OPEN THREAD: It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses. Thread it.

DAVID FRUM: TRUMP IS OUR ‘PUNISHMENT’ FOR TERRIBLE CITIZENS NOT LIKING THE NEWS.

Frum also condescendingly lectured Americans on what he saw as their responsibility as citizens, including telling them not to whine about having to watch the news:

And you can’t put your responsibilities on the press and say, “why didn’t you make this easier for me, or more entertaining. Why didn’t you make the news less frightening than it is? I would like—I would like a different truth, please.” The job of the press is to tell you the truth as it is whether it’s good news or not. And then it’s your responsibility as a patriot and a citizen to accept it and to internalize it and to act on it.

Imagine saying to CNN’s Brian Stelter with a straight face that “The job of the press is to tell you the truth as it is whether it’s good news or not.” Would that it were true:

And it hasn’t been long before Jim Treacher’s 2014 tweet. Or as one author wrote in his book on the 1970s, documenting the slow breakdown in America’s institutions that would ultimately lead to Trump’s unexpected victory:

Some blame Watergate for this abrupt collapse of trust in institutions, but not very convincingly. For one thing, the decline in trust begins to appear in the polls as early as 1966, almost a decade before the Watergate was known as anything more than a big hole in the ground alongside the Potomac River. For another, the nation had managed unconcernedly to shrug off Watergate-style events before. Somebody bugged Barry Goldwater’s apartment during the 1964 election without it triggering a national trauma. The Johnson administration tapped the phones of Nixon supporters in 1968, and again nothing happened. John F. Kennedy regaled reporters with intimate details from the tax returns of wealthy Republican donors, and none of the reporters saw anything amiss. FDR used the Federal Bureau of Investigation to spy on opponents of intervention into World War II—and his targets howled without result. If Watergate could so transform the nation’s sense of itself, why did those previous abuses, which were equally well known to the press, not do so? Americans did not lose their faith in institutions because of the Watergate scandal; Watergate became a scandal because Americans were losing faith in their institutions.

—An excerpt from How We Got Here: The 70s The Decade That Brought You Modern Life — For Better Or Worse, David Frum, 2000.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: CNN’s Jim Sciutto Exposed as Two-Faced Tweeter on Diplomacy with Dictators.

Obama and Castro? Si! Trump and North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol: Trump “is smiling next to a man who runs a gulag jailing some 200,000 North Koreans and who oversaw the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 & the hacking of Sony North America.”

Talk about a buried lede, though: CNN apparently now thinks that Pyongyang are the bad guys for a change.

IT’S COME TO THIS: TSA Searches 96-Year-Old Wheelchair Bound Woman, Sparks Debate.

CRISIS AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES:

Every archive in the world suffers attacks, resulting in the theft of its records, the amending or destroying of them, and the archive has had five it knows of since Berger. Digital storage and authentication* will be a great help in securing all holdings.

[Sandy] Berger was supposedly reviewing records for a Clinton response to the 9/11 Commission’s considerations of mistakes made leading up to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Dean Emeritus of Boston University Law School Ronald Cass wonders if there was telling marginalia by Clinton or others on some of these documents that were not on the file copies. The Clintons seemed to have a longstanding problem with records, since the disappearance in 1994 and reappearance in 1996 of the subpoenaed Rose Law Firm files in the Clintons’ private White House quarters.

Now the National Archives is faced with Hillary Clinton’s history-making assault on government records while secretary of state, which Cass describes as fitting a pattern of “destroy, deny and corrupt the process.” (This is no doubt why Harvard just awarded her the Radcliffe Medal citing her “transformative impact on society.”)

Read the whole thing.

* What could go wrong?

THE TONY AWARDS ARE TONIGHT. This 2004 piece, titled, “There’s No Business Like Tony Awards Business,” by Daniel Okrent, the former ombudsman at the New York Times, is a bracing look at how the foie gras gets made, both on the awards stage, and inside the paper that serves as its advertising house organ:

Unless I acquire some unexpected clout around here in the next 48 hours, Times readers will wake up on Tuesday morning to read a prominent story announcing the nominees for an artistically meaningless, blatantly commercial, shamefully exclusionary and culturally corrosive award competition.

Let me put it another way: unless Times editors have overcome several decades of their own inertia, readers on Tuesday will find a prominent story serving the pecuniary interests of three privately controlled companies whose principals have earned the right to convene in what Damon Runyon once called ”the laughing room.” That was Runyon’s term for the sound-proofed chamber where he imagined that the proprietors of the ”21” Club gathered to set the day’s menu prices. Today’s version would be the sanctum where the men who run the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization and Jujamcyn Theaters gather to toast The Times and its generous support of their efforts.

