Losing the Race 5

For my blog post today about John McWhorter’s 2000 book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, I will use as my starting point a story that McWhorter tells on page 172.  The context is the controversy surrounding Proposition 209 in California, a measure that banned race-based admissions at public universities.  An anti-Proposition 209 organization at Berkeley was By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN.

“Indeed, it is difficult to avoid sensing at BAMN meetings, as well as in their literature and in conversations with their members, a yen for indignation rather than constructive engagement with the actual facts and positions surrounding university admissions and race.  Nothing indicated this more strongly than the organization’s treatment of a group committed to class-based, rather than race-based, admissions who tried to make a statement at one meeting.  The head repeatedly refused to allow the representative to speak, and when he finally managed to say his piece, predictably with a certain degree of exasperation at having been silenced for so long, she dismissed his position as ‘an attitude.’  This group’s ideas were considered beyond the pale not on any logical basis, but because class, an inchoate concept in America, is less easily harnessed into personal, identity-based grievance, and is thus only fitfully commensurate with Victimology.”

Here are some thoughts:

1.  This passage coincides with other themes that McWhorter discusses in this book.  McWhorter criticizes a trend that he sees among African-American spokespeople that he believes is knee-jerk rather than intellectually rigorous.  In addition, as I talked about a couple of posts ago, McWhorter argues that most African-Americans are not poor.  This influences his critique of affirmative action, for McWhorter points to statistics indicating that most African-American students admitted to Berkeley on the basis of race, under lower academic standards, are not from poor families.  Moreover, remember that scene in the West Wing in which President Bartlet’s conservative Supreme Court nominee, Christopher Mulready, is debating affirmative action with Charlie?  Charlie is defending affirmative action by saying that African-Americans have been historically discriminated against, and Mulready responds that Charlie’s argumentation is stuck in the past, that Charlie should instead focus on the fact that minorities admitted to universities under affirmative action actually perform competently in academics once they get into college.  Charlie wants a paper and pen so he can write that down!  In any case, McWhorter would probably disagree with Mulready on this, for McWhorter argues that a number of African-American students who got into Berkeley due to affirmative action did not do particularly well in academics once they are in college.

2.  I have heard African-Americans who have said that Martin Luther King, Jr. later in his life fought classism, and they appear to praise him for that.  Why would BAMN not be open to someone saying that admissions should be based on class rather than race?  I can somewhat see McWhorter’s point (if I understand it correctly) that it may be harder to organize a movement against classism.  Moreover, there was probably a concern within BAMN that America could go back to the days when African-Americans were not adequately represented within certain fields, such as medicine and law, and that race-based admissions were necessary to keep this from happening.

I’m in favor of everyone having a shot at a good life, regardless of class or race.  I question whether having colleges admit people under lower standards is the way to go, however.  It’s not that I believe that only the cream of the crop or the best academic performers should have a shot at life, but rather that I think that people should develop competency.  The goal should be to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to do this before they apply to college.  Unfortunately, we’re arguably a long way off from having a level playing field, when it comes to education in America.

Nixonland 11

On pages 739-740 of Nixonland, Rick Perlstein tells the following story about George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate:

“‘In a recent month,’ McGovern intoned in a radio ad, ‘a quarter of the wounded civilians in South Vietnam were children under twelve.  As we vote November seventh, let us think of Tanya and all the other defenseless children of the world.’  The candidate was howling, howling into the wilderness.  If he was going to lose, he would lose his way.”

Tanya was a twelve-year-old girl whom Richard Nixon mentioned in his 1972 acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention.  She lost her family in World War II, and Nixon exhorted, “Let us think of Tanya and the other Tanyas and their brothers and sisters everywhere—-in Russia, in China, in America, as we proudly meet our responsibilities for leadership in the world in a way worthy of a great people.” McGovern was turning Nixon’s reference to Tanya on its head: Sure, lets think of Tanya and people like her, but let us remember that defenseless people like her are being wounded due to the war in Vietnam.

I like what Perlstein says on pages 739-740 because it is about transforming a loss into an opportunity.  If McGovern was going down, he was going to go down making an important statement.  Granted, people were seeing him as a cliche of himself.  He himself was much more moderate than many believed him to be: he wasn’t in favor of drug legalization, abortion-on-demand, or many of the radical or controversial groups at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, but many people thought that he was, one reason being that a number of his prominent supporters had those stances.  When McGovern tried to explain that he wasn’t for putting half of the country on welfare whether the recipients wanted to work or not, but instead wanted for everyone to have a job, many did not believe him.  They thought he was flip-flopping.  McGovern was on the defensive and was trying to explain himself, and, as someone Perlstein mentions in the book asserted, when you’re explaining, you’re losing.  (Well, not always: there was Nixon’s Checkers Speech, and Arnold Vinick’s exhaustive response to reporters’ questions at the nuclear power plant on The West Wing!)

Maybe McGovern had been caricatured and his loss was certain.  But he was still going to make a clear statement.  He was still going to call out evil when he saw it.  He would appeal to people’s moral sensitivity.

President Nixon: Alone in the White House 18

On page 572 of President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Richard Reeves says the following:

"What America did not seem to want was the aid Nixon had pledged to Vietnam, both South and North, in the peace agreement...[E]ven J. William Fulbright said aid should not be considered until after impounded domestic funding was released by the President...[Newsweek] quoted a Republican leader in the Senate as saying privately: 'It won't wash.  How can a senator support cuts in hospital, flood and education spending at home and then vote money for the same thing in Hanoi?'"

The conflict between domestic and foreign policy has perplexed more than one Administration.  That Republican Senator wondered how a Senator could support cuts in government spending for hospital, flood, and education, while voting to increase spending on those very same things in Vietnam.  Well, more than one person asked during Hurricane Katrina how our government could get supplies so quickly and efficiently to Afghanistan, but not to people suffering from the effects of Katrina.  More than one person has asked how the U.S. Government under President George W. Bush could spend money on universal health care in Iraq (see here), while opposing the notion that health care is a right here in the U.S.  And Richard Nixon, in No More Vietnams, argues that President Lyndon Johnson held back from waging the Vietnam War aggressively because he was trying to safeguard his Great Society legacy.

Those who support spending money on programs abroad, while not supporting the spending of more money on similar programs at home, could perhaps argue that they're not supporting foreign aid programs just because they are nice people.  Rather, they're doing so because those other countries that they want to support have a strategic importance.  I'm not certain that they argue this, but I can imagine it.  Perhaps they would have a point about those countries' strategic or geopolitical significance, and yet I still can't help but ask: Why are certain programs acceptable for people in foreign countries, but not for people in the United States?

The thing is, do we have to choose between foreign aid and domestic programs?  There are times when we do feel that we have to choose.  I remember watching the West Wing, and President Jed Bartlet told Zoey's French boyfriend that the reason the U.S. does not spend as much money as France on domestic programs is because the U.S. is spending money protecting Europe!  Do we have to choose?  Well, if universal health care actually saves money, as some progressives like to argue, maybe we can have our cake and eat it, too.  I don't know.

President Nixon: Alone in the White House 9

On page 287 of President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Richard Reeves states:

"If that deficit spending would entice more private spending, by both corporations and consumers, then the Republican president was now ready to buy into the pump-priming theories of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist, patron saint of liberal economists and big-spending politicians.  But that did not change the fact that most of the men around him were still conservatives who had always seen inflation as the true devil."

When I read this, I thought about the West Wing episodes, "Memorial Day" (from Season 5) and "NSF Thurmont" (from Season 6).  In these episodes, President Jed Bartlett and his Chief-of-Staff, Leo McGarry, are on different pages on how to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In Bartlett's earlier days in the White House, Leo was his mentor when it came to foreign policy, for President Bartlett was not as experienced in that field.  By the end of Season 5, however, President Bartlett had his own ideas about the Middle East, and Leo recognized that it may have come to the point where President Bartlett might not value his counsel, for the two of them were on different pages.

This reportedly occurs in real life, too.  President George W. Bush supposedly relied on Vice-President Dick Cheney's counsel on foreign policy in the early days of his Administration, but it got to the point where the two of them diverged.  Cheney supported strikes on Syria, for example, whereas President Bush did not.  I've even read talk that Bush was briefly considering replacing Cheney with Senator Bill Frist!  On certain issues, Bush and Cheney were on different pages.

I read an article recently about how Christians become apostates (non-Christians).  One factor that the author mentioned is that the Christians surround themselves with non-believers, such as atheists or non-Christian Jews.  That may be a contributing factor, but I think that there are many cases in which it's the other way around: that a person becomes uncomfortable with the Christian faith, due to intellectual doubts or other factors, and that person then finds that he or she does not quite fit into the Christian community anymore.  That person then seeks out people who are on the same page.

On Listening to Christian Radio

In our church bulletin this morning, there was a flyer for a Christian radio station.  I used to listen to Christian radio a lot.  In the days when I did not have a television, it was what I would do at night or on days when I was home from school, while I was doing my homework.  To be honest, I don't have pleasant memories of listening to Christian radio.  I wouldn't say that my memories are unpleasant, but they're not pleasant, either! 

One reason that I listened to Christian radio was to learn more about the Bible.  But I don't feel that I learned a great deal about the Bible when I was listening to Christian radio.  Rather, I was listening to predictable evangelical spiels that I had heard repeatedly, some of them pretty kooky.

Another reason that I listened to Christian radio was to get inspiration.  The problem here is that Christian radio can be a mix.  Granted, one can listen to an affirming "God loves you" sort of message, or a message that offers practical insights on how to live life.  But one can also hear fear-mongering, legalistic messages.  In many cases, the same preacher can deliver both kinds of messages.  It's like he's using a carrot and a stick, or playing both good cop and bad cop.

The thing is, as I think back to the television shows that I would watch once I got television and watched it while doing my homework, I have largely positive memories.  I would watch The West Wing, Star Trek Voyager, Touched by an Angel, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and the list goes on.  I see those times as good times.

But, come to think of it, I have some good memories about Christian radio.  It's not so much on account of the preaching on it, though I do have a few good memories of that (i.e., the mornings when I would listen to Nancy DeMoss, before heading off to work).  Rather, I remember how I enjoyed listening to Christian pop music when I was driving to work.  I also remember with fondness Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey, which featured stories.  Maybe I like music and stories rather than pompous, know-it-all evangelical preachers talking at me through my radio! 

In any case, I kept the flyer, but I probably won't go back to listening to Christian radio.  I learn about the Bible from blogs, articles, books, and, well, the Bible itself.  And I get inspiration from books and television shows.  I don't want to go back to eating styrofoam or (worse) raw sewage, which is what listening to Christian radio could be like for me.

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 6

For my blog post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, I will highlight what Conrad Black says on pages 211-212 about Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for President in 1952.  Black mentions Stevenson's background as part of a wealthy family and chronicles Stevenson's career in public service.  Black states that, as Governor of Illinois, Stevenson "had run an effective, reforming administration."  But Black goes on to critique Stevenson's acceptance speech before the 1952 Democratic National Convention:

"In his acceptance speech, he had asked that this 'cup pass from me,' and had expressed admiration for Eisenhower, but said that he had been called upon to heal a terminal case 'of political schizophrenia.'  It was eloquent, as Stevenson always was, but it was not the right note.  It was too pious about the nomination, too deferential to his opponent, and not believable in claiming that the man who had received the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in the West could not control the Republican Party."

I have two items:

1.  The part about Stevenson as Governor running an "effective, reforming administration" stood out to me because I wondered what that meant.  Did it mean that Stevenson cracked down on corruption?  And, if so, was he able to distance himself somewhat from the notorious corruption of the Democratic Truman Administration?  I'd say that, on some level, it did mean that Stevenson made government less corrupt.  According to this wikipedia article, which draws from Porter McKeever's 1989 book Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy, "Principal among Stevenson's achievements as Illinois governor were reorganizing the state police by removing political considerations from hiring practices and instituting a merit system for employment and promotion, cracking down on illegal gambling, and improving the state highways."

But my impression is that Stevenson could not distance himself from the corruption of the Truman Administration.  For one, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Richard Nixon was harping on that corruption.  Second, rather than trying to distance himself from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman record, Stevenson was seeking to hitch himself to it, since FDR had a reputation for getting the U.S. out of the Great Depression and winning World War II (and Truman as President played a role in the latter).  And, third, while Democrats and others were criticizing Nixon for having a fund from the donations of businessmen, Stevenson himself had his own fund.  While Nixon's fund was for political purposes, however, Stevenson used some of his fund for personal purposes (according to Black).  Stevenson's fund was legal, but it probably didn't look too good, when the Democrats were criticizing Nixon's fund.  (Nixon was upset, however, that Stevenson's fund was not criticized as much as his own fund.)

2.  Black says that a downside of Stevenson's speech was that it was "too deferential to" Eisenhower, the Republican nominee for President in 1952.  There are plenty of political strategists who maintain that going negative is an effective political strategy.  Democrats James Carville and Paul Begala argue this in their book, Take It Back, as they critique John Kerry's 2004 Presidential campaign.  I'm all for candidates setting up a clear contrast between themselves and their opponent, and yet I actually like it when candidates find something to praise about their opponent.  I think of Al Gore in the 1996 Vice-Presidential debate praising Republican VP candidate Jack Kemp's record on affirmative action, civility, and race, or Republican Presidential candidate Arnold Vinick on the West Wing praising the grace, dignity, and leadership of the President he hoped to replace, Democrat Josiah Bartlet (see here).  There may have been sincerity in what the men were saying, but there was also a likely political motive.  Al Gore probably wanted to highlight that Jack Kemp flip-flopped on affirmative action when Kemp joined Bob Dole's ticket, and Vinick (according to Bartlet) was seeking to gain Democratic votes, while (according to Toby Ziegler) Vinick was exalting himself as Bartlet's natural successor, as the Democrats running for the nomination came across as little kids trying to get a place at the adult table.  Granted, there aren't many things in politics that are done out of a pure motive.  Still, I for one tend to respect candidates when they find something to praise about the other side.  To me, that comes across as mature. 

Bullies (an Episode of The Newsroom)

I've been watching the first season of The Newsroom.  It is on HBO, and it was created and is largely written by Aaron Sorkin, who gave us The West Wing.  The Newsroom is about a news program, which is anchored by Will McAvoy, who (along with his producer, an ex-flame) has decided to shift his program from its less-than-serious nature to one that gives the "facts" and asks guests the hard questions.

I like the program because it is inspirational and funny, and McAvoy, while he is clearly an arrogant jerk, is still somehow loveable (as were all of the jerks on The West Wing).  My problem with the show has been that it has presented conservatives as mindless dunces.  When McAvoy has had conservative guests on his show, they usually had this deer-in-the-headlights look.  In my opinion, that is not only unrealistic, but it also does not make for good entertainment.  You may think that conservatives are not particularly bright and that their policies are damaging to the country, but I've seen and read plenty of conservatives who are well-read, who are able to convey an argument, and who do not have that deer-in-the-headlights look whenever they're challenged.  Moreover, it would be more entertaining to me to see McAvoy actually have to engage in rhetorical combat with formidable opponents rather than mowing his guests down on a regular basis.

I saw an exception to the rule in an episode that I watched last night, entitled "Bullies."  McAvoy has on his program an African-American homosexual professor who (surprise!) is an adviser to Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.  In the style of Lawrence O'Donnell, McAvoy ties to mow the professor down with the same questions over and over: How can the professor defend Rick Santorum's comments regarding homosexuality?  The professor meekly replies that Santorum has treated him with the utmost respect over the years, and that he does not agree with everything Santorum has said.  As the professor is continually harangued by McAvoy, however, the professor eventually loses his cool.  The professor fights back, saying that he is not defined by his race, his sexual orientation, or even by McAvoy, who in his narrow-mindedness presumes to know what someone like the professor should believe and do.  The professor says that he does not need McAvoy's help, and that he is supporting Rick Santorum because he believes that Santorum is the best candidate in the race when it comes to protecting the lives of the unborn.

To his credit, McAvoy is silent as he is taken to the woodshed by the professor, but, as is often the case in Sorkin's political dramas, the left gets the last word.  McAvoy then asks the professor if Santorum believes that the professor is fit to teach, and the professor quietly and solemnly responds, "no."

When McAvoy is seeing a therapist, McAvoy eventually acknowledges that he was being a bully in that interview.  McAvoy also remarks that he managed to upset the religious right, African-Americans, and gays in one interview, and I got a laugh out of that!  In any case, I hope that there are more episodes of The Newsroom in which intelligent conservatives fight back----and both sides (if we can truly reduce people to "sides," which is doubtful) end up learning something in the process.

To watch the scene, see here.   

In the Arena 2

I have two items for my blog post today about Richard Nixon's In the Arena.

1.  On page 44, Richard Nixon says: "What separates the men from the boys in politics is that the boys seek office to be somebody and the men seek office to do something."

A couple of posts ago, I was talking about Richard Nixon's statement in his book Leaders that a winning candidate is one who truly wants the job, not someone who is reluctant.  The reason is that the person who wants the office is the one who will endure the hard road that comes with it----the criticisms, the invasion of privacy that candidates experience, etc.  I wondered if that contrasted with how the Hebrew Bible depicts a number of good leaders: as initially reluctant.  Moses and Gideon, for example, were very reluctant to assume a leadership position, but they were chosen by God, and God used them significantly.  By contrast, there were people who desperately sought to be leaders, such as Abimelech in the Book of Judges, and they were not exactly the right people to lead Israel, for they were bad people.

I think that what Nixon says on page 44 is an important ingredient to this whole discussion: Why does the leader want to lead?  Does he want to lead to help people, or mainly to help himself?  The former characterizes good leaders, whereas the latter characterizes, well, not-so-good leaders.  I can't treat this as an absolute.  There are well-intentioned people who sincerely want to help people, but they are not effective at getting people to follow them and at doing the political work that is necessary to pass their agenda.  Moreover, there are many leaders who accomplish good, and yet they have some self-serving motive: they like the glory that comes with politics.  But, in my opinion, a person who is a good leader cares for the people he leads, or at least he tries to make things better.

I think of the movie, Oliver Stone's Nixon.  Stone depicts Nixon as one who was hungry for power, and yet as one who accomplished good.  Nixon in the movie tells anti-war protesters that he can ride the beast (meaning the power-system) and hopefully accomplish some good.  But Oliver Stone appeared in the movie to have had a New Left perspective.  According to David Greenberg in Nixon's Shadow, the New Left tended to lack faith in the American political system and the likelihood of genuine reform occurring through it.  Greenberg cites Oliver Stone's Nixon as an expression of much of the New Left's feelings about Richard Nixon.  Personally, I thought that Oliver Stone's depiction of Nixon was much more positive than Greenberg apparently believed, and yet I do see a New Left pessimism in more than one of Stone's movies.  In JFK, President John F. Kennedy tries to end the Vietnam War and the Cold War, and he is then assassinated by a conspiracy of dedicated Cold Warriors, inside and outside of the U.S. government.  In Nixon, Nixon accomplishes reforms in terms of the environment, civil rights, and foreign affairs (with detente), and he angers a powerful right-wing cabal.  When one of the cabal (played by Larry Hagman, of Dallas fame) tells Nixon to remember who put him into office, Nixon replies that the American people did.  The cabal-person responds, "Well, that can be changed," and another cabal-person then adds, "In a heartbeat."  In these movies, those who try to do good will likely be attacked by the beast, the powerful interests that do not want reform.

2.  In documentaries that I have seen about Ronald Reagan's Presidency during the Cold War, the message that I get is that the Soviets were really baffled by Star Wars (or SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative), President Reagan's plan to set up a defense system in space that would destroy Soviet missiles.  According to this narrative, the Soviets thought that Star Wars was more of a reality than it actually was, that the U.S. was actually making real progress in constructing such a system, for the Americans come up with a lot of interesting things!  But, according to Nixon on pages 67-68 of In the Arena, Mikhail Gorbachev told him (meaning Nixon) that the Soviet Union was not against Star Wars "because it feared the huge cost to the economy or because it could not keep up technologically" (Nixon's narration).  After all, Gorbachev told Nixon, the Soviets were making progress on their own SDI program, plus Gorbachev expressed optimism that the Soviets could "evade and overcome any SDI system that the United States might eventually deploy" (Nixon's words).  Rather, Gorbachev said that he was against SDI because he thought that it would exasperate the arms race.

This reminds me of a variety of things.  First of all, I think of Lord John Marbury's argument against Leo McGarry in the West Wing against a missile-defense system: that, if one side constructs a missile-defense system, the other side will only construct a more powerful missile.  Second, I recall reading in a right-wing magazine as a child that the Soviets had their own SDI program, called the Red Shield.


Gorbachev may have been bluffing.  Nixon himself thought that Gobrachev, whatever he said, still feared the cost to the Soviet economy of keeping up with the United States.  Perhaps the Soviets were attempting to construct their own version of Star Wars, but they didn't make any more progress than we did, and they thought that we were making more progress than we were.  Still, I can understand Gorbachev's arguments against Star Wars.  And yet, I wonder: Would a missile-defense system have to lead to an escalation of the arms race?  Reagan offered to share the SDI technology with the Soviets.  Would that have resulted in mutual peace?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps Lord Marbury is right: both sides would then try to create more powerful missiles.

Leaders 5

I finished Richard Nixon's Leaders.  In this blog post, I'd like to highlight something that Nixon says on page 331.  This occurs within the last chapter, in which Nixon discusses the characteristics of great leaders in the arena.

"He must also want the job, and he must be willing to pay the price.  There is a persistent myth that if only a person is well enough qualified, the office will----or should----somehow seek him.  It will not, and it should not.  The myth of the 'reluctant candidate' was, for much of the intellectual world, a part of Adlai Stevenson's attraction.  But show me a reluctant candidate and I will show you a losing candidate.  A reluctant candidate will not give a campaign the intensity of effort it requires, nor will he accept the sacrifices leadership itself requires: the ruthless invasion of privacy, the grueling schedule, the sting of unfair and often vicious criticism, the cruel caricatures.  Unless a person is prepared to accept this and still be ready to pursue the job with passion, he is not going to have the steel to stand it once he gets it."

Here are some thoughts:

1.  Nixon says "he," but one should not take that to mean that Nixon thinks that only men can be good leaders.  Nixon talks about women leaders in this book, namely, Golda Meier and Indira Gandhi.  And, on pages 340-341, Nixon speculates about whether more women will be in leadership roles in the future.  He lauds Clare Booth Luce's political abilities and says that "she would have turned in a stellar performance" had Dwight Eisenhower chosen her as his Vice-President rather than Nixon.  And Nixon forecasts that, before the end of the twentieth century, the United States "will probably elect a woman to the vice presidency and possibly to the presidency."  That didn't happen, but it still could happen in the twenty-first century.  Look at all the women governors in the United States!

2.  Nixon makes good points about the problems of the reluctant candidate, and I would say that his points can apply to the reluctant leader, as well: that one has to want an office seriously in order to throw oneself into its responsibilities and to take a lot of bull without giving up.  After reading this passage by Nixon, I can sympathize more with Toby Ziegler's angry reluctance to support Democratic candidate Matt Santos for President in the television series, The West Wing: Josh Lyman had to go to Texas and beg Santos to run, and Toby did not think that spoke well on Santos' part!

There is something attractive about the reluctant candidate, though: that reluctant candidates are humble and are not power-hungry, that they have small-time roots, that they have talents that they may not recognize but that others can see, etc.  In the Bible, there are a lot of reluctant candidates.  Gideon does not want to lead Israel against the Midianites, but that gives God a chance to show God's power.  Saul is reluctant to be king.  David has his share of political skills and is able to form important friendships, while fighting the enemies of Israel.  But the text goes out of its way to present David as someone who was not ambitious: the kingship just fell into his lap.  By contrast, it seems to me that those who crave power in the Bible are the ones you wouldn't want to exercise it: Abimelech agreed to be king, and he was likened to a thornbush (Judges 9).
On the other hand, perhaps some of the reluctant candidates in the Bible were not right for the job----in that their reluctance was a hindrance to them.  Saul was reluctant to be king, and he disobeyed God because he feared the people, and somehow his insignificance in his own eyes kept him from grasping the gravity of his office and performing what God considered to be Saul's duties (I Samuel 13; 15:17).

I agree with Nixon that one has to want an office in order to be a good leader.  At the same time, I don't think that everyone who craves power deserves it.  Moreover, I believe that even a reluctant candidate can surprise us, as long as the reluctant candidate becomes willing to be in the game for the long haul.

3.  Nixon in his last chapter seems to argue that a good leader is one who is impressive to people.  He has a point, for a leader needs to impress people to get them to follow him.  At the same time, Nixon does describe a wide variety of leaders.  Some are reserved, but others are outgoing.  Some work long hours, while others sleep in or take naps.  Some are powerful and charismatic speakers, while others are more cerebral (without getting overly theoretical that it stands in the way of practicality) or are good at forming coalitions.  There are arguably a variety of ways to impress people.  Charisma is one way, but showing people that one has what it takes to do the job (even if one doesn't have the flashiest personality in the world) is another way.

Leaders 3

A theme that came up more than once in my latest reading of Richard Nixon's Leaders was alcohol.  Here are some stories that Nixon tells:

----Page 143: "[German leader Konrad Adenauer] had other weapons besides the cold steel of logic, however.  When a cabinet meeting grew difficult, he would sometimes suspend debate for a while and pass around a bottle of wine.  After a few glassfuls and some friendly small talk, he would resume the meeting.  The opposition would then be substantially less resolute."

----Page 155: "[Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev was then relatively new to power and unfamiliar with the leaders he would be confronting in the free world.  He was clearly intent upon testing Adenauer's mettle.  During one banquet he proposed a seemingly endless series of toasts to see whether the seventy-nine-year-old Adenauer, so intractable at the negotiating table, could be worn down by liquor.  Though he preferred wine to vodka, Adenauer had a stomach as well as a will of iron.  After fifteen toasts he was still both upright and alert----alert enough, in fact, to notice that Khrushchev had been drinking water.  The next morning Adenauer confronted Khrushchev with the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that any man who would do such a thing could not be trusted.  Surprised to find that he had been caught in the act, Khrushchev could only laugh."

Page 188: "The table was laden with every manner of Russian delicacy and soft and hard drinks.  Despite his well-deserved reputation for drinking heavily, Khrushchev only sampled the array of vodka and wine.  He appreciated good food and drink.  But just as his famed temper was always his servant and not his master, his drinking on this occasion was strictly for pleasure and was never permitted to interfere with business.  He was cold sober throughout our long afternoon of talks."

