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The Spectacle Blog
If I may add to the farewells to Richard Lugar, it’s said that one reason he lost so soundly yesterday is that he’d lost touch with his constituents. But maybe he was always like that. Not exactly a patrician, but certainly somewhat aloof, without an easy, schmoozy touch. He had more serious things on his mind. In early March 1994 I saw them on full display. As an old friend from our Indiana days, Lugar was the featured speaker at our magazine’s annual gala dinner. Other than a brief opening sentence or two alluding to our common Hoosier roots, he devoted his entire speech to U.S. policy toward post-Soviet Russia, not exactly a red-meat topic in those first Clinton years. All right, foreign policy was always his favorite area, so I assumed it would be okay to listen to 15 minutes on the subject, 20 at most — no one spends longer on a late night, post-dinner speech in Washington. But no — he droned on and on, as if we were the Council on Foreign Relations, or maybe the United Nations. Guests started walking out. One of the most amiable reporters I knew who was seated nearby was just about pulling his hair out. It was a nightmare. I lost track, but my guess is he spoke for at least 45 minutes, well past curfew. There was talk in those days that Lugar might run for president in 1996. If so, he sealed his fate right then and there. More likely, he was running for secretary of state and on that score he had a major cheerleader in New York Times columnist Willilam Safire. In a column days later, Safire singled out Lugar’s “heavy thinking” on foreign policy:
In an unnoticed but memorable speech last week titled “The Russians Are Tough Rivals, Not Partners,” Senator Richard Lugar — somebody’s next Secretary of State — overcomes the present fear of line-drawing to call for “associate membership” in NATO for Eastern European states with criteria and a timetable for full membership.
Safire was the Times’ house conservative, but not even he dared (or condescended) to mention where Lugar’s “unnoticed” speech was delivered. The Times did not like to mention us in those post-Troopergate days. So in the end, we didn’t even get any lousy publicity from the speech. On the other hand, I can no longer disagree that it wasn’t “memorable.”
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Wlady Pleszczynski
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/09/when-senator-lugar-came-to-din
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WL| 5.9.12 @ 2:07AM
Sorry Wlady...
If you are waiting on anyone to get fired up about this column...you probably should just go to bed.
This is an awful example of a columnist tossing a cup of water on a Hot Party...
I don't mean to insult your experience...I am sure that it is very important to someone...but I'll say a prayer that you can get a good hot lead somewhere so you don't have to write about this sort of thing anymore.
Stay Thirsty My Friend...
TAS subscriber since the 70s| 5.9.12 @ 10:21AM
Geez, lighten up - this is a blog musing not some full blown magazine article. Ya gotta remember the roots of TAS are in the Hoosier state, sigh (so many newbies commenting on this website who have no clue how groundbreaking RET's publication was back in the day and Wlady has been with him practically forever)
RR| 5.9.12 @ 4:38AM
I actually think that this is rather revealing. If one has been around awhile, how often one experiences this at banquets, at the closing dinner for a conference, even at a graduation.
One such as Lugar is invited to speak at a gathering. One accepts. Yet one does not invest the hard sweat time to inquire as to what would be "on topic" and relevant to the audience. How to strike a chord with them. How to address issues that relate to what that body is contending with.
This does display a detachment. A coarseness of personal conduct that says, "I'll blather on a topic exactly of my choosing whether they like it or not. Heck, after all, I AM THE SENATOR (governor, congressman, mayor, attorney general, university president, general, admiral, fill in the blank). And these "dweebs" invited me, so...you get what you pay for! Ha!"
It is an arrogance. That we listeners will be enraptured with what the "speaker" has to offer, that we'll surely laugh when he offers a joke, that we'll surely politely applaud in the appropriate moments.
It is also terribly cowardly. Don't dare choose a topic that your audience is familiar with. Might not look so good or sound so good at the podium.
I think that this is on us. It is on us to ask: How often have I been at a similar dinner where the invited guest speaker does just this very thing that Richard Lugar did in 1994?
Why do we allow them to be so arrogantly detached (so very self-important) and not call them on it? Why smile at them when they've just mocked you, your organization, and your invitation?
Jack in Wi.| 5.9.12 @ 5:53AM
Well it was your misake to invite the old bore to begin with. When has he ever shown any wit or ability to wow an audience?
RR| 5.9.12 @ 8:03AM
Jack in Wi, do you read very well? Why did you place this remark under mine at 4:53 Central Time? And, once more, do you actually read or just race to post "something!" "anything" before anyone else does? (Maybe you should wait until you are awake, coherent.)
Re-read the above. However, do not post unless you have something of worth to contribute to the conversation. And whatever you post, keep it on topic. (Hint: The topic is not you.)
Clint| 5.9.12 @ 7:19AM
The Tea Party Rebellion Steps On Lugar.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 5.9.12 @ 8:52AM
The was an obscure and strange RBS commercial a few years back, where an adult approaching middle age was daydreaming back to a moment in prep school, where he was sitting in a ceremony in the crowded auditorium listening to a boring self-involved alumnus drone on and on. When the speaker uses the words “the end” in his text (as part of a longer sentence) the kid starts clapping, inspiring everyone else to do so, resulting in an earlier end to the tedium for everyone there.
Had Mr. Plesczynski had the presence of mind to pull that off during the 1994 speech, perhaps that would have been memorable. As it stands, the Republican primary voters of Indiana get the happy memory of vanquishing the boring , disconnected, self-involved subject.
Conseravtive Bob| 5.9.12 @ 10:47AM
The key to saving the country lays in convincing as many senators and congressmen that we, as in "We the People..." are the ones that are important... not them.
They all use the word "service' like it is some badge of honor that entitles them, rather than a heart of service which is what is implied and intended.
We have a long way to go to restore this Republic, thanks Indiana for your contribution to that effort.
Kelly Staples| 5.9.12 @ 1:30PM
Hurray for Indiana! Better late than never. Now it's on to Ohio and Speaker Crybaby!