So, Gerald Ford has died.

It’s sad for his family and friends, of course. But what immediately comes to mind is this hilarious “Saturday Night Live” skit from 10 years ago, with Tom Brokaw (played by Dana Carvey) about to go on vacation and pre-taping various contingency headlines, including numerous permutations of Ford’s death. “Tragedy today, as former President Gerald Ford was eaten by wolves. He was delicious.” I hope someone posts the video online Here’s the video (thanks, Metafilter), and here’s the transcript.

Meanwhile, updating my New York Times obituary word count:

Length of Pope John Paul II’s obituary: 13,364 words.

Length of Richard Nixon’s obituary: 13,158 words.

Length of Ronald Reagan’s obituary: 10,757 words.

Length of Gerald Ford’s obituary: 8,109 words. (This might change as the obituary is revised for the print edition.)

Today I thought about this old Sesame Street Christmas special that used to run on PBS every holiday season when I was a little kid. They stopped airing it a long time ago, but there were certain parts I’d always remembered very clearly. On a hunch I decided to check YouTube, and sure enough, someone has put it up! Matt and I just watched it. It was such a jolt to see scenes I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years. It’s from 1978, so this is classic Sesame Street – it has Mr. Hooper, and there’s no Elmo (yay).

Here’s Part 1. Click on it to find links to parts 2 through 7. (Turns out it’s also available on DVD.)

Does anyone else remember this Saturday morning cartoon featuring the Happy Days gang traveling through time?

From a profile of Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s premier gay rights organization:

He meets with opponents to explain why marriage is important to gay people. He plans to dine soon with John Tomicki, who heads the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage, which opposes extending family rights to same-sex couples.

“He can have a warm side to him,” Tomicki said of Goldstein. “(Two weeks ago), he came up and gave me a big hug. I gave him a big hug back. I then whispered into his ear, ‘For goodness sake, don’t kiss me.’ He laughed. He has a good sense of humor.”

People often make jokes to cover up their own biases.

But hey, you know those gay activists. They’re always trying to kiss straight people! They just can’t control themselves when there are new people around to recruit!

Wait a minute… which of the two men brought up kissing, again?

I’m happy to report that I have a new job. Finally. Right after the holidays, I’ll begin working as an editor for a large legal publishing company.

I think it will be a good fit for me. I’ll make use of my law degree without actually being a lawyer. Goodbye to the practice of law! And my salary will even be slightly higher than it was at the time I was laid off.

I actually got the offer a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve been having a nice holiday season. I’ve been able to enjoy everything and relax without having to worry about my future. When I start work, I will put an end to seven and a half months of unemployment. It seems like it’s been an eternity. I’ll admit, it’s been nice not having a job, but it’s been stressful at times. My unemployment compensation ran out just before I got the offer, so I’m dipping into my savings until I get my first paycheck.

It’s been quite a journey. I considered a bunch of different things during the last few months. I even applied to a master’s program in library and information science and got accepted for a January start, but now I’m not going to do that. I’m not sure enough about it to spend thousands of dollars in tuition once again, and anyway, I’ll soon have a job that can lead to a bunch of different things down the line.

So I’m happy and relieved.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

With regard to whether we’re “winning” or “losing” in Iraq, this excerpt from a letter in today’s Times echoes my thoughts exactly:

The terms “success” and “failure” are meaningless with regard to Iraq. It is high time that we stopped glorifying our Iraq endeavor as “a war.” It is an invasion, pure and simple, and there is no clearly discernible enemy whom we can defeat or to whom we can lose.

Every time the president or someone else utters the word “victory,” I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. “Victory” is as relevant to this situation as geometry is to English class.

It’s positively Orwellian.

You can always count on a member of Congress to say something completely asinine. This time it’s Virgil Goode, who was my congressman when I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Keith Ellison, who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, has said that he plans to use the Koran for his ceremonial swearing-in. In response, Congressman Goode sent a letter to some of his constituents that says the following:

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”

In addition to bigotry, the letter is a big non sequitur: Keith Ellison is a natural-born U.S. citizen and has traced his family’s American roots back to 1742.

Charlottesville is an oasis of blue in a sea of red. Too bad it’s not possible to secede from a Congressional district.

Holy cow. Poppi, bartender at the Duplex, looks amazing. Granted, she was always beautiful, but what an awesome accomplishment this is for her. Congrats!

President Bush says that Mary Cheney will make a “fine mom.” He also believes that “every child that comes into this world deserves love and he believes that Mary Cheney’s child will in fact have loving parents,” according to Tony Snow.

But for some reason he doesn’t think they should be allowed to get married.

Look. Gay families already exist. De facto gay marriages already exist, except that they don’t get governmental recognition. They will exist even if they never get governmental recognition. They will exist even if the Constitution, God forbid, is someday amended to ban governmental recognition of them. There is no governmental policy that will make gay couples go away. There is no governmental policy that will make gay people go away.

“We don’t want to condone this sort of behavior,” some people say.

But this behavior – um, this orientation – is going to exist no matter what the government does or doesn’t do.

Some anti-gay people are still under the illusion that homosexuality is somehow “chosen” and is somehow going to disappear, if only we create a sufficiently discouraging atmosphere.

But even if the government and the culture become totally oppressive of homosexuality, we’re still not going to go away. Homosexuals have always been born and they always will. Unless a gene is found and potential parents start engaging in gene therapy, we are always going to be here.

And you know what else?

We’re never going to be more than about 4 or 5 percent of the population.

So what are you so worried about? Humanity will continue to be fruitful and multiply.

Think of gays as the cooling rods in the nuclear reactor of the human overpopulation machine.

And heck, some of us are even being fruitful ourselves.

Bush’s comments remind me of when Dan Quayle, staunchly anti-choice as he was, said that he would support his daughter’s decision if she got pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. It’s not quite analogous, but it’s another case where a general principle smacks into a real live person.

President Bush: if Mary Cheney will make a “fine mom,” and if “Mary Cheney’s child will in fact have loving parents” – why shouldn’t that child be allowed to have married parents, too?

Movies I have seen lately:

Casino Royale – Really enjoyed it. Best Bond film in a long time. A bit too much poker, but Daniel Craig has that certain something (besides hotness) that makes him a great Bond. I guess it’s a combination of mystery and danger. I’d feel uneasy around his Bond in a way I wouldn’t around Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan or any of the others. He’s a darker Bond.

The Departed – Terrific. Confusing at a times, and a bit too many cell phones in the plot. But excellent, excellent, excellent, with tons of Names. Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and the terrific Vera Farmiga. Where’d she come from? More Vera Farmiga.

Volver – Pedro Almodovar’s latest. You can always tell when you’re watching a Pedro Almodovar movie. Not just the Spanish and all the women, but the wonderful color palettes (his movies are infused with color) and the sadness tinged with comedy. And the doors in his movies are always old and worn and beautiful. This film isn’t quite as imaginative as his other recent films, but an Almodovar film is still better than most others.

The Queen – Loved it. Such a great character film.

I think there’s another I’ve seen recently, but I can’t remember what it is.

The Amazon.com page for the movie “Wordplay,” about crossword puzzles, has a link to an Amazon.com-themed crossword puzzle.

Continuing my Disney kick, here are a couple more very early Disney cartoons. Both of these were originally silent.

The first cartoon features Mickey Mouse’s predecessor, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Note the similarity to Mickey, except for the ears. This is the first Oswald cartoon that was released, “Trolley Troubles.”

Next is the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon – not “Steamboat Willie” (which was actually the first Disney cartoon with sound) but “Plane Crazy.” Note the similarities to “Trolley Troubles.”

I’m currently reading Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, a new biography of Walt Disney by Neal Gabler, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

In honor of this, here’s Disney’s first Silly Symphonies cartoon, the classic “The Skeleton Dance,” from 1929. Creepy.

A Charlie Brown Christmas – “Scrubs”-style.

A character on “Heroes,” Zach, has been de-gayed. There were several hints that Zach, best friend of fellow high-schooler Claire, was gay – hints that most gay people would have picked up on. (And I did.) Now it turns out that NBC, or someone in control, has had a change of mind.

This is dumb and disappointing.

From Wikipedia: List of comic book superpowers.

Where does Bush rank among all U.S. presidents? Is he the worst ever? The Washington Post today prints assessments by five historians/academics/thinkers that touch on the difficulties of such rankings, the liberal bent of history professors, and the validity or invalidity of doing this exercise when the Bush presidency still has more than two years left. The pieces also touch on several other presidencies in American history. Collectively they make for interesting reading.

This is a subjective parlor game with ambiguities. When evaluating a president, do you look at the man and his attributes and skills, or do you look at the results? Some good men are saddled with bad luck, and some incompetent men are saved by good luck.

Anyway, here are some excerpts.

Douglas Brinkley:

[A]fter six years in power and barring a couple of miracles, it’s safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq.

…

Though Bush may be viewed as a laughingstock, he won’t have the zero-integrity factors that have kept Nixon and Harding at the bottom in the presidential sweepstakes. Oddly, the president whom Bush most reminds me of is Herbert Hoover, whose name is synonymous with failure to respond to the Great Depression. When the stock market collapsed, Hoover, for ideological reasons, did too little. When 9/11 happened, Bush did too much, attacking the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. He has joined Hoover as a case study on how not to be president.

Eric Foner:

It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

Vincent Cannato:

What is disheartening is the tendency of many historians to rate presidents based on their support for liberal social policies. Just as frustrating is the inability to acknowledge the deep debates over law enforcement measures, such as the USA Patriot Act, enacted after 9/11. Rather than acknowledge the tough tradeoffs between security and privacy, we are left with the hyperbole that this administration is “trampling on civil liberties.” Sometimes wisely and sometimes rashly, Bush has steered the nation through the post-9/11 world. It has been an uneven trip so far, but the country has not suffered another attack in more than five years.

Much of Bush’s legacy will rest on the future trajectory of the fight against terrorism, the nation’s continued security and the evolving direction of the Middle East. Things may look grim today, but that doesn’t ensure a grim future.

David Greenberg:

Comparisons of presidents across different eras are typically the stuff of parlor games, not serious historical study. But if anyone can be said to deserve the mantle of the worst, it’s Nixon. Indeed, looking at his disastrous presidency may help put Bush’s failures in perspective.

Michael Lind:

It’s unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He’s merely the fifth worst. In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four other Oval Officers whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.

As for that last one, I take issue with Lind’s comparison of Bush with Madison. I don’t see how the War of 1812 was worse than the current war.

There’s a been a little tempest in a teapot over an exchange between Senator-elect Jim Webb and the President last week. At a White House reception for new members of Congress, Bush asked Webb how his son was doing. Webb, whose son is serving in Iraq, responded, “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President.” Bush countered, “I didn’t ask you that. I asked how your boy was doing.”

The New York Times has interviewed several “etiquette experts” for its Week in Review section and asked their opinions about the exchange.

“I’m surprised and offended by Jim Webb,” said Stephen Hess, the author of “The Little Book of Campaign Etiquette” and a professor at George Washington University. “If you accept somebody’s invitation, you’re expected to respond in socially acceptable ways. Why go to be rude? Is it so awful to be polite? He was secretary of the Navy, for heaven’s sake!”

Please.

First, these are not ordinary people at a dinner party. These are politicians responsible for matters of life and death. And one of the two politicians is responsible for sending American troops to die in the middle of a pointless war.

Second, this is a democracy, not a monarch’s court. An American president is not a king. And a president who values “plain talk” certainly shouldn’t complain when someone dishes it out to him.

Third, Webb’s response wasn’t rude. He doesn’t appear to have used impolite or foul language. An incoming senator expressed an opinion to the President of the United States on a matter of public policy.

Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated column under the name Miss Manners, said that even discussions of war and life and death did not justify suspending the rules. “On the contrary, diplomacy is what’s supposed to stave off wars and other violence,” she said.

This isn’t diplomacy. This is two politicians from the same country.

On criticizing the president in his own house, [Letitia] Baldrige quotes the French: ça ne se fait pas — “it is not done.”

Bull. It’s not “his own house.” It’s the people’s house.

This is why I think etiquette rules are crap.

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[via Jere]

Golan Cipel says that Jim McGreevey is not really gay. He says McGreevey is actually bisexual because he had sex with female prostitutes.

From an interview last night:

KING: Well, we’re back with Golan, who said an extraordinary thing to me during the break. He said he does not think James McGreevey is gay. What?

CIPEL: No. I don’t believe that. That’s part of the spin.

KING: Spin to be gay? Why?

CIPEL: I believe that Jim McGreevey is bisexual. But, Larry, can you imagine this dramatic press conference when James McGreevey’s coming out and saying that the truth is, I’m proud to be a bisexual American.

KING: And he’s got a gay lover now that he’s…?

CIPEL: … I don’t know about that. I do believe that he is attractive to men, but Jim McGreevey was attracted to men. I would never believe that story.

Even after what — even the second I knew his secret and what happened with me, he still spoke about heterosexual sex. He spoke about prostitutes. For example, you know, McGreevey, and he used to brag about it, said to me once that he after the visit to Auschwitz, the death camp in Auschwitz, brought prostitutes to the hotel. He and another aide had sex with prostitutes in the hotel.

He said the same thing about having sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. Those were official visits. He had sex with prostitutes in New Jersey and denied it in certain points. And then in his book he said there was one prostitute, but he didn’t know what to do with her, so he sent her to a vacation. That’s a very poor excuse.

Something here is wrong. I mean, I think McGreevey had no choice. There was a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He didn’t know what to do. And his adviser told him come out first. If you come out first, you will be perceived as the victim. You control of the story. That’s what he chose to do.

Let’s put aside the image of anyone having sex with a prostitute after visiting Auschwitz, because I don’t even want to go there. And let’s put aside Larry King’s use of the term “gay lover.” (What is this, 1982?)

First, if McGreevey were actually bisexual, how would it help him against a potential sexual harassment lawsuit to say he was gay instead? It doesn’t make sense.

Second, I seriously doubt that Jim McGreevey has partnered up with Mark O’Donnell and bought a house with him purely to further the fiction that he is gay instead of bi.

Third, none of this proves anything other than that McGreevey was in denial in the past. McGreevey has admitted as such. Plenty of gay men have had sex with women before. And even if he enjoyed it, plenty of gay men are not pure Kinsey sixes.

I don’t know what Cipel’s point is, other than to be bitter. Not that McGreevey is squeaky clean here, either.

McGreevey sure knew how to pick ’em back then, didn’t he?