REVIEW OF TOBY TALBOT'S "THE NEW YORKER THEATER," E.H. STAR, NOV. 5, 2009

The Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1960s was a unique moment in the cultural history of New York. The Yuppies and their gentrifying ways had not yet descended to transform it along the lines facetiously suggested by Elmore Leonard, in one of whose novels a character remarks that Moriarty's Funeral Home on Amsterdam avenue has been rechristened "Death 'n Things." The huge, spacious apartments in the solid old buildings lining Central Park West, West End Avenue and Riverside Drive that are now intensely sought after were still considered less tony than their East Side counterparts, and the side streets were a slum, infested with drug addicts and muggers. In the '60's, I was a Columbia graduate student living on 105th Street, which is now lined with condos that start at $3 million but was then a scary, depressing block.

But the West Side was a neighborhood of immense intellectual and artistic energy. Anchored by Columbia to the north and Lincoln Center to the south, the West Side was home to the Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical Society, many great schools (Collegiate, Trinity, Ethical Culture/Fieldston and my alma mater, P.S. 9) and a stunning variety of food shops -- the original Citarella (a small shop that sold just fish), Zabar's, Barney Greengrass, Murray's Sturgeon Shop. And there were movie theaters galore (most of them now gone): the Beacon, the 77th Street Theater, RKO 81st Street, Loew's 83rd Street, the Symphony, the Thalia, the Edison.

And, in every way first and foremost, the New Yorker.

Toby Talbot, author of "The New Yorker Theater," is the wife of Dan Talbot, who opened it in 1960. Her memoir is subtitled "And Other Scenes From a Life at the Movies," which suggests the all-inclusiveness of her project: to describe the workings of the business of exhibiting and (later, as the Talbots branched out) distributing films; to give us a portrait of a particular and unique time and place; to locate that moment in the larger history of America and indeed, of the world; to record her opinions and impressions on art, on film's changing place in the artistic spectrum, and on the filmmakers themselves; and to locate herself and her own personal experiences within all of the above.

That's an enormous agenda, and predictably, she does a better job with some of these things than others. I loved her view of upper Broadway from the box office of The New Yorker, and of the theater's patrons glimpsed from the candy counter in the lobby; they evoked for me the world I lived in with great force and vividness. She seems to have known everyone on the West Side, either personally or by sight and reputation, and she's very good at the thumbnail sketches of the people, both famous and anonymous, who passed through her life.

She's equally interesting when she talks about the mechanics of opening a theater and showing films in it. Little did I know, though I'd been there a hundred times, that The New Yorker's red plush seats had been acquired used from The Roxy when it closed. Or what really went on in the projection booth -- either in terms of the technical process of threading the spools into the complex machines, or what the projectionists were up to while the films played (especially the guy who amused himself in a predictable way while watching Marilyn Monroe movies).

Less successful, I think, are her long, meandering narratives of her elbow-rubbing with the celebrities of the film world. The New Yorker genuinely introduced to America the New Wave of European directors, but Talbot's approach to that subject is less filmic than social; she seems most comfortable telling us about becoming fast friends with director Bernard Bertolucci in Rome, which leads to the visit to Alberto Moravia's beach house, where at lunch Pier Paolo Pasolini sat on her right and Jean-Marie Straub showed up with his girlfriend and everyone ate lamb, baby peas and a torte siciliana. There are amusing anecdotes aplenty, but too often, what we hear is the thud of names being dropped. In 1985, we're told, screenings at the Talbots' new theater, Cinema Studio, were attended by "Irving Howe, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Alfred Kazin, Elie Weisel, Robert Brustein, Albert Goldman, Morris and Lore Dickstein, Daniel Stern, George Borchardt, and many other friends. . . ." The point being?

Also dispensable, I think, are the general history lessons. There's a section on Viet Nam, another on the student uprisings at Columbia, a third on the 1968 Democratic Convention, a fourth on where she was and what she was doing on September 11th. "The New Yorker" is organized arbitrarily, if at all; Talbot wanders back and forth among her memories, her meditations on art and politics, the events of her life, sociological analysis, and the recounting of narrative. And the prose is often mechanical and a little clanky; how could the author of several other books besides this one write a sentence like this description of Jean-Luc Godard: "A clefted chin lent a sense of definitiveness"?

So, in a potentially terrific book, less might have been more. A chapter on the film critics of the era seems dispensable, as does the one on Film Festivals, especially since nothing is said about the role these events play in the movie business, but consist instead of more stories of what happened when the Talbots attended Cannes or didn't attend Berlin or had already gotten back from Toronto. Still, "The New Yorker" occupies a popular niche, and will certainly appeal to film buffs, to New Yorkers, and to celebrity watchers. And there are valuable materials for cinematic historians as well; the whole last third of the book is devoted to photographs and to pages reproduced from the theater's records of what it showed when and (best of all) pages from the notebook in which its patrons were invited to enter comments, criticisms and wishes. It's a sampling of West Siders, the famous and anonymous sharing the same space. Susan Sontag, who included her address, asked for "Queen Christina." Joseph Lebo complained that the screen wasn't wide enough and requested "The Great Dictator". F.G. Leheimer noted sternly, in underlined caps, "Your camera is noisy." Well, F.G., you can't please everybody, and Talbot's book probably won't. But like the theater, despite its quirks, it's a useful addition to the film scene.

OCCASIONAL VERSE

Like a lot of other people, over the years I've written poems for special occasions -- chiefly birthdays, weddings, anniversaries. Lest they be lost to posterity, I thought I'd better get them out there. (The dates have been omitted to protect those who are now aged and infirm.)

To Nancy, on her birthday

A lady turning thirty-seven
Deserves a little piece of heaven --
A gift, perhaps, that costs as much as
If she were a queen or duchess,
Or, at the least, a birthday luncheon
That’s fit for goddesses to munch on.
But best-laid plans of men or mice
Sometimes with fate will cut no ice;
Because my knee my weight won’t lift,
I couldn’t shop for any gift,
And cause Danielle last night went whoopsie
No birthday outing for my Poopsie.
Still, I can pen these lines to say
To wife and mom, Happy Birthday!


To Harry Wise, on his birthday

Ode: To the Late Harry Wise

It might be on the squash court
Or at a restaurant;
It might be at the tennis club
Or any local haunt.
If you’re a friend of Heshy’s,
Just try this on for size
You’ll spend some time there waiting for
The Late Harry Wise.

He’s booked a court for seven;
My watch says twenty past.
I’ve stretched and warmed up three times, now;
My temper’s slipping fast.
It’s 7:27;
Blood pressure on the rise --
Another piece of gamesmanship
By the Late Harry Wise.

I’ve hit upon a scheme I think
Might really be a winner:
Reserve a table -- nine o’clock --
When we go out to dinner.
Then tell him it’s for half-past eight.
“Eight-thirty sharp,” he sighs.
Who shows up at 9:45?
The Late Harry Wise.

A vision of the future dim
This morning came to me:
A doleful group of mourners
Standing funerarily.
The grieving widow, all the kids,
Each dabbing at their eyes.
Who’s late for his own funeral?
The Late Harry Wise.

But now, before that fateful day --
O many years before --
Your friends are gathered round to say
We wish you many more.
I hope you’re at the table for
This poetic surprise,
But I’ll start without you if you’re late:
Happy Birthday, Harry Wise.




For Mary Freeman, on her Fiftieth

Mary at 50

Write a birthday poem that's funny
Says the note from Rappaport.
"Relevant" -- right on the money
(Just be sure to keep it short)
In a vein that's light and airy,
Something altogether nifty
To cheer up our good friend Mary
Who is closing in on fifty.

Fifty, you say Mary's turning?
Cannot be! No way, Jose´!
Though it seems we've known her always,
We just met her yesterday.
She's that young Cornell alumna
Lives off Lex on Ninety-fourth,
In a nice old roomy brownstone
Just a little too far north.

Taking courses toward her Masters',
Has a house at Lido Beach,
Has a husband who's a lawyer,
Has a daughter who's a peach.
Now a second peachy daughter,
Now a son, and now another --
Her career's on the back burner,
Mary's now a full-time mother!

Years are passing, bringing with 'em
Lots of joys and lots of debt;
They could use a private income
(Harvey now is with Korvette).
All that private school tuition,
Orthodonture, doctors' bills,
Even from the pediatrician --
Korvette's future's looking ill.

All at once we're in the eighties,
Harvey's building a hotel.
Mary's now in private practice,
Prospects rosy, life is swell.
But her kids are leaving home now,
And her friends are turning gray.
Time is passing much too quickly!
It's September -- where is May?

Yet it's not a time for panic.
Mary Freeman's here to show
How to pay with grace and beauty
Debts we all to Time do owe.
As our poem at last closes,
This is what it wants to say:
You're not getting older, Mary,
Simply better, every day!



For David and Jan Gordon, on their wedding day

David and Jan

Some loves last for now and ever,
Liz and Darcy, always true.
Some are sort of now or never --
Capulet and Montague.
But for you, all sunny weather,
Not a quarrel, not a rift.
May your happy days together
Last as long as does this gift.



For De Witt Snodgrass, who has just sent me his book of poems titled "Mexican Dance Suite" (mine is in the same meter)

To De Snodgrass

I’m in love with your Mexican Dance Suite --
It’s a metrical, technical neat feat!
Let me add, though I’ve no urge to repeat,
It was fun from beginning to end.

And of course it was beautifully printed;
On typography, you’ve never stinted.
It’s a rare mix of arts, newly minted --
I’m honored to call you my friend.

Oh, but what will you do for an encore?
Say which popular forms will you next score?
Rap, rock, folk, heavy metal, or all four?
A poetic, synthetical blend!

I can’t wait to find out what you’ll do next.
Please, De, send me posthaste any new text.
I assure you, if not I’ll be sore vexed --
Now I’ll just say so long until then.



Dialogue with Danielle (literally; she wrote the first one, I the second, when she was in high school)

SHE:
You [my Socrates
Reflecting mirrored . . . moon]
Look here from afar;
I [the apprentice
Changing form of playdough]
Ride the falling star.

I:
I [your old man
inordinately fond of Q & A]
smile toward the mountains as
You [once apprentice, now disciple]
ride the flubber like an astronaut into the thinning air.
Falling stars burn out young, but rising ones
are hard to catch. Better just to listen as
they sing into space.




A Sonnet to Josh Gladstone and Kate Mueth, on the occasion of their marriage

To Josh and Kate, not one impediment
Would we admit. Their love’s too true for that.
Their wedding cup contains no sediment,
No sweat-mark stains the band of their love’s hat.
Despite the nepotistic state of mind
Involved in casting the director’s squeeze
As female lead in Summer ‘99
They handled all the challenges with ease.
So yet another HSF romance
Has blossomed here along with Heather/Dave,
Dave/Amy, and the others in love’s trance --
Gladstone and Mueth are fast each other’s slave.
They’ll bear it out e’en to the edge of doom,
But I, I find, have now run out of room.

SIGNAGE REVISITED

Suppose you were following my directions to our house in East Hampton, and I had told you to stay on Stephen Hands Path until it dead-ended. You're on that road and you come to a fork at which sits this sign. Which way do you steer?

Wrong.

Despite the clear indication that you should bear left, Stephen Hands Path is to the right.

I realize that I've been preoccupied by signs lately; this is my third blog on them. The first dealt with the inexplicable grammar of a New York City parking sign, and the second with a threatening billboard posted by the Southampton Police Department showing a cop aiming a radar gun as if it were a Glock.

Of course, all English teachers are interested in signs; we're trained as semioticians (semiotics is the study of signs; same root as in "semaphore"). But road signs are more than just a subset for me; they constitute an index to how much a local government prizes its citizens.

New York State spent a lot of money over the past few years on large, elaborate message boards displayed on its parkways and highways, designed to inform motorists on traffic conditions ahead. Virtually all of them have stopped working. The one on the southbound Cross Island Parkway, which lets you know whether the Long Island Expressway or the Northern State Parkway is moving better, has never worked. Now there are signs only a year old on the parkways that are supposed to give you the time in minutes to a particular destination depending on which of several routes you take, and only one in ten seems to be in operation.

In East Hampton, main thoroughfares are labeled at every intersection, I guess to reassure you that you're still on the same road you've been on (which comes in handy if you take the left fork on Stephen Hands). But only about half the cross streets are identified. What's that about? Is the reasoning that anyone who would want to go to McGurk Street already knows where it is? On Memorial Day weekend, the roads are like a demolition derby, as renters try to figure out where they are and how to get where they're going -- making U-turns, swerving toward and then away from intersections, screeching to sudden stops. The locals have no patience at all for these tenderfeet (who, of course, support the local economy single-handed); they tailgate them, leaning on their horns, laughing all the way.

I guess it's a lost cause in this economy; no one is going to undertake an ambitious program of studying and replacing all the signs on all the roads in the state. So my tip of the month is, buy stock in GPS; it's becoming indispensable.

MY PROBLEM WITH ISRAEL

I'm a secular Jew. But my father's family wasn't secular. My grandfather was a founder of the Zionist movement, and my father, who was fluent in Hebrew, lent his support to the Irgun in 1948. So, in my half-assed way (never been there, never planted a tree), I've always wanted Israel to flourish, and for Palestinians to abandon their insane insistence that it disappear. But the Palestinian in the picture doesn't conform to my mental image of Hamas fanaticism. She looks like a defenseless old lady with troubles of her own who's resigned to being bullied by an Israeli thug with nothing better to do than test her patience. It's always bothered me when Europeans (particularly Brits, because I'm an Anglophile) side with the Palestinians, as when Vanessa Redgrave made her famous remark about "Zionist hoodlums"at the Academy Awards, as when British universities recently tried to shut Israeli professors out from international scholarly discourse. But if this picture shows us what it's like to be a Palestinian on the West Bank, I begin to comprehend the urge to lob a few rockets at Israeli settlements. Why is the guy walking around with a glass of wine in the middle of the day, anyway? Getting wasted? Or looking for a target of opportunity?

THE WORST PRODUCTION OF SHAKESPEARE I'VE EVER SEEN

Peter Sellars

I've always maintained that every production of Shakespeare was worth seeing -- that even Mrs. Birnbaum's 7th-grade King Lear at Great Neck Middle School had something to tell us about the play. I'm now amending my position: every production of Shakespeare is worth seeing except for the LAByrinth Theater Company's Othello, directed by Peter Sellars and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a fat, bellowing Iago floating among a cast of incompetent nobodies (Othello is played by the young, slight Latino actor John Ortiz without a hint of gravitas; that's him with Hoffman above) -- a plodding, pointless spectacle that goes on for over four hours. Sellars, who seems permanently shocked (see photo) as a way of signalling his intention to be shocking, describes his concept as "postracial," and therefore in tune with what he believes to be the contemporary world. Perhaps he's spent too much time away from America, which these days seems preoccupied with race than ever. Iago and Desdemona are white, in this version; Othello is Hispanic; almost everyone else is black, and so Sellars has succeeded in muddying the issue of race to the point where it has to be ignored. But then why do Othello at all?

And of course, there's that little detail of Shakepeare's text, which is all about race. Too obvious, I guess, for Sellars, who features sexual hangups to the exclusion of everything else. Cassio, in this version, is a rapist; and Othello has validated Iago's wildest fantasies by cuckolding him with Emilia. All this is made worse by the distracting multimedia clutter onstage that lets us know we're in 2008, not 1608. There must be 30 TV screens up there, whose only function seems to be to proclaim that they're TV screens. The trial of Othello with which the play begins is conducted entirely by cell phone (it reminds me of Monty Python's semaphore version of Wuthering Heights, except that we're meant to take this seriously).

Without Hoffman's star power, of course, there would be no lines around the block at the Skirball Center, where the play is being produced in conjunction with the NYSF. And Hoffman is simply terrible. The only emotion he attempts is anger, and he indicates it by screaming his lines at top volume . Even such an innocuous speech as "Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used; exclaim no more against it" emerges from a crimson face contorted with rage, accompanied by a spray of spittle. Hoffman also speaks with a glacial pace (the other actors do too, hence the length of the production), and consequently, every opportunity the text affords for playfulness, for wittiness, for the nimbleness of courtly speech, disappears. Cyprus seemed to me something like a holding cell in which violent, half-crazed felons who hate each other on sight have been locked together for our viewing pleasure.

Sellars is quoted on his company's website to this effect: "Watching the actors chew on Shakespeare is thrilling." Chew on scenery is more like it. "LAB[yrinth] actors are so used to danger," he goes on. "Danger" is a current buzzword among actors and directors; what it ought to mean is that they don't play it safe and make controversial choices, but when it comes to denote, as in this case, trashing the play in favor of an agenda that consists of little more than a puerile desire to pander to the audience's presumed appetite for mindless violence and endless yakkety-yak.

OK, I confess -- I left at intermission, after a two-and-a-half hour first act, along with my wife, friend Cyrus, and a significant portion of the audience. Strangers gathered on the sidewalk, like survivors of a near-disaster, consoling each other before heading for home, a bar, a restaurant -- anywhere that served wine, that good familiar creature, to drown our memories of the debacle we'd witnessed.

REVIEW OF THE LIVING ROOM AT MAIDSTONE, E.H. STAR

The inn formerly known as the Maidstone Arms has pruned a couple of its limbs and re-opened simply as Maidstone; the dining room has metapmorphosed into The Living Room. Change is obviously the order of the day. On a recent weeknight, four of us investigated chef James Carpenter's take on "New American with a Scandinavian twist." The Maidstone's website is proud to claim the restaurant's inclusion in the "slow food" movement, which is not a warning about the service but a commitment to everything that "fast food" is not -- they use locally grown produce, they smoke their own Norwegian salmon, they use sustainable ingredients like the salmon caviar that appears in several dishes, and there are eco-friendly touches like filtered water in place of the bottled stuff.

The restaurant is a little on the tight side, the tables slightly too small for the freight they have to bear, the servers forced to slalom through the spaces between them. But our waitperson was attentive, friendly and knowledgeable; when we asked a question about the food that she couldn't answer, she went back to the kitchen and got the information from the chef. We did have to ask (just once) for bread and for our second glass of wine to be poured, but on the whole the waitstaff coped well with their full house. The sound in the room was bright but never approached the kind of eardrum-puncturing din that some other restaurants register and even promote.

The wine list is weighted toward American wines, many of them local, with an excellent selection in the $30-50 range. We started with an old favorite, Wolffer's crisp and fruity rosé, which we drank with the appetizers, and then moved on to an excellent Castellare Chianti Classico, neither of which broke the bank. At those prices, it makes more sense to order by the bottle than pay double digits for a glass. There are some more formidable European vintages as well, for those who require them, of course; that's where a restaurant's profit is.

It's in the appetizers too, all but one in the two-figure range. We passed on the spinach soup garnished with a hard-boiled egg filled with caviar, though it sounded interesting, and opted for four from the menu, all of which were winners. We had a roasted beet salad with Valencia oranges and fennel, the sweetness of the beets offset by a little wedge of Camembert sitting on top. Then came Swedish råraka, tiny potato pancakes like Mother's, only better, garnished with crème freche and salmon roe, though $18 for four silver-dollar-sized cakes seemed excessive. This was followed by a dish that promised some drama: tarte flambé with Norwegian smoked salmon and crème freche (also $18); we were a little disappointed to find that it was essentially just a pizza, "flamed" in the kitchen, not at the table, but a couple of bites of its thin, tender crust, the creamy, salmony topping baked in, mollified us. Everyone's favorite app, though, was the fava bean ravioli in tomato bacon broth, the ravioli itself, perfectly tender, surrounding its fragrant filling, a relative bargain at $16.

But the main courses proved to be the weakest part of the menu. Only one -- the roasted rack of lamb with basil-infused crust, at $34 -- pleased all our (admittedly carnivorous) palates -- the lamb full of flavor but not gamy, and cooked precisely as specified. We dutifully ordered the vegetable Napoleon (the cheapest entrée on the menu at $24) so as not to shortchange our vegetarian readers, and while there were things to like about it, particularly the garnish of fresh figs that kept it awake, it was just a plateful of vegetables -- carrots, asparagus, several different roots -- in no particular arrangement. And though they were fresh and tasty, all of us would have preferred them to have been cooked a little longer, though we recognized that the crunch in the carrots was a purposeful choice by the chef, not a miscalculation. The pan-roasted halibut (a pricey $32) similarly suffered from uninspired presentation -- asparagus, carrots, cauliflower purée and a nicely browned, moist piece of fish sharing the plate like neighbors who are not quite friends. Finally, we opted for a piece of Scandinavian whimsy: "Veal Oscar" ($36), named for King Oscar II of Sweden, a 19th-century ruler who apparently enjoyed surf and turf. In The Living Room's interpretation, a tender, flavorful piece of sauteéd veal shared space with a shelled lobster claw and a smattering of sauce Bearnaise. Traditionally, it's made with flecks of crabmeat, which might have promoted better integration of the meat and seafood; as it was (here we go again), the ingredients, though individually delicious and well-prepared, didn't really meld into a coherent whole. Maybe we'd all have been happier with the special of pan-seared diver sea scallops, or the Flat Iron steak (that's from the steer's shoulder, also known as Top Blade, which, along with hangar and skirt steaks, is vying these days with the Porterhouse and shell cuts so beloved by steak-house frequenters), at $38.

At this point, we were neither unhappy nor thrilled, but the best was yet to come. Laura Donnelly, the Star's main reviewer and food columnist, doubles as The Living Room's pastry chef, and she's an inspired baker. Out came her creations, one better than the next -- the Catapano Farm sweet goat cheese tart (not too sweet, nor too tart); the Chocolate Trio (chocolate hazelnut tart, mocha mousse and chocolate mandarin sorbet, a dissertation on the variety of chocolate's tastes and textures), a raspberry and peach crisp with ginger streusal and homemade ice cream that left us gasping with delight. We also ordered a selection of ice creams and sorbets and wished we hadn't, not because they weren't excellent (the Mandarin orange sorbet piercingly flavorful), but because it meant foregoing the warm lemon pudding cake with blueberry compote. The ice creams are $6; the other desserts $9 and worth it.

The Living Room is top-tier East Hampton dining, in the company of 1770 House, Nick & Toni's and Della Femina and the stunning newcomer, Rugosa. Like those restaurants, it takes food seriously, and like them, it's not cheap; we managed to spend $100 a person (though that, of course, bought an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert and half a bottle of wine, more than any of us would normally order). At this time, unlike the other restaurants mentioned, The Living Room does not offer a prix fixe menu. On our next visit, I think we'll choose our main courses more carefully, or possibly forego them in favor of two apps. We'll resist the temptation to order every dessert on the menu. And we'll give thanks that the new chef in town is good enough to keep everyone else on their toes.

UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

"You lie!" The ejaculation by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) during the President's speech to Congress was accompanied, on screen, by looks of alarm and distaste on the faces of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi that suggested someone had farted. And the whole affair (including Wilson's totally disingenuous apology) has provoked a national debate on civility, or the lack thereof, in the discourse of American politics.

Rudeness is nothing new in the halls of government. Threats of violence and actual incidients of fisticuffs and caning and even duels to the death used to be common occurrences on Capitol Hill, and more recently, insult and invective have become the common currency of campaign rhetoric, to the point where no one is really surprised to hear Obama identified oxymoronically both as a socialist and a Nazi.

My Knee-Jerk Liberal response is to deplore the vulgarizing and cheapening of language and behavior, and to blame it largely on the Republicans -- well, on the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party, for whom hate speech is ofen a prelude to hate crimes (killing abortion doctors, for example). Sarah Palin announces that if Obama has his way, elderly citizens will be executed by "death squads"; Conservative talk-show hosts rile up the faithful to the point where a 9-mm sidearm seems an appropriate accessory for Americans attending a town meeting to discuss something as seemingly innocuous as the way to improve the delivery of health care. Democrats never behaved this way, I tell myself.

But it occurs to me that if they had -- if, while George II was making his bogus case for invading Iraq, cherry-picking or fabricating intelligence to support the laughable claims of cached WMDs aimed at Israel and the U.S., someone like Senator Hillary Clinton had risen during debate and in ringing tones told the President, "You lie," perhaps the slippery slope to war might have provided some traction to those (like Obama) who didn't believe Bush's claims but were, or felt, powerless to dispute them.

Bush, more than any other American president, tried (aided and abetted by Dick Cheney) to turn the office into an absolute monarchy -- to destroy the checks and balances on his power by neutering Congress, co-opting the CIA, and turning the Supreme Court (which, after all, installed him in the White House by skewing the results of the 2000 election) into an arm of the administration. But as the power of the President grew -- as he proclaimed himself not bound by Congressional limits on executive privilege, for example -- respect for him and for the office eroded. In 2003, Bush's opponents felt themselves were paralyzed by their respect for the office, if not the man. In 2009, Rex Rammel, an Idaho gubernatorial candidate, says he'd buy a license to hunt Obama and then claims he was only joking because "Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tages in Washington, D.C."

So, though it sickens me to hear people saying out loud and for attribution what was unthinkable before the New Millenium, I can't help wishing the process had begun ten years ago -- say, during the election campaign of 1999-2000. Al Gore is probably the last person one can imagine indulging in sicko verbal mudslinging, but there might have been other Democrats out there with poor impulse control and inventive vocabularies (Michael Moore comes to mind) who could have taught America just how lame, how unfit for the presidency, how untrustworthy and fundamentally dishonest George W. Bush was. And just maybe, if people of influence hadn't yeilded to the inhibitions that all civilized people used to share, we wouldn't be asking ourselves every day how we got into the twin messes of a disastrous war and a failed economy.