Yes, We're Going To Politicize Ted Kennedy's Death.

I'm hearing a lot of whining on the right about the wall-to-wall coverage of Ted Kennedy's death and his politics, and how it's being "politicized". They're particularly concerned that Democrats might use Kennedy's death to push their health care reform package forward.

On the first point, those of us who sat through weeklong tributes to Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford - heck, even Jerry Falwell! - are pretty amused at this complaint. If nothing else, Ted Kennedy spent 46 years in the world's most deliberative body and has his name on over 300 pieces of major legislation. Celebrity politician deaths are practically the only time we hear anything substantive about political ideology and political positions, and there are plenty of living Republicans who will go gently into that good night someday, so it seems to me this will even out at some point. A fairly important American died. We'll get back to some guy with a sign at a town hall meeting tomorrow.

On the second point, it's similarly amusing that anyone in either party would whine and complain about events becoming "politicized." Another word for it is "the normal rhetorical connections human beings make to advance their policies." It's been done by approximately every human being in all of history. And it actually should be that way. Aimai puts this about as well as it can be put:

It's our own little dance of death. Anyone remember the fake outcry at the Wellstone Memorial's political tone? If you missed it, or can't remember, you can read all about it here. Its one of the things that really politicized Franken, and in the linked essay he draws the connection between the way the right wing treated the outpouring of grief and political activism around Wellstone's death to the way they treated Coretta Scott King's funeral. In both cases the left was lectured in how we are to understand the lives of our own members and we were ordered not to celebrate those lives, not to take up the banner of their causes, but to mourn quietly, secretly, almost shamefacedly. But funerals and memorials aren't about something quiet, private, shameful. Death and Politics are both important parts of life. Funerals and memorials are places where we gather to be together and to pursue communal goals. We mourn, but we celebrate. We gather together to remember, and to plan to leap forward.

In America, as around the world there is a natural logic to the political and social use of the funeral. The end of one life is not the end of that person's struggle. Sometimes its the key inflection point, the moment that the solitary struggle becomes public, or the moment that the lone voice, though stilled, is taken up. This is as true for the famous (see e.g. MLK, Malcolm X, JFK, BK, Ninoy Aquino, etc..etc...etc...) as it can be for the lowly member of the crowd--(Neda Soltan).

As inevitable as the use of the funeral, or the memorial, by partisans is the attempt to repress the funeral or the memorial by the forces of reaction. Wherever funerals are an important social setting--a safe place for people to turn out, grieve, communicate, and organize there will be attempts from above or below to prevent any mobilization around the body, or the cause. In Iran, to give just one example, the state decides who is a "martyr" and whose death will be publicly solemnized, and it has for years interfered with families trying to publicize or socialize the deaths of their loved ones if those deaths looked like they would cause trouble for the government. The recent death of Neda was one such occasion. In the US, of course, we have struggled for years over who owns or appropriates public deaths like those of the 9/11 victims, the Katrina dead, and our soldiers.

Funny, I seem to remember plenty of Republicans waving the bloody shirt and using the death of Neda to serve their political ends. And I remember walking back from a night of the DNC in Denver - site of Ted Kennedy's last major speech - to anti-abortion conservatives holding up pictures of dead fetuses trying to compel me to change my mind on a women's right to choose. Death has been used as a weapon by conservatives for many, many years. "Death panels," anyone?

It is perfectly normal in any society for heroes to be lauded in death and for people who admired them to honor their memory by endeavoring to secure their goals. If I die, I'd want others to politicize it by taking up the causes I favor and working to pass them. Most people would call that tribute and not an insult.

So, in the event of my passing, I want it to be clear these are my wishes:

1) Please honor me by continuing to fight for the liberal causes I held dear.
2) Explicitly state in any obituaries, memorial services, etc. that what I would have wanted was to keep the fight going
3) Impassioned speeches about the fight ahead for progressivism are especially welcome
4) Indeed, the only way to honor my memory is to double down and fight for a better world
5) Conservatives who don’t like this should shut the fuck up.

