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This week, our old pal Harry Shearer stops by to discuss his new web series Nixon’s The One. Also, Rob and James discuss the new book they’ve contributed to (yes, you must buy a copy of The Seven Deadly Virtues), and recap the big DC Ricochet meet up and the NRI event Rob presided over earlier this week. Then, will taking over the Senate be a disaster for the Republicans or does Obama want an excuse to fail (h/t Ricochet member Dominique Payne). Also, can you catch all the Blue Oyster Cult references in this podcast? We can’t.
Music from this week’s episode:
Campaigner by Neil Young
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Not a crook, EJHill.
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Second Nixon appearance this month!
Here’s hoping the GOP wins and takes control of the Senate. If (please God) that happens, here’s hoping they realize they’re on the hook to provide results. At a minimum, deliver bills to the president and force him to sign or veto them.
They need to realize that tweets and Facebook posts about visiting the school, or opening the post office; holding hearings; signing letters; sponsoring bills are ACTIVITIES, not RESULTS.
If they deliver 2 more years of activities, instead of delivering results, they’re going to have a hard case to make in 2016.
I visited the US Library of Congress today (including Jefferson’s Library), then the Supreme Court, strolled past the Senate building, hoping for a Republican takeover, then strolled down the Mall, left at the Washington Monument, down to the Jefferson Monument.
Looking out from where Jefferson stands, through the trees cleared by FDR, to the White House, I wondered whether Mr Obama ever looks towards the Jefferson Monument?
If he did, he might feel a little uneasy- oh, wait, probably not! Jefferson was a slave owner, in more ways than one.
The quotes on the inside of the Jefferson Monument include:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan.”
Was he prescient, or what? A little off, on common core, though ;-)
That’s Vol. 5 Number XL.
EJ, I’m glad you were able to drop in a full-length pic of Peter from his White House days.
Harry Shearer? Is that related to Harry’s razors? Did Lileks use that for a segway?
I’m up to seven or so by “262”. Missed an easy pick-up there, too about the MC’s maniacal focus on time. Tsk, tsk…
And so a man who thinks “the role of the satirist is to mock with great energy and avidity whoever is in the seat of power in the given moment” devotes his energies to mocking a president who has been out of office for 40 years and dead for 20?
I got a paltry eight BÖC references.
The left in America hated Richard Nixon because, as a member of HUAC, Nixon helped to prove that Alger Hiss committed perjury when he denied ever having been a member of the Communist Party . They were never going to forgive Nixon for that, no matter how far to the left his public policy prescriptions moved.
“7 Screaming fuzz busters.”
Cities “on flame” with rock and roll. “Going through the motions.”
“Secret Treaties.”
“Then came the last days of (the campaign).”
“Before the (show) a redcap.”
“M(C)-262”
“This ain’t the Summer of Love”
How nice it would be to have a friend like Harry Shearer, such an honest broker yet also pleasingly confident in his POV–a conversational thinker who will actually admit he has changed his view on something. Terrific. I can’t wait to watch the Nixon show through the lens of a Jack Bennyesque truth sayer. Harry’s observation about Nixon that what made him win also made him fail is what makes him a tragic figure, is it not? That’s why, IMO, Nixon will be viewed as tragic while Barack Obama, who exhibits equally thin-skinned impulses, will be seen, in the same passage of time, as tedious and tacky (“chickens**t” for real?!?)
On a different tack, I received one of the postcards James read from at the end. I was floored. (Full disclosure: I do not always vote.) If the Democrats try to intimidate me if I do not vote this time by calling me afterwards, I’ll tell them what I tell others who are aghast at my seeming lack of community spirit: I do not feel obliged to vote against someone in the absence of having someone to vote for. And then, of course, sc**w you.
Okay, nine, because (#2) Rob Long is Burning for you to sign up and join.
Great podcast, guys.
I heard a Cracked podcast once that said Lyndon Johnson recorded himself quite a bit and also he had his secretary listen in and take dictation on almost every phone conversation so he could read the transcripts at night in bed. Plus he was a lunatic. Maybe Johnson isn’t as identifiable as Nixon but there has to be some fodder there.
I named my beloved (and, sadly, departed) cat Milhouse.
I’m just sayin’…
I listened to that too. He and his little friend “Jumbo”. If there is any reason to put blame for societal ills on a president, Johnson is the most worthy for so many.
Is this a thing we were supposed to be doing?
How many times has he mentioned the southern strategy? Why not just say Nixon was a racist then? There’s no southern strategy. Nixon supported the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
The left loves to brag about standing up to The Man. As you said, the man is dead.
Since listening to the podcast, I have had the opportunity to watch a couple of the Nixon’s the One episodes on YouTube. Actually, I think there’s only two released so far.
They’re good.
Getting back to the podcast, I was impressed with Peter Robinson’s Nixon voice. We’re the same age, so I know that he grew into adolescence with Nixon as President. For me, and probably Robinson, Nixon was the first president I was really conscious of. Lyndon Johnson and John F Kennedy before him was remembered, but not like Nixon. I suspect that Robinson’s Nixon impression goes way back.
Oh, and Rob Long had to interrupt another James Lileks segue. How droll. If he must remark on it, how about waiting until the ad is over?
You have to understand that “The Southern Strategy” is another example of Democrat projection. They claim that the Republicans changed their philosophy and their positions in order to attract southern white voters. Prior to Nixon and Kevin Phillips, the GOP in Dixie was against law and order, against local control, against white people and in favor of voting discrimination and poll taxes – right? Then they changed with Nixon to be anti-black by enforcing civil rights laws and promoting affirmative action. Isn’t that clear?
In fact, only the Democrats changed. They went from being pro-white to being pro-black. They changed from calling white people who opposed them n-lovers to calling white people who opposed them racists. That was the Democrats’ real “Southern Strategy.”
I’d never thought of it that way, but I’m sure you’re right. What a marvelous insight!
Correct.
Looking forward to Harry doing his Obama impression. I do enjoy his Baghdad radio voice.
Peter reminds me of Howard Wolowitz.
I always love the “cover art” that comes with the podcasts. It gives me a chuckle almost every time.
Edit: Akk, that has to be the Elvis White House visit. But who is the suit of the inventor of the ISS toilet?
As a member of both Ricochet and Blue Oyster Cult, I was knocked over by the BOC references James wove into the “Mad About Milhouse” episode. Is it any wonder that my mind’s on fire? Gotta love this place.
Annnnd I recommend that as the line of the week, if not the year. Yes indeed: having learned at the DC meetup that Mr. Roeser – Buck Dharma, to fans and admirers – was a patron of the podcast, I thought it would be a gesture of respect to embed as many BOC titles in the flow of the show as possible.
Still kicking myself for not getting around to “Harvester of ISIL,” though.
(That’s great!)
‘Honored, man. I’ve admired your work for a long time.
Great podcast, I look forward to watching the Nixon series and I appreciate Mr. Shearer’s nuanced and appreciative views on the late President, especially his characterization of RMN as the “smartest man in the room”.
However, Harry Shearer did refer to Dr. Henry Kissinger as one of a number of “sycophants” of the President, and this cannot pass without rebuttal. Kissinger was and is the most prominent and distinguished public intellectual to have served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and his contributions to the cause of the West (and Israel) and the battle against totalitarianism were crucial during the time when the Soviet Union was probably at the peak of its grim powers. If such a man laughed a little too loudly at a President’s jokes, or was overly effusive in his praise of a Presidential speech, well, these are things that should pass without comment, and certainly without such a grievous insult.