"Harris’s stint as vice president has often been pretty unremarkable, but it has provided a rich vein of memes, in part because she can be an awkward communicator...."

"It’s part of what fueled critical media coverage of her during the first year of her tenure, and which led the White House to largely sideline her during the first half of the Biden presidency.... As the first female, Black, and South Asian vice president, Harris was always doomed to receive an extraordinary amount of scrutiny and bias — and emphasized her persona as a 'joyful warrior' in part to combat some of those stereotypes. The joyful warrior, it seems, is sometimes a goofy one too. Harris delivers many of these lines in a genuinely funny way, with an affect unlike many politicians (described sometimes as just vibing along).... Plenty of people are... meme-ing their way to a new celebration of Harris — unburdened by what has been."

I'm reading "Why is everyone talking about Kamala Harris and coconut trees? Ironic Kamala Harris meme-ing isn’t so ironic anymore," a Vox article from July 3rd, when KH was just coasting along in the background, shielded by the seeming candidate, Joe Biden. I don't really understand what was ever "ironic" about any of this.

There are various embedded tweets at that link, including, "How are you supposed to exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you AND be, unburdened by what has been at the same time? Waiting for her 3rd great revelation that synthesizes these two." That's a reaction to this:

Four straight minutes of “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” It’s incredible. I had no idea she used it this much. pic.twitter.com/TClfC1EyH6

— John Cooper (@thejcoop) June 29, 2024

I can understand her interest in being "unburdened by what has been," but she's stepping into the candidacy without having had to fight off rivals who offered new visions or even needing to present anything of her own.

ADDED: I didn't know people had taken to calling Kamala Harris a "joyful warrior," but this year is a lot like 1968 — President withdraws, VP steps into candidacy, convention in Chicago — and the candidate, Hubert Humphrey was famously called "The Happy Warrior."

ALSO: Gretchen Whitmer has called herself "The Happy Warrior." From a July 9th article in the NYT, "Whitmer Talks Tequila, Pearl Jam and Debates in New Book/The Michigan governor will not talk about running for president. But her new book, 'True Gretch,' is full of details keeping the chatter alive":

Ron Johnson said that word that can get you in so much trouble: "purity."

I'm reading a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article that begins: "U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has one main concern when it comes to the merger of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series: maintaining what he calls the 'purity' of golf."

What? Is that racist?! That's the static I had in my head as I read through many paragraphs before I could see the actual quote that contained that word, "purity":

With violent protests in Atlanta, has potential VP nominee Stacey Abrams taken the opportunity to distinguish herself?

Now is the time to show leadership and courage. I found "Georgia politicians condemn violent protests, others see 'day of reckoning'" at AJC. The "day of reckoning" quote is not Abrams's. The part about her is just:

Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate and a potential vice presidential nominee, urged those infuriated by the police brutality to channel their anger to the ballot box.

“As long as those who suborn injustice are in charge, nothing changes,” she said. "So we must vote. Not because voting is the only answer, but it is one that we can’t afford to ignore.”

I don't understand the idea. Is she suggesting that Atlantans vote against Democrats? The mayor of Atlanta has been a Democrat since 1855, with one exception from 1871 to 1872. That one exception was a Republican. How is voting an answer in Atlanta? What does Abrams even mean? How can it resonate with violent protesters in Atlanta?

Who governed Atlanta before 1855? There were 3 mayors from no party at all, and before that, 2 mayors from the Moral Party, and before that, 3 mayors from the Free and Rowdy Party.

What was the Moral Party? The 4th mayor of Atlanta Jonathan Norcross said the Moral Party was "American statesmen defend[-ing] their principles of 'classical republicanism, with arguments drawn from Aristotle, Publius, and Cicero.'"

The Moral Party was distinguished from the Free and Rowdy Party, the party of the first 3 mayors of Atlanta.

