is the Super Bowl. But will the fat lady sing?

Weekend Roundup October 18, 2012
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2nd Annual “Get Hitched in Georgetown” Competition

October 18th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Georgetown BID is organizing Get Hitched in Georgetown, where on October 18, 75 engaged couples will compete for the ultimate wedding prize package valued at over $10,000…A few highlights include a wedding gown from Hitched, stationery from The Dandelion Patch and Haute Papier, a day at the spa at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown and much more!

Address

Grace Church (lawn); 1041 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Victor Horta and Brussels Exhibit

October 19th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | Free | Tel: 571.312.1237 | Event Website

The SIGAL Gallery will hold a free opening ceremony for their new exhibit The Cradle of Art Nouveau: Victor Horta and Brussels. The exhibit will be staged in French, Dutch, English and German.

Register for the event at aiadc.com.

Address

The SIGAL Gallery at the District Architecture Center; 2012 AIA|DC 421 7th Street NW

Making Strides DC

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Donations Requested | Event Website

Join the American Cancer Society for the 9th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer DC 5K walk at 10am Saturday, October 20, starting at the Sylvan Theatre on the National Mall. Since 1993 Strides events nationwide have raised $460 million to fight breast cancer. And the American Cancer Society spends more money on breast cancer research than any other cancer type. Half of American women diagnosed with breast cancer turn to the American Cancer Society for help. Be the change. Make Strides.

Address

15th Street and Independence Avenue SW

Oatlands Participates in the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Tel: 703-777-3174 | Event Website

Explore the historic grounds of Oatlands during the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour. Visitors can walk the grounds, visit the historic Carriage House and learn about vintage carriages and farm equipment on display. Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Va., will also exhibit their heritage breed farm animals under the trees at Oatlands. Additional paid activities, such as tours of the house and garden, are available for guests.

Address

Oatlands Historic House and Gardens, 20850 Oatlands Plantation Ln., Leesburg, VA

Yoga for Homeless

October 20th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | $30 adult (26 and over); $20 youth | Tel: 202.338.8301 | Event Website

in conjunction with Fannie Mae’s Help the Homeless program, Georgetown Ministry Center will host a yogathon to benefit homelessness. Multiple sessions with local instructors will be featured, and yoga mats will be provided.

Address

Grace Church; 1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Where to Start: Site Analysis and Design Thinking for Public Art

October 21st, 2012 at 02:00 PM | Free | info@wpadc.org | Event Website interested in sharpening their skills preparing for public art commissions.

RSVP by Thursday, October 19 to Christopher Cunetto at ccunetto@wpadc.org. Seating is limited.

Address

National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Old and New at the At-large Council Debate
• October 16, 2012

Four of seven candidates for the two open At-large City Council seats showed up for an Oct. 4 debate at St. John’s Church, sponsored by Georgetown Business and Professional Association. Two of them were faces so familiar that it seemed like déjà vu all over again. Two were brand new faces, more or less, on the political scene. One of them was a Republican, the other was a self-styled, newly minted independent.

It was an afternoon with At-large Councilmembers Michael A. Brown and Vincent Orange and challengers Mary Brooks Beatty and David Grosso.

The two incumbents—Brown and Orange—share a long history of familiarity in the District and have often run for office, not always successfully. Brown, son of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, has instant name recognition and a big personality. “I haven’t been around that long,” he said to us when we caught up with him at the forum. “It just seems that way.” In fact, Brown ran for Mayor in 2008 but dropped out near the end of the campaign and threw his support to Council Chairman Linda Cropp, who lost to Adrian Fenty. Brown also ran for the Ward 4 seat, vacated by Fenty, but in a candidate-heavy field he lost to the Fenty-supported Muriel Bowser, who is up for re-election this year. Four years ago, Brown, a live-long Democrat if there ever was one, ran for the At-large Council spot, once held by Republican Carol Schwartz, perhaps one of the last of the generally moderate-liberal GOP politicians around. Schwartz, who had lost her primary to Patrick Mara, ran as a write-in but both she and Mara lost to the newly-minted independent Brown. District law requires that at least two of the at-large seats be held by non-Democrats.