Those are the three institutions that control Broadway and in turn, along with the sponsors of touring productions of Broadway shows, control the Tony Awards. The Oscars (or Grammys or Pulitzers) of theater the Tonys are not. It may be hard to defend the coverage of something as politicized, commercialized and overhyped as the Oscars, but at least the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t limit entrants to films shown only in movie houses of a certain size located in a single neighborhood.

If you’re interested in Broadway, read the whole thing.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Why is the media desperate to make out Ambassador Richard Grenell is a full-blown fascist?

From all of which one might have the impression that Grenell had backed Hungary’s Jobbik or Greece’s Golden Dawn. In fact the political leader in Europe that Grenell expressed himself a ‘fan’ of was Sebastian Kurz, the young Chancellor of Austria, and a man of the political conservative mainstream. Yet such is the level of ignorance and presumption about politics across the continent that various publications seized on this as yet more evidence of Grenell’s extremism. For the Austrian Chancellor is in a coalition with that country’s ‘Freedom Party’ which is frequently described as ‘far-right’. And therefore to meet with Kurz is to meet with someone who meets with the wrong people. Meaning that any meeting with him is itself suspect.

Perhaps after the Guardian, Pink News, NPR etc have worked out the difference between a conservative and a fascist they could also perform another public service. Which would be to identify which politicians across Europe an ambassador is allowed to meet with these days?

As Jonah Goldberg wrote in 2014, “This is a very old story:”

Joseph Stalin championed the idea that all of his political opponents should be dubbed fascists, including many of his fellow Bolsheviks, such as Leon Trotsky (whom Stalin had assassinated), and much of the Red Army’s officer corps (whom he had executed), and countless Ukrainians (whom he had liquidated). Stalin insisted that even mentioning the man-made – i.e., Stalin-made — Ukranian famine was evidence you were an agent of the Nazis.

Under Stalin’s “theory of social fascism,” any socialist, social-democratic, or progressive group or party not loyal to him had to be called fascist. Hence, for a while Moscow insisted that FDR and even Norman Thomas (head of the Socialist Party of America) were fascists.

Ultimately, Communist propagandists and their allied intellectuals would reflexively blame fascism for everything, regardless of the facts. That’s what prompted George Orwell to remark that “the word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

See also: Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr smearing Barry Goldwater in 1964. Even Cronkite’s left-leaning biographer Douglas Brinkley couldn’t whitewash this low moment in the CBS anchorman’s career:

As managing editor of the CBS Evening News, Cronkite seemed to relish pricking Goldwater from time to time for sport. In late July, he introduced a report from CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr, a hard-and-fast liberal working from Munich. With an almost tongue-in-cheek smile, Cronkite said, “Whether or not Senator Goldwater wins the nomination, he is going places, the first place being Germany.” Schorr then went on a tear, saying, “It looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign in Bavaria, the center of Germany’s right wing.” The backstory was merely that Goldwater had accepted an invitation from Lieutenant General William Quinn for a quick holiday at Berchtesgaden, a U.S. Army recreational center in Germany. But Schorr made the takeaway point that Berchtesgaden was once “Hitler’s stomping ground.” Goldwater, trying to show off his NATO bona fides, had granted an interview with Der Spiegel in which he mentioned a possible trip to Germany soon. Some Democratic opposition researcher floated the idea that Goldwater was infatuated with the Nazis. It was ugly stuff.

Indeed it was — and still is.

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SHARYL ATTKISSON ON THE FBI’S FRACTURED FAIRYTALE.

Read the whole metaphor.

WHEN YOU’RE TOO WOKE FOR STARBUCKS…Leftist Starbucks Founder Says Democrats Have Gone ‘Too Far Left.’

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT? San Diego crowd goes crazy after foul ball lands perfectly in woman’s cup of beer​:

Arguably the best catch at the San Diego Padres vs. Atlanta Braves game on Tuesday happened off the baseball field.

A 23-year-old Padres fan wasn’t the only one surprised when a foul ball soared across the stadium and landed in her full cup of beer.

The once-in-a-lifetime moment was caught on video by the Padres organization, and quickly spiraled Gabrielle DiMarco to social media fame.

“I felt like I won the lottery,” DiMarco told The San Diego Union-Tribune. “I was like, ‘What are the chances?’ I wasn’t even trying to catch this ball and it landed in my cup.”

As Iowahawk tweets, “I love my beautiful patient wife who bore me two perfect children, but by god I am filing for divorce tomorrow and proposing to this woman.”

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Have Democrats Moved Too Far to the Center?

I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Vile blue-check loser with history of nasty takes even ticks off the Church of Satan with Anthony Bourdain tweet.

ROGER SIMON: Disneyland Pyongyang? Can Trump Co-Opt Kim?

This speaks to what Trump is attempting.  A creature of popular culture himself, he knows its allure and how to utilize it.  Whether he will succeed is anybody’s guess, but it is a different way of dealing in international diplomacy and more than worth trying. Perhaps he should bring along a bag of Big Macs and some fries to the negotiation.

Okay, maybe not, but the underpinnings of all this are not new.  Those of us old enough to remember recall the subversive nature of American culture during Soviet times,  clandestine jazz concerts in Moscow boîtes, hidden screenings of certain movies, samizdat publication of forbidden novels, etc. Everybody wanted it, even, apparently, General Secretary Andropov.

Read the whole thing. Maybe Trump should simply invite Kim Jong-un to visit the Safeway in Houston.

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A TALE OF THREE HEADLINES AT THE SACRAMENTO BUSINESS JOURNAL:

● Shot: California could impose quotas for women on corporate boards.

● Chaser: 46% of San Francisco Bay Area residents plan to leave, survey says.

● Hangover:  Report: Sacramento among top three cities where millennials are moving.

Rinse and repeat until California is no more.

GREAT MOMENTS IN STRANGE NEW RESPECT:

● Shot:

● Chaser:

“He bullied kids, abused dogs, gave women cancer while shoving them in binders, remember NYT?”, Stephen Miller tweets today, and as one of his followers adds, “Let’s not forget how dangerously naive he is when it comes to foreign policy, too, being stuck in the 1980s and all.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE CULTURE WARS, or Question Asked and Answered:

● Shot: Will Colorado Apologize?

—The New York Sun, yesterday.

● Chaser: They’re Here, They’re Queer, and Now They’re Coming for Christians — and for Our Jobs.

—Paula Bolyard, PJ Media, yesterday.

ANDREW KLAVAN: A Modest Observation About Suicide.

In my youth I suffered from recurring depression. At one point, I seriously considered killing myself. (I have written about this at length in my religious memoir The Great Good Thing.) I was cured by a brilliant and compassionate psychiatrist. I never took drugs. (He offered them once; I declined. He prescribed Valium once; I filled the prescription but never took the pills.) Since that time, I have lived a life of almost preternatural joy and satisfaction. My friends will tell you how incredibly annoying I am in this regard. I have also spent a couple of years working on suicide hotlines where I think I was an effective counselor for people in high states of distress.

This is what I believe. The over-prescription of anti-depressants represents a trend in scientific thinking away from a true understanding of human life as a spiritual matter, and toward the idea that we are walking chemistry sets that can be adjusted to taste. I think this trend is utterly mistaken, the idea completely wrong.

Read the whole thing.

MORE TRUMP-HATING LOVEBIRDS: ALI WATKINS AND THE RISE OF CASTING-COUCH JOURNALISM. At the American Thinker, Monica Showalter writes:

Now we have Watkins and Wolfe, that latter of whom is charged with leaking classified documents to Watkins, because of, well, that delicious combination of love and Trump-hate.  Apparently, he was going to leak no matter what, but in one of his texts to Watkins, he said he wanted her, instead of her competitors, to get the scoops.

The press is focusing on the issue of the FBI seizure of her reporting records, and there are some valid concerns, given that this is a continuation of the pattern established by the Obama administration in seizing the records of reporters just doing the news.

But how the press reports the news is important, too.  There is troubling behavior by Watkins, who didn’t bother to tell her New York Times bosses about the FBI seizure of her records in February, which raises questions as to why she didn’t.  She didn’t want the utterly powerful First Amendment lawyers of the New York Times to help her against a vindictive big government, so she didn’t tell her bosses?  Or was she really more afraid of her bosses finding out how the sausage of her scoops was really made, that she had been literally too close to her sources and was using her “advantages”?  It’s odd behavior, because Watkins claims she told her bosses about the affair, and the Times says they knew, too.  McClatchy says it didn’t.  Meanwhile, Politico claims that it learned of the affair and steered her away from conflict-of-interest topics. Buzzfeed, apparently knew all about it and didn’t have a problem, according to a report in the Daily Caller.

