HILLARY’S POLITICAL NUKE!

By Edwin Cooney

Of course, Bill Clinton is her husband and his support is both natural and expected. Incredibly, she moved to Arkansas to be with Bill -- accepting a teaching position at the Fayetteville campus law school of the University of Arkansas in 1974 -- before she and Bill Clinton had entirely committed themselves to one another. They were married on October 11^th, 1975—which just happened to be the ninety-first anniversary of the birth of Eleanor Roosevelt—a woman with whom Hillary has always been very delighted to be associated.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who ran a private school and wrote a daily column, Hillary Clinton has been involved in her own profession (law). Both women traveled widely and, of course, both experienced marital infidelity. However, unlike Eleanor Roosevelt, it’s Hillary who is the politically needy one. After all, Eleanor Roosevelt never ran for president. She didn’t need to: in the minds of millions, Eleanor Roosevelt was “First Lady of the World”.

In comparison to “the ugly duckling” -- her own mother called young Anna Eleanor Roosevelt “Granny” -- Mrs. Clinton is almost “Snow White” if not “Sleeping Beauty”. She’s smart, energetic, knowledgeable, and quick on her feet in debate, sensitive to the legitimate needs of the less fortunate, and possesses many other laudable traits. However, Senator Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton needs to be President of the United States of America as much as her husband did. In order to realize this legitimate ambition, she, like most all successful candidates, would be lucky to have a potent politically nuclear incendiary—and she appears to have one in the person of William Jefferson Clinton.

Throughout most of 2007, the Clinton campaign kept the candidate, rather than her famous husband, before the public eye. Their message seemed to be that Hillary Clinton, after all, was woman enough to stand on her own. That strategy was working until she stepped all over it by complaining about the piling on by her male presidential candidate colleagues during an October 2007 debate. Suddenly, Hillary was caught trying to be both the victim as well as the heroine at the same time. It didn’t fly.

Throughout November and into December, it became increasingly clear that Hillary’s old friends, members of “the vast right wing conspiracy”, were just licking their political chops, openly spoiling to run against the lifelong Cubs/Yankee fan from Park Ridge, Illinois.

As the Iowa vote drew near, Barack Obama was joined on the campaign stage by Oprah Winfrey, whose wishes constitute a personal command to millions, and suddenly there was an unanticipated groundswell for the native Hawaiian who now lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Next came New Hampshire. Through a combination of attentive answers to questions and well-placed tears, the woman Senator and perhaps future President snatched victory from the jaws of the audacious and ambitious rookie Illinois senator. Then came Nevada. Suddenly, someone else was leading the anti-Obama attack. It was none other than William Jefferson Clinton. After all, it takes a President -- not a mere presidential candidate -- to take on Senator Barack Hussein Obama.

With America’s forty-second president on the campaign trail, Barack Obama got a healthy lesson in what it would take to bring about political and historic bridge-building, the noble goal of an Obama presidency. First, Senator Obama’s sincerity as a consistent anti-war senator was labeled a “fairy tale” by the former president. Then came another brickbat from the Clinton camp when the Senator herself reminded Americans (after one of Barack Obama’s eloquent addresses about Dr. King and the dream) that it took LBJ to bring about Dr. King’s dreams.

Then there followed the flap over the Culinary Workers Union’s ineffective endorsement of Senator Obama which caused the ex-president to tear into a San Francisco television reporter who had asked Clinton about the lawsuit he’d supposedly just filed against that union.

Finally, the former president criticized Obama for supposedly endorsing Ronald Reagan’s “politically transforming ideas” which had launched Conservative America well on its way to electoral and financial success throughout the 1980’s and much of the 90’s as well as most of what we’ve experienced at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The plan was to put Senator Obama on the defensive and it might have worked except for three factors:

First, Obama hadn’t said that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were good, only that they were “politically transforming ideas” in that they differed from the then conventional political wisdom of the establishment. Second, Senator Obama was able to point out that Mrs. Clinton had herself written laudable things about Ronald Reagan for a book that is about to be published. Finally, without complaining that he’d been attacked, Barack Obama was able to focus attention to Hillary’s “political nuke” by wondering out loud who he is running against. Therein lies the potential Achilles heel of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential quest.

Having endorsed Barack Obama, I am nevertheless aware that Mrs. Clinton still appears to have the inside track to the Democratic nomination. However, Bill Clinton (Hillary’s "political nuke”) has been dropping politically radioactive fallout all over his own party—including his very own candidate. According to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter -- writing recently in that publication’s Periscope column -- Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Rahm Emanuel found it necessary to chastise President Clinton during a recent heated telephone conference call. Reportedly they told Mr. Clinton that if racial division occurred within the Democratic party he would be largely to blame. Finally, they urged the former president to back off on Barack Obama. Consequently, Mrs. Clinton during a recent Democratic debate made a reference to the intensity of spousal support each of the candidates were getting and offered something of a political truce. Even so, Mrs. Clinton missed the mark and, perhaps, deliberately so.

As personally partisan as Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards may be, they are only spouses which is something Mrs. Clinton fully realizes. Neither Michelle Obama nor Elizabeth Edwards possess the authoritative political weight of a former president. That realization makes that observation and its truce offering blatantly misleading and opens the door even wider to the danger ahead.

Both Clintons represent exceedingly controversial pasts and personal reputations. Thus, both are capable of doing for the Republican party that which Richard Nixon alone once could do for the Democratic party—specifically, unite it.

With Iraq in the balance and the economy less than stable, it’s just possible that Americans will be sufficiently frustrated to politically “pile on” to the GOP next November. Otherwise, Hillary, along with the rest of us who would gladly follow her instead of suffering further under Republican rule, will need empowering rather than selfish and embittered sniping.

Some may lament Barack Obama’s use of a television personality as his “political nuke”, but even if Oprah Winfrey can be so characterized, at least she’s a controlled “political nuke”.

One of the issues during the forthcoming campaign, should Hillary Clinton be the nominee, will be:

“Senator Clinton,” how can the nation reasonably anticipate your use of your husband—our forty-second president--to its benefit?

That’ll be the public inquiry. The subliminal question may be:

“Mrs. Clinton, isn’t it a fact that you need him whether we do or not—and even more, can you control him? If you can’t, what else can’t you control?”

Note: When Theodore Roosevelt was President, he was once asked by a group of reporters why he couldn’t better control his lively daughter Alice. His response was “I can do only one of two things. I can either be President of the United States or I can control Alice. No man can be expected to do both.”

President Clinton’s very proximity to presidential power will rival three historic occurrences.

The first took place aboard the presidential yacht Potomac in early July 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt let his secretary Grace Tully and his chief speech writer Sam Rosenman know that he would definitely accept nomination to a third and unprecedented term.

The second historical occurrence took place at Potsdam, Germany when President Harry Truman offered (during a very private conversation) to make Dwight D. Eisenhower the 1948 Democratic nominee adding that he would accept nomination as Ike’s Vice Presidential running-mate.

The third occurrence took place at the 1980 GOP convention when Reagan forces let it be known that they were considering asking former President Gerald R. Ford to take second place on what was being advanced as “a dream ticket.”

Two of those historical occurrences never came to fruition; presidential power and authority are very touchy matters.

Touchy matters will surely be the basis of the 2008 GOP campaign regardless of who heads its ticket. Presidential control or restraint will inevitably be an issue and, with President Bush’s record of a “preemptive warfare policy”, the Republican candidate is going to have his hands full. However, the political advantage brought on by the question of the wisdom of “preemptive warfare” may well be overwhelmed if, come November, America has another question on its mind:

Who will really be running this country—-President Number Forty-two or would-be President Number Forty-four?”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FEAR — MAKE IT YOUR SLAVE, NOT YOUR MASTER

By Edwin Cooney

As I was telling a friend recently, I’ve been thinking of making fear the subject of a column for quite some time.

To bolster the idea, I went on to explain that I have come to realize that fear is the companion - or perhaps even the brother - of disappointment and despair and, most absolutely, the father of hatred. I next paused to receive her plaudits for my willingness to take on such a deep and enthralling subject.

“So,” she asked, a note of smugness creeping into her voice, “why haven’t you written about fear so far? Are you afraid of it?”

Of course, every American schoolboy and girl since March 4, 1933 knows that: “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”; for those words came from that “man in the White House” who needed steel braces on his legs even to stand -- but who nevertheless had the strength to lift a paralyzed society to its feet so that it might walk and serve us once again.

While the medicine Franklin Delano Roosevelt prescribed may well have been debatable in-so-far as future generations are concerned, the fact is that it did alleviate much of our fears at the time of a serious national crisis. However, he only described the worst effects of fear rather than advising his national constituency as to how they themselves might grapple with and overcome it.

Fear has mastered me many times. I remember once--when I was twelve years old--standing at the edge of our school diving board screaming that I didn’t want to dive into the pool because I was afraid (despite the fact that there were two or three older kids standing alongside of me ready to dive into the water in case I experienced any trouble). Exactly why my gym teacher let me get away with that performance is beyond me, but he let me come back and try again on another occasion. Within a week or so, I’d worked up enough courage, and actually asked for the opportunity to try it again—with my “protection” of course—and this time I dived and dived –and some say I’ve been “taking dives” ever since. (Those who say that are, of course, my political opponents.)

More recently, I’ve experienced the fears brought on by romance and parenting and would gladly trade both in exchange for the fears of my youth. However, one of the things life has taught me more is how to recognize fear. Fear is a clever emotion and, like the chameleon, hides or blends in with other emotions and actions such as sorrow, sympathy, acquiescence, resolution, as well as bravery or courage.

Fear is applicable to incidents that are both personal and multi-personal. It’s also applicable to a variety of interests and conditions: fear of heights, fear of falling, fear of illness, disability and death, fear of discrimination, fear of integration, fear of losing, and even fear of success. Hence, fear is largely (although by no means entirely) a personal matter.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends and a reader of these columns -- a wise and sweet lady -- sent me what you see below:

You may notice that your close personal relationships might leave you feeling on edge today. It could be that you are reacting to the stress in their lives or to their expectations of you. Either way, today you might want to work on developing detachment. Being detached means that you extend your love to another person but you don't take on their emotions as if they were your own. As you go about your day today, you can imagine the people who are causing you to react. Picture them with all of their struggles and mentally send your love to them. You could then see yourself telling them that while you love them, they are responsible for their own affairs as you are for yours. You may notice that it becomes easier to separate your feelings from theirs and you may feel more at ease as a result.

Learning how to detach from the emotions of others lets us react to the feelings that are our own responsibility. When we are close to someone, we can let their problems or our reactions to them irritate us because the intensity of our love runs so deep. Detaching with love is a tool we can use to keep the level of our compassion for them without taking on their emotions. We give our loved ones the space to feel what they need to while creating a healthy place for ourselves. By detaching with love today you will discover the means to calm your own emotions while interacting with your loved ones.

These words from this very thoughtful lady don’t specifically address the subject of fear, however, her prescription of detachment is indeed a powerful antidote in the alleviation of fear. Her advice is even more powerful than was FDR’s historic assertion that our greatest fear was fear itself. (Move over Mr. President!). I can’t resist the observation that I’ve read and listened to FDR’s 1933 inaugural address many, many times and have never heard our thirty-second president assert that the key to fighting fear is “detachment with love”. Nor did he once during that historic address use the phrase “co-dependency” which is the phrase that defines our often described overly intense concern for the welfare of loved ones.

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the word “co-dependency” could be heard at almost every counseling and therapy session as well as in every twelve step meeting throughout America. I imagine that this is still true even though I haven’t attended such meetings in several years.

It’s almost as hard to hear such advice as it is to follow it. After all, our love and concern for people is something that we’re strongly encouraged to develop from almost the very instant we draw our first breath — and, even more, we’re usually proud of our individual love relationships. Therefore, it’s often very disconcerting when some therapist, clergyperson, or even a well-meaning friend suggests that we love too intensely.