Orange also seems to have been around longer than he actually has in terms of his political presence. He first ran unsuccessfully for a Ward 5 seat, then won two terms in the seat most recently vacated by Harry Thomas Jr. Orange ran for mayor the same year that Brown did, but also lost in the Fenty sweep. He then ran in a pitched battle against Kwame Brown for the council chairmanship in 2010 but lost despite an endorsement by the Washington Post. Orange then ran for Kwame Brown’s old at-large seat which had opened with his move to Council Chair and won in a close race over Sekou Biddle and Republican Patrick Mara. (Kwame Brown resigned from the District Council this year.)

The new faces are Mary Brooks Beatty, the personable and veteran advisory neighborhood commissioner from Capitol Hill, who was a past president of Women in Government and helped spark the H Street Corridor revival, and David Grosso, the 41-year-old who has been a staffer for former Ward 6 City Council member Sharon Ambrose and counsel for Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, working on the D.C. statehood issue.

Both Beatty and Gross seem more optimistic than most newcomers in a year when the D.C. government and mayor are not being held in high regard: the council chairman has been forced to resign, another councilman is in prison and the mayor’s 2010 campaign remains under a cloud of suspicion and investigation. Incumbents like Brown and Orange—both of whom have had issues on campaign fundraising—are vulnerable to attack and voter backlash. Brown recently reported that a large amount of his campaign funds had been stolen by a trusted aide, and it was reported that Orange had received campaign contributions from a developer who came under investigation for his part in the mayor’s campaign finances.

At the forum, Orange said flatly that he was in favor of term limits, a popular idea given that the District Council is heavy in long-serving members. “Of course,” he said, “you could serve two terms on the council, maybe move on to at large seat, go on to the chairmanship, and who knows maybe run for mayor.”

Brown was attacked by Grosso for his financial affairs, which he dismissed. “Look, in politics, you have people whom you trust and when they break your trust, it happens. People will steal. That’s a fact, and that’s what happened, nothing else.”

Votes for Youth Rally
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On Friday, October 12, members of NYRA (the National Youth Rights Association) rallied in Washington, DC at Judiciary Square to demand a lower voting age and an end to voter ID laws. Founded in 1998, the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) is America’s largest youth rights organization.

The National Youth Rights Association is dedicated to defending the civil and human rights of young people in the United States and believe certain basic rights are intrinsic parts of American citizenship and transcend age or status limits. As the world’s leading democracy, the United States should not lag behind other nations in granting first-class citizenship to its young people.

For more information, visit youthrights.org.

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Georgetown University Dedicates Regents Hall
• October 15, 2012

Georgetown University administrators, alumni and others gathered Oct. 4 on the fourth floor of Regents Hall to dedicate the new science building. The five-story, 154,000-square-foot facility was finished at the end of this summer. The new building is the home of Georgetown’s biology, chemistry and physics departments. It also houses numerous student lounges and a café.

The building is named for the university’s board of regents, a group of 100 individuals who disperse information about the university and build upon both new and existing relationships to galvanize support for Georgetown University.

The ceremony opened with a performance by the Georgetown Chimes, a men’s a capella group.

During his invocation, Rev. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., the university’s vice president of mission of ministry, called for a moment of silence in remembrance of the Whiting-Turner employee killed during the construction of the building in March 2011.

University president John DeGioia welcomed attendees, and Chester Gillis, dean of Georgetown College, remarked on the new building. “Georgetown is serious about science,” Gillis said.

Jane Dammen McAuliffe, a former dean of Georgetown College and the current president of Bryn Mawr College, remarked on her efforts as dean to make the building a reality.

The new building is the most environmentally friendly structure on campus. The university is seeking its first LEED Gold certification.