The Rowdies included many owners of distilleries, bars and brothels, and represented most of what the city was, especially as an outpost along the railroads. They existed in direct opposition to the Moral Party, which called for temperance and chastity. The two parties were also said to differ on approaches to civil engagement, and so where the Rowdies were the party of militant disorder, the Moral Party promoted law and order. Atlanta's fourth Mayor, Jonathan Norcross, was a member of the Moral Party, and used city hall to so harass the Rowdies that many moved out of what was then incorporated into the city, to places like Snake Nation and Murrell's Row.

So...  the Rowdies were the party of militant disorder.... That resonates with Atlanta these days.

If we look at Minneapolis, the site of the death that led to the current protests, we see another city  run by the Democratic Party — which is called the Democratic Farmer Labor Party there. That party has run the city since 1945, when Hubert H. Humphrey became mayor. [ADDED: There were actually 2 Republican mayors since 1945, one from 1957 to 1961 and another for 2 days, December 31, 1973 to January 2, 1974. And there was an independent who served from 1969 to 1973 and again from 1976 to 1977. So no one but a Democrat since 1977 and no Republican since 1961 unless you count that one guy who was mayor for 2 days.]

By the way, HHH was one of the ex-Vice Presidents who became the Democratic Party's nominee for President and then lost. When is the last time the Democratic Party nominated an ex-Vice President who went on to win the presidency? The recent losers are Al Gore (2000), Walter Mondale (1984), and Hubert Humphrey (1968). I invite you to go back into the list of candidates for President and see if  you can find an example. I'm not asking for Democratic Vice Presidents who became President because the President died. I mean a former VP who ran to become President and then won. You'll find some Republicans, but I don't think you'll find a Democrat in the last 100 years. Was there ever one? I know there's a Democrat who lost as a VP nominee and then went on to win as the party's presidential nominee. But find me an example of a Democrat in Joe Biden's position.

ADDED: One answer to my question is Martin Van Buren, who was VP under Andrew Jackson and then ran for President and won in 1846. I believe he is the only one.

"Do we want a livid warrior or a happy one? Someone eager to name and shame enemies, the way Donald Trump does, or someone with a less Manichaean outlook?"

"Someone poised to reciprocate Trump’s nastiness or someone incapable of it? I’m not entirely sure which type is more likely to defeat him. But I know which gives us a better chance at healing America — if that’s even possible — and moving us past a juncture of crippling animosity. It’s the type that Hickenlooper represents and maybe even exemplifies.... Optimism, warmth and joy matter. They propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency. I think they’re even a small part of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez phenomenon — the part that leavens the stridency and purity tests. She has a wide, dazzling smile. In a video that went viral, she dances. Some of the Democrats who are pursuing or seriously considering presidential bids are better at dancing, metaphorically speaking, than others. It doesn’t come easily to Bernie Sanders, which is why he added all that poignant family history to his big speech on Saturday, or to Elizabeth Warren, which is why she sipped a beer in an Instagram video that was part of her rollout. It’s effortless for Beto O’Rourke. It’s present in Cory Booker. It comes and goes with Kamala Harris, who’s still calibrating her temperature.... Hickenlooper sees a sunny approach — one that emphasizes aspirations over grievances — as the necessary balm for a grossly divided country and the most potent antidote to Trump...."

From "Does John Hickenlooper Have a Secret Weapon? Maybe nice guys finish Trump" by Frank Bruni (NYT).

The second-most-up-voted comment is from someone with the insight to adopt the screen name "Me":

Just no.

I’m done with “happy”, “consensus-building” Democrats. I’m still young, and I want to see transformational change in this country before I’m dead— enough with the baby steps.

Time to bring the fire.

Bruni uses but doesn't delve into the phrase "happy warrior." To me, it means Hubert Humphrey:

Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.... As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War.... [H]is nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him.... 

And I see that William Safire wrote one of his "On Language" (NYT) columns about the phrase. This was back in 2004, when John Kerry was running for President. A WaPo columnist had just written that Kerry was "dour" and no one would call him "the happy warrior," and a Democratic Senator had just insulted President George W. Bush as "the happy warrior" who "strutted" about his military adventures.

