Dec 31, 2012

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Dec 29, 2012

sterling silver bracelet with flower toggle clasp










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crystal earrings at chloetoo, red and black 8mm cubes



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Rolling Stones Get Loose With Mick Taylor in First Newark Show John Mayer joins the band on guitar for 'Respectable'

 from Rolling Stone Music...........
The Rolling Stones perform at Prudential Center on December 13, 2012 in Newark, New Jersey.
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
December 14, 2012 8:30 AM ET
Seven songs into the Rolling Stones' set at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, last night, a roadie handed Mick Jagger a printout. "We're going to do a request," Jagger said, adding that fans voted for a song of their choice on the band's new mobile app. The winner? 1964's "Around and Around."
"That's an old one, isn't it?" Jagger said. "We haven't done that one in a long time!" (According to fan site It's Only Rock and Roll, they last played the song at Toronto's El Mocambo Club in March 1977). They tore through the Chuck Berry classic, Jagger clapping upward and dancing furiously as if channeling his old T.A.M.I. Show performance, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood weaving double-string licks as the song swung in a way it never really has before. "Yes!" Jagger said with a grin afterward. "That's right!"
The Rolling Stones 1963-1969: Behind-the-Scenes Snapshots
The Stones got loose last night, their fourth of five 50th-anniversary shows this year. Without the high-profile guests of the other recent shows (Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton), the band seemed to revel in playing with each other. Charlie Watts grinned ear to ear as he pounded the brooding intro to "Paint it Black," Wood nearly bounced out of his chair while nailing the pedal steel lines to "Happy" while Keith belted the song with such glee he appeared emotional. Jagger was chatty and personable between possessed performances, at one point reflecting on playing Newark in the summer of 1965. "Thank you for 50 years of coming to our shows," he told the crowd. "Thank you very much."
Like the other recent shows, the set began with largely early- to mid-Sixties cuts; they played "Get Off of My Cloud" with machine-gun attack, and were triumphant on "The Last Time." It's a marvel to see them play these songs, all sounding fresh again after years of dormancy.
The night's first truly bone-chilling moment came during "Gimme Shelter," when the band conjured a dark musical storm while backup singer Lisa Fischer howled lead vocals alongside Mick for the first time since the Bigger Bang tour, reminding us no one does the job better. (Mary J. Blige sang with Jagger at one of two London shows and in Brooklyn, and Florence Welch handled the other London show.) "I love you!" Jagger told Fischer afterward.
Jagger soon welcomed John Mayer for "Respectable," a welcome surprise song choice. Mayer delivered with a manic, wicked solo; Ronnie Wood matched him with his own, grinning as he effortlessly pointed his guitar neck toward the crowd. Richards went next, firing away rhythmic blasts with intent focus. But Mayer took the last word with a frenzy of flashy notes. It felt like bad form, but Keith didn't seem to care, flashing a giant grin – this was a party. They soon flashed forward, nailing the new time-shifting apocalyptic workout "Doom and Gloom," a new live highlight.
"New Jersey is the only place you don't have to be working out to wear a track suit," Jagger joked. He also made reference to the "12-12-12" benefit at Madison Square Garden the night before. "We had an amazing time," Jagger said. "We even had Bruce open up for us." (Springsteen joins the band on Saturday in Newark). The night's only weak moment was "One More Shot" where everybody seemed so lost it nearly fell apart, the band looking at each other for cues. Afterward, Keith shrugged at the crowd and laughed.
But there was nothing quite like seeing Mick Taylor play with the Stones again. For his first time playing with the band on U.S. soil since 1981 (he played with them in London late last month), he emerged unassumingly and unannounced, but as soon as Richards launched into an 11-minute "Midnight Rambler," Taylor unleashed flourishes of virtuosic greatness that were unmistakably him. As Jagger howled furious harp lines, Taylor rocked back and forth, grooving harder than he did on the entire 1972 tour while the band gave him plenty of room to stretch out. "Mick Taylor!" Jagger said afterward. "He's great! Really good!"

