In ‘Justified,’ a growing crime world

By Matthew Gilbert
Boston Globe Staff
http://www.boston.com/
February 9, 2011

When you think “crime family,’’ you probably envision bad guys playing cards, chewing toothpicks, and carrying a few extra rolls of fat. But I’m here to write about — and sing the praises of — FX’s “Justified,’’ a winning crime drama that brings its own unique spirit to everything it touches. On “Justified,’’ which is set in backwoods Kentucky and based on characters created by executive producer Elmore Leonard, the crime families are far skeevier — a lot more “Deliverance’’ than “The Sopranos.’’

In the season 2 premiere, tonight at 10, the “Justified’’ writers quickly wrap up the story of the nasty Crowder clan that dominated last year, and they introduce a fabulously distorted new Harlan County family called the Bennetts. Indeed, if you missed last season, jump in around the 15-minute mark tonight, when the show moves forward in earnest to some extremely promising new territory. Walton Goggins’s Boyd Crowder is still on the scene, but the marijuana-growing Bennetts are the new creeps that US marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) must reckon with.

Mags Bennett is the cross-wearing matriarch, a lady who’ll lie to your face and kill your father if she has to, to keep her business going. In a brilliant casting choice, Mags is played by Margo Martindale (“Dexter,’’ “The Riches’’), an actress whose trademark is her deeply loving, trustworthy face. The irony is consistently amusing. Mags has three rotten sons, including a crooked cop and an emaciated varmint played by Jeremy Davies, who was Daniel Faraday on “Lost.’’ Here, he’s a rascal with a menacing smirk. On one level, the Bennetts seem like comic relief, the marijuana to the Crowder’s meth — but wait, they’re as lethal as the Crowders, and just as ugly.

Whoa. I’ve gotten this far without writing about Olyphant, who has found the perfect role as Raylan. It’s hard to imagine any other actor in the part, as Olyphant milks Raylan’s smooth, laconic cowboy style for as much wry humor as he can. He is riveting without a lot of noise — both his body language and his conversation are pared down, and yet his presence is always resonant. This season, Raylan is in Kentucky because he wants to be, and he is as confident as ever — but his romantic life continues to stumble, as he and his ex-wife, Winona (Natalie Zea) try to figure out their future. When Raylan takes off his guns, he loses his self-control and his aim.

The first season of “Justified’’ was excellent, especially after a few bumps in quality in the earlier episodes. And based on the first three episodes, I’m thinking season 2 is going to be even better and certainly more consistent. As the population of the show expands, and as Raylan runs down his childhood demons and adult foes, “Justified’’ keeps on justifying — and demanding — our viewership.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.


'Justified'

Timothy Olyphant is completely 'Justified' in his role as three-dimensional Kentucky good-boy cop

By David Hinckley
DAILY NEWS TV CRITIC
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Wednesday, February 9th 2011, 4:00 AM

Early in the second season of "Justified," Raylan Givens gets a chance to leave his old Kentucky home, again, and go be a U.S. marshal in more glamorous places.

He hesitates, which is good news to every TV viewer who thinks Timothy Olyphant's Raylan Givens is exactly where he belongs.

Based lovingly on the character created by Elmore Leonard, Olyphant's Givens just wouldn't feel quite as right in any other place.

He's a Kentucky boy who knows the bad side of Kentucky boys because he was raised by one - his father, Arlo (Raymond J. Barry) - and spent his childhood palling around with a few others.

That includes Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who at some point graduated from shooting squirrels with BB guns to blowing up black churches with rocket launchers.

This isn't one of those stories where the cop is one skinny millimeter from being the crook. Raylan seems to have this inherent nagging honesty that puts him firmly on the legal side of the law.

That doesn't prevent him from having a drink, or two, with the folks on the other side. But both sides understand there's a cat in this game and there's a mouse. Their only disagreement concerns who is which.

Olyphant plays all this beautifully. Taking a great serial character from a novel and giving him the same feeling on the screen is devilishly difficult. It's hard to imagine nailing Givens more elegantly than Olyphant does in "Justified."

He's even a little better this season than last, as he settles further into the Givens skin. He captures the marshal's essential confidence while never giving away one syllable more than he wants to reveal about the hand he's holding.

Further enhancing the fun, there's a new crook in town. Well, she's not new exactly. Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) is the local Ma Barker, matriarch and legacy inheritor of Eastern Kentucky's largest pot-growing business.

Mags is known for her "apple pie" - a potent homemade cider - and her low tolerance for anyone who wants to grow weed without her prior clearance.

Early this season we see what happens to those who violate that second rule. Don't try this at home, kids.

The arrival of Mags gives Boyd a bit of a breather, though he isn't disappearing. One advantage of basing a TV series on a series of Elmore Leonard books is that the show never runs out of new twists, new characters and interesting situations.

Leonard himself has enthusiastically endorsed "Justified." That shows his taste in TV is as admirable as his skill at writing.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com


'Justified' aim is true as Season 2 kicks off

By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/
February 9, 2011

It's feuding time in the hills in Season 2 of FX's Justified

In the first season, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a throwback in manners and marksmanship to the guns of the Old West, returned to his native Kentucky and toppled the violent Crowder clan. (The critically acclaimed show averaged a solid 3.4 million viewers.)

This season, the skilled lawman, a character created by novelist Elmore Leonard, faces the pot-farming Bennett family, who harbor a long grudge against the Givenses. Raylan stirs up the Bennetts' hornets' nest while pursuing a sexual predator.

"It's a little bit of a Hatfield-McCoy situation," Olyphant says. "We get into that as we go further into the history. Like the limp you see that Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies) has, all these little details get fleshed out as we go."

Matriarch Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale), with three sons as accomplices, proves a challenging adversary. "I think she's just as wild as they come, a very strange combination of things, surprisingly maternal and ruthless.

"She has her own set of values and does not think she's wrong. 'So, if you step out of my values, you are wrong and I will fix you,' " Martindale says. "I don't think she is a bad person. I think she's a person who's learned to survive in the world that she lives in."

The second season is full of second chances, says executive producer Graham Yost. Raylan has another chance with ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea), and the chance to get back in his department's good graces by not being so quick to draw. Mesmerizing nemesis Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who became an unlikely ally at the end of last season, has a new opportunity, too.

"Raylan continues to want to have a different life. He's got a second chance with Winona. ... He's going to try not to kill so many people. Very damaging to his career," Yost says. "One of Elmore's themes is that character is destiny. It's hard for people to change."

Leonard, whose novella Fire in the Hole was the basis for Justified, isn't just some distant inspiration. He's directly involved, offering character and story ideas to the show's writers as he works on his own new novel, which has a working title of Raylan. They get to take whichever elements they want, with the series and the book diverging at points.

"I was going to get into something else, but then I thought, why not do a book on Raylan?" he says. "It could even help them out. I can't imagine just sitting there — I think I'm an executive producer — and not doing anything. I get a check every time they put on the show."

When Olyphant met Leonard, he says, it took just a few minutes before he asked the novelist to write more Raylan material. He wanted more of that distinctive voice. He says everyone on the show this year knows Leonard's style.

Last year, "we had some people who thought they were doing a drama. That's not what we're doing. We're doing Elmore Leonard. Elmore's cool, but there's a light touch to it, a bit of a dance. You want some comedy in your drama, some drama in your comedy. With Elmore Leonard, it's guaranteed you're in that kind of territory," Olyphant says. "When you're operating that way, firing all those guns, you're in good shape."




Timothy Olyphant Interview
JUSTIFIED Season Two

by Christina Radish
http://collider.com/
Posted February 10th, 2011 at 10:15 pm

On the hugely popular FX drama series Justified, actor Timothy Olyphant plays U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a modern-day 19th century style lawman who faces off against the criminal organizations in Harlan County, Kentucky. Having just kicked off its second season, things are sure to quickly heat up between Raylan, his nemesis Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and the Bennett family, headed by Mags (Margo Martindale), who are looking to fill the void left by the removal of the Crowder family’s criminal grip on the town.

During a recent conference call to promote the return of the series, Timothy Olyphant talked about the appeal of the show, the challenges of playing Raylan Givens, the strength of the writing, his duties as a producer this season, and the fact that he knew right away how special the role was. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Question: What have you learned about Raylan, from filming Season 2?

TIMOTHY OLYPHANT: Well, he’s not any taller than he used to be. I’m not sure. You know, I’m terrible at that. I’ve got to be honest with you, I’m just trying to figure out what to do next. But, he seems like he’s got a lot problems, as usual.

What keeps challenging you about playing this character?