Still, there is indeed substance and even wisdom in the possibility of detachment as a tool to make room for perspective in the solving of circumstances that tend to cause us to fear.

Incidental fear, even though it often blocks us, can also (of course!) keep us cautious and ultimately alive in dangerous situations. However, fear of one another or of other nations is invariably poisonous to the spirit. It more often than not breeds soul-destroying hatred. Thus our capacity to master our fear knowing when to heed it or ignore it is absolutely essential to our individual, national, and international fate.

An idea just occurred to me: since hatred of other people’s political and religious beliefs and practices may turn out to be the cause of humankind’s final war, how about changing the name of “The United Nations” to “The Society for International Detachment?”

Hmm! It does have a bit of a ring to it—don’t you think?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

MILLARD FILLMORE—THE PRESIDENT BETRAYED BY HIS JUDGMENT

By Edwin Cooney

He was America’s President between Wednesday, July 10, 1850 and Friday, March 4, 1853. He made one of the major decisions in our history, yet few Americans today even know his name.

There is a scene in a 1969 comedy album called “I Am the President” featuring comedian David Frye as President Richard Nixon where, out of the blue, we hear Millard Fillmore’s name and have a good laugh at it.

In this comedy scene, President Nixon is at his desk working on the nuclear proliferation agreement with the Soviet Union when he is interrupted by a White House maid. As she flits around the office dusting and straightening things, President Nixon engages her in conversation. He discovers that she has worked at the White House since the days of Calvin Coolidge. Acknowledging that she’s obviously known a lot of presidents, he naturally wants to know what people are saying about him in comparison to past chief executives. The maid obviously doesn’t want to be impolite or inappropriate, but eventually President Nixon forces her to be responsive.

“Well, they say you’re better than some and worse than others,” she says.

Pressed by the president to say who he’s better than, she blurts out “Millard Fillmore,” which, of course, draws a big laugh.

“Why,” you may well ask “was that answer funny?” Had she replied John Tyler or Andrew Johnson, it’s a good bet that the line wouldn’t have been nearly as humorous. Perhaps the response Rutherford B. Hayes would have been as amusing. After all, how many people do you know who are named either Rutherford or Millard?

Born, raised, largely self-educated, apprenticed to two sets of cloth makers, and drawn toward the practice of law, young Fillmore moved to East Aurora near Buffalo in 1821. Admitted to the bar in 1823, he began dabbling in politics in 1824 and by 1828 was elected to the state Assembly as an Anti-Mason. The Anti-Mason party was started in New York State in the wake of the 1826 kidnapping and murder of William Morgan, a bricklayer from Batavia, New York, who had left a local Masonic lodge and divulged the Masonic Order’s secrets in a subsequent publication. Ironically, Millard Fillmore entered public life opposed to secret societies of any sort.

Always a strong supporter of American commerce, Millard Fillmore supported measures to expand American enterprise as a State Assemblyman from 1829 until1832, as a Whig Party Congressman between 1833-35 and 1837-43 and, ultimately, as our thirteenth President. Between 1841 and 1843, Millard Fillmore was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. As such, he supported high protective tariffs to assist business’ recovery from the depression of 1837 and supported a federal grant to assist Samuel Morse in the development of his telegraph.

Suddenly without explanation, Congressman Fillmore decided to return to Buffalo and thus he did not seek election to a fifth term in Congress in 1842. Speculation has it that he desired to be elected to the U.S. Senate or perhaps to be the Whig Party Vice Presidential nominee in 1844.

Tall, ruggedly handsome with clear blue eyes, a high forehead, and somewhat thick unruly hair, he had a deep masculine voice. (It is said he spoke slowly in short sentences and could be humorous on occasion.) Fillmore -- with his attractive family and pristine personal reputation of constructive civic involvement and personal integrity -- was one of the most popular and desirable candidates for public office in 1844. Hence, he was urged by Thurlow Weed, a prominent Albany, New York newspaper editor and Whig Party boss, to run for Governor of the Empire State. A loyal party man, Millard Fillmore did run that fall, but lost the first election of his life by some ten thousand votes to a popular democrat Silas Wright.

In 1848, Millard Fillmore, who had been recently elected Conptroller of New York State, was nominated for Vice President on the Whig Party ticket headed by Mexican War hero General Zachary Taylor. Having accepted the vice presidential nomination against the wishes of Thurlow Weed and former New York Whig Governor William Seward, Vice President Fillmore was eased out of his position of influence during the Taylor Administration by those two powerful Whig leaders. (William Seward would ultimately serve as Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson from 1861 to 1869.)

In 1849, a border dispute broke out between Texas and New Mexico territory which had been acquired from Mexico as part of the spoils of the late war. Zachary Taylor, the stubby-legged, bushy-haired, tobacco-chewing, slave-holding but pro-Union President, announced his intention to have the Supreme Court settle the Texas-New Mexico border dispute which he would back with federal troops. This angered the South which threatened retaliation if one federal gun were fired against Texas.

Hence, as Vice President Fillmore presided over the Senate throughout the late winter and spring of 1850, he witnessed the efforts of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay to work out a compromise to keep the South in the Union and sufficiently mollify northern moderates to prevent a seemingly certain civil war. President Taylor let it be known that he opposed federal intervention in the moral question of slavery and that he would veto any legislation that dealt with the slavery issue pro or con.

Suddenly there arrived the three months that would forever change Millard Fillmore’s life. Just before the Vice President adjourned the Senate for the Fourth of July recess, he paid a visit to President Taylor and informed him that if the Senate vote became tied on the issue of what was being called “The Compromise of 1850,” he would vote in favor of its passage. He assured President Taylor that this decision in no way represented his hostility to the administration but rather represented what he regarded as being in the best interest of the country. Exactly what the plainspoken but nevertheless genial President Taylor had to say in response was not recorded.

The Fourth of July is always hot in Washington and Thursday, July 4th, 1850 was no exception. President Taylor attended the obligatory celebration at the unfinished Washington Monument and listened to patriotic speeches for two hours under the unrelenting sun. Returning hungry and thirsty to the White House after a stroll, “Old Rough and Ready” apparently wolfed down a large bowl of cherries and drank a pitcher of ice milk. Within hours he was ill. Throughout the next five days he rallied and then worsened. Doctors diagnosed cholera and he died about 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9, 1850.

Having visited President Taylor earlier that day, Millard Fillmore knew he would soon be President. Informed of the President’s passing, the Vice President sent a message to the seven cabinet members who had ignored or shown him only polite courtesy. He then locked himself in his room at the Willard Hotel and spent a sleepless night writing a long letter to his beloved Abigail back in Buffalo while contemplating the future.

At noon on Wednesday, July 10, Millard Fillmore became our thirteenth President. He was sworn in before a joint session of Congress by Judge William Cranch, Chief Justice of the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia. President Fillmore asked and got the resignation of President Taylor’s cabinet. He asked them to remain in their positions for a month. They agreed on a week.

The rest of July and part of August was largely taken up replacing Taylor administration, cabinet members and other personnel. President Fillmore’s major assistant in this necessary task was the veteran politician Senator Daniel Webster, who, for the second time in his long but now waning life, accepted the position of Secretary of State.

Then came September and time to sign or veto the Compromise of 1850. The final legislation had five acts:
(1.) The admission of California as a free state and the adoption of popular sovereignty for the remaining territories won in the recent Mexican War;
(2.) Settlement of the Texas-New Mexican border dispute (Texas was given $10,000,000 to pay its debts and New Mexico became a U.S. territory);
(3.) Utah became a U.S. territory;
(4.) The fugitive slave law allowing the capture without trial and return of slaves, and sometimes even free blacks, to the South; and, finally,
(5.) The end to the slave trade—although not slavery itself—in the District of Columbia.

Warned by his wife Abigail that signing of the Fugitive Slave Act would be political suicide, President Fillmore nevertheless signed it. He believed the rule of law under the Constitution took greater precedence over anything he personally believed or didn’t believe. Thus he was forced to send federal troops into the North to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law and into the South to put down occasional threats of insurrection. America was discontented and President Fillmore was destined, despite his efforts on behalf of American commerce at home and abroad, to be a most unhappy President and man.

During his administration, President Fillmore sought to take some very positive measures to increase American commerce by mending past quarrels and conflicts. He sought to mend relations with Mexico by authorizing the building of a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec which connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean. (It is located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca). He also authorized plans to cut a canal across Nicaragua, pressured the French out of Hawaii, and sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open up trade with Japan. At home, President Fillmore cooperated with Stephen A. Douglas, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, to finance the building of railroads in different regions of the country.

As laudable as all of this was, President Fillmore seldom got credit for his administration’s accomplishments. He was invariably overshadowed by Secretary of State Webster and even Attorney General John Crittenden. Hence, he would be denied nomination by the Whig Party in 1852 which merely marked the beginning of more tragedy in his life.

Abigail Powers Fillmore, once his teacher back in New Hope, New York, had been his wife since Sunday, February 5, 1826. Ill and unable to stand for extended periods of time during her husband’s presidency, Abigail’s health was extremely delicate. Her entertainment obligations as First Lady were largely taken over by their daughter Mary Abigail Fillmore. She was beautiful and intelligent (she spoke French, Italian, Spanish and German) and played the piano, harp and guitar thus providing much of the musical entertainment herself. (The Fillmore’s son Millard Powers Fillmore served his father as private secretary during his administration.) Abigail Fillmore attended the outdoor inaugural ceremony for Fillmore’s successor Franklin Pierce on Friday, March 4, 1853 and became chilled. The following day, she contracted a fever. By Wednesday, March 30, she was dead, never having left her room at the Willard hotel in Washington. A little more than a year later, Millard Fillmore’s beloved daughter, Mary Abigail Fillmore, was also dead of cholera in Buffalo. Many believe the former president sought to stifle his grief by getting back into politics. However, he had another problem: his Whig Party was gone.

In early 1855, Millard Fillmore -- the man who entered elective politics opposed to secret Masonic societies -- joined ( and there’s no adequate explanation for this) the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, a secret political order that was anti-Catholic, and anti-foreigner. The Order’s political party was the American Nativist or “Know Nothing” party. Fillmore received news of his nomination by that party while traveling in Europe. He accepted its nomination, although he avoided anti-Catholic or foreigner rhetoric throughout the 1856 campaign. He got about twenty percent of the vote, but won only the state of Maryland’s eight electoral votes.

With all his faults and misjudgments, Millard Fillmore was a decent man and a pretty good administrator. His obscurity, I think can be laid to two causes.

First, had he vetoed the Compromise of 1850 (as President Taylor would have done ) with its clearly wretched Fugitive Slave provision plus if he perhaps had used the federal treasury (as was clearly done to mollify Texas in the Compromise’s second act), war still might have been prevented. Slavery, after all, was doomed as a profitable institution and President Fillmore lacked the imagination to insure that the very death of slavery might be realized by southern planters as profitable in its own right;

Second, like his two immediate successors, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, President Fillmore chose law over morality. Unlike Abraham Lincoln, who almost instinctively knew when to bend the law to match his moral obligation, President Fillmore was unable to apply his finest traits as a public servant to his presidency which he almost always did do as a public-spirited citizen of Buffalo, New York.

Millard Fillmore possessed good looks—he’s easily one of the ten most handsome of our presidents. Legend has it that Britain’s Queen Victoria saw him as one of the most handsome men she’d ever met. His attractiveness was such that he won the heart of Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, a wealthy widow, whom he married on Wednesday, February 10, 1858.

He frequently used good judgment as well. Offered a degree by Oxford University while traveling in Europe in 1855, he turned down the honor because, as he put it: “…no man should accept a degree that he is incapable of reading.”

One of his early admirers in Washington was former President John Quincy Adams who deeply lamented Congressman Fillmore’s decision not to run for election to Congress in 1842.

