Game Change -- we can believe in

Wow.

For some reason I was skeptical about John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's book, Game Change... boy, was I wrong about that one.

I should say at the outset, that Game Change is a little like crack for political junkies. You will do nothing else for a couple of days, other than sit in your apartment, alone with your 448 pages of drug-like bliss, and ingest the words. You will not want to talk to people. You will not want to go out at night. You will only want to stay home and read. (I was up with it well past my bedtime.)

And you will be extremely distraught when it's over. You need your fix!

I'm going to avoid giving away too much. And, in a way, a lot of the ace material was in Heilemann and Halperin's excerpt about John Edwards in New York magazine a couple of weeks ago.... But there is so much more!

And there are three observations I would like to make:

1) I believe only about 80 percent of this stuff is exactly the way it happened.

It's sort of remarkable that given how much of the book was anonymously sourced, how little these two have had to retract. (Has there been anything?) Clearly, this is mostly the way it went down. But there's a reason why some of the little things could be wrong and not have been challenged.

If, say, Elizabeth Edwards had a quibble with only one or two little facts, she would look truly ridiculous disputing them when the vast majority of the narrative is true and so negative.

2) One of the criticisms I've heard of the book is that it's inside baseball -- there's no broader context.

So?

I mean, come on. Everybody was paying attention to this race. It was the most frustrating, exciting, drawn out damned race in American political history! True, if you didn't know any of the scandals that enveloped the 2008 political season -- from "sniper fire" to "bittergate" to the views of Russia from Alaska -- you might be at a loss, and maybe this book isn't for you. But H&H would have had to be completely meshuggenah to describe the campaign from soup to nuts.

No -- these guys got the narrative right.

3) As much as I love Obama, I accept the fact that there are reasons he's the only one coming out of this book smelling like a rose.

Truly, everybody looks bad in this book. And by everybody, I mean everybody. Some come out looking worse than others (the Edwardses probably come out looking the worst) but Bill, Hillary, McCain and Palin all look like the most dysfunctional people you'd ever want to cross paths with. And most of the staffs look pretty bad, too. (Mark Penn comes across as a true blue idiot.)

At times, it's a study in contrasts: Bill looks so much worse than Hillary, for instance. And Steve Schmidt, McCain's political guru, actually comes across decently. (Not that I agree with any of his positions on anything -- but he looks at least like a smart, organized guy who knows what he's doing.)

But the only two people who look semi-normal at the end of this twisted saga are Barack and Michelle Obama.

That didn't happen by accident.

I'm sure that the Obamas are marvelous people. I truly love them. But, my friend Robert George pointed out something important: Almost everybody else has a long history in Washington. And every single one of the principles (except the Palins) has run a national campaign before.

Being in politics that long (and at that level) means that you create enemies. There are plenty of people who have known the Clintons, the Edwardses and the McCains a long time and wanted to take swipes at them. Not so for the Obamas.

Plus, you can be damned sure that there were plenty of sources in the Obama camp.

But as I said: 80 percent true. Enjoy -- just don't OD.

Aught not

A couple of magazines have started their 2000s decade assessments -- notably New York magazine.

 

I'm not going to run through the decade politically. Too fraught. Too many open sores. Too tragic. What started as a decade in which America never seemed wealthier, more prosperous and more stable ended with ruin, war and misery. I never thought I'd watch New York burn, as it did on September 11, 2001. I had always been taught that although there would be economic downturns, there were enough economic safety nets in place to prevent a second Great Depression. I thought that hysterical, violent antisemitism was not something I'd ever witness on a large scale.

 

No, not a good decade. (Although we got at least one year of Barack Obama. I'm happy about that.)

Culturally, I'm not sure the decade was all that great either. In terms of fiction, only Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases, Michael Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections were particularly memorable. (Although, I admit to being behind on most of my current fiction.)

 

Movies also left something to be desired. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was probably the most unique and interesting movie of the decade. And while I'd like to give it another year or two to see if it holds up, The Hurt Locker might well be the best movie of the decade -- it was certainly the best of 2009. Possibly the greatest holocaust movie ever made came out: The Pianist (and props to Inglorious Basterds). There were a few excellent foreign movies like Talk to Her, The Lives of Others and especially 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days -- which I think is the only other serious contender for best movie of the decade next to The Hurt Locker and Eternal Sunshine.

Comedy fared a little better with Sideways, Borat, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and, of course, Knocked Up. But movies were, on the whole, way better in the 1990s. (Let me put it this way: Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Goodfellas, Mighty Aphrodite and Shakespeare In Love could blow any of those movies out of the water. And those are just the ones I'm thinking of off the top of my head.)

 

The two things that flourished during the aughts were television and (ironically) journalism.