It was a marathon from there, the band nailing the slinky air-tight groove of "Tumbling Dice" – Keith played the riff eyes-closed, as if meditating in it and a raucous "Brown Sugar." The guitars blared full force in "Jumpin' Jack Flash," with Richards grinning with each riff stab as Jagger punched the air as he sprinted the catwalk tirelessly; after a heavy "Satisfaction," Taylor returned to take a bow with his old bandmates.
Earlier in the night, during his solo set, Keith Richards referenced Hurricane Sandy while talking to the crowd. "I know you guys had a rough time. We admire the way you stuck with it. Keep on trucking, you know?" We felt the same way about them.
Set list
"Get Off of My Cloud"
"The Last Time"
"It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)"
"Paint It Black"
"Gimme Shelter"
"Respectable" with John Mayer
"Wild Horses"
"Around and Around" (first since El Mocambo March 5, 1977)
"Doom and Gloom"
"One More Shot"
"Miss You"
"Honky Tonky Women"
"Before They Make Me Run"
"Happy"
"Midnight Rambler" with Mick Taylor
"Start Me Up"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Brown Sugar"
"Sympathy for the Devil"
 Encores:
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" with The Choir of Trinity Wall Street
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

 ...............................................................................

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Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rolling-stones-get-loose-with-mick-taylor-in-first-newark-show-20121214#ixzz2GSg6ePuU
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Good lord, bring Mick T. back to the band.

from Rolling Stone Music........and some very interesting comments about San Diego.........







  • evilizac 15 days ago


    Good lord, bring Mick T. back to the band. . . one last album, he would bring all of the ballads up to a beautiful level, they need a melodically gifted player like Mick Taylor to balance out the solid rockers the band has put out with some tasteful playing. . .

  • Avatar

    AR 15 days ago


    Where was Bill Wyman?? Without the Watts-Wyman engine room, sorry, it just don't cut it!


  • WWWalnut 15 days ago


    That's the first time I've been able to make it through a live clip of the Stones in 25 years. That was really, really good. Is there really not room for 3 guitarists up there for the whole show? It's just a natural-born fact - Mick Taylor makes the Stones better! Also Jagger is a wicked harp player!

  • Avatar

    Jethro 15 days ago


    Wish they'd give Taylor an extra song or two. The Stones have never done Time Waits For No One live. It'd be great to hear them do it with Taylor.


  • Steve Wimer 15 days ago


    $50 is a bit pricey to see them on television. I'll wait for the DVD.

  • Avatar

    Flick666 14 days ago


    pedal steel on "Happy"? Really?


  • Jim Kamlowsky 14 days ago


    It's amazing how much tighter they've gotten since the first show. Rock on!


  • Jamie Potter 14 days ago


    I hope they release this particular set on DVD.

  • Avatar

    Mick 15 days ago


    Same set list,except for a 2 songs? Come on guys. Mix things up a bit. It's called rehearsing b4 the show.


  • Chuck Ungar 15 days ago


    Mick Taylor looks like he lost a bunch of weight. He was pretty big a not too long ago. Maybe he did it because of this show.

  • Avatar

    richardllanes 12 days ago


    I have seen The Rolling Stones six times in San Diego, CA. The best one was in 1969 with Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman. Their first song was Jumpin Jack Flash with the introduction that made Keith Richards songs so original with Bill Wyman's bass runs. The second best was in 1981 when Ian Stewart the sixth stone toured with them, he was their piano player who died in 1985 of a heart attack. The Steal Wheels tour of 1989 which finished off in Europe in 1991 was fantastic. It can be heard in it's full set in the DVD titled The Rolling Stones at the Max. They played 2000 light years which was fantastic along with Mick Jagger's Rock and a Hard Place which I think is one of their best songs.In 1969 they did not switch guitars around all the time like they do now. They are tuned different which makes it easier to play certain songs but like Jumpin Jack Flash the way they did it in 1969 sounds just like the record. The way they play it now does not! The four DVD set from Best Buy has four DVD's. The first talking to the band members, the second at Madison Square Garden, the third at a new stadium in London and the fourth at a club type setting in Paris. Those two DVD's the Rolling Stones are at their best.


