Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

by Michael A Smerconish

  Philadelphia was the last major market to welcome Limbaugh. He came aboard WWDB-FM on September 21, 1992. Eight years later, he moved to WPHT.

  The Inquirer’s Joe Logan wrote:

  Finally, finally Philadelphians are about to hear the radio talk show that the rest of America has been talking about for several years. For the uninitiated, Limbaugh is 320 pounds of conservative bombast. He attacks liberals, feminists, environmentalists, animal-rights types, just about anybody who doesn’t worship Ronald Reagan.

  Those words are typical of how Limbaugh has been typecast and misunderstood by those who don’t get (or are frustrated by) his appeal. Detractors assume he draws strength from positions that divide, when in fact the Rush Limbaugh onstage at the Academy of Music accentuates all that unites Americans. Last week he said:

  Look at the greatness. Look at the inventions. Look at what happened to the world in the 20th century, because most of it happened in this country. A level of achievement—human achievement—that advanced lifestyles, extended life spans . . . unknown in the hundreds of years prior.

  With decidedly pro-American pitches like what he offered in Philadelphia—with some fun at Hillary’s expense sprinkled in for good measure—Rush showed how he created a clubhouse for a significant segment of society that believed their views were unwanted and unrepresented in the media. That demand didn’t start with Rush, but no one before him was able to meet it.

  Before Limbaugh, no one was able to harness the widespread discontent with the mainstream media. He did it by having a message. But, equally important, Rush became a phenomenon based on the strength of his personality, and a jovial one at that. He’s a man who likes to laugh and who knows how to deliver a punchline. He’s also a master of self-deprecation. (And a ladies’ man. Limbaugh didn’t leave the Academy stage without completing a “ring check” of a shapely blonde who’d been particularly appreciative of his speech from her perch in the front row.)

  Rush onstage is more ringleader than Republican, more entertainer than conservative. Unassailable is his status as a headliner. You don’t attract 15 million-plus listeners a week—or 2,000 for a night on Broad Street—by being anything less.

  AFTERWORD

  What I remember most about this night (just a little more than a year before the 2008 election) is that I was feeling increasingly uneasy about my longstanding support for the Republican Party and was on the verge of leaving the reservation. As I detailed in many columns and radio commentaries, I was by now convinced that the George W. Bush administration had lost interest in killing those responsible for the events of 9/11. Rather than focusing on the perpetrators hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we’d taken a draining and disastrous left turn into Iraq.

  One year earlier, I’d participated in the Pentagon-sponsored Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, a military immersion program that began in 1947 with the goal of building citizen awareness of military functions. I was part of a hand-selected group of about two dozen Americans who, in the span of one week, traveled 15,000 miles and visited four Middle Eastern countries. Our itinerary included a briefing by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, boarding the USS Iwo Jima by helicopter in the Persian Gulf, firing the best of the Army’s weaponry in the Kuwait desert (just 10 miles from Iraq), driving an 11-kilometer Humvee obstacle course designed to protect against IEDs, boarding the Air Force’s most sophisticated surveillance aircraft in Qatar, and touring a military humanitarian outpost in the Horn of Africa. I returned home from the immersion impressed with the men and women who wear the uniform of our country but convinced that we were no longer making the hunt for Osama bin Laden a priority. More than anything else, this realization led to my support of Barack Obama for president, especially after I spoke several times with Senator Obama and received his assurance that he’d take the hunt for bin Laden into Pakistan if necessary—which he did.

  So when my friend Mike Baldini, the radio station’s general manager, asked me to introduce Limbaugh at the Academy of Music, I passed. I was off the GOP talking points, didn’t want to be in that position, and thought many of the hardcore Limbaugh supporters in the audience would not want me emceeing the event anyway. It just didn’t feel right. But I wanted to help, so I wrote a speech for Baldini to recite and he nailed the delivery. I took my father to the event as my guest. We ate steaks at the Palm before the show, then met Rush backstage, where we exchanged brief pleasantries and took a photo before taking our seats in the audience.

  One more thing: Limbaugh really liked this column. He thought it captured him. I know because he referenced it on more than one occasion on his program and spoke of our backstage greetings.

  WHY RUDY WASN’T IN IOWA

  ON TUESDAY

  Philadelphia Daily News, Thursday, November 29, 2007

  IOWA CAUCUS–GOERS will cast their first ballots in the 2008 presidential race in just five weeks, and Rudy Giuliani, trailing rival Mitt Romney in the Hawkeye State, needs to spend every available moment campaigning there.

  Yet on Tuesday, Rudy could instead be found in a state whose April primary has for years meant little to the presidential nominating process. He was drawn to Pittsburgh by matters of friendship, loyalty, and respect—concepts seldom broached with focus groups and direct messaging.

  “I needed to come here today,” he said to me.

  Rudy came to the Iron City to honor a friend we had in common, the Honorable Jay C. Waldman, who left this earth at age 58 in 2003 after a battle with lung cancer. Judge Waldman sat on the federal bench in Philadelphia for almost 15 years. He was formerly general counsel to Governor Dick Thornburgh.

  Governor Thornburgh has since donated his papers to the University of Pittsburgh, where the Dick Thornburgh Forum in Law and Public Policy has been established. Within that facility, Thornburgh honored Judge Waldman with the naming of the Judge Jay C. Waldman Seminar Room, which was dedicated in a private ceremony on Tuesday.

  I think the fact that Rudy Giuliani would interrupt his presidential campaign at a time when he is in a dogfight with Romney to pay homage to an old friend who has been gone for more than four years speaks well of Rudy’s character. And it offers more insight into him than any combination of 30-second ads or debate appearances ever will.

  Seeing him in this context was a reminder that I had seen the way he supported his friend in the direst of circumstances a few years ago. When our good friend Jay was terribly and fatally ill for several weeks in the winter and spring of 2003, Rudy was there, too.

  Even then, he was enmeshed in a schedule that could only be described as world-class, yet he came to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital—far from the cameras, pollsters, and advance men—to participate in a process for which there is no playbook. Without fanfare, he constantly made himself available and provided comfort, caring, and compassion.

  I know. I watched. And was touched.

  Rudy and Jay met in 1975 when both were young prosecutors in Gerald Ford’s Justice Department. They were drawn to one another by their love of law, their intellect, and ethics (and probably a little cigar smoke).

  Jay was a Pittsburgh native who earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and his law degree in 1969 at Penn.

  He clerked for a state court judge in Pittsburgh before briefly entering private practice. He joined the federal prosecutor’s office in Pittsburgh in 1971.

  Thornburgh was then the U.S. attorney, and it was in this era that Jay met Rudy.

  In 1988, Jay was nominated to the federal bench by a man both he and Rudy admired: Ronald Reagan. And one month before Jay passed, President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

  When Jay died, Rudy told the Inquirer that he so valued Jay’s political advice that he consulted him before deciding to run for mayor of New York. “I think he had the brightest political mind in the country,” Rudy said of our mutual friend.

  I remember that one of Jay’s dying wishes w
as to dance at Rudy’s wedding. He never got that chance. Only Rudy was more brokenhearted than Jay.

  I wish the people of Iowa knew where Rudy was on Tuesday.

  AFTERWORD

  I wrote this column about Rudy at a time when I held him in the highest regard. As an American, I was proud of his leadership in New York City on 9/11 and thereafter, and we were both grieving the loss of our close mutual friend Jay C. Waldman. Rudy was compassionate and very loyal to Jay until the tragic end. Back in 2008, I thought Rudy was presidential timber. But today those sentiments are gone. Several statements and incidents associated with him in the past few years have disappointed me, but the tipping point came on February 18, 2015. That night, Rudy stopped by a presidential campaign event for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker at Manhattan’s 21 Club that was attended by 60 conservative Republicans and members of the media. From published accounts of the event, it’s not clear to me that he was a scheduled speaker or that his remarks were planned. Nevertheless, Politico reported the following:

  “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

  I found what Rudy said appalling, the epitome of the never-ending vicious campaign against President Barack Obama intended to cast him as an “other”—not one of us, but a representative of some sinister force brought here like a Manchurian Candidate. In a word, I thought it was the statement of someone who was unhinged. Remarks like those have made me realize how much Rudy misses not only Jay’s friendship but also his guidance. I don’t think Jay, as much as he loved Rudy, would have had much tolerance for the way he questioned the patriotism of an American president.

  SPECTER PRACTICES—

  AND ENDORSES—CIVILITY

  Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, December 16, 2007

  I HAVE WATCHED ARLEN SPECTER, now Pennsylvania’s longest-serving U.S. senator, deliver countless speeches. But never had I seen him talk quite as he did when he addressed 1,000 people December 8.

  The setting was the Grand Ballroom of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, site of the Pennsylvania Society’s 109th annual dinner. That is the centerpiece of a weekend during which the Keystone State’s political movers and shakers gather in pomp and collegiality.

  That night, Specter was the 99th recipient of the Society’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement, awarded every year since 1908 to a figure of unfailing leadership and wide-ranging contributions. Former awardees include Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush, sports figures Arnold Palmer and Joe Paterno, and media figures Bill Cosby and Chris Matthews.

  He began his remarks as he so often does—by taking off his wristwatch, placing it on the lectern, and telling the crowd he wished to “give you a false sense of security that I am paying attention to the time.”

  He continued by showing some of the humor that recently earned him second place in an annual Washington celebrity comedy contest, complete with references to Bob Dole and Viagra. Having watched his performance on YouTube, I was disappointed he didn’t reprise one particular one-liner on Dan Quayle. (“He thought ‘harass’ was two words.”)

  But then he reached inside his tuxedo pocket and withdrew a few index cards. I knew immediately he had something important to say—and that he wanted to get it just right—because Specter rarely, if ever, speaks from notes. Despite dining with my friend Jack Daniels, I’m glad I had the presence of mind to jot down a few of my own.

  This was Specter as Pennsylvania elder statesman, anxious to deliver a message about the need for civility and compromise, not shrillness and contempt. He spoke like an ideological moderate fed up with the left-right extremism too often seen on the split screens of America today. And he thought the future should have more of the camaraderie so evident in New York City that night.

  A little blurry, yes, but nonetheless a shot of me with Senator Arlen Specter at the Waldorf Astoria the night he delivered the speech that is the subject of this column.

  The importance of courtesy and civility is critical at all levels—international negotiations, national, state and local government. This weekend is exactly the kind of time when we should all reflect on how much we have in common and how much harder we should try to get along.

  And then came this key line:

  If you can lift a glass together with your colleague from across the aisle on a Saturday night here in New York, you can lift your pen with that same colleague across the hall on Monday morning in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, or any place in our state.

  His introduction had been accompanied by a video presentation that rolled through the stages of his career—from hard-charging district attorney to Warren Commission staffer to unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate. Included in the high-tech scrapbook were images of Specter on the world stage—with Fidel Castro and Yasir Arafat—which prompted a round of guffaws from the audience.

  It occurred to me that his office had no doubt supplied those images to underscore his point that we live in times requiring more, not less, dialogue.

  That became evident when he praised President Bush for writing a letter to Kim Jong Il that began, “Dear Mr. Chairman,” calling that greeting of respect a good move as we strive for better relations with North Korea. He cited President Ronald Reagan’s successful arms-reduction treaties with the U.S.S.R. even after Reagan had tagged that country the Evil Empire. And he credited diplomacy for the deflation of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s terrorist tendencies.

  Sitting on the dais through all of this was Governor Rendell, himself an actor in Specter’s sketch of cooperation. Specter shared a story from his final days as district attorney in Philadelphia. Riding in an elevator in City Hall, a young Ed Rendell told his boss he planned to make a career in public service. Specter offered to introduce the young prosecutor to city Republican leader Billy Meehan, at which point Rendell informed Specter that he was a Democrat. Before that, Specter said, “I did not know—or, for that matter, care—about his political registration.”

  He also shared a story in which Chief Justice Earl Warren shook the hand of Jack Ruby, already convicted for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Later, in connection with the work of the Warren Commission, Warren lent Ruby his eyeglasses.

  The goal in all these anecdotes, he told me a few days after his speech, was to inspire those in attendance to transport the nonpartisanship evident in the bar rooms of New York to the courtrooms, war rooms, and chambers of Pennsylvania.

  Tweaking a Barry Goldwater line, Specter told the crowd:

  Moderation in the pursuit of virtue is no vice and is the approach which must be extended to our county courthouses, to Harrisburg, to Washington and beyond to international conferences. This is the approach that will ensure that, when you future gold medalists stand in my place on a future second Saturday in December, you can declare, as do I, that we still live in the greatest country in the history of the world.

  AFTERWORD

  I miss Senator Specter, who passed in the fall of 2012, immensely. He was an intellectual giant with ethics beyond reproach and a work ethic second to none. He earned a better exit from electoral politics than he was afforded. In 2010, having changed parties, he lost a Senate primary to Admiral Joe Sestak, who in turn lost in the general election to the current senator Pat Toomey. Specter’s change in party was precipitated by his 2009 vote for the stimulus package, which he regarded as the most consequential vote he ever cast. In his book, Life among the Cannibals, he says, “As proof mounts that the stimulus saved the country from a depression, that vote, which cost me so dearly, should count as the most important of my ten thousand Senate votes—hard to compare with trebling NIH funding, but in the same league.”

  Our final meeting was over martinis
and dinner at a Stephen Starr restaurant in Philadelphia called Barclay Prime. That conversation stands out because I was encouraging him to take his vast knowledge of the Kennedy assassination on the road the following year, marking the 50th anniversary of that event, and he gave me the unsolicited advice of running for his seat in the 2016 election. Neither of those things came to pass. Within months he was gone. I was honored to be one of his pallbearers.

  MR. CHROME DOME

  GETS FUZZY

  Philadelphia Daily News, Thursday, January 10, 2008

  IT SPROUTED ON CHRISTMAS DAY, though not because I had planned it that way, or intended it at all.

  That’s just the way it began.

  Christmas is obviously an atypical day. My wife and I sleep only until the first of the kids awakens, and from the moment one of them comes into our bedroom, nothing that follows mirrors the usual daily routine, or even that of a weekend.

  Instead of heading for the shower, we all go downstairs for coffee and gift-opening.

  That process is a lot like Thanksgiving. It takes my wife four hours to cook a meal we eat in about four minutes, including the moment it takes to say grace. The time it takes to open packages? Feels like the same four minutes.

  When the gift-giving had ended this year, I decided to stay in a sweatshirt—and unshaven.

  The day after Christmas, I got into the shower but didn’t draw the razor. Not for any particular reason, and again, without a plan. I just didn’t feel the need.

  By Day Three, I needed to leave the house, and at that point my joyride became a plotted course: I’d decided to grow a beard. At least until I had to return to work.