THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD—IT CAN BE VERY PERSONAL

By Edwin Cooney

Okay! I wasn’t all that worried last Monday as President-Elect Obama and his wife Michelle visited the Bush’s. What was frustrating, however, was not knowing how well the two men got along, especially since the public end of the meeting came before the business end. Had the public part of the meeting occurred as the two men departed, a few sharp observers would surely have let all of us know what the visible signs were for either a smooth or stormy presidential transition.

Only ten times in our history has a defeated incumbent president turned his office over to a political opponent and it’s true that this wasn’t one of those times. Still, the process can be quite touchy.

The first time was in February 1801 when, because none of the top three candidates had a majority in the Electoral College, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. The incumbent John Adams was, for both political and personal reasons, reluctant to turn his office over to Vice President Thomas Jefferson. Author David McCullough reports, in his authoritative John Adams biography, that Adams never discussed publicly what went on between the two men during the struggle for House votes that February. However, Jefferson wrote later that he’d gone to the president’s mansion hoping to get Adams to use his prestige with Federalist congressmen. He wanted them to stop putting conditions on their support for a Jefferson victory in the House. Adams immediately showed his displeasure by addressing Jefferson in a manner unlike any he’d used in the past. He refused to urge Federalist congressman to abandon their demands. They wanted Jefferson to retain Federalist appointees, maintain the strength of the Navy, and they also wanted Jefferson to pay Federalist creditors. Adams acknowledged that the government would be Jefferson’s because “…we know it is the wish of the people it should be so,” but a warm friendship of decades had turned temporarily hostile. It would ultimately be resumed across the veil of time and distance but it didn’t bode well for the first historic transfer of political power and presidential authority in America.

John Quincy Adams surrendered the government to Andrew Jackson in 1829, but the two men didn’t meet before Adams’ early departure on Jackson’s March 4th Inauguration Day.

I’ve found no record of what Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison had to say to one another on March 4th, 1841 or what Benjamin Harrison (the elder Harrison’s grandson) had to say in 1889 and 1893 to Grover Cleveland as they twice exchanged the presidency. However, the 1913 transfer of the presidency between William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson was a bit notable. Taft, who not only lost to Wilson, but also to Theodore Roosevelt, stayed on for Wilson’s inauguration and then accompanied the new president back to the White House. Not only did he stay for lunch, he lingered to talk with Wilson to the extent that both the new president’s staff and Taft’s people grew uncomfortable. Taft had a train to catch and Wilson had an administration to begin, but the outgoing president was clearly reluctant to leave.

Nineteen-thirty-three was a landmark year in American history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected over incumbent Republican President Herbert Clark Hoover back on November 8th, 1932, had nearly four months before taking office. The Hoover administration sought to bring FDR into the decision-making process on several occasions. FDR, however, almost completely avoided the politically toxic Hoover. The payback appeared to come late on the afternoon of Friday, March 3rd when President-Elect Roosevelt paid a courtesy call on President Hoover. FDR’s son James wrote that their social call was scheduled for teatime (at four o’clock) and that they arrived at the White House going through the south portico door for FDR’s convenience. They then took the elevator up to the first floor. They had to wait for thirty minutes until President Hoover arrived with Ogden Mills, the Treasury Secretary. When FDR firmly but politely refused to conduct business, they downed their tea and prepared to leave. FDR told the president that in view of his physical condition and the time it would take for him to get to his feet and leave the room, he’d understand if the president didn’t wait for him. Hoover’s response was to tell FDR coldly that he’d understand after being president for a while that the President of the United States waits for no one. Some accounts of this meeting assert that FDR stubbornly refused to be seated while waiting for Hoover’s arrival and that Hoover, knowing he would assume that posture on painfully crippled legs, deliberately kept him waiting.

Although they weren’t opponents in 1952, when President Truman and President-Elect Eisenhower met after the election, their former personal ease evaporated—a casualty of the late political campaign. Their one White House meeting was exceedingly stiff. When President-Elect Eisenhower’s car pulled up to the White House on Inauguration Day 1953, Ike waited in the car for the President to emerge from the White House. When Truman did arrive, Ike, as they drove to the Capitol, demanded to know why his son John, then serving in Korea, had been called home for the inauguration. Was it done to embarrass the incoming president, Ike wondered. Truman’s response was:

“He came home because he was ordered to do so by the President of the United States so that he could see his father inaugurated as his Commander-in-Chief.”

Jimmy Carter and Jerry Ford were opponents in 1976, but both men allowed politics to recede into the background during the transition. President Carter’s first words after taking the oath of office on January 20th, 1977 were: "For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land." Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter eventually became friends for life.

The relationship between Presidents Carter and Reagan was polite but formal. President Reagan followed President Carter’s example by thanking the outgoing Chief Executive for his public service. However, President Carter said later that their personal meeting was less productive than it could have been because President-Elect Reagan seemed uninterested in some documentation Carter wanted Mr. Reagan to see. Carter said Reagan just stared glassily off into the distance and said that his staff would bring him up to date on such information.