  • Devyn Damore 14 days ago


    Hey, that's the video I shot at the show. Where is my royalties check? haha

  • Avatar

    steve-o 14 days ago


    Was there the other night, tightest they've been in decades. Buzz coming in was "yeah...mick taylor", buzz was the same leaving only a bigger "yeahhh". If this is about it for them, they should really bring MT back, they are soooo much better w/ him


  • Peter Williams 15 days ago


    withtaylor there i wish they'd done moonlight mile

Gosh, Everyone is Searching Mick Taylor

Rolling Stones Rock New Jersey With Mick Taylor and John Mayer

from Spinner..........

Dave Allocca, AP
Fifty years. That's five times as long as the Beatles' career, and quite a bit longer than most other bands (or marriages). Rock 'n' roll was meant to explode and fall apart, so how humanoids like Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and company have survived the ringer this long remains a mystery. Nevertheless, better the world's greatest rock band make it to 50 years than someone else.

For the first New Jersey stop on this very-limited, very-pricey victory lap of a tour, the Rolling Stones not only didn't disappoint, they outclassed 50 years of successors, including rightful ones. Frills were few: John Mayer hopped on early to roast his axe on "Respectable," and Mick's mysteriously quick costume changes from sparkly to sparklier jackets barely distracted from the well-aged thunderous canon (more like canyon) of hits. Only the Stones could toss off Richter-scale levelers like "Gimme Shelter" and "Paint It Black" in the first few numbers.

After Mayer's swift exit the band wasted no time bleeding every poignant note of "Wild Horses" raw and covering Chuck Berry's "Around and Around" for the first time since 1977. The garage-y new "Doom and Gloom" held its own with "One More Shot," and an extra-funky "Miss You" provided some respite as an extended jam. Mick performed a swiveling dance in the breakdown as both the snake and the charmer, attempted to help the beer-guzzling crowd through those "woo-hoo-hoo-oo-hoos" and yelled "where'd you get that New Jersey?" before Bobby Keys' sax did its thing.

Jagger and Ron Wood circled the coincidentally-or-not mouth-shaped stagepath. "Honky Tonk Women" was the only tune upstaged by the backing-screen visual: An animated X-rated King Kong with the woman replacing the ape as the role of skyscraper-climbing monster and fighter-pilot monkeys trying to shoot her down. But as Keith took the stage for the impressively-sung "Before They Make Me Run" and ageless "Happy," the night never again turned its attention from the music.

The biggest story is of course Mick Taylor, who appeared and ripped an elongated "Midnight Rambler" to shreds in a giant onstage guitar huddle. The whole night tumbled into a vortex of great rock history from there: "Start Me Up," "Tumbling Dice" and "Brown Sugar" all in a row, impossibly hard-hitting even five decades on, with Mick prancing around like he's 29 in a ridiculous blue waistjacket, bantering a flag about and returning in a gigantic cape of fur spaghetti to play Mr. D as the opening shakes of "Sympathy for the Devil" took hold. Keef's solo suddenly sounded a few decibels louder than any of his other playing Thursday night.

Not ones to waste time at this age, or as pleasing and demanding showmen, the Trinity Wall Street Choir was quickly hustled up onto either side of the stage for a tremendous encore of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," for which Jagger strapped on an acoustic. Again, his purple sparkling grandeur clashed with the natural musical forces thundering throughout the Prudential Center, but the Stones invented rock's absurdly sized contradictions if anyone did. But the sheer overtaking pleasure of these classics at this point didn't require answers, just dancers. Jagger won the crowd's participation after a particularly torrential Wood solo and a rare bish-bash climax from the normally fantastically controlled Charlie Watts.