Similarly, I don't think conservatives have to necessarily stop their advocacy just because of the death of a popular opponent. It's a nice sentiment of respect, but I don't think anyone really considers it sincere. Liberals should draw inspiration from their heroes just as conservatives draw inspiration from theirs. And if each side is comfortable in their ideas, there should be no reason to censor them in the face of an untimely loss from their adversaries. We don't need loss to remind us of our goals, but it tends to put things in perspective and serve as a focal point for them. I'm assuming that leaders would want it that way.

What set Ted Kennedy apart was not his liberal scorecard or how he lined up on this issue or that issue - there are plenty of liberals who have come and gone through the Senate - but how he set his ideology in specific moral terms. Few others were willing to advocate on moral grounds for, say, the right to a living wage, or quality health care for all, or civil rights regardless of race or creed, color or class, or physical disability. He spoke not to the head but to the heart. And when someone with that worldview dies, it's perfectly natural to react in the same moral terms - to honor the legacy through carrying out his many causes, by living up to his ideal. It's how we repay the debt of a man who put himself on the line for the less fortunate.

And we shouldn't apologize for it.

Biden On Kennedy

I just read Joe Biden's tribute to Ted Kennedy, though I haven't seen the video. Biden and Kennedy shared many similarities, though I don't think even the Vice President would ask for the comparison. Both reached the Senate at the minimum required age of 30, and both spent a lifetime there. Both had moments of incredible tragedy, the death of loved ones, and moments of deep regret and wonder if they could carry on. And both worked their way through them, in their own ways. Practically every politician has released a statement today on Kennedy's passing, referring alternately to their privilege of working with him in the Senate, the long list of accomplishments, or how we must honor his memory by passing comprehensive health care reform. Biden talked about his friend, confidant, counselor and inspiration. I'm not much for speechifying, and this one includes some of Biden's signature tics - the word "literally" appears about 8 times - but this is a great statement, and an intensely personal one.

I've added it below.

Teddy spent a lifetime working for a fair and more just America. And for 36 years, I had the privilege of going to work every day and literally, not figuratively sitting next to him, and being witness to history. Every single day the Senate was in session, I sat with him on the Senate floor in the same aisle. I sat with him on the Judiciary Committee next -- physically next to him. And I sat with him in the caucuses. And it was in that process, every day I was with him -- and this is going to sound strange -- but he restored my sense of idealism and my faith in the possibilities of what this country could do.

He and I were talking after his diagnosis. And I said, I think you're the only other person I've met, who like me, is more optimistic, more enthusiastic, more idealistic, sees greater possibilities after 36 years than when we were elected. He was 30 years-old when he was elected; I was 29 years-old. And you'd think that would be the peak of our idealism. But I genuinely feel more optimistic about the prospect for my country today than I did -- I have been any time in my life.

And it was infectious when you were with him. You could see it, those of you who knew him and those of you who didn't know him. You could just see it in the nature of his debate, in the nature of his embrace, in the nature of how he every single day attacked these problems. And, you know, he was never defeatist. He never was petty -- never was petty. He was never small. And in the process of his doing, he made everybody he worked with bigger -- both his adversaries as well as his allies.

Don't you find it remarkable that one of the most partisan, liberal men in the last century serving in the Senate had so many of his -- so many of his foes embracing him, because they know he made them bigger, he made them more graceful by the way in which he conducted himself.

You know, he changed the circumstances of tens of millions of Americans -- in the literal sense, literally -- literally changed the circumstances. He changed also another aspect of it as I observed about him -- he changed not only the physical circumstance, he changed how they looked at themselves and how they looked at one another. That's a remarkable, remarkable contribution for any man or woman to make. And for the hundreds, if not thousands, of us who got to know him personally, he actually -- how can I say it -- he altered our lives as well.

Through the grace of God and accident of history I was privileged to be one of those people and every important event in my adult life -- as I look back this morning and talking to Vicki -- every single one, he was there. He was there to encourage, to counsel, to be empathetic, to lift up. In 1972 I was a 29 year old kid with three weeks left to go in a campaign, him showing up at the Delaware Armory in the middle of what we called Little Italy -- who had never voted nationally by a Democrat -- I won by 3,100 votes and got 85 percent of the vote in that district, or something to that effect. I literally would not be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy -- not figuratively, this is not hyperbole -- literally.

