THE IDEAL PRESIDENT

By Edwin Cooney

Throughout American history, leaders of business and commerce, military leaders, and political party leaders have sought every four years to create a consensus as to who might be the best President of the United States of America! Thus, the immediate and easiest answer to the above question, that it depends on the mood of the strongest and most resourceful decision makers, is null and void as a response to this commentary.

There have been three types of presidential leadership, as I see it. They are consensus builders, ideologues, and commander types.

Consensus builders include Washington (who was elected because he was a successful military commander, but ultimately governed through consensus building), Lincoln, Taft, Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and, I'm predicting, President Biden. They generally seek to please a broad section of voters large enough to sustain their leadership. (Remember that Abraham Lincoln was neither an abolitionist nor was he aggressive toward the South. Thus the Emancipation Proclamation was practical rather than ideological.)  Presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Reagan were both a combination of ideologues and consensus builders. (Note: Jefferson campaigned as a strict constitutional constructionist, but he departed from the Constitution when he purchased Louisiana because there is no prevision in the Constitution for the president to purchase territory from a foreign nation except through treaty — which the Louisiana Purchase was not.)

Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, Richard Nixon, Donald Trump and, to some extent, Harry Truman were commander-types. That means they had a plan or idea (or thought they had) from the very outset of their administrations and tried to direct America to their ideal via coercion if necessary, especially in the cases of Jackson, Cleveland, Nixon, and President Trump. As I see it, President Donald J. Trump is the most virulent of the “commander type” of president.

President Trump didn't lose to Joe Biden because he was a conservative or because he sought to protect us from abortionists, illegal immigrants, secular humanists, or even socialists or communists. He lost because from the very outset of his administration, President Trump was clearly more about himself than he was about any particular interest group unless a group's agenda clearly enhanced his personal reputation. Consensus to President Trump was a sign of political and individual weakness! Additionally, long before November 3rd, 2020, it was clear that the president was tone deaf to people’s reaction to what he both said and did, be they Democrats or men and women he'd appointed to his own cabinet and sub-cabinet.

Even more telling was his lack of a sense of what worked and what didn't work for him. From early March 2020, he hovered over the Covid-19 briefings by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, continuously modifying their assessments of the severity of the pandemic to suit his own political reputation versus the public welfare. Even his tweets which had considerable effect in 2017, 2018, and well into 2019, lost steam due to their overuse and predictable flavor.

For me, the ideal president is a consensus builder. A consensus builder doesn't go into office without an idea of what he (or someday she) wants to achieve. For all his deliberately established reputation as a conservative, Ronald Reagan was ultimately a consensus builder which is actually part consensus building and partly idealistic leadership. Someone once wrote that President Reagan, like FDR and JFK, mastered "the art of the presidency” more than either their predecessors or their successors. Even those who master the art of the presidency don't escape ridicule. FDR was charged with believing himself to be indispensable in the presidency. It was claimed by some that FDR had "grilled millionaire” everyday for breakfast when, as he asserted during a fireside chat, “I’m a devotee of scrambled eggs!”  (According to her sons James and Elliot, scrambled eggs was the only dish Eleanor Roosevelt knew how to make. It was standard Sunday night cuisine at the White House.) Then there were two delightful criticisms about President Reagan's mastery of the presidency. Remember Colorado Congress Lady Patricia Schroeder's label of President Reagan as the “Teflon President” or the observation by one observer that "if President Reagan drove through a car wash with the top rolled down, Jimmy Carter, even in his absence, would get wet!"

The Smithsonian Institute, the close of "reconstruction" after the Civil War, the Peace Corps, the first nuclear test ban treaty, and the homeland security administration were all created by presidents whose election was questionable. That includes Presidents John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, John Kennedy, and George W Bush.

Yes, indeed! Give me a good-natured consensus builder, preferably with a plan more rational than his or her essential ego, and that's the president for me!

Let every future president's ideas, agenda and authority be subject to the ultimate scrutiny of a well-informed people and hopefully the last four years will have been a necessary but merely temporary nightmare!

Since the days of Lyndon Baines Johnson, I've carried in my pocket a small medallion of the sitting president of the United States whether or not I voted for him. Two of these presidents I've loved. The third one I originally loved, but later felt obligated to abandon in the wake of scandal. Two others I've admired, but with whom I felt politically incompatible. Still another, I voted for twice, but in the end I felt indifferent toward. Although I carried President Trump's medallion throughout his term, I was glad to put it aside last Wednesday noon.