Millard Fillmore, a man of law, ultimately left America a legacy of bad law—made so because its main provisions substituted morality with mere expediency. If only he had allowed himself to display the force and magnitude of his personal morality, history may well have been different and his genuinely good name would have been well-known as well as highly honored to this day.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CHANGE—IS IT REAL OR SIMPLY POLITICAL?

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, here it is. Barack Obama is my favorite candidate for the office of President of the United States of America. Therefore, I was more than pleased with his eight percentage point victory in the Iowa caucuses last Thursday night. I’m also very encouraged as New Hampshire voters go to the polls tomorrow, January 8, 2008.

Senator Obama appeals to my desire to see changes in both our domestic and foreign policies. As an agent of change, his approaches and policies appear to me to be designed to be more inclusive and therefore more effectively beneficial to the greatest number of people throughout both America and the world community.

There are times when various ideological principles are applicable to what John F. Kennedy once called “…the unfinished public business of our country”—hence the election of: Thomas Jefferson in 1800 when the issue was government decentralization;
Andrew Jackson in 1828 when the issue was greater participation in democracy for working people;
William Henry Harrison in 1840 when the issue was the interstate financing of American business opportunities by the federal government;
Abraham Lincoln in 1860 when the issue was the containment of the slave-holding south;
Woodrow Wilson in 1912 when the issue was the economically responsible advancement of progressivism;
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 when the issue was the very survival of people’s homes, livelihoods and even American democracy;
and Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1980 when the issue was economic “stagflation” and America’s perceived impotence in international affairs.

I believe that Barack Obama offers a responsive approach to a set of domestic and international priorities which is unique in his combination of intellect, vision, energy and personality. Furthermore, it seems to me, Senator Obama offers to include the input of ideological and political opponents as well as supporters in the prioritizing and the solving of domestic and international problems. Even more significant and powerful is Senator Obama’s goal to move us politically beyond the Conservative versus Liberal grab for culture supremacy.

Americans are, of course, entitled to expect that Senator Obama will be forthright and detailed on the subject of the changes he expects to bring about if successful. No presidential candidate can be expected to know what the final version of any proposal he or she makes will look like once it’s been accomplished since successful proposals and final legislation are almost always a compromise. However, Senator Obama no doubt expects to be challenged in the coming weeks and months on the substance of his ideas. That’s the way it should be. Nor do I, as a Barack Obama enthusiast, know or comprehend the details of all of his proposals.

For example, on the issue of health care, I haven’t studied the differences between his proposals and those of his fellow Democratic opponents’ proposals. However, what I do know is that Democrats are far more responsive than most Republicans to the reality that most Americans can no longer afford the quality of health care which they once could.

On the international front, I believe our struggle is against all international outlawry whether Islamic, Fascist, or Communist. Terrorism, after all, is a strategy, not an ideology or cause. What is needed is a worldwide intelligence and command force inclusive of many nations and bolstered by the highest level of technology to identify and prevent acts of terrorism by all nations or paramilitary political gangsters.

As for the historical significance of political change over the past 200 plus years of our republic, the outcome has been quite mixed.

Twenty times in our history, Americans have chosen to switch parties on national Election Day. However, only nine of our forty-two presidents have been defeated for re-election including:

John Adams in 1800 who felt both defeated and betrayed by his old friend Thomas Jefferson;
His son John Quincy Adams in 1828 who returned home and two years later was elected to the house where he became known as “Old Man Eloquent”;
Martin Van Buren in 1840 who later abandoned his beloved Democratic party and became an abolitionist;
Grover Cleveland in 1888 who got off the political mat and reclaimed the White House just four years later;
Benjamin Harrison who suffered the duel agony of personal bereavement and political defeat when First Lady Caroline (Carrie) Harrison died in the White House two weeks before the 1892 election;
William Howard Taft in 1912 who later served as Chief Justice of the United States;
Herbert Hoover in 1932 who earned the respect of future presidents and generations of Americans through his philanthropic works and service as a government reorganizer;
Jimmy Carter in 1980 whose service to humane causes and international peace has largely obliterated his past inadequacies And finally, George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992 who, though triumphant in the Gulf War, was dragged down by angry and disappointed citizens over high taxes and the economy.

Only four presidents, all of whom succeeded to the presidency from the vice presidency on the death of their party’s successfully elected nominee, have been denied re-nomination by their respective parties:
John Tyler in 1844; Millard Fillmore in 1852; Andrew Johnson in 1868; and Chester A. Arthur in 1884.

When political change has occurred it has meant both good and bad for the country. For example:
In 1800 when political change elected Thomas Jefferson, the result was a cut back in our Navy, an strengthening of the autonomy of the states as well as changes in the federal judiciary;
The 1860 political change to Abraham Lincoln meant a tragic civil war;
The 1932 shift to FDR meant a fundamental increase in the involvement of the federal and state government in the solving of national problems;
The 1976 change to Jimmy Carter meant bold personal presidential diplomacy in Central America and most dramatically in the Middle East;
The subsequent change to President Ronald Reagan in 1980 meant a bolder and more decisive front against Soviet Communism as well as landmark legislation in the area of tax reform;
The change to Bill Clinton in 1992 meant that there would be a balance toward the center in the wake of the increasing rightward shift in the American body politic;
Finally, the change to George Walker Bush in the year 2000 meant a determined “go it alone” policy in Iraq as well as in international affairs in general.

Whether you support or oppose the candidacy of Senator Barack Hussein Obama (and you can be sure the GOP will literally beat him over the head with his own middle name, especially during their late August convention!), political change is not only real—it’s inevitable.

My endorsement of Barack Obama is affirmative. It belittles no other candidacy. I can still admire John Edwards’ capacity and commitment to advocacy. I can still admire Hillary Clinton’s depth of knowledge and obvious brilliance. I can still pay tribute to Bill Richardson’s experience and energy. I can even reach across the political aisle and salute John McCain’s brave patriotism and occasional political independence, Mitt Romney’s smooth political agility, Mike Huckabee’s self-determination and Rudy Giuliani’s stubborn pugnacity. After all, that’s precisely what Senator Obama hopes to make it politically fashionable for all of us to do. As he assures us: There is no shortage of anger in Washington.”

