PunditWire

Every contributor to PunditWire is or has been a political speechwriter. We’ve been at every level of politics writing for politicians of every stripe. We’re usually behind-the-scenes, accustomed to seeing our words and thoughts associated with others, not ourselves. Now, with PunditWire, we have a home for our own commentary. www.punditwire.com

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Doubting Data and the Debate on Education

America's war between the progressives and populists is well into its second century with no resolution in sight.  Despite changes in rhetoric and technology, the basic tension about who can be most trusted to decide what's best for us -- the experts or we voters -- shows no sign of abating. Public education has always been central to the American vision and an important part of this debate.  That's what inspired the Scopes Monkey Trial and more recent controversies about creationism. And there's been a endless debate about whether American education is good enough and, if not, what need be done to make it better. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1MMZz4Q

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The National Academy of Sugar

You might think an outfit calling itself an academy would be, you know, academic. But as Jon Stewart put it, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is as much an academy as the “Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product” called Kraft Singles is cheese. The last time the academy was in the news, it was for taking an undisclosed amount of money from Kraft in exchange for giving Kraft permission to put the academy’s “Kids Eat Right” logo on Kraft Singles. When nailed for this, the academy denied that this amounted to putting a stamp of approval on Singles. What it really was, they claimed, was an ad for the academy’s Kids Eat Right initiative. If this were true, it would be the first time in the history of the world that an advertiser received money for placing an ad, instead of paying for it. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1MRMUiF

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Cable to Nowhere

Contrary to a generosity of spirit in America, both our political parties have shown disdain for the underdog in foreign policy, kicking them in the teeth when empathy might be more in character. Bipartisan annoyance at the suffering of foreigners seems to twin our Left and Right. Faced with the slaughter of a million Biafrans in 1967-70, Lyndon Johnson sided forcefully with Nigeria’s central government, saying of the Biafrans, “Get those [n…] children off my television set.” via WordPress http://ift.tt/1hCjSXy

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The Great James Baker

Lots of Middle East peace meetings had failed, but this was “post-Oslo,” so there was some hope something might come of it this time.  There was cautious optimism all around.  We knew that none of the parties wanted to be there, but also that James A. Baker had forced them, one by one, into the room by persuasion and a little intimidation behind the scenes.  I think all the negotiators wanted the talks to fail, but no one wanted to be the one to blame if they did. The Great Baker had gotten them together, and clutched them in his bullying embrace.  I remember him with his hands stretched out on the table in front of him, head poised like a reptile about to strike, glaring at every delegate individually with intense eye contact.  He looked like a pterodactyl about to pounce and kill.  A fearful silence took over the room.  Only Baker could pull this off. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1Lt95et

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Clinton and Corbyn: The Fine Old Art of Dissembling

You don’t hear the verb ‘to dissemble’ so much these days, although Edgar Allan Poe knew just when to use it. Its synonyms include pretend, deceive, feign, masquerade, sham, bluff, pose, and counterfeit. It’s all about projecting a false if not dishonest impression, with a view to misleading. Dissembling may have drifted towards desuetude, giving way to the more robust idea of ‘lying’, but the practice is alive and well. This week sees momentous examples from two ambitious politicians on either side of the Atlantic, both with a problem. How to deflect public attention from what they have really been doing, as their doings look embarrassing when subjected to closer scrutiny? via WordPress http://ift.tt/1hP71B1

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Bernie has it. Trump has it. Joe has it. Does Hillary?

I respect and admire Clinton. So do many of Biden’s potential backers. They’re just imagining the damage that could be done when billions of dollars’ worth of attack ads drill “Hillary thinks the rules don’t apply to her” and “Hillary thinks she’s above the law” into voters’ brains. Accuracy will be irrelevant. They will be attached to a narrative “out there” purporting to connect the dots between Whitewater files that rematerialized, misremembered Bosnian sniper fire, Benghazi and, now, documents that weren’t classified that she didn’t send on personal email and didn’t scrub from her personal server. What Biden has, what nervous Democrats fear Clinton lacks, is authenticity, the new It factor. The old It was ideological (Do they hate big government or racism as much as I do?), positional (Are they with me on guns or climate change?), demographic (Do they care about people like me?) and personal (Who I want to have a beer with?). The new It is ontological: Who’s real? via WordPress http://ift.tt/1PoZhAh

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Is Speechwriting Spiritual Death?