 

Journalism (ironic because the field is dying even as it flourishes, and ironic because it was also possibly the most shameful moment in journalism history) saw some truly amazing feats. I'm not sure whether The Times' September 11th coverage will ever be duplicated again. Whether you love or hate Howell Raines it was a moment of genius for that paper. (BTW: one of the best books of the decade was Seth Mnookin's Hard News, which was about the fall of Raines at the Times.) Barton Gellman's book Angler was one of the best political biographies I've ever read. While I was never so enamored with Bob Woodward as a writer, State of Denial and The War Within were essential reading, as were Ron Suskind's books The Price of Loyalty and The One Percent Doctrine. And, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan spawned some of the very best writing of the decade from Dexter Filkins' The Forever War to George Packer's The Assassin's Gate to Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower. There were a lot of others.

Will there ever again be such a moment for journalism? I tend to doubt it. While there will certainly be turbulent, fascinating historical epochs coming up, I'm not sure newspapers will be there to cover them. (I say this with no joy whatsoever. But will a paper like the Times, which can put a bureau in Iraq and a bureau in Afghanistan and a bureau in Italy, still be around and functioning in the same way in 2020? My guess is probably not.)

One should also not forget that it was a shameful moment for journalism. We accepted so many lies without challenge. From the evidence of WMDs in Iraq, to the predictable disintegration of the housing market and the economy, too many journalists accepted the official line and moved on. We have plenty to answer for.

But while 2000-2009 might be something of a last hurrah for journalism, I think television might have reached its peak as never before.

There have been "golden ages" of television before -- like in the 1950s, with shows like The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy. But, unfortunately, a lot of those shows don't hold up so well in 2009. (The two exceptions might be Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows -- which had, among others, Woody Allen and Mel Brooks on the writing staff -- and Sgt. Bilko.)

The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy might be victims of their own success -- they might seem formulaic now because they were duplicated so often. (Although I have my doubts about that -- they were doing a lot of very vaudevillian, shticky material that I'm sure was formulaic then, too.) But, today, television seems a lot sharper and more relevant.

Comedy Central really had a hold on the aughts for laughs. South Park sometimes feels so smart, so interesting, so evil, so withering and uncompromising that it rises to the level of literature. A close runner up is Jon Stewart, whose take on the news (and this might be old hat to say) is many degrees sharper than, say, Wolf Blitzer's.

I'm sort of amazed that Stewart managed to take a concept that had been around since Chevy Chase did the Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live and make it fresh and insightful. Likewise, The Colbert Report spin-off, evolved from a one-joke premise into something likewise interesting. (No, not as good as The Daily Show, but still worth watching.) And, of course, there's the late, lamented Chappelle Show.

Reality TV might be the nadir of our culture, but I also sometimes think its some of the most fascinating sociological window into our troubled country that's ever been dreamed up. No, I don't feel good about admitting this, but I sort of love Reality TV. The aughts had plenty of it.

But the biggest innovator of the decade had to be HBO. True, The Sopranos started in 1999, but it crested in the aughts. Likewise, Curb Your Enthusiasm had certain episodes that were every bit as dark as South Park. Some of the things they did I wasn't crazy about, like Entourage (which is still better than 90% of the stuff on network TV), others unfortunately didn't stick around long enough like Da Ali G Show. I've never really watched Six Feet Under, but those who do tell me it's brilliant. But they did great comedy specials like Dave Chappelle's Killin' Them Softly. And while Bill Maher is incredibly uneven, Real Time had some amazing episodes and bits. The best of the best, however, was The Wire, which might be the greatest television series ever made.

Well, aughts. There you have it. It's been an experience. Not going to say nothing good happened -- but please don't call me again.

OK, I'm back to liking Bill Clinton

Yes, Bill Clinton spent many months on Max Gross' shitlist after his disgraceful behavior during the primaries...

But all is forgiven.

This week Bubba came out to champion the healthcare reform bill with wary progressives -- which is the right thing to do (and not something he was under any obligation to do.)

And his argument is a smart one: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And when's the next time we're going to have an opportunity like this?

Well said, Bill.

Bill had more or less been in my thoughts for the last month or so, because I was reading Taylor Branch's The Clinton Tapes, which I strongly recommend.

While The Clinton Tapes are all from Clinton's perspective (and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt) it's a fascinating portrait of our 42nd president, who is often given too little credit by liberals like me for what he achieved, and how insanely he was attacked.

In case you don't know about the book, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Branch, (who was friends with Clinton when they both were campaigning for George McGovern in 1972) was essentially invited to be court historian of the Clinton Administration. Every month, or so, he would show up at the White House and interview the President about the events of the previous month.

After spending eight years mired in the Bush Administration, it came almost as a revelation remembering just how thin the substance of the attacks against Clinton were (it's sort of jaw dropping that the man got impeached when you consider what Bush got away with.)

The book (while long) is definitely worth a look. (Branch is an excellent writer!) And it reads a little like one of those sprawling, William Manchester portraits of an era, like The Glory and the Dream.

So, yes, Bubba is off my shitlist.

Sorry!

