JACK, THAT STUBBORN, DETERMINED DONKEY

By Edwin Cooney

The other day, I caught up with Jack, the Democratic Party’s donkey, as Democrats prepared for their 66^th quadrennial National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.  (The first year Jack was the party symbol, the Democrats re-nominated Andrew Jackson for president at their very first national convention. That convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland from Monday, May 21^st through Wednesday, May 23^rd, 1831.)  Jack was grazing in the pasture of a rich Republican North Carolina farmer.  There was a determined look on his graying grizzled features.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.  “Aren’t there any Democratic farmers around here where you’d be more welcome?”

“Of course, there are,” Jack brayed, “but what fun would there be for me to graze on a Democratic farm?  Besides, I’ve got a distant relation living on this farm with the unfortunate name of Gingrich and I need to straighten him out so he can help all the other good Democratic donkeys before Election Day.” Jack went on, "We Democrats can win this fall if we’re all together, so that’s why I’m here.”

“The problem we face in 2012 is a part of our heritage.  Remember Will Rogers, the late, great cowboy comedian, once said,  'I’m a Democrat and I don’t belong to any organized political party.'  Well, things haven’t really changed since then.  We don’t walk in lockstep as our Republican cousins do, so naturally we have a lot of work to do between now and November 6^th to reelect our great president.”

“The major issue in this campaign is jobs, isn’t it?”  I asked.

“I wish it were, because then it would be fair to talk about those seven or eight million jobs lost during the last months of the Bush administration,” Jack sneered. "Naturally, Republicans don’t want to take any responsibility for those job losses.  They’d rather blame them all on Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and the 110^th Congress.  They don’t even appreciate the way our candidate (now president) cooperated with President Bush during the 2008 campaign to come up with a fix that could be taken to Congress to meet the emergency they caused.  Even worse, they want this president to get no credit whatsoever for the jobs that have been regained since he stopped the slide the Republicans started in the fall of 2008.  Therefore, the issue is Barack Obama as much as it is jobs.

Take 1948, for example, when the party split into three sections: the “Dixiecrats” under Governor Strom Thurman of South Carolina, the Progressives under former Vice President Henry Wallace of Iowa, and President Harry Truman, of course.  That year, everything was Truman’s fault, but Harry told the truth so well about what Republicans really stood for, that the people elected him.  That’s President Obama’s job this year.  Now, no one feels sorry for a man who thinks he’s smart enough to be president, so it’s up to him to make his case -- but much of the opposition to him is just plain crankiness.”

“Okay, but doesn’t he have to accept some of the blame for our current condition?” I asked.

“Sure he does and I tried to convince him to be more aggressive toward consensus- building in the first few months of his presidency. However, the reality is that the American people love to work us donkeys on their farms and glory in our struggles and our stubbornness, but few people will admit even to themselves that they’re listening to a Jackass -- not even when they're president!

“What did you want him to do that he didn’t do?” I queried.

“I suggested to him that he hold a seminar like the one Jerry Ford held on the economy in September 1974 shortly after he took office.  Ford publicly gathered together labor, management, economists, farmers, academicians and just plain folks to find a way to cooperate on the stalled economy.  Well, I thought that if a public meeting of the ideologies had been held around February or March 2009 in a place that would have forced them to expose their worries, concerns and ambitions to the public it would have compelled them to cooperate better than they ultimately did.  However, he didn’t do that and so the conservatives sniped at him from their well-heeled sanctuaries in Palm Beach, Palm Springs, Wall Street, and Congress.  Ever since, they have had the initiative along with my friend Abe (the GOP elephant) and they’ve never stopped attacking him.  Part of that is his fault.  He’s a superb campaigner, though, so he can make it all up in the next two months with my help and the help of working people all over the country.

“Ah,” I said, “but what accomplishments can he talk about?”

Jack reached into a bag he was carrying on his back and handed me a substantial booklet called “Obama’s Fifty Major Accomplishments.”

“Here,” he said, “take this with you and share them throughout the campaign with your few readers. I’m sure that, along with the candidate’s persuasive ability, they will do the trick.  Look, I’d stick around and chat with you a little longer, but that distant relation of mine—Gingrich—is as stubborn as a mule and needs my attention, especially since he’s been so busy watching the Republican Convention.  I’ll start him off with a good swift kick where the sun seldom shines and we’ll take it from there.”

