Now that I’m finally back down to my playing weight, I can tell on myself: I was a bad boy on Thanksgiving. To steal a couple of my own (old) jokes, the way I ate, I was lucky the universe was expanding. They say no man is an island, but I came close. It was sheer gluttony!

Of course, what I ate was a mere snack compared to what I devoured at the Thanksgiving dinners of my youth. But that was then and this is now.

Gluttony is defined by the dictionary as “excessive eating and drinking.” But, metaphorically speaking, just about anything one does in excess is gluttonous.

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Back in the early eighties, when I was publishing my newsletter The Tortoise Report, the thought crossed my mind that the crumbling U.S. empire might find itself breaking up into smaller pieces — as Rome and the British Empire did.

When it comes to ruling over people, even I agree that bigness is bad. The most recent example of this is the former Soviet Union. With its satellite countries biting at its ankles at an accelerating pace and its troops bogged down in Afghanistan, the bitter truth finally came to the surface: With all its military might, the thugs in Moscow couldn’t control the disintegration of their “Union.”

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What got me thinking about my interview with Ted Koppel on ABC News Nightline many years ago was watching how Sarah Palin was sandbagged by the media throughout the presidential campaign — particularly when her cerebrally deficient handlers threw her to the media wolves: Charlie and Katie.

Charlie Gibson’s now-famous question — “Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?” — tongue-tied Sarah Palin for a second. And well it should have, because it was based on a false premise! Alert the media: There is no such a thing as the “Bush Doctrine.” The so-called Bush Doctrine can be just about anything you want it to be. There was no reason for the question other than to make Palin look bad. Why play games?

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My, how time does fly. It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly twenty-five years since my first and only appearance on ABC News Nightline. I must confess that my memories of that show do not bring tears of joy to my eyes. Tears, maybe … but joy? Not so much.

The producer of ABC News Nightline called me one day out of the blue and said he would like to do a show on “fear in the workplace.” He had already lined up Harold Geneen, former chairman of IT&T, and a psychiatrist from Wharton to be two of the guests. He said that because my name was “synonymous with intimidation,” he felt I would be the ideal person to round out the program.

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