Remembering a Key Figure of the Big 3 Era

From Wikimedia Commons, an image of Barbara Walters at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008, posted on flickr by Rubenstein, link to image.

“Every female broadcast journalist working today owes a debt of gratitude to the O.G., Barbara Walters, who died Friday at age 93.” Katie Couric, writing in The New York Times.

There was Walter Cronkite. There were Chet Huntly and David Brinkley. And there was a woman, a fiercely talented, competitive person named Barbara Walters. No, I don’t mean she was a TV giant of the stature of a Cronkite, but she was an important TV personality who brought needed change to a male-dominated medium.

I first became aware of her in the late 1960s as my family sometimes had the Today show tuned in on our 19-inch black-and-white TV.

I don’t recall her much from that time, but I was young. I became more aware of her as the first female network co-anchor starting in 1976 on ABC, a gig that honestly didn’t go all the well. But as she had done many times in her long career, Barbara Walters had the courage to try something new, and after she was an anchor, she reigned as the queen of celebrity and news maker interviews, first at 20/20 on ABC, and then in a series of prime-time specials.

An image of Barbara Walters speaking with President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2013. Image posted on flickr by Ester Vargas, link.

At an age when many people have returned, Walters in her late 60s helped create The View, a daily talk show, in 1997.

The news today, of course, is that Barbara is no longer with us. She has died at age 93. An important female figure of the Big 3 TV era is gone. Her passing is a reminder of that bygone era, and her long career a testament to her tenacity and talent.

One of the Great Presidential Speeches

Dec. 21, 2022--President Volodymyr of Ukraine meets President Biden of the United States in White House. Image from the web site of Ukraine's president.

Did you catch the address to Congress by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the darkest day of the year? Dec. 21, 2022, long after darkness fell for our longest night, wearing his trademark green shirt with the presidential symbol on it, Zelenskyy spoke movingly of the struggle his country faces.

I thought it was a speech for the ages, one that will be quoted and studied. Zelensky put the war his country is waging to defend against a Russian invasion in the context of the larger global struggle for democracy—imploring American to remember that aid to Ukraine is not charity, but an important investment in that ongoing struggle that we are a vital part of. (C-SPAN video of speech below, skip ahead to 19:00 when Zelensky enters and then starts speaking.)

And he powerfully evoked some American cultural milestones—the U.S. Army battling the last German offensive of World War II in the Battle of the Bulge; and the battle that helped turned the tide of the American Revolution, Saratoga.

It’s fitting, somehow, that Zelensky referenced the Battle of the Bugle because that battle was raging at this time of year. On Dec. 16, the Wehrmacht used the cover of poor winter weather (to avoid Allied air superiority) to launch an attack through the Ardennes.

The German offensive failed. Just as Russian forces failed to take Kiev last year, the Germans stalled in their drive to split Allied forces by marching to Antwerp.

In that case, the German offensive was a long shot, almost certainly doomed as Germany was running out of resources, particularly fuel. In the case of Ukraine, they are fighting a defensive war against a Russian army with vastly greater resources. Still, the Battle of the Bulge echoes in the American mind, and Zelensky was reminding us of some parallels.

In some ways, I think, the analogy to Saratoga was more apt. In fall of 1777, British forces launched a three-pronged offensive to divide the Americans by splitting New York. Gen. John Burgoyne brought one of those prongs south from Canada, capturing Fort Ticonderoga and sweeping south towards American forces dug in near Saratoga.

The British attacked twice, but the Americans defenders held them off. Faced with losses and being cut off from reinforcement, British General John Burgoyne surrendered to American General Horatio Gates on Oct. 17, 1777. Partly as a result of the battle (technically, I suppose, the battles) of Saratoga, France decided it was worthwhile to support the American cause as the Yanks had demonstrated they maybe could win. And the tide of war was turned.

19th Century painting by artist John Trumbull of General John Burgoyne surrendering to General Horatio Gates on Oct. 17, 1777. Painting in collection of Yale University, image from Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, the Russian army didn’t surrender to Ukraine when their invasion forces stalled on the road to Kiev this spring, but still, just as American defenders at Saratoga produced a turning point, Ukraine’s valiant defense of Kiev and offensive to push back in the east give hope to its cause.

As President Zelensky noted, the first Russian defeat was its loss in the psychological war. Most of the world, and most of the body politic in the United Sates, recognizes Russia as the aggressor here. Zelensky reminded us that his country needs continued support as the battle against Russian aggression continues.

It is, as he stated, a key moment in a global fight for democracy. And, Zelensky predicted, a fight that Ukraine will win. That seemed faint hope when Russian tanks trundled across the border this spring—many of us, I’m sure, expected Russia to crush Ukraine. It seems, like the Revolution post Saratoga, that Ukraine’s ultimate victory now is at least a possibility, should its allies show backbone and stay the course and support Ukraine's cause.

Ironically, Zelensky is a TV entertainer turned politician who has proven, in his country’s darkest hour, to be an effective leader. He’s an FDR or Winston Churchill, a great communicator who showed his ability before Congress to sound the right notes, to clarify the issues at state, to rally support.

Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, in March 2022. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

How different from a recent U.S. President who was a TV entertainer turned politician. Indeed, President Trump was impeached for the first time for a corrupt phone call in which he tried to hold aid to Ukraine hostage for political favors. Trump is the anti-Zelensky, a divider, not a uniter, a man who this week was exposed yet again for attempting to undermine American democracy.

I felt it was very weird when the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection recommended that the former President face criminal charges, and the reaction from Iowa’s Republicans was a yawn. We’ve moved on. We don’t care about Jan. 6 anymore. We’re working on the issues Iowans care about now.

How American. How forgetful we are as a people. It’s less than two years since an American president attempted a violent coup in Washington DC, and too many want to close that chapter and forget about it.

Well, if we don’t forget the Battle of the Bulge or Saratoga, it is way too early to turn the page from Jan. 6. After all, the chief villain in that sad narrative, Donald Jerk Trump, is a leading candidate for President in 2024—the leader of an attempt to subvert our very democratic system is in the running for his party’s nomination for president, and the craven, cowardly “leaders” of his party are too scared of him to note that he’s proven himself unqualified to support and defend our Constitution. I’m one Iowan who hasn’t yet moved on and is disgusted with the gutless Iowa Republicans who claim we should. I’ll move on when the GOP renounces Trumpism and Trump, as long ago they should have.

And this week we have the opposite end of the scoundrel spectrum. A true icon of democracy, President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling on us to remember who we are—we are the victors at Saratoga and The Bugle, a people who have fought for two centuries for the cause of self-government and democracy.

Today, that fight is happening in Ukraine. But also in the hearts of Americans. The dark cancer of Trumpism is still with us. The fight for democracy isn’t just happening in eastern Europe.

The Presidential Circus Leaves Iowa Behind

Jan. 19, 2002, Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks in Marion, Iowa. I listened to her and backed her in the Democratic caucuses that year.

Jan. 20, 2016--Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I was there, although I don't think I caucused for him.

The Republicans will still do it. The Democrats say they are shaking things up.

The Iowa Caucuses have been the lead-off political event of the presidential contest season for as long as I’ve been a voter. When I was 17 in 1976, I was a Gerald Ford guy, was elected at a precinct meeting to attend the county convention and was a delegate to the next level—my memory is a bit fuzzy, I think it was a district convention, but the state meeting may have been the next step up.

I didn’t try to go to the national convention, although I recall toying with the idea (which suggests the counties sent their delegates to the state level). I didn’t have the means.

And 1976 was it, for me and the Republican Party. I was a Ford man to stand in the way of the Reagan upsurge, and when Reagan took the nomination in 1980, I became part of the immoral minority that voted against him.

In the 1980s and 1990s, I wasn’t involved. After I graduated from college in 1982, I was a newspaper journalist in Missouri. I returned to Iowa in 1991, but was preoccupied with family and don’t recall attempting to caucus in the 1990s.

I was back by 2008. I got caught up in the Obama bandwagon.

Lead singer from Vampire Weekend warms up Bernie Sanders crowd, Jan. 30, 2016.

In 2016, I was torn. I was interested in feeling the burn for Bernie Sanders, but don’t recall if, in the end, I went that route.

My 2020 choice was Amy Klobuchar. I still, in my heart, would feel better if she were President.

Jan. 19, 2020--Face in crowd at Amy Klobuchar rally.

Anyway, I drove downtown in Cedar Rapids with my youngest daughter to attend an Obama rally in 2007. I saw Amy Klobuchar speak in Marion Iowa in 2020. In 2016, Vampire Weekend sang at a Bernie Sanders rally in Iowa City before Bernie Sanders spoke, and I was there. Sadly, the Oxford Comma wasn’t.

The Iowa Caucuses were a bit of a political anomaly. In 1972, Sen. George McGovern fared well in caucuses whose date had been set early as the party grappled with complicated new rules enacted after the fiasco of 1968. That gave him a boost, and caused Iowa politicians to take note. The two political parties colluded (imagine that) to set the 1976 caucuses early, and a Georgia nuclear engineer, governor and peanut farmer—Jimmy Carter—organized early and did well, propelling him to the White House and the Iowa Caucuses onto center stage.

There has been a lot written about the value of the retail politics that the caucuses provided, and how important it was to have early voters actually meet candidates. But, in recent cycles, Democrats, in particular, became increasingly disenchanted with that process.

Iowa is not very racially diverse. It’s more rural, white and older than the nation as a whole. And Democrats are all about diversity.

Well, this week, the news from the national party is not good. A recommendation to make South Carolina the first state to select a Democratic candidate in 2024 has been approved by the panel planning such things. The 2020 Iowa caucuses, with their software glitches and delayed count, were a bit of disaster that shifted momentum perhaps forever away from Iowa’s first status in presidential contests.

Someone listens to Amy Klobuchar, Jan. 19, 2020. Klobuchar speaking (below), same date.

Still, Republicans, undeterred by the whiteness and age of Iowans, are going ahead with their early contest in this increasingly cherry red state.

I will miss the caucus hoopla. I’ll miss the chance to drive to a local bar and listen in person to a potential future president. And I’m afraid the national party decision, while it makes sense, is another blow to the Iowa Democratic Party at a time when the party is already down.

For 50 years, from 1972 to 2022, the caucuses have been important. Perhaps their time is gone. If the Democrats won’t caucus here first in 2024, how long will the Republicans? Even if they continue, a one-party contest isn’t the same.

Besides Democrats, another loser may be Iowa media companies. In 2015, a big owner of local TV stations, Gray TV, purchased channel 9 in Cedar Rapids for $100 million. The company then raked in lots of revenue from the 2016 and then the 2020 presidential contests. The flood of campaign money into Iowa TV stations may be abating.