THE RECALL: Plain Dealer slaps Mendenhall

MYTH-SLINGER Warner Mendenhall's decision to take his caravan to Cleveland in search of a more hospitable editorial voice (than the Beacon Journal's )  simply gave his many opponents something  more to cheer about.  Dissecting his hollow case against Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic that has prompted a recall election on June 23, the Plain Dealer on Sunday editorially accused Mendenhall's effort as "sour grapes" and urged voters to reject the whole notion. It noted:

"In Plusquellic's long record, there is not the least whiff of crime or scandal.  A recall is, therefore, out of place." 

Obviously, Mendenhall's attempt to argue his wacky position in a visit to the paper's editorial offices failed to impress anybody. The paper accused him of leading a "reckless and costly" campaign.  It twitted him for arguing that his attacks on Plusquellic were not "personal"  (one of Mendenhall's more bizarre "defenses" of his actions, I'd say)  and concluded:

"Mendenhall, a lawyer who has filed many lawsuits against Akron, swears it has nothing to do with  any desires of own to be the mayor. (And the revelation of $169,000 in IRS tax liens probably has slammed the door on the notion, anyway.) 

"He cannot credibly deny, though, that this battle has become personal - or that it is a huge distraction to a city caught, like many, in the throes of a worldwide recession."

I doubt that the PD's  editorial reprimand will lodge in Mendenhall's obsessed idea of democracy in action, but at this point he is no more than a willful hell-raiser riding a limping horse to the finish line.  More importantly now to the health of the city's future is how many of his  opponents' words will find their way into the voters' collective conscience. 

Hanks' inane spaghetti western

"THE MOVIE IS set in Rome," Nancy said, "so maybe it will be interesting." To a couple of Romanophiles who have spent several  happy times in the Eternal City,  it seemed like a decent antidote to a rainy afternoon.   So here  we were at the Regal Theatre  in Montrose rationalizing that even a Dan Brown-inspired pratfall like Angels and Demons could not demolish  a Roman travelogue.  But it didn't take more than a couple of minutes to realize that we should have stayed home with our photo albums and guidebooks if we wanted to relive our Roman experiences .

The film, an urban spaghetti western with a lot of gunshots and wild scenes,  required more than Coleridge's "suspension of disbelief."  It wanted to indulge us in a haphazard plot in an attempt to make us actually believe  it happened in real time.  In a single  day it spirited us  from the Hadron Collider in Switzerland to a swimming pool  at Harvard, where we picked up Prof.  Robert Langdon (a symbologist who will become a Dan Brown regular as a tech-age Sherlock Holmes)   to the jammed speedway streets of Rome in search of a murderer and a vial of antimatter that will blow up Vatican City while unfortunately leaving the film itself unscathed  for future generations.  

Tom Hanks is the academic sleuth (descending intellectually from Forrest Gump)  and the only convincing thing about his role is the fixed pained expression on his face that tells you he would rather be doing something else.  Accompanied by Ayelet Zurer, the fetching Israeli  actress who covers miles of cobbled city streets and ancient underground passageways in designer high- heeled boots, Hanks quickly concludes  that the clue to finding the terrorists in their midst lies in the"four altars of science" - earth,  fire, air and water. And as the chosen tracker, he lays out a path that leads him to four churches , the church-banned Galileo manuscript in the Vatican archives that had been denied him as an academic for 10 years,  the conclave of cardinals meeting to choose a new pope, and finally ...a hint of travelogue here, the Piazza di Navona with the glorious Bernini fountain sculpture depicting four rivers.

And be sure to stick around for the daredevil sky-diving priest who parachutes into the mass of humanity in  St. Peter's Square  as his chopper blows up.  (If I've given the plot away, I intended to. Even if you see it you will have to wonder about this Houdini feat.) Besides, things were always turning up unexpectedly in the grand square.  When Langdon sets out to  find a telling marker in the huge expanse trampled by a sea of spectators awaiting the white whirl of smoke symbolizing agreement on a new pope, it takes him no more than a minute or two to look down and report its discovery under foot!  And after the sweaty hours of dashing about the city, he somehow turns up in a freshly pressed shirt and necktie as Zurer joins him wearing a veil.  

Everything was said to have happened in a few frantic hours. It seemed more like an eternity to me.  Buona sera, Roma!

The Goebbels Gang rants at Sotomayor

THESE HAVE BEEN  noisily frantic days for the Goebbels Gang in the Republican Party.  On cue, the gassier ones pounced on Sonia Sotomayor as an evil dragon lady created in President Obama's secret laboratory to fatally pollute their Gem of the Ocean.  For some reason, the attacks lacked spontaneity but rather suggested a well rehearsed twittered ambush  by the Gang's  generals and seasoned line officers who have performed so ignobly since the run-up to Obama's election.  (The Inquisition  even raised questions whether her Hispanic food tastes  might seriously affect her judicial decisions! You see where we are on this.)     