He was there -- he stood with me when my wife and daughter were killed in an accident. He was on the phone with me literally every day in the hospital, my two children were attempting, and, God willing, thankfully survived very serious injuries. I'd turn around and there would be some specialist from Massachusetts, a doc I never even asked for, literally sitting in the room with me.

You know, it's not just me that he affected like that -- it's hundreds upon hundreds of people. I was talking to Vicki this morning and she said -- she said, "He was ready to go, Joe, but we were not ready to let him go."

He's left a great void in our public life and a hole in the hearts of millions of Americans and hundreds of us who were affected by his personal touch throughout our lives. People like me, who came to rely on him. He was kind of like an anchor. And unlike many important people in my 38 years I've had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was it was never about him. It was always about you. It was never about him. It was people I admire, great women and men, at the end of the day gets down to being about them. With Teddy it was never about him.

Well, today we lost a truly remarkable man. To paraphrase Shakespeare: I don't think we shall ever see his like again. I think the legacy he left is not just in the landmark legislation he passed, but in how he helped people look at themselves and look at one another.

I apologize for us not being able to go into more detail about the energy bill, but I just think for me, at least, it was inappropriate today. And I'm sure there will be much more that will be said about my friend and your friend, but -- he changed the political landscape for almost half a century. I just hope -- we say blithely, you know, we'll remember what we did. I just hope we'll remember how he treated other people and how he made other people look at themselves and look at one another. That will be the truly fundamental, unifying legacy of Teddy Kennedy's life if that happens -- and it will for a while, at least in the Senate.

Mr. Secretary, you and your staff are doing an incredible job. I look forward to coming back at a happier moment when you are announcing even more consequential progress toward putting us back in a position where once again can control our own economic destiny.

Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.)

UPDATE: TedKennedy.org is up, with all sorts of speeches from the archives and tributes.

Ted Kennedy And Policy

Ted Kennedy had a colorful life, with equal mixtures of success and mistake, joy and tragedy, and grew into the persona of the Liberal Lion of the US Senate. But more than anything, over his 47 years in the Senate he was a man of accomplishments and causes. He got things done. Here's a sample from the New York Times obit.

Freed at last of the expectation that he should and would seek the White House, Mr. Kennedy devoted himself fully to his day job in the Senate. He led the fight for the 18-year-old vote, the abolition of the draft, deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, and the post-Watergate campaign finance legislation. He was deeply involved in renewals of the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing law of 1968. He helped establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He built federal support for community health care centers, increased cancer research financing and helped create the Meals on Wheels program. He was a major proponent of a health and nutrition program for pregnant women and infants [...]

His most notable focus was civil rights, “still the unfinished business of America,” he often said. In 1982, he led a successful fight to defeat the Reagan administration’s effort to weaken the Voting Rights Act.

In one of those bipartisan alliances that were hallmarks of his legislative successes, Mr. Kennedy worked with Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, to secure passage of the voting rights measure, and Mr. Dole got most of the credit.

Perhaps his greatest success on civil rights came in 1990 with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which required employers and public facilities to make “reasonable accommodation” for the disabled. When the law was finally passed, Mr. Kennedy and others told how their views on the bill had been shaped by having relatives with disabilities. Mr. Kennedy cited his mentally disabled sister, Rosemary, and his son who had lost a leg to cancer.

Mr. Kennedy was one of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s strongest allies in their failed 1994 effort to enact national health insurance, a measure the senator had been pushing, in one form or another, since 1969.

But he kept pushing incremental reforms, and in 1997, teaming with Senator Hatch, Mr. Kennedy helped enact a landmark health care program for children in low-income families, a program now known as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-Chip.

He led efforts to increase aid for higher education and win passage of Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for increases in the federal minimum wage. He helped win enactment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, one of the largest expansions of government health aid ever.

The concession speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention is remembered for those final words, about how the cause lives on and the dream shall never die. But he also laid out his first principles, the causes that animated him, not only in the campaign but throughout his Senate career.

We are the Party -- We are the Party of the New Freedom, the New Deal, and the New Frontier. We have always been the Party of hope. So this year let us offer new hope, new hope to an America uncertain about the present, but unsurpassed in its potential for the future.