Then without further ado, rock achieved middle age, came full circle, lined up the planets, etc., -- whatever monster-truck metaphor have you. The finest rock band in the world did "Satisfaction," the greatest rock song. And to their credit, they still sound hungry. "All I hear is doom and gloom," rightfully mocked Jagger's newest lyrics of the night. These titans have been providing an alternative for half a century, and there's no reason to think they'll stop now.

Dec 28, 2012

Rush Limbaugh Celebrates Completion of 12 Step by Agreeing to Ride in Rose Parade





update 12-28-12:     Well, everyone knows I have always loved waving and riding--especially when the focus is on me!!.......rush replied when questioned about the exciting news!!!

and what are ROWGS, asked one of the reporters at the press conference......Oh--that was the rich old white guys, but they're not in style any more.  You know, at one time they ruled the world, but now they don't....and this is sort of a celebration.

10-17-12

Sean Hannity: I'm Just So Angry With Rush Right Now!

Highlights of the story:

Rush Limbaugh's secret phone call to Bill Clinton.

rush limbaugh gets his ya ya's out then washes Whoopi Goldberg's feet in hopes of redemption.

Yes, rush, you were very naughty and now it is time for your discipline!

My liberal limbawdian fantasy by Chloe Louise Langendorf Louis.......

rush, you portrayed your activities of "watching" as normal while you debased the activities of young women as vulgar and street worthy. In my dream your punishment will be allocated by Whoopi Goldberg--she said in her television special she's willing to talk about it--she is willing to have a conversation about race and I am including women--she doesn't mind if there is a disagreement. She is willing to answer questions.

The limbaughing of limbaugh...............

 Now--we'll begin by sitting down and having a talk. In retribution you will get down on your knees and wash Whoopi Goldberg's feet and listen politely as she takes her valuable time to explain to you where you have gone wrong with women, racial slurs, the tea party, with President Obama--and with your life in general.

You'll act interested. You will be a guest on THE VIEW and tell the women of America what you learned and how lucky you were to have the opportunity to have a chat with Whoopi. It turned into a really enlightening experience. Barbara Walters will interview you with heartfelt questions and you will cry to show you're sorry and your sincerity.

You'll do "Oprah's Next Chapter" and discuss your new hobby of flower arranging and your new life, in general. A serious discussion will continue on how getting in touch with your feminine side has had positive effects on all of your relationships. You will say that health care is a right of every human being in each appearance--not something to be bought and sold and bantered about as an election talking point.

CNN will pick you up for a new show about multi-cultural women in the United States and around the world. You will feature Cooking With Alia to showcase strong young women around the world. You like it as a business model and you have always wondered about the proper use of Moroccan spices. You have Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly on your new show and try to chat with them about the possibility of changing their ways--have they ever just thought about being a Democrat?

You will be heralded for developing a 12 step program for R.O.W.G.'s to promote the betterment of all people and relationships in the United States and around the world. Your crowning glory will be to write a column for drudge to promote equal rights for women.

You disclose to Oprah in a soft voice that the giant hole in your heart has closed and you are finally able to give up food and pills as a crutch. You also reveal you are actually enjoying your new humility--you never thought you would be able to say that. Driven by fear and insecurity about your own masculinity you were hiding behind the arrogance and the pretense was becoming a burden. You will also confide to Oprah on national television that you have secretly always been jealous of Bill Clinton and you went home with a stomach-ache after that time you made fun of Hillary's hair.

Sean Hannity finally challenges you to a face-off in disgust. You reveal to Sean, you had been looking to Bill Clinton for diet and health advice for a long time. As you and Bill eventually became friends, it was hard at first, you realized that he was a great world leader and you asked him if you could make a large financial contribution to is humanitarian causes.

Bill agrees to keep your new life private but urges you to publicly add your name to his cause--you finally give in and your name is glorified with other world leaders.

Sean remains angry and mystified and continues to suffer from the disease of chronic and incurable self-righteousness.

 Rush finally concedes to Leslie Stahl in CBS Sunday Morning exclusive, "I looked in the mirror one day and said, I'm large! and not just in radioland; frankly, Leslie, I was feeling jowly." "I heard Bill C. say he only eats things that are grown--no faces--my face was giant, and I did not want someone to eat me!"

Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi will ride together as Grand Marshall's in the Rose Parade in a final celebratory jubilee. You were honored because of the success of your anti-bullying campaign in America. And Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg all lived happily ever after and Rush ended up being a frequent guest on The View.

 ......3 months later--bill, glen and drudge couldn't help but notice Rush's new found popularity with women (and higher ratings) and finally joined the 12 step program as followers and the world became a better place*

......rush asked Leslie Stahl after the interview lights went off---did she know of any classes about making jewelry, earrings specifically,  he loves color and wants a couple of pairs of earrings like hers--one for himself and one for his wife, too.

Dec 27, 2012

from Sten Martin: The Romantic Bride--my sewing obsession--I want to sew like Sten Martin






Photo: A romantic fitting! The bride seen through her veil. (The pinned excess fabric at center back will be replaced with buttons.)
this photo is beautiful!
A romantic fitting! The bride seen through her veil. (The pinned excess fabric at center back will be replaced with buttons.) 
 
 from Sten Martin:  The Romantic Bride--my sewing obsession--I want to sew like Sten Martin!

Gun Facts: Is the UK Real or a Disney Fairy Tale

I think part of the problem is that there is a certain group of the American public that wants to keep us, the United States, as if we are still the wild, wild west.  I f you follow Piers Morgan at all, the gun people will not even listen when he tries to talk about gun facts in the UK.

My OR co-workers from the UK stated they simply did not have gun shot wounds there in their ER.  At the time we had a 15 year old with a gun shot wound.  The trouble is when Piers says "UK" I feel like people think that may be talking about a UFO or another planet.

If you listen to the right wingers not only do they think America is a great country but they think it is the only country and when anyone says anything about Europe they act like its just silly info.

One talk show host here in San Diego said if he ever went to England he is going to go there and spend American dollars.  I guess he had not heard of the pound or the Swiss Franc or the Euro.  He said American money is what everyone wants and that will trade anywhere.  Just this morning another conservative host was giggling about facts from the Daily Mail about less violence in Europe.


It seems like they simply refuse to believe the truth.  I don't think they think Europe is real.  They act as if it is a Disney fairy tale.











Dec 24, 2012

Mick Jagger-Mick Taylor--Two Beautiful Micks

From Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones

for those people who really like this song I will suggest this website:

this is the you-tube channel of kleermaker 1000:

https://www.youtube.com/user/kleermaker1000

Dec 21, 2012

Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor

Here are some nice things about Mick Taylor copied from You Tube----kleermaker1000 is very interesting.


kleermaker1000·116 videos

311 views
Like 4     Dislike 0
Published on Jul 31, 2012
Newcastle, September 13 first show
A less sound quality, especially compared to the two former and popular London versions, but though.
  • Category

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    Standard YouTube License

Uploader Comments (kleermaker1000)

  • jbstonesfan
    Very nice.....I am hoping they open up more of the vaults like they have been doing as of late. I was surprised to listen to LA 75 and find Ronnie trying to replicate the 72 sound which was impossible. The real tragedy in Taylor leaving(and I still think the Stones are the greatest) is that they no longer were a guitar driven band. RW and Keith's "ancient form of weaving" has it's moments (see Beas
    · 2
  • kleermaker1000
    Imo Ronny doesn't really feel the music of the Stones. As if he has no antenna for it. When you listen to the live version of BOB (Kansas, the 81 tour, it's on my channel too), you can hear Taylor doing some little things that make it special at once, despite Jagger's barking and the annoying sax (and the fact that Taylor is almost absent in the mix).
    · in reply to jbstonesfan

All Comments (5)

Chloe Louise

Dec 19, 2012

The Beautiful and Talented Mick Jagger...and Mick Taylor, too.