As for the transitions between Clinton and George H. W. Bush and between Clinton and George W. Bush, I have no information. However, President Bush apparently called President Clinton last Monday to remind him of and thank him once again for the very gracious way President Clinton had received him eight years ago.

As for last Monday, President Bush said nothing of what had been agreed to or what remained at issue between Barack Obama and himself on the subjects of the unstable economy here at home and the uncertainties abroad. However, President Bush seems to have been touched by President-Elect Obama’s insistence on visiting the rooms where his two little girls would be sleeping.

"Clearly, this guy is going to bring a great sense of family to the White House," Bush said. "I hope Laura and I did the same thing, but I believe he will and I know his girls are on his mind and he wants to make sure that first and foremost he is a good dad. And I think that's going to be an important part of his presidency."

That observation coming from a “family values” doctrine-oriented “conservative” has to be seen as something of a complement. In this era of doctrinaire politics and “the culture war”, any acknowledgment by one side of an opponent’s humanity is a most encouraging thing. For years I’ve asserted that the human dynamic among our leaders is not only important but that it is as essential to our ultimate success or failure as a society as any official strategy, document or policy.

In the final analysis, all that we read and observe about America’s past, present and future is personal because it personally matters to you and to me. Hence the experience of surrendering and receiving the awesome duties, power and responsibility of the presidency can hardly be any less personal—can it?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CAN WE, THE WILLFUL MANY, BECOME ONE?

By Edwin Cooney

The polls in California had barely closed last Tuesday night when all of the networks and cable channels declared that Senator Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States of America.

These declarations were followed, almost immediately, by an exceedingly generous, classy, and patriotic concession speech by Arizona Senator John McCain. Next came the President-Elect who acknowledged Senator McCain’s service to his country and asserted the importance of respect for and consultation with representatives of differing political opinions.

Standing before tens of thousands of his supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park, America’s next President insisted, as he has throughout his campaign, that “yes, we can” surmount the difficulties Americans face at home and abroad in a changing nation and world. Even more, Barack Obama insisted that we have more in common than we have differences. “…Out of many, we are one,” he said.

“…If I have not earned your vote tonight,” said the President-Elect to millions of down-hearted political opponents, “I have heard your voice and I will be your President, too.”

Exactly twenty-eight years ago to the date and very day of the week, Tuesday, November 4th, 1980, another man received the overwhelming support of the American people at the polls. His name was Ronald Wilson Reagan. His victory over President Jimmy Carter brought ideological conservatism into power. Mr. Reagan’s national and world views differed sharply from that of even recent Republican presidents Nixon and Ford. Supply-side economics replaced Keynesian economics. In foreign affairs, the Soviet Union became “the evil empire”. The “START treaty” which would allow us to install cruise missiles in Western Europe to counter Soviet SS-20 missiles aimed at Central Europe replaced the SALT 2 treaty. “Tax indexing” to adjust increases in earned income was adopted to reflect inflation. The line item veto became a popular proposal to limit government spending. It would remain so even after it was declared unconstitutional by a conservative Supreme Court.

By 1984, it was “Morning in America” and President Reagan lost only the state of Minnesota (the home state of former Vice President Walter Mondale, his opponent) in his bid for re-election. Reaganites, along with millions of other satisfied and gratified Americans, were united in the belief that President Reagan had brought the country out of the “malaise” of the Carter years. America was rich, prosperous, politically and morally principled, and in control of its prospects for peace and security. Thus, on the surface, we appeared to be one.

Or, were we? Did our general satisfaction with President Reagan and his political doctrine constitute a lasting unity—or should it have?

I say, of course not.

Twenty-eight years after our 1980 consensus, ideologists of both the left and right insist, even between political seasons, that they alone are the guardians of the pathway to morality. This insistence, Senator Obama pointed out in his book “The Audacity of Hope,” is what prohibits consensus between Republicans and Democrats in the media, in the highest councils of government, and even in our current culture.

Hence, even as President Obama seeks a way out of our current economic morass, his greatest task will be to teach both conservatives and liberals an essential lesson: acknowledgment of and cooperation with one another is the essence of good government.

Liberals, who consider themselves the most tolerant of people, destroy their reputation for tolerance by insisting that all conservative ideas are narrow, racist, selfish, exploitive, and jingoistic. Conservatives, who consider themselves to be the supreme lovers of freedom, could be even more powerful if they acknowledged that those who differ with them are no less patriotic, fiscally responsible, or spiritually principled than they are. The first principle of freedom is inclusiveness not exclusivity. Differences in strategy or tactics do not constitute a lack of patriotism or a threat to America’s safety.

History is replete with our differences as a people. During the War of 1812, powerful forces in conservative New England considered secession forty years before the South seceded. We differed over slavery and reconstruction. Vast economic differences in the late nineteenth century brought about rural granges and urban unions. We differed over women’s suffrage, the social adjustments during the depression, and isolationism vs. internationalism during and after World War II. Civil rights and civil liberties inevitably draw us up short and force us to consider uncomfortable questions. These differences have been largely overcome by individual as well as group familiarity and acknowledgment. Ultimately, we will always be united in support of the peace, prosperity and security of our nation.

