Ramble On, Twist and Shout ...

Yale Honors Paul McCartney with Honorary Music Degree

Paul McCartney can now add one more honor to the numerous awards, accolades and the knighthood he has already received. The famed bass guitar and founding member of the Beatles on Monday was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University.

In granting the honorary degree to McCartney -- Sir Paul McCartney since he was knighted in 1996 -- the university said no one compares with the legendary songwriter.
Yale said the 65-year-old McCartney awakened a generation, giving a fresh sound to rock and roll and to rhythm and blues. A band played "Hey Jude," a Beatles hit, as McCartney walked on stage to accept the honorary degree.

Yale University President Richard Levin evoked some of the songwriter's most memorable lines.

"Here, there and everywhere," Levin said, quoting a line from a Beatles song, "you have pushed the boundaries of the familiar to create new classics. We admire your musical genius and your generous support of worthy causes."

New Haven was the site of a British invasion of sorts on Sunday, as McCartney and former Prime Minister Tony Blair were in town for Yale's 307th commencement. Blair's eldest son, Euan, is completing a two-year master's program in international relations, and the former prime minister, who is to teach a course in the fall, gave a speech Sunday to Yale students on foreign relations.

McCartney last Sunday toured a downtown art gallery and dined with Yale dignitaries.

***

Okay, we did it. We have a St. Joseph's statue and it is firmly planted... Here is the ritual:

St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and earthly Father of Jesus Christ, is honored as the patron saint of married couples, families, carpenters and workingmen. March 19, his feast day, is especially celebrated by people of Italian and Polish descent.

Over the years, the tradition arose of St. Joseph having a special power in real estate transactions. European nuns buried a medal with his likeness on property they hoped to aquire for convents. Gradually the medals were replaced with statues and the focus changed from buying to selling.

The statue is buried upside down in the front yard with the feet pointing to heaven. It may face towards the home (or towards the street if you want your neighbor's home to sell!) The location of the statue can vary: by the "For Sale" sign, in a flower pot (popular for condo owners), etc.. As long as you can find it once the home has sold. After the home has sold, the statue should be removed from the ground and given a place of honor in your new home.

***

I enjoyed the work of Sidney Pollack and was sad to read of his death. From The Way We Were to Tootsie to Out of Africa, he was among the best. Here is the AP obit on the Oscar-winning director and actor:

Director and actor Sydney Pollack dies at 73

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON

LOS ANGELES — Sydney Pollack was remembered by some of the elite actors he directed in films such as "Out of Africa," "Tootsie," and "Absence of Malice," not only for his Academy Award-winning direction, but also for his acting talents.

Pollack, diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, died May 26, surrounded by family, at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, said his publicist, Leslee Dart. He was 73.

Unlike many other top directors of his era, Pollack was also a film and television actor himself, and he used this unique position to forge a relationship with Hollywood's elite stars and create some of the most successful films of the 1970s and '80s.

In 1970, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," about Great Depression marathon dancers, received nine Oscar nominations, including one for Pollack's direction. He was nominated again for best director for 1982's "Tootsie," starring Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor and Pollack as his exasperated agent. As director and producer, he won Academy Awards for the 1986 romantic epic "Out of Africa," starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which captured seven Oscars in all.

Last fall, Pollack played law firm boss Marty Bach opposite George Clooney in "Michael Clayton," which he also co-produced and received seven Oscar nominations.

"Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act," Clooney said in a statement. "He'll be missed terribly."

***

Earlier this week, Washington was abuzz with the release of excerpts from Scott McClennan's book which will be on bookshelves tomorrow. Here is the CNN story lede in case you missed it:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The spokesman who defended President Bush's policies through Hurricane Katrina and the early years of the Iraq war is now blasting his former employers, saying the Bush administration became mired in propaganda and political spin and at times played loose with the truth.

In excerpts from a 341-page book to be released Monday, Scott McClellan writes on Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

"[I]n this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security," McClellan wrote.

McClellan also sharply criticizes the administration on its handling of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency," he wrote. "Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term."

My question as I look at all the coverage generated by the book and its place as #1 on the Barnes & Noble list?

Yeah? So, what's the news here? Are you telling me it is a newsblast that someone with integrity is criticizing President Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice and Rumsfeld for the way they handled the war?

Or, is it the fact that such an "insider" is willing to step up and be honest.

***

God Help Them ...

Florida Atlantic just made a huge mistake:

BOCA RATON, FL - Florida Atlantic University named veteran coach Mike Jarvis as the final Head Men's Basketball Coach candidate during a press conference held Tuesday afternoon in the Tom Oxley Athletic Center's Founders' Lounge, located on FAU's Boca Raton campus. The FAU Board of Trustees will meet on Wednesday, May 28 to vote on the selected candidate's contract.

"I'm happy and excited," said Jarvis. "I'm blessed to have an opportunity to be doing what I love to do and what God has blessed me to do."

If approved, Jarvis will join the FAU family after posting a 326-202 career collegiate coaching record while guiding Boston University, George Washington University and St. John's University to a total of 11 postseason appearances in his 18 years at the helm. His 11 postseason appearances included nine trips to the NCAA tournament where he advanced to the Elite Eight in 1998-99, his first season at St. John's University.

-30-

R-OVER ...

Oh my? Karl Rove, Mr. Subpoena himself, is calling his former Deputy Press Chief a "left wing blogger" and that is supposed to discredit Mr. McClennan?

Here is the Washington Post news story:

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative's name.

The book, coming from a man who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, is certain to give fuel to critics of the administration, and McClellan has harsh words for many of his past colleagues. He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints.

McClellan stops short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not "employing out-and-out deception" to make their case for war in 2002.

But in a chapter titled "Selling the War," he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush "managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

"Over that summer of 2002," he writes, "top Bush aides had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the war. . . . In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage."

McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war from the podium, comes to a stark conclusion, writing, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

McClellan resigned from the White House on April 19, 2006, after nearly three years as Bush's press secretary. The departure was part of a shake-up engineered by new Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten that also resulted in Rove surrendering his policy-management duties.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the book, some contents of which were first disclosed by Politico.com. The Washington Post acquired a copy of the book yesterday, in advance of its official release Monday.

Responding to a request for comment, McClellan wrote in an e-mail: "Like many Americans, I am concerned about the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. I wanted to take readers inside the White House and provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it. Hopefully in some small way it will contribute to changing Washington for the better and move us beyond the hyper-partisan environment that has permeated Washington over the past 15 years."

The criticism of Bush in the book is striking, given that it comes from a man who followed him to Washington from Texas.

Bush is depicted as an out-of-touch leader, operating in a political bubble, who has stubbornly refused to admit mistakes. McClellan defends the president's intellect -- "Bush is plenty smart enough to be president," he writes -- but casts him as unwilling or unable to be reflective about his job.

"A more self-confident executive would be willing to acknowledge failure, to trust people's ability to forgive those who seek redemption for mistakes and show a readiness to change," he writes.

In another section, McClellan describes Bush as able to convince himself of his own spin and relates a phone call he overheard Bush having during the 2000 campaign, in which he said he could not remember whether he had used cocaine. "I remember thinking to myself, 'How can that be?' " he writes.

The former aide describes Bush as a willing participant in treating his presidency as a permanent political campaign, run in large part by his top political adviser, Rove.

"The president had promised himself that he would accomplish what his father had failed to do by winning a second term in office," he writes. "And that meant operating continually in campaign mode: never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating. Unfortunately, that strategy also had less justifiable repercussions: never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising. Especially not where Iraq was concerned."

McClellan has some kind words for Bush, calling him "a man of personal charm, wit and enormous political skill." He writes that the president "did not consciously set out to engage in these destructive practices. But like others before him, he chose to play the Washington game the way he found it, rather than changing the culture as he vowed to do at the outset of his campaign for the presidency."

McClellan charges that the campaign-style focus affected Bush's entire presidency. The ill-fated Air Force One flyover of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina struck the city, was conceived of by Rove, who was "thinking about the political perceptions" but ended up making Bush look "out of touch," he writes.

He says the White House's reaction to Katrina was more than just a public relations disaster, calling it "a failure of imagination and initiative" and the result of an administration that "let events control us." He adds: "It was a costly blunder."

McClellan admits to letting himself be deceived about the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, which resulted in his relentless pounding by the White House press corps over the activities of Rove and of Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the matter.

"I could feel something fall out of me into the abyss as each reporter took a turn whacking me," he writes of the withering criticism he received as the story played out. "It was my reputation crumbling away, bit by bit." He also suggests that Rove and Libby may have worked behind closed doors to coordinate their stories about the Plame leak. Late last year, McClellan's publisher released an excerpt of the book that suggested Bush had knowledge of the leak, something that won McClellan no friends in the administration.

As McClellan departed the White House, he said: "Change can be helpful, and this is a good time and good position to help bring about change. I am ready to move on."

He choked up as he told Bush on the South Lawn, "I have given it my all, sir, and I have given you my all."

Bush responded at the time: "He handled his assignments with class, integrity. He really represents the best of his family, our state and our country. It's going to be hard to replace Scott."