With a bray and something a tad more odorous, Jack was suddenly gone -- becoming no more distinguishable than any of the other jackasses on that GOP farmer’s diggings!

I stuffed the list he’d given me into my pocket and beat it.  Perhaps I’ll share some of it with you in the next two months!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE OUTRAGED ELEPHANT!

By Edwin Cooney

As Republicans gather in hurricane-ravaged Tampa, Florida this week, they face a long-term serious dilemma.  They risk enraging their party symbol the Elephant.  It may not be entirely accurate, but I’ve been told that a pissed pachyderm can be nearly as destructive as any hurricane!

It’s an historical fact that the Elephant has been the symbol of the Republican Party since the presidential campaign of 1876, our national centennial.  That year, cartoonist Thomas Nast drew him as the Grand Old Party’s mascot to counter the Democratic symbol the Donkey. There’s something, after all, quite American about a hard working (although stubborn) jackass, but my understanding is that the elephant’s roots are more permanently implanted in Africa and Asia!  Be that as it may, after the 2006 Congressional Election, I interviewed Abe, the GOP Elephant, and Jack, the democratic Donkey, for this column. Having met them personally, I know they’re real.

Here’s the dilemma: the party is absolutely sure of only one thing and that is that it’s their patriotic duty to rid America of that “audacious, radical, left wing, terrorist foreigner” who’s determined not only to tax your last dime, but also to give the oil-richest part of the Alaskan archipelago back to the Russians secretly and free of charge.  Even worse, or just as bad, he’s arranged it so that in just a short time your disabled grandmother will be forced to commit suicide in order to keep down the costs of Obamacare -- which many conservatives regard as unconstitutional regardless of what Chief Justice John Roberts says!

Meanwhile, if Hurricane Isaac lets them, they’ll nominate two respectable men, Willard (Mitt) Romney of Massachusetts, who was born and raised in Michigan (the son of George Romney, a former governor of that state) and Paul Ryan, the young Wisconsin economic ideological “wunderkind.”  It’s possible, of course, that the party, loaded with money, its own right-wing media, and its very own brand of intense anger, will unseat “that uppity Obama.” However, even if the Republican Party does unseat Obama, there are signs that it is likely to consume its new president once it has him in place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The first sign is the high regard most of its angriest ideologues have for its possible vice president, Paul Ryan.  Distrusting, as many of them do, the politically wily Governor Romney, they are excited about his running mate because they are convinced that Vice President Ryan would see to it that President Romney would live up to their socio/economic agenda.

Since there’s no historical precedent for vice presidential dominance over any president, a President Romney is likely to believe that it is his prerogative, rather than Vice President Ryan’s, to set the tone and agenda for his own administration.

The second sign lies in the GOP of my youth, the early 1950s.  When Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953, the Republicans not only regained the White House for the first time since Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith (the cigar chomping, wet Catholic Democrat) back in 1928, but they also had majorities in both houses of Congress.  The party had been in the minority for so long -- in opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal and conduct of the Korean War -- that it wasn’t used to cooperating with a president.  So, in a number of ways, the GOP didn’t.  They nearly rejected Ike’s nomination of Charles (Chip) Bohlen as Ambassador to France because he’d once worked for and had been close to the hated FDR.  Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin began his Communist witch hunt against Ike’s beloved army and Senator John Bricker of Ohio -- who had been Thomas E. Dewey’s vice presidential running mate in 1944 -- sought to restrict Ike’s capacity to negotiate treaties with other nations with his proposed Bricker Amendment.  Ike, being Ike, was able (with Lyndon B. Johnson's help) to kill the Bricker amendment in the United States Senate by one vote.

However considerable Mitt Romney’s administrative assets are, he doesn’t even come close to Ike in experience or influence either in or out of the GOP. However, he would have the upper hand of policy setting in the executive branch of the government, as he by tradition and constitutionally should, once “Barack the Bad” is gone.

Hence, there comes into play their enraged Elephant.  There’s little doubt that Abe sympathizes with his party’s frustration with President Obama and will cheer on a possible Romney victory come November.  However, and this is important, elephants are vegetarians rather than carnivorous—-they never, never, never eat their young nor do they eat their leaders.  The very thought absolutely infuriates them.  If GOP conservatives, in their angry dogmatism, declare Mitt Romney “a one term president” as they did President Obama, Abe will reduce the flimsy GOP political shelter to shambles.