President-Elect Obama is right to seek national consensus, but the right and power of a free people to offer or withdraw its consent is the gift of we, the willful ones.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE QUIET HOURS

By Edwin Cooney

Late tonight will come those quiet hours between midnight and dawn. The campaign speeches, personal attack ads, and political rallies will cease. Barack Obama and John McCain will return to their homes to listen to what you and I have to say on the morrow.

The rude, noisy, and sometimes intrusive political campaign season will be over. Both hopeful and discouraged campaign workers and political candidates will slip into bed and, for the first time since early 2007, there will be political quiet—-if not political peace--in the land.

Two northern New Hampshire villages, Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location will cast their votes at midnight, thus becoming the first two precincts in the nation to report their total vote. It might be well for Senator Obama if he loses Dixville Notch. The only Democratic candidate to win in that tiny GOP village just twenty miles south of the Canadian border was Hubert Humphrey. HHH carried Dixville Notch in 1968 by a vote of eight to four over Richard Nixon, but RMN carried the nation.

More conclusive results will begin to come in late Tuesday afternoon. Usually the states of New Hampshire, Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana report first followed by Connecticut and Delaware. Should Senator McCain win New Hampshire, Kentucky and Indiana, the election may well be a tight one. High voter turnout could indicate an Obama victory. Should Senator Obama win New Hampshire and Indiana, the chances are good that there’ll be a Democratic sweep.

However, the question for millions of conscientious Americans will be: Does it all really matter?

History tells us that indeed it does matter how you vote. Beneath all of the political charges and counter-charges, there is a fundamental difference between the two parties.

The Republicans sincerely believe deep in their souls that the government has absolutely no right to be a factor in determining the outcome of domestic and social affairs. Freedom, they insist, can only flourish when it’s fueled by unfettered capital—today we know it as “trickle down economics” or “Reaganomics.” They believe that the only legitimate objective of government is our national defense against foreign attack. Education, health care, joblessness and even private greed are correctable by what they call: “The free marketplace.”

They insist that local government and even state governments may legitimately regulate human behavior, but federal Government that involves itself in social matters is “socialistic”. They genuinely believe that a truly free society will prosper by the example of the successful. Success, they believe, is the reward of hard work. Hard work, they assert, is the only legitimate path to success.

Democrats on the other hand, believe that government has a legitimate responsibility to affect the lives of the people. Democrats see the prosperity of the “middle class” as its agenda. Prosperity, they assert, comes from the bottom up rather than from the top down. If people don’t have the money to purchase the goods and services of private enterprise, business can’t prosper.

In the area of foreign affairs, Republicans see the world as ungrateful for past American protection against Nazism and Communism. Hence, our old allies selfishly are unwilling to face the realities of international terrorism. Furthermore, they see a changing world as requiring America to be strong militarily and dogmatic in its diplomacy.

Democrats see the changing world as ultimately pliable and responsive to intelligent and far-sighted American diplomacy. After all, they point out; we live in a world of diverse cultures and experiences. One of the major causes of war stems from a lack of knowledge of conditions and situations in sensitive parts of the world on the part of our leaders. If we were diplomatically proactive rather than reactive, the chances are we could negotiate our way out of most crises.

Exactly twenty-eight years ago, during those quiet hours of election eve, the American people decided that Ronald Reagan’s conservatism could best lead us out of the uncertainties of inflation and high interest rates at home and the threat of Communism and radicalism—in the form of hostage taking in Iran—abroad. They knew that President Jimmy Carter had worked diligently for domestic prosperity and international security, but they weren’t seeing the results of his efforts.

Just over the horizon, Americans saw a handsome, magnetic and silver-tongued hero riding to their rescue and they beckoned him forward with their votes.

Exactly what Americans see in their dreams over the horizon, as they slumber this night, is tomorrow’s story.

In the dreams tonight of two worthy men, Barack Obama and John McCain, shimmer the pillars of the White House. For which man this dream will come true will depend largely on how closely his dreams match yours and mine!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE ROARING TEDDY BEAR

By Edwin Cooney

(For MONDAY, OCTOBER 27TH, 2008)

The clock read 7:45 p.m. on the night of Wednesday, October 27th, 1858. The scene was a brownstone located at 28 East 20th Avenue in New York City. The occasion was the birth of a very special baby. He would be named after his father Theodore Roosevelt and, for the next sixty years and seventy-one days, life in the Roosevelt family would be nearly always exciting and seldom predictable.

Theodore Roosevelt was the second child and oldest son of Theodore and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt. His older sister Anna was called either Bamie or Bysie. Young Theodore wasn’t called Teddy, a name he never liked; rather, he was called Teedie until he was in his mid teens. His younger brother Elliott, whose daughter Eleanor would marry her fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt, was known as Ellie and their youngest sister Corinne was called Conie (spelled with one “n”). Teedie, Ellie, and Conie, who were closer in age to each other than they were to their older sister Anna, referred to themselves as “we three.”

