Democrat presidential candidate Martin O'Malley went to the Netroots confab over the weekend and ran into a spot of bother. The incident itself, however, is not as remarkable as this CNN headline:
O'Malley apologizes for saying 'all lives matter' at liberal conference
That's as good a summation of contemporary "liberalism" as anything.
Hillary Clinton, who otherwise hasn't put a foot right this entire campaign, made the shrewd decision to steer clear of this crowd.
~Speaking of not putting a foot right, here's a cautionary tale from Candia - no, not Canada, that's a large expanse north of here, but a town called Candia, way down in southern New Hampshire:
A campaign worker making calls for the Hillary Clinton campaign Friday evening called police after she reached one local household and heard screaming and a gunshot.
So just being canvassed by the Hillary campaign is enough to make the guy cry "Aaaargh!" and blow his brains out? Well, I can understand that.
No, no, wait, I've got the wrong end of the stick:
Candia Police Officer Kevin Mahoney said the man who answered the phone at a Crittle Hill Road home around 5 p.m. told the caller he wasn't interested and hung up.
But just before he did, he said, "She could hear what she thought was screaming and yelling in the background, then a gunshot, then more screaming and yelling."
The campaign worker had the address and called 9-1-1. Police responded in force... "Everyone was thinking it could be a murder-suicide or a domestic," [Mahoney] said.
Other agencies also responded to the residence, including state police and officers from Deerfield, Auburn and the Rockingham County Sheriff's Department.
As police cautiously approached the house, a barking dog apparently drew the attention of the woman who lives there. "She was totally shocked and surprised," Mahoney said.
It seems the screams and gunshots came from this mechanical apparatus that some people apparently have in their living rooms called "a television set". Presumably they were watching reruns of Hillary landing at Tuzla.
But let that be a lesson to you Bernie supporters: Tell the Hillary campaign that you're "not interested", and within minutes five different police agencies surround your house. Other campaigns use robocalls, Hillary uses robocops.
~Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry Tweets:
Defending conservatism against the cancer of Trump-ism – I hope you'll join me Wednesday in DC #Perry2016
But the cancer of Trumpism appears to be metastasizing!
Poll: Trump surges to big lead in GOP presidential race
Trump is at 24 per cent, which is quite something in a 16-man race. He's nearly double that of the second-place candidate, Scott Walker, at 13 per cent. Rick Perry is at four per cent.
We've had a lot of mail, pro and con, about yesterday's Trump/McCain column, and we'll get to some of it in the days ahead. The con mail was mostly concerned that Trump had slandered all prisoners of war, or even all those in uniform. I think anyone who watches the video would have to acknowledge that there was nothing on Trump's mind at that point other than his contempt for McCain. But even so. What's more damaging to the military? Trump taking a cheap shot over a war America lost two generations ago? Or the sitting president's weirdly relaxed attitude to five men in uniform dead on the ground in the war we're currently in who died defenseless because of a stupid, anachronistic government policy?
And what's more "disrespectful"? A Trump crack? Or Obama having to be kicked and dragged to lower the flags on the White House and other federal buildings? So that what took a few hours after the Aurora movie shooting and the Connecticut school shooting takes five days, because four dead marines and a dead sailor doesn't fit his "narrative"
Trump is Trump, and mouthing off and shooting from the hip is part of who he is. Obama's chilly, calculated, bloodless indifference to victims of Islamic supremacism is part of who he is. Which, honestly, is more disturbing?
~In Monday's Song of the Week, I mentioned that Joseph McCarthy Sr ("Alice Blue Gown") and Joseph McCarthy Jr ("Why Try To Change Me Now?") were the only father and son lyricists who can both claim to have had their songs sung by Frank Sinatra. Gary Perlman writes from Tokyo to object:
Dear Mark,
One comment on the otherwise superb column on 'Why Try to Change Me Now?' Joseph McCarthy Sr and Jr may be the only father-and-son lyricists to each have songs sung by Sinatra, but at least one other pair of songwriters can make the same claim: lyricist Gus Kahn ('It Had To Be You', etc) and his son, composer Donald Kahn ('A Beautiful Friendship'). I imagine this won't be the only letter on the subject, but thought I'd throw this in just in case.
Gary Perlman
Tokyo
Well, I know "(This is the end of) A Beautiful Friendship", and I knew the late Donald Kahn, who was a lovely man. And I always thought it was cute that "Beautiful Friendship" has music by Donald Kahn, son of Gus, and words by Stanley Styne, son of Jule Styne. So lyricist Gus Kahn sired a composer son, and composer Jule Styne sired a lyricist son.
Which means that, if you're correct, then Jule Styne and Stanley Styne would be yet another father and son to be recorded by Sinatra. At this rate, they might as well book a convention center: Sinatra sang not only "I've Got You Under My Skin" by Cole Porter but also "Ooh, Baby, You So Skanky" by his son Nigel Porter. Who knew?
The only flaw in the theory is that I can't recall ever hearing Frank sing "A Beautiful Friendship". I know Ella's record and Nat Cole's and a handful of others. Did Sinatra sing it on TV in the Fifties? If so, it's eluded my mental Rolodex. I know he did "Just Friends (lovers no more)" which is the same theme as "Beautiful Friendship" but inverted. But, if he ever did sing Donald Kahn's song, I'd love to hear it.
