G. William Miller - Investment Advice from the Treasury Secretary

Legal Tender for All Debts

My favorite mentor is Mike Cardozo, a super gentleman, successful and principled by anyone's standards, who took an interest in me when I was a fun-loving and apparently undisciplined youth in the early 1980's.  We were colleagues for a while at CTM, Mike's stopover between serving as White House counsel on telecommunications to Jimmy Carter, and a long career as a merchant banker.

Cardozo: Prime Mover.  Porter: Disciple.

In the mid 1980's, Mike associated with his Carter administration buddy, 65th Treasury Secretary G. William Miller, and David Rubinstein's wife Alice Rogoff, in the formation of GWM & Associates.  When I was sorely in need of professional advice, I'd pop over to GWM and Mike would take me to the Palm, to impart brutal wisdom (such as "What you need is Officer's Candidate School, Porter!  A little discipline would do you good!").

Gee - The Real William Miller

I got to meet the Secretary several times and, when he was out, used his office on a few occasions to make calls while Mike wound up his pre-lunch meetings.  Miller was debonair, and kind enough to make small talk with me and toss funny ideas around such as those pitched by entrepreneurs who had ideas on re-fitting an extrusion facility in Cleveland, or wanted GWM to bankroll the growing of hydroponic Belgian endive in the US, or the character who was going to teach the Chinese to eat cheese.

The punchline to this story is that, although I toiled in the TV and new media vineyards for several years, I eventually found myself handling finance and investment clients, including a series of engagements for the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (during the James Wolfensohn era).  On one of these projects in 2004, my client called me and my team in for a presentation to the CEO.  My two associates on the project (a major real estate developer and a marketer) were both named "Bill Miller" - but neither one was the Bill Miller of Carter heyday.  Bizarre....  There were chortles and bon mots around the executive table, which I relayed to Mike, and he to GWM.

Secretary Miller passed away in 2006.  Some say he had the strong hand as Fed Chairman in the onset of '70's stagflation in the US economy.  More successful was his subsequent Treasury role in the Chrysler bailout.  No matter - In our paths-crossings, he was solicitous beyond anything that was called for, and had real class.

George Schultz: Marking History with the Secretary of State

NOT EVER

In May, 1993 (Bush 41 administration) as my wife and I waited with hundreds of others in line to enter the brand-newly opened Holocaust Museum, we had our line cut by statesman and former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Schultz.  Schultz had done a solid job as Secretary of State, supporting a president with an ambitious agenda for world change, at an important time, and was now between assignments.

We'd arrived early to be admitted when the doors opened.  It was about 20 minutes to opening time when up to the curb pulled a big black town car.  Out popped a couple of muscle-men, one springing to the door handle to release Schultz who strode purposefully right past us and into the museum.  What I recall was the brilliant shine of his black power-shoes.  He stomped right by and into the museum, getting a twenty minute head start on We, The Rabble.

. . . ?

The museum was then - and is now - a breathtaking monument to human strength, faith, soul, and perseverance.  I recommend it to anyone unafraid to confront the worst, and eager to be uplifted by the best, in human nature.

One of the memorable exhibits is a railroad transport car, through which one passes to enter a huge space that is overfilled with the confiscated shoes salvaged by the Nazis from the victims they murdered.  The room in which this huge trove of shoes was piled smelled of leather and death; it was overpowering.  Never Again.

We have come a long way in this country and the world, with Holocaust scholarship.

I feel privileged to live now in a town with a university that supports the endeavor of Holocaust study with the resources and collection of the recently opened the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies.

I never got to speak with Mr. Secretary - he blew right by us.  But twenty years later, I still recall the impression that his shoes left.

George Schultz

Swing Time in the NBC Commissary with Betty Furness

Dapper Fred, Glamorous Betty

She danced with Fred "Lucky Garnet" Astaire (Swing Time, 1936), and had a good run in the 30's as an RKO contract player. 

But by the time I came along, Betty Furness had served as a consumer protection advocate in the Johnson administration, and had become well-known for consumer affairs reporting on NBC, alongside of - and sometimes substituting for - Barbara Walters.

In the late 1970's, Betty's reporting for NBC was appearing regularly on both the nightly news and the Today Show.