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was a prosperous glass import merchant and banker in mid- nineteenth century New York City. Teedie’s mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt was a Southern Belle, which brought about some discomfort during the Civil War when Teedie’s father was away giving aid and comfort to Union troops. Martha’s two brothers were fighting with the Confederacy while her young son Teedie prayed aloud every night that God would grind Confederate troops into the dust.

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. was a kind and generous man to all who knew him. His charities included the YMCA, the News-Boy’s Lodging House, and the New York Orthopedic Hospital. The Roosevelt family lineage was Dutch, Scotch, English, Huguenot and Welch.

Teedie suffered throughout his childhood from severe attacks of asthma. He was physically weak and underweight. These maladies would be mastered as he began a physical training program in the family gymnasium and grew into adolescence.

Teedie’s childhood experiences included two trips abroad, one in 1869 through the spring of 1870 and the second lasting from 1872 through much of 1873.

During his first trip abroad he spent the Christmas season in Rome where he had occasion to meet and kiss the hand of Pope Leo IX. Once, being an energetic and occasionally mischievous child insensitive to the plight of the poor, he led “we three” in tossing cake into the midst of a crowd of beggars to watch them scramble for the crumbs. “We three,” also entertained themselves another time by shooting cap guns in a public square, thus scaring the dogs.

During the 1872-73 visit abroad, Teedie and his father climbed to the top of the Egyptian pyramids. He also spent time in Dresden Germany at a private school while his parents conducted other affairs.

From the time he was seven, Teedie was interested in natural history. At around age nine, he wrote a rather learned paper on the natural history of insects. He also learned to do taxidermy. This enabled him to preserve the carcasses of birds and the small game that he shot. Over time, the idea of shooting animals presented somewhat of a conflict to Teedie, but hunting would always be one of his favorite sports.

Due to his various illnesses, most of young Teedie’s education was at home where he learned the fundamentals from his Aunt Annie, his mother’s sister. During his mid teens he did attend a private school during his preparation for his 1876 admission to Harvard.

While at Harvard between September 1876 and June of 1880, in addition to his studies, he was librarian of the Porcellian club, secretary of the Hasty Pudding club, vice president of the Natural History club, and he founded the Finance Club. Additionally, he was runner-up for the Harvard light heavy-weight boxing championship. He also scored where it counted, graduating Phi Bata Kappa as well as magna cum laude and ranking twenty-first in a class of one-hundred and seventy-seven.

In 1878, TR suffered the tragedy of the death of his father. He also discovered the joy of romance when he met and fell in love with Alice Hathaway Lee whom he would marry on his twenty-second birthday in 1880.

Surrendering to Alice’s plea that he give up his plans to become a naturalist, TR entered Columbia University Law School in the fall of 1880. Law, he decided, would lead him into public life. However, following his marriage and extensive European honeymoon, he decided to skip the law degree and plunge into politics. Thus, in the fall of 1881, he was elected to the State Legislature representing New York State’s twenty-third Assembly District.

His three years in the New York State Assembly saw him fight corruption and cross the political aisle in support of Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland’s civil service reform proposal. However, it would be interrupted by a St. Valentine’s Day tragedy.

On that day, under the same roof, TR would lose his mother to typhus and his beloved Alice to Bright’s disease. Alice had given birth two days previously to a baby girl. She would be named after her mother and become throughout her life one of America’s most fascinating political and social personalities. Devastated by the double tragedy, TR, after completing his duties in the Assembly and participating as a delegate at the 1884 GOP convention, headed to the badlands of the Dakota Territory.

For two years, TR would live the harsh life of a cattle rancher and serve as a deputy sheriff of Billings County.

In 1886, he returned to New York and lost his bid to become Mayor. Then he went on to London, England where he won a new bride. Her name was Edith Carow. Edith had loved Theodore since they played together as children. She even attended his 1880 wedding to Alice Lee and wished him well. Now they became one and raised a family of four sons and a daughter in addition to young Alice.

To write of Theodore Roosevelt is to write of an historian (his first book published in 1882 was a naval history of the war of 1812), a naturalist, a rancher or “cowboy,” a soldier, and, ultimately, a politician and United States president. Between 1890 and 1901, he served as a federal civil service commissioner, President of the New York City Police Commission, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York and, from March 4th to September 14th of 1901, Vice President of the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt was an extraordinary person and politician. By no means was he always either politically selfless or in tune with the voters. However, there was a definite and genuine righteousness about him.

It was apparent to some as early as 1895, when he was President of the police Board of Commissioners, that Theodore Roosevelt was headed for the presidency. Author Lincoln Steffens and a friend were in TR’s office at police headquarters one day and wondered aloud if perhaps TR might sometime become a presidential candidate. Suddenly, TR leaped to his feet with rage on his face:

“Don’t you dare ask me that!” he almost screamed. “Don’t you put such ideas into my head! No friend of mine would say a thing like that. Never, never, must either of you remind a man on a political job that he may be president. It almost always kills him politically. He loses his nerve, he can’t do his work, and he gives up the very traits that are making him a possibility.”

When the Spanish American War broke out in 1898, TR left his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to raise a private regiment, popularly known as “The Rough Riders,” to fight in Cuba. On July 1st of 1898, he led a charge up Kettle Hill (popularly understood to be San Juan Hill) to overrun an enemy gun emplacement. Thus, thirty-nine year-old Theodore Roosevelt became, in the public’s mind, as much a war hero as Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant were. Narrowly elected Governor of New York that November 8th, TR would be president within three years.

A “reform governor,” TR defied the wishes of traditional Republican leaders and passed labor legislation limiting the hours children and women could be compelled to work. He also strengthened civil service laws to take jobs away from political patronage-hungry politicians and put them into the public sector. Thus, New York Republican leaders pressed President William McKinley to take TR as his running mate in 1900. The President agreed and the GOP ticket of McKinley and Roosevelt was elected that fall on the promise of “a full dinner pail.”

Six months and two days after Inauguration Day, President McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz while attending the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

Sunday September 22nd, TR’s first full day in the White House was the President’s late father’s birthday. Making note of that, the new President told his family that his presidency would reflect his father’s sense of public spirit.

Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency would be dedicated to the strengthening and expansion of American military power and influence abroad. To that end, TR would purchase America’s right to build the Panama Canal. He issued a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine justifying American intervention in the affairs of Latin America, brokered a peace treaty between Japan and Russia in 1905 (for which he would be awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize) and sent the “Great White Fleet”—in defiance of Congress—on a round-the-world “good will tour” in 1907.

At home, President Roosevelt dedicated the presidency to the welfare of the people. During the 1902 anthracite coal strike, he urged management (with limited success) to recognize the legitimacy of labor unions and labor’s issues. He ordered his attorney general to bring suits against the big railroads and the beef and tobacco combinations. He also purchased millions of acres of land for the purpose of land and resource conservation projects. In 1903, he signed legislation creating the Department of Commerce and Labor. In 1906, he signed the Pure Food and Drug act and the Hepburn act which strengthened the Commerce Department’s ability to regulate railroad rates for goods and for passengers crossing state lines.

Popular from the outset of his presidency, he defeated his Democratic opponent, New York State Supreme Court Judge Alton B. Parker, by over two million votes in 1904 when he sought a full term.

When he left the presidency in 1909 to his friend William Howard Taft, he was as popular as ever. Unlike his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt sought to react to people’s needs rather than simply reacting to Congress’s measures. A proactive rather than a reactive presidency was his ultimate gift to the American people.

Even more, the person of Theodore Roosevelt made an impression on the people. His large boisterous family made news. His boys Theodore, Kermit, Archie and Quentin and his two daughters Ethel and Alice were frequently in the news. The boys slid down the banisters and occasionally even roller skated through the formal rooms of the mansion. One day, when Quentin was ill, his sisters and brothers brought his pet pony up to see him in his third floor room via the White House elevator.

His daughter Alice became known as “Princess Alice” in the newspapers. As willful as her father, she responded to his directive that she couldn’t smoke under his roof by responding:

“Alright father, I’ll smoke on top of your roof,” and she did: she smoked on the roof of the White House.

“Princess Alice” married Ohio GOP congressman Nicholas Longworth at the White House on February 17, 1906.

It was the President, however, who made the biggest news. In his first months as President, he angered southern congressmen by inviting black educator Booker T. Washington to the White House. True, he never repeated the gesture, but he never apologized for it either.

Additionally, there was boxing and wrestling at the White House in which the chief executive took part. There were also the obstacle hikes led by TR which took the President, newspaper reporters and even White House guests through parks, forests, swamps and even across streams—with and without clothes.

No President enjoyed his job more than Theodore Roosevelt. That could be part of the reason why he quarreled with his two successors, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. His quarrel with Taft would ultimately be healed in a dramatic reunion in 1918 at a Chicago restaurant. However, he and Woodrow Wilson came to heartily dislike one another—a breech that would never be healed.

Some may well argue that TR’s ultimate legacy crossed political, historic, and social barriers that Washington, Jackson, or even Abraham Lincoln never came close to crossing.

While visiting Mississippi in November 1902, where he’d been invited to settle a land dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana, his hosts invited him on a hunting trip. Newspaper cartoonist Clifford Berryman drew a cartoon depicting a bear cub that the President supposedly refused to shoot. Sometime later, Morris and Rose Michtom, a couple who owned a candy and novelty store in Brooklyn, New York, wrote and asked the President if they could sell a stuffed bear designed by Mrs. Michtom. They sent the president a sample of the bear which they asked permission to call a “Teddy bear.” Permission was granted. Within a year’s time, Morris and Rose Mitchtom ran a toy company rather than merely a candy store.

