Strangelove (the Sequel) or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Meltdown Friday, Mar 25 2011 

Politics victorgold 5:55 pm

According to The Wall Street Journal, we’re acting like a nation of wimps. The Japanese are standing “cool amid the chaos” of the nuclear breakdown at Fukushima while the American people are anything but.

Following the Journal’s lead, a bipartisan coalition of the country’s leaders spoke up to say there’s no need to worry about building nuclear plants near population centers or the San Andreas fault. All that’s required to prevent another Three Mile Island, said House Speaker John Boehner, is to copy the French in setting high safety standards.

You read it right, the French – what Boehner in former days referred to as the Euro-socialist “surrender monkey” French. So much for what’s left of his favorability numbers with the Tea Party crowd.

Worse than lining up with the French, however, the Speaker’s rush to defend the nuclear energy industry puts him side by side not only with Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid but the Kenyan Muslim impostor who currently inhabits the White House. [more….] (more…)

 

Ike Re-Revised Friday, Mar 11 2011 

History and Movies and Politics , , victorgold 12:08 pm

As Winston Churchill once posted, all history is revisionist. It all depends on the bias of the writer. Take, for example, the revisionist distortion of Dwight Eisenhower’s civil rights record in HBO’s recent production of the one-man play, “Thurgood.”

The writer-producer in this case, George Stevens, Jr., set out to dramatize the life-and-legend of Thurgood Marshall, the first black member of the Supreme Court and leading counsel in the NAACP’s effort to break down the barriers of segregation in the 1940’s and Fifties.

Having lived in the South during that turbulent period and met Justice Marshall after coming to Washington, I was naturally drawn to actor Laurence Fishburne’s vivid depiction of the man and his times. Then, three-quarters of the way through the performance, came the playwright’s negative account of Eisenhower’s stand on racial equality.

To hear Fishburne’s “Thurgood” tell it, Ike was little more than a closet segregationist, lukewarm if not in fact hostile to the Warren Court’s 1954 decision de-segregating public schools in the South.

There’s nothing new about this negative view of Eisenhower’s civil rights record. It’s been spun for over half a century, since the days when Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was in his revisionist prime.  However . . .Call me a Right-wing eccentric (it wouldn’t be the first time), but that’s not the way I remember the history of that period.  As I recall: (more…)

 

Who Is/Was Robert Gibbs? Tuesday, Feb 22 2011 

Media and Politics victorgold 5:16 pm

It’s hardly news that over the past half-century the city of Washington, once described by John F. Kennedy as a community “with Northern charm and Southern efficiency,” has been transformed — some would say transmogrified — into Hollywood East.

George Clooney sightings on Capitol Hill, Tom Cruise eating peanuts in the owner’s box at Redskin games — but that’s only the half of it. What’s really changed, thanks to the impact of television and cable news, is the ga-ga elevation of mere political functionaries into five-star celebrities.

Reverse reel, back to the future: It’s February, 2009, a mere month after the inauguration of the forty-fourth president, Barack Obama. Most Americans know who his Vice President is —Joe Biden.  An even greater number know who his Secretary of State is — Hillary Clinton.  A large number can even identify the Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. But who, tell me, is this fellow Robert Gibbs? If one out of a hundred Americans could identify him two years ago, I’d have been surprised. (more…)

 

Political Wisdom (circa 1952) Tuesday, Feb 22 2011 

Politics , , victorgold 5:16 pm

“That’s not enough. I’m going to need a majority.”

— Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, on seeing a placard reading, “You have the support of all thinking Americans.”

 

Hail to the Chiefs Tuesday, Feb 1 2011 

History and Politics , , victorgold 2:13 pm

Re the White House re-staffing, a little history to remind us how far we’ve come in pursuit of administrative efficiency at the Executive level.

Before Eisenhower there was no such office as “chief of staff” in the White House. There were presidential assistants like FDR’s Marvin McIntire and Truman’s Clark Clifford but no administrative boss over the president’s staff. Ike introduced the chief of staff concept because, having served his entire life in the military, he liked things channeled through a single deputy.

The idea took hold and all succeeding presidents have had chiefs of staff, including Jimmy Carter who, in typical Carteresque fashion, said he was abolishing the position, then appointed Hamilton Jordan to carry out its function. Nixon had his Haldeman, Reagan his Jim Baker and Donald Regan, Bush 41 his John Sununu and Bush 43 his Andy Card.

Now comes Barack Obama’s second chief of staff, William Daley, said to be a business-oriented functionary with an eye to carrying out his President’s State of the Union pledge to give the American people “a government that’s more competent and more efficient.”

Daley’s first act? He has, according to the Washington Post, “hired his own chief of staff, Emmett Beliveau.”

So now we have a chief of staff to the chief of staff. What, I wonder, would General Ike think?

 

Not a Dime’s Worth of Difference Tuesday, Feb 1 2011 

Politics victorgold 2:13 pm

Back in vogue as the new Congress convenes is the schoolyard habit of some Republicans’ referring to their opposition as “the Democrat Party.” It traces back to the 1930s and Forties, so irritating the Speaker of the House at the time, Sam Rayburn, that he threatened to retaliate by knocking off the first syllable of their name and calling it “the Publican party” (Pint o’ ale, anyone?).

Ah, but all that runs counter to the new spirit of collegiality on Capitol Hill, reflected by mixed party seating during the State of the Union address. What’s that? You aren’t yet convinced that Democrats and Republicans can put aside their differences when larger interests are at stake? Then consider this:

Faced with a rebellion by contrarian Democrats opposed to rules that have turned the United States Senate into the World’s Most Undeliberative Deliberative  Body, Harry Reid and other Liberal Elders met behind closed doors with Mitch McConnell and other Conservative Elders to work out an agreement whereby, whichever party has a Senate majority, the rule will stand that the mere threat of a filibuster can put a stop to any such legislative foolishness as judicial confirmations, treaties, etc.

Meaning that no matter who’s in the White House, Democrat or Republican, members of the Senate won’t have to cancel their plans to attend fundraisers in order to enjoy the benefit of filibustering without having to stand on the Senate floor and actually filibuster.

Conclusion: Whether members of the Democrat or Publican party, when it comes to what’s truly important to the Reids and McConnells – the retention of personal power – it’s like that uncollegial third-party candidate said many years ago: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between ’em.”

 

Of memorials and rallies Sunday, Jan 16 2011 

Politics , victorgold 1:43 pm

“President Obama gave a terrific speech Wednesday night.”

— John McCain in the Washington Post, 1/16/11

Remember that bridge to the 21st century Bill Clinton used to talk about? It turns out to be easier for some to cross than for others. For those born, raised, and brainlocked into the 20th century, last week’s “terrific speech” from Tucson is a prime example of how far we’ve fallen behind.

Not as a partisan carp but simply as an observation: I can’t recall any prior presidential address at a memorial service that brought on sustained cheering and standing ovations. I’d tuned in for what I presumed would be – as the President had previously called for – a moment of “prayer or reflection” and instead found myself watching the equivalent of a celebrative political rally.

That, however – or so I’m advised by editorialists and commentators – is the way it’s done nowadays.

It seems that L.P. Hartley had it only half-right. “The past is a foreign country,” he wrote. “They do things differently there.” Add to that, from this observer’s perspective, that for some of us it’s the present that’s a foreign country. They do things differently here. Or should I say, terrifically?

 

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