The effusive propaganda has been aimed directly at charming its captive audience, the Republican Base, a rather truculent minority that responds to right-wing hysterics with Pavlovian froth.  The trick is to keep the base fully mobilized to become a coherent force to recapture the GOP's "core values" with a third of the electorate. The inspiration may lie in a late poll of by a conservative website managed by  lobbyist Richard Viguerie, an influential Beltway  tax cut pest. The survey indicated that 91 pct. of the nation's conservatives believe that Obama belongs in one of four anti-American categories: Socialist, Marxist, Communist or Fascist.  Some of the dumber respondents will argue that he is all of the above. 

So you can see that the Goebbels Gang needs little encouragement to slander Sotomayor, of Puerto Rican descent,  as a stupid off-white woman   - this, from a party without a single African American in the House or Senate and an embarrassing one on the U.S. Supreme Court who reportedly hasn't asked a single question from his loft in three years.  

Before we reach again for the aspirin bottle,   let's tune in on Karl Rove, who was clearly not impressed with Sotomayor's superb academic distinction of Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton  who went on to preside over the Yale Law School Journal.  Rove needs a rest after he huffed:  "I know a lot of stupid people who went to Ivy League Schools."  In fairness, it was a busy day and he could be excused for overlooking his former boss. 

There's more.  "She's a bigot!  She's a racist," ranted Rush Limbaugh.  "She should be stopped,  She's a horrible pick!'"  Pat Buchanan, MSNBC's omnipresent Archie Bunker with a track record of demeaning immigrants, Jews and other minorities ,  impatiently  accused her of being  "not that intelligent".   Pat Robertson came out of mothballs  and  hastily concluded that Sotomayor "was the worst of them all."  Newt Gingrich flat out called her a racist - imagine that from a guy who cut his ideological teeth in Georgia.  Liz Cheney was quite disturbed that Sotomayor would make judicial decisions based on her "heart or empathy" adding, '"I think that's dangerous."

 

Whooa, there Liz.   Don't you remember that President George H.W. Bush, in nominating Clarence Thomas, described him as  a "delightful and warm, intelligent person who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor."

Empathy?  It's something the Goebbels Gang never had - and never will.   

Mendenhall:Recall charades; Obama's choice; Norm Coleman

WHY DOES Warner Mendenhall, the unelected recall leader,  repeatedly insist, as he did in the Plain Dealer, that he does not have a  vendetta against Mayor Plusquellic  and then go on to assert: "This man is a danger against the community."?    Doesn't that connect the dots?   It sure does, and for that , I will give him a Grumpy Abe  Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award.  He also buzzed that he would be happy with anybody but Plusquellic at City Hall.  Question: How do you act out vendetta in charades?   Warner, you should have first paid up your tax liens to Uncle Sam before spending  foolishly on a white horse.   

                                                                * * * 

Keeping up-to-date:  From the June issue of  Harper's (magazine)  Index:

• Rank of Texas among states with the nation's highest teen-pregnancy rates: 3. 

• Percentage of Texas public-school districts that teach abstinence as their only form of sex education: 94.     

                                                                 * * * 

   

Sweetness from Norm Coleman, who has obtusely held his state of Minnesota hostage for seven months while refusing to concede  his defeat in last November's Senate race by Democrat Al Franken.  He has issued a statement saying that when he is "re-elected" he will be fair in judging President Obama's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor!  All of this nonsense despite polls showing  about two-thirds of Minnesota voters want him to pack up and head for wherever losing senators go.   

                                                                 * * * 

With the certain uproar from the right's Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and the GOP's backup crew of choristers over Obama's Supreme Court nominee,  it would be well for him to recall the words of  Joe Greene, the fearsome all-pro Pittsburgh Steelers tackle, who once spoke of the pathway to success:  "When you have your opponent down, you keep 'em down." The president's critics need only to do the math from the November election.      

                    

McClatchy Bureau and Cheney: No contest

AS THE NEWSPAPER universe continues to shrink, you need only to look to the widely respected McClatchy Washington Bureau to be reminded of the value of professional reporting  in sustaining the life of a free (and informed!) society.   With a handful of reporters the bureau  continues to challenge the iconic New York Times and Washington Post in delivering incisive reports   on stories that might have died on the major dailies'  cutting-room floors.  The McClatchy team was virtually alone when it dug in against the Bush Administration's  virtual free ride in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.    Belatedly, the mainstream media giants  confessed they should have been more attentive to the fine print in the Bush story-telling. But by then, the brief war promised by the White House fiction writers had gone far beyond Donald Rumsfeld's  mere "shock and awe" skirmish in the sands of Iraq to a deadly encounter with unseen opponents that continues to this day. Thank you, McClatchy bureau, for your vindicated effort to warn us.

