The National Review recently proffered the notion that Arizona Senator John McCain should pledge to serve one term as a remedy for “the age issue,” and noted “it would separate him from the GOP pack and fit the ‘narrative arc’ of his career, acting above self-interest.”

It would, they suggested, “defuse the age issue” – and noted McCain has been traveling with MN Governor Tim Pawlenty quite a bit. One term for McCain then pass the torch to DC outsider Pawlenty?

Nothing against Pawlenty, a GOP rising star, but that’s a bad idea, and would simply draw more attention – permanent attention – to the Senator’s age. Anyone who has watched McCain on the campaign trail, or spent any amount of time around him, will see he’ll run 25 year olds into the ground with his stamina.

McCain, already characterized as toast by rivals, is going to get a second look down the line, and move up from his current cyclical downturn. The McCain one term idea is too cute by half. Bad idea.

On another note, the ineptitude of Alberto Gonzalez and his people in communicating the rationale for the dismissal of U.S. attorneys leaves the impression that Karl Rove deputy, Tim Griffin, is a political hack completely unqualified to serve as district attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas.

The facts just do not corroborate this developing Beltway consensus.

As Hotline On Call has reported, here are Griffin’s various qualifications:

1. He’s a ’94 grad of Tulane Law School and spent two years studying at Oxford in England.

2. He spent a year at DoJ where he prosecuted, among other things, federal firearms cases and served as a point person on international trafficking investigations. He was also appointed by Homeland Sec. Chertoff to prosecute cases in the eastern district of AR.

3. He was the senior investigative counsel for Dan Burton at the House Gov’t Reform Cmte. Complain about Burton’s politics, but since when is Congressional staff service a disqualifier?

4. He helped independent counsel David Barrett investigate Henry Cisneros.

5. He prosecuted cases as an Army JAG officer.

6. He’s a decorated Army Reserve major.

7. He served in Iraq.

The guy is totally qualified. Period.

When I tell my musically-literate friends that Grateful Dead guitarist/vocalist Bob Weir’s band, RatDog, is the hottest band on the planet, I routinely get glazed-over looks of skepticism, incredulity and outright derision. They just don’t know any better — and they would see things differently if they had been fortunate enough to catch the band’s three night run at New York City’s venerable Beacon Theater last week.
In short, Ratdog’s marketing guys and fans alike have every legitimate right to characterize this run as “historic” – and the Thursday and Saturday night shows, in this listener’s opinion, even surpassed the blowout energy level of the prior “threshold” Beacon show: 10/25/03. That, in and of itself, is a major feat. And luckily, unlike past Beacon gigs, these three shows are available from www.ratdoglive.com in soundboard/matrix. There are also plenty of high quality auds already proliferating on the internet.

With Bobby Weir’s sixtieth birthday just around the corner, it’s impossible not to have been inspired and uplifted by his utterly contagious energy and vigor; he was a happy man, with a happy band, intent upon blowing the roof off the Beacon, and that was accomplished the first night with monster renditions of the Grateful Dead classics, Estimated Prophet and Sugar Magnolia. Interesting song placements – Black Muddy River out of “stuff” and Uncle John’s Band as the encore – added to the show’s irresistible appeal.

On both Estimated and Sugar Magnolia, Weir and guitarist Mark Karan came right down
to the front of the stage to shred both tunes, and the crowd was treated to several intense, perfectly- timed Bobby lunges that sent the crowd into a collective frenzy. Weir has generally avoided charging the crowd in this manner, for all practical purposes, since the 80’s, and watching him come down front from our 8th row seats – especially on these two tunes — was a time warp rush. It was great.

But as hot as the band was for the 3/8 and 3/10 shows, one of the big headlines of the entire three day run is the still under-appreciated Mark Karan, who has stepped up in a huge manner over the past several years. With all of the other mesmerizing aural chaos being generated around them by Kenny Brooks on horns, Jay Lane on drums, Robin Sylvester on bass and Jeff Chimenti on keys, the ability of Weir and Karan to lock so singly into soaring sonic jams is spectacular.

In this Beacon run, and as he does now routinely, Karan demonstrated he can summon the power of an incendiary Jerry Garcia guitar solo, but without mimicking Garcia’s signature style and sound. Karan’s own sound is huge, and the ever-growing size and sophistication of his rig is bringing out the best in him and his band mates. Several years back, Weir, in an interview, likened Mark’s playing to an unfolding flower. He’s now in full bloom.

Other Beacon run highlights:

 Despite the fact Kenny Brooks’s talented trombone-playing buddy, Josh Roseman, didn’t show up, Chuck MacKinnon’s improv trumpet playing during the pre-Other One jam on 3/8 was a mind-blower. He’s damn good, and unfortunately didn’t have as much room or time to stretch out during the 3/10 show. The only other trumpet player I’ve seen play like that with RatDog is New Orleans jazz superstar, Irvin Mayfield.

 A different version of Stagger Lee was played each night: a generally botched acoustic version on 3/8; a rockin’ traditional electric arrangement on 3/9; and a Grateful Dead-style electric version on 3/10. The fact the band has the self-confidence and chops to throw these three versions out there before being perfected in successive sound checks speaks volumes about the creativity we’re seeing on this ’07 spring tour and the just-completed west coast run.

 The return of Gloria, Bobby’s Vegas “lounge act” version of My Funny Valentine, killer versions of Looks Like Rain and Black Throated Wind, a Quinn the Eskimo breakout, a super-slithery Althea into da bomb version of Scarlet Begonias, Jerry Jemmott on Milestones>Lovelight, and Tom Pope’s percussive explorations with Jay Lane all three nights, rounds out the highlights. Just too many to list.

One other thing that’s apparent over the past year is how well RatDog’s three new tunes – Jus’ Like Mama Said, Money for Gasoline and Tuesday Blues – have, with such facility, worked their way into the set lists. The jam in Money for Gasoline is different and interesting, and the band clearly enjoys working this tune over as it evolves. The 3/8 version was creative and rippling with energy.

In 1976, some young teen-age friends and I went to see Kingfish at the Beacon, and one year later, saw my first Grateful Dead concert at the Boston Garden. I was hooked. And now, some 30-odd years later, this special ensemble rolls up and down the east coast, west coast and through the American heartland, year in and year out. The fact this still occurs, and does so at this lofty level of performance, is an amazing testament to Bob Weir’s talent, work ethic and spirit; that he’s been able to draw such talented and passionate musicians into his post-Grateful Dead musical universe is special in and of itself. Enjoy the ride while it’s still here.

Photos courtesy of Butch Worrell via ratdog.org

This from ABC’s The Note this morning:

(For the record, DCSpectator falls under “Group One” below — just so it’s understood in the context of other posts…)

The Gang of 500′s previous unanimous view that Rudy Giuliani cannot win the Republican presidential nomination has come to a stunning end, and the Gang is now cleaved into three groups of indeterminate sizes.

The first group still believes that Giuliani can’t be nominated — despite the overwhelming lead he enjoys in all current national horserace polling. Members of Group 1 believe that there are 96 reasons that the former New York City mayor absolutely can’t sustain his lofty position over the next eleven months, and his oft-discussed liberal positions on social issues aren’t even the twelfth-most significant factor.

Group 2 contains Gang members who believe that Giuliani’s chances are infinitesimally tiny and wee, but they are extant, if all the stars align, and if all the other candidates collapse and if 2008 is truly a different kind of election than the nation has seen in years and years.

Adherents of Group 3 — surely still the smallest of the trio — believe that the Giuliani campaign’s mantra about leadership and the post-9/11 environment and the fact that one can now walk without fear from a Broadway show to a late-night dinner at Orso, will lead him to the nomination and the White House.

Rudy Giuliani’s continued good fortune was in evidence last night, as the AP reports Rudy is leading in a somewhat significant first test of strength: the Spartanburg County straw poll. In the final tally, he lost to Sen. John McCain by just two votes: 164-162.

Anonymous mailings critical of Mitt Romney on the eve of the Spartanburg poll have raised the specter of a long, nasty battle between now and the SC primary, reports the Columbia State. One of the pieces was a 6-page “attack on Romney’s record on abortion, gun control, taxes and ‘conservative values’” sent via mail 2/26 to several Spartanburg GOPers and postmarked Columbia.

A second piece, an e-mail from “upstaterepublican@gmail.com” took a shot “at Romney’s faith.” The e-mail is headlined: “Mitt Romney has a family secret he doesn’t want you to know” and includes a copy of a recent AP story on “how Romney’s ancestors practices polygamy”.

Looks like the 2000 hatchet job on McCain all over again — this time on Romney. Rudy will be the next target of this subterranean sleaze.

Lets’s first start out by saying the Rudy guys have converted plenty of skeptics in regard to his seriousness, the competency and national ring savvy of his staff, and his overall credibility.

His emerging message, that “more freedom” must be the ultimate guide to help solve a plethora of domestic policy ills, is right out of an old Arthur Finkelstein playbook. It’s going to be effective if he can develop it.

But just as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) convenes in DC today — a great opportunity for Rudy to develop this message – the Politico’s Ben Smith drops this little bomblet of perfectly bundled research that nails America’s Mayor on several fronts, just as he’s started to seriously pitch his conservative bonafides out on the hustings.

The odds are that the McCain guys provided Politico this salient oppo hit – and more power to them; McCain’s been taking hits for weeks, primarily because he’s getting pulled down into the Iraq quagmire morass.

McCain, the “former” frontrunner has also seen some really bad press in the past week questioning the very viability of his candidacy, and that he’s lost his 2000 mojo for good.

Just as Rudy’s stock price is overvalued now, McCain’s stock price is slightly undervalued, and he is now in a cyclical rut. Mitt Romney’s stock value has also plummeted as of late, and he, too, is slightly undervalued at the moment.

But now that Rudy is the “frontrunner” he’s now the target – and McCain, especially, will need to take back some of the market share that has “gravitated” – an accurate characterization – to Giuliani.

No question: Rudy’s kicked some major ass of late, and has been quite impressive – but there are now a number of arms trying to pull him down into the meat grinder. Now we’ll finally see some real campaigning and genuine hostilities breaking out.