Television review: 'The Promise'

HBO doc features Bruce Springsteen and the making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town.'

By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times Television Critic
http://www.latimes.com/
October 7, 2010

Bruce Springsteen is the subject of the documentary "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town.' " (Frank Stefanko, Sony Music Entertainment)

There was a time when major figures of pop and rock were willing to let people with movie cameras follow them around just to see what they might see, but the contemporary rock-doc is more likely to represent an act of managed self-promotion than of reckless self-exposure. (Reality television, which uses dirty laundry to bolster flagging careers, does not count.) You should not expect to see another "Don't Look Back" (D.A. Pennebaker watches Bob Dylan toy catlike with reporters, fans, friends) or "Gimme Shelter" (the Rolling Stones clueless at Altamont, as seen by the brothers Maysles) or "Let It Be" (Beatles rehearse breakup on camera for Michael Lindsay-Hogg), or even Madonna's less-than-flattering "Truth or Dare" anytime soon. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with a portrait of an artist from the artist's perspective — if the artist has one.

There are few musicians more compulsively or articulately self-reflective than Bruce Springsteen; "Know thyself" could stand as the motto for his whole career, and the 61-year-old product of that long refinement is your guide for "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town,'" which looks back at the creation of what is in many ways his most important, if not actually his most successful album. The film, which premieres Thursday on HBO, about a month before it appears as part of a three-CD, three-DVD expanded reissue, was born as a promotional piece. (A similar documentary, "Wings to Wheels" — directed, like this one, by Thom Zimny — was included in the 2005 reissue of Springsteen's "Born to Run.") But it's an interesting and lively one.

If this is a piece whose primary appeal will be to fans, that is still a whole mess of people, and strangers who wander in will find some compelling music and a remarkably articulate rock star whose aims and priorities will seem remarkably distinct from what they might imagine rock star aims and priorities to be. (Compare and contrast the recent "Stones in Exile," assembled to accompany a rerelease of the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street.")

The songs on "Darkness," says Springsteen, were made in part as "a reaction to my own good fortune" and to satisfy "a sense of accountability to people I'd grown up alongside" — the people who, but for the grace of a Fender guitar, he might still be among.

After the success of "Born to Run," the singer had been kept from recording for a year and a half as a result of a legal battle with a former manager. When he finally got back in the studio in the fall of 1977, after much touring and woodshedding — we see shirtless rehearsals of new songs at his New Jersey farmhouse — he had something different in mind from the Turnpike operas and alley-ballet scores he was famous for, a "music that felt angry and rebellious yet it also felt adult," informed, spiritually if not sonically, by punk rock on the one hand and country music on the other. The very sound of the record, stripped and stark and evocative of "the players fighting for space" (in the words of Chuck Plotkin, who mixed the record) obliges Springsteen's theme of a "life of limits and compromise but also a life of resilience and commitment to life."

The heart of "The Promise," which takes its name from one of the many songs that didn't make the album's final cut, is the black-and-white video footage shot in the studio during those months of recording. We see it in snippets rather than in scenes, but it gives some indication of the tediousness and intensity (and the technical issues) that make up making a record. There is some allusion to creative tensions, but this is more declared than shown — there are no thrown chairs, or petulant ultimatums, or sudden walk-outs — and it's no revelation to learn that the Boss can be a demanding boss.

For the most part "The Promise" swaths a difficult time in a warm glow of remembered good times, older selves recalling younger, content in the knowledge that the thing they have together is good. There's a lot of laughter, in the new footage and the old. Even Mike Appel, the manager who kept Springsteen from recording all those years ago, is a friend again — a perfectly appropriate conclusion to the story that "Darkness" begins.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times



Shedding Some Light on ‘Darkness’

By MIKE HALE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
October 6, 2010

A lot of motives might have been at play in “The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ ”: nostalgia, vanity, a desire for documentation or benediction. One thing that’s undoubtedly on display, though, is bravery.

For much of the documentary, making its debut Thursday night on HBO, the director, Thom Zimny, cuts between a contemporary interview with Bruce Springsteen and footage shot more than 30 years ago of the young Bruce, an intense and beautiful creature who looks like the Robert De Niro of “Mean Streets,” but friendlier.

Frank Stefanko/Sony Music Entertainment

Bruce Springsteen in “The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,’ ” on HBO.

Mr. Springsteen, now 61, is aging remarkably well, but still — how many of us, at that age, would want to spend an hour and a half being compared with our 28-year-old selves?

Those scenes of Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band in the studio during the year they worked on “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” their fourth album, were shot in grainy black and white by Barry Rebo, a future cinematographer and producer. Along with old color home movies of the Springsteen family, they give “The Promise” a surface resemblance to Bruce Weber’s great musical documentary “Let’s Get Lost,” about the trumpeter Chet Baker.

“The Promise,” however, is much smaller in scope. It’s a standard making-of documentary, proceeding chronologically through the tribulations and triumphs on the road to the 1978 release of “Darkness,” three years after “Born to Run” — an agonizingly long gap at a time when new songs on the radio were the only way to reach a mass audience.

What elevates the film are its subjects, both the artist and the album, which established a style and a set of themes that would define Mr. Springsteen’s subsequent career. Punk, which was developing at the same time, may get all the credit for revolutionizing popular music, but Mr. Springsteen’s determination to move away from the highly engineered and sterile perfectionism of 1970s rock made “Darkness” just as innovative in its own way.

Springsteen fans — a particularly knowledgeable and devoted audience — will be mesmerized by Mr. Rebo’s footage, which, according to HBO, has never been shown publicly. Those of us who remember where we were when we first heard the album can indulge our nostalgia while taking in the evidence of Mr. Springsteen’s stubborn yet calm determination to find exactly the sound he was seeking.

Happiest of all will be the Springsteen completists, rewarded by nuggets like his singing of “Candy’s Baby” (an earlier version of “Candy’s Room”); an alternate verse of “Something in the Night” or the never-released “What’s the Matter Little Darling”; or songs that went to other artists, like “Because the Night” (Patti Smith) and “Talk to Me” (Southside Johnny).

In the background of one shot Mr. Zimny identifies the fan Obie Dziedzic, who advised his hero to record the version of “Racing in the Street” that included a verse about a girl he met — thereby helping preserve some of Mr. Springsteen’s most romantic lyrics. (“Tonight my baby and me we’re gonna ride to the sea/and wash these sins off our hands.”)


In addition to the interview with the latter-day Mr. Springsteen “The Promise” includes reminiscences by most of the core members of the E Street Band and the producers Jon Landau and Jimmy Iovine. Mr. Springsteen is as intelligent and articulate a commentator as always, but he doesn’t have much to say that sounds new. On the themes that underpin “Darkness,” like sin or “deep despair, resilience, determination,” you’d rather just hear him sing.

More enlightening is Chuck Plotkin, who was brought in to help Mr. Iovine mix the album and who describes how Mr. Springsteen communicated the sounds and effects he wanted to achieve through visual, cinematic images. More amusing is Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist and latter-day “Sopranos” star, who still gets testy on the subject of the 70 new songs he had to learn before Mr. Springsteen chose the 10 that would make it onto the album. (“The Promise” was one of the rejects, after the band had spent three months rehearsing and recording it; it would show up 21 years later on “18 Tracks.”)

“The Promise” (the film) fits on the shelf with other friendly documentaries released in the past few years about great rock songwriters of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Tom Petty. It doesn’t approach the complexity or panache of Martin Scorsese’s movie about Mr. Dylan or Jonathan Demme’s films about Mr. Young, but in its modest way it’s a fitting tribute to an album meant to be lean, angry and unadorned.


Shedding light on Bruce Springsteen's 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'

By Jay Lustig
The Newark Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/
Wednesday, October 06, 2010

The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town
(Thursday night at 9 on HBO, with 12 other airings on HBO and HBO2 through Oct. 30)

Tomorrow is a big day for Bruce Springsteen fans, with the debut of “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” on HBO.

But the really big day is more than a month away.

The 90-minute documentary is just one part of the three-CD, three-DVD reissue of Springsteen’s classic 1978 album, “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which comes out Nov. 16 (and is similarly called “The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story”). The documentary is well-made and fascinating, but it’s still just a minor attraction compared with the 21 previously unreleased tracks and pristine 1978 concert footage that will be included in the package.

Springsteen always has been a prolific songwriter. But in the “Darkness” era, he was a songwriting machine, churning out some 70 songs for the project before narrowing them down to 10 that conjured the stark, desperate mood he wanted. “We didn’t want any sweetening; we wanted coffee, black,” says Springsteen producer-manager Jon Landau in the documentary, which was recently shown at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Songs that didn’t fit the mood got left off, no matter how worthy. Some, such as “Fire,” “Because the Night” and “Talk to Me,” became hits for other acts (the Pointer Sisters, Patti Smith and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, respectively).

At a New York press screening of the documentary on Monday, eight of the boxed set’s tracks were also previewed. These were:

“Ain’t Good Enough For You.” An upbeat party song reminiscent of “This Little Girl,” the 1981 Gary U.S. Bonds hit that Springsteen wrote and co-produced. There are some funny lines here (“I tried to change, I got a job in sales/I bought a shirt uptown, in Bloomingdale’s”).

“Outside Looking In.” A tough, fast, hard-rocking song about alienation (“You’ve got all the answers, you and your friends/And I’m on the outside looking in”).

“Gotta Get That Feeling” and “Someday (We’ll Be Together).” Two songs that evoke Phil Spector’s famous wall-of-sound productions. The latter, in particular, sounds like a slowed-down Ronettes melodrama, with unabashedly romantic lyrics that anticipate Springsteen’s love songs of the future.

“Racing in the Street.” A less desolate, more anthemic version of the “Darkness on the Edge of Town” track, with some different lyrics (“Some guys, they do it for the money/Other guys do it ’cause they don’t know what else they can do”).

“Talk to Me.” A big, raucous sound. Totally Jukes-worthy.

“Because the Night.” When Springsteen has performed this song in concert, over the years, he has used his original lyrics (in 1977, he sent his demo to Smith, who added some lyrics). In this version, he sings Smith’s words, too, and makes them sound so personal they seem like his own.

“The Promise.” An aching ballad about betrayal that Springsteen spent months perfecting, and that could have been a “Darkness on the Edge of Town” centerpiece. But he “felt too close to it,” he says in the documentary. (A different version of “The Promise” was included on his 1999 rarities collection, “18 Tracks.”)

The documentary creates a vivid portrait of Springsteen in the late ’70s: totally focused on his music (“I didn’t have a life” he says), frustrated by his legal wrangling with ex-manager Mike Appel, and freaked out by the success of “Born to Run.” Driving everyone around him crazy as he obsessed over sonic details (particularly amusing is his quixotic quest for the perfect drum sound, which bassist Garry Tallent dourly deems “pretty sad, really”). Being inspired by the punk explosion, and connecting to country music (specifically, Hank Williams) for the first time.

Burning not just to have another hit, but to make timeless music.

“It sounds okay,” says Springsteen, in one typical studio segment. “It could probably sound better.”

The 80-page booklet for the boxed set will not be a standard one. Spiral-bound, it’s intended to look like the beat-up notebook that Springsteen used to rewrite songs, play around with potential track orders for the album, and make other notes related to the project. In the documentary, Springsteen’s notebook practically becomes a character unto itself. E Street Band members wince when they see it, knowing their boss will be asking for yet more revisions, yet more takes (at one point, they start taking bets on his “whims of the day”).

The documentary also captures the moment when everything comes together — with a big assist from an 11th-hour white knight, sound mixer Chuck Plotkin, who is able to get the sounds Springsteen is hearing in his head onto vinyl. The band, relieved to be done, finally hits the road and starts rocking in public again, presenting some of its best shows ever.

There is a reason “The Promise” was shown at a film festival: It has a dramatic arc few making-of-an-album documentaries can match.

Jay Lustig; (973) 392-5850 or jlustig@starledger.com


Springsteen, a true son of N.J., reflects on his career

By Ellen Gray
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/
October 7, 2010



NEARLY EVERY week brings some fresh insult to the state of New Jersey, host to an ever increasing number of shows that suggest what's grown in the Garden State is fertilized with a noxious mix of mascara, alcohol and hair spray.

So it's a relief to be reminded there are people and memories not even Snooki or the so-called "Real Housewives" can sully.

HBO tonight offers just that as it presents Thom Zimny's Bruce Springsteen documentary, "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town,' " a thoughtful portrait of the Jersey artist as a young man at a turning point in his career.

In 1977, Springsteen was living on a farm in Holmdel, N.J., writing the songs for the E Street Band that would eventually make up "Darkness on the Edge of Town," his fourth album and the follow-up to 1975's hugely successful "Born to Run."

Released in 1978, nearly three years after "Born to Run" - at a time when such gaps were far less common - "Darkness" represented a shift in Springsteen's driving style just as he was wresting control of the wheel.

"I had a reaction to my own good fortune," Springsteen says. "The success [of 'Born to Run'] brought me an audience. It also separated me from all the things I'd been trying to make connections to my whole life. And it frightened me because I understood that what I had of value was at my core, and that core was rooted into the place I'd grown up, the people I'd known, the experiences I'd had. If I move away from those things into a sphere of just treat 'em as pure license, to go about your life as you desire, without connection, that's where a lot of the people I admired drifted away from the essential things that made them great.

"And more than rich, and more than famous and more than happy," he says, with a laugh, "I wanted to be great."

It's the laugh that does it.

Because one of the things that distinguishes "The Promise" isn't the footage from the studio and the house in Holmdel, or the interviews, with Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, Danny Federici, Stevie Van Zandt, Clarence Clemons, Jon Landau, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa and even Mike Appel, the former manager whose legal battle with Springsteen kept the band out of the recording studio for nearly a year.

It's the coming together of the sometimes angry young man and the older one who can look back and own his past while forgiving others their trespasses.


"It wasn't a lawsuit about money, it was a lawsuit about control, who was going to be in control of my work and my work life. Early on, I decided that was going to be me," Springsteen says.

But "the initial contracts, rather than evil, were naive," he says. "You wouldn't put that kind of stress and tension on a relationship. It was bound to be destructive," and though he won, "the loss of Mike's friendship was a terrible loss."

More than three decades later, neither side appears to be nursing a grudge, at least not for the camera, and there's a kind of relief in that, given how much face time people with Jersey accents and far less serious grievances get these days.

Ultimately, of course, it's the artistry that impresses.

In "Darkness," "I'm beginning to tell the story that I tell for . . . most of the rest of my work life," Springsteen says.

Of the change in sound, stripped and simplified from the "wall of sound" he'd worked to achieve in "Born to Run," he says, "I wanted the record to have a very relentless feeling."

Zimny manages to capture both the chaos and brilliance of the process, which produced more songs than might have fit on five albums - Patti Smith talks about the hit she got from one of the discards and we eventually find out why the film is called "The Promise" - while providing glimpses of some special moments, including the story behind the album's iconic cover, shot in an upstairs bedroom of photographer Frank Stefanko's old house in Haddonfield that was wallpapered in cabbage roses.

Of the chaos that preceded that quiet picture, Landau, Springsteen's longtime producer, says: "It's starting to seem funny now. At the time, there was no humor there at all."


Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.

With Rahm in the Windy City

The Current Crisis

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 10.7.10 @ 6:10AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/


CHICAGO - OCTOBER 4: Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel campaigns for Chicago Mayor at an 'L' station in October 4, 2010 Chicago, Illinois. Emanuel resigned from his White House position October 1, in order to run for mayor of Chicago.(Getty Images)

WASHINGTON -- On Sunday Rahm Emanuel declared his candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Instantaneously, he had problems with his campaign, not the least of which is that he is as much a resident of Chicago as I am. So on Monday I declared my candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Why not? I did it on the national television show of the estimable Sean Hannity, who immediately threw his support behind me. I was born in Chicago, come from a long line of Chicagoans, and like Rahm I am occasionally in town. The place is a gastronomic paradise, a cultural delight with great museums and a fine orchestra, plus opera – surprisingly, Rahm and I have never crossed paths while in town. Supposedly, he attends rock concerts. He could attend the Chicago Symphony but he opts for Bruce Springsteen.

My candidacy already had the national endorsement of the New York Sun, which tapped me the day before I declared. I have a new book out, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, to provide Chicagoans, and Americans generally, with a blueprint for getting out of our present political and economic fix. The blogs are alive with support (and occasional rudeness), and more newspaper support is rumored on the way. All Rahm has is a few big names and our mutually held residency problem. Rahm is still seeking newspaper support, and his "listening tour," begun Monday, has gotten off to a rocky start. A lot of Chicagoans do not like him. He has a reputation for yelling at underlings and for profanity.

As for me, I am free of any hint of Chicago corruption, certainly no hint of a connection to ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich. Frankly, I could not pick him out of a police lineup -- at least a police lineup of gaudily dressed gigolos. Rahm is recorded on the telephone with Blagojevich suggesting deals shortly after President Barack Obama's election. All of this and any other questionable dealings will be rehashed over and again during the run-up to the February election. When it comes to political connections with the Chicago machine or for that matter almost any connection at all -- my family lives in the suburbs -- I am clean as a hound's tooth.

More to the point, though Rahm owns a house in Chicago, he does not live in it and cannot live in it. He leased it out nearly two years ago to one Rob Halpin, and it appears that Rob is a patriot. He is not going to let some capricious politician run him out of his home just because the politician decided to leave the sinking ship of President Obama and enter the mayor's race. He has responsibilities. Moreover, he renewed his lease just days before Mayor Richard M. Daley announced his retirement on September 7. That apparently inspired Rahm to run, and it does raise the question: why did Rahm not leave himself free to move back to Chicago when he took his ill-considered job as President Obama's chief of staff? President Obama has maintained his home there and is freer to run for mayor than Rahm. Why, as recently as the first week in September, did Rahm not see this mayoral race as at least a possibility, or maybe some other Chicago electoral endeavor? As I say, he suddenly decided to jump ship.

It all smacks of opportunism, and Rahm's usual proclivity for bullying people. He tried it on me, when as a prelude to siccing a grand jury on The American Spectator, his Clinton White House sent me not a dead fish but a copy of Bill Clinton's book Between Hope and History, suitably inscribed but with no explanation. It was sent on February 26, 1998, and marked the beginning of a year-long investigation of the Spectator on felony charges meant to tarnish Ken Starr's witness in the Whitewater matter. The proceedings were dismissed as a witch hunt, but it did last a year, and it was unpleasant. In fact, it reeks of bully politics.

Now Rahm envisages his unpleasant bully politics for Chicago, but he is dealing with serious pols, Sheriff Tom Dart and state Senator James Meeks. Charges of "carpetbagger" are in the air and that word again, "bullying." Still these guys can deal with bullies, especially Dart who is sheriff of all of Cook County. Moreover, experts on the electoral law have weighed in, and they see tremendous hurdles for Rahm to leap -- and me too. I shall throw myself on the mercies of the court. Will Rahm trust the courts?

One of Chicago's top lawyers, Burt Odelson, told the Chicago Sun-Times that "The guy does not meet the statutory requirements to run for mayor." Odelson elaborated, "He hasn't been back there for 18 months. Residency cases are usually hard cases to prove because the candidate gets an apartment or says he's living in his mother's basement. Here the facts are easy to prove. He doesn't dispute he's been in Washington for the past 18 months. This is not a hard case."

Well, Rahm, how about joining my legal case and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court? You got one thing right in all of this. Now is a good time to leave the White House. It might be a good time for Barack, too. Can one run for mayor while being president of the United States? Check it out, Barack. We can all run.


R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. His new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, was published on April 20 by Thomas Nelson. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; and The Clinton Crack-Up.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOE

By Ann Coulter
http://www.anncoulter.com/
October 6, 2010

My friend Joe Sobran died last Thursday, and the world lost its greatest writer.

To my delight, some obituaries noted that he had influenced my writing style. I only wish I had known he was so close to the end so I could have seen him again to let him influence me some more.

The G.K. Chesterton of our time, Joe could deliver a knockout punch with a single line. Many of his aphorisms were so catchy that everyone repeats them now without realizing their provenance.

It was Joe who came up with the apocryphal New York Times headline: "New York Destroyed by Earthquake; Women and Minorities Hit Hardest."

Joe created the phrase "strange new respect" to describe the sudden warm admiration the media have for any conservative who becomes a liberal.

In the '80s, Bill Buckley suggested that AIDS sufferers be required to get tattoos on their buttocks to protect other gays. As all hell broke loose over his proposal, Sobran simply suggested that it might borrow from Dante: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

I've recently been telling a friend who talked me into agreeing to an interview with the Times that I wouldn't be mad at him no matter what the Times does to me because "your enemies can never hurt you, only your friends can." I remember now that it was Sobran who told me that, years ago, in reference to his treatment by Buckley.

Ironically perhaps, I've often used a Sobran observation to explain why I have a greater affinity to Israel than to the Muslim world after 9/11: Watching a death-match fight on Animal Planet once, Joe said he found himself instinctively rooting for the mammal over the reptile.

Joe was comically immune to group-think. Every Christian should be, but with Joe it was nearly pathological.

A Shakespeare expert, Joe became convinced that the real author was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Among his vast trove of evidence were the sonnets, some of which clearly expressed love for another man.

When Joe was writing what became "Alias Shakespeare," he used to tell me he was going to title the book: "He's Here, He's Queer, He's Edward de Vere!"

Reading through some of his columns after he died and being reminded of what an eloquent writer Joe was, I realized that the best tribute would be to quote him extensively.

As Joe himself said: "I note that my enemies have written a great deal about me, yet they rarely quote me directly. Why not? If I am so disreputable myself, I must at least occasionally say disreputable things. Is it possible that what I say is more cogent than they like to admit?"

Joe's quotes are much better when you're reading his columns and a beautifully turned phrase sneaks up on you, but here are a few good ones, even in isolation:

-- On our democracy: "Your chances of meeting an IRS agent are far greater than your chances of meeting anyone you voted for."

-- On Clinton: "Once again, his defenders, furiously attacking the prosecution and equating opposition with 'conspiracy,' don't dare mount the best defense: 'He's not that sort of man.' It's because Clinton is, supremely, 'that sort of man' that this whole thing has happened. He's a lying lecher, a prevaricating pervert, an utterly slimy crook, without a trace of honor or loyalty, desperately trying to save his own skin one last time."

-- On big government: "Freedom has ceased to be a birthright; it has come to mean whatever we are still permitted to do."

-- On Obama: "Nor has he said anything memorable -- not even a single aphorism over this long campaign. And the title of his book 'The Audacity of Hope' -- what on earth does that mean? He is always hinting at a substance that is never disclosed to us. He seems to live by raising vague aspirations he never fulfills."

-- On Buckley's book "In Search of Anti-Semitism": "Its real message is not that we should like or respect Jews; only that we should try not to hate them. But this implies that anti-Semitism is the natural reaction to them: If it's a universal sin, after all, it must be a universal temptation. ... When he defends Jews, I sometimes feel like saying: 'Bill! Bill! It's all right! They're not that bad!'"

-- On evolution: "If our furry and scaly friends were still evolving, none of them appeared to be gaining on us."

-- On Canada banning Dr. Laura: "Canada has to protect itself against such pernicious, hate-filled American notions as the Law of Moses. If Dr. Laura wants to spew the Ten Commandments, let her do it in her own country."

After I made some point to Joe once, he paid me a compliment that describes exactly why it was so fun to be around him. He said, "Your mind is always going."

His body is gone, but I'm sure his mind is still going like gangbusters. And I'm insanely jealous that he's giving God all the good belly laughs now.

COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER

Secretariat was essence of greatness

Thursday, October 07, 2010
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=1


Secretariat, with regular jockey Ron Turcotte races into history by winning the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. (Photograph by Bob Coglianese)

This year would mark the 40th anniversary of the birth of Secretariat, which is as near as I can come to any kind of why-now explanation for the movie about the one-and-only Virginia thoroughbred that opens tomorrow night.

Maybe it's not so much a why-now question as a what-took-so-long reaction, since who would have thought that when a major studio finally got around to putting the life of the horse they called "Big Red" on the big screen, we'd have Diane Lane and John Malkovich cooking up the typically ultrarich Disney formula 37 years after the fact, the still-astounding fact all the same?

Secretariat swept horse racing's Triple Crown events in 1973 with a blur of equine brilliance unseen before or since. You didn't have to be a fan of horse racing to be mesmerized by this singular animal, which is why, the week before the Belmont Stakes that June, Secretariat was not only on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but on Time and Newsweek as well, in addition to, I think, The Economist, Men's Health, and Popular Mechanics.

But that was the whole essence of Secretariat's story -- it couldn't be exaggerated. He was his own exaggeration, running to his own outlandish standards, to achievements not thought possible inside the sport of kings or out. His Triple Crown performances were rare historical cadenzas that can still raise gooseflesh, even that far back in the mind's rear view.

And thus the film is highly necessary, and highly successful in the delivery of Secretariat's thundering aura. That requires a certain capacity for cinematic art, including a resounding score and inspired sound editing. That it includes a pretty fair narrative is, I think, a bonus, but even there, Secretariat and his peeps were thoughtful enough to have arranged an intact true life drama from which to proceed.

In one scene, the horse's owner (Lane), trainer (Malkovich) and groom (Nelsan Ellis) are discussing in somewhat hushed tones Secretariat's lack of appetite before the Kentucky Derby, when Lane finally says, "Let me have a moment with him."

In 1,001 other films, this exact scene exists, but the working line of dialogue is, "Let me talk to him."

There is little doubt that among the reasons this particular superstar athlete is so beloved is that Secretariat never said anything stupid. Yet somehow I don't assume for a minute that Secretariat would have answered questions with the grace and humility of a Lou Gehrig, who finished only one slot higher (at 34) when ESPN ranked the 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century.

I always thought that Big Red, if he could talk, would bring it like Muhammad Ali.

"I'm a baaaad horse!"

Like Ali, Secretariat was a heavyweight with unmatched speed and grace amid an evident playfulness, all things that can create outrageous confidence and a not insignificant social burden. As Ali explained, "It's hard to be modest when you're as great as I am."

Ali didn't have to wait as long as Secretariat for his defining cinematic tribute, as Will Smith brought him to the screen in 2001 with a performance that some veteran Ali students thought was too brooding. Still, a New York Times review at the time referred to the fighter's trademark braggadocio as "an enchanting lack of humility."

Secretariat had that same essence, I thought, that of a four-legged, nearly 1,200-pound Muhammad Ali, with accomplishments so unforeseen they made it too hard to be humble. When he won the Derby, his quarter-mile times were successively better right to the wire. In other words, when he finished in a record-breaking 1:59 2/5ths, he accelerated for 1 1/4 miles. When he beat his alleged rival, the horse named Sham, in the Preakness, he won by the same 21/2 lengths, and when Sham finished dead last in the Belmont, well, Sham looked like the only horse in the five-horse field with a lick of sense. After all, what was the point? Secretariat was running 11/2 miles in a world record 2:24, winning by 31 lengths, something still so astonishing that it actually seems comforting that this film reaffirms it.

The movie also includes repeated scenes of prerace news conferences that seem frightfully similar to Ali weigh-ins. We see the competing owners and trainers trade polite jabs, but, to me, those scenes begged for Secretariat in a speaking part.

"Sham's so ugly, I don't know if he's comin' or goin'. If he even dreams about beatin' me, he better wake up and apologize."

Maybe this is why my screenplays never go anywhere.

Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10280/1093261-150.stm#ixzz11g8QMPyD

Not even Halladay was prepared for no-hitter

By Phil Sheridan
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/
October 7, 2010

Roy Halladay came to Philadelphia for the chance to make it to the postseason. All he did Wednesday night was make postseason history.

On a chilly night, through a three-inning rainfall, the big bearded righthander they call "Doc" threw just the second postseason no-hitter in Major League Baseball's long history. Halladay allowed just one Cincinnati Red to reach base. That walk was all that kept him from equaling Don Larsen's 1956 World Series perfect game.

Halladay, who threw a perfect game himself back on May 29, created another indelible baseball memory for a team and a city that have had so much to celebrate the last several Octobers. By dominating the Reds, the champions of the National League's Central Division, Halladay gave the Phillies a 4-0 victory in Game 1 of this best-of-five NL division series.

And it was the focus on that, on winning an important playoff game, that allowed Halladay to wave off the building pressure of his no-hit, no-run performance. He even drove in one of the Phillies' runs with a hit.

"It's something I wasn't real worried about achieving," Halladay said of the no-hitter. "I think if you're not putting too much emphasis on trying to throw a no-hitter, you're going out and staying aggressive. It makes it a lot easier."

His teammates and the sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park were feeling the pressure for him. As the game wore on - as the number of outs remaining dwindled to nine, then six, then three - the Phillies' dugout grew quieter while the frenzied towel-waving fans grew louder and more excited.

"About the sixth inning, it got real quiet," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "People stayed in their seats and sat there and watched the game. [Halladay] came in and went down to the end of the dugout, sat in his chair, and didn't say a word. End of the inning, he'd get back up and go back on the field. It's pretty neat, really."

Out in the bullpen, the relief pitchers also stayed put. No one wants to change the energy or put a jinx on a pitcher with a no-hitter. One reliever needed to relieve himself, but Ryan Madson said he had remained in place until Halladay secured the final out.

The Phillies are in the postseason for the fourth consecutive October, and the ballpark had been louder only a handful of times before: when Brad Lidge got the final out of the 2008 World Series and after a couple of other series-clinching wins.

The quiet of his teammates didn't pierce Halladay's otherworldly focus. The sonic boom of the fans did.

"When it gets that loud," he said, "it's hard to ignore. I thought especially the last three innings, it seemed like it got louder every inning. It was a lot of fun."

The day started normally enough. Halladay got to the ballpark at his usual time. He said he had tried to treat his first postseason start as a normal workday, to "disconnect yourself from the emotions a little bit." Shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who usually says a few words to Halladay, decided not to before this game.

"I said, 'Roy looks like he's in a different world right now,' " Rollins said.

What a world it turned out to be. Halladay was so good, so nearly mechanical, that there was little of the usual drama that surrounds a no-hitter. He issued his only walk in the fifth inning to Reds outfielder Jay Bruce. The only truly hard-hit ball, a line drive off the bat of relief pitcher Travis Wood, was caught by rightfielder Jayson Werth.

Rollins made two solid plays, making one throw from deep in the hole at short and scooping up a ball that ticked off the mound and changed its angle.


PHILADELPHIA - OCTOBER 06: Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies hits an RBI single in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds at Citizens Bank Park on October 6, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

But Halladay was the story. He got through the heart of the Reds' lineup in the seventh, then got three outs, including two strikeouts, on just seven pitches in the eighth inning. When he came out for the ninth, the crowd was on its feet, rally towels fluttering. With each out, the stadium shook.

Ramon Hernandez popped out to Chase Utley. Miguel Cairo hit a foul pop-up toward the third-base side. Wilson Valdez drifted under it and caught it with two hands, as if it were a baby dropped from a burning building. That brought up Brandon Phillips, the Reds' speedy leadoff hitter.

Phillips hit a ball that traveled no farther than his bat. Catcher Carlos Ruiz made the best defensive play of the night, ending the game and the suspense by throwing Phillips out from his knees.

Ruiz rushed out to hug Halladay. Ryan Howard, who caught the final outs of both of Halladay's 2010 classics, stretched his big arms and embraced them both. Soon the rest of the team was celebrating near the mound.

A fan held up a sign, "Welcome to Doctober." Halladay's wife and kids celebrated in the stands. Fireworks filled the South Philly sky.

Roy Halladay, one of the greatest pitchers never to have pitched in the postseason, had delivered one of the greatest postseason pitching performances ever.

"You want to share things like this with family and friends," Halladay said. "My family's here, and I feel like my friends are on the team."

He made a few million more friends Wednesday night.


Contact columnist Phil Sheridan at 215-854-2844 or psheridan@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/


Phillies take 1-0 lead, as usual

By Bill Conlin
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/
October 7, 2010


THE PHILLIES draw first blood more often than the cast of "True Blood," HBO's paean to the involuntary transfusion.

Children of the night, vot music they make, as Count Dracula used to say.

At 7:42 on the night National League history was made, Reds leadoff hitter Brandon Phillips gave his team's last drop.

Roy Halladay had pitched his way into the rare air of baseball history.

No National League pitcher had ever thrown a postseason no-hitter. Until last night. And he came one mislocated pitch from his second perfect game of 2010.

Yankees righthander Don Larsen, a journeyman, had stood atop the no-hit pedestal for 54 years, his perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series standing alone through all the postseasons dating to 1903.

And Halladay did it with the first-blood intensity that has marked the Charlie Manuel Phillies since the NLDS against the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008.

Since then, the Phillies have won the first game of seven straight series in what has become an October marathon. The Brewers, Dodgers, Rays, Rockies, Dodgers and Yankees all went 0-1. Only the Yankees rallied, coming back with a vengeance to win the World Series in six games.

Halladay went for the jugular with an efficiency that amped The Bank crowd of 46,411 into a frenzied crescendo that rose inning by inning, strike by strike, out by out, into a tsunami of sound that even penetrated the sanctum of concentration where the great righthander dwells, alone with his game plan.

He faced 28 Cincinnati Reds batters. And a remarkable 25 of the 28 first pitches to them were strikes.

That wasn't a statement by Roy Halladay in Game 1 of the NLDS. It was a royal decree that seemed to order, "Off with their bats."

The final score of 4-0 and the modest first- and second-inning offense that produced all the runs and sent starter Edinson Volquez to an early shower became overshadowed as Halladay rolled through the Reds' No. 1-ranked NL offense like a threshing machine through a wheat field.

The only ball struck with authority by Dusty Baker's lineup was a sinking liner to right by reliever Travis Wood.

Yeah, that Travis Wood. The rookie lefthander who took a perfect game into the ninth inning of an epic scoreless battle against Halladay here in the third game of a Phillies' four-game sweep before the All-Star break.

Carlos Ruiz, who called another brilliant game for Halladay, blending Doc's four pitches like a French chef turning out a four-course meal, broke up Wood's no-hitter with a leadoff double. Jimmy Rollins scored Chooch with two outs in the 11th with a walkoff single.


PHILADELPHIA - OCTOBER 06: Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies delivers in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds at Citizens Bank Park on October 6, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Halladay threw the first postseason no-hitter since 1956, as the Phillies defeated the Reds 4-0. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

Reds manager Dusty Baker will have some explaining to do in the arena of 20-20 hindsight. Volquez is just over a year removed from Tommy John surgery and took a pedestrian 4-3 record and 4.31 ERA into what could be the pivotal game of the best-of-five crapshoot. The Volquez who was 2-0 against the Phillies with an 0.73 ERA was the presurgery righthander who at his best was close to unhittable. That pitcher did not show up last night.

Naturally, the reliever who replaced him in the second after Halladay singled home a run and Shane Victorino singled home two more in the second was Wood. The lefthander buried the Phils once more, allowing a harmless hit in 3 1/3 lockdown innings. What if he had been paired with Halladay once more in one of those first-to-blink classics? We will never know.

Chase Utley and Victorino, who combined to score the first run last night, were the heroes in the 2008 NLDS that began the Phillies' run of postseason series successes. Utley's two-run double was the big blow in Game 1, and nobody will forget Victorino's Game 2 grand slam off CC Sabathia, set up by Brett Myers' epic 14-pitch at-bat that frenzied the crowd, a foreshadowing of the routine hysteria that has gripped the sold-out Bank in every October game since.

The centerfielder began last night's epic with a one-out double, brazenly stole third against Volquez' sluggish move to the plate and scored on a sacrifice fly by Utley, narrowly beating a howitzer throw by rightfielder Jay Bruce.

With the modest rites of offense out of the way, all eyes turned to Halladay. He was hard not to watch, even for Baker, who has been on both sides of no-hitters as player and manager.

"The thing about it was," Baker said, "I don't think he threw anything down the heart of the plate, everything was on the corners and moving. I don't know what his percentage was, but it looked like he threw 90 percent for first-pitch strikes. Any time you do that with the stuff he has, then he can go to work on you after that."

That wasn't work, it was surgery with a blunt knife, the kind of cadaver-slicing that takes the heart out of a team that now must face a well-rested Roy Oswalt tomorrow night. Charlie Manuel related how things got very quiet in the dugout around the sixth inning, "kind of like Florida." How Halladay just sat there quiet, "then went back out there."

"Pretty neat, really . . . Great managing . . . "

With Doc needing just three more outs for the no-no, I headed for the restroom with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. Chris Wheeler was in there hyperventilating. "Nervous?" I asked. "That's why I'm in here."

Leaving, I almost collided with Phillies president David Montgomery. On his way in.

"Nervous?"

"That's why I'm in here," he said.

The jitters were unfounded. Roy Halladay drained the last few drops of blood from the Reds, finishing with a 1-2-3 flourish what was last done to Cincinnati on June 23, 1971, by Rick Wise in a Riverfront Stadium no-hitter enlivened by the righthander's two home runs.

I was there for that one, too . . .

Send e-mail to bill1chair@aol.com.

For recent columns, go to

http://go.philly.com/conlin.



Ruiz nearly perfect, too, in Halladay's no-hitter

By Rich Hofmann
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/
October 7, 2010

PHILADELPHIA - OCTOBER 06: Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies delivers in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds at Citizens Bank Park on October 6, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

'If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."

- Yogi Berra

The way Don Larsen has told the story, his catcher was in charge on that October day in 1956 when he pitched the only perfect game in the history of major league baseball's postseason. Larsen has been quoted as saying, "I never shook off any of the pitches Yogi called. I didn't want to ruin a good thing."

Last night, Roy Halladay shook off Carlos Ruiz only once.

There were 26 outs in the scorebook and the Cincinnati Reds had accomplished nothing but a fifth-inning walk by Jay Bruce. No runs, no hits, and one out remained to be gotten.

Halladay and Ruiz were hard-wired all night. They had been together before, pitcher and catcher, for perfection. That night in May, that perfect game against the Florida Marlins, was different and it was the same. What it did, in a small way, was continue to highlight the never-predicted value that Ruiz has brought to a franchise in flower.

He is an excellent receiver who has become an accomplished hitter, a man who commits felonies on fastballs (and often in October). On this night, well, he said he just knew - not that he was going to catch a no-hitter, but that Halladay had winning stuff in the first postseason appearance of his distinguished career. As Ruiz said, "It was fun to catch him in the bullpen - he was hitting his spots all the time. It was, oh my God, he was on today."

Twenty-six outs, then. Brandon Phillips was at the plate for the Reds. The first pitch of the at-bat, like so many others, was a called strike, a 93 mph fastball. Citizens Bank Park roiled, but pitcher and catcher continued to occupy their own world. As Halladay said, "Ruiz has done a great job of recognizing early on what's working, what's effective, and calling that."

Ruiz put down a sign for the next pitch. He wanted a fastball, up. And this time, this one time, Halladay shook his head.

"He said, no, we'll throw a cutter," is the way Ruiz remembered it. Phillips swung through that 91 mph cutter for Strike 2.

Then, for the 104th and final time, Ruiz put down a sign.

"And then he throws a curveball and that was it," said the catcher, who was kind of leaving out a few of the good parts.

"I don't want to make the wrong mistake."

- Yogi Berra

Phillips barely made contact. The truth is, his discarded bat traveled as far as the baseball, just a couple of feet in front of home plate. The decibel level seemed to drop noticeably when the ball squirted in front of the plate, the ballpark suddenly a cavern of held breath. Ball and bat lay inches apart - Ruiz said they actually hit against each other for a second - and left the catcher trying to do about three things at once.

"I'm panicking right there because he's a very good runner," Ruiz said.

He is trying to pick up the ball cleanly without becoming entangled with the bat. He is trying to make a throw to first to catch a speedy runner who, truth be told, is a moving obstacle as he motors up the baseline. He is trying to preserve the first no-hitter in postseason history since Larsen did it for the Yankees in the 1956 World Series.

Other than that, there wasn't much riding on the play.

"That's why I threw from my knee," Ruiz said. "The ball hit the bat and it came back a little bit. I got it and had to throw from my knee because he was fast."

He unleashed the throw and, for a second, we all wondered if this would be the last play of a historic night. Ruiz said he had known since the sixth inning that Halladay was working on a no-hitter, and that the perfect-game experience served him well.


PHILADELPHIA - OCTOBER 06: Fans cheer Roy Halladay during Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds at Citizens Bank Park on October 6, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

"We tried to be relaxed the whole game," Ruiz said. "When I saw the scoreboard and it said no hits, I said,'OK, you've got to do this the same way you did it in Florida - have fun, relax.' I did the routine, I talked to Danny [Baez] almost the whole game - the kinds of things that don't make you think about the game."

He said he talked to Halladay exactly twice in the dugout. Both times, it was to remind him of the extra long delays between half-innings during the postseason because of extra television commercials. Before returning to the field, Ruiz told him those two times, "Let's take our time."

Which is what Ruiz did, until the very end. When Ryan Howard caught his throw at first base, it was over. All that was left was the celebration.

In the history of the sport, the black-and-white shot of Berra leaping into Larsen's arms is iconic. Now, the new color photo - dominant color: red - of Ruiz and Halladay embracing will seek its own place amid baseball lore. It is not hard to see the similarity.

Halladay and Ruiz are joined together now, forever. And you cannot help but wonder about destiny, and forever, and this incredible fact: On Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium in 1999, a ceremonial pitch was thrown, Larsen to Berra. And then, in the real game, David Cone pitched a perfect game for the Yankees.

"It's like deja vu all over again."

- Yogi Berra

Send e-mail to

hofmanr@phillynews.com,

or read his blog, The Idle Rich, at

http://go.philly.com/theidlerich.

For recent columns go to

http://go.philly.com/hofmann.

Murder on Falcon Lake

Drug cartel pirates control part of Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border. Their savage murder of a Texas man may force Washington to finally address the violent border zone.

October 6, 2010 - by Bryan Preston
http://pajamasmedia.com/

September 30, 2010, is the date that may force the federal government to deal with the U.S.-Mexico border. On that date, Texans David and Tiffany Hartley were jet skiing on Falcon Lake. Only Tiffany would return alive.

David Michael Hartley, right, believed shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake. (Personal Photo)

Dispatcher: Hello? Ma’am? Yes. Okay. Are you sure that your husband got shot?

Tiffany: Yes. In his head.

Dispatcher: Okay. Yeah. Was he thrown out of the jet ski that he’s in the water or something?

Tiffany: He was thrown off the jet ski and I couldn’t pick him up to get him on mine. (sobbing)

Oh God.

Dispatcher: Ma’am? Were you shot at on the Mexican side or on the US side? So it was the Mexican Side. Okay, did you see anybody?

Tiffany: There were three boats.

Falcon Lake straddles the Texas-Mexico border in a remote area between Laredo, TX, and Nuevo Laredo to the north and McAllen, TX, to the south. The Hartleys had stopped on the Mexican side of the lake to see the mission at Old Guerrero. Three boats belonging to pirates from the violent Zetas drug gang appeared out of nowhere and opened fire. The Zetas control the Mexican side of the lake and have turned it into something like a miniature version of the Somali coast, operating as pirates with near impunity. So far, Mexican authorities have questioned whether the shooting occurred, and have not allowed U.S. or Texas authorities in to search for Hartley’s body.

Up to September 30, the Falcon Lake pirates had never murdered Americans. But over the past several months, the Zetas have posed as game wardens and seized the boats of Americans enjoying the lake’s fishing. Having shaken down the fishermen for whatever valuables they had on board or on their persons, the pirates would let them go. And in June, authorities issued a very disturbing alert: The Zetas were plotting to destroy the Falcon Dam to strike out against a rival gang. That act had the potential to flood an area that is inhabited by about four million people.

But an uptick in violence was always inevitable: The Zetas are also involved in the civil war that has raged in Nuevo Laredo for the past several years. That war has seen everything from assassinations of public officials to bombings to beheadings to gun battles that leave neighborhoods looking like sections of Baghdad in the height of the Iraq war. I have cell phone video of the aftermath of a Nuevo Laredo gun battle that took place in July, but it’s so graphic that YouTube won’t host it. PJTV’s Brandi Milloy has hosted a terrific series on the Arizona border.[1] This story from Al Jazeera English, about the assassination of a leading political candidate this year, gives some hints as to just how violent the drug war there has become.[2]

Only the Rio Grande and a border checkpoint separate Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo. And at Falcon Lake, there’s nothing stopping the drug cartels from capturing Americans, robbing them, firing on them, and in the case of David Hartley, murdering them in cold blood. On the Fox News Wednesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry weighed in on the tragedy, the U.S. government’s failure to secure the border, and the Mexican government’s refusal to let Americans in to help search for Hartley’s body. And he revealed that David Hartley is actually the third American recently murdered on the border:

Just a week ago, we had two Americans killed assassination-style on the border in northern Hidalgo County. There are places along the border, Gretchen, that it is out of control. I don’t know how many more Americans have to lose their lives before the federal government steps in and sends the troops.

Bullets from gunfights in Ciudad Juarez have flown across the border and struck buildings, including City Hall, in El Paso. Nuevo Laredo is a war zone. And innocent American lives are being lost.

For their part, the Obama administration is sending in National Guard troops: About 1200 for the entire U.S.-Mexico border started arriving in August. But just in Texas, that border stretches nearly 800 miles. When Gov. Perry sensibly requested more troops, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano laughed him off.

How the Falcon Lake murder impacts politics and the race for Texas governor remains to be seen. Both Perry, the 10-year incumbent, and Democratic nominee Bill White have staked claims to being the best solution for border security. Perry has twice tried to meet with President Obama during visits to Texas to discuss the issue, and has been rebuffed both times. White never criticized Obama’s refusals, and has claimed that he can use his connections with the administration to get more action than Perry can. But as mayor of Houston, White presided over a sanctuary city, and the administration is exploiting the border to create racial tension in the hopes of locking in Hispanic voters as a Democratic bloc. Both Perry and White have gone on the record opposing Arizona-style laws that would empower local and state police to take more active roles in enforcing immigration law. Most in White’s party agree with that stance; most in Perry’s party disagree.

The Texas legislature, which won’t be in session until 2011, will have its own ideas regardless of whether Gov. Perry holds onto his large lead in the race or White slips up on him. Republicans are likely to capture up to 10 new state House seats in the November elections, giving them a solid hold on both houses of the legislature and all statewide offices. This increase in the House will move the caucus to the right, and several legislators have already said that they will propose Arizona-style laws for Texas next year. Such a law is likely to pass, putting the next governor on the spot to accept it or veto it. After the Hartley murder, a veto would be political suicide.

Regardless of what the Texas legislature does or does not do, securing the border is a federal responsibility, and the federal government has failed in its duty whether Republicans or Democrats have been in charge. The Obama administration, though, has taken this record of irresponsibility and added aggression against border states to it, by laughing off Texas’ requests and by suing Arizona to get its security law struck down. That lawsuit is not only controversial and unpopular across America, it has attracted intervention by 11 foreign countries — including Mexico.

Looking ahead, should Texas pass such a law, will the Obama administration put Texas in its lawsuit crosshairs? If it does, it will be facing a Texas that has already just about run out of patience with the Washington Democrats’ hard left social policies, and it will be facing Attorney General Greg Abbott. Abbott is one of the fiercest attorneys general in the country, already at legal war with the administration over its use of the EPA to stop Texas’ effective air cleanup program and ObamaCare. They don’t say “Don’t mess with Texas” for nothing. If the Obama administration attacks Texas again, Texas will fight back.

Whatever happens between now and the 82nd session of the Texas legislature next year, the tragedy of David Hartley’s murder is an outrage and it is galvanizing an already angry Texas that wants the federal government to do the jobs the Constitution tells it to do, and leave the rest to the states as the Constitution says. Texans have long been more than tolerant of the illegal immigrant population here, but have also long wanted real action to secure its border with Mexico so we can know who is coming here and what their intentions are. The drug war is changing the nature of the border, though, and along with that, Texans’ patience is running short. David Hartley’s murder may be the event that forces politicians from Austin to Washington to finally take real action.

If Washington doesn’t move, Texas will.

Update: Gov. Perry is calling on Mexico’s President Calderon to step up the search for Hartley’s body and wants a report within 48 hours.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, hails from Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Links:

[1] http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=4110

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kyVB7-0_ew

Embassy-Bombing Trial in Jeopardy

Civilian due-process standards are crippling the government’s case.

By Andrew C. McCarthy
http://www.nationalreview.com
October 6, 2010 4:00 A.M.


FBI pictures show Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. Photograph: Reuters

Ahmed Ghailani has confessed to bombing the U.S. embassy in Tanzania twelve years ago. As he explained to the FBI in a series of 2007 interviews, he bought the TNT used in the explosion. He even identified the man from whom he purchased it — a man who was subsequently located, who corroborated Ghailani’s confession, and who has been cooperating with American and Tanzanian authorities ever since. Ghailani also helped buy the truck and other components used to carry out the suicide attack.

The two simultaneous embassy bombings — Ghailani’s in Dar es Salaam and a second, more devastating one at the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya — killed at least 224 people. The bombings made Ghailani, then in his early 20s, an icon of the jihad. He strode al-Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan and bonded with fellow terrorists, including some who would later conduct the 9/11 attacks. In fact, Ghailani was so highly regarded that he was chosen to serve as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden himself.

All of that should make Ghailani’s trial, which is slated to begin in Manhattan federal court this week, a slam dunk. It is, however, anything but. Once again, politics has trumped national security and common sense.

The Obama administration has made Ghailani its test case to prove that the civilian criminal-justice system works perfectly well in wartime against enemy combatants — to show that we don’t need military commissions or other alternatives specially tailored to address the peculiarities of terrorism cases. The administration figured Ghailani was a safe bet. After all, the embassy-bombing case had already been successfully prosecuted once: In 2001, prior to 9/11, four jihadists were tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment (although the jury voted to spare the two death-penalty defendants).

Yet, to prove its political point that there is no downside in vesting Ghailani — a Tanzanian national whose only connection to the United States is his decision to make war on it — with all the constitutional rights of an American citizen, the Justice Department has had to slash its case. DOJ is also finding that even more critical evidence may be suppressed by the trial judge. In short, the slam dunk has become a horse race, one the government could actually lose.

The jury won’t be hearing about Ghailani’s confession. It has been reported that, because he was a highly sought and highly placed al-Qaeda operative, Ghailani was subjected to harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA after being captured in Pakistan in 2004. To be sure, no jury should be permitted to hear a coerced confession. That is not because an alien terrorist held outside the U.S. in wartime has Fifth Amendment rights; it is because a proceeding in which a person is forced to be a witness against himself does not meet rudimentary standards of justice. Nevertheless, we are not referring here to what Ghailani may have told the CIA under duress; we are talking about the confession he gave the FBI three years later. The FBI does not use the CIA’s controversial tactics.

There was nothing unlawful about holding Ghailani as an enemy combatant in wartime. Indeed, the trial judge, Lewis Kaplan, has already rejected the terrorist’s claim that this detention violated his (purported) right to a speedy trial. Furthermore, CIA coercion would not undermine the validity of subsequent lawful treatment of Ghailani by other government actors. Judge Kaplan has also turned aside the terrorist’s claim that the prosecution must be dropped because he was “tortured.” Similarly, the CIA’s tactics do not render the FBI’s subsequent questioning unlawful.

Clearly, however, the prosecutors in New York do not want the trial to devolve into theater over the CIA interrogation methods. Were the government to try to prove Ghailani’s statements to the FBI, defense lawyers would have latitude to summon the CIA interrogators. They would argue that the CIA’s earlier, rough tactics tainted Ghailani’s subsequent, seemingly voluntary confession. The Justice Department is determined to steer clear of that controversy, and of any criticism that it exploited Bush-era tactics, even indirectly. But there’s a trade-off: The jury won’t learn that Ghailani admitted to planning the bombing, buying the TNT, and being celebrated afterward as an al-Qaeda hero.

The Justice Department figured it could roll those dice because it has a witness, Hussein Abebe, who is prepared to testify that he sold Ghailani the TNT. Not so fast, say Ghailani’s lawyers. They argue that the government learned about Abebe only because of Ghailani’s confession. By their lights, having agreed not to use it, the government implicitly concedes that the confession is toxic; therefore, the argument goes, it is no more proper for prosecutors to call a witness discovered because of the confession than it would be to use the confession itself.

Prosecutors reply that there is a big difference between using admissions pried from a defendant under coercion and merely calling a witness. The government may inevitably have found the witness anyway. Moreover, even if the confession tipped the government off to Abebe’s existence, he is a volunteer, providing testimony of his own free will.


Bombings of the Nairobi, Kenya, US embassy (left), and the Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, US embassy (right). [Source: Associated Press]

Surprisingly, Judge Kaplan appears to be siding with the defense in this dispute. In a heavily redacted 37-page ruling issued in August, Kaplan concluded that the government had failed to meet the exacting burden required to show that it would inevitably have learned about Abebe without Ghailani’s confession. More dismayingly, the judge was unmoved by the government’s contention that the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine was inapposite.

Prosecutors argued that this doctrine — a Fourth Amendment suppression-of-evidence remedy invented by judges — was designed to discourage bad behavior by police (specifically, unlawful searches). To the contrary, the FBI’s questioning of Ghailani had been legal and in the national-security interest of a country at war with a ruthless terror network about which Ghailani has intimate knowledge.

Kaplan, however, accepted the theory pushed by the defense: that Ghailani has full-fledged Fifth Amendment rights, and that any coercion from the CIA interrogation infected all later government questioning of him. Thus, according to the judge, even if the FBI’s interrogation was proper, Abebe’s testimony could still be barred because a Fifth Amendment violation occurs, not when information is coerced, but when the coerced information is used against the accused.

Kaplan is more amenable to the government’s argument that Abebe is willing to testify of his own free will — in other words, that the witness’s voluntary act would be an independent development, one not directly caused by the coercion of Ghailani. Even here, though, the judge remains unconvinced. True, the government has represented that Abebe is voluntarily cooperating; but it has not proven that he is doing so. According to Judge Kaplan’s opinion, there has been no affidavit from the witness himself, nor any testimony from CIA, FBI, or Tanzanian officials about the circumstances of Abebe’s apprehension and eventual cooperation. The judge has not slammed the door on prosecutors, but he has indicated that the testimony will be barred absent a compelling demonstration that this witness — fully aware that he is under no obligation to provide evidence against a terrorist mass murderer — actually wants to come to New York and testify, and is not acting under any duress from U.S. or Tanzanian authorities.

If Abebe’s testimony were stricken, the Justice Department’s case would be deeply — and perhaps fatally — wounded. As one prosecutor told the court, “This is a giant witness for the government. There’s nothing bigger than him.” Without Abebe, prosecutors could not establish that Ghailani obtained the TNT. He’d be able to argue that his having helped a friend buy a truck does not mean he knew people were planning to use the truck in a bombing, much less to strike an American embassy. Even proving the truck purchase could be problematic. As Ben Weiser of the New York Times relates, it’s been nine years since the last embassy-bombing trial, and the owner of the truck — a witness in that case who helped establish that Ghailani participated in the truck’s purchase — has since died.

Ghailani’s trial was supposed to start Monday. It has been postponed until today to allow the court to resolve the witness issue. If Abebe’s testimony is disallowed, the government will almost certainly appeal, potentially delaying the trial for weeks, if not longer.

Playing with fire like this is no way to prove a point. Maybe the Justice Department will convince the courts to permit the testimony of their crucial witness. Maybe the very talented prosecutors in Manhattan will even figure out a way to convict Ghailani without Abebe’s testimony. But we are intentionally tying our hands behind our backs and running an unnecessarily high risk of acquittal in a case involving a war criminal.

Civilian trials have a vital place in our counterterrorism strategy — particularly in the terrorism-financing cases that the Obama administration shuns because they involve ostensible Islamic charities. Still, it is no denigration of civilian prosecutions to point out that in a military commission — the procedure Congress has designed and reaffirmed for war-crimes trials of enemy combatants — there would be fewer hurdles to placing the most important evidence before the tribunal.

Military commissions need not assume that a defendant is endowed with all the rights of American citizens. They need only be fair. Of course, coerced confessions would be suppressed. Voluntary confessions, however, would be admissible. Available witnesses would be permitted to testify. Prior testimony from unavailable sources might well be considered as long as it appeared reliable — such as the sworn testimony of a now-deceased witness who was subject to cross-examination. Nor would military commissions elbow the Justice Department out of the mix: Experienced federal prosecutors would be able to try the cases along with their military counterparts, just as civilian defense attorneys join military lawyers in the representation of defendants.

This shouldn’t be about scoring points. It should be about maximizing the chance of convicting a terrorist with American blood on his hands.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

Truth On Trial

Posted by Robert Spencer on Oct 5th, 2010
http://www.frontpagemag.com/


How imperiled is the freedom of speech? Take this passage from Slate magazine: “In 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered after making anti-Muslim remarks, as was the anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002. Why is there so much anti-Muslim rhetoric in the Netherlands?”

If Slate flipped those sentences, they’d have their answer. If there is any actual “anti-Muslim rhetoric” in the Netherlands, it is because those who dare to point out the outrages against human rights that Islamic law sanctions get murdered; and those who are still alive are vilified, marginalized, smeared, and put on trial – like Dutch politician and freedom fighter Geert Wilders, whose trial resumed Monday.

“I am on trial, but on trial with me is the freedom of expression of many Dutch citizens.” So said Wilders as his trial reopened in Amsterdam. Wilders faces a year in prison or a fine of up to 7,600 euros for supposedly inciting hatred against Muslims – which he has supposedly done by telling the truth about how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam themselves to incite hatred and violence against non-Muslims. If anyone should be on trial for “hate,” it should be the jihadist imams depicted in Wilders’ film Fitna – but in the hyper-politically correct Netherlands of today, the only offender is the non-Muslim who dared to call attention to the hatred they preach: Geert Wilders.

On Monday, after asserting that the freedom of expression of many Dutch citizens was on trial, Wilders continued: “I can assure you, I will continue proclaiming it.” He added: “I am sitting here as a suspect because I have spoken nothing but the truth. I have said what I have said and I will not take one word back, but that doesn’t mean I’ve said everything attributed to me.” Then he asserted the right to remain silent for the remainder of the proceedings — whereupon the presiding judge, Jan Moors, claimed that Wilders had gotten a reputation for making bold proclamations but then refusing to discuss them, saying that he was “good in taking a stand and then avoiding a discussion.” Moors added: “By remaining silent, it seems you’re doing that today as well.”

At that, Wilders’s attorney, Bram Moszkowicz, moved to have Moors removed for his bias, and the just-resumed trial ground to a halt. Wilders commented: “I thought I had a right to a fair trial, including the right to remain silent. It is scandalous that the judge passes comment on that. A fair trial is not possible with judges like that.”

A ruling will be made Tuesday on Moszkowicz’s motion, which, if granted, could delay the trial for months. But if the Dutch authorities had any sense of what is really at stake, they would drop all charges against Wilders and adjourn the trial for good. The Wilders trial is a turning point for the West: will Western authorities defend the hard-won principle of the freedom of speech as a bulwark against tyranny and the establishment of protected classes that enjoy rights that other citizens do not have, or will they – in the interests of suicidal political correctness — allow Islamic supremacists to obliterate that freedom in the interests of establishing in the West the Sharia principle that Islam is not to be questioned or criticized, especially by non-Muslims?

If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West. It is no coincidence that one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic rule, is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an. Thus this prosecution in Amsterdam not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance.

This is part of an ongoing initiative by the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). In 2008 the Secretary General of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, issued a warning: “We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and jihad terrorism. Even at that time, he reported success: “The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.”

Since then, Ihsanoglu must be more than pleased by how successful his offensive against the freedom of speech in the West is proving to be. Wilders is on trial for charges including having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” If intentionally offending someone is a criminal offense, numerous Islamic supremacists could end up in court, but of course that is not the purpose for which the law was drafted. The Dutch political establishment hopes to use the Wilders trial to stop his rise in Dutch politics, since he challenges so many of the core assumptions upon which current Dutch and European Union policy are based. Since one of those policies is unrestricted immigration from Muslim countries, Dutch officials hope to discredit Wilders’s work in exposing how Islamic jihadists use violent passages of the Qur’an to justify violence and supremacism.

Unfortunately for them, however, Wilders really is telling the truth: Islamic jihadists really do use the Qur’an to justify violence and supremacism, and as I show in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, there is plenty in the Muslim holy book that they can use in this way. As my colleague Pamela Geller has noted, “Truth is the new hate speech” – and nowhere is that aphorism truer than in the trial of Geert Wilders. The Dutch authorities can jail and fine Wilders, and do their best to discredit him domestically and internationally, but there is one thing neither they nor anyone else can do: engage him in honest debate and prove him wrong. And so instead, we have this Stalinist show trial.

Wilders has stated the problem plainly: “I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom.”

Wilders’s words are true not just for the Netherlands, but for all of Europe – and ultimately for the United States of America as well.


Related Links:

http://www.slate.com/id/2269658?wpisrc=newsletter

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/05/dutch-courage-liberal-cowardice/

To view Geert Wilders' film Fitna click on link below:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/03/here-is-fitna.html

Environmental Endgame

Among the Intellectualoids

By Matt Purple on 10.5.10 @ 6:07AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org

I have an idea for a commercial. A teacher is speaking to a class of students about how the United States is in grave danger. She warns her young charges that spending is out of control, government has become too big, and bureaucrats have too much power. She lectures that the government has expanded far beyond its constraints which are laid out in the Constitution. She then asks the students if they will join the local Tea Party and fight to restore America to its founding principles. All the little tykes -- first or second graders -- raise their hands, except for two. The teacher reassures the dissenters that this is okay. "No pressure," she says. She then presses a red button on her desk. The two children explode in a red flash, splashing gore on the other horrified students. The apathetic teacher then starts assigning homework.

Political advertising at its finest, wouldn't you agree?

Actually, if I ever even suggested such a commercial for the Tea Party (let alone actually made one), I'd be rightly branded a sociopath. The media would devote wall-to-wall coverage to the commercial for six months. Think Progress would try to trace my funding back to the Koch brothers. The Southern Poverty Law Center would declare the Tea Party a hate group. Keith Olbermann would drive the point home by literally exploding on air.

But almost the exact same commercial was released by the 10:10 Global environmentalist group, murdered children and all. The only difference was that the homicidal teacher hit the detonate button after two children were reluctant to cut their carbon emissions. The four-minute piece went on to show several corporate workers, a soccer player, and a radio host played by Gillian Anderson (of X-Files fame) meeting the same grisly demise. The final shot refers viewers to 10:10's website while streaks of blood and Anderson's eyeballs gush down the screen.

It's perhaps the darkest, vilest, most disturbing political ad ever concocted. Incredibly, it was produced for 10:10 by Richard Curtis, the British comedy writer behind legendary shows like Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Curtis apparently believed that exploding children would be a real knee-slapper. The rest of the civilized world disagreed. Within hours of the video's release, frantic greenies were trying to yank it off YouTube as the conservative blogosphere reacted with disgust. Ed Morrissey called it "the dumbest most self-defeating campaign ad ever."

It's not like 10:10 Global is some fringe eco-terrorist group. They're a worldwide campaign funded by big-name donors like Sony and Kyocera. They've already extracted a promise from Britain's Conservative government to reduce its carbon output by 10% in one year. Hundreds of businesses, colleges, and schools have pledged to do the same. That makes 10:10 a big player on the environmentalist team.

And yet they managed to produce this splatterfilm dreck. It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall during that meeting. Say Frank, you know what would make people like us more? Let's blow up children who disagree with us and then laugh about it. All this time I've been worried that climate hysterics were a savvy and well-organized intellectual machine. Take heart, doubters! If this ad is any indication, our opponents make up the most dithering collection of socially maladjusted morons ever assembled on the very planet they're trying to save.

As The American Spectator reported on Friday, 10:10 reacted to the controversy by claiming they'd "missed the mark" in their attempt at humor. In an e-mail to Mark Morano, the group noted that the commercial "was intended for a British audience." We Americans lacked the perceptive wit needed to truly understand their message. Apparently the same British sense of humor that produced Monty Python, Keeping Up Appearances, and The Thick of It has now been reduced to belly-laughing at exploding youngsters.

Except, of course, the Brits condemned 10:10's macabre skit with the same ferocity as their across-the-pond neighbors, particularly Telegraph columnist James Delingpole who popularized the story.

It's a shame Dr. Michael Crichton isn't around to see all this. Crichton, the author of countless brilliant techno-thriller novels and a scientific genius in his own right, gave a groundbreaking speech in 2003 in which he claimed environmentalism was a fundamentalist religion. (Crichton is one of those recalcitrants who would have been blown to bits in the 10:10 ad.) For environmentalists, Crichton claimed, there is an impending apocalypse and sustainability is the only way to achieve salvation.

"Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary," Crichton said, "because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them."

For true green believers, those who question anthropogenic global warming are "them" -- the apostates. Thanks to these doubters who refuse to shop with cloth bags, the environmental apocalypse draws ever closer. So why not detonate them in a gory mess? As Franny Armstrong, founder of 10:10, said, "We 'killed' five people to make No Pressure [the title of the commercial] -- a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change."

It's the same religious zeal that drives John Holdren, the most powerful environmentalist in the world and Barack Obama's climate advisor. Holdren co-authored a book with spectacularly discredited population hysteric Paul Ehrlich in which he called for the world to be depopulated. Among Holdren's solutions were forced abortions and compulsory sterilizations for women. Lives and liberties were both expendable to stop the coming apocalypse.

It's why progressives universally refer to those who question global warming as "climate deniers." We're not just offering a different opinion on a scientific issue. We're denying a fundamental truth, like the Holocaust or the resurrection.

It's why hacked e-mails from East Anglia University showed climate scientists trying to blackball those who questioned climate change. Dissenting thought is heretical and cannot be tolerated.

Now, thanks to the public relations imbeciles over at 10:10 Global, we have our greatest proof yet that radical environmentalism is a religion. The gory deaths in the commercial were only secondarily an attempt at humor. They were primarily a masturbatory fantasy for the acolytes of environmentalism. As 10:10 admitted (before the outrage), "It's a fairly simple and to-the-point premise, I'm sure you'll agree: we celebrate everybody who is actively tackling climate change… by blowing up those who aren't." Among the deniers, there would be great wailing and gnashing of teeth, no doubt.

Fortunately, there's a solution for we heathens. For October 10, 10:10 is planning a day of global climate action that will supposedly be held in 140 countries. Want to protest their evil ad? This Sunday, leave your car idling in the driveway. Crank your heat up before you leave the house. Grab a couple of aerosol cans and point them skywards.

Don't think of it as destroying Mother Earth. The earth will be just fine. Think of it as an act of protest against Mother Church.


Matt Purple is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.