Dick Hubert’s Worldview: The Tortured Columnist’s Department or…thoughts demanding expression

With a nod to Taylor Swift’s new double album “The Tortured Poets Department,” this column is a tortured columnist’s (with an apostrophe “s”) recognition of a welter of thoughts demanding expression.

But I don’t have room here for two albums (er, columns), only one. And I’m limited in length, not soundtracks.

Mind track #1

You’ll remember my column two editions ago begging for aid to Ukraine and demanding Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stop stalling a vote on this desperately needed legislation.

Well, the good fortune that a) persuaded the Continental Congress to send Ben Franklin to France to get their help for George Washington to win the war against Britain; b) blessed and encouraged the persistence of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt despite a reluctant Congress to provide lend lease military to help Britain withstand the Nazis in 1940; c) once again oversaw and encouraged America’s guiding spirit and came through last Friday.

Here’s Mike Allen of Axios describing it for the ages:

“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did something rarely, if ever, seen in the MAGA era when he won passage yesterday of a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan...

He defied the loudest, most threatening GOP personalities, dug deep into government intelligence — and shifted his position on the most vital foreign policy legislation in years.

Why it matters: It's hard to overstate the importance of Johnson's road-to-Kyiv political conversion. He not only shifted his own position on funding and arming Ukraine, but defied a majority of his party to do it.

Oh, and he risked his speakership to pull it off.”

Mind track #2

I’m on both Jamaal Bowman’s and George Latimer’s e-mail lists as they drum up support for the crucial 17^th District Democratic congressional primary election in June.

The back and forth is—ugly.

But give Bowman credit (or blame) for his votes on the House floor last week on Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, TikTok and more: he seems determined to position himself on the far left of the Democratic Party in a district that, from my perception, is centrist.

Look at his Apr. 19 vote (and those of all House members) as detailed in a graphically clear Washington Post online report.

Latimer, handed a softball pitch to knock out of the political ballpark, responded accordingly on Apr. 20:

“Today, the US took a crucial step to advance a global security package, sending a clear message to our allies in the fight against terror and international drug cartels that we stand with them and support them in their time of need. Our current representative, Jamaal Bowman, wrongly stood against over 80% of Congressional Democrats and President Biden, voting no on these critical bills. I am running for this seat because we – and our allies around the world – deserve better.”

“Mr. Bowman voted against Iron Dome funding, which was vital in repelling Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel this week, with 170 drones, 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles. He voted against terminating the tax-exempt status of terrorist-supporting organizations. And even as Iranian militants took to the streets to chant ‘Death not America,’ he voted against condemning Iran’s attack.”

“Now he has gone even further, voting with MAGA extremists against funding to fight global fentanyl trafficking, against freezing Iranian assets, and against protecting Americans’ data from foreign adversaries.”

“These bills were all supported by President Biden and over 80% of Congressional Democrats. And with each vote, Mr. Bowman once more shows that he is more interested in making a statement than supporting our President and his colleagues when it matters most.”

My last Bowman e-mail was before the House vote. But you can get a sense of where he is with an excerpt from this email he sent me a week earlier, Apr. 13.

“My opponent George Latimer launched a smear campaign to unseat me. With over 40% of his campaign’s funding coming from AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), we can tell who’s bankrolling these TV ads.”

“Latimer is taking millions from AIPAC – he was hand picked by them to defeat me. He’s got a record of serving himself before anyone else.”

“They’re coming after me because I’ve been an outspoken advocate for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. God forbid someone stands up for human rights.”

Not to restate the obvious, but the differences between the two are as stark as, dare I say, black and white.

Track #3

Just before the House vote, I was planning to write in detail about the public and disastrous (for all involved) battle over National Public Radio’s presumed editorial neutrality between multi decade NPR editor Uri Berliner and NPR leadership, most notably its new CEO Katherine Maher.

Suffice it to say that Berliner’s essay in The Free Press saying NPR is so far to the left that it doesn’t even try to be impartial in its newscasts or its selection of news personnel, and his being forced out by Maher, is the talk of media watchers everywhere in this country.

Fans of another Maher (Bill Maher of HBO’s Real Time Show and no relation to the Maher of NPR) may have heard his discussion this past Friday of the Berliner contretemps and famed columnist Andrew Sullivan’s reaction. Here’s a quote from the Sullivan column if you missed it:

“If you want to understand why NPR is now cringe, look no further. If you want to understand why social justice is best understood as a religious cult, ditto. Body and soul? The journalist sounds like a revivalist.

Maher’s tweets perfectly define our new cultural overlords. And I’m not just talking about tweets like this typical one, as cities burned and countless small businesses were destroyed in the mayhem of the summer of 2020:

‘I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property. Also, reporting on extinguished shoe store fires is just lazy reporting. … Cheesecakes are insured; the right to be black and breathe is without measure.’

Maher’s full tweetage is a deep dive into the successor ideology. First and foremost, it means an end to the Enlightenment idea of empirical truth, discoverable by a curious human being, regardless of his or her identity. This idea is, in fact, a “white male Westernized construct,” as Maher once explained in an interview. “Seeking the truth, and seeking to convince others of the truth, might not be the right place to start,” Maher argued in her TED talk. “In fact, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction … We all have different truths. They’re based on things like: where we come from, how we were raised, and how other people perceive us.”

That’s why, in Maher’s woke mind, you have to start not with an individual but with an identity. A white reporter is not interchangeable with a black reporter, or a female reporter with a male reporter, and only black reporters know the truth about race, just as only “nonbinary” or trans people can speak about gender. There is no objective truth; there are only narratives based on unfalsifiable “lived experiences”; and the job of NPR is to elevate the narratives that help dismantle the racist, heterosexist, patriarchal, transphobic regime of “whiteness” — and suppress those that don’t.”

Sullivan does not hold back and confirms what I have noticed as an NPR listener over the years. (And yes, I’m a contributor to WNYC’s fund drives, but that’s another column.)

Sullivan is no fan of Fox News either. He points fingers at both extremes.

But lumping NPR and Fox News in the same extremist category? That’s surely new material for a lot of you to think about.

And in closing,
Track #4 - for Swifties

On my recent trip to see family in Bellevue, Wash., my 11-year-old granddaughter told me she was a “Swiftie”—having seen (with her mother) Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour digital video in a theater.

What came as a shock was the extent of Swiftie fandom in Bellevue and its environs.

On Thursday, Dec. 5, one day before her Eras stadium concert in nearby Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Swift will be performing a 9:00 a.m. concert in Bellevue at the Meydenbauer Convention Center, with a capacity of just 3,500 guests.

To quote from the website www.downtownbellevue.com, “To secure a ticket to this exclusive event, fans will need to participate in a lottery system. With tickets priced at $20,000 each, it’s a rare opportunity for die-hard Swifties to witness their idol in such an intimate setting. And to add to the morning show theme, each concert-goer will receive a “Wake-Up Wristband,” designed to buzz to the rhythm of the music gently, ensuring everyone is fully awake and ready to dance.”

I did the math. 3,500 tickets times $20,000 equals $70,000,000.

Neither my granddaughter nor anyone in her family will be going!

But, who will?

No wonder Taylor Swift is a billionaire.

Dick Hubert, a retired television news producer-writer-reporter living in Rye Brook, has been honored with the Peabody Award, the DuPont Columbia Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award.

Editor’s Note: This column, written by Dick Hubert, represents his opinion and not that of this newspaper.