You can be sure of one other thing.  Abe, who never forgets his pledge of loyalty to his leader, is not happy about the possibility of being replaced as the GOP symbol by a lousy tea bag!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

   

AH, “LITTLE BEN,” HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER POLITICIAN

By Edwin Cooney

His full name was Benjamin Harrison, but the men who served under him in the 70^th Regiment of the Indiana volunteers during the Civil War called him “Little Ben.”  After all, he stood only five feet six inches tall.  He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and wore a full beard by the time he was elected our twenty-third president in 1888.

Benjamin Harrison comes to mind this day, not so much because today, August 20^th, 2012, marks the 179^th anniversary of his 1833 birth, but because he became president during the brightest era of the Republican Party.  In the seventy-two years that passed between Abraham Lincoln's Inauguration in 1861 and Franklin Roosevelt's Inauguration in 1933, we had only two Democratic Presidents: Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson.  Cleveland served between 1885 and 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897.  The man who defeated Grover Cleveland in his bid for re-election in 1888 was in turn defeated by Cleveland in 1892. That man was our "Little Ben.”

A few years back an opinion piece was circulated by a writer urging you and me to be outraged at the amount of money “politicians” were asking the taxpayers to pay for the reconstruction of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in late August of 2005.  The proposed cost to the American taxpayer was 250 billion dollars.

To dramatize opposition to the New Orleans restoration price tag, this commentator invited you and me to grasp the meaning of a billion dollars.  This beleaguered author went on to assert that a billion seconds ago it was 1959, a billion minutes ago Christ walked the earth and a billion hours ago humanity still lived in caves.

Next, the author got to the root of the matter. As you might guess, the matter was taxes. A score or more of taxes were listed that didn’t exist a mere hundred years ago but that today make life so miserable -- especially for those who can afford to pay them.  (That last bit was my own commentary!)

The root of all this grief, this able writer insisted, was the advent of the Politician.  What this author doesn’t point out is that a cash economy is fairly new in the history of human kind.  A billion is a thousand million and, as I see it, is easily comprehendible.  Of course, Republicans traditionally wax eloquent in their opposition to government spending, but I’ve never heard a Republican (or anyone else for that matter) complaining about the private accumulation of millions or even billions of dollars -- especially when they are in tax-exempt foreign bank accounts!

I can only guess that this person in 2012 is a devout Tea Party member.  What’s ironic is the connection between the billion dollar figure and ideological conservatives of today, most of whom reside in the Republican Party. The first Congress to spend a billion dollars was the Fifty-first Congress -- which legislated between 1889 and 1891 -- and the first President to sign those billion dollar congressional appropriations was our twenty-third president Benjamin Harrison who led us between 1889 and 1893.

President Harrison (who in many ways was very conservative) had a pet project, disability benefits for Union Civil War veterans and their families.  After all, he’d survived the Battles of Nashville, Kennesaw Mountain, and Peachtree Creek. He was there when Sherman took Atlanta on Thursday, September 1^st, 1864.  He had heard grown men scream in sudden pain, moan in lingering agony and die crying for mama.  To say the Treasury didn’t matter to “Little Ben” would be silly. Some things mattered more than money, however, even to a man like Benjamin Harrison who defended the rights and dignity of the rich. So, Ben was the “politician” who approved America’s first billion dollar budget,

So, what of politicians?  Do we need them?  Of course we do!  Could there be representative government without politicians?  I defy anyone to tell me that there can be freedom without politicians!  If you can construct a free society free of politics and politicians, I want to hear from you as soon as you have the time to write me.

As things turned out for Benjamin Harrison, it was all downhill after the midterm elections of 1890.  Although they retained the Senate, the Republicans lost the House of Representatives to the Democrats that year.  In 1892, Grover Cleveland came back to defeat “little Ben” for reelection.

Ben Harrison was a man of stark contrasts.  He was a brilliant lawyer and a dynamic public speaker.  However, he found it difficult to relate to individuals he didn’t know.  It was said of him:  as hot and muggy as summers are in D.C., if you’re going to the President’s mansion in August to shake hands with President Harrison, wear an overcoat. You’ll need it!

On Inauguration Day 1893, Harrison was sorry to turn the government over to Grover Cleveland, but his personal grief was due to the loss of his beloved wife Caroline ("Carrie”) who had died the previous October 25^th of a sudden bout of tuberculosis exactly two weeks before election day.  When he remarried in April 1896, he earned the permanent estrangement of his son Russell and his daughter Mary.  His new bride, Mary (Lord) Dimmick, was his first wife Carrie’s niece and the exact age of his 38 year-old daughter.

Ben Harrison came from a rich political heritage. His paternal great grandfather, Benjamin Harrison, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the first member of the Whig party to be elected president.  Grandfather William was president for only thirty-one days, March 4^th to April 4^th 1841, before becoming the first president to die in office.  Ben’s father, John Scott Harrison, was an anti-slavery Whig member of Congress from Ohio between 1853 and 1857.  Father John gave up politics because he hated back room deals.  I can’t help but wonder if “Little Ben” would have been a better president if he’d been a better politician!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AH TRIVIA, THAT HARMLESS JOY, OUR INTELLECTUAL TOY!!!

By Edwin Cooney

A few days ago, one of you sent me a column that’s distributed once a year.  Its author calls it “Did You Know?”  It’s a delightful list of trivia items that stimulates one’s curiosity and tickles one’s intellect causing the reader to scratch his or her head and say, “oh, wow, how fascinating!!!”  However, this year’s version had a disconcerting flaw in it.  Before I get to the flaw, here are a few items that, as far as I can tell, are both true and fascinating.

“Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached only at one end.”

“Astronauts can’t belch. There’s no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.”

“In order to make a half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over two million individual flowers.”

“Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.”

"Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at restaurants is considered an insult.”

Now to the flaw.  It’s a flaw that only a numerologist or someone like me (who probably has too much time on his hands) could have possibly caught -- but I did indeed catch it.  Here’s the flaw:

 “December 2012 has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays.  This apparently happens once every 823 years!”  The key words in that last sentence are “…this apparently happens.”

Had the author checked a 2012 calendar or one of those perpetual calendars, he or she would have discovered several things:

First, December 2012 will not have five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  However, as was the case in 1984, it will have five Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. (Like 2012, the year 1984 was a leap year.) December had five Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays in 1990, 2001, 2007 and (of course) this year.  This pattern will continue to 2040 for the years 2018, 2029, 2035 and 2040.

Second, December did have five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in 1989, 1995, 2000, 2006 and will again in 2017, 2023, and 2028.

So, what does it all mean?  After all, it's mere trivia and I’m sure the author didn’t mean to mislead you and me!  This annual column is offered primarily as enlightening entertainment.  Its value lies in what the reader ultimately chooses to do with the information it provides. Hence, absolute integrity is less important than the sheer knowledge the column imparts.

Of course, historical writing, unlike technical or scientific writing, can’t be entirely factual, because much history, even documented history, is often subject to the originating source’s interpretation of the significance of people and events.

Thus, historical writing, which is much of what I offer in these weekly musings, isn’t as exacting as instructional, technical or scientific writing.

Ultimately, the question has to be asked: “Does the above mentioned error render future “Did You Know” articles useless or meaningless?

Certainly not! However, it does provide the reader with a reasonable opportunity for healthy skepticism.

On the other hand, we can occasionally be too rigid when it comes to integrity -- especially when an author’s beliefs and opinions, appearing to counter what we value, cause us to feel discomfort.  If you’re a "person of faith,” the views of an agnostic or atheist can cause you considerable discomfort and even resentment.  Our personal beliefs, to some extent, are inevitably linked to our sense of integrity which is very personal indeed!

Generally, though, most of what we hear and read doesn’t conflict with our sense of integrity or sense of self.  Hence, we may allow authors who write such articles as “Cooney’s Corner” or “Did You Know,” to err.  “To err is human,” as they say.  Here’s an historical fact for you “political junkies" that goes nicely with the observation I just made.   Republicans in the late 1940s and 1950s used to assert, “To err is Truman!”   Cute, isn’t it? …unless you were Harry, Bess or Margaret Truman!

What it all boils down to for this observer is the following:

A reader must be curious but alert, cautious but open, skeptical but not cynical.  So, read, take it all in, and allow what you read to merge with what you currently believe, know and think.  Before you make what you’ve just read a part of who you are--or who you may become--check it out with those you love and who love you the best and all should be well!

