Your Life as a Pop Song

It was such a beautiful afternoon in the park, with almost everything blooming, or beginning to, and I practically had the place to myself. There were redbuds, cherry trees, lilacs, viburnum, tulips, and--on the road leading up to the parking lot--a whole bank of daffodils. Although spring came early this year, it has backtracked a little, so that although everything looks like Easter, the air is chilly. Skies were cloudy this afternoon and threatened rain, and I was wearing my down jacket, but still, I have to say, it was lovely in the arboretum. I hummed a couple of show tunes from My Fair Lady.

I guess the big news this week is the Panama Papers, which could even turn out to be the story of the year. Those who worked on the investigation dubbed it the Prometheus project, which seems to acknowledge their sense of its importance. Prometheus, of course, was the god who gave the gift of fire to humanity and then had hell to pay for it from the other gods. I was thinking about that as I walked around this afternoon.

The first thing I noticed about the initial list of countries whose leaders were named was that it didn't include the United States. I'm just not sure that's going to hold up. I was glad to see a couple of U.S. senators calling for the Treasury Department to investigate possible links between U.S. entities and the Mossack Fonseca law firm. Interesting that they didn't seem to feel that the Justice Department probe, which has already begun, was enough--and I suppose they have their reasons. In a letter to the Treasury secretary, they cited the need to investigate individuals or entities with possible links to terrorism or money laundering who may be sanctioned by the Treasury Department. It sounded to me like they had something in mind already.

People sometimes talk about American exceptionalism and America's place in the world as if wrongdoing is something that only happens in other places, but don't you think that people in China, Russia, and other places sometimes shake their heads about things they hear about us? The thing about exceptionalism is that you actually have to be exceptional, not just say you are. It's one thing to live by your principles and another to get by on your looks. When it comes to the heroes and villains of this piece, we may all be surprised. It's also true that some of the people whose names are being thrown around now may end up being exonerated.

I was interested to see the list of news organizations involved in the project and noted that although the McClatchy newspapers were included, others, such as The New York Times, weren't. In my experience as a consumer of news, there do seem to be biases evident in the reporting of many major news sources, including The New York Times. There are people I wouldn't trust with sensitive information, especially in light of the fact that free press in America hasn't thrived under the last two administrations, making any investigative reporting that could expose American players very risky. (The U.S. is ranked 49th in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, a poor showing for a country that should be at the top.)

I think you get a mix of good and bad reporting across the entire range of media, and I wouldn't necessarily exclude McClatchy, the BBC, or anyone else from biased reporting. Perhaps the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had a sense of which reporters it could trust, or perhaps part of the project was a test to find out. I'd be surprised, too, if attempts hadn't been made to hack the ICIJ servers, which could in itself be revealing. It will probably take this story some time to unwind, and there are undoubtedly many revelations ahead.

Well, that's a pretty heavy topic for an April day, so maybe I should end this post on a lighter note. I hope this isn't too awkward a segue, but I wrote about politics last week, and I've been thinking a lot about the personalities of the presidential candidates. I had some fun trying to pick a song that I associate with each of the five remaining in the race and imagining myself as the campaign manager who decides what gets played as the candidate bounces onstage (a whimsical thought--no campaign manager would ever select some of these songs). None of them are from My Fair Lady, but that doesn't mean anything. I had second thoughts about one or two of them, but I think I'm going to go with my first choice, because you can overthink these things.

Are you on the edge of your seat? Oh, come on, you know you totally are. Here it is, just for fun, as an antidote to the Panama Papers--Your Life as a Pop Song.

Donald Trump: The Eagles--"Take It Easy"

Ted Cruz: Peter Gabriel--"Sledgehammer"

John Kasich: Paul Simon--"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"

Hillary Clinton: Paul McCartney & Wings--"Live and Let Die"

Bernie Sanders: Steve Miller Band--"The Joker"