At work, my friend was also a Stones fan, but while I was going on about Mick Jagger this individual simply would not stop talking about Mick Taylor.

Dec 18, 2012

Bloomberg on Gun Control

comment
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Bloomberg pressures President Obama to 'lead from the front' on gun control

By Jonathan Easley - 12/18/12 09:50 AM ET
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday urged President Obama to "lead from the front" on gun control regardless of whether any White House proposal for more restrictive laws gets passed by Congress.

Speaking on MSNBC, Bloomberg said it's not enough for Obama just to say something needs to be done. Instead he offered blunt advice on the nature of being an executive. He said the president, even before gun legislation is proposed or approved, could act immediately to crack down on rogue gun dealers and people who lie on gun applications. “We always have an agreement that something needs to be done, that’s a cover for nothing,” Bloomberg said on "Morning Joe." “Number one, it’s the president’s job to promote a plan that satisfies the needs of the country. He is the Commander-in-Chief – he’s the Consoler-in-Chief – but he’s the Commander-in-Chief. Whether the legislation that he proposes gets passed or not, that shouldn’t be his first consideration.”

Bloomberg, the co-chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has emerged as one of the foremost advocates of stricter gun laws in the wake  of last week's rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Bloomberg argued that regardless of whether a proposal from the president had a chance of becoming law, it was Obama’s duty to get something out there.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the realities of getting things through Congress, I’m not unsympathetic to the fact that the press calls an elected official a failure if their legislation doesn’t get passed,” he continued.
“But you have to stop and think — what’s the difference between a legislator and an executive? A legislator’s job is to sort of split the baby … make sure everybody gets something. That’s not an executive’s job. The executive says, ‘this is what we’re going to do’ and then convinces people to come along. Leads from the front and not from the back.”

Specifically, Bloomberg pointed to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has been without a director for six years, and said Obama should fill the slot in a recess appointment if Congress threatened to block a potential nominee. He also said the federal government should go after rogue gun dealers, and should prosecute those who lie on gun applications.

On Sunday, President Obama gave a personal and emotional speech in Newtown at an interfaith vigil for friends and families of the victims. The president didn’t specifically call for new gun-control legislation, but signaled he would support an effort pledged by Democratic lawmakers to restrict the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity clips of ammunition.

“In the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement, mental health professionals to parents and educators in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” Obama said.

On Monday, the White House looked to mobilize public support for the president’s efforts by using the Obama campaign’s email list, sending supporters a message directing them to a video of the president’s speech.

In the email, senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod called on supporters to “consider how each of us can play a part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little children.”

Also on Monday, the president directed Vice President Joe Biden to lead members of the Cabinet in proposing measures to help reduce gun violence.

Here is Don Lemon on guns and my letter to President Obama on gun control


Here is Don Lemon on guns:




I sent and e-mail to President Obama about Don Lemon.....

Dear President Obama:  I think you may know Don Lemon from CNN.  I admire him very much.  I am sending you a link about his thoughts on gun control.  I do not like guns and I do not want to ever carry a gun.  I think you are doing a very, very good job, particularly on health care which is a difficult problem--health care should be a right of everyone but then the problem is paying for it--not putting the cost to a business or raising taxes.  I have written about you in my blog, The Ronnie Republic, many times...Ronnie is my dog.   Good luck to you and keep up the good work.   chloe louise
http://theronnierepublic.blogspot.com/2012/12/hee-is-don-lemon-on-guns.html

e-mail to President Obama........this is the e-mail form on the White House website...it is very easy to use if you want to send a message to President Obama.

