I WENT TO THE DFW NATIONAL CEMETERY  the other day. Amid the thousands of white gravestones, I found Good Dad’s flagpole. Sitting across from the visitor’s center. On a corner, of course, flapping hello and goodbye to everyone. In real life, Dad did the same, waving hello, making people laugh, helping them get on their way. I call it his flagpole because at the base there’s a plaque that gives the raw details of his life. It’s an honor to have your own flagpole at a veteran’s cemetery. But he deserves it. He was Air Force all the way.  I remember the first time I met him. . . .

. . . .Seventeen years ago. A Sunday afternoon. I cleared my throat, straightened my hair and knocked on the big wooden door of the stone house in Keller, Texas.

I had been dating his daughter Karen for two weeks. I had met her two children. I had met – with regrets – her Psycho Dog. I had even met Karen’s mother, Joan. I had met everyone except the man of this house, Karen’s father. But it was Karen’s birthday, and her parents had invited me to the family celebration.

There was a lot of pressure. Karen had told her parents that after only two weeks of dating me she knew this was the real deal.

So I knocked on the door and held my breath.

And this fellow opened the door.

He welcomed me inside his home.

He looked me dead in the eye and said something I’ll never forget. He knew I was Jewish, and he said, “Listen, I hope you don’t mind, but we eat pork here.”

I said, “I don’t mind.”

He said, “Good, because we’re having ribs tonight, and they say I make the best ribs.”

“No,” I said. “That’s fine. I’ll eat your ribs.”

But he wasn’t done.

“Listen, there’s something else,” he said. “I know you’re from New York, and I’m from New York, too. But that was a long time ago. And I want you to know that we’re Republicans in this household.”

You could tell he couldn’t wait to tell me that.

“OK,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Now that you understand. We eat pork, and we’re Republicans. So if you have a problem with that, just get over it!”

And then he laughed that big John Pasciutti laugh that you could hear all the way down the street.

And you know, I did get over it.

I got over it because I didn’t want to miss the fun.

And I got over it because I soon learned that I had just been granted the privilege of a lifetime – an opportunity to get to know and to love retired Air Force Maj. John L. Pasciutti, who would become one of the most important influences of my life.

I have changed so much in these past years, and probably the biggest reason is that I fell under the influence of this charismatic, principled, idealistic and wonderful man. My father-in-law taught me about American ideals and notions that previously were only book concepts. Dad was a career fighter pilot who had quit college to join Air Force cadet school. In hours of discussions and also in a life that he lived by example, he taught me the meaning of duty, honor and country.

I now regret that I never told Dad of the influence he had on me. But it’s too late. He died in April 2003 at age 65.

On the day of his funeral, after I delivered the eulogy, after the bagpiper played Amazing Grace, after Dad’s flag-draped casket was carried out to a waiting hearse, we traveled to Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. There, Dad’s body joined the waves of military gravesites marked by unending rows of tombstones dotting the hillsides.

We witnessed the missing-man formation, the military flyover in which one jet trails off from the others. We watched the somber folding of the flag. And we sobbed softly during the presentation of the flag to Joan Pasciutti, my mother-in-law. She accepted this final gift from her husband with a look of resignation that showed she always knew this dark moment was coming.

All those years during which Dad flew the skies and demonstrated his love of duty, honor and country made this moment a part of our family’s inevitable destiny.

John “Pashoot” Pasciutti in the cockpit

During the more than 20 years Dad and Mom served in the Air Force together, Mom always watched the chaplain’s van slowly cruising up and down her neighborhood streets. She prayed that it would never stop at their house.

After the gun salute, that flag finally came her way. An Air Force officer, clutching the flag near his heart, slowly marched toward her. He gently knelt at her feet, looked into her eyes and whispered the following:

“On behalf of the president of the United States, the Department of the Air Force and a grateful nation, it is a privilege and my honor to offer this flag for the faithful and dedicated service of your loved one. The personal sacrifices that he made and his contributions to the armed forces in times of peace and war helped to ensure freedom for America and for the world.”

Someone had tucked three bullet casings from the gun salute inside a fold of the flag. Those three casings represent duty, honor and country.

Until the day when I first knocked on the big door of that Keller home, those were concepts that I valued but never truly understood. In the years since, retired Air Force Maj. John L. Pasciutti – Dad – brought them to life for me. And in doing so, he changed me. He helped me become a better man, a better father, a better writer and a better American.

As Gen. Douglas MacArthur said in his legendary 1962 retirement speech at West Point:

Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. … I bid you farewell.

# # #

This story first appeared in The Dog of My Nightmares: Stories by Texas Columnist Dave Lieber.

