'Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1' is what it is: 'Whistler's Mother'––and motherhood drawn large

 By Tom Siebert 

“Whistler’s Mother” is a colloquialism for Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, a painting in oils on canvas created by American-born artist James McNeil Whistler in 1871. The work was lukewarmly received, forcing the artist to pawn the painting. But it was eventually acquired by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and later acclaimed worldwide as a masterpiece. However, the artist always insisted that the painting should be viewed not as an affectionate portrait but as a groundbreaking configuration of earth-tone colors. “To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public do to care about the identity of the portrait?” he asked. My answer across the ages came after seeing the painting in person at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first time the American icon had been displayed in the U.S. since 1954. Whistler’s magnum opus is more about motherhood than Mother Earth.

Bunning's deficit spending protest was pitch perfect

By Tom Siebert

When Jim Bunning was pitching a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies on Father's Day, 1964, he called his catcher Gus Triandos out to the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning. Just wanting a breather, the pitcher said to the catcher: "Tell me a joke."

Well, the senator from Kentucky may now be a national joke himself, but his pitch was still perfect when he filibustered the extension of unemployment benefits. Yes, Bunning would have more credibility if he had similarly blocked the off-the-books Bush tax cuts as well as the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Bunning's talk today is as straight as a low line drive: The United States is going bankrupt because of staggering spending. I may be a lefty, but I have to admit that old right-hander was right this time. And by the way, did you know that you can collect 99 weeks of unemployment benefits? It almost makes me want to get fired from my two jobs.

March 12, 2010 South Florida Sun-Sentinel 

Prodigal Father

By Tom Siebert

Staff Writer 

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

 

May 7, 1989

FIRST FATHER, FIRST DAUGHTER. By Maureen Reagan. Little, Brown and Co. 415 pages. $19.95.

As president, Ronald Reagan was able to skillfully stage-manage an early exit from each of his administration`s major disaster scenes: the recession of 1982-83, the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, and the still-unraveling Iran-Contra caper of 1986.

But the most popular president of modern times has been decidedly less adroit at walking away unscathed from the inadvertent attacks leveled at him by his own offspring. First, there was Patti Davis` roman a clef about a reactionary governor (guess who?) and his rebellious anti-war daughter. Then, adopted son Michael Reagan wrote painfully about his troubled childhood.

Now comes "First Father, First Daughter," Maureen Reagan`s deeply affectionate memoir that unwittingly chips away a bit more of her father`s fabled Teflon.

Born in 1941 to Warner Bros. featured players Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan, Maureen spent her early years in storybook Hollywood fashion, with movie stars in the living room and dinner every night at the famed Brown Derby. But when her parents divorced at the time she was 7, Maureen journeyed off on a lonely odyssey that would come to a happy ending only after her father was elected president and she would take up temporary quarters in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

Along the way, we learn that many years before he became a disengaged president, Ronald Reagan was a disengaged father -- like when 19-year-old Maureen discovers that Patti, then 8, does not yet know that they are sisters.

"Well, we just haven`t gotten that far yet," Dad explains, in the same aw- shucks fashion that he would later use to convince an entire nation that a $200-billion budget deficit was small potatoes.

The sticky issue of whose kids were whose would come up again during her father`s 1966 gubernatorial campaign. Maureen, about to introduce the candidate at a political fund-raiser, notices that the biography she is preparing to read pointedly avoids her father`s remarriage, stating, "Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, have two children, Patti and Ronnie."

But Maureen is completely forgiving, fiercely loyal and a staunch defender of her father`s policies and actions. Most of the time, she simply blames her dad`s aides for his shortcomings.

She cattily tells of her long-running feud with one of them, Michael Deaver, whom she accuses of denying her access to the Oval Office. And much of the blame for Iran-Contra is placed squarely on ex-chief of staff Donald Regan, in Maureen`s eyes ``the prime minister`` who practically attempted a bloodless coup of the Reagan White House before his messy resignation in 1987.

The president`s political enemies became Maureen`s bitter foes. She labels Democrats Joseph Biden, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy as ``three of the least reputable`` members of the Senate who had no business questioning the judicial credentials of former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

But when Maureen sets partisan politics aside, she can be an instructive critic of the American scene, as when she asks why the networks kept replaying ``that awful scene`` of her father and three others being shot by John W. Hinckley Jr. in March 1981.

And by far the most moving chapter of the book is the one in which Maureen courageously recounts for the first time her tragic first marriage to a Washington police officer, who repeatedly abused and battered her during their year together.

During his eight years in office, the president was fond of calling his eldest daughter ``the best politician in the family.`` That fact, coupled with Maureen`s insider role at many of the important political events of the 1980s, makes "First Father, First Daughter" an important piece in the newly forming mosaic upon which the history of the Reagan years will be cast and recast.