Month: August 2014

Lauren Bacall, Actress and Liberal Icon, 1924-2014

Jon Ponder
March on Washington: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart lead a contingent of actors, writers and directors from Hollywood to a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947

Lauren Bacall, who died yesterday just a month shy of her 90th birthday, will rightly be remembered for her A-list acting career and her marriage to movie legend Humphrey Bogart. But Bacall also had a record as a stalwart liberal. As she put it, “I’m a total Democrat. I’m anti-Republican.”

“Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind.”
– Lauren Bacall

Her performance with Bogart in “To Have and Have Not” catapulted her to stardom overnight in 1944. A few months after the film came out, she made her political debut at an event for World War II service members in Washington, D.C., when she was boosted atop an upright piano and photographed lounging there as then-Vice Pres. Harry Truman played for the crowd.

After the war, Bacall, Bogart, director John Huston and others formed the Committee for the First Amendment in opposition to the Republican Party’s anti-communist witch hunts, which were championed by Hollywood figures like Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney and Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson. In 1947, Bacall and Bogart led a contingent of the organization’s members to Washington in protest of the right-wing pogrom and in support of Hollywood witnesses called by the committee who had refused to testify.

That was just the beginning of Lauren Bacall’s decades-long political activity and support for the Democratic Party. Michael Tomasky pays tribute to Bacall as “deeply liberal and deeply anti-communist” in a eulogy at the Daily Beast:

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Dr. Democrat On the Florida Governor’s Race

Buck Banks

doctordemocratDear Dr. Democrat:

Question for you — who should I vote for in the upcoming Florida Democratic primary? I’m inclined to vote for state Sen. Nan Rich, but I’m not sure I should or if that would just be a wasted protest vote, as Charlie Crist looks to beat her in the primary. I think I should maybe vote for Crist except that Charlie has become this weird, über-repellent candidate who is, as media increasingly point out, almost as reprehensible as our incumbent governor, lower-than-a-snake’s-belly Rick Scott.

So, should I lodge a protest vote for Rich, assuming Crist will win the primary (though with a projected ultra-low turnout, it might could go either way) and then hold my nose and vote for Crist in the general? But what if Rich wins the primary (unlikely as it seems) and then gets steamrolled by Scott’s money-driven bulldozer?

The possibility of a second term for old Tales from the Crypt is truly frightening.

What’s a dedicated Florida Democrat to do?

Yours truly,

Cogitating in Coconut Grove

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Republican Crist Used Against Democrat Crist

Buck Banks

Hi, this is Charlie Crist calling to set the record straight. I’m pro-life. I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, I support traditional marriage, and I have never supported a new tax or big spending program.

— The voice of Charlie Crist, in a mysterious recorded call Democrats across Florida heard over the weekend that seemed to be attacking likely Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist. As the Miami Herald noted, “Not exactly your standard Democratic primary platform. But the voice in the robocall really is Crist’s and so were the positions he stressed. But it was Charlie Crist circa 2006 — not 2014.”

Axelrod Hits Clinton Over Her Criticism of Obam’s Foreign Policy Stance

Buck Banks

Just to clarify: “Don’t do stupid stuff” means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision.

— Former Obama adviser David Axelrod on Twitter (@davidaxelrod), hitting back at Hillary Clinton for her comments rejecting President Obama’s self-stated foreign policy principle, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”