But here we are six years after the fact and we find Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz touring the network and cable media microphones with their version of how President Obama has made America less safe in contrast to  Bush, Cheney et al who made us more secure.  Cheney, of course is trying to cover his own rear end while looking for a big bankroll publisher to offer him millions in a book deal.   And Liz, it's now being reported, is thinking about running for public office.  In other words, they're just a couple of ordinary folks out to make a living.  

Not so fast,says the McClatchy Bureau. Responding to Cheney's speech to the American Enterprise Institute,  a right-wing outfit that is Cheney's choir for his sermons,  the McClatchy reporters  Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel simply destroyed Cheney's fantasizing about torture and the White House's self-absorbed image of a humane interrogator. The reporters meticulously cut away many of Cheney's statements at the AEI as outright lies.  In example after example, Cheney was shown to be in serious conflict with military authorities, the FBI and other high level sources.  

For instance, in defense of waterboarding and other messy forms of torture, Cheney declared such measures "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people."  And he quoted Adm. Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence,  to that effect.  But Blair actually said he wasn't sure whether other means  could not have obtained the same  information, adding: 

"The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

There are many others that you can find on the McClatchy Website that show Cheney to be no more truthful than  a sidewalk shell-game artist.  But you must be careful:  He's still at-large, armed with wacky ideas and should be considered dangerous. 

It would be best to rely on the wisdom of Jim Van Nostrand, the McClatchy Web editor, who once told a reporter of how the bureau goes about its honored  business:  

                                "You just have to trust your sense of smell."

The RNC's mindless "Galore"

WELL, THE REPUBLICAN National committee has decided to go Hollywood again after years of waiting for Ronald Reagan to return the party's phone calls.   The latest gambit is an R-rated RNC video attacking Nancy Pelosi,   likening her to the old James Bond anti-heroine Pussy Galore.  POLITICO reports that although the B-movie comedy writers at the RNC didn't actually use the vulgar reference to Pelosi's  anatomy, what else could you conclude when they ran her picture next to Pussy's, and  if you needed further coaching, noted here were two Democrats "Galore."  I'm not sure that Honor Blackman was a Democrat in 1963 when the Bond movie "Goldfinger"  came out  - RNC often takes license with stray notions for shock effect -  but I can hear the guffaws and back-slapping by the inmates at the RNC for coming up with such a  cute way to suggest that a woman might have a certain physical  advantage on Capitol Hill.

Whew!   Has this gang not yet  heard that  the Democrats captured the majority of women's votes last November?  And how embarrassing it might have been to some Republicans when a woman in John McCain's audience referred to Hillary Clinton as "the bitch"  - a reference that occasionally pops up on right-wing talk shows.  Isn't there anybody else minding the store but  RNC chairman Michael Steele,  who is burned regularly for some of his mindless comments?  The Democrats aren't angels, but they don't have to be so long as the RNC takes care of its business by vulgarizing  women.  

A big mop for Wacko America

MOPPING UP:

  Although it would be an insult to serious forensics, do you believe that if Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell debated, they would both lose? 

                                                                        * * *

A salute to the GOP fixer pro tem, Dick Cheney,  for having a practical response to the right-wing furor over President Obama's socialistic teleprompter.  If you saw the former Veep's  talk to the American Enterprise Institute, you'll note that he dispatched the hated teleprompter the old-fashioned way.  With head down and nose pointed down to the lectern,  he read every word from his printed text.  Or was it a hidden conservative  teleprompter? 

                                                                       * * * 

       The roar of the anti-global warming crowd (read: anti-science)  continues unabated, raising the specter of soaring fuel costs managed by that tyrant, President Obama.   The fuel cost warning isn't new; the alarmist slandering of Obama on the environment by the hard core Republican base on the right went into high gear with his election last November.  As vitriolic as the attacks on environmental concerns might be, some spectators are also reduced to sophomoric cutesy pie humor.  Examples abound.  But the most convenient one unfortunately arrived on my breakfast table yesterday from Plain Dealer columnist Kevin O'Brien, an apparent firm believer in church but not state.  Complaining about Obama's projected fuel-efficiency standards, O'Brien blithely  opined: "Obama likes the idea because it is  his."  

 

         Kevin, my boy, where have you been?  Obama's "idea" of fuel conservation  has been around for a long time with variations on the same theme.  A friendly reminder:   You like the thoughts in your column because they are yours, and I like the thoughts in my blogs because they are mine.   That is hardly something I learned in my high school science class.   By my standards, it's a tested evolutionary theory, if you know what I mean.  

