Tuesday Newsletter

Remember the Alamo? Plus: Dion & Sam Cooke

Greetings, and thanks again to all who subscribed on Day One. After yesterday’s preview—and the first two song picks (Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy” and Rhiannon Giddens doing Woody Guthrie)—let’s start moving ahead together and see how this works out. Look for today’s music selection down below. Feel free to use the Comment section to let me know what you think so far. These are all short takes today but some longer pieces will arrive soon.

Political and media notes: That video of a D.C. cop getting beaten as he was dragged down the Capitol steps that went viral yesterday has now inspired this one-sentence-says-it-all from The New York Times: "As they pulled the officer down the stairs, face down, another rioter beat him with an American flag as the mob chanted 'USA! USA! USA!'"

Bill Belichick has turned down that Medal of Freedom but note to Trump: Curt Schilling is over in the corner waving to you!

As I write this, Trump is heading for a photo-op at the Alamo, so I guess he thinks it’s cool to associate himself with an earlier deadly, futile “last stand.” Davy Crockett he is not. Although after the Four Seasons Landscaping episode, it’s possible that Rudy has booked a local Alamo Rent-a-Car instead. If Trump, instead, starts babbling again about the Battle of Bowling Green then you’ll know it will be time to take the nuclear codes away, if it isn’t too late.

He just told reporters en route that actually “many people” say his pre-riot speech was actually quite “appropriate” and that the real villains were those who did not denounce leftists and liberals protesting in Portland and other cities. And he threatened more violence in coming days, saying that impeachment moves were “causing tremendous anger ... and tremendous danger to our country.”

• On an even more serious note, as experts warn of the threat that Trump may go nuclear in his final days: Here is my recent piece at Newsweek reminding everyone that the U.S. has actually has had an official “first-use” policy since, ahem, 1945. Meaning any president has the right and the ability to “go first” if we are attacked by an adversary with conventional weapons—or even if a president feels that might happen. Of course, I have spent much of the past forty years exploring the “first-strikes” on Japan, most recently in a book last year and in my new film—but, putting that aside, there is something that can be done today: enact a “no-first-use” policy, which gained steam during under Obama/Biden terms. And recall that Obama was the first U.S. leader to visit Hiroshima while in office. We’ll see what happens over the next four years—that is, if Trump doesn’t “go first” this month.

Meanwhile, two more members of Congress have tested positive for Covid, bringing the total to three, no doubt due to the riot lockdown last week—when many Republicans hunkered down while refusing to wear masks. One of the new positives, Rep. Brad Schneider, today called those who “flout public health guidance" to be "sanctioned and immediately removed from the House floor." Expelling them would now be apt, especially if they also took part in the coup to overturn the election results.

The Capitol Hill rioter photographed carrying off Nancy Pelosi’s lectern has been released on $25,000 bail and is now ready to assume the same hero/martyr status for that crowd enjoyed by Kyle Rittenhouse, accused rightwing murderer, who is also out on bail and now seen taking his mom to bars. Parents: Lock up your….democracy!

I am enjoying the radical shift in tone by Michael Beschloss. The TV-friendly historian used to be slick, pretentious and predictable, but has now turned caustic and even sometimes witty in the late-Trump era. Today: “Nixon talked on secret tapes about putting loyalists on Ted Kennedy’s Secret Service detail, and said to aide, ‘Plant two guys on him.’ Nixon also discussed revoking Kennedy’s protection, saying, ‘If he gets shot, it's too damn bad’ Anyone think Trump wouldn’t descend to this level?”

Film: Watched the new doc on the murder of Khashoggi, The Dissident, last night (via Apple), which was scandalously turned down by most of the streaming services and others oh-so-worried about its slam-dunk indictment of the Saudis and MBS for ordering the killing. It’s powerful, with sickening new details, though marred at times by over-production. A must-see. Watch trailer here.

And looking forward this month to the new film directed by Regina King, One Night in America, on the real-life gathering in a Miami motel room starring four of my ‘60s heroes: Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Malcolm. I read the play it’s based on, and the movie should be swell. Sam played by slick Leslie Odom of Hamilton fame. And speaking of Sam….

Song of the Day: Have been picking “political” cuts this week so far and I suppose this new tribute to Sam Cooke—one of my top 5 music heroes—by Dion, with a little help from fellow geezer Paul Simon, qualifies. Still in great voice, Dion toured with Sam back in their peak early-’60s years and here evokes some of the racial injustice of that period, how Cooke stood up to it, and ultimately gave us the greatest song of our era, “Change Is Gonna Come.” And we also get a little “Chain Gang” in the bargain….Look for much more Sam in this newsletter, including the gospel years, soon.

Sam had passed away a few years before I got to Crawdaddy in 1971, but we did have an amusing Paul Simon encounter. Around 1975, at the height of his solo popularity, we scored a rare interview. For the cover shot, Paul insisted that we use his girlfriend, Edie Baskin (who did all those colorized shots for early SNL), and that she get to pick the final shot. Reluctantly, we went along with it, though we hated the snap she picked of a sour-looking Paul. Sure enough, when published, he slammed us for…that cover image….

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels, the current The Beginning or the End, and The Campaign of the Century, which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. He won more than a dozen awards as editor of Editor & Publisher magazine and for all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. This year he wrote and directed his first film feature, Atomic Cover-up.