Whatever change is implemented by our next president will be judged good or ill by the people. Our last best expectation however has to be that we will remain free to so judge.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

LAST, BUT BY NO MEANS -- LEAST

By Edwin Cooney

Don’t let today fool you! Indeed, today may be the last day of 2007, but erase the very idea from your holiday-exhausted mind that just because this date is the last day of each and every year, that it shouldn’t be taken seriously or that its significance serves merely as a day of transition.

As is the case with every day of the year, today is somebody’s birthday, wedding anniversary, day of significant disclosure, or the beginning of a new capital venture. I know at least two people who were born on this date. One of them, unfortunately has been gone for about fifteen years—if my memory serves me well—and the other is fourteen years old today and hopefully has many happy years ahead of her. Not to be outdone, historians have found many reasons to take note of events which have taken place on December 31st.

Those who were born on December 31st include:

General George Gordon Meade in 1815 who led Union forces to victory over the Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1st through 3rd in 1863;
Army Chief of Staff (and later Secretary of State) George C. Marshall (born 1880) who proposed the “Marshall Plan” for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.;
Actor Jason Robards, Sr. in 1892;
Simon Wiesenthal, born December 31, 1908, the Polish national who successfully hunted down Nazi war criminals; and
Singer John Denver (born in 1943 as Henry John Deutschendorf), to name just a few.

Among those who died on December 31st while the rest of us were looking forward to the dawning of a new year and new opportunities:

Former Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov (however one feels about Soviet Communism, one can’t help but be fascinated when reading of that man’s life which covered the time between Monday, July 17, 1876 and Monday, December 31, 1951).

Others who died on the last day of the year include such luminaries as:

Thirty-nine year-old Michael Kennedy, son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, killed in a skiing accident December 31, 1997;
Country pianist Floyd Cramer who died of cancer at age sixty-four the same day as young Mike Kennedy;
Former IBM President Thomas J. Watson in 1994;
Professional football coach George Allen in1990;
Rock singer Ricky (born Eric Hilliard) Nelson who apparently free-based his way to eternity in the back of a chartered plane on the last day of 1985;
And, perhaps most tragically of all, baseball star Roberto Clemente who died while carrying relief help to the people of earthquake-shattered Nicaragua from his home in Puerto Rico on the last day of 1972.

Historical events for December 31 include:

The opening of America’s first bank which was called The Bank Of North America in 1781;
Ottawa was chosen by Queen Victoria to be Canada’s new capital on December 31, 1857; President Abraham Lincoln signed the legislation which paved the way toward West Virginia becoming our thirty-fifth state on the last day of 1862 (West Virginia statehood would not become official until June 20 1863);
The cornerstone of the Iolani Palace (the only royal palace in America) was laid on December 31, 1879;
The same day that Royalist Hawaiians were dreaming of their new palace, Thomas Edison was demonstrating his incandescent light;
Ellis Island was opened on the last day of 1890 as a receiving center for immigrants;
And December 31, 1897 was the last day that Brooklyn was a “city”: it was officially incorporated into New York City on Saturday, January 1, 1898.

Eight December 31st events have, I think, a special significance to 2007-2008 Americans:

The ball dropped for the first time at Times Square in the last seconds of Tuesday, December 31, 1907;
On the last day of 1914, Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Captain Tillinghast L’hommedieu Huston purchased the New York Yankees for $460,000 and began building the team into its present dynastic status;
On the last day of 1935, Charles Darrow patented the new game he called Monopoly;
In 1961, the Beach Boys staged their first performance;
On the last day of 1970, Paul McCartney filed suit to break up the Beatles;
On December 31, 1981, CNN Headline News opened for business;
December 31, 1991 was the last day in existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (The USSR);
And, finally, it was on Friday, December 31, 1999 that Panamanians gained control of the Panama Canal.

It’s perfectly natural for us to think of December 31st as a day of transition since we spend most of its hours in preparation for New Year’s Eve celebrations. However, December 31, like every other day, serves us best as we put its events into perspective.

Someone, I’ve quite forgotten who, once observed that history is inevitably written by the winners or victors of human events. While there is much to be said for that observation, the ultimate significance of military, political, or other human events is always up for reevaluation since such reflection brings forth those values which matter most to you and to me.

Thus, December 31st is certainly a fine day to reflect on the past, present, and future of all humanity, as national and international events will have a definite effect on our lives. However, our time can be best spent reflecting on our own individual past, present, and future as well as how our individual existence impacts other people.

As I observed at the outset, December 31 isn’t the least of days merely because it comes last on the calendar. However, it can be the least of all days if you and I waste it. What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

‘TIS THE SEASON!

By Edwin Cooney

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la,
Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la
It’s that time again—and I love it. Perhaps a little of the magic dwindles over the years, but only the tiniest bit of it.

I don’t anticipate where Santa might be at any hour on Christmas eve anymore—but I know he’s surely somewhere.

Mary, Joseph and the Christ child, Christmas carols, Santa Claus, stockings, Christmas cookies with hot chocolate or fruit juice are as much a part of my boyhood as the turkey on Thanksgiving, Jack O’Lanterns, doughnuts and apple cider on Halloween, and the importance of the baseball World Series. So since I believe that the history of a nation is the sum of all of our life experiences, I thought it might be entertaining as well as instructive to visit, however sketchily, the history of Christmas in America.

Most of us like to think that Christmas is as American as Christopher Columbus (who isn’t at all American), the Pilgrims, Ben Franklin and George Washington. However, such is not the case!

As you’ll recall, Massachusetts was settled first by the Pilgrims or Separatists -- who wanted to separate totally from the Anglican Church -- and then by the Puritans -- whose aim was to purify rather than leave the Anglican Church.

The Puritans, who became dominant in Massachusetts over the Separatists, eventually took over in England under Oliver Cromwell during the 1650s. They banned the celebration of Christmas partly because it was practiced by the former royalists and partly because they considered it a symbol of Popery, a leading characteristic of the much unreconstructed and therefore maligned Roman Catholic Church of that day.

By the 1660s, the Puritans had lost power in London and throughout the rest of England, but they were very much in power in Boston as well as throughout the rest of Massachusetts. Thus, Christmas was officially banned in Boston between 1659 and 1681. It should be noted however that while Christmas was banned in Massachusetts, it was celebrated in both the Virginia and the New York colonies.

After the British monarchy was restored, Christmas was once again celebrated in England although its restoration in Massachusetts took another twenty one years. Once William and Mary took over as more or less equal partners as British monarchs in 1688 and Catholicism was on the decline there, Christmas began to be practiced in a more secular way in Britain.

One of the casualties of our Revolutionary War at the hands of our founding fathers, incidentally, was Christmas. Christmas in the era of Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al, was considered an English holiday and was, publicly at least, unwelcome in the hallowed halls of liberty until the mid-nineteenth century.

Three writers, Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore -- both Americans -- and Charles Dickens -- an Englishman -- were primarily responsible for introducing Christmas as a family holiday to the American people.

Washington Irving, who traveled and wrote extensively from both Europe and Britain, published short Christmas stories in “The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon” as well as a story entitled “Old Christmas” during the late 1820s and early 1830s.

Most significant was the 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and Charles Dickens’ 1842 story “A Christmas Carol”.

Americans, with their eternal love of the underdog and sympathy for the reformed, fell hard for Mr. Dickens’ Bob Crachit and the crippled Tiny Tim, and readily forgave old Ebenezer Scrooge once he’d seen the error of his ways and showered the Crachit family with gifts and plenty of Christmas cheer.

As for Clement Moore’s Santa Claus, everyone could identify with a little old white bearded man whose little round belly “shook when he laughed” and whose pipe smoke “encircled his head like a wreath” as he joyfully delivered toys to little children.

Santa was everyone’s idea of Grandpa!

By the 1850s, German and Irish immigration had changed the face of America’s largest cities and had, most notably, tapped the strongest American incentive: the profit motive.
Thus, Christmas was truly on its way in America—led, of course, by Santa Claus!

Information describing how American presidents historically have celebrated Christmas is a bit sketchy. Apparently, Thomas Jefferson, despite his contempt for Britain and all its institutions and traditions—including Christmas—did privately celebrate Christmas at the White House in 1805. Andrew Jackson was said to have held private family Christmas celebrations as well.

The first president to set up a Christmas tree in the White House was Franklin Pierce. Franklin Pierce, the once handsome and energetic Democratic presidential candidate known as “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills”—after the great Democrat Andrew Jackson—was by then a listless, defensive, melancholy and defeated incumbent President. The year was 1856. Franklin and Jane Pierce were spending their last unhappy months in the White House. Tragically childless by now--and heavily burdened by political and administrative misjudgments—President Pierce purchased the first White House Christmas tree for the children of his Sunday school class.


Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870. It would be hard to imagine that President Ulysses S. Grant didn’t have something to say about that, but so far I haven’t found any reference to President Grant in the accounts of the establishment of Christmas as a federal holiday.

In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison installed a tree lit with candles on the second floor of the White House. He also purchased turkeys and gloves for members of the White House staff.

In 1895, First Lady Frances Cleveland attached the first electric lights to the White House Christmas tree.

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the tradition of a National Christmas tree on the White House lawn. The following year, sadness prevailed at the White House despite President Coolidge’s re-election, due to the death from blood poisoning of President and Mrs. Coolidge’s sixteen year old son Calvin Jr. the previous July. Nevertheless, the ceremony was held with the participation of Calvin and Grace Coolidge.

Jacqueline Kennedy began the Christmas theme for the National Christmas tree in 1961 by decorating it with figures from Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”.

In 2001, Laura Bush’s theme was “Home For the Holidays” which used replicas of the homes of previous presidents.

What do you suppose this all means? What do the forces of religion, politics and commercialism say about what we do? Which one of these forces have had the greatest beneficial effect on our celebration of Christmas? Which one of these forces have had the most detrimental effect?

The answers to the above questions I’ll leave up to you. However, I’ll close this week’s effort with my favorite presidential Christmas story.

It was December of 1921 and President Warren G. Harding faced a dilemma, a struggle between his conscience and his need to be politically effective. A small town Republican, he was sensitive to and even shared the suspicions of his fellow townsmen of what might be called foreign ideologies.

As president, possessing the pardoning power as he did, Warren Harding had received pleas for the release of Socialist party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs from federal prison. Debs had been convicted during the “Great War” of sedition for public opposition to the war once it had been declared by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.

Now the war was over. Since the League of Nations had been rejected by the Senate in 1919 and again in 1920, the U.S. government, under the direction of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany which President Harding had signed during a golf game the previous July.

Thus, Mr. Debs was no longer a threat to America’s national security. However, many of the president’s closest friends and political advisors were dead set against any sympathy for Debs whom they strongly believed had deliberately undermined the patriotic efforts of those who had made the “supreme sacrifice” in France during the war. To them, Debs as a labor leader, was little more than a life long trouble maker inspired lately by foreign ideologies and interests. One of those who drove home that point most vigorously was the president’s personal hometown buddy Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. (Note: Mr. Daugherty himself would need presidential tolerance within a few years once he was indicted in the Teapot Dome scandal).

For President Harding, however, the question was whether or not justice would be further served by keeping a 66 year old pacifist in jail or whether the spirit of Christmas required him to be charitable. Earlier in 1921, outgoing President Woodrow Wilson had bitterly rejected pleas for Debs’ pardon.

Christmas was on a Sunday in 1921 thereby giving the celebration of the birth of Christ a special intensity. About the 20th of December, President Harding had made up his mind. Attorney General Daugherty was called in and told to prepare the necessary papers. They were prepared and sent to the federal prison in Atlanta.

By lunch time on Friday December 23rd, Eugene Victor Debs was in President Harding’s office. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Debs was home.

When asked why he had pardoned Debs, the President is said to have replied in words similar to these: “At Christmas time, a peaceful man ought to be home with his wife.”

While it is true that the pardon didn’t reinstate Mr. Debs’ citizenship to allow him to vote or seek public office as before, he could act as a political consultant, write, and lecture. Most significant, thanks to the conscience and humanity of Warren Gamaliel Harding, Eugene Victor Debs was once again a free man.

If any president has given a gift more noble and worthy of the spirit of Christmas, I haven’t heard of it.

Christmas, wow! What a season!!!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA, DOES THE WORLD ADEQUATELY APPRECIATE HER?

BY EDWIN COONEY

Among news commentator Paul Harvey’s many observations is this one from 1968 during a televised commentary on “The Amazing American”.

“…an amazing American likes to cuss his government, but he’ll fight any foreigner who does.”

Along with the admonition that this is something to think about, a very dear friend of mine recently sent me what you see below:

Their Silence is Deafening

When in England at a fairly large conference,
Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury
if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has
sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril
to fight for freedom beyond our borders.

The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return
is enough to bury those that did not return."

It became very quiet in the room.

* * * * *

Then there was a conference in France where a number of
international engineers were taking part, including French and American.

During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying
"Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done?
He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims.
What does he intend to do, bomb them?"

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:
"Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat
several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply
emergency electrical power to shore facilities;
they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people
three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of
fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry
half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured
to and from their flight deck..

The US has eleven such ships; how many does France have?"

Once again, dead silence.


* * *

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference
that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies.

At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages,
Americans learn only English.

He then asked,
'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied
'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans
arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.

You could have heard a pin drop!

* * *
These diplomats know how to make a point!

Indeed they do, but powerful as it is, it’s only a point. Aside from confirming Paul Harvey’s long ago observation, the above begs a bit of perspective.

As an individual, like you, I wear many hats. Two of those hats are that of American citizen and that of student of history. As a citizen, I occasionally react negatively to what is said about or what happens to my country. As a student of history, I try my best to make sense of it all. It isn’t possible to totally separate emotion and intellect nor would a total separation of those two God-given gifts be at all healthy. I too cringe when the French or other nationals trash my country and its leadership. Like many of my fellow citizens, I tend to feel that the only people legitimately licensed to criticize America are Americans. However, I also cringe when Americans oversimplify America’s history or America’s motives as the above piece certainly does.

One of the most common themes, probably since the mid 1960s, when Americans get together to discuss the world situation, is how little the world appreciates America. (No wonder Britain gave up her empire!)

Such discussions usually take place among people who:

-- Feel that they pay too many taxes especially for foreign aid to unappreciative countries;

-- Have fought or have family members who have fought or served in our armed forces; or who believe that America went to war mostly out of the goodness of her heart in both world wars, Vietnam, twice in Iraq as well as in the Balkans.

However, America has never gone to war nor should she ever go to war out of the goodness of her heart. The lives and well-being of her sons and daughters are too valuable for mere sentiment.

What America came to realize beginning in the 1880s and 1890s was that she couldn’t be permanently prosperous or peaceful living in a world in which she couldn’t control the events at least to some degree. So, America wisely began to be competitive in world commerce and in world politics.

Nor is it historically accurate to assert (as the above commentary suggests) that America has never gone to war in pursuit of territory. Our early attempts to secure Canada from Britain, our wars with Mexico and Spain, and our treatment of Native Americans all destroy the legitimacy of any such suggestion.

As to whether America’s finest virtues are given adequate consideration and appreciation, the answer is simple. Of course America isn’t adequately appreciated. How can she be? Wise nations don’t plan their tomorrows using sentiment as the main element of their planning, strategic or otherwise. Neither Woodrow Wilson in World War I. nor Franklin Roosevelt in World War II. went to the rescue of other nations until our security was threatened.

The element in our national character which makes us quite special is our usual generosity toward the downtrodden as well as the vanquished. I think that comes from our own desire to be comfortable and from our own realization that we can’t really be comfortable if others aren’t.

As to the question of whether other nations might not be much better off if they adopted this aspect of our character, the answer is:...of course they would! As to whether or not Americans adequately appreciate what some nations have done for us, the answer is...of course we don’t!



The author of the above set of anecdotes obviously doesn’t take into account that if it wasn’t for eighteenth century royalist France, it is probable that our continent would have been colonized as well as turned into a confederation of nation states by a combination of the British, Spanish, French, and the Dutch. Furthermore, without our French allies, George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock would likely have been beheaded on London’s Tower Hill, to the cheers of thousands of Britains, for treason against George III. Hence the French have an honored place in the very founding of America which seldom gains our attention today. As for France’s motive? It was her enmity toward Britain, nothing more!

Americans are rightly put off by reckless attacks on President Bush by French and other foreign nationals and we can be excused if we’re sometimes frustrated by actions that go against us in the United Nations. However, it’s a matter of record that youthful America pointedly didn’t show gratitude toward France for French assistance during the American Revolution.

In 1794, President Washington decided that America would take neither side in France’s war with Great Britain—and for good reason. America didn’t have the capacity to defend herself in case of attack by either power. However, the French definitely chose not to understand that decision. They insisted that America owed their country a debt and engaged some of our merchant shipping on the high seas. Thus, youthful America and France nearly went to war in 1798.

Then there is the original matter of American gratitude or appreciation. In the mid 1760s, the mightiest nation on earth sought to recover financially after having fought a seven year war on behalf of her thirteen North American colonies. In that war, which was fought against an alliance of France and tribes of American Indians, Britain spent millions of pounds sterling. Additionally, several of her finest soldiers, who were members of her proud nobility, lost their lives on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec and in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania. The war finally ended in 1763 and Britain believed that her colonies ought to defray some of the expenses made on their behalf. Sadly for Britain, the men and women whose property had been saved and whose safety had been secured weren’t even grateful.

Within thirteen years after that exhausting war, those colonists stopped calling themselves Englishmen and started referring to themselves as Americans.

Ingratitude like gratitude possesses no national citizenship papers. Ingratitude lives just as comfortably in America as it does anywhere else.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY