By Don Klein
It was one of the most depraved exploits in a century marked by appalling human evils. Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound 69-year-old American Jew on a Mediterranean vacation, was murdered and thrown into the sea from the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Arab hijackers on October 7, 1985.
The world was horrified at first, then exhilarated when US Navy jets later intercepted the aircraft transporting the killers and forced it to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Then the balloon burst when inept Italians, who took control the perps, let them escape into friendly Arab confines.
That incident of 24 years ago was all but forgotten by most of us when Farouk Hosny, Egypt’s minister of culture, decided he would like to top off his public career by running for director general of Unesco, the world body’s educational, scientific and culture organization.
At least the Arabs were hoping everyone else forgot about the Klinghoffer murder and its aftermath because Hosny, 71, in the past had boasted of his role in helping to organize the escape from Italy of the Achille Lauro killers.
This was not an isolated xenophobic moment on Hosny’s part. On another occasion he demonstrated his anti-Semitism when he told the Egyptian parliament that he would personally burn every Israeli (Jewish) book in the library in Alexandria, his country’s most important depository of literature.
It is an interesting look into the Arab mind. Here was a man who admitted publicly to being complicit in helping hijack-murderers of a helpless old cripple to escape justice and later in his career declared he would gladly be a book burner if given the opportunity, was thought to have the proper credentials to become the director of an international cultural organization.
What a curriculum vitae! And yet until the last vote was taken this past week he was within a hair’s breath from getting the plum assignment. It was like someone who lived on a diet of beans and potato chips applying for the job of top chef at a leading gourmet restaurant.
Fortunately people did not forget. When the nations squared off in Paris to choose a new Unesco director the vote eventually came to a 29-29 tie between Hosny and Bulgarian diplomat, Irina Bokova, 57, a former Communist, now of the Socialist Party. Bokova picked up two votes from countries which switched from the Egyptian. The final ballot was 31 to 27 and Hosny was vanquished.
Hosny’s defeat was certainly not by any means justice for Klinghoffer or his family because in a moral world he would be behind bars for being an accomplice in the escape of cold-blooded murderers. His book burning propensity, further, would also be enough to bar him from such a UN role.
But we do not live in a moral world. Too often we willingly ignore criminal activities and nauseating behavior. Sometimes we even reward the criminals. That’s why you have to be of a certain discernment to work in the diplomatic corp if it means having to operate side-by-side with villains of this nature.
The Bokova victory came on the fifth ballot when the Bulgarian benefitted from the switched votes of the Italian and Spanish delegations, according to The New York Times. I’d like to know what took them so long to see the light since both nations have been victimized by Arabs for decades?
Ask yourself why the Italians would ever consider supporting an Egyptian after being so insulted and embarrassed over the scandalous escape of the hijackers a quarter of a century ago. Do they have short memories or are they just cowards seeking to avoid commercial counteracts from the oil rich Arabs. I buy the latter reason.
And what about Spain? Think of the 191 Spanish commuters killed in that Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004. Muslims were out to kill in brutal calculation men, women and children innocently riding a train one day. How could they have ever considered voting for Hosny? But both countries apparently were in his corner in early voting as they were later identified as having changed their stand on the last ballot.
Is it no surprise that so many Americans have no respect for many West Europeans. They sit around allowing themselves to be targets of terrorists and Arab miscreants and never act forcefully when they have the opportunity to do so. They are slaves to oil.
Let us not forget one thing. The defeat of Hosny at Unesco will never make up for aiding Klinghoffer’s killers to escape justice. Nor will the millions in settlement dollars paid to his family by the Palestinian Liberation Organization years after the incident. Money can never make up for murder.
It is good to know that the ghost of Leon Klinghoffer hurled a shadow over the Egyptian’s effort to move up the UN ladder. That perhaps is the biggest flaw in the United Nations. People with dirty hands benefit in many ways when the UN should be more discerning about who they put into key positions.
Bokova doesn’t come without demerits, though. "Those who do not like Communism in (Bulgaria) are not happy about her promotion," a political critic told The Times. "For people in this region, her appointment sends the message that the West can swallow someone’s Communist past very easily but cannot abide an Arab who is anti-Israel." Wrong. One protected assassins, the other did not.
At least we can relish small victories. The relatives of Klinghoffer (an American not an Israeli) and those anonymous 191 Spaniards who died at the hands of Arab terrorists can take some solace in Hosny’s trouncing. It’s better than nothing, but not much.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Strange priorities
By Don Klein
Now imagine this scenario. You have a thriving business but you are not satisfied with the returns. Your greed tells you there will be additional profits if you invested in and sold risky widgets. Your key business advisers encourage the idea. You go ahead and fall flat on your face, but you have an ace up your sleeve.
You know your business is too important to the country to fail and as you are sinking into the quicksand of oblivion you hear the cavalry bugle call for charge and before you know it there is Uncle Sam with all the resources of the country to keep your head above the slime. Hurrah! You are financially restored and decide to offer bonuses to all those employees who advised you to sell widgets in the first place.
What have you learned? Most people would not go near such a scenario again. They would stay clear of shady deals and bad business plans. That would be the wise thing to do. No one likes to feel the pull of quicksand, do they?
Maybe not, but that is if you are talking about normal people, not Wall Street bankers and manipulators. They seem to think they are too important to the nation’s economy for the government to allow them to go under. And the government at this point is doing nothing to give them a contrary thought.
So here we are one year since Lehman Brothers went under and the start of the worst economic free-fall in the country in 80 years and the guardians of our freedom and economy – the US Congress – has done absolutely nothing to change the rules that run Wall Street. They have imposed no new regulations to avoid what happen last year to happen again.
To be fair neither has the president.
Just take note. It is one year after the most disastrous economic plunge in decades crippled the country where millions have lost their jobs, millions more have lost the value of their property and stocks and millions have been swindled by stock market sharpies, and nothing has been done to curb these excesses except to bailout the bad guys and give million dollar bonuses to the rodents who got us into this mess in the first place.
We have 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 senators, a president and his cabinet, and none have acted with any urgency on this matter. We pay each member of both houses of Congress a minimum of $174,000 annually and the president is recompensed at $487,000. In addition almost half the senators (40 to be exact) are millionaires.
They are paid by the people of this country but it is clear they do not work for the people. If they did they would have enacted legislation by now that would put a crimp in the ability of the swindlers and bottom feeders of Wall Street to squirrel away all that money while making risky deals which took them to the brink of bankruptcy only to be saved from financial calamity by the taxpayers.
