News & Politics

Gary Tischler • December 19, 2011

I know that Frank Capra’s eternal Hollywood classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” is about a guy named George Bailey as impersonated by Jimmy Stewart, but this week, after reading about the passing of actor Harry Morgan at the age of 96, I couldn’t help but wonder if it shouldn’t have been about him.

Even Morgan understood what kind of life he had led as a working actor, not of the Jimmy Stewart star standing, but of the every-day-working-kind, who periodically sparkled a little larger than life, especially late in his life

That’s when Morgan, a thin-faced jack-of-all-roles who appeared in over 100 films and numerous television series, got a gift that merely made him a forever memory. From 1975 to 1983, he played the part of Colonel Sherman Potter, the last commander of the irreverent Korean War combat medical unit in the long-running series “MASH, joining Alan Alda and Mike Ferrell and other stalwarts of the hugely popular sitcom .

Potter, as MASH commanders went, was endearing, a life-time military officer who knew he was out of his element among the crassly irreverent surgeons and noncoms of this unit, operating in a war nobody understood except that they always had work patching up and trying to save the many wounded and not always succeeding.

Morgan’s Potter was old-school, he rode a horse, he had empathy and humor and took his values, but not himself, seriously. Potter, as played by Morgan, was always funny, but he had a gift, he managed to maintain his dignity and grace in the middle of a chaotic, violent, messy environment.

As an actor, he could play just about anybody, and probably had, going back to the 1943 western classic “The Ox Bow Incident.” Much much later, he would be remembered as the stoic sheriff in a changing Colorado town visited by a dying gunfighter played by John Wayne in “The Shootist”, Wayne’s last film. Jimmy Stewart was also in and a young ‘un named Ron Howard. Morgan was also Jack Webb’s sidekick in a color revival of the popular cop procedural “Dragnet.”

According to one story, when they finished with the last episode of MASH, which became the most watched episode on television ever, Morgan cried. He said that the show made him “a better person.”

In the Archive of American Television, referenced in a Dawn.com story on Morgan, he’s quoted as saying “I’d like to be remembered for being a fairly pleasant person and for having gotten along for the most part with a lot of the people I’ve worked with

“And for having a wonderful life and for having enjoyed practically every minute of it. I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.”

Exeunt Colonel Potter, age 96, wonderful actor, wonderful life.

Georgetowner • December 14, 2011

Great news!

The economy added 120,000 new jobs in November, pushing the unemployment rate down from 9 percent to 8.6 percent, the lowest since President Obama’s second month in office.

Actually, the private sector picked up 140,000 new jobs because governments laid off 20,000 people.

That should make everyone happy. Democrats need the unemployment rate to go down if they are to have a chance at keeping the White House and some voice in the Congress. Republicans will crow about the decrease in government workers. Independents, the largest political party in the U.S., tend to be more secretive about what they think, but they will let us know on election day.

But wait. The number of unemployed dropped almost 600,000, from 13.9 million to 13.3 million, but only 120,000 new jobs were created.

How does that math work?

No economist or accountant or mathematician can explain that.

Only a moviemaker can explain these numbers.

Barry Levinson, a Hollywood film producer and director with more than three dozen movies to his credit, perhaps best known for Rain Man which won four Academy Awards, decided that the economy isn’t just confusing. It’s comedy.

He revised Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First” routine to explain how the Department of Labor measures changes in unemployment.

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good subject. Terrible times. It’s 9 percent.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 16 percent.

COSTELLO: You just said 9 percent.

ABBOTT: 9 percent unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 9 percent out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 16 percent.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 16 percent unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 9 percent.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 9 percent or 16 percent?

ABBOTT: 9 percent are unemployed. 16 percent are out of work.

COSTELLO: IF you are out of work, you are unemployed?

ABBOTT: No, you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So, if you’re off the unemployment rolls, that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely, it goes down. That’s how you get to 9 percent. Otherwise, it would be 16 percent. You don’t want to read about 16 percent unemployment, do ya?

COSTELLO: That would be frightening.

ABBOTT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means they’re two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like an economist.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

Bingo is right! 120,000 people got new jobs last month. Another 350,000 quit looking, but they don’t count.Well, they won’t count as unemployed and won’t be entitled to unemployment insurance. But they may be entitled to food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance. And if there’s a link between increased poverty and the crime rate, other public costs will increase.

So, the deficit will go up as the unemployment rate goes down. That’s economics for you.

Barry Levinson is right. Economics is pure theater. But is it comedy? Or drama or tragedy? Ask those 350,000 who can’t find work and quit looking.

Better yet, ask Newt Gingrich who recently proposed allowing 9-year-olds to enter the workforce.