To all those who are idle in the cities and industries of America let us provide new hope for the dignity of useful work. Democrats have always believed that a basic civil right of all Americans is that their right to earn their own way. The Party of the people must always be the Party of full employment.

To all those who doubt the future of our economy, let us provide new hope for the reindustrialization of America. And let our vision reach beyond the next election or the next year to a new generation of prosperity. If we could rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II, then surely we can reindustrialize our own nation and revive our inner cities in the 1980's.

To all those who work hard for a living wage let us provide new hope that their price of their employment shall not be an unsafe workplace and a death at an earlier age.

To all those who inhabit our land from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters, let us provide new hope that prosperity shall not be purchased by poisoning the air, the rivers, and the natural resources that are the greatest gift of this continent. We must insist that our children and our grandchildren shall inherit a land which they can truly call America the beautiful.

To all those who see the worth of their work and their savings taken by inflation, let us offer new hope for a stable economy. We must meet the pressures of the present by invoking the full power of government to master increasing prices. In candor, we must say that the Federal budget can be balanced only by policies that bring us to a balanced prosperity of full employment and price restraint.

And to all those overburdened by an unfair tax structure, let us provide new hope for real tax reform. Instead of shutting down classrooms, let us shut off tax shelters. Instead of cutting out school lunches, let us cut off tax subsidies for expensive business lunches that are nothing more than food stamps for the rich [...]

Finally, we cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must -- We must not surrender -- We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.

The President, the Vice President, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the Federal Government? And I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the President, the Vice President, the Congress of the United States, then it's good enough for you and every family in America.

This speech came at the edge of the Reagan Revolution, and maybe if Kennedy ran a better campaign, maybe if this speech were a model for how he attacked the Reagan agenda, maybe, just maybe there would have been no Reagan revolution. But the Senate would have felt a great loss, and the legislation he passed would have had nobody to carry it.

Kennedy was a legend because of the policy that bears his name. As we try once again to realize the cause of his life, that above all should be remembered.

...The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 transformed this country, allowing it to live up to the ideals inscribed on Ellis Island, Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus, "Give me your tired, your poor/ your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/ the wretched refuse of your teeming shore/ Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" The country is better for it, regardless of the insular fear of the xenophobes.

And The Dream Will Never Die

Ted Kennedy dies at the age of 77.

His 2008 DNC speech, from one year ago today.

This is awful, awful news.

...the cause of his life was to have quality and affordable health care for all of our citizens. He passed before he could see the bill signing.

Statement from the family:

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”

...Bob Shrum, who actually wrote the 1980 DNC concession speech, has a great rememberance of Kennedy's surprise speech last year in Denver. I wasn't in the arena, but I was in the Daily Kos' Big Tent, and the response was deafening. Kennedy came out during the California primary to stump for Barack Obama in a Latino section near East LA, and I planned to make it but ended up bailing.

Idiot, me.

I believe today is the first day without a Kennedy in the US Senate since 1953.

1/4 of a Blog Post

Robert Novak dies.

(insert homespun wisdom about a family member - perhaps a cherished old aunt - saying something about not having something nice to say and then not saying anything at all)

...this, however, is priceless:

In his memoir, Mr. Novak said he would not have used Plame's name if the CIA director or the agency's spokesman told him it would have endangered national security or Plame's life. A CIA spokesman had twice warned Mr. Novak not to print Plame's name but could not reveal why to Mr. Novak because her status was classified.

Nobody told him that outing a CIA agent would harm national security, right, so Novak ignored warnings by the CIA to not out a CIA agent without actually saying why, because that would... out a CIA agent.

Rest in... something.

And That's The Way It Is

Walter Cronkite, dead at the age of 92. RIP.

He ended anchoring the CBS Evening News when I was 8, but I know enough to know that he was a real newsman.

...NYT obit.

Joe Galloway On McNamara

Starts off with a brilliant quote:

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)

Gets even better from there. Read.

The Best And The Brightest

Robert McNamara died today. McNamara was a smart guy, a business type who rose up through the ranks to run the Ford Motor Company after working at the Pentagon during the firebombing of Tokyo. Kennedy pulled a reluctant McNamara out of Detroit and back to the Pentagon in 1960, and he sought to manage it with corporate precision. But this precise structure and its focus on measurements crashed against the shoals of the Vietnam War. Night after night, McNamara would stand before the press in his rimless glasses, looking very much like Don Rumsfeld would decades later, talking of body counts and targeted airstrikes and victory, disassociated almost completely from the realities of the ground and the futility of the enterprise. If you've seen "The Fog of War" you know that the pressure certainly got to McNamara, and he understood his mistakes after the fact (though he never took full responsibility for them). He directed subordinates to write the study that would eventually become The Pentagon Papers, hoping that future generations would avoid the pitfalls that he and his colleagues did in Vietnam.

Part of the framing of "The Fog of War" as well as one of McNamara's later books was the 11 causes and lessons that he listed coming out of Vietnam. It's worth listing them here again.

We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.

We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience. We saw in them a thirst for – and a determination to fight for — freedom and democracy. We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.

We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values….

Our misjudgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders….No Southeast Asian [experts] existed for senior officials to consult when making decisions on Vietnam.

We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine in confronting unconventional, highly motivated people’s movements. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to …winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.

We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.

After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did….We had not prepared the public to understand the complex events we faced…confront[ing] uncharted seas and an alien environment. A nation’s deepest strength lies not in its military prowess, bur rather in the unity of its people. We failed to maintain it.

We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action — other than in response to direct threats to our own national security – should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.

We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.

…We thus failed to analyze and debate our actions in Southeast Asia - our objectives, the risks and costs of alternative ways of dealing with them, and the necessity of changing course when failure was clear….

If this isn't an accusatory note toward the practitioners of American foreign policy during the entire post-war period up through today, I don't know what is. And although I'd like to think that some statesman could learn from these lessons and take America off such a self-destructive course, given the nature of the people who rise to power in this country I don't know if that's possible. Certainly McNamara's lessons represent the experience of a man who lived in the crucible and at least appears to have judged his actions against some moral set of precepts. But the peculiar dynamics of the political world, the need to act tough in foreign policy, the seeming inability for leaders to step outside themselves and view things through the lens of others, the narrow and incomplete renderings of history often at work, and of course the lure of money and power and the industry of war, resist politicians coming to any of these conclusions in the moment. We have so frequently bungled into conflicts, presuming our role in them when the other participants see it differently, making shortcuts while rationalizing ourselves as heroic, changing the rules if found to violate them, and controlling the message of moral rectitude rather than the actions. I find these cautions from McNamara to be crucially important, but even in my most optimistic moments I don't believe America is even wired to live up to them.

This is from The Fog of War, with McNamara talking about the firebombing of Tokyo in World War II:

Curtis LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals.... But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

...Just to respond to this point about The Fog of War, which Robert Farley thinks "Morris let McNamara get away with far too much at too low of a price." Right near the beginning of the film, Morris inserts a line from McNamara about how you should always answer the question you hoped to be asked, not the question you were asked. This line colors the entire reading of the film. McNamara, for all his confessions in later life, was never a reliable narrator, and he tried valiantly to color his reading of history, leaving him blameless. It didn't work, and Morris knew it, so he presented the folly instead of attacking it. McNamara's lessons of war are important and can stand alone, but that doesn't mean I sympathize with him in any way. He spun until the bitter end. He earned his legacy of failure, and all the rationalizing and compartmentalizing in the world won't make a difference.

Who We Are As A Society

Regardless of whether TMZ got it or some other outlet, Michael Jackson is dead. And apparently the mass of humanity over at UCLA Medical Center is growing as we speak. Heart attack, it sounds like. I'm hearing the helicopters even from out here in Venice. Twitter has basically almost blown up.

Just so you know.

"Off The Wall" was a great album.

I Thought Seppuku Was Japanese

Wow, crazy:

Former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, a suspect in a corruption scandal that implicated his wife and family, apparently committed suicide Saturday by leaping from a mountain cliff near his rural home.

Roh, 62, died of head injuries while hiking in the early morning with a bodyguard. "He appears to have jumped from a mountain rock," said Moon Jae-in, a lawyer who was Roh's presidential chief of staff.

"The suffering caused by me is too great to too many people," Roh wrote in a suicide note found soon after his death. "The suffering in store for the future is too much to bear. The remainder of my life will only be a burden to others."

The joke headline aside, I don't think it's stereotyping to say that certain Asian cultures do place a higher importance on shame than we do in the West. Sure, we've seen public figures in America kill themselves during investigations into their dealings (see Budd Dwyer), but my sense is that this idea of dishonoring oneself and one's family is more developed in a country like Japan or Korea. Not enough to keep one from the dishonor of corruption in the first place, however.

Columbine at 10

In 1999 I was living in San Francisco, doing stand-up and generally being a cynical lout, and someone I knew back then was actually a graduate of Columbine High School, something I unfortunately only found out after doing some half-assed Columbine joke about what it would be like at the 10-year reunion. Look before you leap, kids.

And that goes double with the retrospectives of the Columbine massacre, which the media drove along using a narrative completely at odds with the truth (kudos to USA Today for some good reporting correcting the record):

They weren't goths or loners.

The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver's Columbine High School 10 years ago next week weren't in the "Trenchcoat Mafia," disaffected videogamers who wore cowboy dusters. The killings ignited a national debate over bullying, but the record now shows Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold hadn't been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and "fags."

Their rampage put schools on alert for "enemies lists" made by troubled students, but the enemies on their list had graduated from Columbine a year earlier. Contrary to early reports, Harris and Klebold weren't on antidepressant medication and didn't target jocks, blacks or Christians, police now say, citing the killers' journals and witness accounts. That story about a student being shot in the head after she said she believed in God? Never happened, the FBI says now.

A decade after Harris and Klebold made Columbine a synonym for rage, new information — including several books that analyze the tragedy through diaries, e-mails, appointment books, videotape, police affidavits and interviews with witnesses, friends and survivors — indicate that much of what the public has been told about the shootings is wrong.

Harris and Klebold were psychologically disturbed, not driven to rage through constant torment. They wanted to kill thousands of people, and if Harris knew how to build a bomb or had the money to do it properly, they would have. The entire thing is terribly frightening, from the standpoint of the media misinformation, the true intent of the criminals, everything. I think we've solved a couple of these problems, but not all, and some are probably unsolvable.

Sam Smith at Scholars & Rogues has more.

Swing And A Long Drive, Deep Left Field, That Ball Is Outta Here...

RIP to a great broadcaster and also a colleague, Harry Kalas.

I grew up listening to Kalas on Phillie games, but when I worked for a year at NFL Films, I got to work with him on Inside the NFL. The voiceover system at NFL Films could be best described as primitive; you would sit in the booth with Kalas, and when the VO line needed to be read, you would tap him on the shoulder. I remember the very first time I had to go into the booth with him, and it was another dreary September for the Phils, and I asked him who was pitching that night, and in his signature style, he intoned, "That would be that Mike Grace." Just perfect if you knew Harry and his voice. I didn't have a long working relationship with him, but I'll certainly miss him.

Mark "The Bird" Fidrych died today as well.

Tragic

The crash of a Continental commuter plane in Buffalo, killing all aboard, is terrible. That a 9/11 widow was aboard the flight is just a cruel irony.

Condolences to the families of the victims.

RIP Madelyn Dunham

Terrible news. The day before an historic election, Barack Obama's grandmother, the woman who raised him for a good portion of his youth, has passed away. He took time off the campaign trail in the final weeks to say his last goodbyes. Unfortunately she could not make it to Election Day.

This was a woman who went from the secretarial pool to the Vice President of a bank, a woman who worked on assembly lines during World War II. Here's the statement from Barack Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng:

"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

"Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer."

RIP.

...I should also note that the Nevada State Director of the Obama campaign died from a massive heart attack at the age of just 44. Much of my volunteer efforts for Obama supported Nevada. This is also a tragic loss.

Do It For Studs

When I lived in Chicago about a decade ago, I would hear Studs Terkel often on the radio and on the local PBS station. He was a serious scholar in the way that Alan Lomax was a serious scholar; his "field recordings" offered an oral history of work, of the middle class. It was impossible to find a hint of irony or cynicism in him - he gave the working man value. As it turns out his family emigrated from the same area of Poland as my family, which may be why I found him so comfortable and familiar. And more than anything, he was a listener, allowing the opinions and life experiences of others to inform his own - in fact, just the focus on the dignity of work told you all you needed to know about the man.

Ezra Klein, who actually met Studs, had this appreciation.

A few years ago, when it was fashionable for folks on the Right to accuse liberals of lacking a canon, I used to bring Studs up in reply. His books were as authentic and fundamental texts as liberalism could ever desire. He understood that the school of thought meant little if it could not understand the struggles of life as it is lived, because then it could not ease them. He understood that to be a decent movement, we had to listen. And no one did it better than him. Read Working and Race. Read The American Dream. Hell, read Will the Circle Be Unbroken? In the introduction to that book, Terkel reveals an odd superstition: He never sleeps with his arms crossed before him, because that is how the dead are lain to rest. After I read that, I never slept with my arms crossed, either.

You hear that, Studs? I listened.

As we get out the vote this weekend and attempt to create a progressive wave, we now have someone to point to, someone who never forgot the building blocks of public service - the regular person and their challenges. This new economy that we're going to have to create must have that philosophy embedded inside it. Fortunately, I think Barack Obama is as good a listener as his fellow Chicagoan.

So this weekend, do it for Studs.

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Confirmed

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, RIP.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones

This is sad.

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) reportedly suffered an aneurysm last night “and is not expected to recover, according to CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland."

Tubbs Jones was one of the very, very few in Congress who signed on to protest the Ohio election results in 2004. And she's a good lawmaker besides.

Quite upsetting.

...Reports are that she's passed away. How terrible. She was only 58.

RIP.

The latest report is she has not died, she's in critical condition.

Tony Snow

has lost his battle with colon cancer. He was 53. We didn't agree at all politically, but by all accounts he was a nice man. When he resigned last year you could tell this was going to be a tough situation, and now we know. RIP.

Jesse Helms RI... Something

I went to my small-town Fourth of July parade today and had some good-ole American fun. Then I learned about the demise of Jesse Helms, and thought that if anybody didn't deserve to die on July 4th, it was this guy. What a buzzkill.

For some reason, NPR ran this piece that explained how Helms "used race effectively." I know the guy just died, but do we have to be that euphemistic? Helms was a racist. He used racial appeals just effectively enough to eke out electoral victories in North Carolina (he never got more than 54% of the vote), and without them he would have had no identity. Can we just call this like it is?

Personally, I think the guy passed before having to endure a biracial President. And it would be quite something if the state that elected Jesse Helms for 30 years ended up choosing Barack Obama in November.

More on Carlin

Some of you may know that I have done stand-up for around 15 years, and Carlin was one of my influences. His gift was that he was unrelenting, never retreated from his position that the world is fucked and we're constantly distracted by shiny objects, materialism, and worshipping idols (both religious and temporal). It's important to note that he was one of those suit-and-tie guys for a decade, the comic who looked like an office worker, at a time when they would play "nightclubs" and "lounges," when there was an actual illusion of glamour to stand-up comedy. This is why only he could make the transformation possible, changing his look just when the culture was changing and looking more like his audience. Significantly, the later work exhibits the same care and craft, as well as the basic overall premise of judging words for what they are. His act was largely about words, and the difference between what they say and what they mean. And that was true even BEFORE he let the hair grow. He felt that we floated through life without actually hearing, without paying attention to the bullshit rituals and traditions that encompass so much of our time. And he called them out. This is what I'm talking about:



Carlin wasn't going to leaven his point of view by defining a better way. He thought the fix was in, and nobody was going to be able to traverse the mountain of bullshit needed to change it. And the longer he was around, the more he was proven right. I'm the most optimistic cynic around, but I completely admire his perspective and am coming to recognize it.

I've pretty much hung it up now, because stand-up is a really shitty business, and you are treated on about the same level of respect as a street performer. There are no Carlins coming down the pike because the way comedy works now essentially prohibits it. I could write a book about that.

So in a way, that makes today even sadder.