A reception followed the ceremony with catering by Susan Gage. Laboratory beakers and multicolored cocktails were served in keeping with the spirit of the dedication of the new science building.
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National Coming Out Day
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In its 22nd year, National Coming Out Day celebrates and supports individuals who choose to “come out,” or publicly identify as part of the LGBT community. LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

National Coming Out Day was created in 1988 by Robert Eichberg, a psychologist from New Mexico and founder of The Experience, a personal growth workshop, and Jean O’Leary, a Los Angeles-based, openly gay political leader, who was head of the National Gay Rights Advocates.

Oct. 11 was chosen as the awareness day as the anniversary of “The Great March” on Washington the year previous. More commonly known as the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, the event lasted six days with activities including a mass wedding and protest in front of the IRS building, a protest at the Supreme Court building of the ruling Bowers v. Hardwick and the first unveiling of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

“The Great March” was estimated to have half a million participants, led by Cesar Chavez and National Organization for Women president Eleanor Smeal. Other speakers at the rally included then Democratic presidential nominee candidate Jesse Jackson and actress Whoopi Goldberg.

On Oct. 24, the Chefs for Equality event will be held at the Ritz-Carlton. The event, emceed by fashion and television personality Tim Gunn, will also host featured guest Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. There will be more than 30 participating chefs and 16 featured mixologists. For tickets and more information, visit ChefsForEquality.org.

Weekend Roundup October 11, 2012
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Reel Independent Film Extravaganza

Oct. 12 at 02 p.m. | $11 | $35 | $75 | PR@YourPlatinumImage.com | Tel: 301-772-7434 | Event Website

The 3rd Annual Reel Independent Film Extravaganza (RIFE) is an event created BY filmmakers FOR filmmakers and takes place Oct. 12 through 18, 2012 at West End Cinemas on M Street in D.C.’s West End. The event, presented by Skyrocket Productions, will highlight the talents of local, national and international filmmakers, offering a diverse program and fosters public awareness of independent cinema as a cultural and educational asset.

Address

West End Cinema, 2301 M St NW

Palimpsest

Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. | Free | info@wpadc.org | Tel: 202-234-7103 | Event Website

Palimpsest is a Coup d’Espace project curated by Steven H. Silberg and Neil C. Jones. It explores the constant layering of information in contemporary society and the impact technological advancements have on the ways we represent and receive information. The exhibition runs Oct. 12 through Nov. 9.

Address

Washington Project for the Arts, 2023 Massachusetts Ave, NW

Yoana Baraschi Trunk Show

Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. | Free | Tel: 202-298-7464 | Event Website

The trunk show samples arrived, and they
look fabulous. Lots of color — cobalt, gold, orange and gunmetal. And Yoana’s signature knit dresses with the best fit ever. Come shop the newest designs from NYC-based designer Yoana Baraschi.

Address

Everard’s Clothing, 1802 Wisconsin Ave., NW

Recycle Love-Adopt A Rescue Pet Adoption Event

Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. | N/A | mnute@cbmove.com | Tel: 202-333-6100 | Event Website

Pet adoption event at the Washington Harbour in Georgetown. Coldwell Banker partners with Operation Paws for Homes. Visit OPH’s website www.ophrescue.org. Great variety of breeds, sizes and ages, including puppies at the event. Our last two events were extremely successful with more than 27 dogs finding their forever homes. With your help we can make this event even more successful. For more information, visit www.cbmove.com/georgetown, or call 202-333-6100.

Address

3000 K St, NW, Suite 101, Plaza Level

Days of Design 2012 at Cady’s Alley

Oct. 13 at noon | free | events@cadysalley.com | Event Website

Georgetown’s Design District is celebrating National Design Week by hosting Days of Design (Oct. 13 through 21). Stores and showrooms of Cady’s Alley are will host a series of workshops, lectures, exhibitions, promotions and design-focused pop-ups. Open to the public. Some highlights include: AIA pop-up design book store, In-store workshops at West Elm & CB2, live music.