Encore. Encore. Abbott and Costello, where are you?

Georgetowner •

At our last legislative meeting, I introduced a bill called the “Reimbursable Detail Expansion and Promoter Regulation Act of 2011.” This bill is designed to bring to the forefront of the Council’s legislative agenda the issue of violence associated with certain late night entertainment venues, particularly when so-called “promoters” are involved. 

The bill I introduced would direct the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration to create regulations covering promoters, which has been the subject of discussion even prior to recent events. Promoters don’t have accountability to the government or the community the way an ABRA license-holder does, and creating a licensing process for them will help with this problem. My bill creates a framework for defining promoters, looking at items such as fee-sharing arrangements based on admission head counts, for example, while creating reasonable exemptions for performers and off-premises ticket sellers like Ticketmaster.

The other substantive section of the bill would impact participation in the reimbursable detail program, which provides for additional Metropolitan Police Department officers on the streets, with costs being shared by bars and the city. The intent of my bill is to shift the presumption to require certain establishments to pay for adequate security unless they apply for and are granted an exemption. If, for example, an establishment is a restaurant by day but then has a second life as a kind of club a couple of nights a month, then that establishment would have to participate in the reimbursable detail program on entertainment nights unless ABRA grants them an exemption. On nights where promoters are involved, the extra security would always be required. 

The introduction of this bill starts a conversation on the issue, and there will be an opportunity for residents and stakeholders to share views for how to refine the proposal going forward. I have heard a number of good ideas already, such as increasing the role of advisory neighborhood commissions in the process or involving the commander of the relevant police district in these decisions. There may also be a way to incorporate “special police” officers into the security requirements, who are not members of MPD but are licensed by MPD. In contrast with MPD reimbursable detail officers who patrol the streets outside identified establishments, “special police” officers work inside an establishment and have arrest authority on the premises.

I look forward to other ideas being presented during the hearing process. I was joined by four of my colleagues in the introduction of my bill, Councilmembers Michael Brown, Phil Mendelson, Muriel Bowser and Marion Barry, which I hope demonstrates the support necessary to ensure that the relevant committee chair, Councilmember Jim Graham, quickly schedules a hearing to move the bill forward.

Georgetowner •

Superman! Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way!

He was Superman, and everyone knew that he would save the world.

Last August, Congress, unable to agree on how to reduce budget deficits, appointed a “Super Committee” to do the job. The idea was that 12 members of Congress, half Republicans and half Democrats, half from the Senate and half from the House, could craft a compromise that 535 Representatives and Senators could not.

World credit markets were so nervous when Congress almost forced the nation into a default that Congress passed a “lose-lose” law that included $1.2 trillion in automatic deficit savings so distasteful that it thought the Super Committee could finally make the tough choices.

This was real-life “Survivor,” like the TV shows where strangers stranded on an island form alliances to vote off others. In Survivor Congress, both Republicans and Democrats were confident that they could outwit, outplay and outlast the other side.

Had one member broken ranks and joined the other side, the consequences were dire. Sure defeat in next year’s election because all their political support and money would dry up instantly. Probable loss of both the White House and control of the Congress next year. The only hope was that all 12 suddenly and simultaneously become statesmen, setting aside their individual differences for the collective good of the country.

Despite the damage to the country, both parties were surely relieved when no one from their party broke ranks.

Who was kidding whom? The Super Committee hardly met.

Most communication was like fourth graders passing notes back and forth through others:

Sally’s note to George: Does Billy like Mary?

George’s note to Sally: Does Mary like him?

Sally’s note to George: I’ll ask her if you’ll tell me if Billy likes her

George’s note to Sally: Billy needs to know if Mary likes him first. By then, the bell rang, and class was over. Like Congress, Billy and Mary had short attention spans.

After three months of passing notes back and forth, the Super Committee finally quit. Its most difficult task was writing the note to tell the world that it quit. None of them was super enough to stand in front of the cameras with flags behind them and tell the world of its failure.

Their assignment wasn’t even that difficult. The super committee was charged with reducing budget deficits by $1.2 trillion over ten years beginning 2013. No pain this year or next.

Federal spending is approaching $4 trillion per year. So, $1.2 trillion out of $50 trillion, or more, over ten years should be doable. But, it wasn’t. Worse, they know that the real task is to close the budget gap by $4 trillion or more.

What will Congress do now? Nothing. Blame each other. Undo the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts since no one liked them anyway. Posture for next year’s election. Watch its approval rating drop from its current 9 percent. (Isn’t that statistically the same as 0 percent?)

If the world economy weren’t in such a mess, a failure of this magnitude would probably have sent stock markets spiraling down and interest rates shooting up. Both are worse than tax increases since they reduce savings and raise prices on everything.

