By Edwin Cooney
Exactly four weeks ago today, President Barack Obama faced a government debt limit crisis the outcome of which threatened the faith and credit of the United States as well as the ultimate political fate of the president himself.
Notice that I used the word “fateful” in my title, not fatal. A fateful event is, of course, a significant event or turning point in one’s personal or professional life. Everyone, presidents included, experience significant or fateful events every month of the year, but August, it seems to me, has been particularly fateful in the personal or political life of every president since Woodrow Wilson. See what YOU think!
For Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Tuesday, August 4th, 1914 was a bad day at the office and a worse day at home. The Twenty-Eighth President’s main areas of expertise and accomplishments were in domestic policy. On that day, President Wilson faced the necessity of becoming a significant player in foreign affairs as well -- for World War I had just broken out in Europe that day. Could he keep us out of the conflict? It was certainly hard for him to know. In fact, it was almost impossible for the president to be optimistic about much of anything that day.
Woodrow Wilson, a man with a strong religious faith, prayed desperately for two things that August. One of them was for peace in Europe. Even more fervently, one can be sure, Woodrow Wilson was praying that his beloved wife Ellen Axson Wilson might live to strengthen him as he grappled with the affairs of state.
Of course, not even the greatest among us always receives the answers they hope for from their prayers, not even the President of the United States of America. The lights went out in Europe that August 4th and two days later Ellen Wilson lost her battle with a kidney malady known as Bright’s disease. She had just turned 54 years old that May 15th. So devastated was the president that he told his closest advisor and friend Edward M. House that he hoped to be assassinated.
How Ellen Wilson’s death affected the president is certainly speculative, but it is highly likely that had she lived our history would have been different. In December 1915, the president married Edith Bolling Galt who, as the second Mrs. Wilson, almost single-handedly ran the Executive Branch of the government during the president’s debilitating illness in the fall of 1919. Is it likely that many other people could have managed the flow of paper work, regulated the decision-making process and successfully shielded the seriousness of the president’s illness from the Cabinet as well as from a special congressional investigatory team sent to the White House by Congress as she did? I suggest that it’s possible, but not likely.
Thursday, August 2nd, 1923 was a day of relaxation for a harried and haggard president, Warren G. Harding. Troubled by his knowledge of the Teapot Dome Scandal brewing within his administration, President Harding had undertaken a trip to Alaska that summer. He was resting at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco around 7:30 that evening following an attack of indigestion. His wife Florence (whom he often referred to as “the Duchess”) was reading to him from a magazine. The article she was reading was a favorable commentary on him and on his administration. “That’s good,” he said, “go on reading.” Mrs. Harding finished the article and left the room. Nurse Ruth Powderly discovered the president dead just seconds later.
For Vice President Calvin Coolidge, August was the month in 1923 when he became President. Shortly after two a.m. at his remote summer home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, Coolidge got the word that President Harding had died. His father, a justice of the peace and a notary, swore him in as the country’s thirtieth president at 2:48 on the morning of August 3rd, 1923. The only witnesses were Grace Coolidge, a congressman and two reporters. By August 2nd, 1927, “Silent Cal,” a man who loved to play practical jokes, smoke big black cigars, and ride a mechanical horse, had had enough. His retirement statement from politics was short: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.”
Presidents Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were all born in August: August 10th, August 27th, August 19th and August 4th respectively. For Presidents Johnson and Clinton, two days in August forever tarnished their careers. In LBJ’s case, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution on August 7th, 1964. That congressional act, vigorously advocated by LBJ, eventually bogged down the administration and the nation in Vietnam to the nation’s distress and to the president’s political doom. For Bill Clinton, August 17th, 1998 was the day he was forced to concede that he had in fact been involved in an improper relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As a result, he would become the nation’s third president to face impeachment by the Congress and the second president to be tried in the U.S. Senate.
On August 2nd, 1943, Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy, who had previously injured his back playing college football, suffered further spinal damage when his PT-109 torpedo boat was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Twenty years later, as president, he suffered an even worse August tragedy when his infant son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, born on August 7th, lived only until August 9th.
August 10th, 1921 was the day that changed FDR’s life forever. He was at Campobello, New Brunswick where he and Eleanor vacationed every summer. The day before, he and his boys had fought a forest fire on a nearby island after which FDR took a dip in the frigid Bay of Fundy to cool off. He then jogged home. Feeling achy and chilly, he went to bed that night without eating supper. He awakened the next morning to discover that his legs couldn’t support his weight. It was polio, originally misdiagnosed as a blood clot. His life was forever changed, but many believe that his misfortune eventually turned out to be to America’s benefit. FDR’s paralysis, they insist, made “The Squire of Hyde Park” more sympathetic to the needs of the less fortunate than he had been – hence he created the New Deal.
On August 22nd, 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower was successfully nominated for election to a second term as president and the same was true for Ronald Wilson Reagan on the same date in 1984. However, both saw their effectiveness and their presidential reputations markedly wane in their second terms.
August 14th, 1980 for Jimmy Carter and August 19th, 1992 for George Herbert Walker Bush were the dates that these presidents were successfully re-nominated. However, both would lose their re-election bids.
August 6th and 9th, 1945 saw the catastrophic results of President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, respectively. The proud Japanese would surrender on August 14th, 1945. The man from Independence, Missouri, whom Joseph Stalin would refer to as “that noisy shopkeeper” (Truman once ran a haberdashery), fortunately remains the only man in the history of humanity to make that age-altering decision.
August 9th, 1974 was the day Gerald R. Ford found himself America’s Thirty-Eighth President thus faced with the monumental task of ending “…our national nightmare” known as Watergate. President Richard M. Nixon, as he tearfully left office that day, made this powerful observation: “Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."
On Monday, August 29th, 2005, President George W. Bush was in Coronado, California celebrating the 30th anniversary of Victory in Japan (V-J Day). He took along his guitar anticipating a fine old American country hoedown. Instead, Hurricane Katrina visited New Orleans catching the president and his administration ill-prepared, however well-intentioned. Although he’d remain president for nearly three years and four months more, Bush’s reputation as America’s mighty protector against terror and national tragedy was gone. His popularity faded, he headed toward the lower end of presidential ranking from where he looks up today at both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
President Obama’s ultimate political fate seems largely to depend on the super congressional committee designed to adjust the fiscal costs of government significantly downward so that we and future generations may afford to live in safety and security. President Obama’s attention to detail and his ability to compromise and persuade will no doubt make or break his August presidential fate.
The person who reaches the top of that greasy pole of American politics to become our president directs and faces passions that are more intense than they have ever been throughout human history. Nothing a modern president ever says, writes, or does will escape either someone’s warm applause or eardrum-puncturing jeers. Twenty-First Century presidents are likely to face more intense opposition than have any past chief executives.
Finally, if recent history is any indicator, my guess is that, for good or ill, the act that determines the fate of many future presidencies will likely occur in August! Would you bet against it? I certainly wouldn’t!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
OH! NO! HERE COMES LITTLE EDDIE!
By Edwin Cooney
“Oh, no! Here comes Little Eddie,” I mumbled as I sat down to write column number 250.
“That’s right,” said the little kid in me, “and I've got a few questions to ask you. The last time you were confronted about your column was after your 100th column back in June 2008. Then, "Ed," your alter ego, questioned you and he was way, way too soft on you. Now, it’s me, Eddie -- the little kid in you -- doing the questioning."
“That’s good, Eddie, but tell me, is it true that you sleep with a lollipop stuck in the corner of your mouth?” Eddie started stomping around while looking mighty mean.
“Okay, big boy!” said Eddie, “Why haven’t you continued writing those little presidential biographies some of your readers asked you to continue writing at the end of 2008? Lazy, are ya?"
“Sure, there’s a bit of laziness in me, but I thought it might be a good idea to wait until 2012, a presidential election year, before continuing to write them. Presidential birth dates on Mondays in 2012 will include Nixon on January 9th, FDR on January 30th, Lyndon Johnson on August 27th, and Jimmy Carter on October 1st.”
“That’s only four presidents!” Eddie sniffled. “Couldn’t you throw in Abraham Lincoln since February 12th is on a Sunday in 2012? After all, you featured seven different presidents in 2008!”
“Just for you, Eddie, I’ll think it over,” I said with what I hoped was a placating smile.
“Don’t patronize me, Edwin Cooney, I know how sly you can be. If you include a Lincoln bio you’ll find some clever way of linking Barack Obama to Lincoln or Lincoln to Barack Obama to boost Obama’s re-election chances. Why do you do such things? I remember the days when you were a Republican and had a clear vision of right and left, right and wrong, wise and foolish, America vs. the rest of the world. I used to admire you. Now all I am is a part of you. What happened, Edwin?”
“Oh, Eddie, stop! I admire and call on you lots and lots of times. I call on you when I get mustard on my shirt or coat. I call on you when I trip or slam my finger in a door. I call on you, or for your charm, when I’m feeling romantic or when I’m devastatingly unhappy in the far too frequent episodes I’ve experienced of love loss. However, as for the rest of your question, I suppose it’s a combination of age, experiences, and my interpretation of the meaning of historical events. When I was younger, things were either good or bad, right or wrong. As one gets older, evaluating one's convictions and experiences becomes more complicated.