Address

3314 M Street, N.W.

Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival

Oct. 14 at 11 a.m. | Tel: (202)-777-3251 | Event Website

The DCJCC will present the annual Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival from Oct. 14 through 24. The program will include 15 events with celebrated authors and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon speaking on his latest book, “Telegraph: A Novel.” Other events include an evening of film and theater appreciating Franz Kafka along with a local authors festival and a day of storytelling.

Address

Washington DCJCC, 1529 16th Street, NW

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: Carrying on the Music of Woody Guthrie at the Kennedy Center, Oct. 14
•

Come Sunday evening, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, it looks like it is going to get crowded on that stage when all the performers get together to honor America’s troubadour of the working man and Dust Bowl poet. “This Land is Your Land—The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Concert” is a tribute to the Oklahoma singer-songwriter, born in 1912.

It’s also probably fair to say that there is likely no performer on that stage—and it’s scheduled to include, among others, Ry Cooder, Judy Collins, Donovan, Jimmy LaFave, John Mellencamp and the Old Crow Medicine Show—who is more directly and closely connected to the spirit of Guthrie’s music and song book and to the man himself than a guy named Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. (Elliott is also appearing in a special Guthrie centennial concert at 8 p.m. and is part of a discussion and celebration with LeFave and Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary at beginning at 1 p.m. at the Library of Congress on Saturday, Oct. 13.)

The salutes include Guthrie’s son Arlo himself (who’s also scheduled to perform), who had acknowledged that he learned a lot about his father’s music mostly from Elliott, who’s described as Guthrie’s protégé by folk music chroniclers.

Elliott is 81 now, still touring a lot, still holding the Guthrie legacy up high, still singing, still wearing cowboy hats and boots, still scattering stories around like candy “I think my agent’s trying to kill me,” he said in a phone interview while he was staying with friends in an old East Coast stomping ground. “He’s scheduling me all over the place.” He’s not riding as a hobo on freight trains like Guthrie did. Elliott is flying a lot, however, which he doesn’t appreciate because it involved going through airports. “I don’t like airports,” he said. “They make me nervous. I like the window seat because I can look out and see what we’re flying over, and that makes me calm.”

“He’s out buying boots,” they told me when I first called. “Say, did you ever hear how Jack got his name?” I allowed that I hadn’t so I was told the oft-told tale of how Elliott once visited the famed folk singer Odetta at her home. Her mom said she was taking a bath and would he like to sit and chat with her on the porch while they waited. So, they did. After a considerable time, Odetta’s mom said in amazement, “Well, that Jack, he sure likes to ramble.”

He did, and he still does. I can vouch for that. A conversation with Jack Elliott is a bumpy ride, but not unpleasant, with many detours. It’s like a ride in an as-yet-uninvented but often imagined time machine, one of those modes of transportation that he’s so enamored with. “I used to be a truck driver and when I see a red light, I stop,” he often tells people.

A small confession is in order here: I used to hear Elliott sing—stuff like “If I Were a Carpenter” and “San Francisco Bay Blues” that I remember clearly—in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area in a place called the Lion’s Share, run by the son of a well-known national conservative columnist. In the late 1960s around there, you could run into legendary musicians and legends to be legends who were every five minutes if you tried. They gathered regularly at the Lion’s Share, some of them, the folkies like Dave Von Ronck, Mississippi Blues stalwarts like the Reverend Blind Gary Davis and locals living in Marin. Of course, the locals there were Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick, Steve Miller or Van Morrison and Janis Joplin’s band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

“I remember that place, Mike Considine and the bartender, Zane, Zane Plemmons,” he recalled. “He was a fighter pilot in Viet Nam. The place burned down in 1969, and they moved to San Anselmo.”

All of that true, and much more. It was one of the pit stops. But I remember even then he had that thin, laconic cowboy look when he was singing and walking around. You’d never have guessed that he was born and raised a nice Jewish boy in Brooklyn. “Then, I ran away with the rodeo,” he said. Literally, for a few weeks at least, long enough to get him into the cowboy music and cowboy mode, courtesy of a rodeo clown who sang.

When he took music seriously—always traveling, sometimes trucking, sometimes by plane—he had learned to fly a P41 Mustang, somehow. While going to Adelphi University in Long Island, he had heard a lot about Guthrie and was learning his music and knew a guitar player who knew Guthrie and sometimes went to Guthrie’s home in Coney Island to jam with other musicians. “About this time, he landed in the hospital (Guthrie had Parkinson’s to which he succumbed in 1967), and I met him there,” Elliott said. “He had skin gold brown from his time as a hobo riding the rails. He and his family, they kind of took me in for a time. Then, I traveled out west with him, and I sang with him sometimes.”

Elliott also picked up on trucking, sailing, cars, planes, the trains, planes and automobiles—things about which he writes and sings, and surely talks. It is the imagery of night roads and trucks, as water and flying sort of drift into his conversation and stories, and as he said, “Yeah, I got an interest in that stuff, sure.”

“Woody, he was the great American troubadour, the song man,” Elliott said. He was for the common man, the working man. He was a labor guy, the hobo and the hungry children, and he didn’t much like big business. He was a union guy, I guess. But you know what I think? I know some people wouldn’t agree with you on that: he was a great American to me and a great American patriot. He was about the American spirit. He embodied it.”

“He wasn’t necessarily an easy man, but you could love that man,” he said. “ He wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs, all kinds of songs, and he wrote about construction work, and the road, the railroads and he had a song about building a dam, the Columbia River. ”

Over the phone, he started singing to the tune of “Wabash Cannonball,” and the voice was as strong as I remembered it, rich and moving like a train whistle. “I wrote a lot of songs, but I didn’t write ‘If I Were a Carpenter,’ but I sang it a lot—and so did a lot of other people. Tim Hardin wrote it, he was a brilliant guy, but a tough guy. Don’t want to tell you how he felt about the Bobby Darin version.”

If he was Guthrie’s successor, protégé, why then Elliott had a similar effect on Bob Dylan, who was also smitten with the legend and songs of Woody Guthrie and influenced by Elliott. They would kid around—Dylan inviting Elliott on his Rollling Thunder Tour, Elliott kiddingly talking about “my son Bob Dylan.”

Dylan—who started out doing talking blues—became a major genius-grade superstar, while Guthrie’s name is now iconic and historic. They even celebrated his centennial in Oklahoma along with Austria. Elliott is the living legend flying under the radar, making music and albums.

“Talking blues, man, that was around a long time,” he said, and then started telling me about a man he met in Petaluma, Calif. “ He had really interesting seafaring tattoos. So, you meet a guy like that, talking about shore leave all over the world, talking about the ships and stuff, and we’re in Petaluma.”

I wish I’d recorded that and just about everything Elliott said. He carries Guthrie’s stuff around with him—like dust that never washes off. He travels a lot, he sings strong and clear and he has a cartful of memories he draws on. “Janis,” he recalled. “Well, I spent a week with her one afternoon. She was going to be doing the “Pearl” album I think, but here we all were, Kris [Krisofferson, who had written “Me and Bobbie McGee”] on one side of her and me on the other, and she started singing the song “…busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train…”

Right there, you could see it and hear it. You could hear train whistles in the stories, you could see the gaunt face of Woodie Guthrie. On Elliott’s website, there’s a recording of Elliott, Sonny McGee and Guthrie singing about “Railroad Bill.” Woody is singing clearly and then says, “Take it, Jack.” And Jack picked up.

Come Sunday, they’ll be singing, not “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie” but “This Land is Your Land”—which I heard a few thousand people sing at a Ukelele festival on the lawns of Strathmore last year. It could stand some singing now.

One stanza goes like this: “I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps/To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts/and all around me a voice was sounding: This Land was made for you and me.”