TR’s lifetime was just sixty years and seventy-one days, but what years and days they turned out to be! Like his fellow citizens, Theodore Roosevelt had his assets and liabilities, his gifts and his blind spots, his triumphs and tragedies. He could be scrupulously truthful and willfully devious. Although he almost never engaged in self- pity, he could be self-righteously cruel to those who got in his way.

Theodore Roosevelt loved and lived life to the absolute fullest. Mostly devoid of subtlety, he often laughed as freely as a happy child, but he could also roar like a bear---a Teddy bear that is!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS!!!

By Edwin Cooney

 

I suppose I shouldn’t have (my mother told me to stay out of those places), but I recently returned to my favorite watering hole once again.  I had to:  it’s nearly Election Day and I just had to get a reading on the campaign from my buddies, Lunkhead and Dunderhead.

 

I could tell times were tense as soon as I arrived.  Instead of sitting inside where Lunkhead usually is content to sit holding a dead cigar in his teeth, he was outside with Dunderhead. Lunkhead’s cigar was lit and his scotch was being held in a tight right fist.

Dunderhead was sitting across the table from Lunkhead staring down at some papers, a nearly full beer in front of him.  

 

“What’s up fellows?” I asked.  “Lunkhead, you’re looking a bit glum!” I continued, sitting down and hoping the waitress would soon bring my beer.

 

“His lady is voting for Obama,” Dunderhead said, biting his lips to keep from grinning.

 

“What!” I began “you mean Bertha’s actually go…..”

 

“Don’t say it,” Lunkhead cut in, “Maybe Sarah Palin can still bring her back to sanity.”

 

“That’s what I’m here to find out guys,” I said, after accepting a tall one, “who’s winning this election?”

 

The names came fast, Lunkhead shouting McCain and Dunderhead Obama.  It was exactly what I’d expected.

 

Turning to my left, I asked Lunkhead, “What will elect McCain?”

 

“People want to be safe and secure. McCain’s military background, his experience as a POW and a public servant, plus his world outlook which I think is devoid of naiveté, provides the steadiness people are looking to find in difficult times.  Furthermore, people are tired of the Democrats’ continuous appeals to class warfare.  If it wasn’t for the well-off in this country, we’d live in a third world society,” Lunkhead replied.

 

“Nuts!” shot back Dunderhead, “in the first place, there are plenty of rich people in third world countries.  Second, when a president proposes tax cuts for those making over a certain dollar amount, isn’t that class warfare? Third, when are the McCains and Lunkheads of this world going to get it through their heads that you can’t have a prosperous society without consumers?  A nation of poor people will never be able to purchase the products and services the wealthy produce unless investments are made to their health, education and employment.  I assert that the disappearance of the middle class is what could turn us into a third world country more than anything bad that’s likely to happen to the rich.”

 

“What will elect Obama?” I asked Dunderhead, turning to my right.

 

“George W. Bush, that’s all the answer you really need,” Dunderhead replied.  “Americans have had it with presidential collusion with the rich and powerful at the expense of the middle class.  They’re tired of seeing their constitutional rights sacrificed because of conservative fears over Radical Islam.  Finally, they’ve had it with right wing sensational politics as promoted by influential right wing talk show hosts,” Dunderhead exclaimed, smirking at Lunkhead.

 

“Nonsense,” rumbled Lunkhead, “President Bush isn’t doing anything Abraham Lincoln didn’t do during the Civil War in-so-far as detaining people is concerned.  The American people aren’t stupid. They understand that very well.  As for right wing talk show hosts, Americans have had a bellyful of the hysterical propaganda pushed by Air America and MoveOn.org.”

 

    ”So, “ I asked “what would each of you say is your opponent’s biggest asset and what is your own candidate’s biggest mistake so far in this campaign?”

 

“Obama was smart to pick Biden,” Lunkhead said.  “He has experience, he can be entertaining on the campaign trail with all of his Irish blarney, and I have to say he treated Governor Palin a lot better during the debate than the liberal media does on a daily basis.  As for McCain’s biggest mistake, I’d say it was voting for the Wall Street bailout. What made it even worse was when he appeared to want to cancel the first debate to return to Washington for the purpose of consulting with the Bush Administration on the bailout.  To many, he appeared to be in bed with an unpopular president rather than taking charge of the issue.  He’d have been much better off had he voted against the bailout and then perhaps approved the modified version.  That’s what could lose him the election,” Lunkhead sighed.

 

“As for what John McCain has done right,” Dunderhead began, “you have to go back to August.  McCain had a great August.  He kind of pushed Obama into a corner after Russia invaded Georgia. He began his campaign well when he participated in Rick Perry’s Saddleback Ranch debate.  Then he ended August by picking Sarah Palin on his seventy-second birthday which was the day after Obama’s much publicized acceptance speech in Denver.  That was smart.  As for my concerns about the Obama campaign, I’d like to have seen Obama be more aggressive in the debates.  He was often too professorial and aloof to suit me,” Dunderhead said, picking up his beer.

 

“Okay,” I said, “I’ve got to ask:  what about the Palin choice?  Was it smart?  Was it a good choice?”