OLYPHANT: The character is just a joy to play. It’s more just about the beast of television production and just trying to keep your head above water and stay in front of it, and just remember how much fun it is.

Why do you think people keep tuning in to watch Justified?

OLYPHANT: Well, if they are like me, they think it’s really good. I’m proud of the show. I think it’s good story telling. It starts, first and foremost, with Elmore [Leonard], and I’m a big fan of his. I think Graham [Yost] and the rest of the writers have just really sunk their teeth into it and done a wonderful job. It’s good stuff, and it’s hard to find good stuff.

Are there actors from westerns or cop shows that influenced your take on Raylan?

OLYPHANT: No. I really didn’t look past the books. After that, I tend to draw inspiration from whatever just floats my boat, for the moment. But, I really spend a lot of time with the source material and I read those books constantly, and spent time with Elmore [Leonard]. And then, I had conversations with Graham [Yost]. And, there were some conversations with U.S. Marshals.

Have you gotten any chance to go to Kentucky and associate with life down there?

OLYPHANT: We are currently filming a great deal of the show out in Santa Clarita. In the summertime, you just head straight towards the sun and, just before you catch on fire, there it is. Our producers and locations managers are doing a hell of a job. They’ve got their work cut out for them. I haven’t actually visited that part of the country. I spent time with people and talked to a lot of people. Over the break, our writers all went down there as a group. A lot of characters that you’ll see this season are based on people they’ve met. I’m thrilled that it feels like we’re capturing it because, Lord knows, we’re giving it the old college try.

Now that you’re a producer this season, what made you want to get involved on that level? How much are you involved, behind the scenes?

OLYPHANT: Last year, I just pretended to be a producer and I rather enjoyed it, so I thought I might as well get the credit. It’s really one of the great joys of the job, and one of the real challenges of the whole thing.

How does it feel to get to play a modern-day cowboy every week? Does it feel like you’re living out childhood games of cowboys and Indians?

OLYPHANT: I can’t take full credit for it. I’m really just saying the words and trying to bring it to life. It’s all cowboys and Indians, when it comes down to it. It’s child’s play, and I get a great deal of fulfillment out it. It just so happens, every now and then, that you put on an actual cowboy hat and it brings it all home. It’s always fun to play cops and robbers and, in this case, it’s more like cops and hillbillies. It’s a blast. It’s a kick to be able to play what they call a drama, but day in and day out, I think we’re making a comedy. It’s a lot of fun.

Raylan can be compared to a modern-day John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, who is rough around the edges and smooth with the ladies, and who has his own set of right and wrong. Have you ever thought about it like that?

OLYPHANT: Not until just now. You know, when I read the books, that was in the ballpark of what I was thinking. The books are great. The character is iconic.

This show is presenting a world that is really terrifying. How do you balance presenting something that we don’t want to see, in a way that makes it compelling, so that we really want to see it?

OLYPHANT: You know, it’s scary out there, and our job is to try to make that entertaining. That’s more or less the deal that we all signed up for. Life moves pretty fast and it’s pretty scary, but at the end of the day, the show’s about a guy who’s trying to do the right thing and get through the day with some sense of his reality intact. I think there’s a certain comfort in that.

How do you enjoy the opportunity to build a character over time in television versus building a character for a film?

OLYPHANT: In a film, you more or less know the beginning, middle and end, and you might have some wiggle room in there. But, this really is a journey and I’ve been very fortunate to be allowed in on a part of that process. That is one of the real challenges for me, that I’ve really enjoyed. I don’t think of it as building a character. I just think of it as telling a story, and I don’t know how it’s going to end. That’s the fun of it. At the end of the day, the same things apply. I’m still trying figure out what is going on, from scene to scene, and basic rules still apply. The tremendous upside here is that it’s such a great character, and it’s really tough to get your hands on a great character.

What sort of impact will the relationship between Raylan and Mags Bennett have on Season 2, and how has it been to work with Margo Martindale?

OLYPHANT: The whole bunch of them are just fantastic – both the characters and the actors playing the Bennetts. Margo’s just the real deal. I don’t know what else is on TV, but I’m pretty sure that’s something special. It’s a pleasure to work with her and Jeremy [Davies], and all those guys. They’re just great, and I thought we were onto something special. The inspiration for the character came from Elmore [Leonard]. He had a character in one of his books that was a man, and Graham [Yost] wanted to make the character a woman. Margo is just such a fantastic choice. As far as the families and the history, that’s something that Graham and I were both really interested in exploring this year, in that Hatfield-McCoy kind of culture and styles. It’s been really nice, throughout the season, to keep deepening that history and peeling back the layers. You find out more and more as we go. As the story goes, we come back around and get a little deeper. The world we created this year is just really rich.

How is the Raylan/Boyd relationship changing in Season 2, and what has it been like to work with Walton Goggins this season?

OLYPHANT: Walt’s fantastic. Anytime he’s on the call sheet, I know it’s going to be an easy day for me because I just sit back and let him do all the work. When you’ve got someone who’s going to take things moment to moment and keep you on your toes, it reminds me of my acting teachers saying, “Just work off the other person.” When you’ve got someone like Walt, it makes that real easy to do it. As far as his character goes, it’s really great. We had a lot of fun with him this year. As Elmore [Leonard] has said, he’s one of these guys where I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth, but I can’t stop listening to him. He just seems like he could be whoever and whatever he needs to be, given the situation. We really had a lot of fun watching him start out lost in the woods, and then regain his footing and find his way, and come back to life. He’s in a completely more dangerous and compelling way this year than last year.

How do you think Raylan sees Boyd?

OLYPHANT: I honestly don’t think he sees him as a friend, in terms of their relationship. All we’ve told you, according to my scripts, is that they have a history. There’s an understanding between them, but beyond that, I think that’s it. Their worlds collide. Given what he does, and given what my character does, they’re going to keep running into each other.

How is the dynamic between Raylan and his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) changing this season?

OLYPHANT: Natalie is fantastic. The same things I said about working with Walt Goggins, I’d say about working with her. They’re just great, as is Nick Searcy. He’s just a pro, but he’s not as good-looking as she is, so I’m less interested in that storyline. Graham [Yost] is the one who started the idea of these two getting back together. It was a broken relationship, but there was still some sexual tension. After we shot the stuff, it just seemed like there was a lot more going on there. It was a lot more interesting. So, when Graham and I got together, before we went back to work, that was a relationship that we were both really interested in exploring. I said to Graham, “If one of my buddies comes over to the house and tells me he’s fucking his ex-wife, we might not talk about anything else for the rest of the evening. I’m curious. I want to know how that works. And, if he tells me he’s in love with her, then I’m really interested.” We had a lot of fun with that relationship this year. I think it’s really one of the more interesting things we’ve done.

What are some of the moments that have made you stop and think, “This is great television”?

OLYPHANT: I’m not a huge fan of every episode, but there’s not an episode that goes by without me finding something where I’m like, “That’s just good drama. It’s good storytelling.” The examples are countless. This season, where do I start? From an acting standpoint, it’s fun to be in a scene where me asking Mags, “How’s business?,” is both conversational small talk, and yet feels so loaded. That’s part of the brilliance of Elmore Leonard, and it’s very difficult to replicate, week after week. I think our writers just do a fantastic job. Those moments are a blast. I could just go on forever. Honestly, the job is just a joy, day in and day out. I’ve never left that set and not thought to myself, “That was great. That was just a great scene. It was a great moment. It was a great performance.” Not mine, but I’m just talking about the ones around me. I put in long hours on this puppy, but at the end of the day, you just always walk away going, “God, you know, there’s something to be proud of. It was pretty cool.”

Deadwood, and your work on that show, started the whole western coming back again, and now there’s Justified, as well as True Grit. What do you think it is that keeps westerns cool?

OLYPHANT: First of all, I just showed up to work on Deadwood. That was David Milch’s baby. That’s a genius at work, just turning a genre on its head, and it was really something special to be a part of. I read this fantastic interview with Walter Mosley, in the L.A. Times, where he talked about our show. He said that westerns were made during a time where people really believed in America, and that Americans believed in something very clear about good versus evil. And, as that got a little more foggy, the westerns went away. And, he was really curious about this guy, Raylan Givens, who appears to be born maybe 100 years too late, and stuck in a modern world, asking those questions again.

Do you think that Raylan Givens will become one of those iconic TV characters?

OLYPHANT: I really appreciate that. That’s very generous of you. I knew when I read the thing that I had to close the deal before somebody else got a whiff of this thing. I trust that I know a good part when I see one and usually, when I see one, I have to wait for seven people to pass, in order for me to get it. I knew it was a good part. I knew it was good writing. I knew that Elmore [Leonard], when done right, is just something that I love. Beyond that, when I run into people on the street, they have been very generous and complimentary. It’s nice. You’re out there telling stories and you’re hoping to find an audience, and it’s very appreciated.

Every character that you play, whether in this show or in films, just seems completely unique and different. Is that because of your choices as an actor, or is it the quality of scripts that you get offered?

OLYPHANT: I don’t know. I’ve been really lucky, especially the last two years. I’ve been working for a long time and I’ve just really been allowed to work, with very little of the baggage and the pressures that can come with my job. Year after year, for quite some time now, I’ve just been allowed to keep doing it and just get better. When you do it for 10 or 12, or however many years I’ve been doing it, if you’re not good by now, then I think that’s going to be about it. I’ve really realized how much I enjoy the job and, at this point in my life, I show up to work with a real interest and a real commitment and a level of confidence. I’m not looking for answers when I show up to the set. I’m just asking the questions, over and over. I think I’ve been given some great material. In the last couple years, I did a small movie called High Life that went to the Berlin Film Festival, I did A Perfect Getaway, I did The Crazies, and there’s this TV work that I’ve been able to do, like with those guys in Damages. They’ve just been really great roles, and I’ve been able to have a meaningful dialogue and collaboration with the filmmakers on each one of those projects. Each time, it’s led to work that I’m really pleased with and proud of.

Steven Tyler Escapes From Idolatry

By JON CARAMANICA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com
February 9, 2011


FAME isn’t all gold, honey and massage oils; it’s also the successful navigation of a steady stream of unlikely and uncomfortable situations.

At this, the first few weeks of the 10th season of “American Idol” have proved, Steven Tyler is an unalloyed genius.

The moment when Mr. Tyler, one of this season’s new judges, claimed the show as his own came during the third night of auditions. Chris Medina tried out with a muscular version of The Script’s “Breakeven” after telling the story of how his fiancée, Juliana Ramos, suffered a brain injury that left her in a wheelchair, able to move her left arm and little more.

After he sang, he brought Ms. Ramos in to the audition room at the judges’ behest. By any measure it was difficult to watch, testing the viewer’s urge to turn away, to wish for a speedy change of scene.

Randy Jackson and Jennifer Lopez introduced themselves to Ms. Ramos, but Mr. Tyler took charge. “Hi, girl,” he said, shaking her hand. “I just heard your fiancé sing, and he’s so good.” At this point, as she teetered back and forth, he was gripping her shoulder and staring at her comfortingly: a rock, a confidant, a seducer. “You know, because he sings to you all the time,” he said, leaning in to her, stroking her hair, kissing her warmly — all with tenderness — then whispering in her ear, “That’s why he sings so good, because he sings to you.”

It was a stellar embrace, the sort of practiced sincerity that’s one of the wages of extreme celebrity. Except that, over time, it can shake free of its dishonesty, as was the case here. In that moment Mr. Tyler was both deeply practiced and deeply humane. It made for a stunning display of kindness unusual not just for “Idol,” but for all of popular culture in matters of dealing with the severely disabled.

Whether Mr. Medina was being fair to his fiancée by bringing her on the show may be an open question, and whether “Idol” producers were being fair to both of them may be one as well.

But the moment Mr. Tyler embraced Ms. Ramos was galvanic. Until that point Mr. Tyler — who has long had a bad-boy reputation as the frontman of the commercial juggernaut Aerosmith, which has sold approximately 60 million albums over 40 years — threatened to be an amusing attention hog on the show and, in the minds of some, a buffoonish liability.

But in this moment, and many others, his sheer ease of presence was overwhelming. Simon Cowell’s departure after last season left a vacuum at the judges’ table, but the original “Idol” panel, even with Paula Abdul, who left after the eighth season, never had the genuine star wattage it does now with Mr. Tyler and Ms. Lopez. Mr. Cowell’s cocksureness gave him gravitational pull, but never magic. Mr. Tyler happens to know what he’s talking about, but that’s secondary to his charisma.

Mr. Tyler, who will turn 63 next month, has done much of the heavy lifting for “Idol” this season, helping keep the show within striking distance of last season’s ratings and ensuring that even though certain things have been lost in transition, the show still has a steady center. That role should fall to Mr. Jackson, who has been retained as an obelisk of institutional memory. It’s clear that in between bumbling appraisals he feels the urge to play bad cop à la Mr. Cowell. But watching Mr. Tyler yelp and Ms. Lopez cheerily prevaricate trumps any need for a chaser of harshness. Mr. Jackson could go.

A star like Mr. Tyler or Ms. Lopez has nothing to lose when offering a contestant, entrée into their rarefied space. They’re not just pushing someone’s career forward a little from behind, they’re welcoming them from the top.

Ms. Lopez has been unexpectedly charming as well, though at a lower volume than Mr. Tyler. On TV that matters.

Mr. Tyler’s face alone is worthy of a weekly show, loose skin slippery over a distant skeleton. He’s a Claymation figure come to life, all elasticity and wrinkle. He dresses like a shaman, a time-traveling dandy or a runaway hippie teen. His grin is wide and white, like the Joker’s, and when he’s laughing, really he’s braying.

But mostly he’s been great because of his words, which veer from insightful to empathetic to cutting. It’s only a month into the season, and already the show has generated signature Tylerisms — bon mots that stick. To a gravel-voiced young country singer, he exclaimed, “Hellfire, save matches,” do something untoward to a duck and “see what hatches.” To a contestant whose last name was Muck, “You know what rhymes with Muck, don’t you?” To others: “That was delicious. That was the dessert to the lunch.” “I found you to be disturbingly great. Weird, compelling great.” “I think you got the what-it-is.”

What’s most overwhelming about Mr. Tyler is his sheer affability, especially since it wasn’t clear whether his aesthetics and those of “Idol” would match up. So far he’s been an astute critic, quickly cutting to the bone of a performance and articulating what was executed well, and not. He’s learned to keep his eyes shut during grating performances, and to tilt his head back just enough to feign attention. Occasionally he’ll regard the performers with exaggerated attention, as if happening upon zoo animals mating.

Thrill Mr. Tyler, and he’ll sing along with you, pound out a drumbeat on the table, howl like a feral cat in his blues-influenced scratch. Sometimes it’s to prove a point — it’s doubtful Ms. Lopez will be doing much singing this season — but mostly it appears to alleviate his restlessness. (He does it sometimes even with awful singers, probably to make the time pass.) The payoff isn’t the same as the thrill of pleasing a beautiful woman that Ms. Lopez can provide, but in Mr. Tyler contestants have a compatriot who knows all the words.

So far he’s been given toward the more eccentric singers. After one scruffy young man gave a Taylor Hicks-ish audition, Mr. Tyler insisted he play some melodica. After Ashley Sullivan’s manic show tune performance, followed by a crying fit, Mr. Tyler barked, “I’m going to personally work that into something good! Personally!”

It’s all part of Mr. Tyler’s air of indestructibility, of untethered masculinity, dulled just enough by age to seem harmless. But it threatens to be reprehensible: nowhere else on television is a 62-year-old man able to make eyes, and loose comments, at young women roughly one-quarter his age. It’s sanctioned catcalling, with moist remarks aplenty: “You had me sold from the second you laid eyes on me.” “Where is your pitchfork, you little devil?”

He hasn’t yet earned a slap from Ms. Lopez for stray lasciviousness, though the season is young still. “You will have your turn in the barrel,” he told her at one point, a flirty threat. When she was hugging one contestant, he turned to Mr. Jackson and said, “You looking down, boy?” — at Ms. Lopez’s endless legs, that is. He doesn’t even fear Ms. Lopez’s husband, the smoldering salsero Marc Anthony, teasing him, “You don’t kiss me like that,” after he’d planted one on his wife’s lips.

Though he treats his alphaness as a punch line, he’s serious about it. “Steve, you want to go first?” Ms. Lopez asked him after one audition. “Steven,” Mr. Tyler replied, not joking.

He’s allergic only to precocity. Lauren Alaina, one of the best contestants of the season, nudged Mr. Tyler into a duet of “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” but he seemed a bit put off by her temerity.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that this frenetic energy extends off camera as well. “I’ve got to get up every 20 minutes,” to go to the bathroom, he recently told TV Guide. “It’s gotten me in trouble, the fact that I can’t sit still. Remember, I just came off tour with Aerosmith, so it’s like I live on the tail of a comet. It’s hard, being addicted to adrenaline. There’s no rehab to go to for that.”

