Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

Obama's Main Competition

In less than a month now, President Barack Obama will stand before a crowd in Washington, D.C. and take the oath of office. We already know that this will be historic simply from the point-of-view of Obama's background and race. The other competition, however, is performance. We know he's a great orator and people will expect a barn-burner of an inspirational speech. He won't have any problem eclipsing others that went before him like George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon or even Bill Clinton. No, the man Obama has to stand up to by way of historical comparison is President John Kennedy.

48 years ago, the inaugural was similarly a piece of history. Not only was it jeopardized by bad weather, but it brought generational change to the White House. It was at that tiime that newly elected President John Kennedy spoke those words we still remember.

"Ask not what your country can do for you..." We've heard this so many times, we can finish JFK's words in our sleep. That speech, delivered on a brutally cold January day in 1961 where a blizzard threatened to shut down the entire affair, still goes down as the best inauguration speech, probably ever, certainly of the 20th century.

This is actually my favorite newsmagazine cover -- the day that John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency. It's a color photograph that Time's editors had decided two weeks earlier should be taken at the precise moment when he raised his right hand and took the oath as the nation's 35th President. Just possibly this was the last inauguration where Americans were absolutely filled to the brim with the possibilities that life would be getting much, much better.

Time -- with coverage coming from 17 correspondents -- led with the speech itself -- definitely getting right that it would become the classic speech, the one by which all others have been measured.

A blizzard threatened to turn the whole momentous occasion into a farce -- but President John Kennedy, delivering his inaugural address, more than saved the day. Kennedy's inauguration speech went beyond mere rhetoric derived from the U.S. past; it has profound meaning for the U.S. future. In lean, lucid phrases the nation's new President pledged to the U.S. to remain faithful to its friends, firm against its enemies but always willing to bring an end to the cold war impasse.

Sometimes, like the JFK coverage, they got the story just right. That's the fun of the Instant History blog. There will be other times where the writing of the moment was swayed by being too inside the story to see clearly. And there will be other times still where you will see that issues of political correctness and other bias have twisted the honest reporting of the moment into something that the original journalists would never agree with.

Reaction to the speech was immediate. From all shades of political outlook, from people who had voted for Kennedy in November and people who had voted against him, came a surge of praise and congratulation. Even so partisan a Republican as Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen described it as "inspiring" and as "a very compact message of hope."

The Time reporters here got the speech just right. Who knew when President Kennedy delivered that address that he and his presidency would end in such a tragic manner that it would affect Americans' sense of trust in their own government and that, as the years passed, he would be revealed to have had such huge personal flaws in terms of his risk-taking behavior?

One thing that impressed me in re-reading this article was how close we came to never hearing that speech delivered in the stirring way it was given. Snow had started to fall the night before and kept falling.

By nightfall on inaugural eve, confusion was complete. At least 10,000 cars were stalled and abandoned. Airplanes stacked up over the airport, then flew away; Herbert Hoover, winging up from Miami, had to turn back, never got to the inaugural. It took Pat Nixon 2 1/2 hours to get from her Wesley Heights home to the Senate Office Building, where her husband was holding a farewell party for his staff. . . At the White House, 30 members of President Eisenhower's staff were snowbound for the night. Determined partygoers struggled through the storm, some of the men in white ties and parkas, some of the women wearing leotards under their gowns.

Eventually, though, on that terribly cold day, the story was all about hope... a time when a leader could challenge us to "...ask what you can do for your country" without getting in a big political debate.

Who knows what Obama will ask of his listeners this time around? We'll know soon enough.

At Least They Spelled My Name Right...

Google sent me an alert this morning that my name was in the New York Times.  It's an article called "World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America" which pretty much explains the gist of the whole thing.  The author, Tim Arango, had called me up a few months ago to talk about such matters, based on the fact that I was chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences when 9/11 hit.  He was interested in the fact that I'd attended those high-level Hollywood meetings that were called by Karl Rove in the immediate blow-back from the attacks. 