“As for what changed politically for me, the Republican party that I grew up with became more dogmatically conservative. The new Republican party appears to believe that America is prosperous and good because of its engines: money, property, religion, and so on, while Democrats believe that what makes America great is the availability and effect that money, property, and religion have or don’t have on people. It's "trickle down" vs. "bubble up" opportunity economics! Our capacity for good belongs to no elite!"
“Okay, okay, enough with the speeches, big guy! You seldom praise God or America in your columns! Why these omissions?”
“I believe that “God is love.” I often write in praise of love, therefore as I see it, I praise God when I write of love—God’s greatest gift to us. As for America, I think it’s more powerful to write of any country’s many historic promises, principles, deeds and blessings than it is to write of any nation’s righteous sense of superiority!”
"Explain Lunkhead and Dunderhead! Why not Little Eddie and Big Eddie? Or why not interview the Republican elephant Abraham (or Abe) and the Democratic donkey Jack (as in Jackass) as you did once, rather than using those two silly names?"
“A reasonable question, Eddie! I deliberately chose those silly names because I think that the very absurdity of their names takes the edge off the controversial issues I have them discuss. If the reader is pleased with a position that either one takes, the reader can make the position his or her own without attributing it to any one person. Also, the reader can more easily disregard the more uncomfortable points that either comes up with in the knowledge that both, after all, are just silly guys with silly names -- so what do they know?"
“Pretty slick, Edwin! One more question since I can hear the ice cream truck coming down the block. You’ve written about the history of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and now, this year, Father’s Day—when are you going to write about Children’s Day?”
I started to answer him but suddenly he was headed toward that ice cream truck leaving his cherry red lollipop stuck to my light colored sport coat. I’m gonna kill that little kid in me yet! You just wait and see!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
“Oh, no! Here comes Little Eddie,” I mumbled as I sat down to write column number 250.
“That’s right,” said the little kid in me, “and I've got a few questions to ask you. The last time you were confronted about your column was after your 100th column back in June 2008. Then, "Ed," your alter ego, questioned you and he was way, way too soft on you. Now, it’s me, Eddie -- the little kid in you -- doing the questioning."
“That’s good, Eddie, but tell me, is it true that you sleep with a lollipop stuck in the corner of your mouth?” Eddie started stomping around while looking mighty mean.
“Okay, big boy!” said Eddie, “Why haven’t you continued writing those little presidential biographies some of your readers asked you to continue writing at the end of 2008? Lazy, are ya?"
“Sure, there’s a bit of laziness in me, but I thought it might be a good idea to wait until 2012, a presidential election year, before continuing to write them. Presidential birth dates on Mondays in 2012 will include Nixon on January 9th, FDR on January 30th, Lyndon Johnson on August 27th, and Jimmy Carter on October 1st.”
“That’s only four presidents!” Eddie sniffled. “Couldn’t you throw in Abraham Lincoln since February 12th is on a Sunday in 2012? After all, you featured seven different presidents in 2008!”
“Just for you, Eddie, I’ll think it over,” I said with what I hoped was a placating smile.
“Don’t patronize me, Edwin Cooney, I know how sly you can be. If you include a Lincoln bio you’ll find some clever way of linking Barack Obama to Lincoln or Lincoln to Barack Obama to boost Obama’s re-election chances. Why do you do such things? I remember the days when you were a Republican and had a clear vision of right and left, right and wrong, wise and foolish, America vs. the rest of the world. I used to admire you. Now all I am is a part of you. What happened, Edwin?”
“Oh, Eddie, stop! I admire and call on you lots and lots of times. I call on you when I get mustard on my shirt or coat. I call on you when I trip or slam my finger in a door. I call on you, or for your charm, when I’m feeling romantic or when I’m devastatingly unhappy in the far too frequent episodes I’ve experienced of love loss. However, as for the rest of your question, I suppose it’s a combination of age, experiences, and my interpretation of the meaning of historical events. When I was younger, things were either good or bad, right or wrong. As one gets older, evaluating one's convictions and experiences becomes more complicated.
“As for what changed politically for me, the Republican party that I grew up with became more dogmatically conservative. The new Republican party appears to believe that America is prosperous and good because of its engines: money, property, religion, and so on, while Democrats believe that what makes America great is the availability and effect that money, property, and religion have or don’t have on people. It's "trickle down" vs. "bubble up" opportunity economics! Our capacity for good belongs to no elite!"
“Okay, okay, enough with the speeches, big guy! You seldom praise God or America in your columns! Why these omissions?”
“I believe that “God is love.” I often write in praise of love, therefore as I see it, I praise God when I write of love—God’s greatest gift to us. As for America, I think it’s more powerful to write of any country’s many historic promises, principles, deeds and blessings than it is to write of any nation’s righteous sense of superiority!”
"Explain Lunkhead and Dunderhead! Why not Little Eddie and Big Eddie? Or why not interview the Republican elephant Abraham (or Abe) and the Democratic donkey Jack (as in Jackass) as you did once, rather than using those two silly names?"