Safire informs us that the phrase originated in a William Wordsworth poem, "Character of the Happy Warrior" (1807)(''Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he/That every man in arms should wish to be?.... Whose high endeavors are an inward light/That makes the path before him always bright:/ . . . But who, if he be called upon to face/Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined/Great issues, good or bad for human kind,/Is happy as a Lover'').

Safire tells the story of how the phrase got from the Wordsworth poem into American political discourse. In 1924, Franklin Roosevelt had the task of putting the name Al Smith up for nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Smith campaign manager Joseph Proskauer had written a speech using the phrase, and FDR rejected it — saying "You can't give poetry to a political convention." So FDR drafted his own speech, but it was worse, and he ended up giving in.  Insisting that it would be "a flop," he gave Proskauer's "Happy Warrior speech." But it went well, so he claimed he'd given his own speech with that one bit from Proskauer ''stuck in.'' Proskauer sulked.

So much for happiness.

"President Trump's private comment earlier this week that the House healthcare bill was 'mean' is having a lingering, and potentially devastating, effect on his credibility among House Republicans."

"Members are still talking about Trump's comment, and their frustration that he'd throw them under the bus is likely to damage his ability to negotiate on major items like infrastructure and tax reform."

ADDED: Doing the tags for this post I started to type "mean" and was pleased to see it autocomplete to "meanies." I wouldn't make a new tag for "mean" at this late date in the life of the blog, but it was great to see that there is a "meanies" tag and to use it again. I had not used it since August of last year, when I had a post titled "The 3 meanest men Hunter S. Thompson ever met — one was Jimmy Carter" — "He will eat your shoulder right off," said Thompson, who also had this description of Hubert Humphrey that amused me by sounding like Trump:

His hair was bright orange, his cheeks were rouged, his forehead was caked with Mantan.... No! I thought. This can't be true! Not now! Not so soon! Here was this monster, this shameful electrified corpse – and raving and flapping his hands at the camera like he'd just been elected president.

Not so funny now that Trump actually is President... or is it?

I've only used the "meanies" tag a few times over the years, perhaps because I don't think of it unless the word "mean" is used. I see I had it here in January 2014, when Ron Paul said that the media will "get meaner and meaner when you run for president" and "pick you apart," and I wondered — assuming the media was going to be very mean in the 2016 election season — who we'd enjoy seeing bullied. Maybe Trump did well because he absorbed and deflected meanness better than anyone else.

The post that caused me to make the new tag "meanies" happened in October 2013: "Are Republicans following a 'don't be mean' strategy, and — if so — is a good strategy?" Very interesting! The Republicans do have a complicated issue around meanness! And, look, it was about Obamacare:

"In your guts you know he's nuts."

From LBJ Library (photos taken at a visit in 2007) — a reminder of what presidential politics were like in the 60s. Goldwater (1964) was crazy:



And the Democrats (in 1968) presented themselves from the female perspective:

"What a liar" — famously muttered into an open mike.

It's the one thing I've always remembered about Daniel K. Inouye.

Dead now, at age 88.

Teams with stadium names that are just too sacred to sacrifice for the big money that comes from selling naming rights.

It's an issue in the Chicago mayoral race:

‘‘Soldier Field is a sacred Chicago landmark that honors our veterans and, as mayor, Gery would be very careful to protect that,’’ said Brooke Anderson, spokeswoman for candidate Gery Chico. ‘‘He would be open to exploring creative ideas that could attract sponsors while preserving the Soldier Field name and stadium to give soldiers the respect they deserve.’’

But Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun and Miguel del Valle are adopting the same hard-line stance as Mayor Daley, who insisted the stadium name remain untouched for his support of a $587  million renovation of Soldier Field in 2003.

Teams with stadiums names like "Giants Stadium" and "Cowboy Stadium" are in a much better position to cash in. But maybe it's better to have a name that can't be swapped for a sponsor's name, like Lambeau Field. Then you're not tempted to scramble for the money and end up with a horrible name like "Mall of America Field at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome," which really is the name of the place where the Vikings play. You're Vikings. That's your image. Legendary conquerors... traipsing around the mall with Hubert Humphrey. What a picture!

And I love this grandiose term "metrodome." There are metrodomes, stadiums, and fields. Notice the inverse relationship between grandiosity and greatness.

ADDED: I'm just noticing that Minnesota inserted "field" into its ridiculous new name that still contains "metrodome." Make up your mind. Interesting that the big corporation wanted to associate itself with the old-fashioned charm of "field," while the politician's name is stuck with the overinflated term "metrodome." And I do mean overinflated, because remember how it collapsed? And it's a good word to associate with Hubert Humphrey, since he had quite a large dome of a head.

It has nothing to do with football, but on the subject of Hubert H. Humphrey — Hubert Horatio Humphrey — and names, this is always hilarious:



And as long as I'm descending into Humphrey-related YouTube hell, there's this:

Robert Drew's great documentary "Primary" -- about JFK and Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin Primary -- free, tonight, at Cinematheque.

New students, old residents, you should know about Cinematheque. Drop by tonight at Vilas Hall at 7:30 for this fine 60 minute film.

And make note of the rest of the films in the "Vote Cinema: American Politics on Film" series. There are various different series and special events this fall, including "Deviants, Delinquients, and Do-Gooders: Hollywood Social Problem Films of the 1950s."

Here's the whole fall calendar.

Cinematheque is one of the coolest things about UW-Madison. And again: It is free.

ADDED: Here is an interview with Albert Maysles (the cinematographer) about the part of the film where we see Jackie Kennedy's gloved, fidgeting hands:



And here's a long clip from [another] film that gives background on Richard Nixon. I love the charming retro "Stick with Dick" sign. And Richard Nixon, turning on the charm for Nikita Krushchev, just hilarious. Lots more too.

[Video previously displayed is no longer available.]

ADDED: Sorry, I misread the label on the second video clip, which popped up in YouTube. It has a completely different documentary style, but some great historical clips. If I remember "Primary" correctly -- I've seen it but have loaned out my DVD -- it's entirely about Kennedy and Humphrey in Wisconsin. Here's some background on the style of "Primary":

[C]inema verite -- choosing moments where action might occur instead of creating it -- ... was the brainchild of Robert Drew, an editor at Life magazine. He believed the magazine enjoyed its success because it brought into the home pictures of action in the midst of happening -- four soldiers struggling to plant the flag at Iwo Jima, for instance -- and he wanted to extend that concept to documentaries. "I thought all we had to do was put a Life photographer who valued candid photography behind a motion picture camera, and we could make a new kind of film." But thanks to an eight-man crew that had to stop and set heavy equipment on tripods, action eluded capture. Then Mr. Drew started to experiment with lightweight cameras and sound recorders. In 1959, under the banner of Drew Associates, he put together a film crew, all of whom went on to write their names on the pages of documentary history: Albert Maysles, Terence Filgate (a film maker well known in his native Canada), Richard Leacock ("Monterey Pop") and D. A. Pennebaker ("Don't Look Back," "The War Room"). The film makers set out in the dark: they were making documentaries with no directors, no scripts, no sets, no lights, little or no narration and no interviews. To be at the right place at the right moment was everything. They considered themselves neutral observers who merely recorded ongoing events and had, as much as possible, no point of view. Their first important work was "Primary," which tracked Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey through the cold 1960 Wisconsin Democratic Presidential primarily... Their approach, says Mr. Filgate, offered an alternative to the Edward R. Murrow style of documentaries. "It was as if we were butterfly hunting. We knew there were butterflies in the woods, but we didn't know what kind, and we didn't know how we were going to catch them; whereas in the journalistic documentary, a reporter says, 'On my left, hidden in the bushes, are thousands of butterflies.' And then the camera cuts away to the bushes. Drew, with 'Primary,' broke that mold."

The Wit and Humor of Barack Obama.

Okay, I raised the subject of Obama's humorlessness. "I have no response to that" was all he said about that New Yorker cover, and I speculated that he could have laughed. Then I frontpaged a comment — made by my younger son — that read: "He's always been dead serious about everything. Has he ever said anything funny?"

But let's be fair. David — also in those comments — came up with the first example of Obama humor: "You're likable enough, Hillary." I agree that was humor. I note too that it was directed at his opponent, sounded rather mean, and ended up hurting him.

An emailer reminded me of this post of mine from back in January:

I'm not declaring favorites in the presidential campaign, but I've got to say that stuff like this makes me love Obama, at least on a personal level:

Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night's debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork - something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?'" Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, 'Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"

Now, that was good.

So we could write a book called "The Wit and Humor of Barack Obama." But how thick would it be? You know, there was a book called "The Wit and Humor of Richard Nixon." Here's a Time Magazine article about it from 1969:

To many, the fact that Nixon has even a mild sense of humor comes as a surprise. And, in fact, the President did come by the gift of laughter, in public anyway, rather late in life. Perhaps because he felt he had to counterbalance his youth with seriousness for so many years—he was, at 39, the second youngest U.S. Vice President in history—Nixon was until last year the paradigm of sobriety. Then, at about the same time that people started talking about the new Nixon, he began sprinkling his speeches with one-liners.

Few, to be sure, were exactly memorable. "I'm trying to graduate from college myself this fall," Nixon would tell college audiences. "The Electoral College." A few were execrable. "It's one thing to give 'em hell," he said after Hubert Humphrey had made a well-publicized visit to Harry Truman. "It's another to give them Hubert." A new paperback, The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon is necessarily brief (128 pages), has more than the usual amount of white space and includes Nixon's entire acceptance speech at Miami Beach, which contained not a scintilla of wit.

Some Nixon jokes, however, are genuinely funny. Talking to Virginia Republicans, he gently needled both a local G.O.P. official and himself. While he was preparing the itinerary for his South American trip in 1958, Nixon told how the official, Lee Potter, had noticed one omission. "Why don't you take in Caracas?" Potter had suggested. "It's a fun town." Said Nixon: "It sure was. I got stoned there."

IN THE COMMENTS: Mister Snitch says:

Obama has gotten less spontaneous and genuine (and 'funny') as he has gotten closer to the possibility of being elected. Note also some of the outrageous gaffes, truly worthy of a Dan Quayle or ANY verbal goof Bush might have ever made. He's cracking under the pressure, and it's not going to get any easier from here.

Geez, this was a NEW YORKER cartoon. The thing to say, to ingratiate himself to millions of middle-class Americans, was this: "You know, I never did get those New Yorker cartoons".

Even the New Yorker staff would have appreciated the gibe. And it would all be behind him by now. And us.

It is really hard for him to risk a joke now, but I love that line. We know it resonates: There's a "Seinfeld" episode on the subject:

Elaine: Look at this cartoon in the New Yorker, I don't get this.

Jerry: I don't either.

Elaine: And you're on the fringe of the humor business.

George: Hey!

Elaine: Hey! George look at this.

George: That's cute.

Elaine: You got it?

George: No, never mind.

Elaine: Come on, we're two intelligent people here. We can figure this out. Now we got a dog and a cat in an office.

Jerry: It looks like my accountant's office but there's no pets working there.

Elaine: The cat is saying, "I've enjoyed reading your E-mail."

George: Maybe it's got something to do with that 42 in the corner.

Elaine: It's a page number.

***

[The New Yorker cartoon editor] Mr. Elinoff: Oh! yeah... That's a rather clever jab at inter-office politics, don't you think?

Elaine: Ah, ah... yeah... uh but, why is it that the, that the animals enjoy reading the email?

Mr. Elinoff: Well Miss Benes. Cartoons are like gossamer and one doesn't dissect gossamer... heh... hemm...

Elaine: Well you don't have to dissect if you can just tell me. Why this is suppose to be funny?

Mr. Elinoff: Ha! It's merely a commentary on contemporary mores.er)

Elaine: But, what is the comment?

Mr. Elinoff: It's a slice of life.

Elaine: No it isn't.

Mr. Elinoff: Pun?

Elaine: I don't think so.

Mr Elinoff: Vorshtein?

Elaine: That's not a word.... You have no idea what this means do you?

Mr Elinoff: No.

Elaine: Then why did you print it?

Mr. Elinoff: I liked the kitty.

"I love how I’m going to get blamed for a vid clip circulated by the nutroots."

Says Michelle Malkin. I wish I'd been on this story earlier, because I've watched the documentary "The War Room" many times. It's a favorite DVD in my family, and we've watched it together and talked about it many times. Ben Smith talked to the director D.A. Pennebaker about what looks like a dirty trick, but then he updates that he "spoke to the editor of the video who said that he enhanced, but didn't alter, the audio in the second portion of the video." So the mystery is alive. But how much do we care what Mickey Kantor muttered 16 years ago?

Whatever you think of all that, you can buy "The War Room" on Amazon for $11. You can make a great triple feature if you add "Primary" (about JFK and Hubert Humphrey fighting it out in Wisconsin in 1960) and "Journeys with George" (Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra films the travails of the journalists who follow the Bush campaign in 2000). But "The War Room" is the best of them all. Or take a different path and make it a cool double feature with "Don't Look Back," Pennebaker's great documentary about Bob Dylan — 1965 Bob Dylan.

Come on, everybody, pay attention to Wisconsin.

Ours — on the 19th — is the next big primary. The Cap Times marshals the historical evidence of the importance of the Wisconsin primary:

• As upstart contender Franklin Roosevelt did when he beat previous party nominee Al Smith in the 1932 Wisconsin Democratic primary.
• As Willkie did with his audacious but failed 1944 bid.
• As backers of Gen. Douglas MacArthur did when they tried unsuccessfully to build a boomlet for the Milwaukee native with an unsuccessful Republican primary bid in 1948.
• As backers of Dwight Eisenhower did when they upset the campaign of conservative Robert Taft in the state and created an opening for the general to enter the contest for the Republican nomination of 1952.
• As Massachusetts Sen. John Kennedy did when the state put him on track for the party nod in 1960.
• As Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy did when his anti-Vietnam War challenge to President Lyndon Johnson forced the incumbent to quit on the eve of Wisconsin's 1968 Democratic primary.
• As South Dakota Sen. George McGovern did when the state gave him a critical Democratic primary win in 1972.
• As liberal Mo Udall did when he narrowly failed to derail Jimmy Carter's bandwagon in the Wisconsin Democratic primary of 1976.
• As liberal John Anderson and moderate George H.W. Bush did when they tried to block conservative Ronald Reagan's candidacy in the intense Republican primary of 1980.
• As Mike Dukakis and Jesse Jackson did when they fought the essential battle of the 1988 Democratic nomination race in Wisconsin.
• As Bill Clinton did when he used a slim win in the state to prevent challenger Jerry Brown from threatening his "comeback kid" status in the campaign for the 1992 Democratic nomination.

If you need something to fill your empty hours as you wait for the 19th, may I recommend the documentary "Primary," which shows John F. Kennedy campaigning here in Wisconsin in 1960, fighting off his rival Hubert Humphrey. This is a very low key but highly-regarded film by Robert Drew. It's nowhere near as fun as "The War Room" and "Journeys with George," but it's specifically about a primary, and it takes place in Wisconsin and it's got John F. Kennedy.

ADDED: A test to see if you know your blogger: Is Althouse voting in the Wisconsin primary? If so, will she choose to vote in the Republican or the Democratic primary? If she votes in the Republican primary, who will she vote for? If she votes in the Democratic primary, who will she vote for?

AND: Another question. Assume you're a filmmaker, making a documentary about one of the candidates in the 2008 election season. Which one do you wish you'd picked? That is, knowing what you know now, which campaign would have yielded up the footage for your idea of the best documentary?

At the junk shop.

I love a good junk shop, with items expressively arranged. This one, found in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, expressed something unsettling:



Disturbing:



Much of the store was full of furniture that looked like the things that seemed elegant to my mother-in-law in the 1970s. I had to try to imagine someone who didn't have those associations putting this items in a hip, ironic context, and yet... maybe that was more depressing.

But I got extremely absorbed by a stack of Life magazines from 1960. Each issue plunged me into an amazing, weird world that I'm old enough to remember as real and normal. I found it endlessly entertaining. This -- comparing "old" and "new" creamed corn -- made me laugh hysterically:



(Enlarge.)

I bought two old issues, one with a cover photo of John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey campaigning in Wisconsin and another with a smoldering closeup of Sal Mineo staring into the eyes of his "Exodus" co-star. Of course, Kennedy in Wisconsin appealed to me, but why the Sal Mineo? What tipped me toward the Sal Mineo issue was that there was an entire illustrated article about the guiche. And don't Google that word to find out what it means, because that's not what it meant in 1960.

ADDED: From the December 12, 1960 issue:

The Guiche

NOT A DANCE OR A DISH, IT'S THE NEWEST FRENCH CURL

Being on top of the new fashions this winter, at least in Paris, means literally starting at the top. The latest in hairdos is the guiche -- which means "curl" -- a sharp twist of hair curving forward over the cheek. Usually worn with smooth, short hair, sometimes so sort it is a shingle, the new style completely outdates last season's full, big-headed look....

The guiche must be set securely and separately from the rest of the hair... Clear nail polish is sometimes used to keep its razor edge and cellophane tape will keep it in place overnight. For those whose hair won't behave, false guiches cost only $6 a pair.

There was a shortage of hair products then. Nail polish... cellophane tape.... You know there is special hair tape now, but back then, we really did stick plain, shiny Scotch tape on our face to hold the piece of hair out over the cheek.

Remember when Nixon said "Sock it to me"?

Here's Kerry today:

"I've got two words for companies like Halliburton that abuse the American taxpayer and trust, 'you're fired.'"

He didn't do the cobra strike hand gesture though. He did a double karate chop. And he didn't use Trump's inflection. Nixon did do his own inflection of the old catchphrase, making it a question: "Sock it to me?" And saying it like that really was hilarious, because because he seemed to be making fun of himself. Kerry just imposed the usual leaden Kerry cadence "You're ... fired," adopting the pop culture phrase to express the usual indignation.

I wonder if some of Kerry's many advisors are telling him he needs to use pop culture references to make himself likable, the way Nixon used "Laugh-In" in 1968. Here's an article from The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert from last spring about Presidential candidates using pop media. This is interesting:

[The Nixon episode of "Laugh-In"] was broadcast at the height of Nixon’s (ultimately successful) campaign against Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and was an immediate sensation. George Schlatter, the creator of “Laugh-In” ... told me that Nixon had been extremely reluctant to be on the show; although the producers had repeatedly entreated him to appear, his campaign aides had even more insistently urged him not to. Eventually, the race brought Nixon out to Los Angeles. He gave a press conference, and Schlatter and one of “Laugh-In”’s writers, Paul Keyes, who happened to be a close friend of the former Vice-President’s, went over to watch it, bringing a TV camera with them.

“While his advisers were telling him not to do it, Paul was telling him how much it would mean to his career,” Schlatter recalled. “And we went in, and he said, ‘Sock it to me.’ It took about six takes, because it sounded angry: ‘Sock-it-to-me!’ After that, we grabbed the tape and escaped before his advisers got to him.

“Then, realizing what we had done—because he did come out looking like a nice guy—we pursued Humphrey all over the country, trying to get him to say, ‘I’ll sock it to you, Dick!’” Schlatter went on. “And Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election. We didn’t realize how effective it was going to be. But there were other factors in the election, too—I can’t take all the blame.”

Nixon on “Laugh-In” is often cited as a watershed moment in the history of television—the unthinking man’s version of Nixon in China.

But Kolbert's theme is that Presidential candidates need to make fun of themselves and be a bit self-deprecating--as Bush was when he went on "Saturday Night Live" to say "offensible" and the “Tonight Show” to say “flammamababable.” The thing about Kerry saying "You're fired" is that it isn't in any way self-deprecating. He just sounds pissed about Halliburton. (Halliburton seems to be the issue of the day for some reason: Paul Begala was fussing about Halliburton today on "Crossfire.")

Optimism overload.

The massive news coverage of Ronald Reagan's death is understandable and not inappropriate, but is it necessary to talk about optimism every ten seconds? Personally, I love optimism and am optimistic, but every time I turn on the television, someone's talking about Reagan's optimism. It's enough to make you want to start saying cynical things. I see Christopher Hitchens is doing his part. And Mickey Kaus relays comments of his readers about how Reagan didn't seem too sunny when he appeared on the political scene in the 1960s. I was a college student when Reagan was the governor of California, and I vividly remember how my peers saw Ronald Reagan in those days, when he would appear on TV denouncing the student demonstrators of the era. He seemed scarily nasty to us, then. Kaus offers three possible explanations for why Reagan's image changed so much:

1) The Sixties--you'd be feisty and defensive too if you were a conservative running in the Summer of Love, with the left visibly ascendant and hippies running amok, etc. 2) You almost have to maximize your likability* if you are running a national political campaign, as Reagan was from the mid-1970s on; 3) Everybody seems nastier and more Jack Webb-like in old TV and radio clips, including the reporters. Edward R. Murrow, what an a-----e! And that grumpy old Mr. Cronkite. People just presented themselves differently in public then. More Humphrey Bogartish and Gary Cooperesque. Today everyone you see on TV is coached to be "happy to be here" and nobody laughs at Washington Week's Jeff Birnbaum forcing himself to grin like a raver on Ecstasy. The median has shifted dramatically niceward--but Reagan was genial back then, by the standards of the day. ...

Well, Kaus is right that people spoke differently on TV back then. I've noticed that they spoke much faster and included many more specific facts along the way. Were they a lot less genial? Look at old clips of Hubert Humphrey. (I recommend this.) He was the source of many jokes for being overly happy and ebullient. And he doesn't seem abnormal by today's standards. And as late as 1976, smiling a lot seemed a bit weird: Jimmy Carter was the example of that. Bob Dole carried on the Bogartish attitude into the 90s--and, I guess, it's easy to see how people found Bill Clinton so much more appealing. But, in my opinion, Reagan really did redo his demeanor. I'd like to see some of the old clips of Reagan scolding the student demonstrators that disturbed us so much in the 1960s. Maybe it wouldn't seem so bad now. But it seemed really bad then.

That asterisk in explanation #1 relates to John Kerry, and the post above the "transit of meanness" one examines Kerry's attempts to seem optimistic (because free-flowing optimism appears to have become a requirement for the presidency). Kaus makes fun of Kerry's hopelessly dreary speaking voice and asks: "Isn't it better to lower expectations in the Cheering Optimism department and focus on a nuts-and-bolts, no-BS jockish competence?" I agree that the candidate (unless he has unusual vocal skills like Reagan's) shouldn't try very much to change his speech. It will sound fake. And I think Kerry is most likely to grow on us if he doesn't try very hard. Don't talk to me, just be there--a sane, competent, good person. As for optimism: it's not instilled by looking cheerful and making assertions of positivity. Remember that the most damaging images of Nixon were the ones with the awkward grin, and that Nixon won the presidency after his aides hit upon the idea: "let Nixon be Nixon." So, let Kerry be Kerry.

There has been way too much banal optimism this past week. It's mindless, and it causes a backlash of cynicism. In fact, one of the things that makes me feel optimistic is the way people react with cynicism when they are fed too much optimism by politicians.

Chasing the Frontrunner in the Wisconsin Primary. So we watched a film last night about campaigning for the Democratic nomination in Wisconsin, John Kennedy chasing after Hubert Humphrey.

"Rolling hills and nice fields." That's HHH's description of Wisconsin as he travels the backroads by car. He's right!