I realize I have not been blogging much over the last week. (Or at all, if we're going to be honest.) Call it euphoria over our new President. And the fact that I was blogging for Jewcy (although, in honesty, that was over a week ago). And a tremendous amount of work...

But, like the President-elect, I promise change.

I also looked over some of my old blog posts and realized I never quite updated my readers on my travels in Italy... my mistake. I will write up a post either tonight or tomorrow about some of the places in Campania and Rome where you can find a decent slice of pizza. And as for my adventures in Italy in general, I wrote most of it into a travel piece for the Post's travel web site. It should be up next week. I'll be sure to link to it.

Also, I have a number of book recommendations waiting for my bored readers, restaurant reviews waiting for my hungry readers and two movies I'm dying to tell you about. At least one of these things will be up today.

As for political musings, well, they will be fewer and farther between in the future -- thank the good lord the campaign is finally over. (Although I actually found myself agreeing with Bill Maher a week or two ago when one of his "New Rules" was to stop wishing that the election was over. "This is the most exciting election of all time!" he screamed. He's right.)

As one of the Obama supporters who feels slightly aimless now that the job is finished (I'm no longer checking Fivethirtyeight, Talking Points Memo and Andrew Sullivan 18 times a day) I think it'll be good to actually start thinking about things a little more lofty than the latest Virginia Rasmussen poll.

But because we're all sort of still addicted to the history and drama of it all, I would strongly recommend shelling out $5.95 for the latest issue of Newsweek for one last hurrah. (Or reading it online.)

It was a tremendous seven-part chronicle of the campaign -- and even though there was a lot I knew, there was much I didn't. (Moreover, when you start reading it all the anger and frustration and excitement starts to return.)

It really starts getting good when you get to the section on the post-Palin McCain campaign. (Greeting Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt in nothing but a towel is a classic! Straight out of a movie! Maybe even a blue movie!)

While I remain convinced that Palin was probably the worst pick McCain could have made politically (doomed to do much more harm than good) you've got to hand it to Johnny Mac -- he definitely spiced things up. An already dramatic campaign became downright surreal. And I think that when you get right down to it -- aside from the fact that the country is in shambles, every one was really eager change, etc. -- the thing that made this campaign so compelling was because it was a really odd cast of characters who did the strangest things under pressure.

Half of them were very familiar players who had already made their mark on our collective consciousness (McCain, the Clintons, Biden) and half of them were a total mystery (Obama, Palin). Obama was everything we could have hope for; Palin was a walking nightmare. It wasn't just that her gaffes were so numerous -- it was that they were so unexpected. You knew some bomb was going to go off -- you just didn't know where or when. The $150,000 shopping spree was something that, frankly, I didn't much care about (pretty silly stuff when you get right down to it) -- but it was such a bush league thing to be caught out on! Those interviews filled with gibberish! The fact that she didn't know Africa was a continent?!? (How can that be taken "out of context"?) And the meek defenses from Bill Kristol et al.

But the more interesting thing (as far as I was concerned) was seeing how Obama caught so many tried and true people off guard.

The Hillary implosion (wonderfully detailed in the Newsweek piece) was something pretty shocking to behold. Her staff was just about dysfunctional as the current administration. (Which I know is slightly unfair -- but really only slightly). Bill, who had spent his entire life courting the love of blacks, showed his ugliest and most mean-spirited side.

Who could have guessed that the handsome, white male from a southern state (Edwards) would have been the least electable of the bunch?

And how could John McCain -- every Democrat's favorite Republican -- have allowed himself to fall so far so quickly? How could a man of such good sense put himself in the hands of such ideological fruitcakes? (I think he was more out of it than he let on, after reading the Newsweek article. He was, apparently, stunned to find himself badly behind in New Hampshire with only a few days to go.)

And what of all the cross party shenanigans?! Colin Powell and Ken Adelman endorsing Obama -- and the former Democratic VP nominee being vetted to be the GOP VP nominee?! (Although that wasn't a first. John C. Calhoun -- the ideological father of secessionism -- was VP under John Quincy Adams and then under his rival, Andrew Jackson.)

(For the record, Josh Marshall had the best thing for Harry Reid to say to Joe Lieberman about keeping his committee chair: "My offer is this. Nothing.")

OK. Maybe there will be political musings in the future...

Book him, boys!

A guy in Colorado gets 10 years in prison for borrowing (and selling) books!

Any chance whatsoever that this guy isn't a mega schlub?

Quite honestly, I had no idea the library system had that kind of power... Granted, selling government property is never a smart idea. And it's not like he was hording books that he loved that he couldn't bear to part with (which I could sort of understand). No, he was trying to make a buck. So, sure, the guy deserves to be punished. But 10 years? (And a $53,000 fine!) You could run someone over in a car and not get 10 years! (And when his fellow inmates find out what he did to get there, is there any way he's not going to be passed around the cell block as if he were Paris Hilton?)

I prefer the idea floated in the Times last year: Give him a really bad credit score!