Alcohol can indeed be conducive to camaraderie and socializing in a relaxed manner.  I one time heard a person with Asperger's Syndrome talk about how he did not really fit in with his Irish extended family----until they started to get drunk together.  Then, they could have fun and bond with each other.

But alcohol can also hinder some people from doing the business that they need to do.  Khrushchev did not want to get drunk when negotiating because he wanted for his mind to be alert and sharp during that time.  And, speaking of the negative effects that drinking lots of alcohol can bring, that one person with Asperger's whom I discussed in my above paragraph eventually decided to quit drinking, for he thought that he was degenerating into a sour alcoholic.

I used to drink for a variety of reasons.  I drank socially because I hoped that it would loosen me up in social settings.  Social settings make me nervous.  I tend to clam up within them, which is not particularly attractive to people and which can even draw mockery.  Drinking helped me to loosen up, to relax, and to talk more.  Did that make me more attractive to people?  To some people it did, and to some people it didn't.  One person told me I was fun when I was drinking, which was probably true because I loosened up when I was drunk, whereas when I was not drinking I was more stiff, reserved, formal, and guarded.  But not everyone likes to be around someone who's drunk and who's saying a lot of silly things with bombast.  Come to think of it, I myself don't, particularly.

But I drank even more in solitude.  The reason was that it made me feel better.  I have Asperger's Syndrome, and what that means is that I don't do too well socially.  I have a history of not fitting in and of being rejected by people, and I become resentful when I think back about that.  I also have fear about the future: how will I make a living in the future if I have a hard time getting people to like me?  Drinking was a way for me to self-medicate.  And it got to the point where no amount was enough.  I would go through a six-pack on certain nights and still want more.  I could identify with something that Leo McGarry said on an episode of The West Wing: he kept on drinking because he wanted that feeling to go on!  But waking up with a hangover was no fun.  I think of what Scotty said on that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: never get drunk unless you're willing to pay for it the next morning!

I decided to stop drinking, and I have been sober for what I consider to be a respectable number of years----though, regardless of how many years that one is sober, it's always one-day-at-a-time.  What do I do now that I don't drink?  How do I do socially?  How do I cope with my resentments about the past and my fears about the future?  How do I self-medicate?

Socially-speaking, I'm not as nervous now as I used to be when talking with people.  But I still can be rather stiff, formal, and reserved.  I doubt that I would be the life of the party were I to go to a party.  By and large, my policy about a lot of social gatherings that I have to attend is "suit up and show up."  I show up, do my duty, and I leave.  Sometimes, I can end up having enjoyable, interesting conversations with people.  Sometimes, I just want to rush to the door!  I'm just speaking for myself, and there are plenty of people within recovery groups who would tell you that they became more fun----more happy, joyous, and free----when they quit drinking and did the spiritual work on themselves that would help them to stay sober.  That's fine (even though I get rather sick of people bragging about how happy and spiritual they are), but it's just not me.  Come to think of it, though, I do have a little more serenity now that I don't drink.  I'm not the life of the party, but I do have a quiet, flat sort of peace.  One thing I will add: I'm not sure if my social mettle has been truly tested over the past couple of years.  My Mom and her husband accept me, even though I am quiet.  I go to church, and there are plenty of people at the pot-lucks who themselves are quiet, so I don't feel out-of-place being quiet.  That doesn't mean that I feel compelled to throw myself into hyper-social situations, though.

How do I cope with my resentments about the past and my fears about the future?  This is still a struggle for me, to tell you the truth.  Many within recovery groups find that working with a mentor or a sponsor is helpful.  It can be.  I don't do that as much nowadays, since I'm not really in recovery groups, due to my struggle to fit in at them.  But I did find one time that talking with my pastor really helped me.  I was nervous about a social event that was coming up, which I had to attend, and my pastor gave me encouragement.  It's good when you can find someone who's rooting for you and can give you guidance to hang on to within a tough setting.  Another way that I cope is through prayer and Bible reading, and, the more I feel resentful on a given day, the more I pray and read the Bible.  That doesn't necessarily solve my problems, to tell you the truth, but it does help me to alleviate feelings of resentment or fear that I may have.

Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady 3

I have two items for my write-up today on Greg Mitchell's book about the 1950 U.S. Senate race in California between Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas.  The book is entitled Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas----Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950.

1. This first item is about President Harry S Truman's approach to the issue of alleged subversives in the U.S. Government.  Truman sent a letter to an official in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in which Truman complained about the "fuss" about what political groups people belonged to.  Truman said: "I'd be willing to bet my right eye that you yourself and I have joined some organization that we wish we hadn't.  It hasn't hurt me and I don't think it has hurt you any" (Truman's words, quoted on page 7).  Yet, in response to the growing concern among Americans about Communism in the U.S., and perhaps with an eye on the Presidential election in 1948, Truman instituted a loyalty program for federal employees, which removed those who (after a background check) were concluded to be disloyal to the United States Government.

According to Mitchell on page 85, Truman's loyalty program had problems.  Mitchell says that "Dismissal would not take into account whether the employee was engaged in a sensitive national security job or worked as a clerk in the Agriculture Department" (page 85).  Mitchell also states that "Disloyalty was broadly defined", as it covered espionage and sabotage, but also sympathy for groups that the Attorney General considered to be totalitarian, fascist, Communist, or otherwise subversive.  In addition, according to Mitchell, "What constituted suspicious political activity was highly subjective", and "Advocating civil rights for Negroes often set off alarms" (page 85).  Not only did the loyalty program go after federal employees who were concluded to be involved in these sorts of activities, but it also dismissed federal employees with a spouse or a close relative who was "friendly with a Communist front", as well as federal employees who drank too much or had "sexual indiscretions that left them vulnerable to foreign agents" (Mitchell on page 85).  Moreover, "the accused had no right to confront their accusers or even know exactly what the charges were and who made them" (page 85).  When only 201 federal employees were dismissed, half of those cases were under appeal (through what kind of due process, I do not know), and no spies were found, there were conservatives who criticized the Truman Administration's "standards for disloyalty" (page 86).

When Truman no longer had to contend with a Presidential election, however, he opposed certain anti-Communist bills, such as Mundt-Nixon, a bill that I discuss in my post here.  Mundt-Nixon would require people in "suspected Communist Party organizations and front groups" to register with the Attorney General "or face severe penalties" (Mitchell on page 109).  Truman opposed Mundt-Nixon because he felt that it would threaten labor unions and liberal organizations, but also push the Communists "deeper underground, preventing surveillance and FBI infiltration" (Mitchell on page 109).  

2.  This second item is about Hollywood and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), though I'll also talk about an anti-Communist who became a victim of the Red Scare.

Nixon and others on HUAC inquired of Hollywood representatives where the anti-Communist movies were.  The thing is, when anti-Communist movies did appear, they ended up being "shoddy" and received a "tepid public response" (Mitchell on page 62).  Producer Sam Goldwyn asked how he could make a decent picture, when his best writers were in jail (page 112).  The writers were in jail on account of the Red Scare (page 112).  This intrigued me because it made me think about whether one can be a conservative and also write a good story.  There are conservatives or libertarians who have been renowned for their fiction, such as Taylor Caldwell, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Jr., and others.  I suppose that conservatives could write good fiction, as long as the complexity of their characters is not sacrificed to hyper-moralism (though one could argue that there have been decent moralistic works, such as Ayn Rand's books, episodes of The West Wing, which are liberal, etc.). 

A quick tangent on Hollywood: Many would probably expect for Hollywood and the media to go for Douglas in the 1950 Senate race, for were these not prominent elements of the liberal establishment?  Actually, that wasn't exactly accurate.  As Mitchell states on page 101, there were prominent Nixon-supporters in Hollywood.  Some of these were actors, such as John Wayne, Robert Montgomery, Ginger Rogers, and Adolphe Menjou.  Others were higher-ups, such as Walt Disney and MGM's chief attorney Mendel Silberberg.  And there were plenty of prominent people in the media who supported Nixon against Douglas, such as William Randolph Hearst and a number of California newspapers.

Back to Hollywood and HUAC! One of the people in the Hollywood Ten was screenwriter Lester Cole, who went to jail for refusing to answer Congress' questions about whether or not he was ever a member of the Communist Party.  And guess whom Cole encountered in jail?  J. Parnell Thomas, the former chairman of HUAC, who was there for "taking kickbacks from friends and relatives he had placed on his congressional payroll" (Mitchell on page 111; I write about Thomas in my post here).  They taunted each other while Thomas was gathering eggs and cleaning the chicken coop!

I'd like to turn now to the story of Westbrook Pegler, a right-wing journalist.  When Pegler wrote that the U.S. should withdraw from the Korean War, stay out of the Far East, and lock up Communists and fellow travelers in the U.S. in concentration camps, some newspapers did not print his column, and the head of a right-wing group, Friends of Democracy, sent a letter to Truman's Attorney General, asking that Pegler be prosecuted for sedition (I guess because of Pegler's isolationist views).  As far as I can see in the wikipedia article about Pegler, nothing came of that.  It is interesting, though, that even right-wing anti-Communists could fall victim to the Red Scare.  It reminds me of when devout Christians were accused of witchcraft in The Crucible.

The 2013 Inaugural Address

Here are my favorite parts of President Barack Obama's 2013 inaugural address:

"We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own."

"We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.  We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it."

"...our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.  Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.  Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.  Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm."

I thought that it was a bold inaugural address, perhaps even bolder and more ideological than Ronald Reagan's first inaugural speech, in which Reagan declared that "Government is the problem".  President Obama did not shy away from controversial issues in his second inaugural address, and he came across as one who was ready to fight for a progressive agenda, whether Republicans liked it or not.  After President Obama gave his speech, he submitted the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense----Hagel, who is controversial with a number of conservative Republicans (and also many gay activists).  I have to admire President Obama's defiance against his Republican critics.  One could argue that it will be counter-productive because President Obama needs to find common ground and work with the other side.  But I have to admit: I still liked watching President Obama's defiance!  I'm reminded of that scene at the end of the West Wing episode "Ways and Means" (Season 3, Episode 3) in which C.J. Cregg looks at the TV in which a Republican is attacking the Bartlett Administration, opens her beer bottle, and says "Come and get us." 

George McGovern

I just learned that George McGovern has passed on.  George McGovern ran for President against Richard Nixon in 1972. 

As I've said on this blog before, I used to be more of a right-wing Republican.  On account of that, I tended to associate McGovern with the smug, condescending, obnoxious, socialistic, soft-on communism, draft-dodging, unpatriotic, activist Left that emerged in the 1960's-1970's.  (Or so I characterized it.)

But there were a variety of things that changed my mind about McGovern, even when I was a conservative.  First, I was listening to McGovern on Sean Hannity's show, and McGovern came across to me as a nice and decent guy.  Second, McGovern came to Cincinnati (where I was living at the time) to speak about his service as a soldier in World War II, and it surprised me to learn that he was a veteran.  Third, I was watching a 1972 McGovern campaign ad, in which a working class guy was challenging McGovern on welfare and asking why the poor can't be put to work----like cleaning the streets.  McGovern responded that he agrees, and that his goal is for people to have jobs.  See here for the commercial----it's the fifth from the left in the "Democrat" column.  This commercial helped to shift my conception of the Left, for I had long regarded the Right as the ideology that wants for people to work, when, actually, the Left is for work, too!  And, fourth, I read Bill Kauffman's excellent book on anti-war conservatism, Ain't My America, which presented George McGovern as a person of faith and as one who sought to understand George Wallace supporters rather than looking down on them.  I read in another book, Grand New Party, that McGovern disdained bureaucracies, which resonated with me back when I was a conservative.  See here for my post on Ain't My America, and here for my post on Grand New Party.  

Recently, I watched the Wonder Years episode about George McGovern.  It was called "Politics as Usual."  On this episode, McGovern is a big stir.  Kevin's Mom notes that people at the college she attends are voting for McGovern, and she likes McGovern's stance on women.  Kevin's Dad, a conservative, actually seems to like McGovern at first, even though at the end of the day he probably voted for Nixon.  And Kevin's girlfriend, Winnie, has joined the McGovern campaign and signed Kevin up for it because she opposes the Vietnam War, for her brother was killed in it.  Kevin is jealous of the head McGovern campaign official in his area, for he feels that the guy has sights on Winnie.  When Winnie goes to a late-night campaign meeting, Kevin breaks into the Democratic headquarters, and there he meets Senator McGovern (or, actually, someone playing him)!  After McGovern loses badly, the campaign official tells Winnie that he didn't expect for McGovern to win anyway, and he speculates to another campaign worker that Kennedy may run in the next election.  Winnie is disappointed.  But Kevin can see where he's coming from----that the campaign official will come back and fight another day.  Kevin also reflects that the McGovern campaign was a time when young people got involved in the political process and tried to make a difference.  I think it's cool when people who ordinarily aren't involved in the political process become involved.  I think this when I consider the McGovern campaign, and also when I consider how a number of fundamentalist Christians first entered politics with the Goldwater campaign, the Moral Majority, and local educational controversies.  They learned that (to echo C.J. Cregg on The West Wing) the people who have a say are the ones who show up, and that, if they're discontent about society, they should get involved and try to make a difference.

I actually bought a book by McGovern not long ago.  It was called The Essential America, and it's about liberalism in the American tradition.  When looking for a McGovern book to read, I learned that McGovern had an alcoholic daughter who died, and he wrote a book entitled Terry: My Daughter's Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism.  It was sad to learn that he had experienced that kind of pain.  More recently, I read Cal Thomas' interview with McGovern in the 1999 book, Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can't Save America, in which McGovern thoughtfully reflects on the errors of the religious right and the religious left, the role of religion in politics, his own errors in the 1972 election (i.e., he let Nixon define him), and his personal faith.  My post on this will appear next month.  Stay tuned!

R.I.P., George McGovern.

Newt Gingrich's To Save America 8: Medicare

In my latest reading of To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Newt Gingrich talks about Medicare.  He laments that a lot of money on Medicare is wasted on account of such things as Medicare fraud, lack of coordination, paperwork, etc.  Earlier in the book, on page 210, Newt says that the American health care system does not focus enough on incentivizing quality care, and he states that "we need a reimbursement model that takes into account the quality of the care delivered, not simply that it was delivered."  My impression is that Newt dislikes the fact that the reimbursement system pays for a bunch of treatments and doctor's visits, without really caring if those things are making people better.

Newt says that President Barack Obama acknowledges that there are "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" in the American health care system (Obama's words on page 218).  Newt does not believe, however, that President Obama has done enough to tackle the problem.

At the same time, on page 94, Newt criticizes Obamacare for cutting Medicare by half a trillion dollars to "pay for other aspects of the reform plan, like government subsidies and Medicaid expansion."  He says that, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, these cuts include "home health ($39 billion); hospitals ($131 billion); skilled nursing facilities ($22 billion); and Medicare Advantage benefits ($101 billion)."  Newt also states that the Mayo Clinic announced that "its Arizona facilities would stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries because the federal government does not pay the clinic enough to even cover its costs."

How do defenders of President Obama (or fact-checkers, or whatever) respond to these sorts of criticisms?  This article states the following (and remember that "ACA" stands for the Affordable Care Act, meaning Obamacare):

"So does it 'cut' Medicare by $500 billion?  Medicare spending will continue to grow, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but ACA will slow that growth. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Health Foundation  over the next 10 years, the federal government will devote about $500 billion less to Medicare than it would have without ACA.  CMS and the Kaiser Family Foundation tell ABC News that there will be no benefit cuts to Medicare.  They say instead of Medicare’s being cut, there will be much more spending at the end of a 10-year window, but it does slow the rate of that growth...CMS says—and Kaiser agrees—that spending will be reduced by getting rid of fraud and ending overpayments to private insurance companies. It sends a message to those insurance companies: Operate more efficiently.  And instead of cuts, the CMS says they will be able to fund new benefits, including free preventive care and broader prescription coverage, including closing the 'doughnut hole' affecting seniors."

According to this article, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services----the same group that Newt cites as an authority----states the Obamacare slows down the rate of Medicare's growth, and that the savings (if you will) come from tackling fraud and overpayment to insurance companies rather than from cutting benefits to seniors.  Moreover, the CMS says that new benefits are included, such as preventative care and "broader prescription coverage" (the article's words).  Newt himself is an advocate of preventative care and Medicare covering prescription drugs because those prevent emergencies that cost the health care system a lot of money.  Is Obamacare already doing (or will it do) things that Newt thinks the government should be doing?

I think a good question is this: How can we get rid of unnecessary reimbursements, without also killing a lot of necessary reimbursements?  Newt says that the government should be more conscious about tackling Medicare fraud.  Remember the episode of The West Wing in which Democratic candidate for President Matthew Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) lauded Medicare for not having that big of a bureaucracy?  Newt addresses this argument (though he doesn't mention Santos) on page 220:

"So Medicaid has nearly three times the improper payment rate of all government.  That is one reason the Left can tout low administrative costs for Medicare and Medicaid: they simply write checks without effective oversight.  They pay more in fraud than they gain in lean administration."

I'll stop here.  By the way, check out this article on what the Obama Administration is doing about Medicare fraud.

Ron Paul's Liberty Defined 3

I have two items for my write-up today on Ron Paul's Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom.

1.  On pages 66-67, Ron Paul states:  "Our Constitution was designed to protect individual rights, and the Founders knew clearly that they wanted a republic, not a democracy, where the majority could not dictate the definition of rights of the minority.  They did a reasonably good job in writing the Constitution but yielded to the principle of democracy in compromising on the slavery issue.  The majority voted for supporting second-class citizenship for blacks, a compromise that we paid heavily for, not only in the 1860s but more than a hundred years later as well.  It would have been better if we had stayed a loose-knit confederation and not allowed the failed principles of democracy and slavery to infect the Constitution."

Ron Paul's point is that democracy is not a good thing because it allows the majority to undermine the rights of the minority.  Case in point: By majority vote, African-Americans were given second-class citizenship under the U.S. Constitution.  Paul does not state explicitly what he has in mind, but he may be thinking of such provisions as Article IV Section 2, which states that servants must be returned to their masters, or the three-fifths compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining the representation of states.

I don't understand what Paul means when he says "It would have been better if we had stayed a loose-knit confederation".  Is he expressing preference for the Articles of Confederation?  If so, what makes him think that would have been better for slaves?  Is it because slaves presumably could flee to free states, without having to be returned? Later in the book, there is a chapter on slavery, so I'll see what Ron Paul says there.  In any case, it's refreshing to read Ron Paul, an adamant defender of the Constitution, acknowledging that the Constitution is a human document that contains flaws.

Another question: If the Constitution protects individual rights, does that imply that the federal government has the authority to restrict the state governments from violating those rights?  And would that not mean that (contra Rick Santorum) the federal government can overturn a state law that bans contraception, treating it as a violation of the right to privacy?  One could argue that the right to privacy had nothing to do with contraception, but rather pertains to banning unreasonable searches and seizures (Amendment 4 to the Bill of Rights).  Perhaps the answer hinges on what the un-enumerated rights mentioned in Amendment 9 to the Bill of Rights could be.

See the discussion on The West Wing about the right to privacy here.

(UPDATE: On pages 123-124, Paul says that the Bill of Rights was originally intended to restrain the federal government.)

2.  On pages 74-75, Paul says regarding anti-discrimination laws (which he supports when they prohibit the government from discriminating, but opposes when it comes to private interests discriminating):

"The idea here is that if people are left to their own devices, they will always and everywhere choose homogeneity in their social associations.  I can't imagine a stranger view of the human condition.  To me it demonstrates that the supporters of antidiscrimination have an extremely low view of people and their choices."

I myself am skeptical about human nature.  I think that there are many people who mean well, but there are also prejudices that lock the door of opportunity to people who are different.  Consequently, I support anti-discrimination legislation.

Rick Perry's Fed Up 3

I have two items for my write-up today on Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

1. Rick Perry does not like for the federal government to bribe states to do its will, as when it threatens to withhold federal highway funds if the states do not pass laws making 21 the minimum drinking age.  But, as critics of Perry have noted, Texas under Governor Rick Perry still receives federal funds.  Is Rick Perry a hypocrite?  After all, Rick Perry probably could choose not to receive federal money and thereby to allow his state to be independent, but he does not always go that route.  What impressed me, however, was Perry's humble acknowledgement of this dilemma on page 54:

"Are we, as states, complicit in this?  I suppose so, in that from time to time we have valued the money more than our sovereignty.  But it is a no-win situation: ignore the tremendous transportation needs of a growing state like Texas and you get painted as an impractical ideologue; take the money and you no longer care about principle.  Politically, it is hard for state politicians to refuse such funds----particularly when it came right out of the pockets of their constituents in the first place.  You can see the box Washington puts us in.  This is something I know a little about."

I respect Perry's dilemma, but my question is this: If Perry acknowledges that Texas needs federal money, then why is he so insistent on the federal government having a very limited role while the states pick up most of the slack?  Hasn't he essentially conceded that the states are inadequate for the task?  I do not want to put words into Perry's mouth, but I think I know how he would respond: He would say that Texas is dependent on the federal government under the current system, in which the federal government takes the hard-earned tax dollars of Texans.  But suppose that the federal government got out of the way and did not tax Texans so much?  Then Texans would have the money to pay for their own highway construction, and they would not have to run to the federal government for help.  That is my hunch about how he'd respond.

The thing is, though, if the states are left with the vast bulk of the tasks that the federal government currently performs, wouldn't that require the states to raise taxes or to impose new taxes?  My impression is that Rick Perry would not care for that, for Newt Gingrich in his introduction to Perry's book argues that Texas' economy is good in part because of its low taxes.  And if there is a threat that businesses could leave a state due to higher taxes, wouldn't that discourage the state governments from raising the taxes that are so necessary for programs?  Wouldn't the result be the erosion of the social safety net, among other things?  For reasons such as these, I prefer to leave certain powers in the hands of the federal government.

On a related note, check out the Bartlet-Richie interaction on this issue.

2. A friend of mine once sought to dispel economic doom-and-gloom by pointing out that, during World War II, the national debt was a huge part of America's GDP, but that the economy of the 1950's wiped that debt out.  I think that my friend's point was that we should not be paranoid about how high our current national debt is, for the economy can get better and that would take care of the debt.

Perry essentially acknowledges this point of history on pages 57-58, only he says that during World War II "the national debt surpassed 100 percent of our economy, or GDP", and that the "strong economic growth [during the 1950's] allowed us to move beyond our debt (that is, we grew our economy faster than debt to get to a point where it was manageable)."  But Perry believes that times are different now than they were then.  In the 1950's, the welfare state was "in its infancy", whereas today the government spends a lot domestically, which results in more debt and higher taxes (which will increase in the future to keep up with entitlement spending, unless something is done).

Perry may have a point.  Borrowing a lot of money, printing a lot of money, and raising taxes for more government spending can be deleterious to the economy.  At the same time, liberals such as Michael Moore and Robert Reich appeal to the 1950's as a time when liberal policies worked----when higher tax rates on the rich, government development of highways, and strong unions coincided with higher productivity and a strong middle class, which was good for the economy.  Moreover, is there a way for the federal government to have an active role while being fiscally responsible?  I agree with Perry that earmarks are bad, for example.  And when one observes that the cost of health care is lower in Canada than it is in the United States, could that mean that there is a way to have a national health insurance program without as much of a cost?

My Posts that Talk about Kathryn Joosten

Actress Kathryn Joosten has passed on due to lung cancer at age 72.  I know her as Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, as one of the manifestations of God on Joan of Arcadia, and as Mrs. McCluskey on Desperate Housewives.  It's ironic that she has passed on, since her character on Desperate Housewives also passed on in the final episode of the show. 

I'd like to share some posts that I wrote that discuss Kathryn Joosten's moments in television:

The West Wing:  Bartlett's Jobian Rant.

Joan of Arcadia: A Disappointing God in Joan of Arcadia.

Desperate Housewives:  Alone No More; Caught Up on Brothers and Sisters (Sort of); God of Borg; and The Desperate Housewives Finale.

R.I.P. Kathryn Joosten.

Newt Gingrich's Lessons Learned the Hard Way 5

I have two items for my write-up today on Newt Gingrich's 1998 book, Lessons Learned the Hard Way.

1.  Newt talks about one of the prominent ethics charges that was brought against him (the only one that wasn't dropped): that he used tax-exempt money for political purposes, namely, a course that he was teaching and distributing entitled "Renewing American Civilization".  As Newt states on page 100, "The IRS regulations involving tax-exempt educational foundations allow such foundations to beat the drum to their heart's content in support of ideas and programs for achieving certain higher political ends (lower taxes, higher taxes, welfare reform, free trade, tariffs, and so on) but not to lobby for a specific piece of legislation nor endorse any candidate nor participate directly in a political campaign."

Newt states on pages 122-123 that the House Ethics Committee did not conclude that Newt violated tax law, but that it "felt that [Newt] could have avoided public controversy had [he] sought and followed legal advice to ensure [his] activities with the nonprofit agency that transmitted and disseminated the Renewing American Civilization course complied with tax law."  But Newt says on page 107 that he actually was advised by a lawyer, who was once on the Federal Elections Commission staff, and that he was "scrupulous about sticking to the rules."

The New York Times' understanding of the committee's conclusion is partially different from Newt's, for it says here, while linking to the report: "But the ethics committee did find that Mr. Gingrich had used tax-exempt money to promote Republican goals, and given the panel inaccurate information for its inquiry."  I say "partially" because Newt does acknowledge that he gave the panel inaccurate information: he states that his lawyers prepared a poorly-researched report, and that he signed it without reading it thoroughly.  Why did Newt agree to be reprimanded and to pay a $300,ooo fee to reimburse the committee for its work, if he felt that he was innocent of tax violations?  Newt says that he wanted to put the issue behind him for the sake of the country rather than dragging it out for years.  Newt was also dealing with the death of his step-father at this time.

2.  Newt talks about the census, and how he opposed a Democratic attempt to sample ten percent of the population rather than counting it.  What does this mean?  There was concern that the way of doing the census----a door-to-door head count----under-counted poorer neighborhoods, minorities, immigrants, etc.  This was relevant to the representation that areas got in government, and also to the amount of money that they received from the federal government.  To attempt to redress this problem, the Democrats proposed that the Census Bureau count 90 per cent of the population, while allowing for the remaining 10 per cent to be defined according to sampling.  This is called "statistical adjustment".  Newt acknowledges that there is a problem of under-representation of certain people in the census (although he notes that the 1990 census counted 98.6 of Americans, which isn't bad for the government), but he did not think that the Democrats' approach was the way to go.  He refers to it as inventing virtual people, and he feels that it could unfairly tip the balance in certain elections.  

Incidentally, there was a West Wing episode about this issue.  See here for a summary.  On the show, Sam Seaborn says that a reason that people in the inner-cities are not adequately counted is that many of them don't like to talk to people, such as the counters going door-to-door.

The Desperate Housewives Finale

Here are some thoughts about the Desperate Housewives finale.

1.  Bree’s murder trial was wrapped up quickly and neatly, as Karen McCluskey (who doesn’t have long to live) stepped forward and took the blame for killing Gaby’s abusive step-father.  Was this satisfying?  Well, on the one hand, I was hoping for more length and drama to the resolution.  There was drama, for I enjoyed watching Ben refuse to reveal Bree’s secret on the witness stand and going to jail as a result.  But I hoped for more, since the murder of Gaby’s step-father, the subsequent cover-up of it, and the resulting tensions have encompassed this entire season, and so you’d expect more to the resolution than a quick confession by Karen McCluskey soon followed by a dismissal of Bree’s case.  On the other hand, Karen McCluskey’s confession was a neat way to resolve this plot-line, and I admired McCluskey for doing what she did.

2.  There was long talk that Marc Cherry would make a spin-off about Karen McCluskey and her sister, who is played by Lily Tomlin.  (And, as West Wing fans know, both actresses played Jed Bartlet’s secretary on The West Wing.)  But Karen McCluskey died, and so that’s now out of the question.  I do not know for certain, but Marc Cherry may have canceled the idea due to Kathryn Joosten’s lung-cancer.

3.  I enjoyed the last episode, but I can’t say that I found it riveting, until the last few minutes.  Why were the last few minutes so riveting?  For one, we see that the ladies drift apart from each other.  Susan sells her house and moves.  Lynette, Tom, and the kids go to New York, where Lynette becomes a big-shot executive in Katherine Mayfair’s new company, grows old, and has grandchildren.  Gaby and Carlos stay close to each other in their marriage and start an online shopping company, and eventually a TV show.  And Bree marries Trip (played by Scott Bakula, whom I love as an actor), moves to Kentucky, and enters the world of politics (presumably as a Republican).  All of this was sad and yet good (since it left an emotional impression on me).  It makes me want to wait a while before I watch old episodes of Desperate Housewives because, if I were to watch them now, I’d be sad that the ladies’ good times at Wisteria Lane would eventually come to an end.

Second, there were the ghosts on Wisteria Lane.  I could identify some of them but not others.  Fortunately, wikipedia has identified them, along with providing links to who they are.  I’ll quote wikipedia, and I’ve taken the liberty of supplying the links that wikipedia left out: “As Susan departs the lane one last time, the ghosts of the lane watch her. Among them include Mike Delfino, Karen McCluskey and her son, George Williams, Juanita ‘Mama’ Solis, Mona Clarke, Karl Mayer, Ellie Leonard, Nora Huntington, Rex Van De Kamp, Lillian Sims, Beth Young, Chuck Vance, Alma Hodge, Bradley Scott, and Martha Huber.”

There were a variety of reasons that I was moved by the ghosts scene.  (1.) What better way is there to say good-bye to the show than to see the various characters who have appeared in the show’s history?  (2.) It was interesting that good people, bad people, and weak people were among the ghosts, and they all had peaceful expressions on their faces.  Mary Alice said that these ghosts hope that the living will learn to put aside regret and bitterness.  I like the concept of redemption for the wicked, who look back on their lives and realize that they made poor decisions, perhaps out of insecurity and ego, and they hope that the living will learn not to make the same mistakes. 

It was disappointing not to see certain characters in the afterlife.  Eedie Britt was not there, but I’m not surprised, since the actress who played her is not on good terms with Marc Cherry.  But I was especially disappointed when I did not see Ida Greenberg, whom I really liked.

(UPDATE: The wikipedia article has been updated.  First, it says that Matthew Applewhite was in the background as a ghost----and Matthew Applewhite was Betty's son in Season 2.  Second, it says regarding Eedie: "Edie Britt's ghost is absent in the final scenes because of the lawsuit pending between Nicollette Sheridan and show creator Marc Cherry.  In an interview in Summer 2011, Cherry had previously hinted that he wanted to ask Sheridan back for the series finale 'to pay homage to everyone who has been on the show'.  However, though they could not get Nicollette back as a ghost, there is a blonde woman during the final scene in the background that could be Edie.")  


Third, at the very end, we see that the lady moving into Susan’s house has her own dark secret, and we’re not told what it is.  Life on Wisteria Lane continues!

My Twenty Favorite Desperate Housewives Episodes

The last Desperate Housewives will be on this coming Sunday.  Last year, when Smallville was ending, I wrote a post that discussed my fifteen favorite Smallville episodes.  This year, I’ll talk about my twenty favorite Desperate Housewives episodes.

Season 1
“The Pilot” (Episode 1):  I fell in love with the show from the start.  There is so much to praise about the pilot episode, but I’ll focus on what I particularly liked.  I enjoyed the part when Mike Delfino first met Susan Meier at the reception for Mary Alice’s funeral, tasted Susan’s macaroni and cheese, and remarked to Susan that it tasted burnt and undercooked at the same time.  It was hard not to like Mike, but (like most viewers) I was wondering what exactly he was up to.  And then there was the end, when the ladies read the note that Mary Alice received shortly before her suicide: “I know what you did, it makes me sick, I am going to tell.”  Mary Alice narrates beyond the grave that she did not want to burden her friends with this, and one of the ladies says, “Oh Mary Alice, what did you do?”

“Running to Stand Still” (Episode 6): My favorite part of this episode was when it showed Carlos and Gaby signing their prenup, as Carlos’ mother (or, as Carlos called her, his “Ma-MA) looked on.  Savvy woman!

“Your Fault” (Episode 13): Bree tells the pharmacist, George, about how she met her husband Rex.  She met Rex at the Young Republicans Club, and after meeting him she talked late into the night with him about big government and other issues.  (Incidentally, the actor who plays Rex was the Republican Speaker of the House in episodes of The West Wing.)  This stands out to me because I like it when television touches on politics.  And, although I am more liberal nowadays, I enjoy watching Republican TV characters, such as Archie Bunker and Alex P. Keaton.  As an honorable mention, I’ll refer to the opening scene of Episode 15, where we see that Bree has a huge picture of Ronald Reagan with a cowboy hat hanging on her wall.

“Sunday in the Park with George” (Episode 21): Susan is estranged from her boyfriend, Mike Delfino, because she has learned that Mike has a criminal record for killing a cop.  Susan goes to Noah Taylor’s house to question him about what happened.  Noah Taylor (played by Bob Gunton) is the wealthy father of Deirdre, who was Mike’s girlfriend (and Deirdre is now missing and dead).  Noah does not answer Susan’s questions, but Deirdre’s sister Kendra privately tells Susan what happened.  According to Kendra, Deirdre was a drug addict who had been in and out of jail, and an undercover cop caught her using and made her have sex with him in exchange for her freedom.  When Mike found out about this, he was furious and tried to put a stop to it.  When the cop pulled a gun on Mike, the two of them struggled and fell over the balcony.  Mike got up, whereas the cop died.  When Susan learns that Mike killed out of self-defense and went to jail for trying to save Deirdre, she cries and says “I knew he was good.”

“One Wonderful Day” (Episode 23): This was the final episode of Season 1.  In it, the mystery of why Mary Alice killed herself, what Paul Young was hiding, and why Mike Delfino was in Wysteria Lane is solved.  Essentially, Deirdre (a drug addict) sold Angela (a nurse) her baby, and Angela then changed her name to Mary Alice and moved to Wysteria Lane with her husband and her new child, whom the Youngs named Zach.  After Deirdre uses her rich father’s money to track Mary Alice down, she comes to Wysteria Lane and wants her child back.  Mary Alice thinks that Deirdre is still on drugs and does not want to give Zach up, so Mary Alice kills Deirdre.  But Mary Alice then looks at Deirdre’s arms and realizes that Deirdre had quit using drugs.  Mary Alice and Paul dismember Deirdre’s body, place its parts in a toy-chest, and bury the chest underneath what would later become their pool.  Mary Alice kills herself years later because Martha Huber, whose sister was a nurse who worked with Mary Alice back when Mary Alice’s name was Angela, knows that Mary Alice bought the baby, and Martha sought to blackmail Mary Alice in an attempt to solve her own financial problems.  In this last episode of Season 1, Mike Delfino takes Paul Young into the desert, points a gun at him, and demands to know what happened to his girlfriend Deirdre, but Mike does not shoot Paul after learning the truth; rather, Mike leaves Paul in the desert.  Mary Alice’s closing narration is inspiring, for Mary Alice says that she roots for her friends, even if she’s not sure that all of them will make it.

Season 2

“I Wish I Could Forget You” (Episode 6): Zach Young was the biological son of Deirdre and Mike Delfino, and the adopted son (if you will) of Paul and Mary Alice Young.  Susan pays Zach to go to Utah in search of Paul, since Susan wants to keep Zach away from her daughter, Julie.  Mike finds out about this and is upset with Susan, and he confronts her when she is trying on a wedding gown, hoping that Mike will propose to her.  Susan runs after Mike into the streets, crying and begging him not to leave.  After Mike drives away, the other ladies rush to the street to comfort Susan.  I love this scene because, a lot of times, we try to keep our pain private and hidden from our friends, and it’s beautiful when our friends can support us, even when we show our sadness in public.  You can watch the scene here.

“Coming Home” (Episode 10): Carlos has found religion, and the insidious Sister Mary wants him to go with her on a mission trip to Botswana, to Gaby’s chagrin.  When Carlos tells Gaby inside of a church that there are a lot of suffering people in the world, Gaby responds, “And there will be a lot of suffering people in this church if you don’t wipe that patronizing look off your face!”

“One More Kiss” (Episode 11): Betty Applewhite and her sons, Matthew and Caleb (who is developmentally-delayed), have moved to Wysteria Lane.  Nobody else in Wysteria Lane knows about Caleb at this point because his Mom keeps him locked up in the basement.  This is because Betty thinks that Caleb killed Matthew’s girlfriend Melanie in Chicago, after Melanie rebuffed Caleb’s request to be her boyfriend.  The residents of Wysteria Lane think that the Applewhites are hiding something, but they’re not sure what.  Melanie’s family hires a private investigator, Curtis Monroe (played by Michael Ironside), to track down Caleb.  Curtis enters the Applewhites’ residence to take Caleb hostage, and he falls through the stairs to the basement while his gun goes off.  Curtis dies.  When Betty and Matthew come home, they see Curtis’ corpse and decide to put it in his car.  The corpse is accidentally discovered by Susan, and the residents of Wysteria Lane gather to see what’s going on.  Betty at first says to Matthew that she is not worried, but, when she sees the ladies looking at her with suspicion, she says, “Now I’m worried.”  Betty was a mother who knew how to keep her cool, but she was worried that her secret would be exposed once the ladies started to talk.

“Silly People” (Episode 14): After Bree sneaks into the Applewhite’s home and sees Caleb in the basement, she demands that Betty tell her what is going on.  Betty tells Bree the story, and I’ll quote from wikipedia’s summary of it: “Melanie Foster was Matthew’s on-and-off girlfriend in Chicago. After one of their feuds, Caleb called Melanie and asked to meet her at the lumber yard. Melanie saw this as harmless and agreed to meet him. Caleb told Melanie that if he was her boyfriend he would never break up with her or fight. Melanie laughed in his face. Caleb tried to kiss her, but this made Melanie uncomfortable and she slapped him. This angered Caleb who picked up an axe and killed her. This, Betty believes, is the reason why she felt it was her fault and not his for not protecting him ‘from himself’ since she is his mother and could not see him going through imprisonment or even death.”  After hearing this story, Bree puts her hand over Betty’s hand to show compassion.

“Thank You So Much” (Episode 15): Bree has a drinking problem, and Lynette suspects that something is wrong after Bree babysits Lynette’s children and falls asleep, during which time the kids leave the house and go to town.  Lynette learns from Mrs. McCluskey that Bree was drunk, but Bree brushes off the accusation when Lynette confronts her.  Lynette looks through Bree’s garbage and finds a bunch of wine bottles, and she lines them up in front of Bree’s house (which would make an impression on the socially-conscious Bree!), leaving a note that says “Do you still think you don’t have a problem.”  Bree and Lynette then look at each other in silence.

Season 3

“Bang” (Episode 7): I’d say that this is my favorite episode of the series.  Laurie Metcalf plays Carolyn Bigsby, a former neighbor of Orson Hodge, who has recently married Bree.  Carolyn thinks that Orson abused and killed his first wife, Alma, and so Carolyn tries to warn Bree about Orson.  Bree then informs Carolyn that Carolyn’s husband, Harvey, is having an affair.  Carolyn is outraged, and she goes to Harvey’s supermarket and holds it up with a gun.  Lynette is in the supermarket with Nora, with whom Lynette’s husband Tom had a one-night stand (before he met and married Lynette) and a child.  Nora recently tried to seduce Tom, and so Lynette is upset with Nora (not that she liked Nora in the first place).  When Carolyn learns about this, she shoots Nora, who then asks Lynette to take care of her daughter.  After Nora dies, Lynette gives Carolyn a sermon about how life is hard, but we should deal with it.  When the hostages finally make it out of the supermarket safely, we see Lynette lying on a bed, having her recurring nightmare about the time that she saw Mary Alice shortly before Mary Alice’s suicide.  Lynette sees Mary Alice reading the note, “I know what you did, it makes me sick, I am going to tell”, but this time Lynette does something different.  She puts down her shopping bags, goes up to Mary Alice, and asks her what is wrong.  Mary Alice tells Lynette that she cannot save her, but that she should enjoy each beautiful day.  Mary Alice narrates that this was the last time that Lynette dreamed about her.

Season 4

“Sunday” (Episode 11): I wrote about this episode here.  It gets into such issues as going to church and the Bible to find answers, and the difference between ritual confession and genuine repentance.

“Free” (Episode 17): Season 4 introduced Katherine Mayfair into the series.  I will not describe her story in detail, but what happens in this final episode of the season is that her abusive ex-husband (a cop) finds her and threatens her, and he is killed.  Bree quickly gets her friends together to coordinate their stories so they can lie to the cops and protect Katherine.  I found this to be a beautiful scene because the ladies did not get along with Katherine before, but they came to have compassion for her.

Season 5

“Home Is the Place” (Episode 11): I talk about this episode here.  What I liked about this episode was that it highlighted how much Gaby had to give up to take care of her husband Carlos while he was blind.  Gaby (a former model) loved jewelry and beautiful clothes, but she had to give those up to meet the family’s expenses.  And Carlos had to decide whether to take a job working with the blind, which he felt would nourish his soul, or take a six-figure job in which he could be the shark he didn’t want to be.  For Gaby, he picked the latter.  I had to admire Gaby for the sacrifices she made, since she can easily come across as a shallow character.  But there’s depth there!

“The Best Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” (Episode 13): I talk about this episode here.  Beau Bridges plays Eli Scruggs, a handyman who helped people.  We learn that he did so because Mary Alice helped him when he was dirt poor, and he felt awful after she killed herself.

“Mama Spent Money When She Had None” (Episode 14): I talk about this episode here.  Gaby joins a boot camp to lose weight and fit into a dress.  When she does not show up one morning, the Israeli drill sergeant of the camp brings boot camp to her front door!  This episode is also noteworthy because Eedie gives Gaby a lecture about humility.  Eedie was good at giving convicting lectures, even though she herself was far from perfect.

Season 7

“Down the Block There Is a Riot” (Episode 10): Paul Young is exacting his revenge on Wysteria Lane because the residents abandoned him during his legal problems.  His revenge is to construct a halfway house for released convicts, which troubles the inhabitants of Wysteria Lane.  A disturbing riot erupts in protest, and Paul gloats to Lynette that the residents of Wysteria Lane are obviously no better than he is.  Lynette is sorry about her role in causing the riot.  This episode was disturbing rather than enjoyable, on account of the riot, but my favorite episodes are the ones that stood out to me, not always the ones that I enjoyed.

Season 8

“Always in Control” (Episode 7): The ladies are covering up that Carlos killed Gaby’s step-father (who raped her when she was younger and came back into her life to threaten her) and that they buried the body in the woods.  But Susan is in an art class, and her instructor (played by Miguel Ferrer, whom I know from The Stand) wants Susan to create honest art.  And Ben Faulkner, a construction man who has hired Mike, has learned from Bree about what she did to Gaby’s step-father (since Ben is using the land where the guy was buried). Ben asks Mike to bury the body under the concrete of their construction project, and he is surprised that Mike agrees to do so without question (for, unknown to Ben, Mike is protecting Susan).  As dramatic music plays, Susan paints a picture in which she and the ladies bury Gaby’s step-father.  And Mike is supervising as concrete is poured over the place where he buried the body.

“Suspicion Song” (Episode 8): Carlos is drinking heavily because he feels guilty about killing Gaby’s step-father, and his work suffers.  When a rich client learns about this from Gaby, he demands to see Carlos right away.  Right when you think that the client is about to chew Carlos out, the client pulls out his sobriety chip and strongly recommends that Carlos get help.  You never know who is in AA!

“Any Moment” (Episode 18): Mike Delfino has just been killed, and his and Susan’s son, MJ, is acting out at school.  Susan figures out a way that she and MJ can release their anger over Mike’s death—-they throw jars of jam (which were given to them as a gift) against the wall.  MJ throws the jars against the wall, and then he just drops a jar to the ground, with a look of dejection on his face.  This was a very sad scene.  At first, MJ was mad; but then he was just sad.

This series has made me laugh, cry, and think.  I picked my favorite episodes based on the ones that made the greatest impression on me.  I’ll miss Desperate Housewives, and I wish those involved with the show the best.