Oh, one more thing.  Every 31 day month has five sets of three consecutive dates and will continue to do so until we change our calendar.  Stay tuned and alert -- it may happen sooner than you think!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

THE BECKONING GATEWAY

By Edwin Cooney

From where do you gather your ideas about America’s cultural, political, and social past?  Is your information solid or sketchy?  How does your knowledge of our past and your assessment of the present affect your outlook on our future?  Where, do you suppose, the gateway exists to our brightest possible future?

If you were born in the United States between 1920 and 1960 to a poor or middle class family, there’s a better than even likelihood that you registered to vote as a Democrat on your  18^th or 21^st birthday.  On the other hand, if you were born during the same time period to an upper middle class or wealthy family, it’s just as likely that you registered as a Republican upon reaching voting age.

Since the 1960s and '70s, a time during which Walter Cronkite (CBS News), Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (NBC News) and Howard K. Smith (ABC News) brought the uncertainties and horrors of war, campus conflict, poverty, and political corruption into our living rooms through television, there has been a sea change in the relationship between the American people and their government.

The time that passed between Saturday, March 4, 1933 (when FDR became President) and Monday, January 20, 1969 (when Richard Nixon took the presidential oath) constituted the era of progressive government.  During those thirty-six years, Americans were largely fed, sheltered, educated, and increasingly employed as well as shielded from financial ruin and communicable diseases through the auspices of government at all levels.

If you were born in America between 1960 and 2000, it is likely that divisive wars, corrupt and incompetent political leadership, nettlesome government regulations, and, perhaps above all, the conflict between traditional religious institutions and an increasingly potent human secularism has increased your skepticism as to the wisdom or even the patriotism of your own government.  Hence the core issue as we enter the 2012 presidential campaign lies in the following question:  is passive or progressive government the beckoning gateway to liberty or tyranny?

Speaking to a group of his fellow Republicans in 1962, Arizona Senator Barry M. Goldwater put it this way: "Limited government, two short words…contain the basic philosophy of the Republican Party and the precepts on which this nation as grown great.  Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty.  Government constitutes power in the hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men…”

In the 1930s, FDR put it another way, “….the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government."

Next comes a vital question: who is the government?  FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and LBJ always insisted that government was made up of the people.  Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater insisted that special kinds of human beings called “bureaucrats” or "elitists" were the pillars of “liberal” government.  At the 1948 Democratic national convention that nominated Harry Truman for a full presidential term, Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky -- a great orator and storyteller -- responded to the GOP proposition that the government was being run by “bureaucrats” this way:

“What is a bureaucrat?” Barkley asked and then answered his own question, “a bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds an office that some Republican wants!”

Alben Barkley was rewarded for his “keynote speech” eloquence by being nominated and elected Vice President of the United States between 1949 and 1953 under President Truman.

Conservatives, although they assert that government is inefficient, also insist that government is too powerful and that we should fear it as they do. 

Liberals, on the other hand, insist that as long as government stays out of the bedroom, government is a necessary counterbalance to powerful and uncoordinated private interests. These interests, they assert, have historically thrown our economy into a tailspin and run roughshod over the rights and safety of the individual since they are focused on their bottom line: profit.

Of course, the days of Roosevelt, Goldwater, Nixon, JFK and LBJ are past.  The Reagan and Clinton eras are also gone.  Now, it’s Obama vs. Romney and not all are satisfied that there’s much of a difference.

Still, there remains the question: is passive or progressive government the best avenue to a peaceful and prosperous future?  I vote for progressive government controlled by the sovereignty of a free and determined people.  Government, run by the prosperous for primarily the peace and prosperity of the prosperous, is inevitably too exclusive to safeguard the least among us.  Moderately progressive government that invests in all the people and is accountable to everyone is by definition "inclusive government." 

The choice you make between the two types of government is your business, but the success of free government is everybody’s responsibility.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SO, NOW THAT YOU’RE PRESIDENT…?

By Edwin Cooney

A few weeks ago, contemplating the upcoming November election, a reader asked me, “What can a president do or what power does a president have to promote the general welfare of the American people?”