I'm not a big Karl Rove fan but, at the time, there was nothing insidious about the meetings.  After 9/11, everybody wanted to talk about what they could do to help.  Hollywood knows how to communicate and a lot of people out here were wondering if there was a piece of that in a solution.

In any case, here's my bit from the article:

Bryce Zabel, a television producer who was chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the time and a participant in the 2001 meetings with the White House, argued then that the United States needed to regard itself like a consumer brand.

“Products like Coca-Cola are far more effectively branded around the globe than the United States itself,” he wrote in a memo that was circulated around Hollywood. “The American entertainment and communications industry has the technological and creative expertise to improve relations between our country and the rest of the world."

It seems like a perfectly fine quote, I think, except for the context which may cause some people to think I was advocating the dreaded "P" word, or propaganda.  So, for the record, I most emphatically was not doing that.

My point then, and now, is simply that while every freaking corporate enterprise in the entire damn world spends time, money and effort on their "brand," the United States of America, arguably one of the potentially strongest brands on the planet, acts as if it's an irrelevant concept for us.

Personally, I think we have taken a massive step forward in "re-branding" America by our election of Barack Obama.  Let's hope so.

Mr. Obama Goes to Washington

EDITOR'S NOTE, ELECTION DAY-AFTER 2008.

It feels like a movie, this rise of Barack Obama. 

Besides its compelling lead actor, this blockbuster has had plot twists, villains, conflict, a heroic journey, incredible stakes and a great ending.  These are all, as it is, also elements expected to be in any film or TV pitch I might make out here in Hollywood.  Dramatically speaking, this one has it all.

So far this year, I've voted for him twice, supported his campaign financially, gone to a rally, and even worked on "Ready to Believe," a professionally-produced song that's been well-received everywhere from YouTube to iTunes.  Mostly, though, I've followed the campaign like a member of an audience glued to an on-screen spectacle. 

President-elect Barack Obama's journey has felt like an epic film, but the way it's sucked us into caring about a character in a show where anything can happen, it's really played more like a TV series.  But there hasn't been a reality show created that could match this one.

No matter who you voted for yesterday, a President Barack Obama promises to continue as a compelling chapter in American history. 

I was born on the exact day the Supreme Court issued Brown -vs- the Board of Education.  My father taught American history and was shamed by having to explain our country's shortcomings in civil rights.  As a kid, I actually remember seeing news coverage of people having dogs and water hoses set on them because they wanted basic dignity.  To see this change in my lifetime -- from the awful images from the south to this man of progress chosen to lead us -- is a profound thing. 

There's so much hard work ahead, but right now a black man just proved that anybody CAN grow up to be president.  That's good for our country and it's good for our citizens, especially our kids.  And, coming back from Europe just two days ago, I believe the support Obama receives from world leaders will help with leading on the global financial mess and getting them to kick in more troops in Afghanistan.

You see: the Barack Obama movie not only has done incredible domestic box office, but it's about to play just as successfully in global markets.

The United States of America, for a few years anyway, has a brand to equal Coke and McDonald's on the world stage.  The President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

In the fall of 2007, before the first primaries, I first wrote about Barack Obama on the FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH blog.  I just re-read it today and thought it was worth the re-post.  Here it is then, as it was:

The world has probably not been holding its collective breath waiting to find out who the FWIW blog will throw its weight behind in the presidential campaign. We have yet to serve our billionth daily reader, Tim Russert stubbornly refuses to quote us on "Meet the Press," and the campaigns have apparently missed the opportunity to bookmark us on their browsers. Even so, I've been watching the presidential campaign from the sidelines long-enough, and it seems like the right time to get in the game.

I just logged on to the official campaign website and gave a donation to Barack Obama. There are some good candidates I can support if Obama does not get the Democratic nomination but he's my first choice by a mile.

I just can't get behind a George H.W. Bush - Bill Clinton - George W. Bush - Hillary Clinton narrative for America. We try to raise kids to believe that anyone can grow up to be president, and that sends the message that the truth is something else. I just don't buy the "experience" argument anyway. I'm looking for good judgment, character and the ability to make effective decisions by listening to people with different viewpoints and then doing what you think is best, often before all the facts can be known. I'm looking for someone who can then explain those decisions to us in a way that increases our solidarity as a country and not put more distance between us.

President Barack Obama will send a message to the world that America is a new, more hopeful place. It will send a message to Americans that the racial divisions which have plagued our country can begin to truly heal. Hopefully, by being on the ticket, even the election can be about something besides red state-blue state distrust and acrimony. We need a clean break from the past.

The election of Obama, however, won't simply be a message. He's a bright thinker and he brings people together. We've been looking for someone to embody the spirit of John Kennedy for as long as I've been an adult. That's Barack Obama. There is no other candidate in this race for whom that comparison is even possible.

Like John Kennedy having to deal with issues like missiles in Cuba, history won't let Obama simply be the man who opposed the use of force in Iraq but will throw other challenges at him. He will have his own thorny issues to deal with, notably Islamic extremism directed at the U.S., but there will probably be a few we don't even see coming now. From what I can see, he'll be a cool head in the White House and I trust him to make the call for me.

I hope his journey across America during this campaign will allow him to transcend the boxes people want to put him in, and allow him to grow into a leader who will represent all of us.

Anyway, we all know this campaign can't be about who's got the best collection of issue statements and legislative agendas and plans. For me, it's about - "Who do you trust?"

I trust Barack Obama and, for what it's worth, I'd ask you to consider doing the same. Thanks.

FINAL NOTE:  "Ready to Believe" is the title of the rock-anthem I co-wrote the lyrics to that was recorded by LA alt.rocker Cherish Alexander and released a few days before the California primary (while I was on strike for the WGA, no less).  This song has been well-received everywhere from YouTube where it's had over 100,000 plays to iTunes where you can get a quality MP3 of it.  But, because you read to the end of this, you can also get a free copy by clicking here.

They May Just Start Liking Us Again...

I've just returned from a visit to Europe.  We visited London, Venice, Brussels and Bruges.  Everywhere I went, my daughter and I wore our Barack Obama buttons (see photo) and it helped us make a lot of new friends.  Honestly, if Europeans voted in this election, well, they wouldn't have to bother with ballots.  They could just do it by acclamation!

While there, I also picked up a copy of the Newsweek international edition with an article by Stryker McGuire, "The Global Election."  He makes the point that "the world has never watched any vote, in any nation, so closely. In country after country, polls show record-high fascination with the outcome of the U.S. elections this Tuesday."  McGuire makes it clear why they're interested.

"...the election played large and transformational: a 21st-century man with whom the whole world can identify versus an old cold-warrior out of synch with the complex political and economic crises of our age. The election, it seemed, had morphed into a meta-election. If at home, especially as the election neared its end, Obama seemed to be playing down his blackness, his intellect, his eliteness and his progressive ideas, these were the qualities that more and more drew the rest of the world to him. The world loved the idea that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could become America's 44th president after a 200-year string of white guys named Washington and Jefferson, Clinton and Bush."

That was definitely my conclusion.  We were stopped by restaurant owners, taxi drivers, hotel clerks and even fellow tourists; every single one wanting to make sure we knew that they, too, wanted him to win.

I realize that Europeans liking Obama would be red meat for a Sarah Palin speech, using it as evidence of how weak he is: to be supported by the French!

It's no reason, by itself, to support Barack Obama, I suppose.  Even the Europeans think he's going to drive some hard bargains if he wins.  But they seem ready to like America again.  If we give them the chance...

READY TO BELIEVE: Free MP3 of Obama Fight Song!

Last January, while we were still on strike as members of the Writers Guild of America, my wife Jackie and I sat down in a Los Angeles coffee shop with our good friend, musician Cherish Alexander.

Before the coffee was cold, we decided, improbably given the time frame -- as a couple of striking screenwriters and a singer-composer -- to write, produce and distribute the song you'll soon hear.  It happened over a five day period and we released it immediately before the California primary.

So far, "Ready to Believe" has cumulatively had its video versions viewed close to 100,000 times on YouTube.  Plus, it's available on iTunes.  You, however, don't have to buy it in the closing days of the 2008 campaign.  We want you to download it for free and to send it to your friends.

It was written to stand-up for Barack to the Clinton campaign's charges claiming he wasn't ready for the presidency.  We find that the need for this song is as solidly right-on today as it was last February (only Clinton is on the team now and the argument's being made by John McCain).  It needed rebuttal then, and it needs rebuttal now. 

Please give it a listen.  Click the link below to just hear it.  Otherwise,right-click to actually... we'll say it again... download "Ready to Believe" for free.  Again, you have our express permission to download it and to give it away. 

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Song.mp3

Some have asked for a PDF of the actual lyrics.  Here you are:

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Lyrics.pdf

Here's the You Tube version:

Please also visit the web-page of singer-composer Cherish Alexander (http://www.cherishalexander.com/ready_to_believe/) where all the goodies are also available.  She and fellow producer Damian Valentine did an awesome job with this project as you can hear for yourself.

We know the hour is late but if you support Barack Obama, we'd urge you to join us and expose as many people as you can to this song.  Especially Obama volunteers.  We've received a good deal of email from campaign workers who thought it was like an anthemic "fight song" for the cause.  That's certainly what we intended it to be.

Remember to vote.  Even if the polls say he's ahead, you have to vote.  Take nothing for granted. 

Still fired up and ready-to-go for Obama!

Cherish Alexander, Jackie Zabel, Bryce Zabel

McCain's Brows Are More Than Furrowed

At Least He's Ready For His Close-Up

There's been a lot of talk about how eyebrows were raised over Sarah Palin being plucked from obscurity to serve as VP on the Republican ticket.  Now it appears that her running mate (remember him?  the McCain guy?) is having to play catch-up to compete.  In the issues of Time and Newsweek that just came out (September 8 cover date), there's a fine full-page picture of the Senator inside Newsweek and his mug gets the full cover treatment on Time.  Here they are: take a good look before we continue...

As a producer out here in Hollywood, I've studied my share of head shots while considering actors for parts.  While I was looking at McCain to see if he seemed up for the role, it hit me.  The man had all the grey hairs plucked out of his eyebrows. 

Now we always knew that McCain was a gutsy warrior but we never would have thought to apply the adjective plucky but there it is.  Somehow, John McCain got his picture taken for Newsweek and then must have gone off to Time to be photographed for the cover shot.  Along the way, somebody got rid of all those pesky white hairs because they are gone, baby, gone.  Because of our commitment to investigative journalism here at For What It's Worth, we have gone the extra mile.  Take a look yourself and you tell me if we have a Brow-gate on our hands or not?

Above: Newsweek | Below: Time

Look, I'm all for sartorial striving and all, but there is a little irony here.  Isn't John McCain the guy who "approved" the ads that tried to make Barack Obama seem like a lightweight by branding him with the "celebrity" brush and running pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton next to his?  Then this same candidate runs out and plucks his brows for his big Time cover?

Did one of his consultants tell him that the grey in his eyebrows made him look, well, a little old?  Especially compared to his much younger new running mate?  Did the famously irritable McCain fuss and fume before agreeing?  Did the Secret Service have to inspect the tweezers first?  We just ask the questions, you decide.

Here's the biggest question.  If Barack Obama had done the exact same thing before his recent cover shoot, would any of the Republican speakers last night have missed the opportunity to use that against him in dismissive and contemptuous sound-bites?

Yeah.  Probably not.

Oh, well.  It's just another trivial issue that probably won't even make it past a news cycle.

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

Reflection on an Empty Chair

Tim Russert had a few years on me but not that many and so, like a lot of Americans, I'm guessing his passing isn't just about the loss of his wit and humor in the political arena but also a heads-up about mortality.

Of course, it's doubly impactful because the "empty chair" on Sunday's Meet the Press came on Father's Day and Russert has become known for his own love for his father and his son.

Today, during this Father's Day that he never got to, I took a walk, went for a swim and thought about what I can do to stick around a little longer for my own family.  There's work to be done but it's important work.  Probably Russert would approve of using his untimely death as a chance to take stock.  Can't write much more now, we've got some family time carved out...

Tim Russert

I'm a political junkie who relentlessly watches the talking heads, especially during this year's election.  I live for watching the "Round Tables" on all three of the Sunday morning shows.  Whenever Russert did a single guest, I was disappointed I wouldn't get to see him hold forth and direct a collection of his colleagues.  The best.  It's hard to accept that he's gone.  When I heard the news today, it felt like a good friend had just passed away.

The 1968 Politics of Hope: Bobby Kennedy

Sadly, the news of Senator Ted Kennedy's brain tumor reminds of us all the tragedy visited upon the four Kennedy brothers (Joe, John, Bobby, Teddy).  Now we're also coming up on the anniversary of that time nearly forty years ago when hope (of the kind Barack Obama seems to represent for a lot of people) was crushed by another assassin's bullet. This picture you see is done by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and originally debuted as the cover of Time magazine the week before Robert Kennedy's untimely death during another hard fought, unpredictable Democratic primary season, 1968 style.

Bobby Kennedy was a pop star as Lichtenstein portrayed him,  but he was more complicated than that, too. As Time noted in that last article before his death -- "The Politics of Restoration" --

"They pronounce his boyish name with fear and derision or else with adoration and awe. To many enemies, he is more his father's son than his brother's brother."

During his lifetime, Robert Kennedy was widely seen as his brother's hatchet man, and the word "ruthless" followed him everywhere. By 1968, when he died, though, he had grown. Pat Moynihan said of him, "Much has been given him and taken from him in life, and somehow he has been enlarged by both experiences."

Although Bobby (RFK) has won the California primary on the day of his death, he had also just concluded a slugfest with Senator Eugene McCarthy for the Democratic presidential nomination where the result had hardly been pre-ordained. Kennedy had had to fight McCarthy across the entire nation. When Kennedy triumphantly claimed victory here in Los Angeles at the Ambassador Hotel, he had settled the issue of who would be the anti-war candidate at the upcoming Democratic convention. Then he was murdered. He was 42 years old, even younger than his brother when he was murdered five years earlier.

I've always loved this Newsweek cover about RFK's death ("Once Again...Once Again," June 17, 1968). The photo, taken by Phil MacMullan, captures not only Bobby Kennedy's more soulful, empathetic side but also how the ghost of his brother and that previous assassination hung over him. If you CLICK on this cover, you can see it in even better detail.

Back then, I was living in Oregon where only the week before Kennedy had lost the Oregon primary to McCarthy. It was the first election any Kennedy had lost since their family got into politics. Kennedy desperately needed a win in California to get the momentum needed to take out Vice-President Hubert Humphrey at the Chicago convention that summer. Our family supported McCarthy, but we liked Kennedy a great deal, too. It was a tough choice. I remember seeing him speak in the auditorium at Hillsboro High School right before the election. He was three hours late but we waited because he was a rock star quality politician.

Anyway, Oregon is in the same time zone as California, so it was just after midnight when my dad came and woke me up. "Kennedy's been shot in California," he said. We went downstairs and watched the TV for news and kept up the vigil until he succumbed to his wounds the next day.

Recount (2008) -vs- The Late Shift (1995)

Winners and Losers

The Smackdown. Only HBO had the courage to give us the behind-the-scenes truth about the two greatest contests affecting our civilization in recent memory: the battle to decide the election between George Bush and Al Gore and, perhaps more importantly, the NBC decision about whether Jay Leno or David Letterman would get to host the Tonight Show and, thus, change life as we know it in America. The question is: if you're just watching these films as films and not metaphors or cautionary tales, which one's the best investment of a couple of hours?

The Challenger. The PR buzz for "Recount" is only just now building on the sides of buses, premiere parties, ET mentions and in interstitial spots on HBO itself. "Recount" came into my life last month, as a TV academy member, in the form of a "For Your Consideration" DVD. I've already written about this millenial political period on the "Instant History" site and remember, vividly, how transfixed we all were for that month of misery in 2000. Now, of course, we have the Clinton/Obama tie to bring us together on cable news channels and we may start to forget how many twists and turns there were in the Florida recount. HBO turned director Jay Roach ("Meet the Parents") loose on the project after Sidney Pollack turned them down, and Roach has done a fine job here making us re-live the headlines. I remember most vividly that the entire campaign was a debate about what to do with a budget surplus that disappeared after 9/11 never to be seen again and that both Gore and Bush were universally loathed by the electorate, accounting for their dead heat as much as the blue state-red state divide.

The Defending Champion. Back in the day, Johnny Carson ruled late night until he decided to quit in 1992, and then all hell broke loose as NBC managed to publicly court and humiliate the two princes who would be king: David Letterman and Jay Leno. The smoke eventually cleared in Leno's favor but the story behind the story became a book by Bill Carter that skewered all the characters involved for being true-to-life Hollywood sharks. As directed by Betty Thomas ("The Brady Bunch Movie"), this film stirred up all kinds of "inside baseball" controversy for HBO -- from its portrayals of Leno (Daniel Roebuck) and Letterman (John Michael Higgins) themselves to Leno's insane manager Helen Kushnick (Kathy Bates) and Letterman's insane agent (Michael Ovitz). This movie amused me a lot because I actually knew some of the players -- I'd been at Ovitz's agency CAA for a few years earlier in my career, I did a TV series with NBC's Warren Littlefield (Bob Balaban), and my son, Jonathan, had actually been a child actor portraying young Jay Leno on the Tonight Show for eight or nine appearances.

The Scorecard. Political junkies will love "Recount" in the same way that TV junkies loved "The Late Shift." They are insider pieces with real people being portrayed by some familiar actors. Tom Wilkinson, for example, does a killer James Baker and Laura Dern turns in a loopy Katerine Harris in "Recount."  Bob Balaban's in both films, but he was best in "The Late Shift."

The thing is, we already know how both films turn out. We know that Bush wins in the Supreme Court and goes on to invade Iraq while Gore grows a beard and re-discovers global warming. We also know that Leno gets the NBC gig while Letterman goes to CBS but gets the last laugh because he gets to watch from the sidelines as NBC does it again and publicly elbows Leno out for Conan O'Brien. In any case, though, since we know the endings, our enjoyment has to be all about the ride.

The ride feels less bumpy in "Recount" because the material is more important and is not 100% dependent on that HBO ironic tone in order to succeed. Sometimes it can just settle for telling its story. But the subject matter in "The Late Shift" seems smaller and therefore less compelling. This means it better be funny. It is, but only in fits and starts.

Funny, of course, is in the Eye of the Beholder and if you think you'd like to see Roeback in a latext chin playing Leno or Higgins with a gap-toothed denture playing Letterman, then you're in for a treat. If not, you will spend the film eyeing them the same way you look at formerly hot women with too much plastic surgery. They look mostly right, but something is at least a frame off. To the best of my knowledge, none of the actors in "Recount" are prosthetically enhanced.

"The Late Shift" actually has a few scenes with Dave and Jay together which should have been great, but fall flat. "Recount," on the other hand, has Denis Leary and I'm one of those viewers who can't get enough of this guy's peformances. He and Kevin Spacey share a lot of scenes together, but this is not Spacey's strongest performance. He must have studied the real guy who's potraying and decided he was low-energy but the performance is a mistake.

Another oddball comparison here is that most viewers will watch these films thinking that the wrong guy won. By now, Gore's star has long-eclipsed Bush's with all but the most partisan crowds. At the same time, Johnny Carson always said he'd have picked Letterman if given the chance and it was Letterman's boyhood dream to host "The Tonight Show."

Imagine an America where President Gore fought global warming instead of Iraqi insurgents and "The Tonight Show with David Letterman" ruled the late shift. Dream on...