TERRORIST POLITICS 2020 STYLE!

By Edwin Cooney

At the outset of every political campaign, candidates have a choice between two courses or paths as they try and attract voters. Path one is to dare voters to accept the future you hope to create on the campaign trail. Path two is to scare the hell out of the voter, because people are far more likely to duck from the future than they are to embrace it! Because the future is only predictable rather than known, most people have a tendency to think of the worst of the past and apply it as a likely pattern for the future!

It's no wonder that the GOP this week doubled down on their traditional use of fear as a political tool! Republicans, since the early 1960s, have insisted that the likelihood of advancing socialism is a greater threat to our future than any disease. It's rather easy as well as intimidating to conjure in one's mind the idea of hordes of black and brown foreigners invading innocent neighborhoods, touting violence and carrying sheaths of flame, accompanied by rape, mayhem and ultimately murder for the sake of the advance of socialism and/or some foreign idea of human equality.

Between 1979 and 2013, I lived in Northern California and witnessed GOP gubernatorial campaigns that eventually came down to one issue. No matter how questionable either the state of the California economy or what policy matters were at issue, GOP gubernatorial candidates would invariably raise capital punishment as the key factor that would insure the safety and security of Californians. From there, they'd go on to win the 1982, 1986 and 1990 gubernatorial elections.

Of course, the safety and security of the public is a reasonable issue in every campaign, whether the election is a state or national affair. However, until this year, the question of the public's safety has generally been a question of military or law enforcement preparedness!

Believing as they do that private enterprise is the only legitimate way to tackle all public needs, the GOP naturally opposes all government actions that result in stultifying the steady progress of that vital source of our prosperity in the wake of any threat or promise. Unfortunately for all of us living in 2020 America, millions of Americans have been indoctrinated to despise their government, (their federal government in particular) even as they tearfully salute Old Glory and sing "God Bless America." What too many millions of Americans have lately refused to acknowledge is that a government strong enough to insure the "common welfare" of the people is required to ultimately be controllable by and for a free people. Effective government doesn't have to be a mischievous government in order to insure our safety, our economic well-being or our liberty! No one's wrong to insist that we be forever vigilant and even skeptical regarding government activities, but such skepticism isn't necessarily hostile to government. As I see it, such skepticism is generally constructive. After all, government, too, must be regulated if it's to be both responsive and responsible!

As for "We the People," in almost everything we do, we require some regulation of our activities for our own ultimate well-being! To deny that, as far as I'm concerned, is to deny the natural state of nature. Some advocate religious faith, others advocate social contracts such as economic and social cooperatives, while others suggest a combination of the above.

The question before the American voter in the coming weeks will ultimately be which terror, biological or ideological, must we overcome in order to continue to be a creative, open, free and prosperous people!

On Friday, October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union became the first "world power" to launch a satellite into space. Americans of that day soon awakened to use the wonders of science, the capacity of our educational system and the instruments that government can so naturally provide, thereby saving us from our own fear and skepticism. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the people used this combination of government and enterprise to protect themselves from domination by the Soviet Bear!

Thus to the question of whether Covid-19 or the uncertainties of "Black Lives Matter" should be the key issue in this presidential campaign, the real ultimate question is whether death or genuine equality is America's greatest enemy?

The president insists that he's already adequately protected us from Covid-19. And now he's ready to protect us from social equality. Joe Biden insists that government's first obligation is that of protecting the welfare of the people, and that hasn't even begun to happen under President Trump. As for the steady progress of social opportunity and equality, only its tactics must be modified! Its realization will strengthen us all!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

I HOLD THE FOLLOWING TRUTHS AS “SELF-EVIDENT!"

By Edwin Cooney

Those of you who regularly read these musings know that I've often confessed to liking politics and yes, even politicians. After all, they're a vital factor in the exercise of liberty! Their greatest value lies in their capacity to represent us by reflecting our values as well as our senses of proportion. Their greatest fault is in their unwillingness to deviate from socio-political ideology. As the late, great GOP Senator Everett Dirksen used to say: "There comes a time when all of us must rise above our principles!"

Thus, I offer the following set of truths for your consideration:

(1.) The rich have always and will always run every society!

(2.) The poor may always be with us, but they love money as much as do the rich!

(3.) Social and political ideology may arrange our thoughts and even our priorities, but ideologies are primarily mere illusions!

(4.) Pro-life advocates can never and will never end abortion. They can only end abortion for the poor. The rich have sufficient money to go places where abortion is legal and return safely home again!

(5.) Pro-choice advocates who claim to possess the right to govern their own bodies invariably are more about peace of mind than they are about responsibility and accountability!

(6.) One can't be an advocate of capital punishment and claim to be “pro-life!"

(7.) Freedom of speech is and ought to continue to be constitutional, but its value must be both useful and truthful!

(8.) Money and religion are the two greatest causes of war. Agnostics and atheists rant and rave about religion, but they certainly love money!

(9.) Criminality must be controlled via punishment, but to believe we can scare potential criminals with threats of imprisonment shows our ignorance about the criminal mind. Criminals already consider themselves victims of society; you can hardly frighten someone who is already scared!

(10.) One of the major myths conservatives insist upon is the myth of the "free market." The "free" market costs a lot of money!

(11.) Liberals possess no monopoly on either charity or generosity!

(12.) The main value of government lies in its capacity to overcome the greed of the rich and powerful. However, the rich and the powerful have no monopoly on greed!

(13.) That which is logical or reasonable isn't automatically rightful. Both reason and logic depend on what is fed into them.

(14.) As President Kennedy told us 58 years ago, "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, but the myth." A lie is both naked and thus vulnerable. A myth is very often clothed hopes, fears and good wishes!

(15.) I think I can define what our capacity for love is all about. When the welfare of someone is equal or even more important than your own welfare is to you, that's when you know you love them!

Okay, all things whether they be boring or bothersome, relevant or irrelevant, detrimental or helpful must come to an end. Presumptive or worthwhile as the above may be, I hope some of them may be instructive at the outset of perhaps the most critical election season we've ever faced.

We who would comment or persuade may wrap ourselves in the Bible, the Constitution or "Old Glory," but your vote is your business.

As author Teddy White observed back in 1960 about a people and their elected president: "When he, in lonely responsibility seeks to create or destroy he speaks his conscience and theirs, for they have freely chosen him!"

Your choice may well be more significant than either your wishes, or your hopes. It may well be your fate!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FOR YOUR INFORMATION: THE HISTORY OF REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES

By Edwin Cooney

Republican conventions have nominated twenty-one  men and one woman for the vice presidency since 1900. Like Democrats, vice presidents have been selected for all of the traditional ticket balancing reasons for which Democrats choose theirs. A total of twelve of the twenty-two GOP vice presidential candidates have been elected — which makes the score of those actually elected twelve to ten in favor of the Republicans over the past 120 years.

Before listing GOP vice presidential winning versus losing candidates, it's interesting to note that  at least two of the candidates, Theodore Roosevelt (1900) and Earl Warren (1948), became GOP anathemas later on in their careers. Teddy ran against President Taft in 1912 and Warren as Chief Justice became the object of GOP impeachment considerations late in his fifteen-year tenure.

Of course, 1900 was the year that the likable William McKinley sought a second term. His first Vice President, another very likable man from New Jersey named Garret A. Hobart, died of a heart attack on Tuesday, November 21st, 1899.

As badly as President McKinley needed a running mate in 1900, that’s how badly New York State GOP leaders wanted political and social reform-minded Governor Teddy Roosevelt out of the state governorship. The best place to put him, they concluded, was the vice presidency where he'd be powerless even if he did scold the party and the nation about the need for reform. Thus, in 1900, it would be McKinley and Roosevelt for the GOP vs. Bryan and Stevenson for the "Dems."

In 1904, the GOP nominated Indiana Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks as TR's running mate. Neither Roosevelt nor Fairbanks liked one another very much.  Fairbanks was a conservative and was opposed to many of TR's "Square Deal" ideas such as food and drug regulations and mass conservationist legislation. During the McKinley administration, Fairbanks had served on the commission that settled the boundary between Alaska and Canada. Thus, the city of Fairbanks, Alaska was named for him.

In 1908, as Vice President Fairbanks sought the presidential nomination for himself, Republicans nominated William Howard Taft, TR's Secretary of War, and James Schoolcraft Sherman. Sherman and Taft were elected, but Vice President Sherman, a former mayor and congressman from Utica, New York, died suddenly during the 1912 campaign as he and President Taft struggled against Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt. By 1916, the GOP was reunited and Charles Evans Hughes chose former Vice President Fairbanks as his running mate. They lost in an exceedingly close race to Wilson and Thomas Marshall who was famous for observing that "what this country really needs is a good five cent cigar!"

There were three rather interesting GOP vice presidents nominated during the 1920’s: Calvin Coolidge in 1920, Charles Dawes in 1924 and Charles Curtis 1928-1932. (Note: what Coolidge, Dawes, and Curtis appear to have in common was their general disregard for their running mates.) Coolidge succeeded to the presidency on the death of President Harding in the wee small hours of the morning of Friday, August 3rd, 1923. His father John Coolidge (a notary) swore his only son in as President of the United States at the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. Charles Gates Dawes (some called him "Hell and Maria Dawes” due to his colorful language) was a financier, an administrator and a substantial musician. Dawes was the first director of the Bureau of the Budget during the Harding administration. Despite the fact that they shared similar administrative views, Dawes and Coolidge never really got along very well. Charles Curtis was an exceedingly affable gentleman although, as Senate majority leader, he vigorously opposed the nomination of Herbert Hoover at the 1928 GOP convention. Once he was offered the vice presidency by Hoover, he immediately altered his attitude! Curtis was the vice presidential nominee in 1932 even though on the first ballot of that sad convention he was short of the needed votes to get the nomination. He made up for it, though, on the second ballot.

Frank Knox was the 1936 GOP vice presidential candidate with Kansas Governor Alfred (Alf) M. Landon. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Knox rode up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War of 1898. At the time he received the vice presidential nod from the GOP, he was publishing The Chicago Daily News. In 1940, seeking to be more electable as they competed against FDR's bid for a third term, the Republicans nominated business executive Wendell Willkie for president, and Senator Charles McNary, an Oregon progressive, for vice president. In 1944, vice presidential nominee John W. Bricker of Ohio was the conservative end of the ticket. New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was regarded as more liberal, although one could never convince FDR of that! (As son Jimmy  noted when he assisted the president to bed on election night, FDR comment even after receiving Dewey's congratulatory telegram was: "I still think he's a son-of-a-bitch!”  California Governor Earl Warren was Tom Dewey's 1948 pick as the vice presidential candidate. Years later, as Chief Justice of the United States' Supreme Court, Warren would become too progressive for many Republicans.

Richard Nixon (1952-1956) and U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (1960) would be chosen to be the Vice Presidential picks followed by New York State Congressman William E. Miller in 1964 and Spiro T. Agnew (1968-1973). Miller had just completed two years as GOP National Committee Chairman. In July 1964, when he was nominated to run with Barry Goldwater, he was labeled by Goldwater as someone "who drives Lyndon Johnson nuts!" Originally a "Rockefeller Republican,”  Spiro Agnew, definitely was not a "household name" when he was picked by RMN in 1968. By 1972, Mr. Agnew was known in every American abode!

By the summer of 1976, our Bicentennial, America's president Gerald R. Ford had reached the ultimate office through the vice presidency although he did not have the GOP Convention to thank for his preeminence. He asked the 1976 GOP Convention to nominate Kansas Senator Robert Dole to that position. (Note: Former California Governor Ronald Reagan became the first potential president to choose his running mate, Pennsylvania liberal Senator Richard Schweiker, prior to the opening of the convention in Kansas City, Missouri.)

George Herbert Walker Bush was selected by Mr. Reagan in 1980 and 1984 despite his Eastern political pedigree. (Bush's father, Prescott Bush, was formerly a progressive Republican senator from Connecticut.) True blue Conservatives never really “trusted” Yale scholars just because they wore cowboy hats! As for Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, nominated for vice president in both 1988 and 1992, his pedigree was solidly conservative enough, but his hawkish military convictions were subject to sincere ridicule — as was his spelling and articulation! In 1996, Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills and NFL quarterback, was considered a "true blue conservative" with a progressive social conscience. He was a far more successful professional football player than he was a national campaigner!

Richard B. Cheney a resident of Wyoming via Nebraska and Texas (where he was a resident at the time of his 2000 vice presidential nomination) was a Republican politician with a business executive’s soul. Many believe (falsely, I think) that as vice president he was the real power behind the throne!

Alaska Governor Sara Palin, who was picked in 2008, was an attractive candidate for about a fortnight! Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP 2012 vice presidential choice, turned out to be all potential with little substance. Many expected Ryan to make mincemeat out of Vice President Joe Biden during their 2012 debate, but Joe survived nicely!

Michael Richard Pence, still another Republican Indianan, is a true believer in his religious and political faiths! Pence represents bedrock Midwestern “moral majority conservatism!"

At the outset of this musing, I said that twenty-one men and one woman were nominated by the Republican Party between 1900 and 2016. Twelve of these were actually elected vice president of the United States. Additionally, two vice presidential nominations were confirmed outside the GOP party politic. In fact, with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, Gerald R. Ford and Nelson A. Rockefeller had to have Democratic votes to become vice president and both certainly got them! Hence, a total of fourteen Republican men have served as vice presidents.

Few simultaneously serving presidents and vice presidents came from more divergent backgrounds. Jerry Ford, the only Eagle Scout to become President of the United States, was a small town Chamber of Commerce type. Nelson Rockefeller was a product of wealth, privilege and sophistication However, they had one thing in common above anything else. They were both men of practicality even more than they were men of politics! If you ask me, practicality is ultimately more patriotic than ideology!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION: ABOUT THE HISTORY OF DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES!

By Edwin Cooney

Twenty-six men and one woman have been nominated for the vice presidency of the United States by the Democratic Party since 1900. Only 10 of these 27 Democrats were elected. You can easily be forgiven if you haven't heard of the more obscure candidates such as Adlai Stevenson, Sr. (whose grandson and namesake was twice nominated to run for president against Dwight Eisenhower during the 1950’s.) The elder Stevenson was nominated in 1900 during William Jennings Bryan's second campaign against William McKinley. (Note that Mr. Stevenson had already served as Vice President in Grover Cleveland’s second term, 1893-1897.) In 1924, at the close of a 104 ballot convention, Nebraska Governor Charles Wayland Bryan (who was the younger brother of the “Great Commoner” William Jennings Bryan) became  the second man on the Democratic ticket to John W. Davis who was equally obscure. Names such as Thomas Marshall from Indiana (who actually was twice elected with Woodrow Wilson) and John W. Kern, also from Indiana, are known to very few people today. It's even forgivable if men such as  Arkansas's distinguished Senator Joseph Robinson (who ran with Al Smith in 1928), former House Speaker John Nance Garner (1932 and 1936), and even Edmund S. Muskie (1968) have somehow escaped your notice! (Note that Ed Muskie ran such a calming campaign that for the following four years he was considered the front runner for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.)

If you're like me, you'll be both interested and fascinated to learn of the 1904 Democratic vice presidential nominee. The only nominated candidate who was more obscure than Henry Gassaway Davis was the 1904 presidential nominee, Judge Alton B. Parker, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York State. Judge Parker would lose every state north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Teddy Roosevelt would win the electoral vote 336 to 140. Parker's and Davis's nominations were largely due to the reality that TR was running for a full term on the Republican ticket. Accordingly, the Democrats got practical more than political. What's especially fascinating about potential Vice President Henry Gassaway Davis was his purpose and his value to the party. Davis was exceedingly wealthy. He'd been both a railroad executive and a coal mining executive. His value was his willingness to finance the party effort that fall. Finally, there was the fact that Davis, who was born on Sunday, November 16th, 1823, was 80 years old at the time of his nomination — the oldest presidential or vice presidential candidate in history. Not only is that remarkable in view of the fact that not even penicillin had yet been discovered to protect people of great age, the fact is that former West Virginia Senator Davis lived to be 92. He died on Saturday, March 11th, 1916. (Goodness — Joe Biden still has 14 years to catch Henry Gassaway Davis!)

Walter Mondale (elected 1976)  is among the most notable Democratic vice presidential candidates. He is also currently 92, having been born on Thursday, January 5th, 1928. Additionally there's Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (1960), Harry Truman (1944), and, most notably, Franklin D. Roosevelt who was 38 and pre-polio when Ohio Governor James M. Cox chose him to be his running mate in 1920. (Note that early in 1920 young FDR was considered by many Democrats as a possible vice presidential running mate for Herbert Clark Hoover before the former World War I food distribution hero declared himself a Republican.)

Harry Truman's vice presidential selection (which was born out of the party-wide discomfort with incumbent Vice President Henry A. Wallace) didn't come until the July 17th, 1944 Democratic Convention in Chicago. (Incidentally, Senator Truman's acceptance speech took less than two minutes for him to deliver!) Three other vice presidential nominations should be touched on here. The 1948 nomination of Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley marked the second time the party gave a high nomination place to its keynote speaker. Back in 1896, William Jennings Bryan was nominated for president purely on the strength of his "Cross of Gold" keynote address.

The 1972 nomination of Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton was, in the view of this observer, a much sounder one than most others believe it was. Senator Eagleton probably couldn't have helped elect Senator George McGovern president, but I believe the reaction to the revelation that Senator Eagleton had had a nervous breakdown should have been more strongly resisted by the presidential candidate. Obviously, Eagleton’s replacement by R. Sargent Shriver did little to help the ticket. Additionally, the rejection of Senator Eagleton was not in the tradition of the usual Democratic party's championing of people with mental health issues. I like to think I would have kept Eagleton!

Finally, the selection in 1984 of Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro hurt the Mondale ticket more than it helped. I believe that San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein would have been a much better choice in view of Ms. Ferraro's husband's financial woes. It can be argued that Ms. Ferraro's candidacy didn't help Mr. Mondale any more than did Mr. Shriver's late choice help Senator George McGovern!

As for these vice presidential nominees —  Henry A. Wallace of Iowa (elected 1940), John Sparkman of Alabama (1952), Estes Kefauver of Tennessee (1956), Lloyd Bentsen of Texas (1988), Al Gore of Tennessee ((elected)1992-1996), Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (2000), John Edwards of North Carolina (2004) and Tim Kaine of Virginia (2016) — a beckoning vice presidency, especially on a major party ticket, is still quite a high honor in anyone's life! (Note: I have wondered for some time why Al Gore never made another run for the presidency since he came so close in 2000. Neither William Jennings Bryan, Adlai Stevenson nor Hubert Humphrey would have understood!) 

As for 2020, I like all three of Mr. Biden's most likely choices: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Susan Rice. I think Senator Warren's credentials are the most substantive and I think Senator Harris's personality and smarts are very enticing, but I think Ambassador Rice's foreign policy credentials could be most formidable. It's my guess that Ms. Rice's formidability will ultimately get her the nomination to be the next Vice President of the United States!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FROM DISCOVERY TO REALITY

By Edwin Cooney

When I was 10 going on 11, my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Hilkin began teaching the class how to read a map of the United States. First, she began by introducing us to wooden relief maps and finally she used  tactile Braille paper maps pressed by zinc plates on to 11 by 14 sheets of Braille paper.  She began by teaching us the location of states along the west and east coasts which included the most prominent states such as Florida and Texas. We learned the “COW" states —  California, Oregon, and Washington.   Next, there were the “CAN'T states" — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Then, there was Florida which stuck out into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico like a sore thumb. Then came the six New England states with Maine sticking up above them like a baseball mitt waiting for a fly ball with New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island (known as "Little Rhody”) residing beneath in all their glory. After that came New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Old Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida which occupied the Atlantic coast. The Great Lake States of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois pretty much filled up the north and midwest. Finally, there were the states on the Mississippi: Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. 

The rest was up to me to learn and I worked harder on that than I had ever worked on such mundane topics as math, science, spelling, or English. I took my Braille maps back to my room to study and restudy the states. I didn’t wait for my teacher to help me identify new states. After all, that was my mission and I got help from houseparents and other adults confirming and reconfirming which states were which. Between October 1956 and March 1957, all the states, their capitals, their products, their major cities and even their people really and truly became mine. More than merely an academic study, learning about the parts of America was a personal quest. However, there was a question beyond that: who was I to them and who were they to me? They were hardly my family. I couldn't claim to own them as property. I certainly wasn't President Eisenhower! But somehow, all of the people mattered to me and were linked to me. Exactly how they were related and what their link was to me was difficult to grasp.

I lacked the necessary perspective to start understanding civics or politics for quite a few years. Slowly, altogether too slowly, I began to vicariously live the American experience through the stories of the men who were elected to the presidency of the United States. What I've learned about their backgrounds, life experiences, motives, ambitions, hopes, fears, and values has taught me what America is all about. To me, the President of the United States has been America's caregiver ever since.

Last week I offered my version of a speech President Trump should have given in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Imperfectly as I may have designed this speech, had the president given something like it, I believe he would have quite effectively drawn the public into a closer identity, perhaps even a partnership, with his responsibility for them, and his accountability to them. It seems to me that presidents ultimately fall or flourish in direct proportion to how important John and Suzie Q. Citizen's fears and hopes appear to matter to him. This is especially obvious during an election year!

Sometime soon, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden will reveal his running-mate. This person may, sooner than we think likely, even become President of the United States. Should Mr. Biden make a poor choice, it could mean President Trump's re-election. Certainly, the Republicans will do their very best to demonstrate whatever weaknesses there may be in Mr. Biden as a choice. They could hardly be expected to do otherwise!

It's my guess, however, that President Trump has gotten himself into a position where only he alone can save himself. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, FDR considered himself the only issue back in 1936 and it turned out to be true. The difference between then and now is that by election day in 1936, it was clear to people in 46 of the then 48 states that FDR was the issue because of what he’d done for their collective benefit. Just the opposite appears to apply to President Trump in 2020! Nevertheless, it seems to millions that President Trump has conducted himself in such a way that this year he has become his very own Hillary Clinton.

Back in 1960, author Theodore White observed that one of Richard Nixon's advantages going into the campaign against young Jack Kennedy was the "magic stamp of legitimacy" as Ike's sitting Vice President. Nixon's "magic stamp of legitimacy" wasn't adequate to sustain him against the handsome and vigorous Massachusetts senator, but in the wake of four years of constant presidentially-inspired political turmoil, Joe Biden's vice presidential calm may well bring about a new version and era of vice presidential legitimacy.

Four years ago, candidate Trump ran on the promise to drain the swamp. Rather than draining it, he has flooded it! He's infested it with viral-laden directives and  judgments that literally tell people to be patriotic enough to get sick to bring about herd immunity. 

Joe Biden doesn't appear to be under the illusion that he can solve all the problems or avoid all the dangers of the nation he seeks to lead. However, a lifetime of experience in the Senate and eight years as Vice President, imperfect as they may have been, appear to have taught him that an angry, resentful self-absorbed presidency will never create a truly great people!

As I mastered knowledge of our national physiognomy 63 plus years ago, I realized it was too big, too peopled, too mighty to be merely mine. That realization set me forth on a quest to understand who could master it on my behalf. I found the answer to that in the Office of the President of the United States. He (and eventually she) will invariably preserve this beautiful land "...to the best of his or her ability!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY