The "We" in "Team"

It’s that time of year, and the right year. We’re hearing a lot about teams. First, there was the Super Bowl. Later, it will be the Olympic team. The impeachment trial had prosecution and defense teams. Why can’t candidates for office do it?

Take the Democratic presidential candidates. As individuals, they are far from perfect. Warren and Sanders are too radical; Klobuchar is too forceful; Bloomberg and Steyer are too rich; Buttigieg is too…uh…white; Yang is too geeky; and Biden is too Joe.

I am oversimplifying for a little fun here, but each of these folks also has great qualities. Too bad we just can’t take a little DNA from all of them and create the perfect specimen. Somebody who thinks and speaks as clearly as Buttigieg, is as experienced as Biden; as committed to big ideas as Sanders, Warren, or Steyer; as forward-thinking as Yang, or who knows how to craft legislation as well as Klobuchar.

At some point, it will be clear who the Democratic presidential nominee will be. Thanks to Super Tuesday, it could be sooner rather than later. That individual will be selecting a running mate. Can he or she go beyond that and start lining up Cabinet prospects and going public on the shape of the potential new administration?

I thought there was a law against that. There isn’t, and there is so much talent in the Democratic field. Elizabeth Warren would make a perfect Secretary of the Treasury if she isn’t a presidential or vice-presidential candidate, assuming she would accept a Cabinet post. Andrew Yang could be Secretary of Commerce and Tom Steyer would be a natural at Energy. Joe Biden is a known quantity around the world and would be a great Secretary of State. Even those who have dropped out of the presidential race could be factors. Kamala Harris would be impressive as Attorney General. How about Bernie at HHS? Julian Castro has previous Cabinet experience. Every time I’ve seen Cory Booker, I think there has to be a role for him. All of these folks have, or did have, followings, and if the whole group ran as a kind of team, couldn’t this pull the party, and perhaps the electorate, together?

I am not really a sports fan, but have learned from watching football that while a great quarterback is the star, he needs receivers. Then there is the defense and the kicker.

For the Democrats to win the Presidential race this year, the keyword is  “overwhelming.” They need to massively get out the vote to overwhelm the limitations of the Electoral College and any artificial barriers to voting created at the state or local levels. If the current occupant of the White House is to be defeated, it will take a lot more than just that one person scoring points on an October debate stage to do it.

Fascination with the Monsters Among Us

I think it’s very clear to most of us by now that most people are fine human beings – but not all. And often, we think they’re the former, and they turn out to be the latter. Now we have a school bus driver from Cleveland, Ariel Castro, accused of kidnapping and holding three women in bondage for 10 years. This is the lead international story, and every day, new horrors surface.

How many of us are shaking our heads in disbelief, calling for the eternal torture of the alleged perpetrator, while lapping up every “breaking news” detail that’s breathlessly delivered to us by anchors and reporters, some of them shaking their own heads? How much is a part of us enjoying this story? Do you think maybe the news media folks know this?

That said, I wonder if devoting 45 minutes of every hour to this isn’t a bit much. Sometimes, I think the news producers aren’t good at gauging when most of us yearn to change the channel and see something else. Maybe it’s just that I and some of the rest of you have seen this movie already: “Manhunter” or “Silence of the Lambs.” How long do you think it will be before the Cleveland movie comes out?

I think the Stockholm Syndrome has been covered well past the point of exhaustion. If there is a live topic here, though, I think it’s about privacy. Where is the bright line between minding one’s own business and intervening where it might save victims many years of grief? When do we pick up the phone and call 911 to report something suspicious, or is that just paranoid meddling? In a world where privacy is a vanishing commodity, where does our duty to respect it end and our duty to help another human being begin? If we help, are we heroes? And if we don’t, are we, in some small measure, accessories?

These questions may make us squirm a lot more than the story itself does.

I Was There, and So Were They

This week’s annual meeting of the U.N. in New York reminds me of my own little box seat on world events as I was growing up in the city.

We lived on the second floor of an apartment building which had a good view of Park Avenue (yes, the average person actually had a shot at affording such an abode in those days). I was right across the street from Hunter College, but more importantly, my bedroom window had a beautiful view of the USSR mission at 680 Park.

That building was the frequent target of demonstrations, mostly by Hungarian expatriates protesting the Soviet Union’s use of tanks to suppress freedom movements in their country. Sometimes there were only a few demonstrators; other times the crowds were large, so much so that New York police on horses were there to keep the peace. The crowds were not violent – they made noise and carried signs, but it was the late 1950s, after all.

The Soviet mission had a wonderful architectural feature: a good-sized balcony overlooking Park Avenue. It was not uncommon for Russian and other dignitaries who were staying or who were invited there to appear on the balcony and wave at the crowds, even unappreciative ones.

On more than one occasion, then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, when he was in town, would appear on the balcony. Sometimes this was in the evening, when my parents were having people over for dinner. Not to miss an opportunity, my mother would bring the guests back to my bedroom, open the window, and look out. It didn’t really matter to them whether I was actually in bed or not. Once, Fidel Castro and Mr. Khrushchev had a meeting at the mission. My memory is bad on this point, so I don’t know whether they appeared on the balcony together, but if they did, I’m sure my mom and her dinner guests were craning their necks out the window. My mother would sometimes go downstairs to invite the police on their horses to come upstairs for a drink. No ma’am, they said, we’re on duty. And then there was the issue of what to do with the horses.

Even our side street adjacent to our apartment building was useful, because limousines carrying important people on Park Avenue would sometimes use it to escape heavy traffic. Once, the limo carrying French President Charles de Gaulle turned down the street while I was looking out the window, and I could swear that he saw me wave at him and waved back. But maybe that was just my first childhood delusion of grandeur.

Right across the side street, as I mentioned, was Hunter College, and carved into the wall was this saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “We are of different opinions at different hours, but we may always be said to be at heart on the side of truth.” I saw it every morning when I got up and looked out the window.

Which tells me I better not make too much stuff up here, historical or not.