It is hard to believe that as the economy sunk into the bottomless pit it was heading for last year that responsive and responsible elected government officials would still be picking lint from their $800 suits and scratching their noggins 12 months later like the classic slapstick artist Stan Laurel. If it weren’t such a serious problem it would be laughable.
This is what President Clinton's secretary of labor, Robert Reich, said recently:
"The mega-bailout of Wall Street accomplished little. The only big winners have been top bank executives and traders, whose pay packages are once again in the stratosphere. Banks have been so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders they've even revived the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payments -- guaranteed no matter how the employee performs.
"Goldman Sachs is on course to hand out bonuses that could rival its record pre-meltdown paydays. In the second quarter this year it posted its fattest quarterly profit in its 140-year history, and earmarked $11.4 billion to compensate its happy campers. Which translates into about $770,000 per Goldman employee on average, just about what they earned at the height of the boom. Of course, top executives and traders will pocket much more."
Was it Obama who said he would chase the lobbyists out of the halls of government when he became president? That was before he tried to appoint lobbyists to his Cabinet and other high positions. And before he tried to control the rich on Wall Street and in the insurance industry. We need a fighter on our side, and we need him or her now.
Isn’t it about time we faced the reality of Washington. It is no longer our government, nor the government that Thomas Jefferson envisioned. It is the corrupt creation of what big money does to good intentions.
For more than a year we could not find the language to curb Wall Street excesses, for eight months now we cannot find the language to provide a decent health plan for ordinary people but we can act within hours to declare as president a man who lost the popular vote in 2000 and keep a husband from relieving his decade-long comatose wife who was "living" with the help of tubes and electronics in a vegetated state so he could bury her in peace and dignity.
We certainly have strange priorities in this country.
Now imagine this scenario. You have a thriving business but you are not satisfied with the returns. Your greed tells you there will be additional profits if you invested in and sold risky widgets. Your key business advisers encourage the idea. You go ahead and fall flat on your face, but you have an ace up your sleeve.
You know your business is too important to the country to fail and as you are sinking into the quicksand of oblivion you hear the cavalry bugle call for charge and before you know it there is Uncle Sam with all the resources of the country to keep your head above the slime. Hurrah! You are financially restored and decide to offer bonuses to all those employees who advised you to sell widgets in the first place.
What have you learned? Most people would not go near such a scenario again. They would stay clear of shady deals and bad business plans. That would be the wise thing to do. No one likes to feel the pull of quicksand, do they?
Maybe not, but that is if you are talking about normal people, not Wall Street bankers and manipulators. They seem to think they are too important to the nation’s economy for the government to allow them to go under. And the government at this point is doing nothing to give them a contrary thought.
So here we are one year since Lehman Brothers went under and the start of the worst economic free-fall in the country in 80 years and the guardians of our freedom and economy – the US Congress – has done absolutely nothing to change the rules that run Wall Street. They have imposed no new regulations to avoid what happen last year to happen again.
To be fair neither has the president.
Just take note. It is one year after the most disastrous economic plunge in decades crippled the country where millions have lost their jobs, millions more have lost the value of their property and stocks and millions have been swindled by stock market sharpies, and nothing has been done to curb these excesses except to bailout the bad guys and give million dollar bonuses to the rodents who got us into this mess in the first place.
We have 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 senators, a president and his cabinet, and none have acted with any urgency on this matter. We pay each member of both houses of Congress a minimum of $174,000 annually and the president is recompensed at $487,000. In addition almost half the senators (40 to be exact) are millionaires.
They are paid by the people of this country but it is clear they do not work for the people. If they did they would have enacted legislation by now that would put a crimp in the ability of the swindlers and bottom feeders of Wall Street to squirrel away all that money while making risky deals which took them to the brink of bankruptcy only to be saved from financial calamity by the taxpayers.
It is hard to believe that as the economy sunk into the bottomless pit it was heading for last year that responsive and responsible elected government officials would still be picking lint from their $800 suits and scratching their noggins 12 months later like the classic slapstick artist Stan Laurel. If it weren’t such a serious problem it would be laughable.
This is what President Clinton's secretary of labor, Robert Reich, said recently:
"The mega-bailout of Wall Street accomplished little. The only big winners have been top bank executives and traders, whose pay packages are once again in the stratosphere. Banks have been so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders they've even revived the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payments -- guaranteed no matter how the employee performs.
"Goldman Sachs is on course to hand out bonuses that could rival its record pre-meltdown paydays. In the second quarter this year it posted its fattest quarterly profit in its 140-year history, and earmarked $11.4 billion to compensate its happy campers. Which translates into about $770,000 per Goldman employee on average, just about what they earned at the height of the boom. Of course, top executives and traders will pocket much more."
Was it Obama who said he would chase the lobbyists out of the halls of government when he became president? That was before he tried to appoint lobbyists to his Cabinet and other high positions. And before he tried to control the rich on Wall Street and in the insurance industry. We need a fighter on our side, and we need him or her now.
Isn’t it about time we faced the reality of Washington. It is no longer our government, nor the government that Thomas Jefferson envisioned. It is the corrupt creation of what big money does to good intentions.
For more than a year we could not find the language to curb Wall Street excesses, for eight months now we cannot find the language to provide a decent health plan for ordinary people but we can act within hours to declare as president a man who lost the popular vote in 2000 and keep a husband from relieving his decade-long comatose wife who was "living" with the help of tubes and electronics in a vegetated state so he could bury her in peace and dignity.
We certainly have strange priorities in this country.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
How low can some senators sink?
By Don Klein
Once upon a time there was a collegial attitude in the United State Senate. Yes that is true, although it might be difficult for you whippersnappers under the age of 60 to know it.
During the twenty years of uninterrupted Democratic rule between 1933 and 1953 and the eight years between 1961 and 1969, there was a Republican Party that actually behaved like the loyal opposition acting seriously to debate and solve public issues and to work in the bipartisan spirit.
There were senators like Styles Bridges (N.H.), Robert Taft (Ohio), Owen Brewster (Mich), and Warren Austin (Vt), all Republicans in a Senate that had a two-to-one Democratic majority. Yet they were all cordial to their opponents. They often disagreed with measures proposed by the majority, but refrained of behaving scurrilously or being ruthless.