Take it, Jack.
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Biden-Ryan: More Important Than Baseball But Less Inspirational
• October 12, 2012

One fellow journalist friend of mine sounded as if he were experiencing a kind of emotional whiplash.

Biden-Ryan or Nationals-Cardinals? Or deeper into the night Orioles-Yankees? Who won? Shoulda stuck with the baseball games—for more than one reason. For the record: Nationals, 2-1, heroes, Detwiler and Werth; Orioles 2-1, heroes Hardy and Machado.

The Nationals and Orioles have to do it all over again in the do-or-die, decider of their best-of-five playoff series without the added distraction of a debate to keep your eye on.

And who won the Biden-Ryan debate? Well, that depends. On whom you talk to, who you are, how much you care, and whether you think Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., is a genial, genius-level budget wonk, whether you think Vice President Joe Biden was crazy-laughing or crazy-like-a-fox laughing, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, whether you’re on kissing terms with seventy or think that’s really old.

But wait—there’s more. Of course, there is. For the record, I am a Nationals and Orioles fan until the World Series—the one that pits the Nats against the O’s—comes around. I am a Yankee hater because they pay Alex Rodriguez so much money without making him earn it.

What probably comes as no surprise—although it’s surprising how many writers are unacknowledged independents, free spirits, have no bias or stake in the outcome—I like to think of myself as a fair and reasonable liberal who abhors knee-jerk political correctness. However, I wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney if he were running for dog-catcher because he’d get rid of the mutts and give the poodles and labadoodles to his grandchildren and count it as a charitable contribution.

O.K., who did win the Biden-Ryan debate? Well, duh. Biden in a decision for the old(er) guys. And I say this knowing full well—as Biden’s friend Ryan didn’t to remind us but couldn’t resist—that sometimes funny things come out of Biden’s mouth. Hit with that zinger, Biden widened the laughing face and said, “But I always mean what I say” to which Ryan wasn’t quick enough to add, “Yes, but you don’t always say what you mean.”

For the record, Biden did a credible imitation of exactly what Mitt Romney did in his debate against mild competition from President Barack Obama. He bounded on stage like he was shot out of a candidate cannon and never let up. He was not, as the president described himself, polite. He interrupted, he smirked, he laughed, he gasped, he used the word malarkey—an Irish word of sorts for “stuff”—or just possibly gaelic for b-s. He tore into Ryan’s budget plan—a and b—as not adding up and challenged him on just about every assertion except that of being Irish.

To be fair, Ryan did more than hold his own—on foreign affairs especially, he quieted things down when giving a detailed, knowledgeable power point speech on Afghanistan with correctly pronounced place names that seemed to imply that he did his homework. But, as always with both Ryan and Romney, the R&R twins, the devil is always in the details, which is to say they can’t come up with any.

The real hero in this affair was moderator Martha Raddatz, ABC News’s foreign affairs correspondent, who repeatedly pushed both candidates to provide details and cut them off when their time was up, unlike the solemn and dazed Jim Lehrer of the previous affair.

The tough but semi-respectful sparring of the two men produced two things that are troublesome for both their top of the tickets—the Obama-Biden team are going to run into potential serious problems with the Libya-Bengazi crisis over security issues and when it comes to Iran, the Republicans don’t actually have a plan except: “We have credibility; they don’t.” Pressed on what a Romney administration might do in the Middle East, with a potentially nuclear Iran or with Syria, Ryan insisted they had more credibility. Period. Details to come.

Both men, it should be said, defined what’s wrong with this campaign. Asked in a pointed question (in response to a searing complaint from a veteran about the lack of vision and inspiration in the campaign by both sides) what they feel about the campaign, both Biden and Ryan ended with tried and true political themes of accusations and attacks which have made the campaign such a depressing affair for anyone seeking hope, succor or inspiration for the future.

Still, Biden on points, the ones that he made and how he made them.

Next round: coming very soon—but not so soon as the fate of the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles.