By Don Klein
They used to call him The Comeback Kid. Recent events proved that he still is. The Obama team thought they left him vanquished in the dust after trashing him mightily for the crime of supporting his wife’s candidacy for president during last year’s primary race. Bill Clinton proved them wrong.
He has what no living ex-president has – the golden touch – and is still the most successful Democratic leader since Harry S. Truman. Overseas he is the most honored and revered American leader even though he holds no high office nor any power except for the high regard with which he is held in the international community.
Even President Obama can’t match him on that score at this point in time.
Ronald Reagan spent his post-White House years making speeches at $2 million a shot. Bush-41 couldn’t draw a crowd if he sat on top of a 100-foot pole and sang all four roles of the Ode to Joy. Bush-43 is exiled to Texas from where most hope he never emerges. Jimmy Carter travels around the world putting his foot in his mouth and often defying US foreign policy.
None of them are preferred for their uniqueness or specialties.
Bill Clinton is the exception. His stature makes him a welcome American emissary wherever he travels. His charisma is what eventually led to the release by North Korea of two American journalists arrested and convicted of entering the country illegally and sentenced to 12 years at hard labor.
No one else could have accomplished the deed.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il made it clear to the US that if they wanted the captive women back, it would take a visit by Bill Clinton to fetch them. Acting as a private citizen on a humanitarian mission he made the trip. Spent less than a day with the Korean potentate and the release was accomplished.
Kim Jong-il wanted to meet Clinton for more than a decade. When Clinton was president he sent condolences when Kim’s father died and the tyrant never forgot it. He invited Clinton to visit when he was still in the Oval Office but it never could be arranged.
Clinton’s goodwill gesture never was forgotten by Kim and when the Swedes, representing the US which has no relations with North Korean, urged the released of the held reporters Kim jumped at the chance to fulfill his desire to meet Clinton, his unrequited hero. The deal was eventually made to everyone’s satisfaction.
I liked Clinton when he was president. I liked him in his post-presidency years. I still like him. I obviously am not alone. Kim likes him also, as do many other political leaders of all stripes around the world. He is a known factor and an accomplished international leader, a role that the present president, in office only six months, has yet to attain. In time Obama could surpass Clinton in world eclat, but he has not yet reached that level.
There isn’t a soul who watched the arrival of the freed correspondents, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, at Burbank airport the other day and the reunion with their loved ones who would not be touched by the significance of Clinton’s accomplishment. Big Bill is back on center stage which he relishes like Teddy Roosevelt once did and is in a role he should be destined to play for the rest of his life.
Way back when Obama was elected last November I flat out contended that the new president had an advantage that not many other beginner presidents had. Bill Clinton was available as a worldwide trouble shooter and if used intelligently would be a great asset. Obama insiders rejected such a role. Clinton would suck all the oxygen out of Obama’s glory and foreign policy, they believed.
At the time there was no way to predict the situation that evolved in North Korea with the two journalists, but it was exactly where the Clinton role would be best used.
Back then I saw Clinton as an envoy without portfolio who would be a natural American of influence to be sent to worldwide tinder boxes and brewing trouble spots that needed the uppermost attention. I saw him as a peacemaker among the Israelis and Palestinians or as a mediator of Pakistani-Indian tensions or as a goodwill ambassador in the Persian Gulf.
Who would be more effective in rebuilding American stature in Europe which was so badly weakened by eight years of the Bush-Cheney regime? Which American would have more influence in just about any region of conflict in the world? The answer always seemed to be Bill Clinton, and the North Korean incident was vivid proof.
Clinton and Kim met at the latter’s insistence and a terrible situation was neutralized within hours. That’s what makes past presidents of repute so important. Presidents never serve more than eight years. If they are young enough and physically able to travel and handle the work, as Clinton obviously is, they should not be put to pasture. Like retired generals and admirals, they should always be available to be called to active duty for spot opportunities.
Even though Clinton had to deal with a degenerate foreign leader like Kim he served America with dignity and correctness. Although Kim beamed in Clinton’s nimbus, the former president never gave the dictator anything but a grim and determined gaze. Kim got the photo opportunity he wanted but Clinton walked away with the cool victory of freed Americans and no reciprocal rewards for the tyrant.
The vision of Ms. Lee upon her return to California freedom hugging her four-year-old daughter, Hana, gave the innate value of Clinton’s feat. Americans should be proud we have Bill Clinton to stand up for us.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
An irreversible racial future
By Don Klein
Let’s face it. There has been tremendous racial progress in this country in the last four and a half decades. That, however, does not mean there is no racism in today’s America. To me the problem is that too many critics throw around racism charges when they should not and thereby water down those legitimate cases of bigotry.
Evidence: When the Obamaphiles accused Bill Clinton of making racist
statements during the primary battle between his wife and Barack Obama in South Carolina last year. That was an abomination and all those guilty of intemperate charges should be ashamed of themselves. They fired blanks that deeply injured the only decent presidential candidate the party had in three decades up to that time.
Just recently we witnessed another instance where too many were quick to label the arrest of Harvard Prof "Skip" Gates as being the result of racial profiling. As the professor, the arresting officer and Obama sat down last week to enjoy a beer together at the White House many of those accusations have been withdrawn as more facts came to light.
But these are moments not worth lingering over when there are real hateful activities are smoldering on the airwaves. According to Fox TV’s Glenn Beck, the racist is Obama. He sees a "deep-seated hatred for white people." Why? Because Obama’s instincts were to stand up for a black Harvard friend before he knew all the facts. It’s certainly probable that if Gates was a white friend, Obama would have supported him as well. That’s not racism, but fellowship.
A more insidious form of prejudice in the country is this ridiculous campaign to question whether Obama is a naturally born American. There is an element of unpleasant people propelling an absurdity insisting that Obama prove he is an American. If it can be proved he is not a native citizen he is unqualified by the Constitution to be president.
The question of Obama’s citizenship has been answered time and again yet the self-appointed guardians of our democracy keep harping on the negative message as if the powers that be are withholding evidence. Isn’t it great to know our nation is being protected by the vilest all commentators, people of the Beck and Sean Hannity ilk?
Lou Dobbs, another cable news broadcaster who years ago did yeoman work in debunking illegal alien supporters, has now turned his attention to the Obama birth issue. He described critics of his asinine arguments demanding evidence of Obama’s presidential legitimacy as "limp minded, lily livered leftists." If anything is "limp" it’s Dobbs alliteration, if anything is "lily livered" its his incomprehension of clear fact.
All this is nothing less than raw demagoguery disguised as an alleged serious point of law.
This is not the first time Obama’s "Americanism" has been challenged. Remember during the presidential campaign there were Republican crowd pleasers who were happy to imply that the president-to-be was a Muslim. They drew that farcical conclusion because the president’s middle name is Hussein. That’s like assuming I am a cowboy because my friends once called me "Buck."
Several years ago there was a Time magazine cover which carried a artist’s version of the American of the future. If was a tan-skinned young woman with mildly Oriental eyes, dark hair and physical qualities of every race in the world. She was beautiful, and Time called her the American of the future. It was the realization that the land, known as the home of exiles, was rapidly becoming non-white as time passed.
There is no challenging that fact. Soon enough there will be more non-white Americans than there are whites. That means power will shift. Already there are many blacks and Hispanics in Congress and in other important elective offices. But the inevitable shift is on and many of the old white establishment don’t like. They feel it is their country and Obama sitting in the White House is the symbol of their worst nightmare.
Look at the figures: As of 2007 the US had a population of slightly more than 300 million, of which 221 million were white, 44 million were Latino, 41 million were black, 13 million Asian and 19 million other and mixed races. These figures do not add up to the total number because there are millions who fall into more than one racial category and are counted more than once.
But look at the forecast for 2050 by the Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic whites will be 46 percent of the population, Hispanics will be 30 percent, blacks will be 15 percent and Asians 9 percent. If you don’t believe these projections, take a gander at these figures, and swallow hard: 45 percent of today’s American children under the age of five years are non-white. The shift is on.
It is clear that a certain portion of the landed white gentry which have ruled this country since it inception more than two centuries ago are unhappy. Some of them see the writing on the wall and are fighting it. It is a senseless battle. Nevertheless Obama as president represents this monumental change in the country and there are those in government who are not going to make it easy for him.
They will fight his legislative programs not because they are bad governance but because they are his. They will oppose the bailout and health care measures for the same reason and oppose his Supreme Court selection even if by doing so they guarantee the loss of a significant portion of the fastest growing electorate.
And in a final hopeless thrust, they will launch bigoted accusations as if that can slow down the foreseeable and irreversible racial future.
Let’s face it. There has been tremendous racial progress in this country in the last four and a half decades. That, however, does not mean there is no racism in today’s America. To me the problem is that too many critics throw around racism charges when they should not and thereby water down those legitimate cases of bigotry.
Evidence: When the Obamaphiles accused Bill Clinton of making racist
statements during the primary battle between his wife and Barack Obama in South Carolina last year. That was an abomination and all those guilty of intemperate charges should be ashamed of themselves. They fired blanks that deeply injured the only decent presidential candidate the party had in three decades up to that time.
Just recently we witnessed another instance where too many were quick to label the arrest of Harvard Prof "Skip" Gates as being the result of racial profiling. As the professor, the arresting officer and Obama sat down last week to enjoy a beer together at the White House many of those accusations have been withdrawn as more facts came to light.
But these are moments not worth lingering over when there are real hateful activities are smoldering on the airwaves. According to Fox TV’s Glenn Beck, the racist is Obama. He sees a "deep-seated hatred for white people." Why? Because Obama’s instincts were to stand up for a black Harvard friend before he knew all the facts. It’s certainly probable that if Gates was a white friend, Obama would have supported him as well. That’s not racism, but fellowship.
A more insidious form of prejudice in the country is this ridiculous campaign to question whether Obama is a naturally born American. There is an element of unpleasant people propelling an absurdity insisting that Obama prove he is an American. If it can be proved he is not a native citizen he is unqualified by the Constitution to be president.
The question of Obama’s citizenship has been answered time and again yet the self-appointed guardians of our democracy keep harping on the negative message as if the powers that be are withholding evidence. Isn’t it great to know our nation is being protected by the vilest all commentators, people of the Beck and Sean Hannity ilk?
Lou Dobbs, another cable news broadcaster who years ago did yeoman work in debunking illegal alien supporters, has now turned his attention to the Obama birth issue. He described critics of his asinine arguments demanding evidence of Obama’s presidential legitimacy as "limp minded, lily livered leftists." If anything is "limp" it’s Dobbs alliteration, if anything is "lily livered" its his incomprehension of clear fact.
All this is nothing less than raw demagoguery disguised as an alleged serious point of law.
This is not the first time Obama’s "Americanism" has been challenged. Remember during the presidential campaign there were Republican crowd pleasers who were happy to imply that the president-to-be was a Muslim. They drew that farcical conclusion because the president’s middle name is Hussein. That’s like assuming I am a cowboy because my friends once called me "Buck."
Several years ago there was a Time magazine cover which carried a artist’s version of the American of the future. If was a tan-skinned young woman with mildly Oriental eyes, dark hair and physical qualities of every race in the world. She was beautiful, and Time called her the American of the future. It was the realization that the land, known as the home of exiles, was rapidly becoming non-white as time passed.
There is no challenging that fact. Soon enough there will be more non-white Americans than there are whites. That means power will shift. Already there are many blacks and Hispanics in Congress and in other important elective offices. But the inevitable shift is on and many of the old white establishment don’t like. They feel it is their country and Obama sitting in the White House is the symbol of their worst nightmare.
Look at the figures: As of 2007 the US had a population of slightly more than 300 million, of which 221 million were white, 44 million were Latino, 41 million were black, 13 million Asian and 19 million other and mixed races. These figures do not add up to the total number because there are millions who fall into more than one racial category and are counted more than once.
But look at the forecast for 2050 by the Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic whites will be 46 percent of the population, Hispanics will be 30 percent, blacks will be 15 percent and Asians 9 percent. If you don’t believe these projections, take a gander at these figures, and swallow hard: 45 percent of today’s American children under the age of five years are non-white. The shift is on.
It is clear that a certain portion of the landed white gentry which have ruled this country since it inception more than two centuries ago are unhappy. Some of them see the writing on the wall and are fighting it. It is a senseless battle. Nevertheless Obama as president represents this monumental change in the country and there are those in government who are not going to make it easy for him.
They will fight his legislative programs not because they are bad governance but because they are his. They will oppose the bailout and health care measures for the same reason and oppose his Supreme Court selection even if by doing so they guarantee the loss of a significant portion of the fastest growing electorate.
And in a final hopeless thrust, they will launch bigoted accusations as if that can slow down the foreseeable and irreversible racial future.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Et tu Baucus?
By Don Klein
What Marcus Junius Brutus was to Julius Caesar, Senator Max Baucus is to the public option in the universal health care legislation proposed by President Obama.
Baucus has wheeled and dealed the public option out of the health plan desired by the majority of Americans polled so far and thereby has plunged a knife into the back of legislation which was the hope of so many. And the real crime is he did it with a filibuster proof Senate majority on his side.
Will the voters of Montana remember Baucus’s treachery the next time he runs for reelection in 2014. The 50-year-old Democrat in his seventh Senate term made concessions to the Republican members of the committee because he claimed he wanted a bipartisan bill. He knows full well that the GOP will not support the bill no matter what he deletes from it in committee.
Important to politicians, he is jeopardizing the Democratic members of Congress who are up for re-election next year. Fortunately for him, Baucus doesn’t face the electorate for another five years. But all is not lost. It is unlikely that the final bill will get to the full Congress without the public option included.
"Health care reform without the public option is not reform," said Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, it will do nothing but add to the cost, he claimed. Dean is a doctor and the onetime governor of Vermont.
In contrast, Bill Frist, another doctor and former Republican Senate leader, sees the public option as having the potential to bankrupt the country. They both agreed the current system is not working but Frist believes that the government can bring down costs of medical care by working with the existing insurance companies.
The interesting thing is that although Frist does not think the government can run a health program he admitted that Medicare, the government run program for seniors, is doing very well. On the Charlie Rose TV Show he said he would not vote to repeal Medicare if he was still in office. Neither would any of the current health plan opponents. Today they embrace it but when Medicare was being debated in Congress in 1965, Republicans were as opposed to it as they are opposed to today’s universal health plan.
It is clear to all that Republicans, who almost unanimously oppose the health plan offered by Obama, are reaching for straws to kill it. They are now passing around the claim that the government intends to euthanize seniors who are chronically ill in order to save money by not having to pay for treating sickly people in their later years.
This is a distortion of a clause in the bill to provide coverage to people who choose to consult with professionals when they wish to prepare a living will. This would be covered by the new law, as it already is in Medicare. Some Republican opponents have maliciously suggested that government personnel will visit people and ask them how they wish to die if the bill becomes law.
The GOP doesn’t have Harry and Louise this time around as they did with the Clinton health bill back in 1993 so they are inventing new outrageous fears. They want to preserve the exorbitant profits of the medical insurance companies which ply them with all sorts of campaign funds and fear that a public option as part of this planned legislation will bring down profits of their insurance company friends or possibly put them out of business.
That’s sheer lunacy but they’ll use any underhanded tactic to hurt the bill.
Unfortunately for the nearly 50 million without insurance in this country there are a number of rogue Democrats who are willing to play along with the plan’s enemies. The committee Sen. Baucus runs and which dropped the public option is only one of two in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives working on this measure. Chances are the public option will find its way back into the bill before or during the conference committee session to be held in the fall.
Obama said he would not sign a bill without it. The Democrats are aware they would be committing suicide if there was no public option in the end version, especially since 72 percent of Americans have indicated they favor that clause in recent polls.
Unfortunately for the nearly 50 million without insurance in this country there are a number of rogue Democrats who are willing to play along with the plan’s enemies. The committee Sen. Baucus runs and which dropped the public option is only one of two in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives working on this measure. Chances are the public option will find its way back into the bill before or during the conference committee session to be held in the fall.
Obama said he would not sign a bill without it. The Democrats are aware they would be committing suicide if there was no public option in the end version, especially since 72 percent of Americans have indicated they favor that clause in recent polls.
No one said that passing a universal health plan for the country was going to be easy. Nothing that favors ordinary people ever comes easy in the House of Hypocrisy, otherwise known as Congress. It is a wonder people haven’t reacted with more ardor than they have during the current session over the shenanigans on Capitol Hill.
It seems certain that the House of Representatives will muster enough clout to pass the legislation. Speaker Pelosi has just about guaranteed that and she should know the head count. The question mark is the Senate, and that chamber's leader, Sen. Harry Reid appears determined to find bipartisanship where it doesn’t exist.
At best he will only be able to count on two or three Republicans and is bound to loose as many conservative Democrats. But Reid has an ace in his back pocket if he invokes the maneuver known as "reconciliation." Under such rules the threshold for passage is reduced from 60 (the filibuster proof level) to 50 ( a simple majority).
Without any real support from the GOP we have to depend n the Democrats to do the right thing and give the country a much-needed health care bill of which all can be proud. Even Sen, Baucus.
Without any real support from the GOP we have to depend n the Democrats to do the right thing and give the country a much-needed health care bill of which all can be proud. Even Sen, Baucus.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
A case of class & privilege, not race
By Don Klein
If I was arrested for mouthing off to a policeman who came to my house to investigate a suspected illegal break-in no one outside my family and friends would know about it – or care. But when a renown Harvard scholar gets hauled in for the same reason it becomes an issue for presidential comment.
That’s what gets my blood to boil. What gets me even more riled is the fact that everyone immediately applies the wrong reason for the incident in the first place. Of course I am talking about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the professor, by Sgt. James Crowley, the cop.
Gates and all of his defenders, including a disappointingly erring President Obama, claimed that this was a case of racial profiling. My ultra liberal friends are quick to jump up and down derogating a police officer in the rightful performance of his job. They quickly spell out the history of police harassment and abuse of blacks as a justifiable cause for Professor Gates’s extraordinary misbehavior when confronted by the cop.
As I see it what really propelled the brouhaha had nothing to do with race. It was a matter of privilege and class on display in its most blatant configuration. Just take a look at the two main characters in this unhappy scenario. Here is my version:
On the one side we have a distinguished, highly acclaimed man of erudition and stature, the professor himself. Gates, an American literary critic, educator, scholar, author, intellectual, sometimes called "the nation’s most famous black scholar," had just returned home from a long foreign trip only to find his front door jammed.
You can imagine the vexation as the poor guy just wanted to get home, kick off his shoes and relax but frustratingly could not even get passed his front door. He forced the malfunctioning portal, even asked the cab driver who brought him from the airport to help, when a passing neighbor notices the ruckus and calls police. She feared a crime was in progress.
A few minutes later Sgt. Crowley responds to the call and confronts the professor now inside the house. The cop doesn’t know the homeowner once won the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship and was the holder of numerous honorary degrees and awards for teaching, research and development of academic scholarship of black culture. No, all the cop saw is what all cops see upon reaching a possible crime scene – a victim or a culprit. He doesn’t know which at this time.
What is more important is what Professor Gates sees. That’s simple. No one more insignificant than an anonymous street cop banging on his door with inconsequential questions about a break-in that never happened. All Gates wants to do is put an end to a rigorous day and this macho peace officer is pestering him with vacuous questions as "do I live here" and "can I prove it."
Race has not entered anyone’s mind at this point. The cop is doing his job by the book. He is investigating a report of a crime. The professor is at home after an exacting day of travel, being denied the peace and quiet he so readily seeks by the officer. No doubt he might have thought – why is this cretin bothering me with this folderol.
The professor lets loose with a stream of invective he usually reserves for dim-witted students and uses his superior position in the social ladder to demean Sgt. Crowley. "Do you know who I am?" he demands. The officer backs off initially, apparently realizing by now he is dealing with an irate non victim. Gates, overflowing with bravado at Crowley’s retreat in emboldened and continues with a stream of abuse, when his bluff is called. He is arrested.
It is a clear case of social class, not race, at this moment. The superior intellect of Gates was being employed to bulldoze an ordinary cop. But in this case the cop was no pushover as Gates thought he was. Crowley had no racial demerits in his background a la Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles detective in the O.J. Simpson case. Crowley possessed an exemplary record, instructed other policemen on the perils of racial profiling, even tried to save a dying black athletic on a basketball court with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Once arrested Gates no doubt realized that superior intellect was not an adequate defense for disorderly conduct. That’s when he drew the race card and claimed he was hauled in because of his skin color. Unfortunately, the president was dragged into the case and everything skyrocketed out of control because of Obama’s instinctive response in favor what he thought was the black "victim."
It is so easy in this country for a black man to claim victimization. But it was not true in this case and the public concluded it a lot quicker than the black president who still remembers his own experience as a racial target.
When the professor’s lawyer claimed publicly that the case had nothing to do with race, it became clear to me that it was what I suspected from the very beginning. It was a matter of a distinguished Harvard professor’s belief that he stood higher on the social ladder than an ordinary police officer. A modern incarnation George Bernard Shaw’s Professor Higgins or the bitterly
intemperate Sheridan Whiteside, of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" fame.
Everyone now seems to believe that if both parties to this dispute had used cooler heads, none of this would have made the headlines. That clearly is true. What is also true is that when a prominent man uses his blackness to cover up for his behavioral faults he weakens every legitimate claim by other blacks who are truly victims of racism.
If I was arrested for mouthing off to a policeman who came to my house to investigate a suspected illegal break-in no one outside my family and friends would know about it – or care. But when a renown Harvard scholar gets hauled in for the same reason it becomes an issue for presidential comment.
That’s what gets my blood to boil. What gets me even more riled is the fact that everyone immediately applies the wrong reason for the incident in the first place. Of course I am talking about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the professor, by Sgt. James Crowley, the cop.
Gates and all of his defenders, including a disappointingly erring President Obama, claimed that this was a case of racial profiling. My ultra liberal friends are quick to jump up and down derogating a police officer in the rightful performance of his job. They quickly spell out the history of police harassment and abuse of blacks as a justifiable cause for Professor Gates’s extraordinary misbehavior when confronted by the cop.
As I see it what really propelled the brouhaha had nothing to do with race. It was a matter of privilege and class on display in its most blatant configuration. Just take a look at the two main characters in this unhappy scenario. Here is my version:
On the one side we have a distinguished, highly acclaimed man of erudition and stature, the professor himself. Gates, an American literary critic, educator, scholar, author, intellectual, sometimes called "the nation’s most famous black scholar," had just returned home from a long foreign trip only to find his front door jammed.
You can imagine the vexation as the poor guy just wanted to get home, kick off his shoes and relax but frustratingly could not even get passed his front door. He forced the malfunctioning portal, even asked the cab driver who brought him from the airport to help, when a passing neighbor notices the ruckus and calls police. She feared a crime was in progress.
A few minutes later Sgt. Crowley responds to the call and confronts the professor now inside the house. The cop doesn’t know the homeowner once won the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship and was the holder of numerous honorary degrees and awards for teaching, research and development of academic scholarship of black culture. No, all the cop saw is what all cops see upon reaching a possible crime scene – a victim or a culprit. He doesn’t know which at this time.
What is more important is what Professor Gates sees. That’s simple. No one more insignificant than an anonymous street cop banging on his door with inconsequential questions about a break-in that never happened. All Gates wants to do is put an end to a rigorous day and this macho peace officer is pestering him with vacuous questions as "do I live here" and "can I prove it."
Race has not entered anyone’s mind at this point. The cop is doing his job by the book. He is investigating a report of a crime. The professor is at home after an exacting day of travel, being denied the peace and quiet he so readily seeks by the officer. No doubt he might have thought – why is this cretin bothering me with this folderol.
The professor lets loose with a stream of invective he usually reserves for dim-witted students and uses his superior position in the social ladder to demean Sgt. Crowley. "Do you know who I am?" he demands. The officer backs off initially, apparently realizing by now he is dealing with an irate non victim. Gates, overflowing with bravado at Crowley’s retreat in emboldened and continues with a stream of abuse, when his bluff is called. He is arrested.
It is a clear case of social class, not race, at this moment. The superior intellect of Gates was being employed to bulldoze an ordinary cop. But in this case the cop was no pushover as Gates thought he was. Crowley had no racial demerits in his background a la Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles detective in the O.J. Simpson case. Crowley possessed an exemplary record, instructed other policemen on the perils of racial profiling, even tried to save a dying black athletic on a basketball court with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Once arrested Gates no doubt realized that superior intellect was not an adequate defense for disorderly conduct. That’s when he drew the race card and claimed he was hauled in because of his skin color. Unfortunately, the president was dragged into the case and everything skyrocketed out of control because of Obama’s instinctive response in favor what he thought was the black "victim."
It is so easy in this country for a black man to claim victimization. But it was not true in this case and the public concluded it a lot quicker than the black president who still remembers his own experience as a racial target.
When the professor’s lawyer claimed publicly that the case had nothing to do with race, it became clear to me that it was what I suspected from the very beginning. It was a matter of a distinguished Harvard professor’s belief that he stood higher on the social ladder than an ordinary police officer. A modern incarnation George Bernard Shaw’s Professor Higgins or the bitterly
intemperate Sheridan Whiteside, of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" fame.
Everyone now seems to believe that if both parties to this dispute had used cooler heads, none of this would have made the headlines. That clearly is true. What is also true is that when a prominent man uses his blackness to cover up for his behavioral faults he weakens every legitimate claim by other blacks who are truly victims of racism.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Full steam ahead -- to the rear
By Don Klein
The Temple of Hypocrisy, better known as the US Congress, is at it again. Now they are finding excuses for NOT passing a universal health bill because it might cut into their personal wealth and privileges. Their battle cry seems to be "Damn the people, full speed ahead back to the status quo."
The Obama administration was foolhardy enough to expect the universal health plan it is pushing to be partially underwritten by a tax on those people earning $280,000 or more. Mythologically speaking that’s the Robin Hood syndrome, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Some call it socialism. Opponents in Congress have labeled it "class warfare."
Oddly enough during the eight years of the previous administration when Bush gave the wealthy a tax bye and in doing so transferred a larger portion of the tax burden to the middle class, there was never even a whisper of class warfare.
In fact the stated Republican argument was that only the rich could finance new businesses and provide more jobs. That leads to a simple question: why are we today suffering under an almost 10 percent unemployment rate if the rich beneficiaries of these multi-year tax cuts were creating new jobs all along? Where did those juicy tax benefits to the rich go?
Why is Congress so interested is protecting the wealthy? Could it be that the overwhelming majority of members of the Senate are millionaires and that most members of the House of Representatives, if not millionaires, are earning more then a quarter of a million dollars annually?
Could that possibly be the reason?
There are those who rightly think that the argument of high cost in relation to the new health plan is as phoney as a pie in the face made of shaving cream. The fact is if you are truly concerned about the high cost of medical treatment just leave things the way they are.
Don’t change the current system of health care unavailability to nearly 50 million Americans so the cost of treating these people is simply tagged on to the bills of those who have health insurance. And the premiums keep rising for the middle class.
Or worse still, let the uninsured go untreated until their less expensive treatable ailments become critical and then require the most expensive of cures. Above all, let’s not tax those with assets who won’t even notice the extra financial burden and let the low income slobs fend for themselves.
The president is having a good year so far. He has reduced the US military commitment in Iraq by having troops withdraw from active patrols and promising to have them leave the country by the end of 2011. He has reinforced the troops fighting in Afghanistan where they should have been all along. His appointed choice of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter is well on the way to confirmation.
He has faced an economic downtown unimaginable just a year ago, including re-regulation of business, and has mended many foreign relations in Europe undermined by Bush. He has had a busy first six months. There is no denying that.
Now the major issue remaining in this notable first year is universal health care, the primary topic of the day. There is much discussion about this program and of course it faces the usual Republican opposition with assistance of fiscal conservative Democrats.
Most insiders predict the measure will pass Congress this year. The only question is how badly will it be watered down by a spineless Congress. Or will the men and women of Capitol Hill finally consider what is best for the voters back home and not the interests of the big insurance, drug and medical industries.
The Democrats have the clout to pass this health bill. They have a healthy majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. They have no excuses for not passing the bill. They must realize if they do not make universal health care a reality this year, the Democrats will be out of power after next year’s mid-term elections. And they will deserve it.
They have new allies they never had before on this subject. Most companies embrace national health care for simple economic reasons. If the government provides it the companies will not have to. That will lower American overhead and make products less costly and more competitive with foreign companies.
What a boon for the ailing Detroit auto industry alone.
Most needy persons in the country back the plan, even those with private insurance of their own. Opponents pound us with absurd television commercials which remind us of the $200 hammer and $600 toilet seat as examples of what happens when Congress gets involved in procurement. These are misleading ads in that those purchasing foul-ups were done by the Pentagon, not Congress. But antagonists will do anything to discredit the program.
Even Harry and Louis, the actors who participated in the underhanded anti-Clinton health campaign on television in the 1990s, have changed their tune and now favor the Obama health plan.
The key to passage is the Senate with its filibuster-proof majority. If the Democrats cannot – or will not – pass a viable and sensible health plan they deserve to be thrown out of office. It is time we found people to serve in government who have the people’s needs paramount and not be there just to protect their own selfish interests or to be bought off by lobbyists.
The Temple of Hypocrisy, better known as the US Congress, is at it again. Now they are finding excuses for NOT passing a universal health bill because it might cut into their personal wealth and privileges. Their battle cry seems to be "Damn the people, full speed ahead back to the status quo."
The Obama administration was foolhardy enough to expect the universal health plan it is pushing to be partially underwritten by a tax on those people earning $280,000 or more. Mythologically speaking that’s the Robin Hood syndrome, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Some call it socialism. Opponents in Congress have labeled it "class warfare."
Oddly enough during the eight years of the previous administration when Bush gave the wealthy a tax bye and in doing so transferred a larger portion of the tax burden to the middle class, there was never even a whisper of class warfare.
In fact the stated Republican argument was that only the rich could finance new businesses and provide more jobs. That leads to a simple question: why are we today suffering under an almost 10 percent unemployment rate if the rich beneficiaries of these multi-year tax cuts were creating new jobs all along? Where did those juicy tax benefits to the rich go?
Why is Congress so interested is protecting the wealthy? Could it be that the overwhelming majority of members of the Senate are millionaires and that most members of the House of Representatives, if not millionaires, are earning more then a quarter of a million dollars annually?
Could that possibly be the reason?
There are those who rightly think that the argument of high cost in relation to the new health plan is as phoney as a pie in the face made of shaving cream. The fact is if you are truly concerned about the high cost of medical treatment just leave things the way they are.
Don’t change the current system of health care unavailability to nearly 50 million Americans so the cost of treating these people is simply tagged on to the bills of those who have health insurance. And the premiums keep rising for the middle class.
