Michael Medved - Right Turns: Unconventional Lessons from a Controversial Life

CONTENTS

For David Bernard Medved, My Mentor, My Hero, My Protector, My Dad
and for Diane, My Partnerin Everything

I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for meand I think for all of usnot only our own hope, but Americas everlasting, living dream.

Thomas Wolfe, You Cant Go Home Again

May it be Your will, Lord our God and the God of our forefathers, that you inaugurate this month upon us for goodness and blessing. May You give us long lifea life of peace, a life of goodness, a life of blessing, a life of sustenance, a life of physical health, a life in which there is fear of heaven and fear of sin, a life in which there is no shame nor humiliation, a life of wealth and honor, a life in which we will have love of Torah and fear of heaven, a life in which our heartfelt requests will be fulfilled for the good. Amen, Selah.

Blessing of the New Month, traditional Jewish prayer book

A Cornucopia of Contradictions

An enraged caller to my talk radio show recently denounced me as the rankest hypocrite in the country.

Youre the biggest phony in the whole United States! he bellowed. Youre always attacking Hollywood for turning out such crap, but you get rich telling people about movies. You brag about how you dont own a TV, and you tell everybody else to turn off the tube, but you had your own show for years and you show up on television all the time. Youre a coward and a right-wing blowhard who wants to go to war all over the place, but when you had a real chance to serve your country in Vietnam, you figured out a way to get out of the draft.

If the caller had paused in his explosion of invective I could have provided him with additional examples of contradictions in my life:

Im proud to identify as an observant Jew and served for fifteen years as president of an Orthodox congregation, but grew up spending the Sabbath on the beach or at movie matinees, and used to pursue a passionate search for Chinese restaurant buffets that offered the tastiest possible sweet-and-sour pork.

Im an unapologetic Jewish nationalist with close family members (my father and brother) who have chosen to make their lives in Israel, but for twenty years Ive worked most closely in my career and political endeavors with fervent evangelical Christians and traditionalist Catholics.

I wrote my first best-seller about growing up in the 60s and earned press designation (in my twenties) as Bard of the Baby Boom Generation, but more recently Ive expressed impassioned contempt for that generation and all its works.

I have spoken for years about the importance of traditional approaches to the institution of marriage, emphasizing common values over fleeting chemistry, judging potential relationships with your head as well as your heart; but then at age thirty-four, I went to the beach one weekday afternoon in Santa Monica, California, met a gorgeous blonde in a bikini while body-surfingand married her sixteen months later.

The blonde turned out to be a clinical psychologist, and later the author of controversial, conservative books like The Case Against Divorce. Like her, I rail against the Divorce Industrial Complex and denounce the myth (yes, it is a myth) of a 50 percent divorce rate, but my wife and I both went through divorces before our marriage, and my own parents divorced after twenty-eight years together.

Im an outspoken conservative on both political and cultural issues, and I could broadcast my radio show from anywhere, but in my forties I made a conscious choice to make my life and raise my kids in Seattleone of Americas most notoriously liberal and flamboyantly freewheeling metropolitan areas.

I despise smoking of all kinds, Ive never owned a gun, I hate the idea of hunting, and Ive been a tender-hearted vegetarian for many yearsand yet I resent the self-righteous fanaticism of antismoking fanatics, oppose new gun control initiatives, enthusiastically support the idea of widespread fire arms ownership, and think that the modern animal rights movement is both insane and dangerous.

Like many other worried parents in the throes of middle age, I want our three children to honor consistently conservative and sensible approaches to politics and personal life, despite the fact that both Diane and I indulged in our own youthful adventures with messianic leftism.

In a sense, the contradictions in my life might count as common, reflecting the tortured progress and belated maturation of an entire generation. Even George W. Bush, another currently conservative son of the wild and woolly 60s (and my erstwhile college classmate), admits that when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid. Unlike Mr. Bush, however, Im eager to talk about the young and stupid partbecause Im convinced that these recollections help make the case for the worldview I advance today. My experience suggests that theres a core of integrity, even of inevitability, to my right turns.

After all, Im not the only one in the country to make the journey from skeptically secular to intently religious, from adventurous single status to devoted and doting daddy, from a gloomy critic of our sick society to an optimistic and impassioned promoter of American patriotism, from idealistic and instinctive save-the-world liberalism to hard-headed and experience-based do-it-yourself conservatism.

I get the chance to clarify my ideas on pop culture and politics for three hours on the radio every day, with more than two million people a week (in more than 140 markets, coast to coast) participating in the conversation. My listeners know about my convictions and conclusions, but they dont know the story of how I reached them. The most common question I get in e-mails, letters, on-air phone calls, or from audiences at lectures Ive delivered in forty-eight states involves the story of my personal transition to Cultural Crusader. The answer doesnt fit into convenient sound bites; it requires this juicy book, teeming with contradictions and challenges, more than conclusions.

Beyond the frequently representative contradictions of my experience, Ive accumulated acquaintances, connections, and confrontations that can only count as eccentric, or even bizarre:

As a youthful, full-time campaign volunteer, I was present at Bobby Kennedys final victory party in Los Angelesand close enough to the assassination that the FBI questioned me repeatedly.

At two key turning points (separated by more than two decades), I received crucial and substantive advice from my friends Hillary Clinton... and Rush Limbaugh.

As a student of Americana, I hitchhiked twice from coast to coast across the United States, and on another occasion crossed Canada; by age twenty-three, Id carefully recorded some 82,000 miles as a hitchhiker.

During a brief but blazingly intense period, I assisted Barbra Streisand on movie projects and politics, while personally organizing (and leading) her sons Bar Mitzvah; shortly thereafter, I received a media award from President Reagan.

In front of Rupert Murdoch (and thensecretary of defense Dick Cheney), I played the dominant role in a media forum that was famously disrupted by a male stripperleading to the on-the-spot firing of the head of the Fox network.

Ive conducted long, intimate, confessional interviews with Peter Fonda, Dan Quayle, Bob Haldeman, Dennis Hopper, and Dick Cheney.