U.S & WorldWorld
Wallace: Tough but fair
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- Written by Emery Jeffreys
CBS Reporter Mike Wallace, the master of prime time interrogations and an influencer of a generation of journalists, died Saturday. He was 93.
Wallace's style often left viewers with the impression that a crew would soon join the interview to mop-up blood from the killing-room floor.
The toughest questions came with his trademark prelude of "forgive me."
When he sat down with the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, in 1979, he said that President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt “calls you, Imam — forgive me, his words, not mine — a lunatic.” The translator blanched, but the Ayatollah responded, calmly calling Sadat a heretic.
He also used the phrase to cajole close friend singer Barbra Streisand to answer a tough question. She wept, but their friendship never wavered.
In another incident, Wallace blistered Nixon's right-hand man John Erlichman beginning with a single word: “perjury” during the Watergate investigations.
He continued the withering fire by saying “Plans to audit tax returns for political retaliation. Theft of psychiatric records. Spying by undercover agents. Conspiracy to obstruct justice. All of this by the law-and-order administration of Richard Nixon.”
Ehrlichman gulped and asked, “Is there a question in there somewhere?”
Wallace indignantly conceded there was no question, but it made spectacular television during President Nixon's fall from grace.
Wallace once asked mobster Mickey Cohen how many men had he killed. He also lectured Vladimir Putin and criticized Palestinian strongman Yassar Arafat.
Over the years Wallace was joined by a stable of some of the greatest TV journalists of the 20th century: Harry Reasoner, Morey Safer, Ed Bradley and Andy Rooney.
Bradley died in 2006 at the age of 65. He first joined the series in 1981 and produced more than 500 segments.
CBS curmudgeon and former war correspondent Andy Rooney joined the show as a producer in in 1978. He left 60 Minutes on Oct. 2, 2011 and died a month later.
Most people remember Rooney's cranky commentaries. Few remember the landmark reporting with Rooney as producer and Reasoner as the reporter during the civil rights era. Part of their experiences were intertwined in the film of "Mississippi Burning."
Hewitt was shown the door in 2002 when the show slipped to No. 20 after decades in the top 10 of all TV shows. He died Aug. 19, 2009. He was 86.
Hewitt was executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, leading the famous broadcast of John F. Kennedy's assassination as the story developed.
Cronkite, Reasoner and Hewitt held the nation's hand as it wept through the days following the Dallas shooting.
Of the original crew, only Safer, 80, remains as a regular contributor.
"His visits were preceded by the four dreaded words: Mike Wallace is here," Safer said. " He took to heart the old reporter's pledge to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
I never met Wallace, but he wrote me a letter that I treasure. He thanked me for kind words I said in a letter about his 1980 essay on founding father Thomas Jefferson.
In the essay, he quoted Jefferson: "No government ought to be without censors and when the press is free, none ever will. It serves to keep the water pure."
To this day, when I write about government corruption or bureaucratic bungling, those words ring true.
Karl Rove vs. Clint Eastwood
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- Written by Emery Jeffreys
When a Super Bowl commercial offends Republican strategist Karl Rove, it's probably resounding in just the opposite way with mainstream Americans.
Sept. 11: Seeds of doubt on 9/11 continues
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NEW YORK -- Ten years later, the void left by an attack on the World Trade Center wraps around the silent, empty space in Manhattan left by the twin towers.
State Of The Union transcript
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- Written by Barak Obama
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Tonight I want to begin by congratulating the men and women of the 112th Congress, as well as your new Speaker, John Boehner (Applause.) And as we mark this occasion, we’re also mindful of the empty chair in this chamber, and we pray for the health of our colleague -- and our friend -– Gabby Giffords (Applause.)
Rand Paul vs. facts, coal
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- Written by Emery Jeffreys
Rand Paul, a U.S. Senator representing a major coal producing state, can't get his facts straight about the industry or organized labor.
An article on CNN's documentary about coal mining and a Google ad are spreading Paul's erroneous statements by happenstance.
A Google ad that ocassionally displays in the story in the Beckly Register-Herald is ironic to the max: Senator Rand Paul "Sign the right to work petition Obama fears."
Neither the Register-Herald nor CNN have anything to do with the advertising positioning. the positioning is based on a Google AdSense algorithm.
Paul, the Libertarian Senator from Kentucky, wants a new federal law to regulate millions of workers. He is touting a national right to work law as a back-handed way to weaken or abolish unions. The proposed rule could impact every job in the U.S.
Tea parties today and the 1700s
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- Written by Emery Jeffreys
On December 16, 1773, officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain. A group of colonists boarded three ships and tossed the into Boston Harbor. It was iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.
It was more than a few boxes of tea. The East India Company in 1773 shipped nearly 600,000 pounds of tea to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston, S.C.
It took up to 130 men about three hours to dunk 97,000 pounds of tea in the harbor.
The other acts of civil disobedience took place in Chestertown, Maryland in May 1774 and Edenton, N.C. on Oct. 25, 1774.
The Edenton Tea Party was a landmark, not because of the stances taken—boycotts were common across the Thirteen Colonies—but because it was organized by women.
The latest round of tea party protests began in the U.S. in 2009.
The protests centered around an 18 percent tax on non-diet colas in New York City, the Bush Administration Troubled Asset Relief Program, tax day on April 15, 2009, and Independence Day on July 4, 2009.
Now post of the protests center on just about anything proposed by Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate. The gridlock has come close to shutting-down the government.
More shots fired in battle for Blair Mountain
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- Written by Emery Jeffreys
SHARPLES, W.Va. - A tiny Logan County coal town, population 100, is near ground zero in a national debate on coal mining.
The debate is coal vs. environment. Soledad O’Brien of CNN explored both sides of mountaintop removal, a controversial method of coal mining. It aired on CNN at 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14. It will be aired a second time Sunday, August 21.
Conservatives hijack original Tea Party
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Today's Tea Party claims to focus on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and upholding a conservative view of the U.S. Constitution.
The new economic war
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The other day a friend sent me a link about the empty building glut in China. They have entire cities that are empty. All those empty businesses and empty apartments generate no money.