Or worse still, let the uninsured go untreated until their less expensive treatable ailments become critical and then require the most expensive of cures. Above all, let’s not tax those with assets who won’t even notice the extra financial burden and let the low income slobs fend for themselves.
The president is having a good year so far. He has reduced the US military commitment in Iraq by having troops withdraw from active patrols and promising to have them leave the country by the end of 2011. He has reinforced the troops fighting in Afghanistan where they should have been all along. His appointed choice of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter is well on the way to confirmation.
He has faced an economic downtown unimaginable just a year ago, including re-regulation of business, and has mended many foreign relations in Europe undermined by Bush. He has had a busy first six months. There is no denying that.
Now the major issue remaining in this notable first year is universal health care, the primary topic of the day. There is much discussion about this program and of course it faces the usual Republican opposition with assistance of fiscal conservative Democrats.
Most insiders predict the measure will pass Congress this year. The only question is how badly will it be watered down by a spineless Congress. Or will the men and women of Capitol Hill finally consider what is best for the voters back home and not the interests of the big insurance, drug and medical industries.
The Democrats have the clout to pass this health bill. They have a healthy majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. They have no excuses for not passing the bill. They must realize if they do not make universal health care a reality this year, the Democrats will be out of power after next year’s mid-term elections. And they will deserve it.
They have new allies they never had before on this subject. Most companies embrace national health care for simple economic reasons. If the government provides it the companies will not have to. That will lower American overhead and make products less costly and more competitive with foreign companies.
What a boon for the ailing Detroit auto industry alone.
Most needy persons in the country back the plan, even those with private insurance of their own. Opponents pound us with absurd television commercials which remind us of the $200 hammer and $600 toilet seat as examples of what happens when Congress gets involved in procurement. These are misleading ads in that those purchasing foul-ups were done by the Pentagon, not Congress. But antagonists will do anything to discredit the program.
Even Harry and Louis, the actors who participated in the underhanded anti-Clinton health campaign on television in the 1990s, have changed their tune and now favor the Obama health plan.
The key to passage is the Senate with its filibuster-proof majority. If the Democrats cannot – or will not – pass a viable and sensible health plan they deserve to be thrown out of office. It is time we found people to serve in government who have the people’s needs paramount and not be there just to protect their own selfish interests or to be bought off by lobbyists.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The worst times were his best
By Don Klein
I first learned about author Frank McCourt on television as he was interviewed by Charlie Rose on his popular PBS show. I will be forever grateful to Rose in finding such a unique person who told such a singular story when he wrote about his early life in Limerick, Ireland.
McCourt died over the weekend but will be remembered as a late bloomer among authors. His first book, "Angela’s Ashes" was written after McCourt retired as a New York City high school teacher when he was in his sixties. It won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize.
I was intrigued by McCourt that day I watched him on TV. He was a natural storyteller and when you combined his tales with his easy Irish brogue, the moment was too stimulating to ignore. I went out the next day and bought "Angela’s Ashes" not so much because I wanted to read it but because I wanted to reward McCourt with my exuberance for his personality.
Then, having already spent money to buy the book, I decided it would be cost effective if I read it. Normally it takes me weeks to read a book because I chew it in small bites – a chapter or two at a time – and usually am reading two or three other books at the same time. Not so with "Angela’s Ashes." I couldn’t put it down. I finished it in two days. (The only other book I recall reading so quickly was "Compulsion," the fictionalized version of the Leopold-Loeb case by Meyer Levin in 1956.)
I wish McCourt never would stop writing. His storytelling was spellbinding, his language lilting, his observations of people and events riveting. I rushed to buy his next two books "‘Tis" and "Teacher Man." They were not as good as his first, but they were better than many I read over the years.
Despite his Lincolnesque early life in terms of being destitute and self-taught he turned his dreary future around when he finally returned to the city of his birth, New York, and was able to matriculate at NYU and eventually get a job as a teacher in the largest school system in the country. He earned a master’s degree from Brooklyn College later.
His best years as an English teacher were at Peter Stuyvesant High School, which holds a particular warm spot in my memory because that was where my father attended almost a hundred years ago. He was a natural storyteller as so many Irishmen I knew were and his students suggested he put these stories into a book for others to enjoy.
Once he retired and in his mid- 60s, he began writing, but his first book was hardly the kind to entertain children at school. It was the book that eventually brought him fame, a grueling tale of painful early years in which three of his siblings died in childhood, where his drunken father squandered what little he earned as an unskilled laborer at the local pub, of his mother’s heroic and tragic efforts to provide food for a family of four growing boys, and of a pompous, uncaring clergy which dealt out charity so arrogantly as to make Scrooge seem like a philanthropist.
Yet McCourt told this story in a language that gave honor to letters. You couldn’t help feeling the poverty as if it was you own and for once, at least for me, I understood that food was the primary driving force in life. Hungry people will do anything for food. Angela’s tragedy was foisted on her by others – her ne’er do well husband, her relatives, her community, her church, and yet she managed to raise four boys, all of whom now live in the United States in comfortable circumstances before she died.
Published in 1996, "Angela’s Ashes" sold more than 4 million copies around the world and brought instant celebrity and wealth to McCourt. It tore at the hearts of many and won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography in 1997. Many of Irish extraction in the US took exception to the explicit biography and many more in Ireland despised McCourt for what they called maligning Limerick. Nevertheless, he was later awarded an honorary doctorate from Limerick University.
I am a contemporary of McCourt’s and grew up during the depression as he did. The difference was I lived in America while he lived in Ireland, and my father was not a drunken wastrel. Nevertheless, compared to what kids have today I was a pauper, but I never knew it. There was always a sufficiency of food in a protective home. Not so for McCourt, and reading about real desperation and poverty in the stylistic prose of a passionate and skilled writer was to make the pain of such victims a gut-wrenching reality.
He was an excellent storyteller, but like the best storytellers, the stories he told were about himself. He made me think of Ernest Hemingway and Khaled Hosseini, author of "The Kite Runner."
McCourt’s first book was a triumph about the turmoil of his early years in Ireland recalling the strife and pain of being hopelessly poor. The other books were about his life as a teacher, and was less popular with readers. In one of those life’s twists, it appears when writing books the worst of times are the most interesting for others.
I first learned about author Frank McCourt on television as he was interviewed by Charlie Rose on his popular PBS show. I will be forever grateful to Rose in finding such a unique person who told such a singular story when he wrote about his early life in Limerick, Ireland.
McCourt died over the weekend but will be remembered as a late bloomer among authors. His first book, "Angela’s Ashes" was written after McCourt retired as a New York City high school teacher when he was in his sixties. It won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize.
I was intrigued by McCourt that day I watched him on TV. He was a natural storyteller and when you combined his tales with his easy Irish brogue, the moment was too stimulating to ignore. I went out the next day and bought "Angela’s Ashes" not so much because I wanted to read it but because I wanted to reward McCourt with my exuberance for his personality.
Then, having already spent money to buy the book, I decided it would be cost effective if I read it. Normally it takes me weeks to read a book because I chew it in small bites – a chapter or two at a time – and usually am reading two or three other books at the same time. Not so with "Angela’s Ashes." I couldn’t put it down. I finished it in two days. (The only other book I recall reading so quickly was "Compulsion," the fictionalized version of the Leopold-Loeb case by Meyer Levin in 1956.)
I wish McCourt never would stop writing. His storytelling was spellbinding, his language lilting, his observations of people and events riveting. I rushed to buy his next two books "‘Tis" and "Teacher Man." They were not as good as his first, but they were better than many I read over the years.
Despite his Lincolnesque early life in terms of being destitute and self-taught he turned his dreary future around when he finally returned to the city of his birth, New York, and was able to matriculate at NYU and eventually get a job as a teacher in the largest school system in the country. He earned a master’s degree from Brooklyn College later.
His best years as an English teacher were at Peter Stuyvesant High School, which holds a particular warm spot in my memory because that was where my father attended almost a hundred years ago. He was a natural storyteller as so many Irishmen I knew were and his students suggested he put these stories into a book for others to enjoy.
Once he retired and in his mid- 60s, he began writing, but his first book was hardly the kind to entertain children at school. It was the book that eventually brought him fame, a grueling tale of painful early years in which three of his siblings died in childhood, where his drunken father squandered what little he earned as an unskilled laborer at the local pub, of his mother’s heroic and tragic efforts to provide food for a family of four growing boys, and of a pompous, uncaring clergy which dealt out charity so arrogantly as to make Scrooge seem like a philanthropist.
Yet McCourt told this story in a language that gave honor to letters. You couldn’t help feeling the poverty as if it was you own and for once, at least for me, I understood that food was the primary driving force in life. Hungry people will do anything for food. Angela’s tragedy was foisted on her by others – her ne’er do well husband, her relatives, her community, her church, and yet she managed to raise four boys, all of whom now live in the United States in comfortable circumstances before she died.
Published in 1996, "Angela’s Ashes" sold more than 4 million copies around the world and brought instant celebrity and wealth to McCourt. It tore at the hearts of many and won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography in 1997. Many of Irish extraction in the US took exception to the explicit biography and many more in Ireland despised McCourt for what they called maligning Limerick. Nevertheless, he was later awarded an honorary doctorate from Limerick University.
I am a contemporary of McCourt’s and grew up during the depression as he did. The difference was I lived in America while he lived in Ireland, and my father was not a drunken wastrel. Nevertheless, compared to what kids have today I was a pauper, but I never knew it. There was always a sufficiency of food in a protective home. Not so for McCourt, and reading about real desperation and poverty in the stylistic prose of a passionate and skilled writer was to make the pain of such victims a gut-wrenching reality.
He was an excellent storyteller, but like the best storytellers, the stories he told were about himself. He made me think of Ernest Hemingway and Khaled Hosseini, author of "The Kite Runner."
McCourt’s first book was a triumph about the turmoil of his early years in Ireland recalling the strife and pain of being hopelessly poor. The other books were about his life as a teacher, and was less popular with readers. In one of those life’s twists, it appears when writing books the worst of times are the most interesting for others.
Monday, July 13, 2009
It takes all kinds
By Don Klein
Cheney told us that torturing prisoners was necessary in order to protect Americans from more al Qaeda attacks. Today there is evidence that proves little valuable information was gathered and that normal non-debasing intelligence methods served the country best.
He also is identified by the current head of the CIA as the man who ordered the intelligence agency to not inform Congress of pertinent national security information that was normally due them.
Bush told us that warrant less eavesdropping of international telephone calls to and from the United States would keep us safe from future terrorist attacks. Now the CIA admits that little value was extracted from such methods.
Torture, wiretapping without judicial approval and withholding appropriate information from Congress violated American law, but the so-called, law-abiding Bush-Cheney gang didn’t give a hoot. They even got their flunky lawyers to legally approve many of these procedures.
In the 1980s, the GOP's much acclaimed Ronald Reagan told us that government was the problem and not the solution as he convinced Congress to weaken the ability of government regulators to protect the public served in various capacities by unscrupulous big businesses and greedy stock market manipulators.
Twenty-five years later we are experiencing the nearest thing to a full-fledged depression in our lifetime – worse than any economic downturn experienced since Herbert Hoover’s time. Lack of governmental regulatory control was a major factor. We certainly have much unsound behavior to attribute to the Republican Party.
But wait, we are not through. Today we have what might turn into almost unanimous Republican opposition to a universal health care plan for all citizens, including the 45-50 million uninsured Americans.
We have a heavy presence of Republicans among those who opposed any steps to combat global warming and the greening of America.
We have members of the GOP who vehemently oppose deficit spending --only when a Democrat is in office. These same conservative camp followers never made a peep when Bush turned an inherited Democratic surplus to a massive GOP deficit.
There are Republicans who love to accused the Democrats of being "tax and spend" activists when for eight years under Bush they were "tax cut and spend" twiddlers.
Then we have Governors Palin and Sanford. One quits when she has no reason to leave office and the other remains in office when he should quit. Palin abandons Alaska in mid-term so she can cash-in on her celebrity before it fades and Sanford keeps his adulterous behavior on the front pages by continuously explaining he love for a South American soul mate to the humiliation of his wife, four sons, and the people of South Carolina.
Then there is Sen. John Ensign of Nevada who kept a female underling as his private sex mate for more than a half year, even though the woman was married to another member of his staff. Having an illicit sexual relationship with an employee who happens to be married to another employee of yours is unmitigated depravity.
Then he decides to make things right by having both, the kept woman and her cuckolded husband, forced off his staff. Both out of work, the senator’s parents come to his rescue by giving the woman $96,000 as a "gift" – otherwise known as hush money. This is beginning to sound like a Giuseppe Verdi opera.
Ensign refuses to resign, too. Is it no wonder the Republicans are a minority party in the United States.
Of course, the difficulty is the Democrats are not much better. They watched as former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer squandered great political careers by slipping into acts of scandalous adultery. Then there was the impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich, of Illinois, and his curious Senate appointee, Roland Burris, who thankfully already took himself out of the 2010 elections.
The grotesque thing is that self-important, supercilious, pompous misfits similar to those I have mentioned will be on display this week and you would think these are people of the purest of standards. They will spend days exploring the judicial qualifications of New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
I always look at these Supreme Court confirmation hearings as if the inmates were in charge of the institution.
These same senators, who wallow in government provided privileges but cannot do the people's business most of the time, sit perched high on the rostrum like ancient inquisitors. Their judgments will count.
Just tell me this: Can anyone trust the perspicacity of a predecessor body like this which once approved Clarence Thomas for the highest court in the land? Can anyone trust a collection of people like this which not too long ago approved the outrageous congressional action in the Terri Schiavo case?
It can drive a commonsense person daft to realize who represents them in Washington.
So here we have it. A democracy, which American’s like to say is the best in the world. And yet we have deceivers like Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Sanford, Palin, Ensign, Blagojevich, Edwards and Spitzer running things. Like the onetime television comedian Marvin Stang used to say, "The world is made up of all kinds of strange people. I thank God I am not one of them."
But sadly we are one of them. There is no way of getting away from it. Power breeds abuse and contempt for others. In America, power is more potent than it has ever been anywhere, so we have to expect the worst from people in high positions.
Winston Churchill once remarked, "It’s been said democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other that have been tried." About this country, he also observed: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else."
We have our work cut out for us.
Cheney told us that torturing prisoners was necessary in order to protect Americans from more al Qaeda attacks. Today there is evidence that proves little valuable information was gathered and that normal non-debasing intelligence methods served the country best.
He also is identified by the current head of the CIA as the man who ordered the intelligence agency to not inform Congress of pertinent national security information that was normally due them.
Bush told us that warrant less eavesdropping of international telephone calls to and from the United States would keep us safe from future terrorist attacks. Now the CIA admits that little value was extracted from such methods.
Torture, wiretapping without judicial approval and withholding appropriate information from Congress violated American law, but the so-called, law-abiding Bush-Cheney gang didn’t give a hoot. They even got their flunky lawyers to legally approve many of these procedures.
In the 1980s, the GOP's much acclaimed Ronald Reagan told us that government was the problem and not the solution as he convinced Congress to weaken the ability of government regulators to protect the public served in various capacities by unscrupulous big businesses and greedy stock market manipulators.
Twenty-five years later we are experiencing the nearest thing to a full-fledged depression in our lifetime – worse than any economic downturn experienced since Herbert Hoover’s time. Lack of governmental regulatory control was a major factor. We certainly have much unsound behavior to attribute to the Republican Party.
But wait, we are not through. Today we have what might turn into almost unanimous Republican opposition to a universal health care plan for all citizens, including the 45-50 million uninsured Americans.
We have a heavy presence of Republicans among those who opposed any steps to combat global warming and the greening of America.
We have members of the GOP who vehemently oppose deficit spending --only when a Democrat is in office. These same conservative camp followers never made a peep when Bush turned an inherited Democratic surplus to a massive GOP deficit.
There are Republicans who love to accused the Democrats of being "tax and spend" activists when for eight years under Bush they were "tax cut and spend" twiddlers.
Then we have Governors Palin and Sanford. One quits when she has no reason to leave office and the other remains in office when he should quit. Palin abandons Alaska in mid-term so she can cash-in on her celebrity before it fades and Sanford keeps his adulterous behavior on the front pages by continuously explaining he love for a South American soul mate to the humiliation of his wife, four sons, and the people of South Carolina.
Then there is Sen. John Ensign of Nevada who kept a female underling as his private sex mate for more than a half year, even though the woman was married to another member of his staff. Having an illicit sexual relationship with an employee who happens to be married to another employee of yours is unmitigated depravity.
Then he decides to make things right by having both, the kept woman and her cuckolded husband, forced off his staff. Both out of work, the senator’s parents come to his rescue by giving the woman $96,000 as a "gift" – otherwise known as hush money. This is beginning to sound like a Giuseppe Verdi opera.
Ensign refuses to resign, too. Is it no wonder the Republicans are a minority party in the United States.
Of course, the difficulty is the Democrats are not much better. They watched as former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer squandered great political careers by slipping into acts of scandalous adultery. Then there was the impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich, of Illinois, and his curious Senate appointee, Roland Burris, who thankfully already took himself out of the 2010 elections.
The grotesque thing is that self-important, supercilious, pompous misfits similar to those I have mentioned will be on display this week and you would think these are people of the purest of standards. They will spend days exploring the judicial qualifications of New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
I always look at these Supreme Court confirmation hearings as if the inmates were in charge of the institution.
These same senators, who wallow in government provided privileges but cannot do the people's business most of the time, sit perched high on the rostrum like ancient inquisitors. Their judgments will count.
Just tell me this: Can anyone trust the perspicacity of a predecessor body like this which once approved Clarence Thomas for the highest court in the land? Can anyone trust a collection of people like this which not too long ago approved the outrageous congressional action in the Terri Schiavo case?
It can drive a commonsense person daft to realize who represents them in Washington.
So here we have it. A democracy, which American’s like to say is the best in the world. And yet we have deceivers like Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Sanford, Palin, Ensign, Blagojevich, Edwards and Spitzer running things. Like the onetime television comedian Marvin Stang used to say, "The world is made up of all kinds of strange people. I thank God I am not one of them."
But sadly we are one of them. There is no way of getting away from it. Power breeds abuse and contempt for others. In America, power is more potent than it has ever been anywhere, so we have to expect the worst from people in high positions.
Winston Churchill once remarked, "It’s been said democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other that have been tried." About this country, he also observed: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else."
We have our work cut out for us.
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