Whether the year was more naughty than nice is debatable, but the naughty part surely got everyone's attention, with sex scandals rocking the worlds of journalism, sports, entertainment, and politics just to name a few. Several once-respected news media types fell from grace, from prominence, and from our TV screens and editorial pages. Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Rose, Matt Laurer, and Garrison Keillor were among those who disappeared from view in the wake of copious allegations, and please check out last week's column for a partial list of the politicians whose careers terminated abruptly. Although the O'Reilly episode may have predated it by a few months, the whole mess really took on a head of steam and roared down the track with the entertainment world, namely Harvey Weinstein, and the rotten apples are still falling off the trees from the production side and the performing side, and it seems that each day brings a new revelation of some sordid behavior from the past - and not always the distant past. Of course, few people are actually surprised at the disclosures for it has long been speculated that the casting couch and those broken hearts for each light on Broadway were not merely fodder for cliché. There have been admissions or accusations of many sorts of perverted behavior, and, at the risk of repeating ourselves, the biggest scandal is perhaps the multiple comments from Hollywood that "we all knew" the carrying on that was being carried on. Yep, we will believe that they all knew, and also that almost all of them that did know kept their mouths shut, likely out of fear for terminating their own careers or fear of some other form of retaliation.
2017 may not be remembered as the weirdest, most upside-down year on record but, as the man supposedly once said, it might be in the top ten. From the raging tempest over the size of the crowd on Inauguration Day to the House having to revote on its tax cut because it contained a couple of minor provisions that could not be passed by the Senate due to its rules, this year topped a lot of them.
Whether the year was more naughty than nice is debatable, but the naughty part surely got everyone's attention, with sex scandals rocking the worlds of journalism, sports, entertainment, and politics just to name a few. Several once-respected news media types fell from grace, from prominence, and from our TV screens and editorial pages. Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Rose, Matt Laurer, and Garrison Keillor were among those who disappeared from view in the wake of copious allegations, and please check out last week's column for a partial list of the politicians whose careers terminated abruptly. Although the O'Reilly episode may have predated it by a few months, the whole mess really took on a head of steam and roared down the track with the entertainment world, namely Harvey Weinstein, and the rotten apples are still falling off the trees from the production side and the performing side, and it seems that each day brings a new revelation of some sordid behavior from the past - and not always the distant past. Of course, few people are actually surprised at the disclosures for it has long been speculated that the casting couch and those broken hearts for each light on Broadway were not merely fodder for cliché. There have been admissions or accusations of many sorts of perverted behavior, and, at the risk of repeating ourselves, the biggest scandal is perhaps the multiple comments from Hollywood that "we all knew" the carrying on that was being carried on. Yep, we will believe that they all knew, and also that almost all of them that did know kept their mouths shut, likely out of fear for terminating their own careers or fear of some other form of retaliation. By John Shaffer After doing well in the special elections since President Trump’s inauguration, the Republicans lost a big one on Tuesday, dropping a Senate seat in Alabama, which is a state that Mr. Trump carried by about 28% last November, Two differences – Mr. Trump was not on the ballot, and neither was Hillary Clinton, so almost by definition the Republicans had a harder row to hoe and the Democrats an easier one. Republicans lost because of who was on the ballot, Roy Moore. This seat was won by Jeff Sessions in 2014 in an uncontested walkover – the Democrats didn’t even nominate anyone to run against him. Last year, Republican Senator Richard Shelby was re-elected with 1.3 million votes to 737,000 for his Democratic opponent. Last night, Democrat Doug Jones with 671,000 votes defeated Republican Roy Moore, who had 650,000. Yes, the losing Democrat last year received more votes than the winning Democrat this year, and the winning Republican last year received about as many votes as both candidates combined this year. In other words, Republicans normally would be expected to have won that seat, and the fact that they did not should provide a serious “wake-up call” to the party.
The nominated candidate, Roy Moore, was a “movement” conservative, and his opponent a left-leaning liberal, and normally that spells a win for the Republican in Alabama, but this time it did not. Mr. Moore was dogged by accusations that 38 years ago as a rising young attorney in his early 30s, he asked several girls in the 16-18 year old range out on dates; and perhaps took some liberties (or tried to) with one who was perhaps as young as 14. The national party first was against Mr. Moore, who unseated the establishment candidate in the primary, and then was lukewarm toward him. It turned against him when the accusations began to grow in number and intensity, and the party slid back into supporting him near the end, but it was not enough. The Democrats could smell victory, and they poured heavy resources into the race, and helped by the circumstances of Moore’s primary victory (which split the party), and the distressing accusations made about him, and the heavy play those accusations received in the national and statewide press, Mr. Moore had an uphill fight in a race in which a Republican normally would coast to victory. But after taking everything into account, a majority of the Alabama voters could not bring themselves to vote for Moore. Many voters didn’t vote for the liberal Jones, either, and there were appreciable write-in votes for other Republicans – which siphoned votes from Moore, but a great many voters, normally expected to vote for the Republican, stayed home. Their disgust over the nominated candidate outweighed their dislike of the political views of the Democrat candidate, but they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for either of them. President Trump, although he had endorsed Mr. Moore’s primary opponent, went heavy for Moore, but even his appeal was not enough to sway the election. BY JOHN SHAFFER The “Olympic ideals” of sportsmanship are admired by everyone but there are certain times that the rules don’t apply to everyone. At least that’s what we thought, because Russia/the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and most of the former East Block satellite countries got away with things that the countries of the free world could not. We particularly objected to the sham of “amateurism” that permitted the athletes of Communist countries to complete as amateurs, even though they were for all practical purposes employees of the state and professionals in all but name. We also objected to the rigged rules that always seemed to provide medals to East Bloc athletes at the expense of deserving Americans. We specifically recall the infamous 1972 Olympics, where the Russian basketball team won the gold medal, thanks to blatant cheating; or pole vaulter Bob Seagren’s treatment, also in 1972, that conspired to prevent a fair shot at a medal. We could go on, but the East German swim team in 1976 had to be the most outrageous example. Pumped full of performance-enhancing drugs, those swimmers shattered records and won a ton of medals.
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