Month: May 2007

BY
JACKSON BAKER |
MAY 10, 2007

Though, as Spanish Ambassador to the U.S. Carlos Westendorp told Memphis Rotarians on Thursday, his country, the 2007 Memphis-in-May honoree, and the U.S. are generally simpatico, there have been some disagreements.

There was, for example, the decision by Spain to withdraw its forces from Iraq in 2005, which is when Westendorp, as a known friend of the U.S. and possible rift-healer, got his appointment. (He had been the author of the 1995 Trans-Atlantic Pact between Span and the U.S.)

But the most glaring disconnect between the two nations concerns another matter. As Westendorp put it Thursday: “We like Woody Allen films better than [you do] in the United States.”

On a more serious note, Westendorp made virtue out of an issue that many American politicians view as cause for alarm – the increasing number of Hispanics in this country. Noted the ambassador: “There are 42 million Spanish speakers in the United States” -—a fact that makes the U.S. “the second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico.” That fact, he said, creates “the possibility of speaking the same language and understanding each other very well.”

Beyond that, both Spain and the United States “have been victims of terrorism… [of] Islamist extremism,” Westendorp said, likening the 2004 train bombings in his country to the 9/11 airplane attacks in the United States.”

In answer to a question about the leftward-leaning regime in Venezuela, Westendorp found another point of commonality. Both Spain and the U.S., he said, have an interest in arresting that oil-rich nation’s “trend toward authoritarian behavior.”

Those Harold Ford Jr.-watchers who have wondered what might compensate the former 9th District U.S. representative for the loss of his steady perch with reliable TV bud Don Imus (who actually cited his fawning nonstop support of Ford’s 2006 U.S. Senate race as a defense while under fire for the now infamous “nappy-headed ‘ho” remark) , need wonder no longer. Ford turned up last week on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” looking for all the world like a regular-to-be.

In any case, Ford has made his move, he has sprung his sprung. He is on the national stage, evidently to stay, a back-bench congressman from backwater Memphis no more. And for those who Democrats who worry about his party-renouncing rhetoric of the 2006 U.S. Senate campaign (“I’m not a Democrat…running up to Washington yelling ‘Democrat, Democrat, Democrat’!”): at least he now heads an organization, the “Democratic Leadership Council,” which, however rightward-tending, has the word “Democrat” in its name. So he needn’t yell if he doesn’t want to.

BY
JACKSON BAKER |
MAY 9, 2007

This will come as real news to most Memphians: Our city has
a bona fide declared presidential candidate – David F. Diamond (ne Fentress) –
who has just been attacked by another presidential candidate, Colorado
Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, as something of a mad scientist. By our
reckoning, it’s Tancredo (pictured) who sounds more like a mad scientist. But judge for
yourself.

In last week’s televised MSNBC debate featuring 10 GOP
contenders, each of the candidates got at least one question emailed in by a
viewer of the program. Tancredo’s came from independent Diamond, a former radio
personality and conservative activist whose chief campaign plank is a concern
for facilitating organ transplants.

Jim VanderHei, executive editor of Politico.com, read the
question this way: “David Diamond of Memphis writes in: ‘Do you have a plan to
solve the shortage of organs donated for transplant?'”

Here, in its entirely, is the response from Tancredo,
hitherto best known for his adamant opposition to amnesty for illegal
immigrants, whom he wants treated as felons:

“”Well, I don’t believe that the goal of the United
States..that the president of the United States should be putting forth a plan
to do such a thing. The reality is that technology and the advent of technology
in a variety of areas is going at a pace where, I believe, we can look
forward…we can look forward to a variety of things that will allow us to cure
diseases that we do not have a cure for….”

Tancredo then went on something of a bender.

“But the idea that I take is inherent in this question –
that we should somehow be growing these things, that we should somehow be
cloning people for the purpose of using these kinds of, uh, attitudes is
ridiculous. I absolutely would not support it.”

Growing these things? Using these kinds of, uh,
attitudes?

Okay, David, the debate’s on. You have 30 seconds (or more
if you need it) for a rebuttal.