But, at this point in history, the U.S. economy is considered the “least of the terrible,” so money is flowing into the U.S., pushing short-term interest rates to virtually 0 percent.

Interest consumes 15 percent of the U.S. budget. If interest rates climb back to their 2006 level, the cost will be hundreds of billions a year, in fact, more than Super Committee’s $1.2 trillion target. If (when?) that happens, the only options will be steeper cuts to all federal spending programs, larger tax increases, or even more enormous borrowings to pay the cost of borrowing. The Super Committee simply lacked the courage to do the right thing.

Why was it called “super”? The only thing that was super was the extent of its failure.

Superman was everyone’s hero. He could fix anything. The Super Committee was by no means super.

Georgetowner •

Ladies, gentleman, and you rascals in the media: In the midst of hard times and earth-shaking crises, there is a raggedy circus running about the country pretending to be a race for the Republican Party presidential nomination.

It is indeed a circus, and it’s not quite so good as Ringling Brothers. It’s a circus full of acrobats trying to catch the elusive rings of leadership in the polls, flying through the air and falling into the sawdust. It’s full of screaming mimes, hucksters who can’t complete a sentence and weekly wannabes. It has clowns that scare even adults.

But the best act is the human cannon: every week or two, somebody gets shot out of a cannon and soars high into the air of the polls, anointed by MSNBC or Fox to be the leader in Iowa, if not in New Hampshire. For a brief time, the candidate will dream at night that he has been struck by lightning, hearing himself reciting the Presidential oath.

Both Bachman and Perry had their moments—Bachman’s so short that she barely had time to change clothes after a victory in an Iowan straw poll.

Up came the last star and latest victim, Herman Cain, the pizza king, carrying a populist message that the Tea Partyists ate up. He briefly led the polls, and it is entirely plausible that he too began to think he could be nominated. But, things happened, as we all knew they would, and Cain fell out of the running, which we knew he would, and so it has come to this:

Newt is the man.

Newt Gingrich is leading the polls in Iowa in the days leading up to the Iowa Caucus and in several other polls, while gaining on Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. It’s bellwether time, and its not even Christmas.

Gingrich has taken up the cause of limited government, of course, and no new taxes. He is tough but compassionate on illegal and legal immigrants, and he has also said that poor children don’t want to work. He wants to challenge the power of the Supreme Court too.

The last seems to fit what may be Gingrich’s idea of the ideal government: a Roman Republic, where he can wear the senatorial white toga. Gingrich has an autocratic bent, which goes well with his arrogance, but it should be remembered that while he has been given credit for engineering the 1990s GOP sweep of the House and Senate and helping bring out President Clinton’s impeachment trial, Clinton, even with both political hands tied behind his back, outmaneuvered Newt thereafter.
Gingrich may be the anointed one now—what else could they talk about on Meet the Press, after all? But if Mitt Romney, the genial, flip-flopping former governor of Massachusetts and successful businessman, wonders why the conservative core doesn’t like him, wait until they take a good look at Gingrich. Likability won’t be an issue.

Romney is the great magician in this eight-ring circus. Week in and week out, he smiles, he shakes hands, he attacks Obama, gives no interviews to the press (except Parade Magazine where he and his wife were photographed in jeans, which may make him look like a 99% type, as opposed to the one percenter that he is). Week after week he finishes second, stays in the mid-twenties and, while sometimes is seen to worry, always flashes those pearly whites with a steady confidence.

This is fascinating to the media roundtables, the insider beltway musers who love the show more than the real world. 

One of the more interesting things about the GOP race is that the debates and the battle for the caucuses are taking place against a background of real world and national upheaval. Take your pick of omens and portends: Egypt’s second revolution could yet produce an Islamist state; Putin’s party in Russia lost major ground in elections there’ France and Germany are trying to stave off a major debt crisis in Europe; Syria is about to topple; the ruler of Yemen is leaving; the wicked man is dead in Libya; and Saudi Arabia still won’t let women drive cars because they might have sex. These things barely get a mention in the debates. Perry is seeking to have creationism taught in schools.

Recently, like a giant balloon escaped from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Donald Trump, who was also at a time a GOP frontrunner, has become visible again like a Cheshire Cat, as some sort of GOP pope, insisting that the candidates should drop by Trump Tower to kiss his political ring. Or what? They’re fired?

And right about now, as he wakes up in the morning, Newt Gingrich is starting to feel a draft on his behind. That’s the nasty breath of media exposure that’s about to blow on the latest man at the top.
As the song goes: Send in the clowns… Except, in this case, they’re already here.