Of course, Republicans, Conservatives, Democrats, and Liberals always respond to that question by asserting that all that any patriotic and responsible Chief Executive has to do to cure our ills is to apply their own particular set of principles and priorities to every problem.  So imagine, just for a moment, that you, not Barack Obama, are President.  You’re sitting in the oval office at the close of the first full day of your presidency.  Throughout the day, you’ve conversed with the most powerful and influential experts representing all parties and all points on the political compass.

Some insist you cut taxes and regulations governing business and commerce and the free market will be energized to handle the rest.  Government, they insist, is no different than business, and every businessman knows you can’t tax and spend your way into prosperity.  Others insist just as vigorously that government is very different from business.  Business ultimately makes a profit by selling a product to others.  Governments have constituents not customers.  Good government serves rather than sells.  After all, a free government is of and by the very people it serves.  Good government isn’t about profit, it’s about equity.  Your task is to set the national agenda that puts enough sound money in people’s pockets so they will be energized to grow the economy for themselves and the national posterity.

You realize that one thousand four hundred and sixty days are ahead of you now that your first 24 hours are behind you.  You have as your allies your upbringing, your education, your religion, your family, your friends and the engine of a mighty nation.  However, that nation is faltering and you’ve been chosen to turn everything around.

Under the Constitution, you are the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. You can propose laws to Congress and veto bad bills.  You can sign executive orders that direct government departments in some cases to take certain actions with money that’s already been approved, but only Congress can appropriate any new spending.  The media is available to you, but it is also very available and in many cases even owned by your most powerful political opponents.

As you sit all by your lonesome self in the mightiest office in the history of all humanity, a frightening thought occurs to you.  Your capacity to do good ultimately requires the cooperation of others, but you alone with a few short taps on the code keys of the nuclear football could engulf all humanity in a sudden short conflict that would end, if not solve, all human problems.  Of course, you dismiss that and get back to the task of problem solving -- after all, you are the President of the United States of America.

You lean back in your presidential chair and the images of our three greatest presidents -- Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt -- flash into your mind.

In 1788, America was new and its people looked almost solely to the President personally for direction.  No one, regardless of experience or intellect, was equal to George Washington.  Washington was elected and, under guidelines proscribed in the Constitution, put together the entire Executive Branch of the federal government in his very first year.

Next into your mind strolls the tall bearded figure of Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln was handed a broken nation to mend, but his bitterest political opponents, from the South, had seceded from the Union and couldn’t counter his mandates.  Hence he passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and freed the slaves without them.

FDR’s jaunty image -- the jutting chin, the cigarette in its long ivory holder, the glasses and that rich tenor voice -- reminds you that on that cold Saturday in March of 1933 when he became President, the banks were almost broke.  People’s homes and businesses were being foreclosed almost every hour of the day. Even the Congress looked with desperation to the President for help.

Next, you lean forward to consider presidential near-greats named Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Reagan, Eisenhower, Polk, Jackson, Jefferson and, perhaps, Grover Cleveland and you realize that their collective near-greatness had largely to do with a combination of circumstances and very special talents.  Those talents included Truman’s decision-making prowess, LBJ’s mastery of men, Wilson’s willfulness, TR’s energetic intellect, Reagan’s eloquence, Ike’s steadiness, Jackson’s plain straightforwardness, Polk’s doggedness, Jefferson’s intelligence, and Cleveland’s honesty.

Suddenly, for the very first time, you see what’s uniquely different about today’s America. You know what you must do about it, but dare you?  Can you publicly “just say no” to America’s talk show establishment, its professional politicians, its tax cutters, its tax eaters, its professional teachers and preachers, its expectant consumers, and its self-satisfied moneyed elite?

Yes, indeed, you can -- and you can do it alone.  After all, you’ve just decided that when today’s opinion makers decide to become consensus builders, when critics turn into creators, when the possible rather than the impossible becomes probable, you’ll say “yes, but until then -- it’s no!”  Your presidential power to say no is nearly absolute.  No one, not the media, not the Congress, not even the military can legally block -- let alone veto -- your veto.  After all, to override your veto requires consensus -- and when consensus occurs, you win.

Now comes the really fun part: writing the speech!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE ROOT OF A VITAL HUMAN MATTER!

By Edwin Cooney

I don’t know about you, but I’m often confused as to what makes you or me lovable or, for that matter, unlovable!  Just when I think I’ve got a handle on it, someone throws me a curve that screws everything up.  So, as I often do, I turned this puzzle over to my buddies Lunkhead and Dunderhead the other night at my local watering hole.

“Hey, you guys!” I exclaimed as I took my usual place between them at the bar. “Since you almost never agree on anything, what makes you love each other as much as you obviously do?  Now, before you start denying that you love one another, keep in mind that you’re always together and seldom, if ever, do you let what one of you thinks or believes go unacknowledged.  That spells L.O.V.E. in my book,” I said, taking a large sip of my favorite Irish ale.

“Okay,” said Dunderhead as he swallowed a handful of peanuts. "I’ll admit that I love Lunkhead, self-righteous, arrogant and sharp-tongued as he is, in the same way I love the poor he always denigrates.  They can’t help it if they’re poor and he can hardly help it if he’s what I’ve just described.  I’m just a bleeding heart do-gooder as he’ll tell you!”

“Bull-puckey!” sneered Lunkhead. “You love me because deep in your heart you realize how politically, sociologically and spiritually screwed up you really are, and somewhere in your subconscious you’re looking for wise guidance,” he growled, biting down on the dead cigar in his teeth.

“Ah!" I put in, “So you both admit that you love each other out of an inbred desire to assist one another.  Is that really it?”

“I didn’t say that I love Dunderhead,” insisted Lunkhead. “I only acknowledged that he loves me because even Dunderhead has to occasionally be sensible. I’m certainly fond of him but I can’t say I love him.  Just because I bailed him out of jail during the recent “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations in Oakland, just because I have him over to my house for all major holidays and for his birthday, just because I named my new dog "Dunderhead," just because I choke up sometimes when he gets so many political, social, and spiritual matters backwards -- it doesn’t mean that I love him.” Lunkhead glanced the other way so neither of us could see the expression on his face.

“Nuts,” Dunderhead shot back, "you love me because you know I’ll save your bacon when you’re in trouble with your wife.  After all, who came over to your house and helped you with the housework when you lost that college basketball bet you had with her?  Who took pity on you and paid for all your drinks when she made you wear those donkey ears four years ago when Obama won the election?  Who furnished you with an alibi when some of your right-wing friends were pressuring you to join their assault weapons club?”

“Okay, Lunkhead,” I challenged, “What force from within you lies at the root of all the sharing and caring you demonstrate on behalf of Dunderhead?”

Nearly a full minute passed as Lunkhead’s swizzle stick toyed with the ice in his newly poured scotch.  Then he said, almost reluctantly but with considerable gravity, “What’s always drawn me to Dunderhead is his capacity to really listen to me or anyone else he is talking to.  You can almost see him listening.  He seldom interrupts anyone regardless of the acidity of his eventual reply.  He makes me feel powerful even when he disagrees with me and he disagrees with me most of the time just as I do with him.  I don’t know anybody quite like Dunderhead when it comes to acknowledging people.  His way of comprehending my messages at least temporarily bridges our differences often enough so that my message seems to hit home with him.”

“Ah,” I asked, “but isn’t your realization that he hears what you are saying and acknowledges your sincerity overshadowed by the fact that he doesn’t endorse your way of looking at things?”

“Sometimes, but not usually,” Lunkhead said. “If there were only one absolute truth in our society or in the world, there’d be no need for human liberty since there’d be no fundamental differences between people.  Arguing with Dunderhead is far more pleasurable than sitting around agreeing with my conservative friends.  Dunderhead offers argument and that usually energizes my thoughts -- and since my thoughts are usually superior to Dunderhead’s, I automatically am powerful enough to do my own reinforcing.   Dunderhead merely proclaims his liberal nonsense which is wonderful fodder for argument -- and God knows I love to argue!” Lunkhead asserted.

Suddenly, Lunkhead motioned the bartender for his bill rather than for another drink.

“Sorry, fellows,” Lunkhead said, “I’ve gotta get home to feed Dunderhead.  Unlike this Dunderhead, my dog Dunderhead acknowledges only one thing -- and that’s food!”

As Lunkhead proceeded toward the door, Dunderhead observed largely to himself, “Food, love, love, food.  How about that? The ultimate source of all power!  I wonder what makes that so significant?!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY