Besides the end of the War to End All Wars (which didn’t end all wars but led directly to the next war) and the day Americans remember and honor those whose service and sacrifice allow me to freely write this and you to freely read this, what else happened Nov. 11?
Today in 1954, Bill Haley got his first top 10 single, “Shake Rattle and Roll,” originally a Joe Turner song. Haley had changed the name of his band, the cowboy-motif Saddlemen, to His Comets.
Imagine what the Transportation Security Administration would have done with this: Today in 1969, the FBI arrested Jim Morrison for drunk and disorderly conduct on an airplane. Morrison and actor Tom Baker had been drinking and harassing stewardesses on a flight to Phoenix. Morrison and Baker spent a night in jail and were released on $2,500 bail.
Today in 1972, an era when pretty much everything would go in rock music, listeners got to hear the first example of what might be called “yodel rock”:
The first is from “Hawk,” a 1966–67 ABC-TV series about a New York City police detective, played by Burt Reynolds. “Hawk” was replayed in the summer of 1976 on NBC, in order to capitalize on Reynolds’ popularity, and because, well, NBC had nothing better to show at the time.
The second is from “NYPD,” a 1967–69 ABC series about a group of New York City police detectives. I remember seeing “Hawk” on NBC, and years later in syndication. I have never seen “NYPD,” one of TV’s last half-hour dramas, anywhere except YouTube.
From those two series lies a tale from the Classic TV History blog about how Hollywood operated in the 1960s. Long story short: “Hawk” lasted only one season for various reasons, even though …
Hawk was a cop show that debuted on ABC on September 8, 1966. It had a simple premise. John Hawk (Burt Reynolds) was a tough young plainclothes detective who caught killers, thieves, and other felons. There were two gimmicks. One, Hawk was a full-blooded Native American. Two, he worked the night shift. Hawk never saw daylight, and neither did the viewer.
Let’s look again at the credits of the Hawk pilot, which was titled “Do Not Spindle or Mutilate.” Hubbell Robinson was one of television’s most respected independent producers, a former CBS executive whose championing of Playhouse 90 (which he created) and other quality television had damned him as, perhaps, too cerebral for the mainstream. The writer was Allan Sloane, a recent Emmy nominee for an episode of Breaking Point. Sam Wanamaker, who had spent his years on the blacklist as a distinguished Shakespearean actor in England, directed. Kenyon Hopkins, composer of East Side / West Side’s brilliant, Emmy-nominated jazz score, wrote the music, and The Monkees impresario Don Kirshner is in there as a “music consultant,” whatever that means. Oh, and the guest villain, the guy who bundles up a bomb in a brown paper wrapper before the opening titles? Gene Hackman.
And what about that missing name? He had some Emmys on his shelf, too. The producer of “Do Not Spindle or Mutilate,” the one who’s not mentioned in any reference books or internet sites, was Bob Markell, fresh off a stint producing all four seasons of The Defenders. The Defenders won multiple Emmy Awards every year it was on the air, including the statue for Best Drama (which Markell took home) during the first two seasons. Hawk was only Markell’s second job following The Defenders. So why was his name expunged?
“There are a lot of well-kept secrets about me,” said Markell in an interview last month.
The story is interesting, particularly because of what replaced “Hawk”:
Markell’s highlight reel sold the stripped-down N.Y.P.D. pilot to the network. Superficially, the new show was similar to Hawk. Both spilled out into the streets of Manhattan, updating the grimy, teeming urban imagery of Naked City and East Side / West Side with a burst of color. But Hawk courted a film noir sensibility – John Hawk was the lone wolf, hunting at night – and N.Y.P.D. was about the institution, the process. It followed three detectives of varying seniority as they plowed methodically through the drudgery of police work: legwork, surveillance, interrogation. …
Hawk ran on Thursdays at 10 PM, N.Y.P.D. on Tuesdays at 9:30. But it seems likely that ABC had only one “slot” for a stylish Manhattan police drama on its schedule, and that N.Y.P.D.’s pickup had been contingent upon Hawk’s cancellation. And the network probably told Markell as much.
What do all these series have in common? For one thing, they look and sound (as in their soundtracks) great from the beginning:
They all had a gritty view of New York before New York’s nadir in the 1970s and 1980s. (Did art imitate life, or did art precede life?) They were all in the Television Code days, before words you couldn’t then but can now say on TV, before things (and body parts) you couldn’t show then but can now show on TV.
It’s not as if we can go back, but one wonders why TV producers can’t combine the best of both worlds today.
Corporate America never was among those chanting “four more years.”
For businesses, President Barack Obama’s victory means above all an end to hopes for what might have been—a more sympathetic ear in the White House, a lighter touch with regulation, business-friendly changes to the tax code, an attenuation of the health-care overhaul.
Instead, CEOs are simultaneously hoping for a softening of the perceived standoff that characterized the president’s first term in office while bracing for more of the same.
The energy sector, for example, worries Mr. Obama will feel obliged to reward crucial support from environmentalists by continuing to crack down on energy exploration and drilling practices that have been criticized. The telecom sector is shelving plans for big acquisitions that might have been more feasible under a Mitt Romney administration. And companies are preparing for provisions of the health-care overhaul that will soon come into effect.
On top of all that are wild cards like the debate over the half a trillion dollars in spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff, and potentially expensive policy issues like climate change. Concerns about such issues were front and center in the stock market on Wednesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 275 points.
Great start to that second term, Obama voters: A 313-point drop in the stock market. Worst stock day of the year. Money votes too.
Add to that this: “House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) on Wednesday said he is ready to negotiate a budget deal with President Barack Obama to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff that includes new tax revenues, as long as Democrats agree to cuts and changes to federal entitlement programs.”
So the House GOP is surrendering already. Any reader who believes Democrats will not raise taxes on the “middle class” as part of a “so-called fiscal cliff” deal is deluding yourself. (Of course, I would favor a tax increase on Democrats at a level high enough to make them suffer. I am unwilling to waste more of my tax dollars on government than I already do.)
The Washington Post reports that (senile) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “said he spoke to Boehner and that they agreed not to “draw lines in the sand” on taxes.” Which is Washingtonspeak for “we’re raising your taxes, ha ha ha!”
Of course, business knows that taxes aren’t the only tax on business, as the U.S. Small Business Administration even admits (via the Western Center for Journalism):
A study done by the Small Business Administration (SBA) said that in 2010, the annual cost of Federal regulations was $1.75 trillion. Our national debt is over $15 trillion, which amounts to about 11.5% of GDP. That’s a lot of money. Think of the impact on our struggling economy if we were able to cut those costs in half.
Why do regulations have a cost?
When government creates a rule (regulation), they often have to hire more public sector workers to enforce it. This expands government and pulls more people out of the private sector where goods and services are produced.
The other major cost is that businesses are forced to comply in order to avoid breaking the law. Often, the new rule means a business has to hire new staff members to make sure the business is following the rules. The business has to redirect money it was planning to spend on creating goods and services for its customers towards people who make sure they follow rules. …
Think of it. Who is in a better position to absorb the cost of massive regulation—large business or small business? Of course, the answer is large business because they have more money, scale, and staff to deal with these issues.
So what ends up happening?
The regulatory cost acts as a barrier on small business. As a result, small businesses suffer and aren’t as competitive as large businesses. In many cases, the small business either goes out of business, goes bankrupt, or the large business acquires the struggling small business. Therefore, increased regulations guarantee more large business! …
Small business makes up 99.7% of all employer firms and creates more than half of GDP growth. When government over-regulates, American small business suffers. Because small business is the backbone of this country, when American small business suffers, our whole economy suffers.
Business has every reason to be upset and angry with the election results. Business’ employees will feel the brunt when the economy slides back into recession and today’s unemployment/underemployment rate looks like good times. (Which is already starting.) One would think that business is the solution to improving the unemployment/underemployment rate, but the Democratic Party thinks otherwise.
A friend reminded me of Ronald Reagan’s observation that there are no smart people in politics because smart people are in business because the money’s better. To paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr., I’d rather be governed by the membership of any chamber of commerce than the members of any legislative body. Business people have to earn their money.
Whatever happens at the presidential level, conservatives in Wisconsin will be still be ascendant after today election: Scott Walker will still be governor and Republicans will have strong — maybe even stronger — majorities in both the Assembly and the Senate, ensuring continuing support for his agenda. …
In 2010, no state switched as decisively from Blue to Red as Wisconsin. Before the 2010 election, Democrats controlled the governorship, both houses of the Legislature and all the levers of power in state government. After that election, they controlled none. As a result, Walker was able to advance one of the boldest agendas of any governor in the country.
And on Wednesday — after two years of turmoil, protests and recall elections — he will be positioned to move ahead aggressively. …
In other words, Wisconsin will continue to be ground zero in the conservative revolution.
The biggest reason, irrespective of the votes for Assembly or Senate, is that Wisconsin has the most powerful governor in the nation, thanks to the governor’s veto power. If Walker doesn’t want something to happen, it isn’t going to happen.
Tucker Carlson has another prediction independent of the presidential race:
… we already know the loser in this election cycle: political reporters. They’ve disgraced themselves. Conservatives have long complained about liberal bias in the media, and with some justification. But it has finally reached the tipping point. Not in our lifetimes have so many in the press dropped the pretense of objectivity in order to help a political candidate. The media are rooting for Barack Obama. They’re not hiding it. …
Remember his last press conference? On August 20, the president made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room. (Obama has held fewer press conferences even than George W. Bush.) The first question went to Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press. Here’s what Kuhnhenn asked, in full and unedited:
“Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for being here. You’re no doubt aware of the comments that the Missouri Senate candidate, Republican Todd Akin, made on rape and abortion. I wondered if you think those views represent the views of the Republican Party in general. They’ve been denounced by your own rival and other Republicans. Are they an outlier or are they representative?”
In other words: Just how horrible are your opponents? That’s not a question. That’s an assist.
Most telling of all, nobody in the press corps seemed to find Kuhnhenn’s suck-up remarkable, much less objectionable. Reporters who push Obama for actual answers, meanwhile, find themselves scorned by their peers — as we discovered the hard way when our White House reporter dared ask Obama an unapproved question during a presidential statement in the Rose Garden. Months later, longtime Newsweek correspondent Jonathan Alter confronted us on the street and became apoplectic, literally yelling and shaking and drawing a crowd, over the exchange. His complaint: our reporter was “rude” to Obama. …
The point is that many in the press are every bit as corrupt as conservatives have accused them of being. The good news is, it’s almost over. The broadcast networks, the big daily newspapers, the newsweeklies — they’re done. It’s only a matter of time, and everyone who works there knows it. That may be why so many of them seem tapped out, lazy and enervated, unwilling to stray from the same tired story lines. Some days they seem engaged only on Twitter, where they spend hours preening for one another and sneering at outsiders.
By the next presidential cycle most of these people will be gone. They’ll have moved on to academia or think tanks or Democratic senate campaigns, or wherever aging hacks go when their union contracts finally, inevitably get voided. They’ll be replaced by a vibrant digital marketplace filled with hungry young reporters who care more about breaking stories than maintaining access to some politician or regulator.
I wrote in this space earlier that any reporter who sucks up to politicians, regardless of party, is committing journalistic malpractice. ABC-TV’s Sam Donaldson didn’t suck up to Ronald Reagan. CBS-TV’s Dan Rather didn’t suck up to Richard Nixon. I assume reporters didn’t suck up to Lyndon Johnson. The era of reporters massaging politicians was supposed to end with Watergate.
On issue after issue, in fact, the media haven’t covered Obama as much as they’ve covered up for him, whether it’s the dismal state of the economy, the failure of his policies or the increased troubles abroad. …
But whoever wins the White House, the fact remains that the country faces huge problems that must be addressed. And after the election, the press is sure to churn out what can charitably be called “now they tell us” stories about these matters, once any potential election impact has passed. …
Among other stories the media are likely to “discover” after the election is over:
• The economy really does stink. The press studiously ignored the ongoing economic catastrophe under Obama, while parading any “green shoot” they could find that suggested growth was around the corner.
Don’t be surprised if, after the election, they start to notice that three years of subpar growth have left the middle class further behind and more mired in poverty, and created a vast pool of long-term unemployed.
• Massive debt and entitlement crises loom. Despite four straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits and a national debt that now exceeds total GDP, the media largely treated the debt crisis with a collective yawn.
Ditto the looming bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security. These crises are nevertheless real and will have to be dealt with soon, a fact the press will almost certainly acknowledge after Nov. 6.
• The debt ceiling limit is fast approaching. Another story that went largely unremarked this campaign is the fact that the country is approaching the new debt ceiling limit. The Treasury Dept. warned last week that it expects the government to reach its borrowing limit before the end of the year.
Congress and the White House will have to deal with that just as they’re trying to avoid the fiscal cliff.
• ObamaCare isn’t what it was cracked up to be. After two years of ignoring health reform’s fundamental flaws, the press will likely admit that ObamaCare is fundamentally flawed.
Reports are sure to appear pointing out the law’s lack of cost controls, its adverse impact on doctors and hospitals, and the fact that, after spending $1.76 trillion, it will still leave 30 million uninsured.
• Obama’s deficit-cutting plan won’t work. The press let the president get away with one of the biggest whoppers yet — that his tax hikes on “the rich” would be enough to pay for his spending binge and bring down the deficit $4 trillion.
Obama’s own budget proved this wasn’t the case. And after the election, you can bet the media will be “shocked” to find that his numbers didn’t add up.
• Questions about Benghazi still demand answers. After almost two full months spent burying the Benghazi story, expect the mainstream press to wake up and notice that, as the Washington Post admitted in an editorial last Friday, “a host of unanswered questions” remains.
The culturally cohesive America of the 1950s that some of us remember, usually glossing over racial segregation and the civil rights movement, is no longer with us and hasn’t been for some time.
That was an America of universal media, in which everyone watched one of three similar TV channels and newscasts every night. Radio, 1930s and 1940s movies, and 1950s and early 1960s television painted a reasonably true picture of what was typically American.
That’s not the America we live in now. Niche media have replaced universal media.
One America listens to Rush Limbaugh; the other to NPR. Each America has its favorite cable news channel. As for entertainment, Americans have 100-plus cable channels to choose from, and the Internet provides many more options. …
We’re more affluent than we were in the 1950s (if you don’t think so, try doing without your air conditioning, microwaves, smartphones and Internet connections). And we have used this affluence to seal ourselves off in the America of our choosing while trying to ignore the other America.
We tend to choose the America that is culturally congenial. Most people in the San Francisco Bay area wouldn’t consider living in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, even for much better money. Most Metroplexers would never relocate to the Bay Area.
There are plenty of smart and creative and successful people in both Americas. But they don’t like to mix with each other these days. …
They especially don’t like to talk about politics and the cultural issues that, despite the prominence of economic concerns today, have largely determined our political allegiances over the last two decades.
One America tends to be traditionally religious, personally charitable, appreciative of entrepreneurs and suspicious of government. The other tends to be secular or only mildly religious, less charitable on average, skeptical of business and supportive of government as an instrument to advance liberal causes. …
Ronald Reagan, speaking the language of the old, universal popular culture, could appeal to both Americas. His successors, not so much. Barack Obama, after an auspicious start, has failed to do so.
As a result, there are going to be many Americans profoundly unhappy with the result of this election, whichever way it goes. Those on the losing side will be especially angry with those whose candidate won.
Americans have faced this before. This has been a culturally diverse land from its colonial beginnings. The mid-20th century cultural cohesiveness was the exception, not the rule. …
Now the Two Americas disagree, sharply. Government decisions enthuse one and enrage the other. The election may be over, but the Two Americas are still not on speaking terms.
Politics is a zero-sum game. One side wins, the other loses. Given the nastiness level of this campaign, how do we deescalate? If you felt passionately about issues before Election Day, do you not care anymore today? If that’s the case, the last two years have been a joke.
If, for instance, you believe life begins at conception and abortion thus is an evil, how do you compromise on that? If you believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, how do you compromise on that?
Today is election day. In less than a day, to paraphrase Gerald Ford, our long national nightmare will be over.
Election Day is a long, long day for three groups — candidates and their supporters, poll workers and municipal and county clerk offices, and the media.
(Before I resume: Kudos to Ted Ehlen for finding these YouTube clips.)
The first election radio coverage took place in 1920. The first election TV coverage took place in 1948:
My parents may have watched the 1960 results, but maybe they were distracted by their wedding two months from then:
The first presidential election I was alive for was 1968, but given that I was 3 and my parents strictly enforced bedtimes, I’m guessing I didn’t watch:
The first presidential election I remember was 1972. The rumor around my elementary school on the far East Side of Madison was that George McGovern was going to make us go to school on Saturdays. At least in some parts of the People’s Republic of Madison, Richard Nixon was the one that election.
The presidential election I first paid real attention to, though, was 1980. I was getting ready to stay up late, possibly all night, for the too-close-to-call election. And then, at 7:15 p.m., NBC-TV called the presidential election for Ronald Reagan. (While Reagan was taking a shower, by the way.)
Calls that early don’t happen anymore because the networks now are loath to call an election before the polls close on the West Coast, lest a particular projection result in people not bothering to vote. That famously occurred in 2000, when CBS called Florida for Al Gore while people were still voting in the Panhandle, which is one time zone behind the rest of the state. (More about that election in a few paragraphs.)
The only election I’ve been involved in as a participant, sort of, was 1984, when I worked on the successful campaign of a state representative trying to advance to the state Senate. (You’ll never guess who the candidate was.) I may have been the only person at the election party that night who was totally satisfied with the results, because my choices for state Senate and Assembly and president (the latter of whom was from a different party from the legislative candidates) all won.
That was while I was in college. College is a great time to be involved in politics because, even though you think otherwise, you don’t have much invested in the outcome. When you become an adult and have things like homes, retirement savings, etc., suddenly watching becomes less fun because you have more (literally) invested in the outcome.
The first election I ever worked in the media was 1988, when I was calling in results to the Associated Press while compiling results from the Grant County Courthouse. That night I devised the Last Precinct Game, trying to figure out which precinct would be the final precinct to report its results. The chances of being the Last Precinct increase by distance, and nearly every election afterward I called some town clerk in the middle of the night to get their election results.
My least favorite election night was 1992. Not because of the results, but because of the fact that very, very early Election Day was the day my wife and I returned from our honeymoon to Mexico. When we left, it was 85 and partly cloudy; when we arrived at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, it was 37 and sleeting. At 3:30 the morning after, I was sitting in the old Tri-County Press office in Cuba City barely able to type and trying to get the newspaper done.
My highlight from 1996’s election night was going to two parties for Congressional candidates. The first party was for the winning candidate; the second was for the losing candidate, who I knew and for whom I had voted. Winning-candidate parties are more fun (particularly if the winner’s dog is allowed to drink champagne at the party).
The most memorable election night, which was much longer than one night, took place four years later. The month-long election night began when I made an appearance on a radio station that had to end before midnight because my wife was on call with the local ambulance starting at midnight. Even though journalism is the opposite of math, we were able to figure out that the one state that would decide the election was Florida, or, as NBC’s Tim Russert wrote on his famous whiteboard, “FLORIDA FLORIDA FLORIDA.”
Because our oldest son was sick, I held him and paced in front of our TV and watched the results until CNN projected George W. Bush’s winning Florida and thus the election around 1:15 a.m.
I put our son to bed, watched about an hour longer, and then went to the kitchen to clean up, and for some reason turned the TV back on to hear NBC report that the margin was strangely tightening despite the networks’ projection. That seemed too bizarre to be true, so I turned off the TV and went to bed.
An hour later, we were in the hospital emergency room because our son started coughing. The doctors gave us the news he … had a cold. I got 90 minutes of sleep that night, which was 90 more minutes of sleep than anyone working in daily media.
Wisconsin Public Television had a Friday-night public affairs show, “WeekEnd,” where I occasionally appeared as a pundit. The Friday after elections “WeekEnd” had what it called the Election Hangover Show. I ran into a fellow panelist who had announced he was leaving the show after the election; he pointed out that he couldn’t retire if the election wasn’t over.
The election was certainly not over. Those who follow politics learned more than they ever wanted to about Florida election law. (You age yourself if you know the meaning of the term “hanging chads.”) I was sending daily emails to readers of my business magazine making observations and predictions based on logic … predictions that were almost all wrong.
That election finally ended one month later, when our viewing of NBC’s “Law & Order” was interrupted by Tom Brokaw’s announcement of a “split decision,” which, as NBC’s Carl Stern and Dan Abrams reported, was not a split decision at all.
In my lifetime, the 1968, 1976, 1992 and 2004 elections weren’t called until Wednesday. In case you think that’s late, 2000 proves there is such a thing as later. Much later.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 