Tom, Dick, Jerry, et al.

He is adorable, no doubt about that: a beatific smile awarded him personally by Guru Maharaj Ji. He is neat: his hair modishly short but sweeping lovingly over the ears, his eyes sparkling with the Perfect Master’s reflected light. He is Rennie Davis. And he, with Abbie Hoffman in levi chic, Jerry Rubin in cowboy shirt and one wee-earring, and Tom Hayden in proletarian drab, is invited into your house and mine, courtesy Dick Cavett. It is the much publicized, twice postponed, now “balanced” Cavett special on whither the loony Left of yore.

And it is, was, a crashing bore. The pother this whole incident inspired was astounding. ABC found the program unbalanced (that is, lacking counterpoint, not off its rocker), and feared to send it out over the airwaves to make—well, more waves than the network cared to swim through. The “ferociously brilliant” Tom (Mr. Jane Fonda) Hayden called the U.S. “genocidal,” then let fly with predictable assaults on South Vietnam for its chutzpah in defending itself, but neglected to let us hear from his lips a single discouraging word about the Democratic Whatsits of Hanoi. It went on and on till 1 a.m., Thursday March 21, and seldom has spring been ushered in so gently by the contemporary Left.

DB

About the Author

David Brudnoy

Featured Tags

He is adorable, no doubt about that: a beatific smile awarded him personally by Guru Maharaj Ji. He is neat: his hair modishly short but sweeping lovingly over the ears, his eyes sparkling with the Perfect Master’s reflected light. He is Rennie Davis. And he, with Abbie Hoffman in levi chic, Jerry Rubin in cowboy shirt and one wee-earring, and Tom Hayden in proletarian drab, is invited into your house and mine, courtesy Dick Cavett. It is the much publicized, twice postponed, now “balanced” Cavett special on whither the loony Left of yore.

And it is, was, a crashing bore. The pother this whole incident inspired was astounding. ABC found the program unbalanced (that is, lacking counterpoint, not off its rocker), and feared to send it out over the airwaves to make—well, more waves than the network cared to swim through. The “ferociously brilliant” Tom (Mr. Jane Fonda) Hayden called the U.S. “genocidal,” then let fly with predictable assaults on South Vietnam for its chutzpah in defending itself, but neglected to let us hear from his lips a single discouraging word about the Democratic Whatsits of Hanoi. It went on and on till 1 a.m., Thursday March 21, and seldom has spring been ushered in so gently by the contemporary Left.