The Slap Heard 'Round the World

  

I think it actually was. When actor Will Smith walked on the Oscar stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock for making a poor-taste joke about Smith’s wife Jada, I was surprised at the loudness of the slap in the un-bleeped video clips.

I  also thought we’d be done with this topic after about 48 hours, but now we’re into Day 3 at this writing. It will take time, though, for all the back stories to come out and maybe clear up some of the mysteries – like, why did Smith laugh at the joke and then feel moved to commit assault? Many observers were also shocked that Smith, who won Best Actor, got a standing ovation from the audience during his Oscar acceptance after his earlier display of what was called toxic masculinity.

Some critics say that Smith indelibly stained an Oscar ceremony that, ironically enough, finally did celebrate artists of color and those with disabilities this year. But one of the purposes of the Oscars is to generate ticket sales, or these days, downloads, for the honored movies, and that will happen. We might look at the standing ovation as righteous praise for Will Smith’s performance in King Richard, not his rating as a human being.

There were other things wrong with the Oscar ceremony besides that drama. The tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Godfather featured a speech by Francis Ford Coppola while Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro stood there like bookends. There was no formal presentation of the Jean Hersholt humanitarian award at the ceremony, and the In Memoriam observance was off-putting in tone and left out some people. Sean Penn was so angry about not allowing Ukraine president Zelensky to be a part of the ceremony that he planned to melt down his own Oscars.

There is a lot riding on this annual show, and there was much added pressure this time. It was the first real in-person version of the event since the perceived waning of the pandemic in the US. This is one of the original award shows and one of those increasingly rare worldwide group experiences, plus, Mr. Penn notwithstanding, a small distraction from the unrelenting horror of the Ukraine war.

But there is always something about this show, which as I have said, has endured Brando/Littlefeather, a streaker, the presentation of Best Picture to the wrong movie, and a lot of unsuccessful envelope-pushing. And let’s not forget the pre- and postgame shows largely devoted to the fashion hits, often outnumbered by the misses. But in the end, Oscar is a survivor, and whether some like it or not, the same will be true for Will Smith.

A Supremer Court?

This past week we were treated to, or endured, depending on your point of view, the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. We watched her thoughtful answers to intricate questions of law and her grace in dealing with the ridiculous queries of some senators. There is no doubt she is qualified for the seat.

I want to call out one qualification in particular: Harvard Law School, of which she is a graduate. Before she was chosen by the President, there were some who argued that the Court sorely needed someone who didn’t have an Ivy League background, like Harvard was almost a disqualification. Talk about reverse discrimination! Hey, if you had a complicated heart condition and needed a crack surgeon, and your life was on the line, you would likely choose a doc with a gold-standard medical education. This field is law, and for the Supreme Court, why shouldn’t we have someone who made it through Professor Kingsfield’s contracts course? (Some of you may have to look that up).

Qualified as she is, most observers agree that Judge Jackson’s elevation to the court won’t change its perceived ideological imbalance. Let’s not forget that President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court was literally stolen from him through the use, or misuse, of the Senate rules. His nominee would likely have relieved some of the current imbalance. Adding members to the Court is no help. Suppose there were 15 justices and 12 of them were chosen by Presidents from one or the other party, depending on when justices retired or died?

The standards for Court nominees have risen since our country was founded. Some justices never went to law school, and a number of rulings in history were pretty unfortunate. But now we have a sitting justice whose wife lobbied to keep President Biden from taking office. If that justice were sitting on a lower court, canons of ethics would have forced him to recuse himself on questions related to the presidential election. But the Supreme Court has no such code. We have to depend on a justice’s conscience.

I believe Congress could address some of these issues by codifying deadlines for seating a Court nominee in election years, setting a mandatory retirement age for justices, or even creating that code of ethics. But there is no Supremer Court than the one we’ve got, so we have to get under the hood, as the late Ross Perot might say, and see if we can make a few adjustments.

 

What About Whataboutism?

  

We all know how this works. When the bad actors from January 6, 2021 were called out for the mayhem at the US Capitol, the response was, what about the damage caused by protestors following the death of George Floyd? Or, to make it more current, while the West condemns Vladimir Putin for the Russian Army’s barbaric attacks on civilian populations in Ukraine, the response might be, so what about us dropping not one, but two atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan? Mr. Putin is paranoid about creeping democracy near Russia’s borders. But what about our invasion of Vietnam because of the “domino theory” about creeping communism in Asia?

Of course, the purpose of whataboutism is deflection – throwing similar behavior back in the face of an accuser. There is often debate about whether apples are being compared to oranges. But I do think it is thought-provoking.

What are now perceived as regrettable decisions by our government or even by ourselves as individuals do not disqualify us from calling out unacceptable behavior in the present – maybe even the opposite.

Moral sensibilities are always evolving, and sometimes, when we commit what is later perceived as a sin, just having to live with the consequences of our behavior is the very thing that discourages us from repeating it. Maybe that actually qualifies us to call bad actions out now when we see them.

America hasn’t been very good at war since World War II. with one bright exception, to my thinking: Desert Storm, better known as the Gulf War, in 1990 and ‘91. We had seen Saddam Hussein of Iraq invade his neighbor, our ally Kuwait, in order to annex it. Within a few short weeks, we led a coalition to drive his forces back to Iraq. That was our clear mission, and we left when it was accomplished. Our later involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan were questionable, but at the very least, we never had a deliberate policy of terrorizing civilians, maybe because we had been there and done that.

All of this said, unless Mr. Putin has a “road to Damascus” moment. I am in favor of whatever makes him go away as quickly as possible. I think it’s terrible that the West did not take action soon enough to prevent the devastation in Ukraine. But because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I can’t blame us all entirely for being a little careful, for a variety of reasons.