“A reasonable question, Eddie! I deliberately chose those silly names because I think that the very absurdity of their names takes the edge off the controversial issues I have them discuss. If the reader is pleased with a position that either one takes, the reader can make the position his or her own without attributing it to any one person. Also, the reader can more easily disregard the more uncomfortable points that either comes up with in the knowledge that both, after all, are just silly guys with silly names -- so what do they know?"
“Pretty slick, Edwin! One more question since I can hear the ice cream truck coming down the block. You’ve written about the history of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and now, this year, Father’s Day—when are you going to write about Children’s Day?”
I started to answer him but suddenly he was headed toward that ice cream truck leaving his cherry red lollipop stuck to my light colored sport coat. I’m gonna kill that little kid in me yet! You just wait and see!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 15, 2011
SPANKING CONGRESS WITH THE CONSTITUTION—A GOOD OR BAD IDEA?
By Edwin Cooney
I confess: I, too, get frustrated with Congress, but that happens primarily when it passes laws that I regard as endangering your welfare or mine.
Twice in the last month, I’ve been sent an email encouraging passage of a proposed Twenty-eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
My teachers taught me that the Constitution was specifically constructed and established to provide for a new and balanced federal type of government to replace the lack of sound government under the Articles of Confederation. Quoting Patrick Henry’s observation that the Constitution was designed to limit rather than expand the authority of government, the author appears, for his or her own purpose, to deliberately mislead the reader as to the central purpose of our “Founding Fathers.” Certainly the Bill of Rights, passed by Congress in 1790, was indeed designed to enhance the rights of the people under the new Constitution, but it is vitally important that the reader understand what took place first. The Constitution itself was established to “secure the blessings of liberty” along with “the general welfare of all of the people.” Thus, this call to correct the dastardly deeds of Congress contains at the very outset of its appeal misleading historic information. It is neither logical nor instructive to describe the limitations of an historic document without first describing for what purpose it has been established!
There appear to be two purposes for this proposed Twenty-eighth Constitutional Amendment. The first is to eliminate our perpetual national debt. The second appears to be about punishing Congress (meanly and unjustly as I see it) for taking care of its own.
The heart of this proposed congressional fix has to do with congressional privileges --especially in the fields of healthcare, pensions, and pay increases. Thus it proposes seven changes which, it implies, will provide you and me with more honest, efficient and humble Congressmen and women. They are as follows:
(1.) no tenure or pensions -- current and former members will be immediately stripped of all pensions voted under past Congresses;
(2.) all congressional pension and health benefits shall immediately be moved to the social security system and can be used for no other purpose than social security benefits;
(3.) Congressmen and Senators will purchase their own future retirement with their own money;
(4.) Congress shall no longer have the power to raise its own pay -- future pay increases will be tied to the lowest CPI index at 3%;
(5.) Congress, as of January 1, 2012, loses its healthcare system and receives Medicare benefits like the rest of us;
(6.) Congress must abide by all laws it passes to govern the rest of us;
(7.) All previous congressional contracts which were established, not with the public, but for Congress’s own benefit, this author insists, should be null and void as of January 1, 2012.
Now there are some compelling aspects to this proposal. The most compelling is that it could conceivably save a few dollars. Second, it could conceivably change the type of person willing to run for Congress. However, the question is: would that be good or bad? Would fewer benefits attract the rich or the poor?
Part of the appeal for passage of this proposed constitutional amendment is that the original “founding fathers” sought “citizen legislatures.” The author of this email insists that our “founding fathers” only served briefly and then went home to go back to work. That assertion is patently untrue.
The Constitutional Convention was not packed with farmers (unless you call George Washington, James Madison, Edmund Randolph and others “farmers” rather than slave-owning planters). Nor were the Hamiltons, Jays and Shermans day laborers. When they left Congress, many of them went home to serve in the legislature, to run for governor or to become ministers to European courts.
More to the point, our founders, even during the Constitutional Convention (perhaps especially then), saw to it that the rights of the most powerful among them (such as the right to own slaves, to assign their customers to debtor’s prisons, to employ indentured servants, etc.) remained in place for the present.
It’s a good idea to consider the consequences of the types of people who may be attracted or discouraged should this proposed change actually occur.
Consider the following: would the lack of health care benefits attract rich or poor people to run for Congress? If “average citizen” types of people run for Congress, who would financially support their campaigns and to whom would they be subsequently indebted? If Congress were limited to the wealthy who could afford their own health care, what would that mean to your costly health needs and mine? If terms were limited, is it likely or unlikely that senators and representatives would be obliged to leave just as they were becoming familiar with how government really works as well as with the vital aspects of effective public policies?
Of course, Congress needs to be watched and even spanked occasionally, but spanking Congress with the Constitution and for the wrong reason is bound to affect you and me more than it would Congress.
Congress, as the late great humorist Will Rogers once observed, is filled with children who never grew up! If he was right, Congress simply wouldn’t understand the spanking in the first place!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I confess: I, too, get frustrated with Congress, but that happens primarily when it passes laws that I regard as endangering your welfare or mine.
Twice in the last month, I’ve been sent an email encouraging passage of a proposed Twenty-eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
My teachers taught me that the Constitution was specifically constructed and established to provide for a new and balanced federal type of government to replace the lack of sound government under the Articles of Confederation. Quoting Patrick Henry’s observation that the Constitution was designed to limit rather than expand the authority of government, the author appears, for his or her own purpose, to deliberately mislead the reader as to the central purpose of our “Founding Fathers.” Certainly the Bill of Rights, passed by Congress in 1790, was indeed designed to enhance the rights of the people under the new Constitution, but it is vitally important that the reader understand what took place first. The Constitution itself was established to “secure the blessings of liberty” along with “the general welfare of all of the people.” Thus, this call to correct the dastardly deeds of Congress contains at the very outset of its appeal misleading historic information. It is neither logical nor instructive to describe the limitations of an historic document without first describing for what purpose it has been established!
There appear to be two purposes for this proposed Twenty-eighth Constitutional Amendment. The first is to eliminate our perpetual national debt. The second appears to be about punishing Congress (meanly and unjustly as I see it) for taking care of its own.
The heart of this proposed congressional fix has to do with congressional privileges --especially in the fields of healthcare, pensions, and pay increases. Thus it proposes seven changes which, it implies, will provide you and me with more honest, efficient and humble Congressmen and women. They are as follows:
(1.) no tenure or pensions -- current and former members will be immediately stripped of all pensions voted under past Congresses;
(2.) all congressional pension and health benefits shall immediately be moved to the social security system and can be used for no other purpose than social security benefits;
(3.) Congressmen and Senators will purchase their own future retirement with their own money;
(4.) Congress shall no longer have the power to raise its own pay -- future pay increases will be tied to the lowest CPI index at 3%;
(5.) Congress, as of January 1, 2012, loses its healthcare system and receives Medicare benefits like the rest of us;
(6.) Congress must abide by all laws it passes to govern the rest of us;
(7.) All previous congressional contracts which were established, not with the public, but for Congress’s own benefit, this author insists, should be null and void as of January 1, 2012.
Now there are some compelling aspects to this proposal. The most compelling is that it could conceivably save a few dollars. Second, it could conceivably change the type of person willing to run for Congress. However, the question is: would that be good or bad? Would fewer benefits attract the rich or the poor?
Part of the appeal for passage of this proposed constitutional amendment is that the original “founding fathers” sought “citizen legislatures.” The author of this email insists that our “founding fathers” only served briefly and then went home to go back to work. That assertion is patently untrue.
The Constitutional Convention was not packed with farmers (unless you call George Washington, James Madison, Edmund Randolph and others “farmers” rather than slave-owning planters). Nor were the Hamiltons, Jays and Shermans day laborers. When they left Congress, many of them went home to serve in the legislature, to run for governor or to become ministers to European courts.
More to the point, our founders, even during the Constitutional Convention (perhaps especially then), saw to it that the rights of the most powerful among them (such as the right to own slaves, to assign their customers to debtor’s prisons, to employ indentured servants, etc.) remained in place for the present.
It’s a good idea to consider the consequences of the types of people who may be attracted or discouraged should this proposed change actually occur.
Consider the following: would the lack of health care benefits attract rich or poor people to run for Congress? If “average citizen” types of people run for Congress, who would financially support their campaigns and to whom would they be subsequently indebted? If Congress were limited to the wealthy who could afford their own health care, what would that mean to your costly health needs and mine? If terms were limited, is it likely or unlikely that senators and representatives would be obliged to leave just as they were becoming familiar with how government really works as well as with the vital aspects of effective public policies?
Of course, Congress needs to be watched and even spanked occasionally, but spanking Congress with the Constitution and for the wrong reason is bound to affect you and me more than it would Congress.
Congress, as the late great humorist Will Rogers once observed, is filled with children who never grew up! If he was right, Congress simply wouldn’t understand the spanking in the first place!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 8, 2011
TIRED? BORED?—WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT??
By Edwin Cooney
So, you’re tired of so many things because they irritate you? Me, too!
Perhaps people get on your “last good nerve” on a daily basis.
People are invariably tired of politics, self-righteous religious types, secular human materialists, sports figures and movie stars (who are making more money than any “working man or woman!”). We’re tired of the “filthy corporate rich" and the “clinging expectant poor.” Yet the ramifications of a society without any one of these types of people could be disquieting!
Of course, really well paid working men and women would inevitably drive up prices, while the absence of those self-righteous religious types could mean that no one really believes in anything anymore -- certainly an alarming event in human affairs. Elimination of secular human materialists might well mean that we live in a theocracy rather than a democracy and that could be seriously detrimental to individual liberty. As for the absence of highly paid sports and movie stars, that could well mean that you and I simply don’t have enough money to pay for entertainment! Without the rich we’d be robbed of our self-justified envy! Without the poor we’d lose our sense of superiority!
As for politicians (yes, indeed, I deliberately saved them for last), the truth is that you and I wouldn’t be free without them! Can you name me a free society without politicians?
The problem, as I see it, is not really the existence or prosperity of any of the above. The problem is the vulnerability of our individual mind-sets to angry negativism. Some might argue that the real problem is the aging mind.
As we grow up, most of us are inculcated with a standard of values nurtured by the protective cocoon of our families, friends, teachers, and by our religious faith. We learn of what our country has done best along with the best characteristics of our founders minus even the slightest suggestion that they (or the nation they founded) consisted of fallible human beings. Then comes life experience and, after three or four decades of traumas both experienced and witnessed, our ideals are inevitably punctured (if not torn asunder) by reality, which, unlike most idealism, is neither consistent nor logical. Thus, as the result of chronic irritation, we often find ourselves losing our trust in almost everything if not in almost everyone.
Just the other day I received a message from someone who is exceedingly irritated by my continuing support of President Obama. His anger was filled with incredulity. It was personal more than it was logical or editorial. He seems to believe that Obama supporters consider the president to be “saintly” or above criticism. Perhaps he’s right; we may be as bad as today’s GOP which looks in vain among its presidential candidates for President Reagan.
What happens to too many of us, as I see it, is that we unconsciously grant too much power to those who differ with us politically, religiously, or even in the entertainment field -- especially sports. We seek constant reinforcement of our feelings, conclusions and beliefs. We make “nations” out of such realms as political talk show hosts and sports franchises. Thus we have phenomena such as “The Savage Nation” (talk show host Michael Savage), “Red Sox or Yankee Nation” (major league baseball), and
“Raider Nation" (NFL football).
These days, it seems that everything we love we sanctify with nationhood while anything that differs or opposes our views we consider at least emotionally treasonous!
Much of this, as I see it, has to do with the culture war that I personally detest so much. What neither side in this culture war grasps is how much it needs the other side. What would be the value of political Conservatism if there were no Liberalism? What would we Americans do if we didn’t have a world threat to protect against? Could labor do without management or management without labor? Even more unsettling: could there be right without wrong?
Perplexing and even irritating as all of these questions are, it does get old after a while, doesn’t it?
The evaluation of people, institutions, and events is essential to who we are -- painful, unsettling and emotionally fatiguing as that may be. Still, we could do ourselves a huge favor if we could consciously restrain the harshness of our criticism of one another and, with a little more frequency, grant each other the benefit of the doubt. Even more, we might even do ourselves a favor if we eased up on the tendency to take ourselves as seriously as we do.
Hey! Wait just a moment there! What are you pointing at me for? I have to take myself seriously. After all, I’m a columnist, aren’t I? Aren’t I?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
So, you’re tired of so many things because they irritate you? Me, too!
Perhaps people get on your “last good nerve” on a daily basis.
People are invariably tired of politics, self-righteous religious types, secular human materialists, sports figures and movie stars (who are making more money than any “working man or woman!”). We’re tired of the “filthy corporate rich" and the “clinging expectant poor.” Yet the ramifications of a society without any one of these types of people could be disquieting!
Of course, really well paid working men and women would inevitably drive up prices, while the absence of those self-righteous religious types could mean that no one really believes in anything anymore -- certainly an alarming event in human affairs. Elimination of secular human materialists might well mean that we live in a theocracy rather than a democracy and that could be seriously detrimental to individual liberty. As for the absence of highly paid sports and movie stars, that could well mean that you and I simply don’t have enough money to pay for entertainment! Without the rich we’d be robbed of our self-justified envy! Without the poor we’d lose our sense of superiority!
As for politicians (yes, indeed, I deliberately saved them for last), the truth is that you and I wouldn’t be free without them! Can you name me a free society without politicians?
The problem, as I see it, is not really the existence or prosperity of any of the above. The problem is the vulnerability of our individual mind-sets to angry negativism. Some might argue that the real problem is the aging mind.
As we grow up, most of us are inculcated with a standard of values nurtured by the protective cocoon of our families, friends, teachers, and by our religious faith. We learn of what our country has done best along with the best characteristics of our founders minus even the slightest suggestion that they (or the nation they founded) consisted of fallible human beings. Then comes life experience and, after three or four decades of traumas both experienced and witnessed, our ideals are inevitably punctured (if not torn asunder) by reality, which, unlike most idealism, is neither consistent nor logical. Thus, as the result of chronic irritation, we often find ourselves losing our trust in almost everything if not in almost everyone.
Just the other day I received a message from someone who is exceedingly irritated by my continuing support of President Obama. His anger was filled with incredulity. It was personal more than it was logical or editorial. He seems to believe that Obama supporters consider the president to be “saintly” or above criticism. Perhaps he’s right; we may be as bad as today’s GOP which looks in vain among its presidential candidates for President Reagan.
What happens to too many of us, as I see it, is that we unconsciously grant too much power to those who differ with us politically, religiously, or even in the entertainment field -- especially sports. We seek constant reinforcement of our feelings, conclusions and beliefs. We make “nations” out of such realms as political talk show hosts and sports franchises. Thus we have phenomena such as “The Savage Nation” (talk show host Michael Savage), “Red Sox or Yankee Nation” (major league baseball), and
“Raider Nation" (NFL football).
These days, it seems that everything we love we sanctify with nationhood while anything that differs or opposes our views we consider at least emotionally treasonous!
Much of this, as I see it, has to do with the culture war that I personally detest so much. What neither side in this culture war grasps is how much it needs the other side. What would be the value of political Conservatism if there were no Liberalism? What would we Americans do if we didn’t have a world threat to protect against? Could labor do without management or management without labor? Even more unsettling: could there be right without wrong?
Perplexing and even irritating as all of these questions are, it does get old after a while, doesn’t it?
The evaluation of people, institutions, and events is essential to who we are -- painful, unsettling and emotionally fatiguing as that may be. Still, we could do ourselves a huge favor if we could consciously restrain the harshness of our criticism of one another and, with a little more frequency, grant each other the benefit of the doubt. Even more, we might even do ourselves a favor if we eased up on the tendency to take ourselves as seriously as we do.
Hey! Wait just a moment there! What are you pointing at me for? I have to take myself seriously. After all, I’m a columnist, aren’t I? Aren’t I?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 1, 2011
TUESDAY’S OUTCOME: POLITICAL VS. PURE CITIZENSHIP
By Edwin Cooney
As all of you know, I don’t know anything about politics or about great domestic or international affairs. That’s why I always go to my intellectual gurus Dunderhead and Lunkhead when I’m unsure of the past, present, or future.
“So, what’s going to happen to this poor country of ours on August 2nd?” I cried as I plunked myself down between Lunkhead and Dunderhead in the out-of-doors section of my local watering hole.
Lunkhead, his cigar lit and jutting out of his mouth at an upward tilt, growled, “Obama America is going down the tubes, son!”
“Nuts!” Dunderhead shot back as he puffed on a curved pipe. “The debt limit will be raised as it should be and the economy will continue its recovery.”
“Horse-puckey!” Lunkhead bellowed. “I suppose that as the deadline approaches on Monday, liberal Democrats and some of those northeastern lily-livered Republicans will vote to save Obama’s bacon and save our international credit, but it’s all a ponzi scheme. It’ll all crash for Obama just before next year’s election as it did for McCain. Then, in 2013, eighty years after Roosevelt, this country will finally get an old, but a solid deal.”
“So,” said Dunderhead. “You really want America to fail. Is that right?”
“Not at all! We just want Obama to fail,” Lunkhead insisted.
“As I recall,” said Dunderhead, “back in 1981 when we were getting over the Carter years, you Republicans insisted that to do anything other than to support President Reagan was damned close to treason. Explain the difference, Lunkhead, if you can!”
“It’s simple,” Lunkhead said sipping his scotch. “President Reagan’s leadership was traditional leadership whereas Obama’s excuse for leadership comes out of old Moscow and Beijing.
“Ah!” Dunderhead shot back, “and you hate everything that comes out of “old Moscow” and present day Beijing, don’t you, Lunkhead?”
“Certainly,” said Lunkhead “and so should you and your president hate everything that comes out of Socialistic or Communistic societies.
“Well, then,” said Dunderhead, putting down his beer, “presidents, Republican presidents in particular, have been borrowing Communist money to finance huge deficits since the days of Ronald Reagan. They’ve been borrowing that money to save the individual and corporate rich from having to pay for two wars in Iraq, as well as for the war in Afghanistan—all advocated by Conservative America. Taxes have been raised to pay for every American war from the Civil War until 2001. You deplore and disassociate yourselves from Communism, but your hand has been out for almost thirty years for Communist gold. Now, suddenly, you want this borrowing to stop. Why now? Why shouldn’t it have stopped in 2007 or 2008? Finally, Lunkhead, was President Reagan wrong when he declared in 1986 that it would be irresponsible for Congress to ever allow us to go into default?
“Wait a minute,” I cut in, “who’ll be responsible if we do go into default and the economy tanks?
“The president,” they both said simultaneously!
“Who will get the credit if we don’t go into default?” I asked.
“That’s a moot point,” said Lunkhead, “actually, we should go into default. We deserve it.”
“What makes now the time for us to deserve it?" I timidly asked.
To my shock, conservative Lunkhead and liberal Dunderhead suddenly got up and walked out of the watering hole leaving me to pay the check.
As I strolled home, I realized the wisdom of their walkout. By not answering my “why now” inquiry, they were allowing me to use my own head.
Of course, it’s politics. After all, it’s more important to play politics and perhaps default than it is to show integrity enough to find a workable way out of our difficulties, isn’t it?
The question is: when did this all begin? Of course, it began with our founding fathers. It began when Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison defied George Washington’s warning about party politics. Back then, political partisanship was a useful or practical method of defining differences and reaping votes. Today, it’s a matter of morality. Today, doctrinaire idealism is far purer than mere citizenship.
How could I not have realized that? Silly me!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
As all of you know, I don’t know anything about politics or about great domestic or international affairs. That’s why I always go to my intellectual gurus Dunderhead and Lunkhead when I’m unsure of the past, present, or future.
“So, what’s going to happen to this poor country of ours on August 2nd?” I cried as I plunked myself down between Lunkhead and Dunderhead in the out-of-doors section of my local watering hole.
Lunkhead, his cigar lit and jutting out of his mouth at an upward tilt, growled, “Obama America is going down the tubes, son!”
“Nuts!” Dunderhead shot back as he puffed on a curved pipe. “The debt limit will be raised as it should be and the economy will continue its recovery.”
“Horse-puckey!” Lunkhead bellowed. “I suppose that as the deadline approaches on Monday, liberal Democrats and some of those northeastern lily-livered Republicans will vote to save Obama’s bacon and save our international credit, but it’s all a ponzi scheme. It’ll all crash for Obama just before next year’s election as it did for McCain. Then, in 2013, eighty years after Roosevelt, this country will finally get an old, but a solid deal.”
“So,” said Dunderhead. “You really want America to fail. Is that right?”
“Not at all! We just want Obama to fail,” Lunkhead insisted.
“As I recall,” said Dunderhead, “back in 1981 when we were getting over the Carter years, you Republicans insisted that to do anything other than to support President Reagan was damned close to treason. Explain the difference, Lunkhead, if you can!”
“It’s simple,” Lunkhead said sipping his scotch. “President Reagan’s leadership was traditional leadership whereas Obama’s excuse for leadership comes out of old Moscow and Beijing.
“Ah!” Dunderhead shot back, “and you hate everything that comes out of “old Moscow” and present day Beijing, don’t you, Lunkhead?”
“Certainly,” said Lunkhead “and so should you and your president hate everything that comes out of Socialistic or Communistic societies.
“Well, then,” said Dunderhead, putting down his beer, “presidents, Republican presidents in particular, have been borrowing Communist money to finance huge deficits since the days of Ronald Reagan. They’ve been borrowing that money to save the individual and corporate rich from having to pay for two wars in Iraq, as well as for the war in Afghanistan—all advocated by Conservative America. Taxes have been raised to pay for every American war from the Civil War until 2001. You deplore and disassociate yourselves from Communism, but your hand has been out for almost thirty years for Communist gold. Now, suddenly, you want this borrowing to stop. Why now? Why shouldn’t it have stopped in 2007 or 2008? Finally, Lunkhead, was President Reagan wrong when he declared in 1986 that it would be irresponsible for Congress to ever allow us to go into default?
“Wait a minute,” I cut in, “who’ll be responsible if we do go into default and the economy tanks?
“The president,” they both said simultaneously!
“Who will get the credit if we don’t go into default?” I asked.
“That’s a moot point,” said Lunkhead, “actually, we should go into default. We deserve it.”
“What makes now the time for us to deserve it?" I timidly asked.
To my shock, conservative Lunkhead and liberal Dunderhead suddenly got up and walked out of the watering hole leaving me to pay the check.
As I strolled home, I realized the wisdom of their walkout. By not answering my “why now” inquiry, they were allowing me to use my own head.
Of course, it’s politics. After all, it’s more important to play politics and perhaps default than it is to show integrity enough to find a workable way out of our difficulties, isn’t it?
The question is: when did this all begin? Of course, it began with our founding fathers. It began when Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison defied George Washington’s warning about party politics. Back then, political partisanship was a useful or practical method of defining differences and reaping votes. Today, it’s a matter of morality. Today, doctrinaire idealism is far purer than mere citizenship.
How could I not have realized that? Silly me!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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