HALLI CASSER-JAYNE - bio
RED, WHITE 'N TRUE™
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GRAND OLD FLAG
Posted, August 15, 2008,  12:01 p.m
    

Call me old fashioned, call me a sentimental, call me whatever…I’ve been called worse. But I love the song, You’re a Grand Old Flag. La la la la la, "you’re a grand old flag you’re a high flyin’ flag and forever in peace will you wave.”

OK, enuf. I was nine years old, I had the WORST case of the measles, and was bedridden for six weeks. And for six weeks I lay in bed, my itchy little speckled face peaking from beneath the covers focused on the TV and the Million Dollar Movie on New York’s WOR-TV Channel 9, that played day and night, and night day, that movie of all movies, Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Oh, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, hoofers or movies. And they sure don’t write patriotic songs like that anymore. Heck, they don’t write great songs anymore, but that’s another column.

You’re a Grand Old Flag was written by George M. Cohan for his 1906 stage musical, George Washington Jr. and it was a hit for Cohan though the critics didn’t think very highly of that play or any of Cohan’s work equating it to lowly vaudeville, the world from which Cohan’s talent emerged.

If writer’s write best about what they know, than it’s easy to understand George M. Cohan’s success. Cohan was a true patriot, the son of a Civil War veteran, his father an Irishman by birth and the recipient of the American dream who taught his son the love of country.

Cohan would share his patriotism with America wanting his fellow citizens to enjoy his love of country. A pure nationalist, his songs would be instrumental in preparing the nation for the battles of World War I. Cohan was the quintessential American songwriter who today would probably have been a huge failure.

These days, the few patriotic songs that make it to the top of the charts are often born not out of love for country, but disappointment.

Speaking of disappointment; it is true that much ails America but much is good. Sadly, these days American’s tend to see the glass as half-empty rather than full. There’s a malaise that has overtaken Americans and it began long before the price of gas sky-rocketed, the worth of our homes plummeted and the cost of food became untenable, even before the atrocity of 9/11.

But what ails us pales in comparison to what is going on in Georgia. Today, in disgust, Americans' watch Georgia defend herself against the Russian army. Some of us remember the ways of the Soviets and this latest move against a sovereign nation tells us that much has changed in the world, but much hasn’t.

Yesterday’s headline in America’s papers was the story of the war in Georgia, and also the story of the peace accord arrived at it in the Democratic Party. After months of ignoring the discontent among Hillary Clinton’s supporters, presumptive nominee Barack Obama finally came to his senses and realized that without honoring Senator Clinton’s historic campaign and allowing her name to be placed in nomination, there would be no unity in the Democratic Party. A joint statement was issued by Clinton and Obama in which Obama was quoted:

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion."

Long overdue, one wonders if this last minute effort by the Obama Camp will do the trick. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but one can only imagine had this statement been made six weeks ago before the wounds were allowed to fester if the effect of such a statement would have proven more dramatic.

As it stands today, however, it appears that even this grand gesture by Obama will not be enough to unify. Today’s papers and blogs are not filled with Kumbaya, but instead with threats to both Clinton and those Democrats, her supporters, who despite Obama’s efforts still might choose not to vote for the Democratic nominee this year.

In Salon, Joe Conason warns Clinton to abandon her “persistent shadow campaign” and to give some careful thought for what’s best for her country.

Taylor Marsh of the blog of that same name wrote, “For a very long time I've been extremely concerned by the acrimony and what it would do to Senator Clinton going forward. There is nothing in it for her when her recalcitrant Hillraisers and other supporters whisper dire predictions about Obama in November, or threaten to hold back their support for Obama because they're upset about what happened in the primaries or because they think Obama cannot win.”

Both Joe Conason and Taylor Marsh are partisans, Democrats to the core who place party over country. Their talk reminds me of the stuff you hear out of the renewed imperialist Russia. Since when in America, as Cohan wrote,” the home of the free and the brave,” do we belittle and even threaten those whose opinions are different from our own? Is not voting party over country the stuff that created Bolshevik Russia or Nazi Germany?

When Cohan’s George Washington Jr. made its Broadway debut one of the more interesting exchanges in theater history began between Life Magazine reviewer James Metcalfe and Cohan.

Mr. Metcalf wrote: “Mr. Cohan's personality and accomplishments are quite worth notice . . . consisting mainly of several bars of well-known patriotic or sentimental songs strung together with connecting links of lively and more or less original musical trash . . . mawkish appeals to the cheapest kind of patriotism. "George Washington, Jr." is a fair example of his playwriting . . . Mr. Cohan is not to be blamed. In fact, from the American viewpoint that moneymaking is the test of real success, he is highly to be commended as a successful American. If he can bring himself to coin the American flag and national heroes into box-office receipts, it is not his blame, but our shame . . . "Life" recommends its readers to go to see Mr. Cohan's performance. There could be no stronger appeal for the betterment of the American stage - no fiercer commentary on the debased condition of the intelligence of a large part of the theatre-going public."

Cohan responded to Metcalfe, as was his way, on the 4th of July 1906 in The Spot Light.

“I write my own songs because I write better songs than anyone else I know of. I publish these songs because they bring greater royalties than any other class of music sold in this country. I write my own plays because I have not yet seen or read plays from the pens of other authors that seem as good as the plays I write. I produce my own plays because I think I'm as good a theatrical manager as any other man in this line. I dance because I know I'm the best dancer in the country. I sing because I can sing my own songs better than any other man on the stage. . . . I write these little stories because I think I write them better than other writers of stories. I play leading parts in most of my plays because I think I'm the best actor available. I pay myself the biggest salary ever paid a song and dance comedian because I know I deserve it. But believe me, kind reader, when I say, I am not an egotist."

An amusing response to a critic of Mr. Cohan’s, but Mr. Cohan’s talent allowed the reader to be amused.

The egotism in the Democratic Party is not so amusing. Only an egotist would think he or she knows what’s best for someone else to do let alone presume to know what’s behind another’s vote. The right to dissent is the American way.

It is not the disappointment of the Hillraiser’s that is the sole cause of dissent in the Democratic Party. Instead, it is this egotism on the part of the Obama Campaign and its surrogates old and new that is responsible for the current rift. And egotism unchecked may just be the reason why, despite grand old gestures come lately, some might never feel comfortable voting for Barack Obama.

“Ev'ry heart beats true
'neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there's never a boast or brag.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.”
 -George M. Cohan from It's a Grand Old Flag