After all the Senate was the most exclusive gentlemen’s club in the country. Everyone was well behaved. In later years there were other GOP gentlemen, Everett Dirksen (Ill) and his son-in-law, Howard Baker (Tenn), politicians who battled the Democrats tooth and nail but retained their civility and sense of respect for their opponents. Good demeanor was reciprocated by the Democrats. These were true gentlemen working on needed legislation.
So what happened?
Why are many of the current Republicans acting like they just escaped from the lunatic asylum? Why are they committed to block any measure proposed by President Barack Obama and the Democrats? Why do they question Obama’s birth status? Why do they openly lie about the non-existent "death panel" in the proposed health plan?
Why are they defaming the good name of the party which boasts of titanic presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt?
It is always sad to watch great institutions die. It is worse to watch them commit suicide. I feel that is exactly what the Republicans are doing to their party these days. They make it very unappealing to be on their side on any issue because they are loaded with more nutcases per square foot than barbaric Bedlam, the old English confinement center for the insane.
Here are a few examples of the insanity raging among Republicans currently holding senatorial rank.
Let’s start with an outright lie. Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, who allegedly was working with the Democrats on the Finance Committee to work on bipartisan legislation on the health bill told a meeting with his constituents they ought to be concerned about a government program which would "pull the plug on grandma." That was a lie and he knew it especially since he didn’t mention he voted for the end of life counseling clause.
That’s as demagogic as you can get.
Then there is Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who said there ought to be the death penalty for abortionists, that the so-called gay agenda is the "greatest threat to our freedom today" and who managed to sneak an amendment to an unrelated bill allowing visitors to openly carry guns in national parks.
Three questions to you senator. 1. How can you punish someone for acting legally, 2. How does being gay threaten the freedom of anyone else? and 3. Why would anyone need a gun when visting a park?
James Imhofe, the other Oklahoma senator, said global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public and further accused the Weather Channel of scare-mongering about the problem to increase its television ratings. Best of all, he said that the attacks on 9/11 were God’s anger at the US for its policies in favor of Israel. Apparently he speaks with God on a regular basis.
We have Jim Demint, of South Carolina , in one sweeping remark he compared the president to Hitler, Hugo Chavez and the Islamic Republic of Iran. He sees efforts to stimulate the economy and to provide universal health care as Obama’s way to subvert the Constitution. Huh?
Finally there are the two leaders who exemplify the often stated GOP mantra of "family values." For social purists we have David Vitter, of Louisiana, and John Ensign, of Nevada. Vitter fought for an amendment to the Constitution to dictate that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman and often chirped that anyone who committed adultery should resign from public office.
That was before his name and telephone number was found in the records of a prominent Washington brothel keeper.
Ensign is one of those charmers you should never leave alone with your wife, or any woman, especially if you are a close friend. This leader of society converted a female staff member into his personal lady of pleasure even though she was married to another member of the Ensign staff . How’s that for loyalty and friendship? Later he tried to pay off the wounded couple employing his wealthy parents to provide cash.
What a family they are!
There was a time when both these masters of disrepute would have to resign on grounds of what was once termed "moral turpitude," but today they are nothing less than standards for many in the Senate.
The Democrats have their queer duck as well. There is Roland Burriss of Illinois. He was appointed to Obama’s senate seat by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich before he was impeached by the state legislature. Burriss insisted he never made a deal with the damaged ex-governor. Later a deal to raise money for Blago exposed Burriss as a fraud.
These preposterous characters run around Capitol Hill making laws for the rest of us to live by. They are an insult to the memories of former senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Hubert Humphrey and Arthur Vandenberg – all of whom must be twisting in their graves...as is Honest Abe and tough Teddy.
Once upon a time there was a collegial attitude in the United State Senate. Yes that is true, although it might be difficult for you whippersnappers under the age of 60 to know it.
During the twenty years of uninterrupted Democratic rule between 1933 and 1953 and the eight years between 1961 and 1969, there was a Republican Party that actually behaved like the loyal opposition acting seriously to debate and solve public issues and to work in the bipartisan spirit.
There were senators like Styles Bridges (N.H.), Robert Taft (Ohio), Owen Brewster (Mich), and Warren Austin (Vt), all Republicans in a Senate that had a two-to-one Democratic majority. Yet they were all cordial to their opponents. They often disagreed with measures proposed by the majority, but refrained of behaving scurrilously or being ruthless.
After all the Senate was the most exclusive gentlemen’s club in the country. Everyone was well behaved. In later years there were other GOP gentlemen, Everett Dirksen (Ill) and his son-in-law, Howard Baker (Tenn), politicians who battled the Democrats tooth and nail but retained their civility and sense of respect for their opponents. Good demeanor was reciprocated by the Democrats. These were true gentlemen working on needed legislation.
So what happened?
Why are many of the current Republicans acting like they just escaped from the lunatic asylum? Why are they committed to block any measure proposed by President Barack Obama and the Democrats? Why do they question Obama’s birth status? Why do they openly lie about the non-existent "death panel" in the proposed health plan?
Why are they defaming the good name of the party which boasts of titanic presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt?
It is always sad to watch great institutions die. It is worse to watch them commit suicide. I feel that is exactly what the Republicans are doing to their party these days. They make it very unappealing to be on their side on any issue because they are loaded with more nutcases per square foot than barbaric Bedlam, the old English confinement center for the insane.
Here are a few examples of the insanity raging among Republicans currently holding senatorial rank.
Let’s start with an outright lie. Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, who allegedly was working with the Democrats on the Finance Committee to work on bipartisan legislation on the health bill told a meeting with his constituents they ought to be concerned about a government program which would "pull the plug on grandma." That was a lie and he knew it especially since he didn’t mention he voted for the end of life counseling clause.
That’s as demagogic as you can get.
Then there is Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who said there ought to be the death penalty for abortionists, that the so-called gay agenda is the "greatest threat to our freedom today" and who managed to sneak an amendment to an unrelated bill allowing visitors to openly carry guns in national parks.
Three questions to you senator. 1. How can you punish someone for acting legally, 2. How does being gay threaten the freedom of anyone else? and 3. Why would anyone need a gun when visting a park?
James Imhofe, the other Oklahoma senator, said global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public and further accused the Weather Channel of scare-mongering about the problem to increase its television ratings. Best of all, he said that the attacks on 9/11 were God’s anger at the US for its policies in favor of Israel. Apparently he speaks with God on a regular basis.
We have Jim Demint, of South Carolina , in one sweeping remark he compared the president to Hitler, Hugo Chavez and the Islamic Republic of Iran. He sees efforts to stimulate the economy and to provide universal health care as Obama’s way to subvert the Constitution. Huh?
