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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > January > 19
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Editorial: World wanted too much of Ted Williams too fast
If Ted Williams — the recently homeless announcer — didn’t have a substance-abuse problem before, his wild ride this month was enough to give him one.
It was painful to watch.
Set aside the fact that NBC and CBS had a fight that delayed his reunion with his mother. Set aside that the very moment of reunion had to be captured on video (and audio).
That was something nobody should have to go through to get winter shelter. Mr. Williams seemed OK with the intrusion, but it was an awful thing to do to his dignified, 90-something mother.
Beyond that, what was painful was watching him do interview after interview at a time of extraordinary turmoil in his life. (For an endless collection of videos, see www.dispatch.com.)
He had to keep psyching himself up to perform his remarkable readings and improvisations of promos and whatnot. He had to deal with personal questions about painful subjects.
Most of all, he had to keep going and going and going. At one point, he asked for a “nerve pill.” It’s not hard to see why. The Internet — where a video about him had “gone viral,” as they say — and the mainstream media combined to create a manic phenomenon that made it seem like everybody should take a chill pill of some sort, if only metaphorically.
It all started when the Columbus Dispatch discovered a homeless man with a stunning voice and remarkable background at an intersection that some Daytonians know — and more will probably come to know — at Interstate 71 and Hudson Avenue.
Mr. Williams suddenly found himself with multiple job offers and scads of good wishes, notwithstanding his extensive, if petty, police record and long battles with drugs and alcohol.
Appropriately enough, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful. So he performed. And a part of him surely enjoyed the attention. But nobody ever said that job offers will cure drug or alcohol addiction. Eventually, there was a family incident that resulted in police being called.
And eventually — with a sort of intervention by television’s Dr. Phil — Mr. Williams headed off to rehab, a contradiction of his oft-repeated claim that he’d been sober for two years.
What he really needs now is some space, some time.
Mr. Williams became a curiosity because of the contradiction between his circumstances and his talent. Then, when the Cleveland Cavaliers offered him a job without meeting him, he became bigger news.
His full story isn’t told. When he gets himself together and has some time to think, he might have suggestions to offer society for handling future cases of sudden celebrity. Those could be worth hearing, especially because they’ll come from somebody who makes his living — when he’s making a living — in the media.
Meanwhile, the continuation of his difficulties shouldn’t be taken as an indication that people were foolish to believe in him. But the road back is hard and uncertain. It takes more than a break or two.
Most people who have dealt with Mr. Williams have meant well. But they have given him yet another problem: Inevitably, some people, upon examining his life, will come to disapprove not only of his actions, but of him. And they will enjoy making their denunciations in public. They will express their disgust with what they see as the media’s fawning over him just because he has a beautiful voice. They’ll even paint him as a symbol of what’s wrong with this society.
Plenty of tests of his sobriety lie ahead.
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Martin Gottlieb: Health care not best bet for kinder, gentler politics
You see so many polls about people being against the Obama health care plan. Or not so opposed. Or opposed but mainly because they think it should have gone further.
But you have to wonder what it all means. The law is almost 2,000 pages long and has a lot of different aspects.
It’s a given that the conservatives and liberals are going to be split. But “the people?” The majority?
As has been often noted, majorities approve of a lot of specifics about the new law, such as forcing insurance companies to insure people they don’t want to. And majorities oppose the mandate on individuals to buy insurance, at least when the question is phrased a certain way.
But have majorities come to terms with how some things (mandates on insurance companies) can only be done because other things are being done (the insurance companies getting more customers).
So now we have the Republicans in the House wanting to repeal the whole thing. They explain this, most often, as reflecting public opinion.
Speaker John Boehner had no political choice but to schedule a vote on repeal. And Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, had no choice but to support repeal, unless he suddenly wanted to position himself as a party outlier.
This is not to suggest that either is the least bit reluctant about repeal. Turner has always railed against the law. He uses the lingo of his side: “Obamacare, the government takeover of health care.”
His language is interesting. Turner last year expressed shock that more than 100 House Democrats had signed on to the “single-payer” concept, under which the government would simply pay all health care bills. That would be a government takeover, at least of the financial aspects of the system.
But Turner doesn’t take much comfort in the fact that the Obama measure leaves the insurance companies, not government, at the heart of the system. He takes the original support of single-payer as an indication that that’s where the Democrats are still going.
OK. But, politically speaking, should holding a vote on repeal be the top priority of the newly Republican House?
After all, repeal isn’t going to happen; and the Republicans generally support some aspects of the bill; and some aspects are already going into effect, so repeal would amount to jerking people back and forth.
The political appeal of repeal is that it unites the party. For years, tax cuts were the big uniter. Now, it’s health care.
The reason is public opinion. But here’s public opinion: Most polls show a small majority or near majority against the new law, with maybe 10 percent undecided. But included in the majority are a fair number of people who think the new law doesn’t go far enough.
No matter. Republican voters are perceived as hugely against, with almost none strongly for. That’s the uniting factor.
Actually, a new poll, done by the Associated Press and a partner, found about as much support as opposition, all told. Only about a quarter called for complete repeal.
But those numbers may reflect a post-Tucson mood — a certain lack of taste for political fights — which could be fleeting. Both parties seem to think time is on their side. Democrats believe that they will have more stories all the time about how people are benefiting from their reforms.
Republicans believe they can use their majority status in the House to hold hearings shedding light on the new problems being caused.
The best bet is that if Tucson causes the politicians to think they need to show a softer, less combative side, they will find a venue other than health care.
Over the weekend, Boehner’s website started calling the Obama plan “job crushing” or “job destroying.” This amounts to a divorce from “job killing,” a phrase Boehner and his fellows were wedded to, having even put into the title of the repeal bill.
So words suggesting violence are a problem. But words that make the other side into a villain are not. “Obamacare” is still there, and “takeover” is not likely to disappear.
And both sides — diametrically opposed — think they are fine with public opinion.
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