It was named that because when I realized I wanted to siphon the political stuff off my other assorted and sundry blog sites, I aspired to find the skill to walk the line between both/all sides of the spectrum politic and try to articulate a fundamentally "common sense" POV.
The challenge, of course, is that common sense has a peculiar habit of not being something many of us have in common.
And what makes sense to one is often senseless to another.
That confession made, I'd offer that, so far, I've come as close to the middle in my meanderings as the aforementioned challenge allows.
At the very least, these pieces are as legitimately "center line" as, say, O'Reilly's Zone is legitimately "no spin".
Admittedly faint praise.
And, speaking of O'Reilly and his assorted and sundry posses, I admit that my satirical spears tend to find their way into their carcasses more often than they harpoon the folks on the port side.
Frankly, I'm inclined to make the argument that criticizing the presentation of the Fox News nation is comparable to a wonderful moment in a long ago aired episode of "M.A.S.H" in which the much maligned Major Frank Burns, in a moment of pique, complained plaintively to Hawkeye and Trapper that he was tired of constantly, and incessantly, being the butt of their jokes.
To which Hawkeye articulately replied, "well, Frank, the truth is that you invite abuse...and it would be impolite not to ask it in...".
This also explains 99% of my observations about both Coulter and Kardashian, while we're at it.
Nevertheless, this time out, my affectionate artillery is showing a decidedly lean to the left.
And the target, for lack of a less dramatic word, is a liberal, fair haired fella.
Chris Matthews.
Chris has written a new JFK biography and, like any good/smart author, is doing a nice job of slipping in a plug for it every six to ten minutes on his nightly MSNBC show, "Hardball". (Equal time moment: O'Reilly is matching Chris plug for plug hyping his own latest tome' "Killing Lincoln"...although it's subliminally amusing that, even in terms of historic prose, these guys are loyal to their leanings, Matthews writing about a historically mythologized martyred Democrat, O'Reilly writing about a historically mythologized martyred Republican).
Haven't yet read the book. Have read some excerpts and, on surface, it looks like Chris has written a pretty honest account of an accomplished and historic, but admittedly flawed, human being.
In other words, I have no book bone to pick.
The last few evenings, though, Chris has, in his commentaries, been singing the praises of Kennedy as a president, leader and visionary and, not so subtly, offering that what Barack Obama needs to do to get the country, and his own political fortunes, back on track is to emulate that presidency, leadership and vision.
I understand Chris' romance with the mystique. I'm only a few years younger and, like him, grew up in that time of space race and Peace Corps, missile crisis and cold war, civil rights struggles and "asking not".
All these years later, though, I'm not sure rose tinted glasses don't alter the colors of Camelot just a scoche.
Kennedy's cool in October of 1962 probably prevented the first exchange of nuclear weapons fire in the history of mankind.
An exchange that, knock wood, we have continued to avoid to date.
And the modern Greek tragedy that was the Kennedy family story, complete with myriad plot twists and turns, including, but not limited to, the brutal and dramatic deaths of both John and Robert, certainly ramp up the "romance" factor when assessing the life and times.
Add to that JFK's now well documented physical, mortal and moral flaws and you have a less hyperbolic, but certainly more human, perspective on the man.
None of which has anything to do with the quality of the work Chris Matthews has done in the writing of this book.
But has, I'd offer, a lot to do with the idea of star light, star brighting a wish that another John F. would come along.
Or that a Barack O. would suddenly find his own John F. voice and start speaking with it.
From all accounts, Chris Matthews has written an outstanding work on a complex time and a complicated man.
Suggesting that a man of this time should take pages from another's history, though, seems more poetic than practical.
Especially when that other history ended so abruptly, horrifically and dramatically.
And, unarguably, unfinished.
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