    

                                                                   * * * 

With nearly a month until the Akron mayoral recall election, brace yourself for a furious assault on Don Plusquellic with the sort of reckless statements that appeared in a letter to the  Beacon Journal from Warner Mendenhall's neighborhood pal.  Among the badly aimed shots was a new one to me:  That Plusquellic was responsible for a public  school system  that is a "sham, "  thereby forcing "good citizens" to pay "exorbitant fees above their property taxes to send their children to private schools."  Excuse me, but when did the mayor become the CEO of the public school system that has always been the responsibility of the system's  superintendent and duly elected school board? Folks, we're in for a siege of revisionist history, I'm afraid.   

Steele's GOP renaissance

Michael Steele, the gabby chairman of the Republican National Committee, never fails to amuse. One could fill pages of his deepest jaunty insights into President Obama's shortcomings,  and his own party's return to credible parity with the Democrats on the nation's problems.   We look for his words each day to brighten the otherwise  sustained gloom of  political discourse.  For that reason, I can't overlook another opportunity to give him the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award for his optimistic outlook for the GOP, declaring:        

"Our renaissance has begun."

 Funny.  He was contradicted by the latest Pew Research Center poll that now gives Democrats a 53-36 advantage over Republicans in voter preferences.  Seven years ago it was 43-43. Renaissance?  Michaelangelo rolled over in his grave.  

Dick Cheney: A chicken hawk out of the coop

TO THE INEVITABILITY of death and taxes, shall we make it an even gloomier threesome by adding Dick Cheney?  In my own naivete about despotic rulers I had talked myself into believing that a humiliating public approval rating would slip Cheney into a safe vista out West to spend his leisure hours admiring his hunting rifles.  But Cheney is obviously a student of English  King Charles II who found a way to restore his throne after his most  despised royal father was sent to the block to have his head severed.

And isn't that where we are with Cheney and his handful of allies, including his daughter Liz? He's been making the rounds as the GOP's Hood Ornament of the Month warning talk show audiences that we should be terrified  by President Obama's neighborly attitude toward terrorists.  Let me get this straight:  a fellow who obtained multiple deferments from military service because, as he put it, he had "other priorities,"  now is proud to warn us that we are less safe than when George Bush was a heartbeat away from the presidency.  His cut-and-run  is an unchallenged fact that should be highlighted with an asterisk by his name every time he rises before a hawkish  conservative group to declare his version of caveman masculinity.

A second unchallenged fact, at least  by coherent individuals:  9/11 did not occur on Obama's watch, did it?  It happened when George was whatever he was in the White House. And it happened after a memo arrived  on Condi  Rice's desk (in August prior to the attack!)warning  that it could happen and was somehow lost in the White House list of things to do that day.

Cheney and Liz also are trying to deflect the burden of the torture memos - an issue that  will not go away no matter the perps' attempt to run  out the clock.  So what is their game here with  Liz Cheney, with her "superior" credentials on international security, attacking Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff,   for being an also-ran, adding" "Nobody talking about this in the press has any real knowledge."  Obviously, that includes her.

The best review of the Cheney cha-cha on waterboarding, however, came from Jesse the Wrestler - former Minnesota governor Ventura.  Appearing on a TV show, he said:

     "You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

Note to the Cheney gang:  Jesse is not  a person you would want to confront up close.  Your fantasy world might be less secure. 

 

Plusquellic's forces girding for battle

THE 15 SUBURBAN mayors who joined  to oppose the recall of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic  were another indication of the riptide that's emerging against Walter Mendenhall's ill-conceived notion of democracy in action. Letters supporting Plusquellic by prominent Akron area achievers are appearing regularly in the Beacon Journal and it's looking more like a non-partisan effort to wave off the recall crowd.  I have a hunch this is only the beginning of the counter-attack that will grow in visibility as the recall election day approaches on June 23. (The glaring exception to the mayoral group was Republican Don Robart of Cuyahoga Falls who said he didn't see any "upside" in the united action.  No surprise there.  Unlike some other Republican mayors, Robart has created his own universe in the Falls, thanks to the ineptitude of Falls Democrats to defeat him at the polls.) 

Plusquellic's  forces have already shown that they  will be a lot more aggressive than the lackadaisical 2007 Democratic primary  campaign against former city councilman Joe Finley that produced a low turnout.  It  gave his opponent an opportunity to show up better than anticipated and an opportunity for City Hall to reflect on the  political adage that nothing should ever be taken for granted. 

As for those 15 mayors,  I'm sure it occurred to some of them that this nonsensical recall effort could encourage similar costly and disruptive initiatives against any of them down the road for the dumbest reasons. As for Mendenhall. I was amused by his comment to the BJ that he was pleased a date had been set for the election.   To quote him as he envisioned the 6-term mayor being led to the gallows:  "After 22 years the city has  a chance of getting a new mayor." 

Wrong!   The voters have that chance every four years on election day.