It’s worth remembering that the last year of Mr. Tyler’s life hasn’t been without tumult. After leaving rehab for his dependence on pain medication, he chose to join “Idol,” a decision that was met with sneering consternation by his Aerosmith bandmate Joe Perry. “It’s one step above Ninja Turtles,” Mr. Perry said. “It’s his business, but I don’t want Aerosmith’s name involved with it.”

Mr. Tyler may be interested in shaking loose of Aerosmith a little too. In 2011 “Idol”-level fame trumps even that of Aerosmith, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the year before the debut of “Idol.” Mr. Tyler, who is scheduled to release a memoir — “Does the Noise In My Head Bother You?” — this year, may well be interested in reframing his legacy. It’s possible he decided that the key to staying on the straight and narrow was to place himself on America’s biggest stage, accountable to millions.

But generally the move from creator to teacher is one of reflection. By sitting in the judge’s chair, marketing his eccentricities and shouldering the burden of keeping television’s most precious franchise afloat, he’s ensuring people understand that it takes a true star to make a new one.

Smith's heart just too much for North Carolina to overcome

Stewart Mandel > INSIDE COLLEGE BASKETBALL
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com
February 10, 2011

DURHAM, N.C. -- We were ready to count them out. Again.

Down 16 points to archrival North Carolina, the fifth-ranked Duke Blue Devils looked the furthest thing from defending national champions. They could not even defend their home court against a team with a freshman point guard making his sixth career start, and they certainly couldn't defend the Tar Heels' big men.

But to count out Duke is to count out Nolan Smith. Bad idea. The Blue Devils' latest four-year star doesn't play to the crowd like J.J. Redick, doesn't emanate charisma like Shane Battier or Grant Hill. He does, however, possess the biggest heart on the court most nights no matter the opponent -- and against hated North Carolina, it practically jumped through his jersey.

Nolan Smith hit 8 of 11 shots for 22 points in the second half, finishing with a career-high 34. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Smith's career-high 34 points helped Duke (22-2) take command of the Tar Heels (17-6) in the second half for a 79-73 victory that tightened the Devils' grip on first place in the ACC. He didn't do it alone. On the contrary, he got help from an unlikely sidekick, sophomore Seth Curry -- whose torrid shooting paved the way for his own big night (a Duke career-high 22 points) -- as well as a relentless effort from Blue Devils forwards on the offensive glass.

But Smith was the guy in the locker room afterward smiling like a proud father, the ambassador for a team still carving its identity 24 games into the season but continuing to lord over its rival and its conference.

"In the second half we showed who we can be going forward, once we get closer to March," said Smith, who hit 8 of 11 shots for 22 points in the second half. "We definitely needed a performance like this to show we're a tough team."

The Blue Devils didn't look so tough in the first half. With the help of North Carolina's upstart freshman point guard, Kendall Marshall, putting the ball in all the right places, Tar Heel big men Tyler Zeller and John Henson made mincemeat of Duke defenders Mason and Miles Plumlee and Ryan Kelly. In building a 43-29 halftime lead, UNC outrebounded Duke 27-18 and outscored the Devils 28-12 in the paint.

"We had to really face the facts and get real and know that we had to turn it around in the second half or we were going to get embarrassed out there," said Curry.

After a halftime speech in which coach Mike Krzyzewski urged them to "settle down" ("They were nuts is the word," he said), Duke came out in the second half like an entirely different team. Twice in the first 2:40, Kyle Singler grabbed offensive rebounds off missed second free throws and kicked them out to the perimeter. Three-pointers by Smith and Curry made for a pair of four-point possessions. Duke just kept pounding the glass and grabbed nine offensive rebounds in the second half. The Blue Devils scored 10 points off turnovers after notching none in the first.

"They were so much more aggressive on the offensive boards in the second half," said Tar Heels coach Roy Williams. " ... And we were going down and turning it over."

But what the Blue Devils truly started doing well was running their offense. It's no secret they go into every game wanting to knock down threes, but in the first half Smith seemed to be the only one getting looks. Enter Curry, who recently lost his starting spot to freshman point guard Tyler Thornton but has also started to look for his shot more.

Over a roughly eight-minute stretch of the second half, Curry scored 14 of Duke's 20 points to finally tie the game for the first time at 54-54 with 9:45 left. His hot streak included a pair of three-pointers and culminated with consecutive baseline jumpers -- the second after a nifty pump fake -- to elevate the Cameron decibel level from thunderous to earsplitting.

"It was fun," said Stephen's little bro. "I was on a roll. Teammates were getting the ball to me, plays were being called for me. I got into a good rhythm."

It's taken more than two months for the Liberty transfer to find that rhythm. On a team with two senior alpha dogs, Smith and Kyle Singler, and a freshman phenom, Kyrie Irving, who initially dictated the team's offense before his December foot injury, Curry had just one double-digit scoring night in his first six ACC contests. He exploded for 20 points against Boston College on Jan. 27, then vanished against St. John's and Maryland. Against NC State, he scored 13 points on 3-of-5 three-pointers but few could have seen a night like this coming.

"At times during the season I do stand around and watch Nolan and Kyle," said Curry. "But coming into tonight, I knew I had to be another punch out there for us. Nolan and I got going in the second half."

Duke needed Curry's big night because Singler, for the second time in four games, struggled mightily with his shot. UNC freshman star Harrison Barnes harassed him into a 3-of-17 shooting night, including just 1-of-6 from three. But Singler was equally effective bottling up Barnes, who came in averaging 22.7 points over his last three games. On Wednesday, he scored just nine.

By getting out on the wing and helping lock down UNC's perimeter shooters (the Tar Heels went 0-of-6 from three in the second half), Duke was also able to get a handle on sparkplug Marshall.

"We were able to make Marshall more a shooter than a passer," said Krzyzewski.

Toward the end of his postgame news conference, Krzyzewski was asked what the thrilling game meant for the ACC. The league has been much criticized this season, punctured by perceived mediocrity throughout its ranks. Entering Wednesday, Duke and UNC were the league's only teams ranked in the RPI Top 40.

Krzyzewski, understandably, defended the league, calling it "better than advertised," and singing the praises of both his team and the Tar Heels.

"The team we played tonight can play with anybody, and we're getting to the point where we might be able to play with anybody," he said. "Going forward, both teams will have a chance to cause trouble for some people."

It remains to be seen whether Duke's emotional second half Wednesday will serve as a sparkplug. Right now, the Blue Devils remain very much a work in progress. They need Singler to hit outside shots more consistently. They need Curry to be as aggressive as he was Wednesday. They need their big men to be ... well, bigger. If they runs into a more mature version of St. John's and North Carolina come March -- a team full of length and athleticism -- it could be in trouble.

But it still has Smith. The national player of the year contender and his teammates proved a lot of us wrong in last year's NCAA tournament, and he sure looks like a guy who wants to do it again.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/02/10/unc.duke/index.html#ixzz1DYtmyzvJ


Dynamic duo: Smith, Curry lead Duke

By Mark Schlabach
http://espn.go.com/
February 10, 2011

DURHAM, N.C. -- What did Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski learn about sophomore guard Seth Curry in Wednesday night’s 79-73 victory over North Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium?

“That he’s pretty damn good,” Krzyzewski said.

Just a week ago, Krzyzewski wasn’t sure if Curry even knew how good he could be in his first season with the Blue Devils after transferring from Liberty University in 2009.

Curry, the younger brother of former Davidson and current Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, was struggling with his confidence and struggling even more to find shots.

Duke sophomore Seth Curry had reason to scream against North Carolina after scoring 22 points off the bench. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

“The last two weeks or so, he was really challenging me and telling me to play with some confidence,” Curry said. “He said you’ve got to go out there every night with something to prove and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Curry certainly did it against rival North Carolina on Wednesday night, as he and senior guard Nolan Smith combined to score 56 points, helping the No. 5 Blue Devils erase a 16-point deficit to defeat the No. 21 Tar Heels for the third straight time.

Smith scored a career-high 34 points on 13-for-23 shooting, and Curry scored 22 points off the bench, the highest scoring output in his 24 games with the Blue Devils.

“Seth knows he’s a very good player, and he knows he can play in this league,” Smith said. “Tonight he showed that -- on the biggest stage. He showed up tonight and played the way we know he can.”

After the Blue Devils fell behind by 16 points, Curry and Smith took over the game. Curry made a jumper with seven seconds left in the first half to cut UNC’s lead to 43-29, and then the Blue Devils scored the first eight points of the second half to make it a game again.

“It wasn’t an X's & O's adjustment,” Krzyzewski said. “It was [an adjustment] to calm them down. They were too excited -- nuts is the word. It was like, ‘What are you guys doing?’”

Smith and Curry sparked Duke’s 10-0 run with a pair of 3-pointers. Both 3-pointers came after the Blue Devils grabbed offensive rebounds on missed foul shots.

“I felt he had excellent quickness,” Krzyzewski said of Curry. “The thing he’s learned to do is get his shot off quicker. He was really coming off screens well and went right into his shot.”

Curry’s breakout performance couldn’t have come at a better time for the Blue Devils. Senior Kyle Singler, the team’s second-leading scorer with 18 points per game, labored through one of his most difficult performances of the season against UNC.

With the Tar Heels hounding him on nearly every possession, Singler scored 10 points on 3-for-17 shooting.

“At times during the season, I do stand around and watch Nolan and Kyle,” Curry said. “But coming into tonight, I had to be another punch out there for us. Nolan and I got it going in the second half, and it felt like we were turning everything around.”

UNC coach Roy Williams wasn’t happy with how his team defended Duke’s guards.

“Seth Curry was big, to say the least,” Williams said. “We didn’t give Kyle as many open ones as we gave Seth and Nolan and some of the other guys. We gave them more open shots.”

Much like his older brother, who was also largely overlooked by bigger schools, Seth Curry had to prove he was good enough to play at a school like Duke. After starring at Charlotte Christian School, Curry was named the Big South Freshman of the Year after averaging 20.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists at Liberty in 2008-09.

But doing it at Duke was an entirely different matter. Curry’s open looks weren’t as open and defenders were taller, stronger and faster.

“This is a different league,” Curry said. “You’re not just going to be out there shooting every night. You’ve got to do more than shoot and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

While Curry’s career at Duke is in its infancy, Smith’s is nearing its end. Smith said beating the Tar Heels in his final home game against them was the crowning achievement of his career -- even bigger than winning a national championship last season.

“I’ve watched a lot of Duke-Carolina games and this is definitely one of my favorites,” Smith said. “This is the biggest win of my career. The championship was great, but I’d say my last home game against Carolina was the biggest game. To come back the way we did, it can’t get any better than this.”

Today's Tune: The Outlaws - Hurry Sundown (Live 1977)

Larry Drew's departure disgraceful

Seth Davis > HOOP THOUGHTS
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
February 7, 2011

I consider myself a big "freedom of movement" guy. I don't like the NBA's age-minimum rule because it denies players an opportunity to meet the market's demand. I never criticize a coach for bolting for a more lucrative job or an underclassman who turns professional. I don't like the National Letter of Intent because it binds a recruit to a school even in the event of a coaching change, and I don't like the fact that schools have the option of denying a release to a player who wants to transfer.

I cannot, however, support Larry Drew II's sudden decision to leave North Carolina last Friday. The facts behind his decision and the manner in which it was carried out are deplorable. Drew didn't just quit on Roy Williams. He quit on his teammates at the most important time of the season. He did so without letting on that it was coming or informing them what he had done. Worst of all, he left it to his father to deliver the news to Williams via a phone call on Friday morning.

Former UNC point guard Larry Drew was unhappy he lost his starting job, but he had played better coming off the bench.(Icon SMI)

To say that Williams and the players were surprised is a mass understatement. Yes, Drew, a 6-foot-2 junior point guard, had lost his starting point guard to freshman Kendall Marshall on Jan. 18, right after the Heels had been blitzed by 20 points at Georgia Tech. But in the four games in which Drew came off the bench he played some of his best basketball. Not coincidentally, North Carolina won all four games. During that stretch Drew had a total of 19 assists to just four turnovers, and Williams twice paid him the ultimate compliment by naming him the team's defensive player of the game. What's more, even though Drew was coming off the bench, his minutes had not declined all that much. He averaged 19.3 minutes to Marshall's 21.3.

Drew had by far his best game of the season last Tuesday, when he had nine assists and one turnover in 19 minutes during North Carolina's 106-74 win at Boston College. The team was off on Wednesday, and from what I'm told Drew had an excellent practice on Thursday. He even showed up early for the weight room session, which has not been his habit. Drew has never been a come-early, leave-late kind of guy. For a long time the feeling around him has been that he was a little spoiled having grown up the son of an ex-NBA player. Drew's father, Larry, played nine years in the league and is currently the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. (Larry Sr. declined my request for comment through the Hawks.)

Sometime late Thursday night, Drew went back to the North Carolina locker room to pack up some belongings. By morning he was gone. He left without saying a word to the coaches or players -- including his roommate, Justin Watts, who was supposedly his best friend on the team. The fact that he left it to his father to deliver the news to Williams was the ultimate cowardly act. It does not speak well of the player, but frankly it also does not speak well of his parents. Instead of doing the dirty work for him, Larry Sr. should have told his son, "If you want to leave, you go into that man's office and tell him yourself, to his face." It would have been the honorable thing to do.

Much has been made about the role that Larry Sr. might have had in his son's decision, but Drew's mother, Sharon, is a far greater problem. Sharon is the one who would call the coaches to complain about how many minutes her son was playing or how many shots he was getting. The news site Inside Carolina reported that in 2009 Sharon called the basketball office irate after she heard Williams spoke with John Wall, who was then a high school senior, about coming to play in Chapel Hill. Sharon was the one who would protest how many tickets she was getting to games, and where her seats were. She is the one whose meddlesome tactics led the coach at Drew's former high school to dismiss his younger brother, Landon, from the team in the spring of 2010. The coach, Derrick Taylor, told the L.A. Times, "I informed [Landon] and his mother he could no longer be on the team. He's a great kid, but the circumstances are too unbearable." The school's principal later instructed Taylor to reinstate the player, saying "Landon can't be punished for adult behavior."

There is a strong argument to be made that Drew's departure is a classic case of addition by subtraction. In North Carolina's first game without him, Marshall played 36 minutes and had 16 assists to just three turnovers in a 20-point thrashing of Florida State. But that's not the point. Ironically, as selfish as Drew's actions have been, they are also self-defeating. Though his father told the Raleigh News and Observer last week that "this was a decision that was made long before this season even started," Larry's decision to wait until after the start of the spring semester means that he only has one year of eligibility remaining. If he had transferred during the semester break, he would have retained the option of becoming eligible in midseason next year.

What options will Larry Drew have moving forward? Hard to say. His talent has often been called into question -- with good reason, I might add -- but now he has raised troubling issues about his character. If you're a coach and you need a point guard, are you going to take someone who might quit when the going gets tough? Is this guy really good enough to make it worth all this trouble?


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/seth_davis/02/07/hoop.thoughts/index.html#ixzz1DT7E7rYm

PC military fails to detect Fort Hood shooter

Debra J. Saunders
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/saunders/archive/
Tuesday, February 8, 2011

When he was in his residency, studying psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 2003 to 2009, Nidal Hasan gave a lecture in which he defended Osama bin Laden, justified suicide bombers and suggested that Muslim Americans in the military - like him - could be prone to fratricidal attacks against fellow troops.

He was "a chronic poor performer," who often failed to show up for work and was often on probation. His program director considered him "very lazy" and "a religious fanatic."

His superiors described the first draft of a presentation needed to complete his residency as "not scientific," "not scholarly" - but a rehash of Quoranic verses with no mention of a single medical or psychiatric term. Another presentation - in which he charged that U.S. operations abroad were part of a war against Islam - so angered his colleagues that an instructor stopped the speech. And yet the Army consistently gave Hasan positive evaluations and promoted him to major in 2009.

So says the Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee in a report released last week by Chairman Joe Lieberman and ranking Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Hasan awaits trial in the wake of the 2009 Fort Hood shootings that left 13 dead and 32 wounded in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

The Senate report also slams the FBI for failing to interview military superiors and colleagues when intelligence revealed that Hasan had been in touch with Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Sadly, the committee found, the Defense Department and the FBI "collectively had sufficient information to have detected Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism but failed to understand and act on it."

By the way, the emphasis of the report is not to marginalize Muslims, but to alert the military to the signs that an officer was radicalizing. The right policies, the report notes, will protect "the thousands of Muslim Americans who serve honorably in the military from unwarranted suspicion arising from their religious practice."

Unfortunately, the report found that military culture was - and I would add, is - unprepared to take on the challenge. The fear of being accused of anti-Muslim discrimination, bureaucratic lethargy and even the Army's insistence on keeping a poor candidate in a fellowship program rather than lose the slot, all worked to shield an officer whom an instructor and colleague branded a "ticking time bomb."

Political correctness clearly reigns in the military after this bloody lesson. Last year, the Pentagon released a report, "Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood," which never once referred to Islamist extremism. The report instead concentrated on workplace violence, even touting the U.S. Postal Service's program to end workplace violence as the sort of program that could prevent another attack.

Army Secretary Togo West explained, "Our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations."

In short, the Pentagon's reaction was to hail the opposite of intelligence.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/08/EDIG1HJVCS.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Egypt's revolution to win or lose

By George F. Will
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Sixty years ago, American politics was embittered by an accusation couched as a question: "Who lost China?" The implied indictment was that America had fumbled away a possession through incompetence or sinister conniving.

In 1949, when communists came to power there, America bestrode both hemispheres shattered from war. Americans thought that their nation was at the wheel of the world and that whatever happened, wherever, happened at America's instigation, or at least its sufferance, or was evidence of American negligence.

It is a sign of national maturity - the product of hard learning, from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan - that fewer American complainers are today faulting the Obama administration for not anticipating and shaping events in Egypt. Israel, which lives next door to Egypt and has an excellent intelligence service, did not see this coming. So, a modest proposal:

Those Americans who know which Republican will win next year's Iowa caucuses can complain about those who did not know that when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, he would set a region afire. From all other Americans, forbearance would be seemly.

It also would be amazing, because there is a cottage industry of Barack Obama critics who, not content with monitoring his myriad mistakes in domestic policies, insist that there must be a seamless connection of those with his foreign policy. Strangely, these critics, who correctly doubt the propriety and capacity of the U.S. government controlling our complex society, simultaneously fault the government for not having vast competence to shape the destinies of other societies. Such critics persist because, as Upton Sinclair wrote in 1935, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

America has one source of leverage over Egyptian events - the close relations between that nation's military leadership and America's, including the material dependence of the former on U.S. assistance. But saying that Egypt's military is the nation's most impressive institution constitutes faint praise.

Can Egypt's soldiers fine-tune a whirlwind? It is largely forgotten that when Mikhail Gorbachev began contemplating reform of the Soviet Union - before things spun out of control, as they have a way of doing - he imagined only a more efficient communism still administered by a one-party state. Today, residual sentimentality about him obscures the fact that real multiparty pluralism was not in his original plans. And two decades later, it still is not in Russia's foreseeable future.

If there are Egyptian elections soon, America will be tempted to try to influence them. It did that successfully in Italy in 1948, when there was a substantial danger that communists would win. In Italy then, however, unlike in Egypt today, there were two clear sides - the Cold War was taking shape. And there was a more recent and robust parliamentary tradition, including political parties, than in Egypt.

In the National Endowment for Democracy and elsewhere, the U.S. government has access to reservoirs of talent for helping Egypt improvise an infrastructure of representative government. But this must be done with exquisite delicacy because, happily, the Egyptian regime is being shaken primarily by nationalists.

An encouraging aspect of the Egyptian protests is the widespread waving of the nation's flag. Western intellectuals, who tend toward cosmopolitanism, tend to disdain the nation-state and nationalism as aspects of humanity's infancy, things to be outgrown. But the nation gives substance and structure to the secular pride and yearnings of the Egyptian people, who are demographically young but culturally ancient. Indelicate American assistance for democratization could cause a recoil from those crowds eager to be proud of an Egyptian outcome.

The question is: What comes after whatever comes next? In March 2003, as U.S. forces fought toward Baghdad, a then-two-star general, David Petraeus, speaking to The Post's Rick Atkinson, "hooked his thumbs into his flak vest" and spoke five words that have reverberated ever since: "Tell me how this ends."

Next, Petraeus said five unremembered words: "Eight years and eight divisions?" Atkinson explained: "The allusion was to advice supposedly given the White House in the early 1950s by a senior Army strategist upon being asked what it would take to prop up French forces in South Vietnam."

We still do not know how the process begun by America's intervention in Iraq will end - or, for that matter, how to mark the "end" of a great historical convulsion. In Egypt, Egyptians will tell us how it ends.

georgewill@washpost.com

The Roots of Ronald Reagan's Ambition

A novel he read as a boy set him on a life-long course.

By JOHN FUND
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
FEBRUARY 8, 2011

Simi Valley, Calif. - Ronald Reagan's status as a mythic figure was demonstrated on Sunday as 1,500 guests gathered at the Reagan Presidential Library to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday. Liberals have come to accept his strengths and even acknowledge some of his accomplishments, while conservatives have raised even higher his pedestal. Yet unanswered questions about the Gipper linger.

His son, Ron Reagan, notes that even though his father was on public display his entire adult life, for "even those of us who were closest to him, [there was a] hidden 10% that remains a considerable mystery." One mystery: How could a boy who spent much of his youth alone, was picked on by bullies, and was so nearsighted that he was chosen last for playground games, acquire the ambition to run for president four times?

There are tangible clues. One is that Reagan consciously set out to become a hero at an early age. "I'm a sucker for hero worship," he wrote in his 1990 autobiography "An American Life." Heroism was a recurring theme of his presidential speeches, from his first inaugural to his 1984 State of the Union address in which he celebrated "unsung American heroes who may not have realized their dreams themselves but who then reinvest those dreams in their children."

When Reagan was 11, his mother gave him an inspirational novel called "That Printer of Udell's," the story of a young man who combines a belief in "practical Christianity" with Horatio Alger-like grit. Reagan biographer Edmund Morris noted in a 1999 interview in the American Enterprise magazine that the novel's central character, Dick Falkner, is "a tall, good-looking, genial young man who wears brown suits and has the gift of platform speaking and comes to a Midwestern town just like Dixon, Illinois, and figures out a workfare program to solve the city's social problems. He marries this girl who looks at him adoringly with big wide eyes through all his speeches, and eventually he goes off with her to represent that shining city in Washington, D.C."

Years later, Reagan was uncharacteristically revealing about himself in a 1984 letter to the daughter-in-law of Harold Bell Wright, the author of "That Printer of Udell's." He noted that all of his boyhood reading "left an abiding belief in the triumph of good over evil," but he singled out Wright's work for having "an impact I shall always remember. After reading it and thinking about it for a few days, I went to my mother and told her I wanted to declare my faith and be baptized. . . . I found a role model in that traveling printer whom Harold Bell Wright had brought to life. He set me on a course I've tried to follow even unto this day. I shall always be grateful."

Mr. Morris says reading that book marked the moment "when Reagan's moral sense developed." Peter Hannaford, a longtime Reagan aide, told me on Sunday that "Reagan profoundly empathized with the fact that, like him, Dick Falkner also had an alcoholic father and yet overcame poverty and adversity."

So Ronald Reagan willed himself to take on the qualities that would allow him to become the hero he wanted to be. By the age of 21, the shy, nearsighted boy had become a lifeguard who was credited with saving 77 lives. As an adult he had an unstoppable ambition—his aide Martin Anderson called him a "warmly ruthless man" in pursuit of his goals.

That also could explain why he was sometimes distant from even his children and certainly his associates. He was consumed by a pursuit of greatness for himself and his country.

For Ronald Reagan, the heroes he admired and the hero he aspired to become demonstrated what individuals in a free society like America were capable of achieving. The essence of Ronald Reagan's personal American Dream was that the next generation should always strive to be better than the previous one. There's no mystery about that part of Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Today's Tune: Neil Young & Pearl Jam - Rockin' in the Free World (Live)

Dangerously underestimating the Muslim Brotherhood

By DAVID HOROVITZ
The Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/
06/02/2011

Analysis: The Islamists’ tactical absence from the protests has been widely misread as proof of their lack of ambition and marginality.

An Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood supporter holds a banner reading in Arabic "Martyrs for Islam", Sept. 22, 2006, Cairo.

The precedents are fresh and obvious. Yet the US government seems intent on ignoring them.

In Iran in 1979, leftist and other secular forces, central to the rising pressure that ousted the Shah, were duped and then outflanked by Islamist supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, who took power and have cemented it for 32 years since. The Islamists achieved this despite having constituted only the most marginal of forces just a couple of years earlier.

In the Palestinian territories in 2006, the US insisted on pressing ahead with elections that, in part because of Fatah’s corruption and disorganization, saw the underestimated Islamist Hamas terror group gain a parliamentary majority, which it then exploited to violently take over the Gaza Strip a year later.

In Lebanon over the past few weeks, the Iranianinspired, controlled and financed Hizbullah outmaneuvered the hapless prime minister Saad Hariri, to complete what amounts to a gradual, highly sophisticated takeover of the country.

In Turkey in recent years, confidence that such secular bulwarks as the army and the judiciary would prevent growing Islamic domination of the national agenda has proved increasingly misplaced, again via the subtle and protracted marginalization of these former establishment pillars. Turkey, champion of Hamas, nemesis of Israel, is now drifting inexorably out of the western orbit.

Washington’s apparent disinclination, as it now tries to influence the process of Hosni Mubarak’s replacement, to internalize the dangers highlighted by the Iran, Gaza, Lebanon and Turkey disasters, and thus do everything in its power to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood presiding over a similar process in Egypt, is incomprehensible.

And it could prove immensely threatening for Israel.

For all President Barack Obama’s declared intent to usher in a new partnership between the US and the Muslim world, what he termed “a new beginning” in his 2009 speech in Cairo, his diplomats did not deliver significant diplomatic pressure on Mubarak to reform his regime in the past two years. This was most starkly confirmed by December’s vigorously fraudulent parliamentary elections, which featured mass arrests of opposition supporters and the firm muzzling of critical media, and in which the Muslim Brotherhood’s 88-seat share of theprevious 454-member parliament descended to zero because of the regime’s machinations.

Washington evidently failed to foresee that embittered Egyptians might then resort to the massed protests of the past two weeks, and it abandoned Mubarak with alacrity as it scrambled to avoid being caught on the wrong side of a largely spontaneous people’s push for freedom and democracy.

But however one gauges the realpolitik involved in that dramatic recoil from a 30-year ally, the White House’s subsequent reported moves to legitimate Egypt’s Islamists – whose outlook conflicts utterly with the democratic agenda – make no sense, and suggest a frighteningly superficial understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood’s intentions and potential achievements.

Far from learning the lessons of the Islamists’ skilled subversion of other pro-democracy movements, working with potential leaders of an Egyptian transition to minimize the risk of such a process recurring, and making publicly plain that there will be no ongoing American alliance with an Egypt in which an unreformed Islamist movement has even a marginal role in government, the White House seems to be actively encouraging a transitional outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood.

National Security Council official Dan Shapiro told Jewish leaders on a conference call Wednesday that the administration would not deal with the Brotherhood. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had two days earlier urged the inclusion of “important non-secular actors” in a more democratic Egypt – a statement that was widely seen as relating to the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Administration’s proposal for the immediate transfer of power calls for the transitional government to include the Muslim Brotherhood, the New York Times reported Friday.

As things stand, of course, the longer Mubarak hangs on, the greater the instability and the anger, and the more for the Islamists to build upon.

But why would the US assist them? The administration may in part be motivated by the president’s seeming conviction, as David Ignatius wrote in the Washington Post last week, “that change is a matter for Egyptians, not Americans, and that too heavy an American hand would be counterproductive.”

In addition, numerous “experts” in both the US print and electronic media over the past week have been concertedly representing the Muslim Brotherhood as benign, hapless, not particularly popular, or all three of the above.

Far from benign, the Brotherhood is committed to death-cult jihad in the cause of widened Islamist rule, was the progenitor of Hamas and central to Islamist radicalization among the Palestinians. And its popularity was evident in that impressive 2005 parliamentary performance, achieved, it should be stressed, despite the Mubarak-orchestrated unfavorable circumstances.

Yet readers of the New York Times on Thursday, for instance, were treated to a page-leading op-ed article headlined “Egypt’s Bumbling Brotherhood,” which depicted the Islamists as a veritable Keystone Kops rabble of incompetents who have “botched every opportunity” for 83 years to revive Islamic power. Their purported 20-30 percent support, according to author Scott Atran, “is less a matter of true attachment than an accident of circumstances.”

Tony Blair’s warning that the Islamists could take the unfolding Egyptian revolution in the wrong direction was blithely dismissed by the author with the assertion that the Brotherhood’s “failure to support the initial uprising… has made it marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading through the Arab world.”

On CNN that same day, scholars Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan, while not entirely deriding the notion of Islamist influence, nevertheless scathingly marginalized the threat, with Dunne, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, citing the centrality and dependability of the secular Egyptian military and judiciary as though Turkey’s seismic shift had not been unfolding before our very eyes in recent years.

Some commentators made much of the fact that the Brotherhood kept a low profile early in the uprising, interpreting this as evidence of disorganization and/or a lack of ambition. But the restraints have come off since then: Islamist rhetoric has become more prominent, and Brotherhood spokesmen are now ubiquitous in the media.

Experiences elsewhere have demonstrated the patience that Islamist organizations can exercise, building and gaining power and influence over years, over decades. Yet the absence of the Brotherhood from the protest frontlines for a matter of mere days – an astute tactic to ensure the watching world was not alienated and to maximize domestic support for the uprising – was apparently widely misread as proof of its irrelevance.

A much-cited – though not always accurately – Pew Research Center of Muslim attitudes, published only two months ago, indicates how frighteningly fertile the ground is for the Islamists in Egypt: 82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning people who commit adultery; 77% favor whipping/ cutting off of hands for theft and robbery; and 84% favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion, it found. By way of comparison, the comparable percentages in Turkey, even as it submits to growing Islamist influence, were just 16%, 13% and 5% respectively.

The same survey found that among Egyptian Muslims who see a struggle between those who want to modernize their country and Islamic fundamentalists, a striking 59% side with the fundamentalists and only 27% with the modernizers.

Pew also found that 54% of Egyptian Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified often (8%), sometimes (12%) or rarely (34%), as against 46% who said they could never be justified.

The Pew poll did not ask a follow-up question about precisely when such bombings could be justified, but a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman from Cairo, also interviewed on CNN, offered an insight in this context.

Mohamed Morsy, who in the course of the conversation on Thursday refused to commit his movement to maintenance of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty or to recognition of Israel, and stressed its opposition to Zionism, insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed the use of violence. Without missing a beat, however, he went on to say that what was going on in Palestine was “resistance.” And “resistance,” he said, “is acceptable by all mankind. It is the right of people to resist imperialism.”

In the New York Times “Bumbling Brotherhood” op-ed, another such spokesman, Dr. Essam el-Erian, was quoted as saying, “Israel must know that it is not welcome by the people in this region.” And writer Atran acknowledged that the Brotherhood “wants power,” and allowed that “its positions, notably its stance against Israel, are problematic for American interests.”

The current regional uprising has reemphasized Israel’s unique centrality to America as the region’s only truly dependable ally, because the partnership is not tactical or even strategic, but a function of shared interests and values that genuinely resonate throughout society. Why, then, Israel’s leaders must surely be asking their American counterparts in their current frantic consultations, would the US government help legitimate, on yet another of our newly unstable frontiers, a bleak, benighted movement that can be guaranteed to use any influence it accrues to undermine those shared interests and values?

Why 33 rounds makes sense in a defensive weapon

By Stephen Hunter
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Sunday, February 6, 2011


Sleek, its lines rakishly tilted to boost the ergonomics that index grip placement to barrel, this automatic pistol has but one function: to eliminate human beings easily. That sinister intent is expressed most eloquently in the extended magazine that reaches far beneath the pistol grip, easily tripling the amount of ammunition available to the killer.

It's the Colt Super .38 automatic pistol, customized into a machine pistol by an underworld gunsmith so that Babyface Nelson could use it to kill an FBI agent outside Little Bohemia, Wis., in 1934. Maybe you saw the movie.

Even if you didn't, you can still see the point: There's nothing really new when it comes to guns. To the contrary, the extended magazine that Jared Loughner allegedly carried in his Glock 19 (pictured at right with extended magazine) the day he is accused of having fatally shot six people outside Tucson and wounding 13 others, and that President Obama is likely to suggest banning in an upcoming speech, may be traced way back.

During World War I, American armorers tried to adapt the 1903 Springfield into a counter-sniper "periscope rifle" by, among other things, installing a 25-round magazine. The Germans tried to turn the Luger pistol into a "trench broom" by devising a 32-round "snail drum" magazine (it fired the same round as the Glock 19). The Texas Ranger Frank Hamer carried a Remington Model 8 with an extended magazine in his hunt for Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. The Thompson submachine gun of World War II and the M-16 of Vietnam were improved by extending their magazine from 20 to 30 rounds. In 1957, the U.S. Army adopted the M-14 rifle, which was hardly more than an M-1 Garand rifle with an extended magazine. And who wouldn't want our soldiers, Marines and law officers to benefit from extended magazines?

Guns were the software of the 19th century; the most dynamic age of development was roughly 1870 to 1900, when the modern forms were perfected. Two primary operating systems emerged for handguns: the revolver, usually holding six cartridges and manipulated by the muscle energy of the hand, and the semiautomatic, harnessing the explosively released energy of the burning powder to cock and reload itself. Since then, design and engineering improvements have been not to lethality but to ease of maintenance and manufacture, or weight reduction. A Glock is "better" than a Luger because you don't need a PhD to take it apart, nor a fleet of machinists to produce the myriad pins, levers, springs and chunks of steel that make it go bang. Moreover, you can lose a Glock in a flood and find it six months later in the mud, and it still will shoot perfectly, while the Luger would have become a nice paperweight.

What nobody has been able to improve on since the 1870s is the cartridge. It is an extraordinary mechanism that safely stores volatile chemical energy until needed. It is cheap to manufacture, easy to transport and largely impervious to the elements.

What's often lost amid activists' carping is that the effect of the notorious extended magazine does little to improve the pistol's lethality except in extraordinary circumstances, such as Tucson. Neither Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech mass murderer, nor the alleged Fort Hood killer used extended magazines in their rampages. America's first gun mass murder, when Howard Unruh killed 13 people in 1949, was committed with a Luger.

In fact, the extended magazine actually vitiates the pistol's usefulness as a weapon for most needs, legitimate or illegitimate. The magazine destroys the pistol's essence; it is no longer concealable. Loughner allegedly wrapped the clumsy package in a coat for a short distance, but he could not have worn it in a belt or concealed it for an extended period. It had really ceased to be a pistol.

That's why extended magazines are rarely featured in crime - and that awkwardness spells out the magazine's primary legitimate usage. It may have some utility for competitive shooting by cutting down on reloading time, or for tactical police officers on raids, but for those who are not hard-core gun folks it's an ideal solution for home defense, which is probably why hundreds of thousands of Glocks have been sold in this country.

Particularly in rural Arizona, given the upsurge in border violence, it's likely that residents feel the need to defend themselves against drug predators, coyote gunmen or others. Yes, they can use semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, protected by the Second Amendment and unlikely to be banned by local law, but women generally don't care to put in the training needed to master them. Nor can the elderly handle them adeptly.

For them, the Glock with a 33-round magazine is the weapon of maximum utility. You can load it on Sunday and shoot it all month. (Nobody wants to reload a gun while being shot at.) It's light and easy to control. You don't have to carry it or conceal it; it's under the bed or in the drawer until needed. When the question arises of who needs an extended magazine, the answer is: the most defenseless of the defenseless.

Those who would ban extended magazines, will say that although hundreds of thousands are in circulation and thousands more will surely be sold before a ban is enacted, it will be worth it if it saves just one life. But the other half of that question must be asked, too: Is it worth it if it costs just one life?

Stephen Hunter, a former chief film critic of The Post, is the author of "Dead Zero."

Reagan vs. the Progressives

By Paul Kengor on 2.4.11 @ 6:08AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/

23 Oct 1947, Washington, DC, USA --- Ronald Reagan testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

America this week marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth. Born February 6, 1911, Reagan lived a remarkable life, with a presidency of utmost consequence, winning, among other things, 44 states in 1980 and 49 in 1984, plus a Cold War against a truly Evil Empire. Oh, yes, he also won a long battle -- less recognized -- against progressives. It was a crucial battle -- even less understood -- that began for Reagan, with fascinating twists, back in Hollywood. The Reagan centennial is a golden opportunity to consider what happened there and to draw lessons for what America faces with progressives today.

In the 1980s, the progressives Reagan faced called themselves "liberals." In the 1940s, when Reagan first encountered them, as a liberal himself, they weren't shy about calling themselves progressives. More telling, Reagan was shocked to find that many of those spearheading "progressive" groups and causes weren't really progressives but were communists exploiting progressives, their labels, and their organizations. Understanding this is no mere historical curiosity; no, for Reagan, it was a life-changing wake-up call, initiating a personal-political transformation that, ultimately, and dramatically, led to the presidency and victory in the Cold War. That path included Reagan handing the progressives their biggest setback since the founding of their movement -- a setback they're striving to "change" and "reform" right now.

Before considering Reagan's conversion, it's key to understand what was happening with Hollywood's progressives in this period. Many "progressives," especially following the surge by Communist Party USA (CPUSA) during the Great Depression, were actually closet communists lifting the progressive label to dupe progressives. This was done quite cynically and successfully, whether ordered and orchestrated from CPUSA headquarters in New York, from CPUSA's branch office in Los Angeles, or from Comintern headquarters in Moscow. It's fascinating, and would be hilarious if not so sad, that the Soviets even referred to Joe Stalin as a progressive. The Soviet Ministry of Education framed Stalin as "the great leader of the Soviet people and of all progressive mankind."

Similarly, in Washington, some self-proclaimed "progressives" serving President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were actually communists penetrating and influencing the administration: Lauchlin Currie, Harry Dexter White, Harold Glasser, Alger Hiss. Even FDR's most trusted adviser, Harry Hopkins, may have been a closet communist masquerading as a progressive. That's the conclusion of some experts who have dissected the Venona transcripts.

The communist pilfering of the "progressive" label was evident in a major Congressional report in December 1961, the most in-depth investigation of communist front groups ever done. Titled, "Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications," the investigation went back to the early 20th century. Probably the most popular title listing in the 994-page cumulative index is the word "progressive."

That brings me to Hollywood, where the exploitation of the progressive label was especially rich, and where communists truly desired to hijack the motion-picture industry. Progressives would be central to that plan.

Consider the group, Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), which was thoroughly penetrated. One liberal actor exploited was the great Gene Kelly, a pleasant, patriotic American. Kelly was enlisted as a progressive prop to stand in front of a giant American flag and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. He rallied the progressives in reverential renditions of "America." In one sorry display, the all-American boy was cast to provide the introduction at PCA's initial meeting in Los Angeles on February 11, 1947. The evening's theme was established before Kelly spoke, as a large screen flashed photographs of bombed Hiroshima, with rolling footage of the dead and maimed. That evening, PCA board members would be elected. On the ballot were secret hard-line Hollywood communists like John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo, as well as non-communist liberals like Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Gregory Peck, Lena Horne, and Melvyn Douglas.

Take another sorry case, where Katharine Hepburn was the opening speaker at a May 19, 1947 Progressive Party Rally at Hollywood Legion Stadium. Draped in a long, flame-red dress, the liberal New Englander read a speech scripted by Trumbo -- and so admired by People's Daily World that it reprinted the entire text.

This manipulation was old hat for the comrades, who found no shortage of progressives to do the bidding of Stalin.

Alas, into this waded an actor named Ronald Reagan, mid-30s, politically passionate. As a committed FDR liberal, Reagan was susceptible to the conniving of communists. He was targeted immediately after World War II, a quick victim of several front-groups. He was very "naïve," Reagan admitted later, "blindly and busily" joining "every organization I could find that would guarantee to save the world." He was "an active" but unwitting participant "in what now and then turned out to be communist causes." The deceived Reagan assumed these folks were "liberals, and being liberals ourselves, [we] bedded down with them."

Most redeeming about Ronald Reagan is that when he learned, he really learned. By October 1947, he was testifying before Congress on communist infiltration. Later still, he would explain: "The communist plan for Hollywood was remarkably simple. It was merely to take over the motion picture business … [as] a grand world-wide propaganda base." Before TV and mass production of foreign films, said Reagan, American movies dominated 95% of the world's screens, with an audience of "500,000,000 souls" around the globe. "Takeover of this enormous plant and its gradual transformation into a communist gristmill was a grandiose idea. It would have been a magnificent coup for our enemies."

In Reagan's view, those were the stakes, prodded by a "master scheme" to "line up big-name dupes to collect money and create prestige." Progressives were central to the plan. Even at the height of party membership, CPUSA never had more than about 100,000 members; it couldn't advance without progressives.

Americans needed to wake up, as had Reagan.

Of course, the rest is history. Reagan began a historic march to the presidency that, by the 1980s, threatened to squash the progressive long march that preceded him. He had splendid success, but one thing about progressives -- which Reagan understood -- is their patient ability to work slowly, incrementally, with victories not necessarily at the ballot box but in other influential facets of American life, like education. They waited and waited, until, in November 2008, enough oblivious Americans, especially moderates and independents, were duped like Reagan once had been -- and voted into office a progressive-in-chief campaigning under the banner of "change." Some things never change.

We must learn what Ronald Reagan learned: The progressive left isn't going away, ever-awaiting the next step in the evolutionary chain. It's an ebb and flow, but always creeping toward centralization; or, what Reagan called "creeping socialism." We must awaken, providing progressives with more setbacks. Most of all, we must not to be fooled, misled, duped, certainly not more than once. Ronald Reagan's life, and path, is a history and life lesson for all of us.


Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and the newly released Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.