As Andrew Klavan tweets, “Maybe we should remove the bikini competition from journalism.”

Michael Goodwin of the New York Post writes that Watkins “broke the biggest rule in journalism:”

On previous occasions, I’ve written about the blunt way legendary New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal dealt with a conflict of interest. The story bears repeating after the indictment of a top Senate official over his contacts with reporters, including one from the Times with whom he had a romantic relationship.

The Rosenthal standard on conflicts was shaped by a remarkably similar case decades ago. Soon after a woman who had covered politics in Philadelphia was hired by the Times, a story from Philly said she had a secret affair with a politician she covered and accepted expensive gifts from him.

Rosenthal asked the woman if the story was true and, when she replied yes, immediately told her to clean out her desk and said she would never again work for the paper.

Word of the incident spread quickly through the newsroom, and several female reporters complained to Rosenthal. They argued that the woman was treated unfairlyand, at which point, Abe raised his finger for silence and said something to this effect: “I don’t care if you f–k an elephant on your personal time, but then you can’t cover the circus for the paper.”

The meeting was over, case closed.

His point was not about private conduct. It was about the credibility of the paper. When the two conflict, the paper must come first.

Yes, but that was a very different New York Times than its current sophomoric incarnation. As Glenn has written, “One of Trump’s major accomplishments has been to reveal the lack of civic virtue and self-control across our elite institutions.”

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BEN RHODES: Due to My Lack of Experience When Hired by Obama, I Was Totally Surprised at Just How Difficult My Job Was:

Rhodes, the former deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama, explained Sunday that he started working for Obama without much relevant experience and was surprised by how difficult it was.

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria commented on Rhodes’ hair loss during his eight years in the White House, leading Rhodes to describe how he became a “punching bag” during that time. He had pursued being a novelist before joining Obama’s campaign in 2007 when he was just 29 years old.

“I was a normal person,” he said. “I wasn’t like a Hillary Clinton or a Leon Panetta. I came into this without that kind of experience of the limelight, and then to go on this journey and to be in the room for some really consequential and difficult decisions and to wrestle with that myself, to become in many ways kind of a punching bag.”

Rhodes said his memoir, The World As It Is, described “the strange experience of kind of becoming a right-wing villain, which I did not set out to do, and I don’t advise anybody to do it. It’s not pleasant.”

Actually, shouldn’t Rhodes also be considered a villain by his fellow leftists, considering his attacks on the journalists who covered the Obama administration?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is It Still AC/DC if You Replace Every Member but One?

It appears that Angus Young, the band’s lead guitarist and sole remaining founding member, is undeterred. He will soldier on to create new music and tour with replacements, including Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose. After all, there’s still a strong demand for AC/DC music and a limited supply of lead guitarists who look good in schoolboy uniforms.

Steven Hyden, in his new book Twilight of the Gods, refers to the phenomenon as “shrunkgroups.” Lindsey Buckingham can’t commit to a tour? Fleetwood Mac simply recruits Mike Campbell and Neil Finn to suit up for the squad. Glenn Frey passes away? The Eagles tap country star Vince Gill and Frey’s son, Deacon, to fill in.

What’s important is that the machine stays well-lubed and the ticket-buying fans get to hear the songs they’ve been singing along with for decades.

* * * * * * * *

Could the future of classic rock look something like the modern-day incarnation of Foreigner? The band, best known for late-’70s and early-’80s classic-rock cornerstones such as “Cold As Ice” and “Urgent,” now features just one original member in Mick Jones. One other guitarist dates back to the mid ’90s, well after the band’s heyday, while everyone else has been added since 2004.

Over the past few years, Jones has missed quite a few shows due to various health issues — but the shows have not been canceled. At times, the audience is paying pretty good money to see a version of Foreigner in which every band member is, well, foreign to any of its chart success.

Wikipedia defines the concept of a “ghost band” as being “in the case of big band jazz, a band that performs under the original name of a deceased leader. In the case of rock, under a relaxed definition, it is a band that performs under the name of the original band whose founders are either deceased or have left the band. Use of the phrase may refer to a repertory jazz ensemble, such as a Dixieland band, with a longstanding, historic name. But in the strictest sense, a ghost band is connected in some way to a deceased leader.”

As that page goes on to note, there are already a few rock & roll ghost bands. There will be plenty more to come in the decades to follow; as Hyden makes clear in Twilight of the Gods*, for “classic rock” the brand is everything.  

* Which is a fun read, if you can get past the occasional reflexive lefty shibboleths.