Once at that time, during the college spring break holiday, with brothers and cousin I was visiting my uncle whose office at NBC sat high above the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.

NBC Reports: Furness on Chemicals in Food, Sept. 8, 1976

We marveled at Uncle Tony's executive suite complete with shower, snagged tickets to sit in the audience for Saturday Night Live (host: Christopher Lee, musical guest: Meatloaf), and then headed to the cafeteria for lunch.

Now, the NBC Commissary has been the setting, or itself the butt, of many, many jokes dating back to The Tonight Show and Laugh-In, and the tradition had been perpetuated on SNL.  So we felt excited just to be allowed in there!

A Thermometer for French Fries?

We had just settled in with our lunch-room trays, when Tony pointed out the elegant and proper looking woman at the next table as Betty Furness.  She was eating a healthy, responsible meal of cottage cheese and fruit and she eyed us and our plates of fries with a bit of disdain.

We didn't think much about it at the time, and she thought even less about us I suppose.  But how many women can say they've danced with Fred Astaire?  If I'd only known it at the time, I'd have shaken her hand....

Secretary of State Comity Club

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, before which John Kerry appeared as a war protester in 1971, and of which he most recently has served as Chairman, today confirmed him in a comity vote as U.S. Secretary of State. 

The nomination will now go to the full Senate for another comity vote.

Electras wild-man bass player John Kerry (standing, left of drummer) - St. Paul's Academy, Concord NH, 1961

If you believe in diplomacy, then U.S. Secretary of State is a pretty influential role on the world stage.  I hope our next Secretary of State John Kerry, with whom I dined in style one evening, has as much success and influence as did Reagan Chief of Staff and G.H.W. Bush Secretary of State James Baker, with whom I attended church services, in his day (1989-1992).

With a reeeeeaaaal stretch, one could argue that Katherine Harris has been the most influential SOS in recent history - as the fifty State Secretaries of State each get to count the votes in their own state.  And after our history together, she's still my favorite among the three...

Mary Schapiro, My Favorite Commissioner

I normally don't call attention to a friendship with someone who's currently in a position of truly extraordinary importance, ... as my associations with some of the other notorious among the Celebrity tapestry could present them with - by what mathematicians call the associative property - a disastrous public liability!  But now that Mary Schapiro has resigned as Chairman of the SEC I can safely reveal that we are friends, and through the most political of Washington connections: the sleepovers, trick-or-treat nights, and classroom hi-jinks of our schoolgirl daughters.

Supply/Demand: D.C. Cupcake Wars

Mary and I were soccer side-liners for years and years as our girls were growing up.  We did our part in the school pageants, fundraisers and field days, and the girls got hula lessons at Mary's house one wild afternoon.  The year that I was a "classroom parent" (don't ever sign up for more than one tour of such duty, please!), we arranged for Ms. Mackie's 5th grade class to venture forth on a field trip from DC to NY, where Mary hosted them at her FINRA offices and arranged a bell-ringing at the stock exchange.  

Here's what Mary looks like when she's about to serve you a designer cupcake.  Or, in my case, two:

She's done a fantastic job getting the SEC back on solid footing.  I did have occasion to visit the SEC on business twice during Mary's tenure (although one of those times she had to duck out for an emergency summons to speak with friends in Congress), and I came away with greater respect for the work and mission of the institution, and of course reinforcement of the deep good feelings I already had toward my friend.  I'm due back there next month and I'll really miss her!

Power Play: look for six at the Sands Casino's high-stakes Texas Hold 'em table: Christina Romer, Paul Volcker, Dan Mudd, Tura Satana, Mary and me . . . !

Keep Counting, Florida !!

My shining moment with Madame Secretary, here.

Cheers, all!

Katherine Harris, at the Orchid Ball
"Those Who Do Not Learn From Their History Are Doomed To Repeat It ! "

Winston Churchill,   paraphrasing George Santayana 

Mo Udall, Sweetheart of Theta Delta Chi

Well, it was a snowy, snowy winter's Saturday night, of which we had many, on the Hill.  Morris Udall (D, AZ) who had tried to capture the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination by running to the left of Jimmy Carter, visited the campus to speak in the Hamilton College Chapel.

Have a Drink on Me, Mr. President

My politico friends attended, I didn't.  I was at the Pub.  But some of the leftest-leaning students on the Program Board, who'd brought ol' Mo to Clinton, were upperclass members of Theta Delta Chi where I had friends, and where a second-shift party was to occur as the Pub was closing.

In the inexorable political movement of the moment, I followed in the hip-deep, snowy peloton of the happy throng ... to the promise of more beer.

Never Fail

Inside, it was elbow to elbow, cheek-by-jowl, and I found myself braced in a huddle of Psi U varsity basketball players just outside TDX's dimly-lit "library." Into the scene came Mo, himself a former pro hoopster with the [original] Denver Nuggets.  Lots of back-slapping and Q&A about the Continentals' prospects ('77-'78: ECAC finalists, 23-3) - "Go Conts!" we loved to shout.  So yours truly, head and shoulders shorter than the gaggle, was suddenly face to face - or chin to chest - with the Senator.

"What's your name, son?" he boomed.

"Tom.  And I loved your speech!"

But for 7,500 votes to Carter in the Wisconsin primary two years before, Big Mo might have been in the White House that night in January, 1978.  Instead, he was holding forth in Clinton, NY with clowns like my friends and me, leaning on a broken-down frat-house piano in the Great Hall of TDX.

I know that we were all right where we belonged.

R.I.P. George McGovern - My Co-Pilot

He led thirty seven missions as a B-24 pilot in World War II, but my thrill was to sit across the aisle from George McGovern when we flew our joint mission as passengers on the Eastern Shuttle, from Washington DC to New York City, one autumn morning in 1986.

We found ourselves seated in aisle seats opposite each other.  Aloft, I allowed the Senator a few moments to enjoy the New York Times before catching his eye.  "Senator McGovern, what an honor - I worked for you in 1972!" I blurted out.  He smiled, closed his paper, and said graciously "Really? You can't possibly be old enough to have worked on my Presidential campaign!"

What I Wouldn't Give for a Little Un-Interrupted Newspaper Time!

"But it's true," I said:  "I was 13, and I passed out McGovern-Shriver leaflets all over my neighborhood in Massachusetts!"

"Ah, Massachusetts," he winked, and then said "Whatever you did there... it worked!"

Then he asked me what part of Massachusetts I came from.  "Well, Amherst."  I shared with him the interesting fact that, when the entire US save for Massachusetts and Washington DC had voted to re-elect Nixon, our perky little burg had gone all-in for McGovern - with 93% of the popular vote!  Nixon collected 5%, and Wallace 2%.  Yes, we in Amherst were a bit out of the mainstream, even then.

Here is a nice clip of George signing books in Amherst a little earlier this year.

 
At all this he laughed, adding "What a great, great town.  Academic town.  Had a lot of good support there!  Probably thanks to all of your hard work!"

I wasn't sure I'd changed anyone's mind on West Street or Mill Lane, but said lots of people including my parents had worked very hard for him, and were proud of what he hoped to accomplish for the country.  We made a bit more conversation, landed, grabbed our respective overcoats from the overhead bins, and bid one another adieu. 

Rest In Peace, Good Man
July 19, 1922 - October 21, 2012

Joan Garry Is Alright

Advocacy can be a blood sport, but there are some who lead with great class and one of these is Joan Garry, whom I knew before she was running GLAAD. 

Joan and Eileen

Joan is civilly-united to a good old friend of mine, Eileen Opatut, and when we first met in 1985, Joan had the coolest job on earth (well, I thought so): business development at WASEC, the holding company that was building Nickelodeon and MTV rapidly into the megaliths they have become.

Eileen had many cool jobs herself picking programs for National Geographic, next 'programmes' for the BBC, and later suffering as EVP of Programming for the Food Network - yumm, and with a title like that you never have trouble getting a table at a good restaurant.

Speaking of TV, does it seem lately as though the number of LGBT characters on TV is increasing?  I think so too.  GLAAD has worked on this front as well as on many others.

I haven't seen Joan in years - too many - but I like her a lot.  She writes for HuffPost sometimes and here's a really nice article sharing her frank assessment of The Kids Are Alright.

Will TV shows and movies move the meter and get us to a day of peaceable coexistence?  That's putting a lot of responsibility on the the TV and film folk, more than they probably can shoulder alone.  There is still a ways to go: see Joan's honest and personal article here about separate but equal.

But in my own lifetime we are already now miles down the road from the benighted past.    :-)

Mor-ton!! Backing up Mr. Kondracke in the Pew

Kondracke: One of the Last True Journalists

I became familiar with Morton Kondracke as many did in the 1980's, by watching The McLaughlin Group - in its time a jarring "pundit / shouter" show that seemed boisterous, but maintained a higher level of discourse et decorum than almost any of its 21st century cable news descendants.  By today's standards it is quaint, even dignified.  How we've devolved!

When I joined St. Columba's Church congregation, I eventually settled into a regular seat in the second pew, right of the aisle.  Mor-ton! was the regular in the first pew, with his dear wife Milly.

Over nearly ten years, we exchanged the peace hundreds of times.

Milly passed away in 2004.  R.I.P.

We also got to know each other just a bit.  For instance, I very much enjoyed a half-day enrichment session that he led at the church, organized by our rector Jim Donald, called "Working for the Common Good."  Mort led our small group in a series of explorations on finding soulful meaning in one's daily work.  Tom Chappell of Tom's (of Maine) Toothpaste also shared the couch with Morton for this nice and uplifting Saturday's exercise.

Mort has served as Executive Editor of both New Republic and Roll Call, written for the Wall Street Journal and appeared on numerous TV news outlets.  He got his start as President of The Dartmouth newspaper and incidentally, as a class of '60 grad, he overlapped there with Chris Miller in the Animal House era.  To-ga!

When I mentioned once that I knew him, my mother, a Morton fan, instructed me to ask him "What kind of a name is 'Kondracke,' anyway - Assyrian?"

Morton is a genuinely nice, committed, caring guy who works his tail off and thinks clearly about what he has to say before spouting off.

I admire Mort Kondracke!

Citizen Kelley: Standing with Local Hero Larry Kelley

Sound and Fury

(Amherst, MA. September 11): 
We in scholarly Amherst like to think we're the center of wisdom.

Nevertheless, often, we can be as closed-minded as many an academic 'burg - and in our most grandiose overreaches we achieve a pettiness, didacticism and tragedy worthy of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle characters of Harrison, East Texas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...! 

Kevin Joy and Larry Kelley unfurl the Big One on the Town Common, 2011

Counterpoint: Each year on September 11, Larry Kelley and many other local citizens, police and firefighters help bring attention to this momentous day in the history and life of our nation.  Believe it or not, this upsets some in the town.

Viewed from within the Amherst bubble, Fox News appears downright alien

Larry was called to Boston last week to appear on Fox News, to explain to the rest of Planet Earth just how we in Amherst make sense of things, such as debating whether and how we ought to raise the flag on 9/11.   Predictably, we have a Professor here in town who attested before the Town Select Board on September 10, 2001 - the evening before the attacks - that Amherst should not fly the American flag because "[The U.S.] flag is a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and oppression."  This was eleven years ago, and got us plenty of attention in the aftermath as you would imagine.

What's rich is that so many fellow travelers here used to believe (circa 2000-2008) that dissent was the highest form of patriotism; now, in our current 'flap' over whether to raise the flag on 9/11 we simultaneously prove, and truly get to re-test, this maxim.

Tell It, Brother

Fast forward to 2012: There's more to the story, but in a nutshell one third of the town electors like to see the flag, so citizens get to see it once every fifth year.  What ???  Essentially, many in Amherst have "mixed feelings" about being part of the United States, the balance know that the town should observe 9/11, and so the Select Board put the flag-flying to a vote of the unruly 200+ Town Meeting congregation some years ago and - like Mayor Villaraigosa last week - made the determination that the vote had gone 2:1 against flying the flags.  The ingenious solution? Fly the flags every third year, to reflect public sentiment!  Then, at ten years, the Select Board voted to make it every fifth year because - I suppose - 5 years is an easier rhythm to remember than 3.

You're Wearing That, Larry ??

As town gadfly, Larry Kelley's daily local impact - and his occasional national prominence - are notorious, and thus frequently rankle the populace and the powers that be.

Flag-raising is only one front for soldier Kelley, and this week's national media attention not the first time he's figured in Amherst's questionable notoriety.

Loyal local patriot Stanley Dornakowski

In large part through Larry's civic-minded agitation, the melodramas of Amherst's high school drama department - (1999: first school or town ever to ban West Side Story, which has been performed in over 3,000 communities, over imaginary "racism"; 2004: righteous acting-out by staging the Vagina Monologues) -  have brought Amherst under Good Morning America's lens and drawn international O'Reilly Factor scrutiny for the healthy dose of opprobrium that some think we so richly deserve.

Fanfare for the Common Man (photo - C. Jones)

Larry is also an entrepreneur (and married to an entrepreneurship professor - they know what-of they speak in that household) who has operated a successful local fitness and instruction business, and had a hand in establishing a superior Chinese Immersion Charter School in the area, naturally a threat to the local public school hegemony.

Now he energetically publishes the fine "hyper-local" news blog Only In Amherst.

Larry holds everyone's feet to the fire, including mine.  He forces the town government to be more transparent, the school committee more accountable, the university - administration, students, and the larger eco-system such as party-house landlords - to be more responsible.

He raises the standards of local journalism through competition and innovation.

We need more Larry Kelleys.

Cinda and Larry frame the real issue

As a sixth generation Amherst native, Larry also contributes much to the community in his role of ersatz local history curator.  The current speculation on the existence of a second photographic image of our Emily Dickinson is something Larry reported on 3 weeks ahead of the local press, and he has the bloodline to pursue the facts.  Larry is a Local Hero.

Remember Our Heroes today

And meet two of mine: Ann Judge and Jerry Della Salla

R.I.P. Mike Deaver, My Old Neighbor

Shopping Cart Week, III:

Mike Deaver, credited as the master media magician who helped to create the Reagan mystique, died five years ago today.

Mike Deaver, Deputy Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan

A loyal conservative of whom Nancy Reagan said, "He was the closest of friends to both me and Ronnie in many ways ... he was like a son to Ronnie," Deaver's association with Ronald Reagan dated to California days.  Mike reportedly saved Reagan's life during a flight aboard a campaign plane in 1976, using the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge a peanut stuck in the Gipper's throat.

Shocked, I tell you!

Although I was not a fan of Deaver's at the time he served, and was not impressed by his perjury conviction afterward, he seemed to be a gentle and humble chap when we would run into each other in the SuperFresh grocery store at Yuma and 48th streets, NW - a block from the home where I lived from 1990 to 1998.

Everyone who's Anyone ... at SUPERfresh

As lone cart-pushers, we passed each other in the aisles so many times that, after a few years of this, we took to acknowledging each other with a standard-issue grin-and-nod.  Once, to finally break the ice I said to him, "I was hoping you'd be here!"  He laughed.

The next time we met in the cereal aisle, Mike said to me "I've been expecting you!"  I replied with the question "What time will we be shopping next week?"  Eventually, we introduced ourselves - "Mike" and "Tom," no last names.

We'll go no more a-shopping: Mike is gone, the SuperFresh market is gone, and I am long gone from Washington DC.

Rest In Peace, Public Servant

At the Deli Counter with Mrs. Vice President

"You call that LEAN ????!!!!"

A Shopping Cart Communion:

There I was, fourth in line at the delicatessen in the hurly-burly of Katz's Kosher Supermarket on a Saturday afternoon in Rockville, MD.  Each of us yanking our broken-down carts back and forth, waving our paper tickets, and craning our necks for a clear view of the goods behind the glass.  Jockeying for position....

... when up on the left flank a cart and driver flash past me, and swerve right up the the counter.

"Joey! Bring that box in from the car!  They'll be here any minute!"

Annoyance: sure, everyone is pushing and shoving, but to have the chutzpah to actually cut the line so brazenly - who would try that, in such a tough crowd?  From behind, the hair looks familiar... still, it's an awfully pushy move.

But lo, the counter guys all dropped their towels, brightened their punims, and fawned and teemed to hang their paws over the glass-top like so many Kilroys - literally elbowing each other like Kurt Rambis and Bill Laimbeer under the hoop, to wait on this lady.  "Yes, Yes! It's all ready - won't be a moment!  Yes, allow me! Just wait - here it is, Here It Is!"