Finally there are the two leaders who exemplify the often stated GOP mantra of "family values." For social purists we have David Vitter, of Louisiana, and John Ensign, of Nevada. Vitter fought for an amendment to the Constitution to dictate that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman and often chirped that anyone who committed adultery should resign from public office.
That was before his name and telephone number was found in the records of a prominent Washington brothel keeper.
Ensign is one of those charmers you should never leave alone with your wife, or any woman, especially if you are a close friend. This leader of society converted a female staff member into his personal lady of pleasure even though she was married to another member of the Ensign staff . How’s that for loyalty and friendship? Later he tried to pay off the wounded couple employing his wealthy parents to provide cash.
What a family they are!
There was a time when both these masters of disrepute would have to resign on grounds of what was once termed "moral turpitude," but today they are nothing less than standards for many in the Senate.
The Democrats have their queer duck as well. There is Roland Burriss of Illinois. He was appointed to Obama’s senate seat by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich before he was impeached by the state legislature. Burriss insisted he never made a deal with the damaged ex-governor. Later a deal to raise money for Blago exposed Burriss as a fraud.
These preposterous characters run around Capitol Hill making laws for the rest of us to live by. They are an insult to the memories of former senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Hubert Humphrey and Arthur Vandenberg – all of whom must be twisting in their graves...as is Honest Abe and tough Teddy.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Obama needs some old FDR grit
By Don Klein
August was a bad month for the health care debate and for President Obama. I gather the White House staff is breathing easier now that it is over. But should they feel relief now that it’s September? I don’t think so unless the president changes his ways.
So far, the way Obama has handled the health care issue is hardly reassuring. I’m not certain he has it in him to do much better.
That’s a shame because Obama, the oft-described 21st Century reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, needs to take some lessons on passing tough legislation from the old master himself. Perhaps Obama has too high an opinion of himself to deign to take lessons from the greatest American president since Lincoln. We hope not.
FDR knew there was no real bipartisanship in Washington when you want to shakeup the establishment and try something new or revolutionary. Obama apparently still grasps at that silly straw. There never was an intension on the part of the Republicans to work with Democrats on health care reform. They just payed along to delay the process, offering endless amendments and succeeded in leaving the Democrats panting for breath over the issue because Obama failed to take charge the way FDR did during the New Deal.
Before an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936, FDR called his opposition for what it was. He laid it out without mincing words. "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering, They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs." he said.
"We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred," he exclaimed.
Can you imagine Obama saying anything liked that today? Did FDR’s comments sit well with the electorate? You might conclude it did. FDR won every state in the union except Maine and Vermont in the most lopsided presidential election in history that year. I am not saying that speech was the sole stimulant for his one-sided victory, rather it was his wide-ranging programs for the people and his fighting style that did.
Obama has similar circumstances with programs that appeal to ordinary people, exemplified by the broad appeal of the health care bill but he hasn’t shown any semblance of the fighting nature that successful presidents like FDR exhibited.
President Harry S. Truman, a virtual unknown outside of Washington when he succeeded FDR in death, caught the imagination and excitement of the nation when he launched the famous 1948 "Give ‘Em Hell Harry" campaign.
Commentator Michael Lind writes online "Can anyone imagine President Barack Obama saying anything like that?" He goes on "As the Republican minority, backed by an avalanche of special-interest money, mobilizes to thwart the health reform agenda of the Democratic majority, maybe the time has come for ‘Give-'Em-Hell Barry.’"
Lind goes on, "The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats' demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people."
As Roosevelt told his audience in 1936, "It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them." That’s what has been happening these days as Obama blithely chases the unreachable bipartisanship balloon. FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform.
Even Obama’s supporters are beginning to wonder if he is the leader we need at this point in time. They wonder how George Bush with an even less of a majority in the Senate managed to push through much criticized tax cuts and the unpopular war in Iraq while Obama can’t even keep his party behind him on the health care issue. It is time for the president to step up to the plate and start slugging.
During last year’s primary campaign, Hillary Clinton charged that Obama was a man of great words but of little experience to lead the nation. The argument was that campaigns are poetry but running the government is prose. We are starting to wonder if Obama is simply a great poet.
Now is the time to take the gloves off and to inform the intransigent Democrats in the Senate that a health bill without a public option will mean the end of the Democrat majority in Congress. That their jobs are at risk. He should offer deals to those in his own party who are willing to bargain away the public option for fictitious GOP support that will never evolve. It is time to twist arms, a la Lyndon B. Johnson.
As far as the Republicans are concerned, Obama should forget seeking their support. Single out one or two or three who might be marginal on the issue, like the two senators from Maine, and offer them presidential windfalls that would persuade them to crossover to his side of the issue.
The sad fact is Obama wasted valuable time when the Democrats had the numbers, before Ted Kennedy’s death, and now lost the 60 votes they need for cloture. Now they must make the best they can without further delay. Oh if Obama just had a little of the pluck of FDR or the zeal of HST.
August was a bad month for the health care debate and for President Obama. I gather the White House staff is breathing easier now that it is over. But should they feel relief now that it’s September? I don’t think so unless the president changes his ways.
So far, the way Obama has handled the health care issue is hardly reassuring. I’m not certain he has it in him to do much better.
That’s a shame because Obama, the oft-described 21st Century reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, needs to take some lessons on passing tough legislation from the old master himself. Perhaps Obama has too high an opinion of himself to deign to take lessons from the greatest American president since Lincoln. We hope not.
FDR knew there was no real bipartisanship in Washington when you want to shakeup the establishment and try something new or revolutionary. Obama apparently still grasps at that silly straw. There never was an intension on the part of the Republicans to work with Democrats on health care reform. They just payed along to delay the process, offering endless amendments and succeeded in leaving the Democrats panting for breath over the issue because Obama failed to take charge the way FDR did during the New Deal.
Before an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936, FDR called his opposition for what it was. He laid it out without mincing words. "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering, They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs." he said.
"We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred," he exclaimed.
Can you imagine Obama saying anything liked that today? Did FDR’s comments sit well with the electorate? You might conclude it did. FDR won every state in the union except Maine and Vermont in the most lopsided presidential election in history that year. I am not saying that speech was the sole stimulant for his one-sided victory, rather it was his wide-ranging programs for the people and his fighting style that did.
Obama has similar circumstances with programs that appeal to ordinary people, exemplified by the broad appeal of the health care bill but he hasn’t shown any semblance of the fighting nature that successful presidents like FDR exhibited.
President Harry S. Truman, a virtual unknown outside of Washington when he succeeded FDR in death, caught the imagination and excitement of the nation when he launched the famous 1948 "Give ‘Em Hell Harry" campaign.
Commentator Michael Lind writes online "Can anyone imagine President Barack Obama saying anything like that?" He goes on "As the Republican minority, backed by an avalanche of special-interest money, mobilizes to thwart the health reform agenda of the Democratic majority, maybe the time has come for ‘Give-'Em-Hell Barry.’"
Lind goes on, "The most dangerous deficit that the United States faces is not the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It is the Democrats' demagogy deficit. Franklin Roosevelt, looking down from that Hyde Park in the sky, would not be surprised that conservatives are seeking to channel populist anger and anxiety, not against the Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy, but against reformers promoting healthcare reform and economic security for ordinary people."
As Roosevelt told his audience in 1936, "It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them." That’s what has been happening these days as Obama blithely chases the unreachable bipartisanship balloon. FDR would be shocked by the inability of his party to mobilize the public on behalf of reform.
Even Obama’s supporters are beginning to wonder if he is the leader we need at this point in time. They wonder how George Bush with an even less of a majority in the Senate managed to push through much criticized tax cuts and the unpopular war in Iraq while Obama can’t even keep his party behind him on the health care issue. It is time for the president to step up to the plate and start slugging.
During last year’s primary campaign, Hillary Clinton charged that Obama was a man of great words but of little experience to lead the nation. The argument was that campaigns are poetry but running the government is prose. We are starting to wonder if Obama is simply a great poet.
Now is the time to take the gloves off and to inform the intransigent Democrats in the Senate that a health bill without a public option will mean the end of the Democrat majority in Congress. That their jobs are at risk. He should offer deals to those in his own party who are willing to bargain away the public option for fictitious GOP support that will never evolve. It is time to twist arms, a la Lyndon B. Johnson.
As far as the Republicans are concerned, Obama should forget seeking their support. Single out one or two or three who might be marginal on the issue, like the two senators from Maine, and offer them presidential windfalls that would persuade them to crossover to his side of the issue.
The sad fact is Obama wasted valuable time when the Democrats had the numbers, before Ted Kennedy’s death, and now lost the 60 votes they need for cloture. Now they must make the best they can without further delay. Oh if Obama just had a little of the pluck of FDR or the zeal of HST.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Taps for health care or for Teddy
By Don Klein
The passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy brings to mind the inaugural address of his older brother, John F. Kennedy. On January 20, 1961 he said, "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans."
With the last of the Kennedy brothers gone that "new generation" is history.
The question is what happens with today’s generation? The American era that started with JFK brought Olympian changes to the American scene – a period of nearly a half century of social, political and emotional upheaval in the history of the country. Sadly it also brought virtually endless military conflicts of ignoble and nasty circumstances.
Ted Kennedy played an important role in those years and even might have been president if it weren’t for the fact he was perceived as a womanizer and an inebriate. When he first entered the Senate at the minimal age of 30, he was considered a lightweight riding on the broad shoulders of his more accomplished and influential bigger brothers, Jack and Bobby.
Still many looked at him as the heir to the Massachusetts senate seat and possibly even presidential timber. Then there was the Chappaquiddick incident in which a young woman died in his car after he drove it off a road and it sunk into the harbor. They had just left a party of former Kennedy campaign volunteers at which much boozing occurred.
But the new era to which Jack Kennedy envisoned was kept alive and Teddy played important roles along the way. Civil rights legislation was passed, the Supreme Court knocked down school segregation, there was abortion relief, laws helping the disabled and aimed at improving educational opportunities were enacted. New acts on immigration, minimum wages, women’s issues, mental health care and children’s health insurance came into being.
Teddy may have started out as a lightweight and got himself into a lot of unnecessary and unwise troubles associated with a spoiled rich kid but he eventually straightened out. One can only guess what kind of country we would have today if Teddy had won the Democratic primary against Jimmy Carter in 1980 and went on to defeat Ronald Reagan for president in the general election.
The new generation his brother Jack talked about in his inaugural address went on with the first Bush moving into the White House following Reagan and Bill Clinton coming along after him. Then there was the calamitous second Bush presidency, making a mockery of the high ideals Jack Kennedy had aimed at 40 years earlier.
But the Kennedy generation was still alive as long as Teddy was alive.
Today there are no successors to the Kennedy dream now that Teddy is gone. There are no senators, Democratic or Republican, who can carry the title of a bona fide political leader. And we have a president who has yet made his mark on the public, let alone history. With Barack Obama, however, we have the hope a new generation of leadership which at this point still needs definition.
Obama won a stirring victory in the primary and the general elections last year, true, but had a rocky first seven months in office. It is hard to imagine this is a new era of great accomplishments unless an achiever emerges. There are none in Congress at the moment, so we will have to settle for Obama, the only potential mover of the body politic, the only current inspiration for a new generation.
It is never fair to compare leaders from different times. The Jack Kennedy and Obama circumstances were and are different. The problems were and are not the same. The opposition was and is dissimilar. It may be just that Obama may not have the intestinal instincts to go after his opponents like a Kennedy would.
Obama has been soft-selling his health plan even though he had a filibuster-proof majority. He has been seeking bipartisanship that doesn’t exist. Tragically he has lost that trump card with Teddy’s death.
Now the Republicans hold the trump card. We all knew the 60-40 majority was in danger with Teddy’s mortal ailment yet the White House diddled the time away and is now in grievous straights with the bill. If this period is to eventually be called the Obama era, the president has to move quickly and start twisting arms of resistant Democrats and making deals with disobliging Republicans.
We will soon see if this new president is all promise and little clout.
The Kennedy era will fade away as they lower Teddy’s coffin into the earth near his assassinated brothers in Arlington National Cemetery. Army buglers will play the plaintiff strains of Taps and a major question will remain: Are they playing it to honor Teddy’s nearly five decades of public service or are they playing it for Obama’s failed drive for a national health plan.
The passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy brings to mind the inaugural address of his older brother, John F. Kennedy. On January 20, 1961 he said, "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans."
With the last of the Kennedy brothers gone that "new generation" is history.
The question is what happens with today’s generation? The American era that started with JFK brought Olympian changes to the American scene – a period of nearly a half century of social, political and emotional upheaval in the history of the country. Sadly it also brought virtually endless military conflicts of ignoble and nasty circumstances.
Ted Kennedy played an important role in those years and even might have been president if it weren’t for the fact he was perceived as a womanizer and an inebriate. When he first entered the Senate at the minimal age of 30, he was considered a lightweight riding on the broad shoulders of his more accomplished and influential bigger brothers, Jack and Bobby.
Still many looked at him as the heir to the Massachusetts senate seat and possibly even presidential timber. Then there was the Chappaquiddick incident in which a young woman died in his car after he drove it off a road and it sunk into the harbor. They had just left a party of former Kennedy campaign volunteers at which much boozing occurred.
But the new era to which Jack Kennedy envisoned was kept alive and Teddy played important roles along the way. Civil rights legislation was passed, the Supreme Court knocked down school segregation, there was abortion relief, laws helping the disabled and aimed at improving educational opportunities were enacted. New acts on immigration, minimum wages, women’s issues, mental health care and children’s health insurance came into being.
Teddy may have started out as a lightweight and got himself into a lot of unnecessary and unwise troubles associated with a spoiled rich kid but he eventually straightened out. One can only guess what kind of country we would have today if Teddy had won the Democratic primary against Jimmy Carter in 1980 and went on to defeat Ronald Reagan for president in the general election.
The new generation his brother Jack talked about in his inaugural address went on with the first Bush moving into the White House following Reagan and Bill Clinton coming along after him. Then there was the calamitous second Bush presidency, making a mockery of the high ideals Jack Kennedy had aimed at 40 years earlier.
But the Kennedy generation was still alive as long as Teddy was alive.
Today there are no successors to the Kennedy dream now that Teddy is gone. There are no senators, Democratic or Republican, who can carry the title of a bona fide political leader. And we have a president who has yet made his mark on the public, let alone history. With Barack Obama, however, we have the hope a new generation of leadership which at this point still needs definition.
Obama won a stirring victory in the primary and the general elections last year, true, but had a rocky first seven months in office. It is hard to imagine this is a new era of great accomplishments unless an achiever emerges. There are none in Congress at the moment, so we will have to settle for Obama, the only potential mover of the body politic, the only current inspiration for a new generation.
It is never fair to compare leaders from different times. The Jack Kennedy and Obama circumstances were and are different. The problems were and are not the same. The opposition was and is dissimilar. It may be just that Obama may not have the intestinal instincts to go after his opponents like a Kennedy would.
Obama has been soft-selling his health plan even though he had a filibuster-proof majority. He has been seeking bipartisanship that doesn’t exist. Tragically he has lost that trump card with Teddy’s death.
Now the Republicans hold the trump card. We all knew the 60-40 majority was in danger with Teddy’s mortal ailment yet the White House diddled the time away and is now in grievous straights with the bill. If this period is to eventually be called the Obama era, the president has to move quickly and start twisting arms of resistant Democrats and making deals with disobliging Republicans.
We will soon see if this new president is all promise and little clout.
The Kennedy era will fade away as they lower Teddy’s coffin into the earth near his assassinated brothers in Arlington National Cemetery. Army buglers will play the plaintiff strains of Taps and a major question will remain: Are they playing it to honor Teddy’s nearly five decades of public service or are they playing it for Obama’s failed drive for a national health plan.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Curse the dark or light a candle
By Don Klein
If universal health care for Americans is weakened because of an honest discourse between the people and their government representatives,
that would be democracy in action. No dispute from me.
If on the other hand health care gets diluted to the level of being eyewash rather than a substantive reform because of fear, misinformation and downright lies, that’s a national disgrace.
What is going on now is a strange combination of both these propositions.
Fear seems to be playing the biggest part, though. When Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley put himself in the same box with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin suggesting old people might be euthanized there is only one explanation. Spreading fear.
Grassley knows better and should be ashamed of himself. I’ve given up on Palin. I can’t figure whether she is a demagogue or just plain stupid. She fits both personas.
There will be no medical coverage for illegal aliens nor will abortion seekers be handed free care, as many believe. But there are legitimate other concerns on the part of many people and even though I don’t indorse these worries, they are real.
For example, older folks feel that in order to do all that must be done to reform health options and to pay for it, Medicare recipients will have to accept reduced services and possibly higher deductions and co-pays. Obama said he wants to eliminate waste in Medicare and that raises the alarm bell for many seniors who love the program just the way it is.
Then there are the veterans who fear their health benefits will be severely altered to save money needed to fund the new health program. Obama swore their benefits will not be touched.
There is the fright that the government can’t run a complicated program like health care because government doesn’t run anything well. That is generally true, but it is not an axiom. The government runs Medicare well enough to please most seniors. It also does a fairly decent job with the military, although at an awfully high cost. And any retired person will attest to the dependability of Social Security.
What I see as the most consuming problem when universal health care becomes available will be the lack of adequate numbers of health care providers. There are simply not enough doctors to handle the health needs in the country now. Try to get a doctor’s appointment today without having to wait three or four or more months. I have to call my specialists for annual check-ups in November for January-February sessions or I have to wait months longer.
What is going to happen when we add the 46 to 50 million Americans who currently are uninsured. Even if only half of those who will be brought under the new health plan need to visit a doctor, the medical work load will more than just bend, it could fracture. This is especially so if we begin a new era, as Obama has said many times, of preventive medicine.
As of now doctors only spend a few minutes with each patient and in that time they are supposed to give you the full benefit of their medical expertise. We spend more time explaining the problems of our automobile to the service manager at a car repair shop than we do with doctors.
There is no excuse for the mechanic not making the correct repairs, but the doctor may fail your diagnosis because he has little time to thoroughly evaluate your problem and if the symptoms are not obvious it might be overlooked in the crush of his schedule. Add millions more to the patient pool and the situation could become disheartening.
That doesn’t mean we should not bring those in need into the medical insurance program. The worst thing we can do in do nothing because that invites even worse circumstances. We need portability of insurance, we need protection from being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, we need other procedural updates outlined many times by proponents of the plan.
We must expect a disruption in the way things proceed for the 80 percent of the country who are already covered by insurance. The change will not be smooth, change never is, but change is necessary and inevitable. Given these factors, I have a simple question to ask those who oppose universal health care.
Please tell me why you are championing the multi-billion dollar insurance industry which currently is pushing the nation towards bankruptcy to feed its own greed? There is absolutely no advantage to leaving things the way they are. None of us will benefit except the big insurers. So opponents should stop worrying about "death panels" that were never considered in the first place nor an Orwellian future of an all powerful government running our lives.
Today’s insured will loose some conveniences and the uninsured will gain coverage under a new system which will include everyone. It is a good trade off. We will still have our favorite doctors (although we will have to share their services with a larger clientele), we will still get our emergency care, our preventive medical treatment and no one will deny grandma her medicine when she turns 80.
Health care in this country now is more expensive than it should be. The costs get worse. We deserve better. So what’s the big deal in changing it and hoping for better. When it comes to health care the choice is clear: We can either curse the darkness or light a candle.
If universal health care for Americans is weakened because of an honest discourse between the people and their government representatives,
that would be democracy in action. No dispute from me.
If on the other hand health care gets diluted to the level of being eyewash rather than a substantive reform because of fear, misinformation and downright lies, that’s a national disgrace.
What is going on now is a strange combination of both these propositions.
Fear seems to be playing the biggest part, though. When Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley put himself in the same box with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin suggesting old people might be euthanized there is only one explanation. Spreading fear.
Grassley knows better and should be ashamed of himself. I’ve given up on Palin. I can’t figure whether she is a demagogue or just plain stupid. She fits both personas.
There will be no medical coverage for illegal aliens nor will abortion seekers be handed free care, as many believe. But there are legitimate other concerns on the part of many people and even though I don’t indorse these worries, they are real.
For example, older folks feel that in order to do all that must be done to reform health options and to pay for it, Medicare recipients will have to accept reduced services and possibly higher deductions and co-pays. Obama said he wants to eliminate waste in Medicare and that raises the alarm bell for many seniors who love the program just the way it is.
Then there are the veterans who fear their health benefits will be severely altered to save money needed to fund the new health program. Obama swore their benefits will not be touched.
There is the fright that the government can’t run a complicated program like health care because government doesn’t run anything well. That is generally true, but it is not an axiom. The government runs Medicare well enough to please most seniors. It also does a fairly decent job with the military, although at an awfully high cost. And any retired person will attest to the dependability of Social Security.
What I see as the most consuming problem when universal health care becomes available will be the lack of adequate numbers of health care providers. There are simply not enough doctors to handle the health needs in the country now. Try to get a doctor’s appointment today without having to wait three or four or more months. I have to call my specialists for annual check-ups in November for January-February sessions or I have to wait months longer.
What is going to happen when we add the 46 to 50 million Americans who currently are uninsured. Even if only half of those who will be brought under the new health plan need to visit a doctor, the medical work load will more than just bend, it could fracture. This is especially so if we begin a new era, as Obama has said many times, of preventive medicine.
As of now doctors only spend a few minutes with each patient and in that time they are supposed to give you the full benefit of their medical expertise. We spend more time explaining the problems of our automobile to the service manager at a car repair shop than we do with doctors.
There is no excuse for the mechanic not making the correct repairs, but the doctor may fail your diagnosis because he has little time to thoroughly evaluate your problem and if the symptoms are not obvious it might be overlooked in the crush of his schedule. Add millions more to the patient pool and the situation could become disheartening.
That doesn’t mean we should not bring those in need into the medical insurance program. The worst thing we can do in do nothing because that invites even worse circumstances. We need portability of insurance, we need protection from being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, we need other procedural updates outlined many times by proponents of the plan.
We must expect a disruption in the way things proceed for the 80 percent of the country who are already covered by insurance. The change will not be smooth, change never is, but change is necessary and inevitable. Given these factors, I have a simple question to ask those who oppose universal health care.
Please tell me why you are championing the multi-billion dollar insurance industry which currently is pushing the nation towards bankruptcy to feed its own greed? There is absolutely no advantage to leaving things the way they are. None of us will benefit except the big insurers. So opponents should stop worrying about "death panels" that were never considered in the first place nor an Orwellian future of an all powerful government running our lives.
Today’s insured will loose some conveniences and the uninsured will gain coverage under a new system which will include everyone. It is a good trade off. We will still have our favorite doctors (although we will have to share their services with a larger clientele), we will still get our emergency care, our preventive medical treatment and no one will deny grandma her medicine when she turns 80.
Health care in this country now is more expensive than it should be. The costs get worse. We deserve better. So what’s the big deal in changing it and hoping for better. When it comes to health care the choice is clear: We can either curse the darkness or light a candle.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Horrifying road images
By Don Klein
The tragic death of eight guiltless people, including four children, on New York’s Taconic Parkway on a recent July Sunday brought back a troubling nightmare which to this day – more than a half century later -- reoccurs in my thoughts.
I am talking about the incident in which a mother of two was driving her offspring plus three young nieces back from an upstate lakefront campsite when for some unknown reason she ended up driving the wrong way on a busy Westchester County road. After a miraculous 1.7 mile flight of accident avoidance as others swerved around her, she plowed her minivan into a SUV occupied by three men.
The driver of the errant vehicle, Diane Schuler, 36, her daughter and nieces, ranging in age from 2 to 8 years, and the three men all perished. Only her five year old son survived and will spend weeks in the hospital recovering. This disaster reminded me of what happened in 1955 when I was a young reporter just out of college at my first newspaper job.
I can remember it as if it happened yesterday and that’s the worst part of it. I was finishing off my morning rewrites at about 11.30 when the editor of the The Journal-News in Nyack, NY, came over. "There’s been a bad accident," he said, "Why don’t you grab one of the cameras, run over and get some pictures for tomorrow’s paper."
My boss, Norman Baker, was an experienced and easy going leader who helped shape the early years of my career. As a 9,000 circulation community paper in the shadow of the giant New York city dailies, he had to focus on local news to hold readers. Norm, an instinctive newsman, was always thinking of tomorrow’s front page.
I was eager to cover a breaking story. After all wasn’t that the reason I wanted to be a journalist and weren’t those the skills they tried to instill in us at NYU’s journalism school? The breaking news I had envisioned were major stories in New York, or big time politics in Washington or crucial stories of conflict and wars around the world, not a traffic accident. But you had to start somewhere.
I grabbed one of the paper’s two archaic Speed Graflex cameras and headed for the scene. When I arrived it was clear there was a calamity unfolding. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights were all over the place and as I approached the crash site with camera in hand I could see what happened.
A giant tanker-trailer had crossed over the center line and crushed a private sedan against the opposite side railing. The crash had occurred on an elevated portion of the road where it passed over a small hamlet in the valley several hundred feet below. The cab of the tanker had been propelled over the edge and crashed in a field many feet below. The tanker itself was crunched against the squashed car on the road.
The auto looked as if a King Kong-like creature had stepped on it and as the volunteer firemen were working feverishly to free its inhabitants I couldn’t understand why they were still at it some 20 minutes after we had learned of the accident by police radio.
Later I learned that the rescuers feared using acetylene torches to cut away the roof of the car to get to the trapped souls because they did not know the contents of the tanker and feared a spark could cause an explosion. Instead they used giant hand-powered saws to cut off the roof.
When they were close to hacking through the roof I positioned myself a few feet up a lamppost for a better view, focused my camera on the car and watched as the rescuers bent back the shattered remains of the car. I then saw a vision which has haunted me ever since.
There were six people inside, all members of one family. There was a father and mother, two children and two grandparents. They were jumbled up and entangled like the sorriest collection of discarded dolls in a child’s closet. The difference was that these were human beings. The first one out was the young mother. You could see she had a terrible head wound and was dead. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the sky as they carried her body passed where I was standing.
The elderly couple also were crushed beyond life as was the little girl. Their bodies were horribly contorted by the crash. Blood was everywhere. The father and son recovered, and were hospitalized for many months. The truck driver died inside his fallen cab many feet below. I took many pictures which appeared in the next edition and wrote the story. Made sick by the experience, I couldn’t eat dinner that night.
The investigation found no obvious cause for the accident and in the end police concluded that the truck driver, who had been on the road for a long stint, apparently fell asleep as his rig entered the bridge, crossing into oncoming traffic and caromed into the car crushing the family coming in the opposite direction.
The final toll: Five people died, two were seriously injured. Two families – those in the sedan and the truck driver’s wife and children – were decimated.
The conclusion: It didn’t have to happen if only the truck driver had rested.
The Taconic accident also didn’t have to happen. A toxicology report revealed that Ms. Schuler’s blood-alcohol level was twice that for determining drunken driving and there was a high level of marijuana in her system.
Less than 30 minutes before the fatal crash she had spoken to her brother by cell phone and complained of having trouble focusing. He told her to pull off the road and he would come get her. She didn’t.
If only she had heeded his advice.
The tragic death of eight guiltless people, including four children, on New York’s Taconic Parkway on a recent July Sunday brought back a troubling nightmare which to this day – more than a half century later -- reoccurs in my thoughts.
I am talking about the incident in which a mother of two was driving her offspring plus three young nieces back from an upstate lakefront campsite when for some unknown reason she ended up driving the wrong way on a busy Westchester County road. After a miraculous 1.7 mile flight of accident avoidance as others swerved around her, she plowed her minivan into a SUV occupied by three men.
The driver of the errant vehicle, Diane Schuler, 36, her daughter and nieces, ranging in age from 2 to 8 years, and the three men all perished. Only her five year old son survived and will spend weeks in the hospital recovering. This disaster reminded me of what happened in 1955 when I was a young reporter just out of college at my first newspaper job.
I can remember it as if it happened yesterday and that’s the worst part of it. I was finishing off my morning rewrites at about 11.30 when the editor of the The Journal-News in Nyack, NY, came over. "There’s been a bad accident," he said, "Why don’t you grab one of the cameras, run over and get some pictures for tomorrow’s paper."
My boss, Norman Baker, was an experienced and easy going leader who helped shape the early years of my career. As a 9,000 circulation community paper in the shadow of the giant New York city dailies, he had to focus on local news to hold readers. Norm, an instinctive newsman, was always thinking of tomorrow’s front page.
I was eager to cover a breaking story. After all wasn’t that the reason I wanted to be a journalist and weren’t those the skills they tried to instill in us at NYU’s journalism school? The breaking news I had envisioned were major stories in New York, or big time politics in Washington or crucial stories of conflict and wars around the world, not a traffic accident. But you had to start somewhere.
I grabbed one of the paper’s two archaic Speed Graflex cameras and headed for the scene. When I arrived it was clear there was a calamity unfolding. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights were all over the place and as I approached the crash site with camera in hand I could see what happened.
A giant tanker-trailer had crossed over the center line and crushed a private sedan against the opposite side railing. The crash had occurred on an elevated portion of the road where it passed over a small hamlet in the valley several hundred feet below. The cab of the tanker had been propelled over the edge and crashed in a field many feet below. The tanker itself was crunched against the squashed car on the road.
The auto looked as if a King Kong-like creature had stepped on it and as the volunteer firemen were working feverishly to free its inhabitants I couldn’t understand why they were still at it some 20 minutes after we had learned of the accident by police radio.
Later I learned that the rescuers feared using acetylene torches to cut away the roof of the car to get to the trapped souls because they did not know the contents of the tanker and feared a spark could cause an explosion. Instead they used giant hand-powered saws to cut off the roof.
When they were close to hacking through the roof I positioned myself a few feet up a lamppost for a better view, focused my camera on the car and watched as the rescuers bent back the shattered remains of the car. I then saw a vision which has haunted me ever since.
There were six people inside, all members of one family. There was a father and mother, two children and two grandparents. They were jumbled up and entangled like the sorriest collection of discarded dolls in a child’s closet. The difference was that these were human beings. The first one out was the young mother. You could see she had a terrible head wound and was dead. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the sky as they carried her body passed where I was standing.
The elderly couple also were crushed beyond life as was the little girl. Their bodies were horribly contorted by the crash. Blood was everywhere. The father and son recovered, and were hospitalized for many months. The truck driver died inside his fallen cab many feet below. I took many pictures which appeared in the next edition and wrote the story. Made sick by the experience, I couldn’t eat dinner that night.
The investigation found no obvious cause for the accident and in the end police concluded that the truck driver, who had been on the road for a long stint, apparently fell asleep as his rig entered the bridge, crossing into oncoming traffic and caromed into the car crushing the family coming in the opposite direction.
The final toll: Five people died, two were seriously injured. Two families – those in the sedan and the truck driver’s wife and children – were decimated.
The conclusion: It didn’t have to happen if only the truck driver had rested.
The Taconic accident also didn’t have to happen. A toxicology report revealed that Ms. Schuler’s blood-alcohol level was twice that for determining drunken driving and there was a high level of marijuana in her system.
Less than 30 minutes before the fatal crash she had spoken to her brother by cell phone and complained of having trouble focusing. He told her to pull off the road and he would come get her. She didn’t.
If only she had heeded his advice.
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