There’s a wonderful Hollywood term for a financial windfall that allows an actor, writer or producer to do or say whatever he or she chooses.
It’s called “—- you money.”
Watching Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) engage in an often tedious staple of the capital-a luncheon speech at the National Press Club-you wondered whether he has come upon the political equivalent.
Perhaps it’s some inner peace, a paper-thin interest in what others think of him, or a combination thereof. But he stands as a curious figure because of politically incorrect candor and nerve that mix with a distinct edge and air of the unexpected.
Watching him deliver a speech and answer questions Thursday, generally about the difficulties of his Democratic Party and political cowardice, I was reminded of attending a matinee performance long ago of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” starring George C. Scott, Julie Christie and Nicole Williamson.
It was in a small New York City theater and, at the start of the second act, a tourist in the last row snapped a flash camera. Scott, an intense, intimidating presence, turned from Christie, ambled to stage center, looked up in full costume and declared, “Lady, if you do that one more time, I’m gonna walk up there and break that damn camera over your head!”
Thank goodness that wasn’t me, the rest of us sighed in relief.
Few actors would respond in the same-albeit understandable-way as Scott.
Similarly, few pols other than Kerrey would refer to America’s fringe group of the month-citizen militias-with unabashed ridicule, labeling them as fatso “boys with toys,” dressing up in military fatigues as their “testosterone level is dropping and they don’t know what else to do.” And, unlike Scott, Kerrey’s courage flows from real-life heroism.
They should go out and do all that guy stuff, he said with total derision. Fine, do target practice. “But if you say you’re going to take the law into your own hands, we’re going to shut you down take your guns, walk you in the office and do the fingerprint deal.
“The idea that the government of the U.S. oppresses you is nonsense. You’ve got more freedom than any country on the face of the Earth.”
And there aren’t many pols who’d refer to certain new members of the House of Representatives as “snot-nosed” young lawyers who argue against raising the minimum wage while making $136,000 a year.
Want more? He strayed from the safely liberal position of chiding the extremists while upholding their right to speak. Talk radio “sells advertising by treating people like crap. That’s how the ratings go up. You get mean with somebody. You belittle them. Make fun of them. You say, `Oh, that cripple Kerrey.’ “
Kerrey, 51, indeed wound up with an artificial leg after a true act of Vietnam heroism as a member of the elite Navy Seals. Maybe that’s at the core. Maybe after that, you don’t live your life consumed by how you look to others.
Perhaps that’s how Kerrey-a soldier-turned-pharmacist who went from millionaire restaurant and health club owner to Nebraska governor-could stare down a president from his own party in 1993 before deciding to help Bill Clinton’s budget squeak by.
And it might help explain how he would seek the noble, if thankless, task of co-chairing a commission confronting the federal deficit. The panel failed to agree on specific details. But Kerrey offered his own recommendations on slowing the growth of Medicare, Social Security and other entitlements, including raising the retirement age to 70 and paring Medicare and Social Security benefits.
He had run for president himself in 1992 and never seemed quite into it. He had a perfect resume, the look, even a tinge of glamor (remember his dating actress Debra Winger?), but not the fire. He acted disconnected to some, almost like an onlooker to his own campaign. He was his own man, often exuding an outward dispassion, with a bit of self-righteousness, that can be unsettling to those accustomed to hail-fellow-well-met legislators.
Maybe that’s why on Thursday he did not merely criticize the Republicans’ quest for a $200 billion tax cut, but urged his fellow Democrats to tell Newt Gingrich and chums to “take the $200 billion tax cut and put it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
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And why he was so unambiguous when asked whether Clinton had shown leadership in dealing with entitlements.
“No.” Period.
At some point, one was reminded that Kerrey is the unlikely head of the party’s Senatorial Campaign Committee. It seems like another thankless task, with the Democrats not just a minority but likely to lose more seats because of retirements within their ranks.
He is unfazed. Maybe it’s a form of an overall resignation that also permits an honesty too risky for the truly ambitious.
Perhaps it’s true that past tragedy-and impending disaster-does focus the mind rather clearly and allow truth-telling.
Late Thursday, a colleague later gave me a videotape of something he has kept for years. It’s Kerrey at his 1988 Senate election night victory party. There, he did something quite remarkable: He sang a song.
Without accompaniment, and with a crowd of several thousand stone-cold silent, he launched into “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda,” a wrenching ode about the Australians who were among the allied forces slaughtered by Turkish resistance in the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli.
In part, it’s the tale of a soldier who lost both legs but was able to return home. Sang Kerrey from the gayly bedecked podium: “And when the ship sailed into Circular Key, I looked at the place where my legs used to be, and thanked God that there was no one there waiting for me, to grieve and to mourn and to pity.”
Then, like George C. Scott that one afternoon, he returned to the more scripted part of the show.
Conspiracies everywhere
If there was ever any doubt that journalism is a craft, not a profession with minimum entry standards and a code of regulation, it’s dispelled by the Western Journalism Center of Fair Oaks, Calif.
The center, chagrined about “press bias, distortion and imbalance,” has a conservative cast and agenda, and an obsession about the death of White House counsel Vincent Foster. They dispute an independent counsel’s conclusion that it was suicide.
Thursday, they called a press conference and drew some usual suspect media conspiracists, as well as the New York Post, the Christian Broadcasting Network and a Clinton-bashing newsletter, Clinton Watch.
With Reed Irvine, head of Accuracy in Media, which believes liberal biases control the media, in charge, the center unveiled a report of the crime scene and concluded that “homicide has not been ruled out.”
Vincent Scalice and Fred Santucci, former detective and former forensic photographer, respectively, with the New York City Police Department, were introduced to explain how they had re-created the crime scene, including using a person to play the role of Foster. Scalice and Santucci looked as if they had walked out of a very old “Kojak” (minus the leisure suits) in pursuit of perpetrators.
They disputed an independent counsel’s conclusion that it was suicide. Among other questions raised by Scalice: Why wasn’t there brain matter splashed on the head and the “vegetation surrounding it”?
In pressing their suggestion that he was killed and then moved into the park where he was found, Scalice not only wondered why the independent counsel’s report didn’t mention any grass stains on Foster’s shoes but also cited the rather musty quality of the unregistered gun found at Foster’s side.
“If I were to blow my brains out, I’d use a beautiful gun, an expensive gun, to make sure it went off.”
Very compelling.
Cokie Watch
Hey, it’s never too early to book paid speaking gigs.
The Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., proudly announces that its 1996 lineup of pundit speakers at its Florida Forum series will include Cokie Roberts of ABC on Jan. 25. Safe Card, a credit card insurance company, will help subsidize her appearance.
And if you can’t make that one, March 25 brings to Jacksonville “The McLaughlin Group,” featuring Morton Kondracke, Eleanor Clift, Fred Barnes, the Tribune’s Clarence Page, and moderator John McLaughlin, who will, as usual, take more than half the $20,000 or so, this time subsidized by CSX Transportation.