His newest book, Bad Dad, is available at BadDadBook.com.

Read Chapter One of Bad Dad here.

Watch the Bad Dad video book trailer here.

What if your parenting…I mean all of your parenting…was consistently on display for all to see?

This means that everyone would get to see the “full you”…not just the you that’s all smiles and endless patients.

If you’re like me, there are moments when your “fathering” would more likely solicit furrowed brows of disappointment than cheers of approval.

Needless to say, we don’t always make the best decisions.

Although we may want to be super-hero parents, we’re mere fallible mortals that are prone to missteps…and often those missteps arise at the most inopportune times.

Take Dave Lieber for instance.

Reviewer Keagan Pearson

As the Watchdog columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dave is a guy that has made his bones uncovering injustices and giving a voice to those that normally wouldn’t have a platform to be heard.

It turns out that his profession has also earned him some detractors as well.

And that’s where the story gets really interesting.

A Bad Dad is Born

After recounting the circumstances that formed his M.O. in the small Texas town in which he lived, Dave’s new book…aptly named “Bad Dad“…builds the scene.

As he and his son sit in a McDonald’s restaurant eating some breakfast, his son, having inhaled his food, demands that Dave hurry up and finish so that they can leave.

Still being under the spell of a newspaper and a tasty cup of coffee, Dave tells his son that he wants to finish his coffee and then they can go.

Well, for Dave’s son the idea of waiting patiently proved too much for his 11-year old schedule. There were friends waiting to play, and that needed more attention than coffee.

After a few more demands, Dave decided to leave and let his son walk the few short blocks back to their home. Something that most of us would have probably considered under that same circumstance.

Unfortunately, by the time Dave cooled off and returned to get his boy, the cops had been called and a crowd had formed.

Finally, the guy that had rubbed so many officials the wrong way was now at the mercy of those same people.

The Ensuing Storm

Let’s just say that things got pretty crazy for Dave and his family after the incident.

This watchdog reporter all of a sudden got national attention, but not for his stellar reporting.

Instead, the news outlets and the correspondence sent to his paper were debating his ability as a father.

I probably shouldn’t have been shocked that there was such a big deal made out of such a small incident. Leave it up to our media to blow things out of proportion.

However, just like the media coverage, this book demands that you think through the actions that you might have taken in a similar situation.

Although I probably wouldn’t have left my child, Dave expertly gets you to consider the “questionable” things that you’ve done as a parent.

Unfortunately, Dave did something questionable in a town that was more than willing to exploit his indiscretion.

It makes me appreciate my relatively quiet existence.

A Style that Engages

Beyond the fact that the story itself is an engaging read, Dave’s journalistic style is fluid and biting.

As he bounces back and forth from the incident with his son to the stories that gained him notoriety, you get a very real sense of his tenacity and passion for writing.

You also get to see Dave come full circle as he finds himself as the story line instead of the storyteller.

You get to see Dave the “dad”, who genuinely seems to be a good father…despite the fact that so many try to label him otherwise.

Honestly, I saw myself in his story…minus the media attention.

Dave also used this book to reveal a very sad truth. If you want to punish your kids for their behavior, do it when nobody else is watching.

It is the world we live in, but Dave writes about it in a way that causes you to beware of it and embrace it all at once.

It’s a book that every dad should read…for the good, the bad, and the horribly intrusive.

# # #

For more from Dave Lieber, you can visit the book’s official site, Dave’s personal website, follow him on Twitter at @DaveLieber, or visit the book’s Facebook fan page.

   For the first time in a 27-year political career, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is about to lose an election. Here, maybe, is one reason why: there’s a certain unease in the man that covers an insecurity that causes him to inflate rather than temper. It’s just a gut feeling based on one little moment, a second I can’t get out of my mind all these years later.

   This is a story about how he had the chance to grin like a small dog with a big bone. But instead he got as tight as a 38 bra on a 44 frame. This is a story of Rick Perry’s youngest opponent.

   I write this not as a journalist, a columnist, a sometime political analyst. No, I write this as a dad who was having some fun, yes, admittedly a little at Rick Perry’s expense, for sure, but not that it really mattered. I never met a politician — and I’ve met ‘em by the thousands — who couldn’t laugh at a good joke. At least smile a bit. The good ones turn it back on you, make you the butt of your own joke. But then I never met anyone like Rick Perry who sells himself like Corny dogs at the State Fair.

   This all began when my youngest son, a proud native son of Texas, just like Perry, was 5 years old. The year was 2002. I was watching television with Austin. A Rick Perry commercial came on. He was running for his first full term of governor. An announcer said that his opponent, Tony Sanchez, laundered money through his bank. Another ad came on. This time, an announcer said Perry pocketed $1 million from the insurance industry. Neither charge was actually true. Enough already.

   At that moment, Austin turned to me and said, “I feel good, Daddy. I feel like a chicken.”

   This comment made no sense, but certainly it made more sense than anything the two candidates for Texas governor had said in their ugly campaigns against one another. The boy’s comment was more authentic and heartfelt than anything said in these political ads.

   Then it came to me. The best idea I had in years. Perry and Sanchez were conducting their campaigns like little children. As long as I had a little child myself, I figured, why not run him for governor?

   So Austin and I traveled to the Alamo. He wore a Texas flag shirt. I photographed him. Then a friend made several hundred campaign buttons that showed that picture and had these words: “Austin J. Lieber for Governor.”

   I wrote about the little jokey campaign in my newspaper column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I sold the buttons for $5 each for a charity I started in 1997 that has become one of North Texas’ largest children’s charities. It’s called Summer Santa. We sold 300 buttons, and with that $1,500, we sent a dozen area children in need to summer camps the next year who never would have gone.

   The campaign did better than I could have imagined. In one story for my paper, I quoted the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives — Pete Laney — commenting that he supported Austin for governor, or more accurately, the idea of it.

   Laney told me, “What I like about his candidacy is his first name because I have a grandson named Austin. Hopefully, he will be part of the generation that won’t succumb to the negative politics that’s going on now.

   “A lot of it is consultant-driven. It’s a lot easier for a paid consultant to say negative things than it is to say positive things. The neat thing about somebody like Austin is that in a campaign he would probably say what he thinks.”

   When I told the speaker that the idea began when Austin said, “I feel good, Daddy. I feel like a chicken,” Laney replied, “The honesty of a young man like this is what we all want in politics. If you do what you think is right for the system and you do what you think is right for your constituents, 99 times out of 100 the politics takes care of itself.”

   Surprisingly, the whole affair struck a nerve. Dozens of people, when they met Austin after the election, told him that they had voted for him as a write-in. Austin would look up, smile shyly and explain, “Aw, that was just a joke with me and my dad.” But voters were frustrated by all the negativity, just as they are today. Some of them really did vote for the 5-year-old. But when I called the county elections office to get a vote total, I was told that they didn’t bother counting write-in votes. Oh, well.

   This whole endeavor worked so well that four years later, in 2006, when Austin was 9, we did it one more time. This time we got sophisticated. We got our friend Chris Gomersall, a talented videographer, and made an actual campaign commercial. You can watch it here. I promise it will crack you up, especially the scenes from the TV debate.

   But now back to Perry. One time, in 2002, a few weeks before his election, I got a chance to tell him about this. We were in an elevator at Texas Motor Speedway. I had just interviewed him seriously for another story, which you can read about here. But then, when the elevator was about to open, I switched gears and said, “Governor, there’s something else I want to share with you. You have an opponent that you may not know about. For fun and for charity, my 5-year-old son is running for governor, too. Here’s one of his campaign buttons.”

   I whipped the button out of my pocket and handed it to Perry. He took a look at that little boy in that Texas flag shirt standing in front of the Alamo. Then he turned around so all I could see was the back of his head. His arm quickly popped back over his shoulder and he handed the button back to me. The elevator door opened, and he scooted out without saying a word.

   Maybe he was as angry as a preacher with the devil camped out in his backyard. But I wouldn’t know. I never saw his face. Only saw him charge out of that elevator into a ballroom filled with Texans.

   As I’ve said, I’ve met thousands of politicians in my lifetime. I’ve covered city councils and school boards, county officials and state leaders, congressmen and women, state legislators, even written a few stories from the White House. But I never met one who couldn’t look at something cute, something done for fun and make a little joke about it.

   In my mind, if that had been Perry’s predecessor, George W., whom I’ve met and liked, he would have smiled and said, “Mind if I take this home and show Laura? She might even want to vote for him.”

   But not so with our Gov. Perry, a man about to lose his first race, and maybe not his last.  

 # #  #

 Dave Lieber‘s newest book, Bad Dad, is a personal memoir that’s a true Texas thriller about parental responsibility, small-town corruption and the consequences of being a public figure. Read Chapter One here. Dave is The Watchdog columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. This appeared on his personal book blog.

Listen to the audio interview (15 minutes) here.

In his new book, the Star-T watchdog recounts a personal episode that led to global notoriety. Here’s a review that appeared in July 2011 at Fort Worth Weekly.

BY BETTY BRINK

Bad dad? Naaah. Frustrated dad? Angry dad? “I’m gonna teach this smart-mouth kid a lesson” dad? Oh, yes. Anyone who’s ever raised a child has been there. But “bad” Dave Lieber is not. By all accounts, Lieber is a really good dad. Goes to the games, listens, helps with homework, volunteers at the school, and spent his son’s first 18 months of life as a stay-at-home dad while mom went to work.

So how did the Watchdog columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, former metropolitan columnist for that paper, and one-time reporter for big-city East Coast dailies — who aimed to bring “New York-style journalism” to Texas — become public enemy No. 1 three years ago in Watauga?

Simple: by successfully bringing New York-style journalism to, if not the entire Lone Star State, then at least to the little suburb of about 22,000 souls just north of Fort Worth. Lieber’s early columns, published in the paper’s northeast edition, exposed corruption, ineptness, censorship, and embarrassing sexual scandals involving town leaders — including police chiefs, mayors, city council members, city managers, cops on the beat, and a powerful local preacher. No one was exempt from Lieber’s sharp eye and even sharper pen. Early on, one city manager called him in after a particularly embarrassing column and thundered at him, “Don’t you dare write another word about Watauga, Texas, without talking to me first! You hear that, son?” Lieber heard, but he didn’t heed.

 Then in the summer of 2008, Lieber found himself in a Kafkaesque world, charged with two felony counts of criminal negligence for “abandoning and endangering a child and abandoning a child with intent.” He damn near lost his job, his sanity, and his good name as the story spread from the police blotter in Watauga to the internet.

The child was his and wife Karen’s 11-year-old son, Austin James Lieber.

Hero or “bad dad,” this tale of Lieber’s travels through the criminal justice system as defined by the Watauga police department is a fascinating read, full of drama, humor, and pathos. But more than that, it is chilling. It shows just how the power of an inept and vindictive police department can turn one family’s life into a nightmare and scare the hell out of the accused, who had more than one moment of panic that he might lose his kids.

Lieber writes with a light touch, but the story he tells is heavy indeed.

Good grief, did he toss the boy in front of moving traffic? Lock him in a hot car for hours? Leave him at home alone to go out partying? Nope, nope, and nope. What Lieber did was nothing more than what untold numbers of parents have done over the years, including this writer: Tell a smart-alec kid to behave or walk home. Home was six blocks away in a quiet middle-class neighborhood.

Here’s the short version of the story: Lieber and Austin are having breakfast at a McDonald’s in Watauga not far from their home. Austin finishes and starts pressing dad to take him home. He wants to call his friends to come over and play. Dad is lingering over a just-poured cup of coffee and reading the paper. He tells son to sit down and be quiet. Son keeps up the nagging, getting louder. Dad loses temper, tells son he’s leaving and that the boy is going to have to walk home. Dad storms out. Boy runs after dad, yelling at him. Dad drives off, leaving son behind in the parking lot. “Shocked” observers call police. Dad cools off after a couple of blocks, comes back to pick up son. Too late. The cops are already there. The first cop says, “You’re Dave Lieber, aren’t you?”

Before long, the whole world knows about it. It may be the most publicized non-event in journalism history. Lieber got calls for interviews from all over the globe; his 10-minute angry outburst became the subject of newspaper articles, talk radio discussions, cable news network child-rearing experts’ opinions, and blogs, all weighing in on Lieber’s parenting skills. Was he a bad dad or a good dad? Is government interfering too much in parenting? Should prosecutors get involved in minor altercations between a parent and his/her kid?

Most parents were with Lieber, including Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids Movement, a group dedicated to allowing children to play by themselves without constant adult supervision. (She gained notoriety for letting her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway alone and was called “the worst mom in the world” by bloggers.)

As Lieber reveals in this book that is part confessional, part accusatory tirade, and part “Is this a nightmare and when will I wake up?,” his exposés played no small role in his travails. Before he became the daily paper’s aggressive Watchdog columnist, Lieber wrote about the dark side of Watauga politics. These columns are cleverly woven in and out of Bad Dad and remind this reviewer that, had Dave Lieber’s name been Joe Brown, the cops almost certainly would have told him to take his kid home and discipline him outside the public arena. Case closed.

But Lieber had written too many “bad cop” stories. So instead, the incident was referred to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office for prosecution, and soon enough Lieber was visited by two CPS caseworkers. Next came the call from the police chief — the fifth chief in the 15 years that Lieber had been living in the area — telling him of the felonies and suggesting he get a lawyer. He did. After turning himself in, being fingerprinted, having a mug shot taken, and being suspended from his job, Lieber waited for the next shoe to fall. It never did. Three weeks after Lieber stomped out of McDonald’s, the DA dropped the charges, saying that the facts didn’t rise to the level of a felony.

Lieber, a reporter and columnist for 30 years and a dad for about half that long, takes responsibility for his actions. In fact, in one of his columns he wrote that he was a “bad parent for punishing his kid in such a manner,” claiming that he could have exposed the boy to “grave danger.” That brought howls of protest from a couple of local writers, including Fort Worth Weekly’s Dan McGraw, who wholeheartedly supported Lieber’s decision to let his kid walk home as punishment. However, after Lieber’s mea culpa, McGraw wrote that if Lieber was going to be charged with anything, it was “abandoning his balls.” D Magazine’s editor Tim Rogers wrote, “What? No!! Don’t bend to the pressure, man. You’re a hero to fathers everywhere.”

# # #

Read the original review that appeared July 27, 2011 at Fort Worth Weekly’s website here. Get your autographed first edition copy of Bad Dad book here.

Listen to the audio file here: Not-So-Perfect-Radio-Show 7_24_11

The show is hosted by Paige McCoy Smith and co-host Jennifer Lanter. The show  is designed “to serve as a respite from our collective desire to per-fect the imperfect – by that we mean our husbands, our families, our culinary skills, our bodies, our kids, our in-laws, our wardrobe,” Smith says.

Bad Dad is a true-story Texas thriller. Dave Lieber is The Watchdog columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The new book is the story of how the Texas newspaper columnist chased after a police department for a dozen years. Then one day, after ordering his son to walk home from McDonald’s as a punishment, the investigative columnist watched as the same police department came after him.

Read Chapter One here.

Watch the video book trailer here.

Not-So-Perfect Radio show hosts Jennifer Lanter (left), author Dave Lieber and Paige McCoy Smith (right).

Images from the broadcast courtesy of WFAA.com

Host Chris Flanagan conducted the interview

Father and son prep for a family wedding.

In the above pic, Dave gives a Carol Burnett-like shoutout signal to his son Austin.

You can read Chapter One of Bad Dad here.

Buy the book here.

Here’s the 9-minute interview: Click Here.

Author Dave Lieber interviewed.

Buy the book here.

Not-So-Perfect Radio show hosts Jennifer Lanter (left), author Dave Lieber and Paige McCoy Smith (right).

   They are lively hosts. I know because I taped their show today for airing on Sunday at 7 a.m on July 24. Click here to listen to the audio > Not-So-Perfect-Radio-Show 7_24_11

   Their show theme for Sunday is this: If given the chance to take a do-over on an extraordinary moment in your life, would you do it?

   For me, the question pertained to my new book, Bad Dad, about how I ordered my son to walk home from our neighborhood McDonalds after he misbehaved, and ultimately I was charged with crimes of child abandonment and endangerment by a police department I had investigated and reported on in my newspaper for a dozen years. (I’m a longtime investigative columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.)

   Would I do that over?

   You’ll have to listen and find out, or read Bad Dad. Learn more at BadDadBook.com where you can read Chapter One of this true Texas thriller.

   Paige McCoy Smith is a television personality (she co-hosts Good Morning Texas on WFAA-TV), a columnist, and professional speaker on the not so perfect side of life. Jennifer Lanter describes herself on her @JenniferLanter Twitter page as “just a girl trying to save the world and look good doing it.”

His 9-year-old brother was “watching” him just feet away from me as I inspected the new cabinet. He began to roll his brother back and forth in the stroller making him giddy with delight…I told them to stop at least 6 times – they would knock something over in the crowded shop.

All of a sudden CRASH – BANG – GLASS SMASH – there goes a tall open curio stand and all of its wares! They both froze and were mortified. I took 2 stepstowards them and slapped them both hard across their faces. I will admit…it made a noise!

I hurriedly apologized to the manager and took my cabinet and left…shouting at them all the way about “I told you so….I told you to stop it…” About 30 feet away from the shop within the hallways of the mall – 2 local police officers asked me to stop and asked me for my ID. I was horrified. I knew why they were there.

The store manager had called – not to report the smashed items – but to report me for child abuse! They examined the kids faces – who were both crying now since they thought they were going to jail…and determined they were not hurt.

They asked me if I hit them with an open palm or a closed fist. I wanted to vomit. I looked at the cop and said…”Do you really think I punched my kid? Are you serious? Since when is it against the law to reprimand your child? He told me that’s how it is these days…no hitting allowed. Wow!

They let me go and told me they would have to file a report since they were called – but I wasn’t being arrested.

Maybe next time you might want to write a sequel to your book with the tales from other parents…will make for another interesting read. Thanks for sharing your family.