Dec 17, 2012

“Killing Kennedy”: Bill O’Reilly wimps out




“Killing Kennedy”: Bill O’Reilly wimps out

Believe it or not: Bill O'Reilly once showed guts reporting on JFK. His new insta-history shows a bulldog gone weak

Commentator Bill O'Reilly checks himself out before an interview at the Republican National Convention. (Credit: Reuters/Lisa Miller)
Once upon a time, Bill O’Reilly had balls when it came to investigating the Kennedy assassination. Back in 1991 — as a reporter for the tabloid TV news show, “Inside Edition” – O’Reilly had the guts to track the epic crime all the way into the dark labyrinth of the CIA. Following up on the important work done by investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late ‘70s, O’Reilly boldly told his “Inside Edition” audience that there were “crucial” links between alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the CIA. O’Reilly also reported that the CIA had infiltrated the office of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who brought the only criminal case in the JFK assassination to trial, in an effort to sabotage Garrison’s investigation.
That was then – when O’Reilly was a scrappy reporter for low-budget syndicated TV. But now, of course, he’s BILL O’REILLY – Fox News icon, a lavishly paid centerpiece of the Murdoch empire. Everything he says   – every windy pontification and dyspeptic remark – is writ LARGE. He can no longer afford to have the courage of his suspicions. In O’Reilly’s new ideological mold, the CIA is not the incubator of an unspeakable crime against American democracy – it’s the defender of the greatest nation in the world.
And so we have the Fox News star’s latest instant bestseller, “Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot,” co-written by Martin Dugard, who collaborated with O’Reilly on his earlier runaway success, “Killing Lincoln.” There is almost nothing in this Kennedy for Beginners book that indicates O’Reilly once did some original research on this murky and still deeply haunting subject. Most of this surprisingly dumbed-down book is a biographical rehash of the Kennedy story that will contain nothing new for even casual readers of People magazine and viewers of Kennedy soap opera biopics over the years. Once again, we get the story of JFK’s PT-109 heroics in the South Pacific; the lurid tales of Jack’s womanizing and Jackie’s anguish; the requisite cameos of Sinatra, Marilyn and the Mob; the familiar snapshots of a deeply disgruntled Lyndon Johnson, continually humiliated by the Kennedy brothers and their elite Harvard crowd. None of this is worth the book’s $28 price of admission.
When it comes to the assassination of President Kennedy, these days Bill O’Reilly embraces the lone nut theory, pinning sole blame on Lee Harvey Oswald. But his case against Oswald is feeble, and he’s obviously still haunted by the suspicions of the younger, freer Bill O’Reilly. In “Killing Kennedy,” he can’t help returning to those earlier suspicions, in fleeting moments of the book, as if darting a tongue at a nagging tooth.
O’Reilly floats the name Allen Dulles, the CIA spymaster who became deeply embittered toward Kennedy when the president fired him in the wake of the spy agency’s disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He also throws out the name Curtis LeMay, the Strangelovian Air Force chief who was willing to risk doomsday by launching preemptive nuclear attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union – and who considered JFK weak for putting the brakes on the military. And he considers the Mafia, whose godfathers expected lenient treatment from the Kennedy administration, after their cozy relationship with family patriarch Joe Kennedy, but instead came under relentless pressure from the morally fervent young attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy.
But, in the end, O’Reilly returns to the safe path, following the hapless young ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald on his trail toward infamy. O’Reilly cuts back and forth between the JFK story line and Oswald’s. If his portrayal of Kennedy is at least reassuringly conventional, his portrait of the accused assassin is hopelessly muddled and confusing. O’Reilly tries to make a case for Oswald as a “crack shot,” a man supposedly capable of pulling off the magical act of marksmanship in Dealey Plaza. But then he acknowledges that Oswald couldn’t even hit an easy sitting target, when he allegedly took an errant shot at former Army general Edwin Walker, while the reactionary military man was huddled over his taxes in his Dallas home.
O’Reilly seems intent on building a profile of Oswald as a bitter loser who resented JFK for everything from his sex appeal to his war on Castro’s Cuba. But, in the end, O’Reilly – who employs a weird use of the present tense that is more corny than dramatic — concedes that “Oswald does not hate the president … in fact, Oswald would very much like to emulate JFK.” O’Reilly observes that Oswald was so smitten by Kennedy that he checked out JFK biographies and the president’s bestseller, “Profiles in Courage,” from the New Orleans Public Library.
Predictably, O’Reilly then makes a stab at tying Oswald into a vague communist plot. “Castro definitely wants [Kennedy] dead,” he flatly asserts, without offering a shred of evidence. In fact, in the months before the president’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was sending out peace feelers to the Cuban leader, to the great alarm of Washington national security hard-liners when they found out. As news of JFK’s violent death reached Havana, a deeply unnerved Castro blurted out, “Everything is changed,” according to a French journalist who was interviewing him at the time. Castro predicted that the post-Kennedy U.S. government would make life much tougher for him.
In the end, O’Reilly is at a loss to explain Lee Harvey Oswald. The Fox News anchor is clearly unsettled by the fact that Oswald never proudly took credit for the assassination, as do most slayers of kings and presidents, including John Wilkes Booth (“Sic semper tyrannis!”), the villain of his last book. In contrast, Oswald proclaimed his innocence to the end, shouting out to reporters in the Dallas police station, “I’m just a patsy!” O’Reilly finds the remark “tantalizing,” but does nothing to follow it up.
O’Reilly continues to be intrigued by a key player in the Oswald story, an elegant, White Russian, globetrotting oilman named George de Mohrenschildt.  In his new book, O’Reilly writes that de Mohrenschildt “may have CIA connections.” But back in his “Inside Edition” days, the TV newsman was more definitive, calling him “a crucial link between the CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald.” In fact, de Mohrenschildt was a CIA contract agent with long family ties to Allen Dulles – the man who perhaps looms largest in the Kennedy assassination drama. Even after he was fired by JFK as CIA director in 1961, Dulles continued to play a subterranean role in U.S. intelligence that was unknown by Kennedy. And following the assassination, Dulles took the dominating role in the Warren Commission investigation, carefully guiding the panel away from CIA-related areas he found too sensitive.
Many Kennedy assassination researchers have concluded that de Mohrenschildt acted as Oswald’s CIA “baby sitter,” when the young man returned to Texas from the Soviet Union, after a “defection” that observers in the U.S. embassy in Moscow found oddly “staged.” Later, de Mohrenschildt introduced Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina, to another young Dallas couple, Michael and Ruth Paine, whose family also had deep personal and business connections to Dulles. It was Ruth Paine who would find Oswald his job in the Texas Book Depository a month before the gunfire erupted in Dealey Plaza.
O’Reilly waits until the end of the book to break his only bit of news. In the afterword, he reveals that in March 1977, as a young TV reporter, he tracked de Mohrenschildt to a home in swanky Palm Beach, Fla., and was knocking on the door to interview him when a shotgun blast exploded inside. Authorities later declared that the mysterious de Mohrennschildt, who had been subpoenaed to testify by the House Assassinations Committee and was a figure of growing interest in the JFK case, had taken his own life. But some assassination researchers who looked into de Mohrenschildt’s death, like attorney Mark Lane, insisted that the former CIA asset had been silenced because he knew too much. Again, Bill O’Reilly – the tough guy who prides himself on his bulldog news instincts – leaves this story dangling. He has nothing new to add to this perplexing Kennedy footnote.
In a reader’s note that prefaces “Killing Kennedy,” O’Reilly comments that the tragedy of John F. Kennedy is “somewhat personal for me … my Irish-Catholic family had deep emotional ties to the young president and his family.” But there is nothing to indicate the tribal toughness of the Irish in this weak and limp effort. O’Reilly’s book simply exploits the public’s powerful curiosity about the assassination without offering any fresh insights into the monumental crime. With friends of the Kennedy family like Bill O’Reilly, who needs enemies?
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David Talbot Salon founder David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years,” and most recently, “Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love.”