Vice President Lieberman

Up from the kitchen comes a huge, 4-foot by 2-foot cardboard catering box, with the name LIEBERMAN along the side in big hand-lettered magic marker.  Instantly I was in her thrall, a Portnoy among the Kilroys.  Less than a year earlier, I'd voted for Gore/Lieberman, and brought my new two-day-old home from G.W. Hospital and right through the middle of the pitched 35-day turf war between Bush and Gore supporters outside the Naval Observatory on the way up Massachusetts Avenue.

Hadassah Lieberman could have been (should have been? may have been?) the Second Lady of the U.S.A.

Hadassah had class, charm and integrity that I admired during the campaign, and as she collected her havdallah nosh, wheeled from the counter to head home and prepare for company, and passed me at close range, I could swear she had a twinkle in her eye for ol' Portnoy himself.

Yasher Ko'ach, Chuck Todd!

Shirat Ha'Yam congregation on Nantucket is a quirky little synagogue, tucked like a hemit crab into the historic Unitarian Church at 30 Orange Street in town, enlivened by a highly-transient summer population and - I'm told - a tiny but hardy off-season crew.  Many hoi polloi move-&-shake through in the summer months, and the sked of Friday evening services is programmed like Fred Silverman's Friday evening TV network slate, with guest speakers and stars a-plenty.

CBT - Scene of Intrigue

Shirat HaYam at Nantucket Unitarian

This past Friday was a Washington "power" theme, with guest rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B'Nai Tzedek in Potomac MD, and NBC News Chief White House correspondent and Political Director Chuck Todd both in town.  Chuck is such a savvy prognosticator and an insightful handicapper of the political scene, so I was interested to hear what he would say.

Lo and behold, we found ourselves seated directly in front of Chuck and his lovely wife Kristian (who turns out to be a Democratic operative - Fritz Hollings, John Edwards, Gary Condit..), which means I got to give him the standard 'Well done' upon exit from the bimah following his erstaz d'var torah, and was able to chat afterward at some length.

Chuck shared a number of keen observations:

• On the election: "The race will be extremely, extremely tight .... Each week, I go back and forth believing one will win, then the other ... It's the economy versus demographics... at the moment, Obama is running a better campaign" (this last at precisely the instant Obama was telling a crowd in Roanoke "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.")
  
  
• On the simplistic campaign messaging so far, both sides: "It's small politics, and we've got big problems, and both candidates know it."
• On bias: "All corespondents are biased because of our personal histories - I grew up in Miami and I will typically be the only one in the pool bringing up Cuba, because I am so interested in it."
• On cynical character assassination: "Obama can't win on 'Are you better of than you were four years ago?' so he's trying to change the discussion to 'You'll be better off four years from now if you stick with me' by demonizing Romney."  Chuck astutely characterized Obama's current villainization of Bain as an obvious, transparent attempt to "Swift-boat" Romney.
• On the "father/son" impetus: "Every presidential candidate seems to have a drive related to his father: Obama, Clinton - they didn't have fathers. Bush, W. - his father's legacy, and George H.W.Bush's father Prescott before him.  Romney? His father's unfinished business as a candidate in 1968."

That's Sen. Kerry's (wife's) house, to left of Brant Point...

Gamely sporting the de riguer Nantucket reds yarmulke, our speaker took questions on topics like "Why do those mean Republicans keep trying to suppress and dis-enfranchise voters with Voter ID laws?" - which Chuck explained as a Republican strategy for getting out the vote.  He went on to argue that there is very little evidence of fraudulent vote-casting that would harm Republicans, although he was willing to say that Democrats will not admit that virtually all voters DO have ID, and there's no good reason a voter cannot obtain an ID in the next 4 months if s/he cares to vote on November 6.  Chuck's reasonable compromise? Grandfather the grandfathers: anyone over 65, who's been voting w/o ID for that long, gets to go on voting incognito.

"Black Hat" Todd

We talked about polling a bit, and Chuck classified only NBC and Fox as having truly first-class national polling activities - comprehensive, properly-weighted processes that involve a balanced oversight by paired Democrat and Republican polling professionals working together.

Another question pertained to viability of a third party, and Chuck laid out had a cascade of comparisons to 1992 (Perot), 1980 (Anderson) and even invoked T.R.'s Bull Moose party.

I was especially happy to hear him bring Americans Elect into the conversation - innovators who attempted this year to organize the first online Presidential nomination giving Americans a direct voice in the process.

My friend and old classmate Dan Winslow, future Attorney General of the U.S., is Chief Legal Counsel for Americans Elect.  Although unsuccessful in its maiden voyage in 2012, AE represents a robust, positive and non-partisan effort to advance and elevate American presidential politics and I wish them well.  Chuck expressed intrigue too.

All in all, a nice evening that provided equal measure of enlightenment (Mr. Todd) and atonement (Mr. Weinblatt), making for a fine start to a sunny week on-island!  Mazel Tov, Mr. Todd!

Two summers ago, Shirat Ha'Yam attendees were treated to the words of an earnest gent, recently departed of the Washington Post to toil for new Obama US representative to the United Nations Susan Rice.  This mensch assured the congregation that Obama would be "a strong ally to Israel" and "good for the Jews."  After three years of Obama's shredding of a lifetime of US-Israeli relations, this gent no longer can show his face on the island, for fear of being taken into the harbor and keelhauled - at sunset - by "Song of the Sea" congregants....

Pinning that Monkey Tail on Donna Rice!

You all remember the excitement in 1987 when a rare role model in the American Rhapsody, Yale Divinity School grad Gary Hart, dared the media to put a tail on him and try to substantiate the rumors that he was fooling around.  Well, Gary got his wish.


From Wikipedia:

Hart '88? Monkey Business '87!

Soon after meeting Rice, Hart announced that he would run for nomination as the Democratic candidate for President. Having enjoyed a surprisingly strong campaign in 1984 against the eventual nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale, he was widely perceived as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1988. However, rumors shortly thereafter began circulating about his having an extra-marital affair, leading the candidate to challenge the media to surveil him, and to also claim that anybody who did so would "be very bored." The day before Hart's dare to the media was to appear in The New York Times, however, two reporters for the Miami Herald observed Rice coming out of Hart's Washington, D.C. townhouse, and their story was published on the same day that his challenge appeared in the Times.

"President Hart"

While Hart contended that the reporters could have no knowledge of exactly when Rice arrived or why she was there, his popular appeal nevertheless suffered a major blow, and polls taken almost immediately afterward found him to be 10 points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Two days after their initial story, the Herald obtained a photograph of Rice sitting on Hart's lap in Bimini aboard a luxury motor yacht named Monkey Business lent by socialite Lillian Briggs. The celebrity tabloid National Enquirer immediately published the photograph, and within five days, Hart had decided to drop out of the Democratic Presidential nomination race.^[2][3]

Early on, a 'Marketing' career

Well, turns out that the comely Rice had tried her hand at a variety of callings.  She had been a marketing specialist in south FL for a pharma company before all the fuss.  After the fuss, she found an audience as celebrity endorser for No Excuses jeans, but by 1994 had found her true calling - protecting children from exploitation and abuse on the internet. 

For almost 20 years she's done a great job with Enough Is Enough, and she's still at it.

So it was in that mode and guise that Donna appeared, in 1998, and we came face to face.  I was out hob-nobbing at a big weekday-evening confab in Reston,VA with Mario Morino and the NetPreneur crowd when, Lo and Behold: Ms. Rice (by then Hughes, married to NoVa area venture capital guy Jack).

She was instantly-recognizable, very friendly, vivacious, and/but totally on-message.  I shamelessly referenced my then-four-year-old daughter to get the ball rolling, and eventually, artlessly, brought up politics (but not Presidential) - however, I couldn't get her out of trade-show-booth mode. . .

A bit like Jeannie Francis ?

. . . Just as well.

Grabbing Lunch with Sam Donaldson

Unabashed Texan Sam Donaldson

When I visited Washington DC to tour Georgetown Univesity and GWU with my father in 1975, we stayed at the grand and stately Mayflower Hotel.  As a rube in the big city, I was amazed at the size of this hotel - a full city block long: one could enter on Connecticut Ave. and exit on 17th street.

The northern edge of the hotel was bounded by DeSales Street, NW, a one block long mid-block connector between the two avenues.  And opposite the Mayflower (just outside our window), across DeSales Street at mid-block, was ABC News' Washington DC bureau.  How cool - people making television, right there!

Ten years later, I was working 1/2 block away on 17th Street at the National Geographic Society, and we usd to graze around the neighborhood, picking off a number of researchers from NPR and ABC News when we were staffing up NG EXPLORER.

ABC sits chock-a-block with a parking garage and there was a small, greasy spoon lunch counter there in the mid-80's.  I don't remember the name of it but one day we were all piled in there, jockeying at the counter, when a loud, bold and insistently-recognizable voice cut through the din: "Ham and Swiss!  Right Here!! - That's Mine!!!"  He reached above and across the throng, grabbed the bag, threw a $5 bill at the counter guy who laughed, and he bolted.

"People ask me about my relationship with President Reagan. I say it was a case of two 'hams' discovering each other. Only I played the 'straight man' and he always had the last word."

One of his most widely remembered questions during his tenure at the White House came during the Reagan administration: "Mr. President, in talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed Congress and mistakes in the past. Does any of the blame belong to you?" To which Reagan retorted: "Yes, for many years I was a Democrat!"

John Edwards - A Painful Fall From Grace

"While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong and there is no one else responsible for my sins.  I am responsible, and if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly I don't have to go any further than the mirror.  It's me.  It is me and me alone."

Sunshine, Go Away Today - Don't Feel Much Like Smilin'

When John Edwards ran for president in 2004 he lamented with passion about "the two America's, ... where some attend the public schools in the good neighborhoods, with the well stocked library, and the nice athletic fields, and the clean classrooms... while others sit in crumbling buildings, with no books to study, and no opportunity to ever get ahead ..."  What he never remembered to mention was the third America - where his kids and mine went to private school and enjoyed excellent teaching and attention, with all the amenities.

Edwards came to town following election in November 1998 as Senator for North Carolina.  He later smartly enrolled his young children in St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School, where my daughter also attended.

"President Edwards"

It wasn't unusual to see a 'public servant' like Ken Bentsen, Jr. (D, TX 25th) or media politicos like Tucker Carlson and Cokie Roberts around the corridors.  But there was definitely a buzz around Mr. Edwards, a dapper barrister rumored to have Presidential ambitions.

You are correct if you imagine that Elizabeth Edwards was a much, much, much beloved woman in the school. Very involved, and very full of life.  She is deeply missed by the staff and many friends she made among the parent/volunteer tribe, and when we worked together on the annual fundraising auction she made a point to contribute a week at the Edwardses' North Carolina beach house.  Separately, we arranged to offer a luncheon in Washington with John, for the high bidder and ten guests.  The private meal was hosted at Sen. Edwards' next door neighbor's very beautiful home in what had been until 1959 the Cuban Embassy on 30th Street, N.W.

That particular prize went for the high bid of the evening, over $20,000, purchased by the wife of a lobbyist.  Welcome to Washington!

Beloved Alma Mater: St. Patrick's

On Family Fun Day in spring 2003, there was Senator John Edwards, on campus.  We passed each other in the hallway between the church nave and the school development office at St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School.  Holding hands with his young children Emma Claire and Jack, he looked kind and fatherly, but intensely focused at the same time - he was thinking about something.  "Hello, Senator!" I ventured, and in response he smiled gently, nodded in my direction and kept moving.

I was struck by his height - maybe my height at best - 5'6".  He's listed as 5'11" but on this day he was 5'6" - or else on that day I was 5'11"! In this sense, I guess, I was uplifted by his presence.

That was nine years ago this month.  Much water has passed under the Edwards bridge.  John launched his own 2004 Presidential run resulting in selection as Sen. John Kerry's Vice President.  Edwards later made an aborted attempt for the 2008 nomination as well, but by then was mired already in a terrible cascade of family betrayal & loss, and personal, political and ethical scandal.  Some might say today that, under Ponte Edouard, justice has rolled down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  But in the end, none of us - saints and sinners alike - really know.

There has been precious little Family Fun for John Edwards lately.  I despair for his children, and miss his wife, and I hope that time is kind to all concerned.