Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

by Michael A Smerconish

  Perhaps reflective of his law-school training, you could always count on him to bring up the prior inconsistencies of a guest’s various statements. But unlike so many of his would-be successors, he’d always follow up with a willingness to listen to an explanation or reflection.

  Russert combined an intellectual understanding of the intricacies of government and policy with street smarts about the electoral process, honed no doubt from his days of service to both New York governor Mario Cuomo and Empire State senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

  That combination of comportment, political acumen, and wit made Russert a unique bridge—someone to be relied upon for guidance about matters of great importance, and yet, you wished you could seek that wisdom over a beer or two.

  I interviewed Russert twice, after each of his books, Big Russ and Me and Wisdom of Our Fathers, was published. He was as impressive on the receiving end of questions as when he was the questioner.

  Perhaps his greatest gift was his humble, down-to-earth nature, which he likely gleaned from his father. When we last spoke—almost a year ago—Russert told me he admired “the quiet eloquence” of his father’s hard work. Well, like father like son.

  Not long after I interviewed Russert about Big Russ and Me, I selected it to be read by a small, informal book club to which I belong—eight guys who get together every few months. We read, yes. But, more important, we drink, eat, and enjoy one another’s company.

  I had asked Russert if he would mind telephoning our gathering and chatting with the group for a few minutes. The host of the most-esteemed talk show in America obliged.

  That night, in a small private dining room at a Georges Perrier restaurant on the Main Line, his call arrived. He was on a cellphone in his car, and we lost the connection soon after it began. But the guys were thrilled, and Russert seemed to get a kick out of their interest in his book.

  Months later, I met him at an NBC party in the Rainbow Room high atop Rockefeller Center, where we spoke for a few minutes. I was eager to talk politics; he wanted to know more about my book club.

  I painted the picture of our end of the call, especially the camaraderie he’d inspired. Tim Russert seemed to genuinely enjoy the fact that for one night, he’d been a catalyst of such friendship.

  AFTERWORD

  Eight years after his passing, Russert’s words still mattered. In a sophisticated conference room high atop the Time Warner Center in Midtown Manhattan, CNN worldwide president Jeff Zucker shared with network talent, including me, the network statistics for 2016, which was CNN’s most-watched year ever among total viewers (CNN ranked no. 1 in ALL of TV—cable and broadcast—on election night in prime time, among both total viewers and the coveted demographic of adults aged 25–54). But when, after celebrating the past, it was time to look forward and talk about CNN’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration, Zucker put on the video monitor the words of his former NBC colleague Tim Russert:

  The primary responsibility of the media is accountability of government, whether it’s about lying under oath, which upset Democrats, or the mismanagement of responding to a hurricane, which happens to upset Republicans.

  REQUIEM FOR AN ERA

  Philadelphia Daily News, Thursday, August 21, 2008

  IT’S MONDAY NIGHT, and I’ve just joined the end of a long line waiting to enter a viewing in South Philadelphia. The obituary in the Daily News said it began at 6. When I arrived at 7, the line was already wrapped two full blocks down Reed Street. I’ve been up since 3 A.M., and hosted two radio shows, but I don’t regret the wait.

  It’s not often that you see an outpouring like this. Especially when half the town is down the Shore. It’s a good thing for the several hundred of us snaking down the South Philly sidewalks that this August night isn’t a particularly humid one.

  But it is a uniquely Philly scene. There’s an old-time feel (the BlackBerry I’m tapping as I record these thoughts doesn’t quite fit in) even though the crowd is fairly young.

  Every age group is represented, but most look to be in their 40s and 50s. Lots of closely cropped hair. Guys in suits, sport coats, or open dress shirts. Women wearing what women wear when guys dress like that. Several hold mass cards. There are plenty of appointed and elected officials. Many more are on public payrolls.

  I stand for a while in front of a row house with a Flyers banner hanging in the window alongside a sign saying: “Parking for Italians only, all others will be towed.”

  Next door, an older woman in shorts, white sneakers, and white socks sits on an immaculate stoop. There’s a pot filled with colorful artificial flowers and an American flag. I’m thinking she cast a couple of votes for Frank Rizzo.

  Cars are doubled-parked everywhere, but something tells me that’d be the case even without the funeral.

  I’m sure it’s somber inside the Rogers Funeral Home, but out here people are friendly and chatty. They know each other or know somebody who knows somebody. Lots of “How ya doin’?” and “Whaddya been up to?”

  It’s a glimpse of the way the city used to look 30 years ago. Very white and ethnic. And, in fact, I’m thinking that many of these people won’t have far to travel to get back home, even if their kids are headed back to Cherry Hill or Broomall after the viewing ends.

  A scene like this reminds me how much the city has changed. The parents of those around me used to control City Hall, but those days are over. They don’t have the votes anymore and haven’t since the late 1970s. But they’re together tonight to mourn the passing of the mother of two public figures. It’s a matter of respect. The sort of thing we could use more of these days.

  I wasn’t sure whether I’d come. The kids are going back to school soon, and it would’ve been a nice night to grill. I didn’t know the decedent. But I’m glad I’m here. I’m always glad when I get there. I’ve never regretted paying respects, but I’ve often been sorry when I didn’t.

  It’s dark outside an hour and 20 minutes later, but I’ve rounded the corner at South 3rd Street. Near Garrett, a big-screen TV flickers through a picture window that sports a star for somebody serving overseas. People are still arriving. The line is even longer than when I first joined it, but it’s time to turn off the BlackBerry and go inside.

  A well-respected woman has passed. And so has an era.

  AFTERWORD

  I referenced this column when signing off from the Daily News in 2011. I wrote:

  Of all that I’ve written in nearly a decade at the Daily News, I’m most proud of . . . “Requiem for an Era.”

  In it, I tried to capture how the city had changed in the last few decades based on observations I jotted down while standing in a viewing line as it snaked along a South Philly street.

  I wrote the entire column on my BlackBerry, using my thumbs. I never said whose funeral it was because I thought it would distract from my observations, but I was paying my respects to [the union leader] John Dougherty after the passing of his mother, Mary Theresa, so I’m closing that loop now.

  McCAIN FAILS

  THE BIG FIVE TESTS

  Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, October 19, 2008

  I’VE DECIDED.

  My conclusion comes after reading the candidates’ memoirs and campaign platforms, attending both party conventions, interviewing both men multiple times, and watching all primary and general-election debates.

  John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I’m voting for a Democrat for president. I may have been an appointee in the George H. W. Bush administration, and master of ceremonies for George W. Bush in 2004, but last Saturday I stood amid the crowd at an Obama event in North Philadelphia.

  Five considerations have moved me:

  TERRORISM. The candidates disagree as to where to prosecute the war against Islamic fundamentalists. Barack Obama is correct in saying the front line in that battle is not Iraq; it’s the Afghan-Pakistan bord
er. Osama bin Laden crossed that border from Tora Bora in December 2001, and we stopped pursuit. The Bush administration outsourced the hunt for bin Laden and instead invaded Iraq.

  No one in Iraq caused the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Our invasion was based on a false predicate, so we have no business being there, regardless of whether the surge is working. Our focus must be the tribal-ruled FATA region in Pakistan. Only recently has our military engaged al-Qaeda there in operations that mirror those Obama was ridiculed for recommending in August 2007.

  Last spring, Obama told me: “It’s not that I was opposed to war [in Iraq]. It’s that I felt we had a war that we had not finished.” Even Senator Joe Lieberman conceded to me last Friday that “the headquarters of our opposition, our enem[y] today” is the FATA.

  ECONOMY. We face economic problems that are incomprehensible to most Americans; certainly they are to me. This is a time to covet intellect, and that begins at the top. Jack Bogle, the legendary founder of the Vanguard Group, told me recently that McCain’s assertion that the fundamentals of the economy were “strong” was the “stupidest statement of 2008.” In the light of the unprecedented volatility in the market, who can dispute Bogle’s characterization and the lack of understanding that McCain’s assessment portends?

  VP. I opined here that Sarah Palin demonstrated the capacity to be president in her speech to the Republican convention. Sadly, there has been no further exhibition of her abilities, and she remains an unknown quantity. We are left questioning the judgment of a candidate who bypassed his reported preferred choices, Lieberman and former governor Tom Ridge, and instead yielded to the whims of the periphery of his party. With two wars and a crumbling economy, Palin is too big of a risk to be a heartbeat away from a presidency held by a 72-year-old man who has battled melanoma. Advantage Joe Biden.

  OPPORTUNITY. In a speech delivered on Father’s Day, Obama lamented that too many fathers are missing from the lives of too many children and mothers. Look no further than Philadelphia for proof that the nation has a fatherhood problem at the root of its firearms crisis. And no demographic is affected by this confluence of factors like the black community. Among the many elements needed to address this crisis are role models, individuals whom urban youth can aspire to emulate. Little more than a year ago, Charles Barkley told me: “I want young black kids to see Barack on television every day. . . . We need to see more blacks who are intelligent, articulate, and who carry themselves with great dignity.” Obama can be that man.

  HOPE. Wednesday morning will come and an Obama presidency holds the greatest chance for unifying us here at home and restoring our prestige around the globe. The campaigns have foretold the kind of presidency we can expect from each candidate. Last Friday in Lakeville, Minnesota, McCain himself had to explain to a supporter who was “scared” of an Obama presidency that those fears were unfounded. Another told McCain that Obama was untrustworthy because he is an “Arab.” Those exchanges were a predictable byproduct of ads against Obama featuring tag lines such as “Too Risky for America” and “Dangerous,” and a failure to rein in individuals at McCain events who highlighted Obama’s middle name, all against a background of Internet lore.

  Last Saturday at Progress Plaza, I heard Obama say: “The American people aren’t looking for somebody to divide this country; the American people are looking for someone to lead this country.”

  AFTERWORD

  This was one of the more consequential columns I have written. I deliberated about whether to be public about my election choice, knowing I had the option of remaining mum. But I’d grown increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the Republican Party, and I felt I owed it to my audience to explain what I was doing and why. Perhaps what is most significant is that I didn’t feel I could fully explain myself in 850 words, the length my Inquirer columns were then running. So I wrote a 5,625-word essay for Salon.com that ran on September 11, 2008, under the headline “Why This Lifelong Republican May Vote for Obama.” I focused solely on the issue of hunting down bin Laden and which presidential candidate was willing to do what it took to capture him. You can check it out here: http://www.salon.com/2008/09/11/hunting_binladen/.

  THEIR STANLEY CUP

  RUNNETH OVER

  Philadelphia Daily News, Thursday, November 20, 2008

  STREET HOCKEY was once the stick ball of suburbia. In the Philly suburbs in the early 1970s, it was an after-school sport that lots of kids played.

  The Flyers were the rage, and we each had orange-and-black jerseys emblazoned with our favorite players’ names and numbers.

  We’d imitate Bernie Parent and Bobby Clarke. And every class bully became the team’s Dave Schultz. A guy in my neighborhood took metal from a swing set and made two goals, using sewn-together burlap bags for netting. Goalies had foam-rubber pads. It was teenage bliss.

  Long before organized soccer, kids would face off in parking lots, on tennis courts, and anywhere there was a lip around a flat surface to stop an errant Mylec ball. Each neighborhood and subdivision had its own loosely affiliated team, and pick-up games were easily hatched without any formal league and were free of adult oversight.

  I once played at the Burpee Playground, named for the local family of vegetable-seed fame. It had a fenced-in basketball court, making it the ideal rink. The team from the Burpee neighborhood had a guy named Joel Gingras. He was a “ringer” who played ice hockey at the Face-Off Circle in Warminster, and in college for St. Bonaventure.

  Unfortunately, Joel died in 1988 of a brain tumor at 27. The next year, family and friends established the Joel Anthony Gingras Jr. Memorial Fund to increase awareness of brain-tumor research and raise money to help combat this deadly affliction. In 20 years, the JAG Fund has given more than $806,000 to the American Brain Tumor Association. It’s a silver lining to a sad story. And it’s just gotten better.

  Enter Bill Clement.

  Clement is, of course, the former Philadelphia Flyer and now a Versus and NBC broadcaster. It’s his voice you hear on EA Sports NHL ’09.

  Clement lives in Bucks County, not too far from where Joel Gingras grew up. He’s one of the guys whose jerseys we wore playing street hockey when he was a member of both Flyers’ Stanley Cup teams in 1973–1974 and ’74–’75.

  Today, the NHL has a grand tradition of entrusting the Stanley Cup to each member of the championship team for 24 hours, but that tradition didn’t start until after the Flyers won their back-to-back championships. A couple of years ago, Clement started thinking about trying to bring the Stanley Cup to Bucks County. When the NHL and Hockey Hall of Fame graciously agreed, he began organizing a charity fund-raiser.

  Celebrating with Lord Stanley and my boys at the home of Bill Clement on November 15, 2008.

  Four years ago, Clement heard of the JAG Fund from a co-worker at ESPN named Jay Altmeyer, a college classmate of Joel Gingras’s. Clement decided that the visit by the cup would benefit the JAG Fund and NOVA, which aids crime victims in Bucks County.

  “When I knew I was getting the cup for a day, the first person I called was Johnathan Gingras,” one of Joel’s brothers, Clement told me. “I am also close to NOVA, and the two charities seemed like naturals. I wanted to keep the money local because of my affinity for Bucks County, where I have lived for 20 years.”

  The visit was scheduled for last Saturday.

  On Friday, when flights from Toronto to Philadelphia were canceled due to weather, the event was in jeopardy. Within a half-hour of learning of the transportation dilemma, Altmeyer called a buddy in Canada named Joe Duplantis, who works as a PGA caddy, and in no time, he and a friend were in a car, with the cup and its minder (Mike Bolt), headed for Bucks County. They arrived at Clement’s house at 4:15 A.M. Game on!

  Later that day, at the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, a few thousand dads and sons were happy to pay a buck or two to see the cup. By mid-afternoon, police were directing traffic away from the school. The crowd of several thousand was already so large that they c
ouldn’t fit any more people in.

  Clement said it was one of the best days of his life, and that the event raised more than $55,000.

  “Some people might not believe this, but Saturday for me was better than winning the cup,” he said. Johnathan Gingras’s take? “I truly believe that Joel had something to do with this weekend’s success.”

  AFTERWORD

  What I didn’t report in the column is that Bill Clement’s display of the Stanley Cup for charity was so successful that, on the day of the event, I drove with my three sons but couldn’t get near the school where it was held. There were too many people. Bill had no way of knowing that and, before the event, had mentioned to me that he’d be hosting friends at his home that night for a private viewing of the cup. It was an awfully nice invitation, but I had no intention of taking him up on it because I suspected it was for his closer friends and wanted to respect his private time with the cup for the short time it would be in his possession. But after dinner that night, with the boys’ afternoon disappointment lingering in my mind, I felt differently and decided to accept the invitation after all. With my wife and three sons in our car, I found what I thought was the Clement residence outside of New Hope, Bucks County, and drove down the driveway. There were a few cars outside, but not so many that we knew definitively that there was a party going on inside. It was a chilly night, and I remember leaving the car running with my wife and sons in it while I scouted the situation. I walked up onto a porch and peered inside the house. Lo and behold, I was looking into Bill Clement’s kitchen, and sitting on the counter was the Stanley Cup! I ran back to the car and excitedly told my gang. The boys scrambled out of the car. My wife thought we were interlopers and the whole thing a bit ridiculous, so she didn’t join us. We went inside and, within minutes, Bill had us drinking champagne from the Stanley Cup!