Some years ago, a speechwriter friend of mine sent me an obituary on ghostwriter Sandford Doty. I had never heard of Doty but, as it turned out, I had heard of his work. He had ghosted the memoirs of such luminaries as Robert Merrill, Judy Garland, Bette Davis and Helen Hayes. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1EFNjMV

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Ruthless

In her August 16 column in the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus paraphrases Carly Fiorina from 2008, saying something positive about Hillary Clinton. This doesn’t affect my life much to begin with. But then in addition I see quotation marks and the words, punctiliously noted from seven years ago, “That’s off the record.” Wow, reminds me of the Wild West days of Spanish journalism of the early 1990s, when scribes would quote embassy officials of various countries, “…and he said, off the record [sic], ‘yes no maybe...’” I remember helping one journalist find someone to quote back then, and then never being forgiven (me!) because of the offending violation of basic rules of decency. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1E0RBUc

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Overnight to Ystad

The fate of Denmark’s Jews in October, 1943 was an anecdote in a sea of‎ malice. My Danish friend Michael was on one of those boats, the ones wandering around in the Øresund on a dark night in October, lights out lest the Nazi patrols find them, and also lost in an autumn storm, headed possibly for Sweden, but also possibly to Poland or Germany itself. I asked Michael how it was that night, and he said, “I was two months old.” via WordPress http://ift.tt/1N6uAlN

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There They Go Again

This thing called the “international community” rises to clown-like behavior when Haiti has elections. They always did, and I hope they’ll give it up one day. After six murders, scores of beatings, and one third of the ballots trashed in the streets, Haiti’s legislative elections August 9 were pronounced “a success” by the UN, Brazil, France, Canada, Spain, the United States, the EU, and the OAS. Read: “Good enough for Haitians.” via WordPress http://ift.tt/1PlJW46

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Bulldoze the Lincoln Memorial?

The state Democratic parties of Iowa, Georgia, Connecticut and Missouri have recently voted to remove the names of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from their traditional Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners. The reason is that Jefferson and Jackson were both white males who owned slaves. As Andy McGuire, Iowa Democratic chairwoman declared: “It is important to change the name of the dinner to align with the values of our modern-day Democratic Party: inclusiveness, diversity and equality.” The Democratic parties of at least five other states are considering the same change. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1h4aOKL

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A Speechwriter’s Hell

Barton Swaim’s new book, The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics, took me back to my own fumbling beginnings as a wordsmith. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1IJ0Nbr

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Sometimes He Wondered

It’s hard not to pick favorites when a satisfying novel gets you intoworlds you haven’t inhabited. When a good one comes along, it seems to bring its own logic, “proof” of a mathematical process. A zero head in math, I am an easy victim of fictive manipulations. Show me a clever, false reality and I’ll fall for it. In And Sometimes I Wonder About You, Walter Mosley takes us on a gallop through the range of human struggles, which collectively seem like nature’s senseless competition for survival. The hilarious and dense haste of it makes you say, “Now, what more is needed? Nothing much.” Good fiction gives you both questions and answers, but doesn’t tell you how they came. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1g2OmjV

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Voice of…Reason

There wasn’t much to do in Brazzaville in 1980. The little People’s Republic of the Congo faces the immense Zaire (the other, capitalist “Congo”), its capital Kinshasa visible in the distance across the mighty Congo River. I was supposed to be teaching English at the Université Marien Ngouabi, which disdainful expats called “Le Lycée...” via WordPress http://ift.tt/1Dkfu9h

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Slim Twice Good for Enhanced Health

In the quest to control American medical costs, slim is in from several perspectives. Lowering our obesity rate would make us healthier and reduce anticipated medical expenses and suffering  -- and we seem to be progressing toward that goal. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1IgiS1d

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My Three Weapons

It went like this:  a smile, a business card, and a camera. With these three WMDs we faced down an armed police squad and ran them off a property they had invaded. Yaoundé, 2006.  Jim (not his real name) had picked Cameroon off the internet and came on a one-way trip to perform a religious mission. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1DUxm5d

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Trumpery

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “trumpery” as follows: 1. Showy but worthless finery; bric-a-brac. 2. Nonsense; rubbish. 3. Deception; trickery; fraud. In all, not a bad word to describe Donald Trump’s campaign for president. via WordPress http://ift.tt/1M0JA48