A BRILLIANT OBSERVATION!

By Edwin Cooney

Unfortunately, the observation I write about this week isn’t mine.  I devoutly wish it were, but it comes from that wonderful “tongue in cheek” columnist Andy Borowitz.

In a recent episode of the Borowitz Report, Andy has Secretary of State John Kerry in Baghdad insisting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki establish a unity government in Iraq in which all parties compromise for the common good.  “Otherwise,” Kerry insists, “the American taxpayer won’t be able to see any reason to continue supporting you.”  Al-Maliki then politely asks if the United States has ever tried such a unity government. Kerry, suddenly startled, essentially tells the Iraqi Prime Minister that he should try it first and that if it works, “we too perhaps will try it.”

Of course, unity in wartime is vital and no ally can be expected to waste resources on patchwork governments as we did in Vietnam. Still, the idea that an American diplomat can somehow insist on the unity of any government given the political culture climate in 21^st Century America would be funny if it wasn’t so sad and, even worse, contrary to our own socio-political history.

There was a placid time between 1819 and roughly 1824 called the “Era of Good Feelings.” James Monroe was in the “first magistrate’s chair,” and there was even enough unity between North and South to hammer out the Missouri Compromise which set 36 degrees 30 minutes North Latitude as the line separating potential slave and free states.

Later, between 1877 and 1901, there was little difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties.  Still, neither period constituted genuine socio-political unity.  After all, room for political and even social contentiousness is a legitimate part of “republican” society and government!  Even in the wake of the “era of good feelings,” individual feelings were certainly frayed in 1825 when supporters of Andrew Jackson convinced themselves that Old Hickory had been cheated of the presidency by John Quincy Adams’s and Henry Clay’s “corrupt bargain” which made Adams the president and Clay the Secretary of State.  By the 1830s, the South began agitating over its right to nullify the North’s high protective tariff and bemoaning the increasing intensity of antislavery commentary and oratory in the North.  Hence, there was little national unity between 1832 and 1877 when the exhausted and impoverished South agreed to “go along” to “get along” once the North ended post Civil War reconstruction.

While there were patches of political peace during the 1910s and 1920s, the cultural/political caldron has simmered throughout most of the last hundred years.  In retrospect, only the presidencies of Taft, Harding and Coolidge during the twentieth century appear to have been havens of genuine American unity and tranquility!

How are 21^st Century Americans different from Syrians, Ukrainians, Iranians, and Iraqis – just to name a few -- who hate their leaders?  Do we really love our elected leader more than they do the leader we arranged for them?

Unfortunately, 21^st Century America is bedecked with political and cultural contempt.  Not only do conservatives hate liberals and liberals hate conservatives, we pay radio and television talk show hosts millions of dollars a year to spew forth opinions on public issues for which they personally assume no responsibility or accountability.  For them, opinion means little more than professional ratings and profit, yet we lap up their talking points like pigs at the troth!

Let’s assume for a minute that America is in dire trouble.  Canada and Mexico have decided to pool their resources and invade us.  After all, we’ve invaded them several times in our history.  We invaded Montreal during the American Revolution and burned Toronto (it was then called Troy) during the War of 1812.  The British retaliated by burning the president’s mansion and the Capitol in August 1814!  We took Mexican territory as our “manifest destiny” in the 1840s.  Hence, we could certainly be open to a two-sided attack, couldn’t we?  If the situation were reversed, wouldn’t we regard it as being long past payback time?

So, who would come to our rescue? How would it benefit them if they did? Britain, we insist, isn’t really worthy of much respect after squandering its empire and we express nothing but contempt for France and Italy. The rest of Europe endorses ideas such as cradle to grave healthcare and has done away with capital punishment and are thus the legitimate targets for our contempt.  So, why should they save us?

The fact of the matter is that since we declared victory in the cold war, we’ve been just full of our ideal selves and contemptuous of just about everyone else on God’s not-so-green earth!  We certainly show precious little love or regard for our fellow Americans unless their religion, politics and personal lifestyles mirror our own!

Even more to the point, if we were attacked by Canada and Mexico or perhaps by Communist North Korea or Vietnam (either one or perhaps both may think they owe us one) would we be sufficiently unified enough to be worth saving?

I rather wonder about that -- what say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AH, FICKLE VOTERS, COMPLACENT INCUMBANTS—YOU GOTTA LOVE ‘EM!

By Edwin Cooney

Of course I was as surprised as the most sophisticated and “in the know” political pundit was last week with the defeat of GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia’s seventh congressional district Republican primary!  After all, voters are sometimes fickle and political incumbents are sometimes complacent.  Still, surprise, surprise, despite the almost automatic re-election of congressional incumbents, there’s nothing new about the unseating of political “big shots!”  There may even be nothing particularly meaningful in the Cantor debacle!

There are generally three reasons why incumbents lose.  They are: incumbent complacency, voter fickleness, or changing political districts dictated by shifting doctrinaire politics.  Of course everyone is sure that the Cantor loss is due to a shift rightward in political trends, but of course only time will tell.  Meanwhile, let’s have a little fun wallowing in history.

Eric Cantor was the GOP House Majority Leader which means he was the second highest-ranking Republican in the House to Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio.  Although Cantor’s defeat marks the first time a House Majority Leader has been defeated since the position was created in 1899, congressional elections have historically fried “bigger fish.”

Just twenty short years ago, Speaker of the House Tom Foley of Washington lost his seat in the 1994 Republican political landslide.  Most analysts concluded that the amiable Foley was a victim of the GOP’s celebrated “Contract with America.” President Clinton however attributed Foley’s loss to Foley’s support of the anti-assault weapons bill.  Some of Foley’s constituents reportedly believed that Foley’s opponent would automatically become House Speaker by virtue of his defeat of the incumbent Speaker.  Foley was the first Speaker to lose his congressional seat since 1862.  In that year incumbent Speaker Galusha Aaron Grow of Pennsylvania lost his House seat.  Grow was quite a character!  I’ll save part of his story for later as it’s too beautiful to leave out.

In 1980, three Democratic movers and shakers lost their seats—in the Senate no less.  The losers that year were Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Frank Church of Idaho, prominent Judiciary subcommittee chairman Birch Bayh of Indiana, and the biggest catch for the Republicans, former Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern of South Dakota.  The Republicans captured both the Senate and the White House.  Hence the common assessment was that the Reagan victory had political “coattails.”  (Note:  Birch Bayh’s defeat brought to prominence James Danforth Quayle for the glory of George Herbert Walker Bush in 1988!)  Was 1980 a trendsetter?  Well, perhaps, but it was only a six year “trendsetter.”  By the January 1987 opening of the nation’s 100^th Congress, both houses of Congress were back in Democratic hands for the next six years.

In 1974, Arkansas Democratic voters retired 30-year Senate veteran J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Father of the Fulbright scholarship, in favor of political novice Dale Bumpers.  “In the know” political sophisticates suggested that Fulbright’s loss was primarily due to his having grown too important for his “hillbilly” constituents and too comfortable rubbing shoulders with leftist internationalists.  (Note: as “elitist” as Fulbright had supposedly become, he was still a hell-of-a “hoedown” square dance fiddler!)

In 1972, liberal House Judiciary Committee chairman Emanuel Celler was upset in the Democratic primary by Elizabeth Holtzman, which many considered a generational change more than anything else as Holtzman was more liberal than Celler.  (Note: Had Celler not lost to Holtzman, he and not New Jersey’s Peter Rodino would have chaired the House Judiciary Committee during the 1974 impeachment proceedings of President Richard M. Nixon.)  Finally, in the 1952 general election, Democratic Majority Leader Ernest McFarland was defeated for re-election to his Senate seat by a young “fire brand” named Barry Morris Goldwater.  Was Goldwater elected merely because Ike headed the GOP national ticket, or did Arizona simply fall in love with Barry?  In 1958, Arizonans gave Goldwater a much larger victory when Ike wasn’t on the ballot and was in fact down in the polls due to nervousness over the Russians’ launch of Sputnik the autumn before.  An even greater puzzle is the fact that “Mr. Conservative” Barry Goldwater barely won election to the United States Senate during the 1980 Reagan landslide.  He was only saved from defeat by Arizona businessman Bill Schulz when absentee votes put him over the top the day after the Reagan victory.

Galusha Aaron Grow (christened Aaron Galusha Grow) was originally a Democrat.  The most prominent events of his political career did indeed reflect the time in which he represented Pennsylvania’s 14^th district.  He switched parties in the mid 1850s when President (Handsome Frank) Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska bill.  That act, which opened the possibility of slavery advancing into the North through the doctrine of “popular sovereignty,” brought many northern anti-slavery Democrats scrambling into the new Republican Party.  Even more fascinating is the brawl he helped bring about on the floor of the House of Representatives.  The date was Friday, February 5^th, 1858.  During one of those inevitable debates over “bleeding Kansas” between Northerners and Southerners, Grow was attacked on the floor of the House by South Carolina Representative Laurence M. Keitt when he stepped over onto the Democratic side of the aisle.  Called “a black Republican Puppy” by Congressman Keitt, Grow responded that he wasn’t going to be shoved around “by the crack of a Negro slave driver’s whip.”  Keitt shouted that he’d choke the life out of Grow, and a fifty-man brawl between northerners and southerners was under way on the floor of the House of Representatives.  The brawl ended when Wisconsin GOP Representative Cadwallader Washburn took a swing at Mississippi Democratic Representative William Barksdale knocking his wig to the floor.  While hurriedly replacing the wig Barksdale put it on backward causing legislators on both sides of the aisle to break up laughing which ended the donnybrook!

The Grow-Keitt brawl unfortunately did reflect the times.  Violence had occurred at least once before in Congress.  On Thursday, May 22^nd, 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina strolled over to the Senate floor where Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was working at his desk.  Brandishing a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head, Brooks proceeded to brutally beat Senator Sumner in retaliation for an insult made to Brooks’ uncle, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler during an anti-slavery speech made by Sumner two days earlier.  With his sight blinded by his own blood, Sumner struggled to his feet proceeding down the Senate floor pursued by Butler who continued to beat him.  Sumner finally collapsed and Brooks continued to beat his prostrate body until his cane finally broke.  Throughout the beating Brooks was covered by a South Carolina colleague who kept Senators coming to Sumner’s rescue at bay by brandishing a pistol and shouting “Let ‘em be.  Let ‘em be.”  You guessed it, that man was Laurence M Keitt who attacked Grow two years later.  Both Brooks and Keitt would be censured by the House, resign from Congress and be overwhelmingly re-elected by defiant constituents.  Brooks would be criminally convicted of the attack and fined $300.00 although not jailed.  Brooks would unexpectedly die of the croup on Tuesday, January 27^th, 1857.  He was only 37 years old.  (Both Brooks and Keitt were violent men.  Brooks was expelled from the University of South Carolina before graduation for threatening local police with firearms.  Keitt would die by violence on Thursday, June 2^nd, 1864 at the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia.)

So, we come full circle to the question of the relationship of elected public officials with their constituents.  What does their election or rejection mean?  Under what circumstances can we judge the significance of their relationship?

Eric Cantor was vanquished by less than 10 percent of the 760,000 eligible voters of his district.  He’s been replaced as GOP Majority Leader by a more moderate conservative Kevin McCarthy of California.  Meanwhile, his House seat is expected to be filled by David Brat, an economics professor at Randolph and Macon College, a truer or, if you prefer, a redder Tea Partier than Cantor.  (Note: no one at this point gives Brat’s Democratic opponent Jack Trammell, a sociology professor at the same school, much of a chance in that most conservative of congressional districts.)

Still, one just never knows!  By all means, let’s keep watching!  American history is so very rich with the unpredictable, isn’t it!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

When dreams come true...!

By Edwin Cooney

It’s my guess that many of us, if not most, spend a lot of our lives chasing elusive dreams.

Shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 7^th, 2014, a seemingly elusive dream came true for me.  I was elected President of the New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association.  It was an office I’d sought three previous times to no avail.  The first two times I was defeated by a very able gentleman who is a member of the New York State Bar.  Two years ago, I was vanquished by an old high school sweetheart, but there was nothing romantic about it.

It was a political spanking of the first magnitude!  This was to be my last run for this office because, after all, losing is a pretty painful experience and my masochistic tendencies are, at least I trust, minimal.  Recently, in some private communications, I’ve been billing myself as the Harold Stassen of NYSSB politics.  (Note: Harold Stassen was the “boy” governor of Minnesota during the 1930s who sought the GOP presidential nomination thirteen times without success.)

Beyond ambition or fulfillment, there are compelling reasons people seek favor in popular elections.  Popular favor is an expression of trust, which I believe to be the highest honor anyone can ever receive!  Additionally, popular support is a statement of an expectation of fair and equitable treatment on the part of a constituency.  Being something of a “political animal,” I’ve sought popular favor at the services for the blind organizational level and even within the municipal level of service to the disabled.  What makes this opportunity and office special is the constituency.

The seeds of my “dream come true” were planted early in life.  Between 1950 and 1966 I was a student at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia.  During those years, I struggled academically, emotionally, and socially.  When I entered school in September of 1950, I was the youngest kid among the approximately 200 students who were usually in attendance during those years.  I was only four years old.  I repeated kindergarten, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, yet I was never put into the special classes that were coming into vogue during those years.  Obviously, despite terrible grades, the powers that be decided that I was of some academic potential.  The fact that I was a foster child going between foster homes and orphanages was probably the reason the staff didn’t give up on my potential.  When I graduated in June of 1966 at age twenty and a half, I was the oldest student on campus.

Batavia is a small city of 15,465 people (according to the 2010 census) occupying 5.2 square miles.  It is located on a plateau of land 35 miles west of Rochester and 30 miles slightly northeast of Buffalo.  Founded by Joseph Ellicott, a surveyor for the Holland Land Office, a nineteenth century Dutch owned land development company, Batavia was incorporated in 1802.  (Note: Ellicott also surveyed Buffalo, New York from his Batavia headquarters. Thus it could be said that little Batavia founded Buffalo even though Joseph Ellicott wanted to name Buffalo “New Amsterdam.”) Batavia is a remarkable city for its size.  Since 1868, it has been the home of the New York State School for the Blind.  Even more remarkable, Batavia has also been home to a veteran’s hospital, a Sylvania plant, a shoe manufacturing plant, an agricultural machine manufacturing company, a minor league baseball team, not to mention a thriving horseracing track called Batavia Downs.

Today, 48 years after graduation, I realize with a new starkness that the well being of those with whom I attended school matters very much to me.  To join an alumni association means to personally identify and even to emotionally connect with the comfort and pleasure of one’s fellows in friendship. 

Many members of our alumni association, although perhaps not all, regard our annual reunion as being as important in their lives as sharing birthdays and holidays with friends and family.  To sing of “old Batavia” and trade reminiscences of old friends, teachers, and times provides a priceless comfort that’s beyond adequate description.  Hence, to serve as president of such a personally sustaining organization is downright inspiring!  Too soon all of us will surrender to the inevitable ravages of age. Inevitably, the organization will follow suit.

Now that my dream has come true, my task is to gather the resources that will fortify the structure of our union so that it might stand fast against the immediate demands of outrageous fortune and time as far into the future as possible.

For a lot of very special people, NYSSB is Batavia’s sweetest child.  In its bosom, these special human beings were intellectually, emotionally and even spiritually nourished.  Thus, our school served as the cradle of our minds, the garden that nurtured our capacity to lovingly recall our past and be at peace with who we are today.   As such, NYSSB stands as a haven for some of our fondest memories.  To be responsible for the care and feeding of alumni will be nothing less than a sacred honor!

If there exists a higher honor (with the exception of marriage and parenthood) that is within my ken, I have yet to learn of it!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

Published June 16, 2014

IN HIS NAME

By Edwin Cooney

Ten years ago last Thursday, Ronald Reagan, our fortieth president, silently rode his gallant horse Patriotism off into the sunset. His battle with Alzheimer’s disease was over, however, conservatism, his political faith, he left to all those who loved him best to nourish in his good name.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in a five room rented flat above a bakery in Tampico, Illinois on Monday February 6^th, 1911.  Not very many people noticed his arrival.  He was the second son of Jack and Nellie (Wilson) Reagan.  His older brother, John Neil (Moon) Reagan became a successful advertising executive.  Ron became the nation’s fortieth president on a political platform that demanded the return of government to the will of the American people as prescribed by the nation’s founders.

In July of 1980, Republicans met in Detroit and the former California governor easily coasted to nomination having previously knocked out such opponents as Senators Howard Baker and Robert Dole, former Texas Governor (and Nixon favorite for president) John Connally, and Representatives Phil Crane and John Anderson of Illinois.  During the convention, American political junkies were treated to the prospect of former President Ford possibly joining Reagan’s ticket as his running mate to woo more moderate voters who might otherwise be too fearful of Reagan’s alleged “radical” conservatism.  The deal fell through when both men realized there could be no such thing as a “co-presidency.”

The 1980 Republican platform called for deep tax cuts to stimulate economic growth, decontrol of oil and gas prices, rejection of the Salt II Treaty, a constitutional amendment banning legal abortions, a withdrawal of the party’s long standing support for the Equal Rights Amendment (reportedly because passage of the amendment as worded would grant rights to gays and lesbians), an increase in defense spending sufficient to overcome perceived defense lapses during the Carter years, and a balanced budget by 1985.

The president’s first term was true to a number of the promises in the platform including price deregulation, tax cuts and tax reform (although there would be no balanced budget), and no return of prayer to the public schools (a traditional conservative promise that has political value as an issue but no realistic chance of fruition).  Additionally, the president surprised many liberal women when he appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court.  Despite public demonstrations, President Reagan pressed forward to put cruise missiles in Europe and invaded Granada.  To the surprise of many, he was surprisingly calm and statesmanlike when in early September 1983 the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner with 269 passengers on board including Georgia Democratic Representative Lawrence McDonald. Mostly, however, millions of Americans were warmed and nurtured by his determination to protect Americans' safety both at home and abroad as well as by his personal affability.

In 1984, President Reagan was renominated in Dallas.  To emphasize its unity, the members at the convention dramatically suspended the rules and renominated the president and Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush on the same ballot.

The president’s second term was a largely successful one with the passage of Social Security reform and adoption of the 1987 Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty.

However, the president’s second term brought out some of his weaknesses. Budget Director David Stockman, Secretary of State George Shultz, top aide Michael Deaver and others attested to the fact that the president was indifferent towards learning the details about the projects and programs which eventually resulted in the infamous Iran Contra scandal.

Still, Ronald Reagan’s overall record as president was far more positive than negative.  Landmark achievements in tax reform and international relations almost obliterated those prejudices and misjudgments for which the president might have been considered liable.

I’m told that a few years ago the living advisors of every recent president met at one of those academic conferences which colleges with strong history and political science departments love to hold from time to time.  It was noted that the advisors to John F. Kennedy and Ronald W. Reagan were the most forceful in insisting that their former bosses were successful presidents.

As noted above, a decade has passed since America’s most eloquent president quietly slipped away.  His beloved Nancy, sons Michael and Ron, and daughter Patti were loyally and lovingly at his side. (His daughter Maureen had died of cancer in 2001.)  The man who was born in a five room rented flat above a small town bakery rode into eternity from a palatial home in Bel Air, the ritziest section of Los Angeles, California.

If few noticed his coming, you can be sure that millions more than noticed his passing!

Especially for conservatives, his name was in full measure a testimony to freedom and Americanism – to God and to family – and to faith in one’s word and accountability for one’s actions.

Thus in his name, conservatives today parade and apply their political faith even beyond the extent to which he practiced it.  To Ronald Reagan, compromise was a patriotic practice and shutting down the government was a breach of full faith and credit as prescribed by the Constitution of the United States.

President Reagan’s attitude was cheerful and optimistic even toward his political opponents.

Those of us who represent different but nevertheless loyal political faiths hope that conservatives may yet avoid the angry and uselessly quarrelsome contentions of conservatism’s most radical spokespeople.

Perhaps one day soon a new generation of conservatives will practice the kind of conservatism to which Ronald Reagan lent his good name!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

JACK KENNEDY –- FOREVER YOUNG!

By Edwin Cooney

Last November 22^nd, many of us who write, whether as a vocation or avocation, offered our readers our thoughts on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  As hard as it is to believe that half a century has passed since that terrible November Friday, there exists another reality that’s almost as hard to fathom.

Last Thursday, May 29^th, 2014, Jack Kennedy would have celebrated his 97^th birthday.  This reality is especially stunning when you recall that much of Jack Kennedy’s persona was based on his youth.  Yet, there it is: John Kennedy’s 97th birth date, as real as the man himself.

In the days, weeks, months and the first few years following his murder, some of the most eloquent among us spent countless words and thoughts in an attempt to capture his essence so that we might comprehend and be nurtured by the depth of his value to us.  In the immediate aftermath of his assassination there was a tendency to compare him with Abraham Lincoln, our greatest martyred president.  However, with the passing of time and added perspective (perhaps time’s greatest gift), most Americans have become more than a little familiar with who Jack Kennedy really was.   Sadly, not all of who he was is even close to what he seemed to be during his lifetime.  Still, there is much about what and who he truly was that is both inspiring and fascinating to recall.

Since the trauma of his death began to fade in the late sixties and early seventies, few today insist that John Kennedy can be rated more than as an average president.  In the wake of such legacies as The Peace Corps (1961), the Alliance for Progress in Central and South America (1961), the settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Tuesday, October 8^th, 1963), most of what we have to hang on to are wonderful impressions, images and memories of the man called Jack.

The image of a tall slender man with sensitive blue eyes and thick reddish brown hair parted on the left side, standing at a podium, his right index finger extended as he attempted to make a point during a speech or as he selected the next questioner at one of his frequent Tuesday afternoon news conferences will linger forever in the minds of millions of Americans. Then there’s the memory of that thick Harvard accent mixed with his native New England twang as he spoke of “vigga” or of “Cuber” and the goals of the new “frontieea”.

Even as we temporarily wallow in these delicious images, history snaps us awake with reminders of women named Judith Campbell Exner, Mary Painter Myers and Marilyn Monroe with whom Jack Kennedy had extramarital relations in violation of his marriage vows to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy.  Still, those of us who remember Jack Kennedy as erudite, quick-witted and, of course, forever young, have more wholesome memories to sustain us as we ourselves merge into that ageless domain where the past increasingly becomes wisdom and memory becomes reality.

The scenes of “Camelot,” that period of time between Friday, January 20^th, 1961 and Friday, November 22^nd, 1963, can be dismissed as merely an anguished widow’s pipedream.  However, Jack Kennedy’s presidency was far more than the fulfillment of his political ambition or even his personal dreams.

As he told a crowd of screaming supporters in Boston on election eve, “This is the most responsible time in the life of any free citizen of any free country. And I do not run for the office of the presidency, after fourteen years in the congress, with any expectation that it is an empty or an easy job. I run for the Presidency of the United States because it is the center of action. And in a free society, the chief responsibility of the President is to set before the American people the unfinished public business of our country.”

As he set out to begin that task, we can still see in our mind’s eye his inauguration in the snow. We remember him introducing himself as the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris. There’s the pride he displayed as Jackie conducted America on a tour of the remodeled White House in February of 1962. We can recall vividly President Kennedy’s grim determination as he stood in front of a map describing to an incredulous nation as well as to the world at large where the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba and the range of their path of possible nuclear destruction.

As he sought election to the presidency in 1960, the 43-year-old Senator from Massachusetts kept insisting, as most young people do, the importance of being “first.”  Obviously, young Jack wanted to be first on Election Day, but he also insisted that America should be first in all important matters.  Thus, throughout the exactly 144 weeks of his presidency, the nation was treated to scenes of competition with their leader somewhere at the center.  They saw touch football games at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, swimming, sailing, tennis and golf events at Palm Beach, Florida, and, of course, scenes of the president tossing out the first ball on opening day of the baseball season at Washington, D.C.’s Griffith Stadium.  Additionally, a comedy album playfully mocked the Kennedy family’s accents and competitive recreational activities.

There was even a bit of competitive chatter at the summit of international affairs.  In June 1961, JFK met with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna.  Author Paul F. Boller writes in his book “Presidential Anecdotes” that Khrushchev tried to take credit for Kennedy’s election.  After all, Khrushchev insisted, if he had released Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot who’d been shot down over the Soviet Union just before the election, Kennedy would have lost the election by at least 200,000 votes.  Kennedy replied that if Khrushchev let it get out that he liked him better than he liked Nixon; Kennedy would have been ruined at home.

So it must be throughout JFK’s 1,108-day presidency that “first” was essential.  We must be first in education, in sports, in science, in equal opportunity and, most dramatically of all, first to the moon.  To think about first is the driving motivation of the young.  Probably more than perhaps anything else, Jack Kennedy -- the man whose 97^th birthday many celebrated in their hearts last Thursday -- was forever young.

Come to think of it, we were young, too!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY