I take Israel personally
November 22, 2010
I also take Obama personally, and Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman and NPR. I take Trojan football personally. If I were more into baseball, I imagine I’d take the Dodgers personally, too.
Marty Kaplan
Marty Kaplan holds the Norman Lear Chair at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. His Jewish Journal columns have won First Place in the Southern California Journalism Awards six times in the past six years. Reach him at martyk@jewishjournal.com
Waiting for Sanityman: Can Jon Stewart save America?
October 13, 2010
The fate of our country won\’t be decided by a politician. It will be determined by a comedian. Not long before Jon Stewart announced his Rally to Restore Sanity, he told a New York magazine writer why he and his crew on \”The Daily Show\” would never do something like that. \”We\’re not activists,\” he said. \”Maybe the nice thing about being a comedian is never having full belief in yourself to know the answer. So you can say all this stuff, but underneath, you\’re going, \’But of course, I\’m f—ing idiotic.\’ It\’s why we don\’t lead a lot of marches.\”
Waiting for Jewman
October 13, 2010
Jon Stewart did his show, business as usual, on Rosh Hashanah this year. That night, when his interview guest, Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, greeted him with \”Happy New Year,\” Stewart looked uncharacteristically nonplussed for a nanosecond, before replying, \”What? Huh? See you in Times Square tonight.\”
The scary staleness of truth telling
September 27, 2010
Why, an audience member asked National Public Radio’s Linda Wertheimer at a San Diego symposium this past weekend, wasn’t public radio correcting all the lies being told in the campaign?
Marty Kaplan: In politics, two negatives don’t make a positive
September 13, 2010
A riddle: What piece of political wisdom is always wrong – but its opposite is also always wrong?
Marty Kaplan: Just Like the Internet You See in the Movies
August 16, 2010
No Web sites that choke your browser. No waiting for YouTube clips to buffer. No email attachments too big to send. No files that take forever to download. No “Loading – please wait” messages, or spinning beach balls, or slowwwwly lengthening bars meant to tame your mounting impatience.
MARTY KAPLAN: The Best of All Possible Americas
August 2, 2010
Whenever I’m comforted by the genius of our Founders, the resilience of our institutions and the wisdom of the American people, I know my meds need adjusting.
Thank You, Robert Gibbs
July 21, 2010
If Robert Gibbs hadn’t said that Democrats may lose the House in November, then House Democrats might not have been so infuriated that the president himself had to
travel to Capitol Hill to let them vent.
MARTY KAPLAN: Springtime for Schmucks
July 5, 2010
If I hadn’t seen the word plastered on a billboard on La Brea Avenue, I would never have remotely considered using it in print myself. But there it is, in a five-foot font, just a few miles from the West Hollywood club where Lenny Bruce was arrested for saying it in 1963. Soon, no doubt, promoting a movie that will open on July 30, it will be seen on buses and benches and 30-second television ads airing in family-friendly prime time, and on the robotic lips of Mr. Moviephone: “Please confirm your order! You have purchased TWO tickets for the 7:20 showing of DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS.”
MARTY KAPLAN: The Real Shakedown to Apologize For
June 21, 2010
If Barack Obama’s extraction of $20 billion from BP was — as Texas Republican Joe Barton called it – a “shakedown,” then what would Barton call the $14.4 million he has extracted during his career from oil and gas interests, electric utilities, the health sector, chemical manufacturers, finance and all the other industries forking over cash to him?
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