 

“It was good for America,” Lunkhead insisted, as he took a long puff on his cigar, “she’s right about abortion, she’s right on the subject of education, and she’s right in her opposition to gay marriage. She’s even willing to stand up to oil companies when it comes to sharing their wealth with the Alaska taxpayer.  Her only fault is her comparative lack of experience which, as I see it, is more than balanced by Barack Obama’s lack of experience.  If things go as I want them to, we’ll elect an experienced president.  If Obama is elected we’ll have an inexperienced president.  It’s as simple as that.”

 

“I admit,” said Dunderhead, “I thought it was a smart decision back on August 29^th, when McCain introduced her. I thought she might actually appeal to many of Hillary Clinton’s supporters.  However, as time has passed, Sarah Palin’s lack of knowledge has been emphasized by her lack of experience. She didn’t even know what the “Bush Doctrine” was when Charlie Gibson asked her about it.  It’s also clear that the McCain camp doesn’t trust her enough to let her campaign very much by herself.  What interests me is what kind of a mark she’s going to make on the Republican party. If she runs in the future, I wonder how her fellow Republican presidential candidates in 2011 and 2012 will treat her?  She may well have tightened up the base of the Republican party for the fall campaign, but I think it’s unlikely that Republicans will give her a free pass to the top four years from now.”

 

“By the way, Lunkhead,” asked Dunderhead, “you didn’t go so far as to bet Bertha on the outcome of this election did you?”

 

“You know how I am about Bertha.  I couldn’t help myself, Dunderhead!” Lunkhead gasped, his face paling.

 

“What must you do if Obama wins the election?” Dunderhead asked, his face deadpan.

 

“My daughter’s Halloween donkey ears -- I’ve gotta wear them every time I come here between the election and the inauguration,” he practically whispered.

 

“Goodness,” mused Dunderhead, “it’s going to be a dry Fall, isn’t it!

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

 

EDWIN COONEY

 

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS—VICTIMS OF WAR

By Edwin Cooney

A friend recently sent me an internet article about a Little Rock, Arkansas social studies teacher named Martha Cothren. In September 2005, with permission from the Little Rock Superintendent of Schools, her school principal at Robinson High School and the cooperation of the building supervisor, Ms. Cothren removed all twenty-seven desks from her classroom for the first day of school.

When students arrived for class and discovered that there were no desks in Ms. Cothren’s classroom, they naturally wondered why. Her response was to ask the question: what have you done to earn the right to a desk? Only if they could give a satisfactory answer to that question, she told them, would she have desks installed in the classroom.

This apparently went on all day. Rather than answering her question, students seemed convinced that their behavior, was the real object of Ms. Cothren’s motive for beginning the school year without desks in her classroom.

Students guessed that perhaps they hadn’t behaved well enough. That wasn’t it, she assured them. Perhaps their grades weren’t sufficient, they guessed. No, that wasn’t it, either.

Finally, during the last period of the day, Ms. Cothren gave in. She would demonstrate to the students why they hadn’t earned the right to sit at their desks.

Opening the door—with local news cameras on hand—Ms. Cothren beckoned in twenty-seven soldiers with the required twenty-seven desks. Each soldier marched in, placed a desk in the proper spot, and marched to the wall where he or she stood at attention.

Once this risky mission was completed (after all, everyone knows how dangerous it is to enter a classroom in an American public school these days!), Ms. Cothren explained to the students the purpose of her lesson that day.

These veterans are the ones who have earned the right to occupy these desks, she told the students. They have sacrificed so that you have the freedom to be here. She urged them to let that knowledge be the force to compel them to listen, learn, and be good students and citizens. Thus, end of lesson.

As is routine with this and many other “internet lessons,” the recipient is urged to send this message around to educate others. The idea is that others will understand that those who have served in the military -- or perhaps more to the point, those who have served our nation during a time of war -- earned their liberties for them.

Because I resist the tendency to use the plight of our veterans to justify and even glorify war, something too many of our national leaders (both past and present) have done, my first reaction to this message was disgust. Even if I was prone to automatically distribute many of the messages of humor and inspiration the internet offers, this one I would withhold.

Aside from my own personal prejudices, it seems to me that Ms. Cothren has confused right with obligation. As far back as I can remember (and the time period I can recall is much too long for the preservation of either youth or beauty), most students were and are obligated to go to school. They don’t instinctively elect to go. Even those who excitedly attend their first day of kindergarten, respond to a parental or societal obligation.

Of course, regardless of my own discomfort, war veterans are legitimate heroes. With the exception of the terminally ill, few know what the battlefield soldier experiences when faced with the minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day intimacy of the presence of pain and perhaps death.

However, it must be remembered that even in these days of volunteer military service, most men and women in uniform join the service for the same reason that surely most of Ms. Cothren’s students originally entered school -- out of obligation.

It’s obvious that Ms. Cothren’s ultimate objective, since she and the local school system agreed to media coverage, was to demonstrate to the public that our rights and freedoms have been effectively protected by brave men and women who often do sacrifice their safety and even their lives in freedom’s name. Sadly, there is little doubt that her students aren’t likely to forget that she saw their obligation to get an education as a “right”.

In my view, therein lies the fault in Ms. Cothren’s lesson plan. Even in totalitarian societies such as Red China, Cuba, and, surely in those areas where the Taliban reigns, children must attend school. Nor are soldiers the sole purchasers of our children’s opportunity for an education. My social studies teachers taught me that taxi drivers, truck drivers, and even parents earn the money that paid my way at school.

It has become popular in recent years to chide minorities and welfare recipients for not understanding the difference between individual rights and obligations. From what I’ve seen of Martha Cothren’s lesson plan, she has demonstrated that perhaps even social studies teachers may suffer from the same malady.

Sadder still is the possibility that the value and meaning of these two words—right and obligation—have become casualties of our adventure in Iraq.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHEN WE BECAME WE!

By Edwin Cooney

As America this past week decided whether or not to “bail out Wall Street” or “rescue our economy” (whichever you prefer), it had at its disposal numerous tools to avert the looming crisis.  These tools included the “free market”, taxpayer-sustained government, an established currency system and the international financial community.  There was a time however, when none of these tools existed (including a firmly established government) and yet not only did we endure, we blossomed.

The year was 1787 and the thirteen colonies weren’t cooperating with each other.  There was no solid currency to purchase the necessities of life.  Nor was there an adequate banking system through which to pay debts.  The newly freed United States was vulnerable to foreign invasion or attack.  Our very fate was in our own hands.  So, we found the following solution.  We created a document that begins:

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION, ESTABLISH JUSTICE, INSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY FOR OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Okay, so that’s where it all began.  It was stiflingly hot in Philadelphia throughout that historic summer of 1787.  The fifty-five men who attended the Constitutional Convention, some intermittently, were under strict orders to keep their deliberations secret.  Hence, the windows of the Pennsylvania State House were closed to even the smallest breeze.  At the close of each day, George Washington, President of the convention, collected all notes and working papers for storage overnight.

When the convention ended that September 17^th, only thirty-nine men agreed to sign the final document.  Ratification of the constitution was by no means secure.   Some powerful and influential men with names such as Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Roger Sherman were against its ratification.  No one knew where either Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, or John Adams, perhaps our finest jurist, stood on a possible new governing body.  Jefferson was serving as our Minister to France and Adams as our Minister to England.  Yet, there was something else, a very special something.

As difficult and uncertain as the future seemed to be, as different as were the approaches to government by some of the most prominent politicians of the day, there was an underlying determination to unite the thirteen colonies with all of their cultural and religious differences.  Additionally, two brilliant men, little James “Jemmy” Madison and the elegant Alexander Hamilton, joined forces to explain and advocate for the adoption of the constitution.  One believed in states’ rights and the other believed in the formation of a strong central government.

Their vehicle was a series of newspaper articles known today as “The Federalist Papers.”  Thus, as time went along, the thirteen colonies began ratifying the finest (if imperfect) legal document that has ever been created. Many historians will say that the key to the constitution’s passage was a general consensus that a “Bill of Rights” which would adequately spell out the rights of the people would eventually be added to the original document.  Thus, with all of our misgivings, we were willing to become one people.  The key ingredient to that enduring bond was that we were willing to become “we” — not “us and them,” but “we”.

A perusal of the companies of men that made up the colonial army shows that many of the officers and men were members of the same family, of the same neighborhood, and all were fighting and dying for the same cause.  The constitutional crisis of the 1780s was solved by men who, with all of their differences and even personal jealousies (and they were indeed very real) possessed a very different idea of reality than we do today.

Today, it seems, our national leadership encourages us to take pride in our differences rather than in our commonality.  We’re Conservatives, Liberals, blacks and whites, spiritualists, and human secularists rather than Americans.  “Got yah!” is more fashionable than “agree with yah.”

Back in the earliest days of our Republic, for example, men reluctantly left home to serve in Washington, but proudly left Washington for home. They served as state officials without a political blemish.  Today, anyone who is anybody must move onward and upward.

Not all Americans were ready this week to assist Wall Street however much it could cost them. Thus we heard and read the delineation of “Main Street vs. Wall Street”. Republican and Democratic leaders were on both sides of the “save or sink Wall Street” question regardless of political ideology.

Uncomfortable as it has been, I think this crisis has been good for us.  The reckless advance toward privatization appears to be, at the very least, under serious review.  Wall Street, no less than Main Street, needs umpiring as much as baseball players do.  Today in this world of fear of terrorism and insistence on our individual and national moral righteousness, we appear to have lost that sense of oneness which was the key to who and what we became at our noblest as a society.

We will regain our national momentum when everyone’s crisis is everyone else’s concern.  Even more, we will insure our national birth right when we include everyone AS we refer to ourselves as “We the people.”

Only when we are “all” and “all” are we, will our union make strides toward that allusive but worthy effort for perfection which is, after all, our finest inheritance.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY