Quin, you ignorant slut. (Sorry, I still love that old Dan Aykroyd/Jane Curtin Saturday Night Live routine of TV pundits with Dan’s classic opening line to his presumed colleague.) Now, I like my friend Quin Hillyer. Seriously and really, I do. Life is too short for silly feuds. Particularly when one party to the feud has no idea whatsoever what can generate such emotional, visceral…well…I don’t know what to call it. You decide… here is his all-points bulletin about me from last week. So. Let’s indulge Quin. Let’s help Jennifer Rubin out, shall we? She’s for Santorum, my colleague Quin Hillyer says flatly. Not… repeat not… Romney. “She” would be Ms. Rubin, the Washington Post ‘s designated conservative columnist who has been widely and repeatedly reported to be a supporter of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. As seen here in US News and World Report , here in the Daily Caller, here in New York Magazine , here in Forbes Magazine , here in Politico quoting Blogger Dan Riehl
Quin, you ignorant slut. (Sorry, I still love that old Dan Aykroyd/Jane Curtin Saturday Night Live routine of TV pundits with Dan’s classic opening line to his presumed colleague.) Now, I like my friend Quin Hillyer. Seriously and really, I do. Life is too short for silly feuds. Particularly when one party to the feud has no idea whatsoever what can generate such emotional, visceral…well…I don’t know what to call it. You decide… here is his all-points bulletin about me from last week. So. Let’s indulge Quin. Let’s help Jennifer Rubin out, shall we? She’s for Santorum, my colleague Quin Hillyer says flatly. Not… repeat not… Romney. “She” would be Ms. Rubin, the Washington Post ‘s designated conservative columnist who has been widely and repeatedly reported to be a supporter of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. As seen here in US News and World Report , here in the Daily Caller, here in New York Magazine , here in Forbes Magazine , here in Politico quoting Blogger Dan Riehl
“I was born in East Baltimore, on Chester Street. I lived there for three years, then we moved out to Pimlico and for the rest of my adult life until I got married I lived there on Oakmont Avenue about four blocks from the racetrack…” Those are the opening words of former Maryland governor Marvin Mandel’s memoirs, I’ll Never Forget It , but he didn’t write them down. I did. There is nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything wrong with me telling you. Politicians strike different deals with their ghostwriters. Ours placed my name on the cover of the book (“with Jeremy Lott”). Politicians exercise various degrees of control over their ghostwritten material. Richard Nixon was a notorious control freak who would drastically rework the chapters that his research assistants produced for him. Everything that went out under his name had to sound exactly right to him. Ronald Reagan was much less hands-on with his ghostwriters. At the press conference introducing his ghostwritten post-presidential autobiography An American Life , he quipped “I hear it’s terrific. Maybe someday I’ll read it.” The crowd loved the line but I’ve heard that his publisher did not. Four years ago, during his first campaign for the GOP nomination for president, Texas congressman Ron Paul came under fire for incendiary words that appeared in his newsletters. We can chew on the substance of those words some other time. Suffice it to say that they are not defensible statements, that many of them are racist or racially-tinged, and that Paul himself has expressed deep regret for ever letting them go out under his name. Right now, I am concerned with the latest effort to fan the old flames of controversy to blaze by folks insisting that Paul really did write those words, or played an active role in editing and producing those newsletters. The simple truth is that, no, he didn’t write or edit the newsletters in question. Usually, he didn’t bother to read them until well after the fact. We learned all of this in the last election cycle, but critics are trying to make old charges new again. The website Conservatives Network has splashed pictures of the newsletters up in a post titled “Who Wrote The Ron Paul Newsletters? Ron Paul Wrote Them — Clear Proof.” The site’s “clear proof” consists of helpful red arrows and circles that highlight the use of the first person in the newsletters, a mimeographed signature, and the fact that Paul was listed as editor. All of those things are true and beside the point. Paul says that he did not write the words in question. He published four different newsletters over the years: “Ron Paul’s Freedom Report,” “The Ron Paul Political Report,” “The Ron Paul Survival Report” and “The Ron Paul Investment Letter.” For some time, he took an active interest in writing and editing them but in the early nineties, newsletter production was farmed out to ghostwriters who were given de facto free rein. At that point in his life, Paul was out of politics and working crazy hours to reestablish his medical practice as an ob-gyn after he had torched a whole year of his medical life to challenge George H.W. Bush as the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president. Paul has declined to name the ghostwriters for a couple of reasons. One, anonymity was part of the deal that he struck with them. Two, he professes genuine ignorance of who wrote what specific words, and he may have a point there. After an investigation, Reason magazine fingered former Paul congressional staffer Lew Rockwell and a few of his colleagues that he had farmed the ghost-ghostwriting out to as likely culprits. We should note that nearly every single fair-minded person who has looked into the matter believes Paul didn’t write the offending newsletters. The words in question simply do not sound anything like Paul’s message or delivery. The question that critics such as The American Spectator ‘s own Jeffrey Lord are now pressing is, Well, OK, he didn’t write those words, but he knew what his ghostwriters were doing in his name. To that poisonous end, Lord cites the words of embittered former Paul staffer Eric Dondero. Dondero is an interesting and erratic character who, like Lord, has very serious disagreements about Paul on foreign policy. Dondero once founded an organization called Libertarians for Lieberman, which makes about as much sense as Marxists for Tax Cuts. Dondero charges that Paul “did read them, every one of them” and signed off on the newsletters “before they were published.” When I put these charges to Paul’s presidential campaign spokesman Gary Howard, he was a bit exasperated. His first e-mail read, in full, “Eric Dondero is a disgruntled former staffer who was fired for performance issues. He is not a valid source.” I kept prodding. In a follow up, Howard, who is black, said, “Congressman Paul has said many times that he didn’t know about these terrible writings, and did not sign off on them.” That may not be the end of the matter. There are all kinds of questions stemming from the newsletters, especially the issue of Ron Paul’s executive competence. (Paulistas will no doubt rejoin that he learned something from the debacle.) But the unsmoking gun here is Paul’s authorship and creative control of those newsletters. If this were a reality TV show, we might call it “Ghostwriters Gone Wild.”
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Ghostwriters Gone Wild
It has been ten years since George Harrison passed away. While cancer claimed him at the age of 58, he left behind a treasure trove of songs worthy of our lasting attention whether they appeared on Beatles records, on his solo albums, or with other collaborators. A quiet Beatle he was not. So here are my ten favorite George Harrison songs. 10. Badge Co-written with Eric Clapton, ” Badge ” appears on Cream’s final album Goodbye which was released in 1969. Harrison contributes a memorable guitar solo. It wasn’t the first time Harrison and Clapton had collaborated and it would not be the last. 9. Taxman Who knew that Harrison would pen the Beatles’ first and most enduring protest song ? This was Harrison’s response to the 98% super tax imposed on Britain’s wealthiest citizens by the Labour government of Harold Wilson. Granted, it was John Lennon who suggested that Wilson and Conservative Party leader Edward Heath be named in the song. But the anger and derision in the song was all Harrison’s : In those days we paid 19 shillings and sixpence [96p] out of every pound, and with supertax and surtax and tax-tax it was ridiculous — a heavy penalty to pay for making money. That was a big turn-off for Britain. Anybody who ever made any money moved to America or somewhere else . The policy would force fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, the Rolling Stones as well as British actors like Michael Caine and Roger Moore to leave the U.K. and become tax exiles in the United States or other parts of Europe. Ironically, Harrison would remain a British resident. The opening song on the Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver , “Taxman” has long been a favorite of conservatives and ranked number two on John J. Miller’s list of the fifty greatest conservative rock songs. Only “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who kept it from the top spot. But given President Obama’s soak the rich policies, if Miller were to update the list perhaps it would hit number one. 8. Old Brown Shoe This Harrison composition was recorded in 1969 and was a B-side for John Lennon’s “The Ballad of John & Yoko.” ” Old Brown Shoe ” starts with an interesting bass/piano intro, met by muffled vocals and a great guitar solo. Yet another in a long line of underappreciated gems Harrison wrote in the shadows of Lennon-McCartney. 7. Savoy Truffle This song appeared on their 1968 double LP The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album ) and was inspired by Eric Clapton’s chocolate cravings . However, the lyrics to “Savoy Truffle” sour both with Clapton’s stomach and when Harrison turns his attention to Paul McCartney’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” which appeared earlier on The White Album. I think it’s safe to say that this is the only song in the history of rock ‘n’ roll that makes reference to Montelimar. 6. The Inner Light This was also a B-side (the A-side was McCartney’s “Lady Madonna”). Recorded in 1968 with local musicians in Bombay (now Mumbai) while working on his first solo album Wonderwall . Lennon and McCartney would later add backing vocals. “The Inner Light” is a showcase for Harrison’s love of Indian music and spirituality. The lyrics, “The farther one travels the less one really knows,” have stuck with me. 5. Only a Northern Song Here is Harrison at his bitter best. Northern Songs Ltd. was the publisher of the Beatles’ catalogue. While Lennon and McCartney owned 30 percent of the holdings, Harrison and Ringo Starr held less than 2 percent between them. This meant that Lennon and McCartney made more money off of Harrison’s songs than did Harrison. As he put it, “It doesn’t really matter what chords I play/What words I say or time of day it is/As it’s only a Northern Song.” Originally considered for inclusion on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , it eventually saw the light of day on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack in 1969. I have long enjoyed its over-the-top psychedelic arrangements. 4. I’d Have You Anytime Although many great songs came from Harrison’s landmark 1970 triple solo album All Things Must Pass (i.e. “My Sweet Lord,” “What Is Life,” “Wah-Wah,” “Isn’t it a Pity” and the title track), my favorite song is the lead track, “I’d Have You Anytime .” Harrison co-wrote this song with Bob Dylan. Judging by this early demo, it might have been intended as a duet. However, Dylan does not appear on the final recording although Eric Clapton chimes in on lead guitar. 3. Something The second track on side one of their 1969 album Abbey Road , ” Something ” is the second most covered song in the Beatles’ catalogue aside from “Yesterday.” Its most famous cover was recorded by Frank Sinatra who said, “It’s one of the best love songs I believe to be written in fifty to a hundred years.” There’s nothing more I can add. 2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps Originally intended as an acoustic piece, Lennon & McCartney had little interest in the song until Harrison brought in Eric Clapton to play lead guitar. ” While My Guitar Gently Weeps ” has become a staple of classic rock and The White Album wouldn’t have been the same without it. 1. Here Comes the Sun Harrison wrote the song while standing in Eric Clapton’s garden after escaping another tense business meeting with the other Beatles and executives from Apple Records. Leading off side two of Abbey Road, ” Here Comes the Sun ” never fails to make me feel good. I am far from alone. So with that I’ll end this on a positive note.
The rest is here:
I Me Mine: My Ten Favorite George Harrison Songs
I’ve started getting in so many books lately for review, I need to start being more diligent with them. So how about this — I’ll write a blurb on the book, give you a picture of the book with Lincoln, and drop you a link to Amazon? First up is one past due and that I have read cover to cover and promised to write about a month ago only to get bogged down with travel. It is MaryBeth Hick’s Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid . This one is a bit depressing at first, but then it pisses you and then finally activates something in your brain to fight back. Those are the good ones. Mary Beth delves into polling and studies showing just how well liberals have gotten at indoctrinating kids in school and in culture. It’s rather staggering actually. But she doesn’t leave it there. She actually gives some good tips on being proactively engaged to clear the brain rot in your kids’ heads and fight back. It was a quick read. The Publisher is Regnery (our sister company for disclosure purposes). You can buy the book here at Amazon .
Originally posted here:
Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid by MaryBeth Hicks