The President of the United States has been for me the symbol of all that's beneficially possible because he or she is in a unique place to ensure the best outcome in national matters foreign or domestic. Observing how they do what they do, for better or worse, is both instructive and even entertaining. No president ought to be worshipped, but to deplore a president must never be a worthy goal intellectually, politically, or spiritually!

In the final analysis, we have an imperfect president occupying an imperfect office leading a free but imperfect people who, for the past 231 years, have only been able to  strive to be "...a more perfect union!"     

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY  

BIDEN'S MOST DAUNTING BUT ESSENTIAL CHALLENGE!

By Edwin Cooney

As Joe Biden takes the presidential oath on Wednesday, January 20th, 2021, he becomes the fourth president to face the monumental challenge of establishing and revitalizing national unity!

Under George Washington's administration, the whole country craved national unity even though the people's hearts, for the most part, remained with their home states. Seventy-two years later, as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, the southern part of the nation feared a possible downturn in its economy. Due to the possibility that slavery was vulnerable to abolishment, the South reverted to its original “Doctrine of State Sovereignty" and broke away via military rebellion.

By 1933, people faced and feared social and economic deprivation due largely to the degree of greed on the part of what Franklin Roosevelt called "economic royalists."

In his inaugural address, FDR did three things. First, he pronounced the nation's mood with his proclamation that “the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He went on to thank God that our crisis was merely a material one. Second, he described in outline form the various measures he'd employ to put people to work and increase the purchasing power of the people's money. Finally, he took personal responsibility for the results of his efforts.

FDR entered the presidency blessed with several advantages. First, he was a pillar in his local religious community which in 1933 was vital for any successful politician. Second, his family was politically well-connected through his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt (his wife Anna Eleanor's Uncle Ted.) Third, he was Harvard and Columbia Law School educated with executive experience in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet and as Governor of New York State. Above all, he had an excellent array of personal talents from speech-making, and  salesmanship gifts in addition to his administrative abilities. He possessed an overwhelmingly charming personality and temperament.

Much of what Joe Biden possesses is obscured by the fact that his professional experience has been in the legislative rather than in the administrative branch of government. (Even as an executive when he held the office of Vice President, Joe Biden’s reputation was largely linked to that of his former chief, Barack Obama.) As he begins the most vital part of his life, he comes across, not only to the voter but to the educated commentator and even to some of his peers, as little more than competent. His power of persuasion is more personal than either intellectual or particularly logical. Yet, it's encouraging to realize that he's twice been chosen over the years to chair two vitally important and powerful Senate committees, Judiciary and Foreign Relations. (A lot of senators from both parties would give their eyeteeth to have chaired either committee, let alone both of them!) Like two of his vice presidential predecessors, Harry Truman and Gerry Ford, he’s plain-spoken and his word has always been good even when his judgment may have been questionable.

One more thing must be taken into account as we evaluate him just before he becomes president. For the last two years, President Trump has ridiculed all of his potential opponents, be it “Pocahontas" for Elizabeth Warren or "sleepy Joe" for Biden himself. However, the Trumps have paid special attention to Joe Biden. Obviously, "sleepy Joe" was the potential opponent Mr. Trump feared most! Why do you suppose that was? After all, Joe Biden wasn't nearly as socialistic as Ms. Warren or Senator Bernie Sanders. Yet, President Trump not only ridiculed him, but investigated him and his son Hunter.

Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt eighty-eight years ago, our new president must take and proclaim the nation's mood truthfully and powerfully. As was true in 1933, more than anything else, we're dangerously afraid of each other. (Note: that's "fear itself!") What he needs to convince us is that while the fundamentals of our economic structure are intact, they can only be rebuilt and strengthened as we attack Covid-19. Next, President Biden has to explain why his economic plan, as expensive as it must be, is designed to benefit the most populous part of the nation. He must explain why putting money in people's pockets will enrich the marketing element of the nation. Finally, while what he has to say about the past four years or about the crisis brought on by the January 6th attack on the Capitol may be something he is compelled to address, he must minimize his judgment of the causes and likely outcomes of that disastrous and "dastardly" attack.

If John and Susie Q Citizen are to get any inspiration from our newly minted President Joseph Robinette Biden, they must believe at the close of his historic address that the speech has been for and about them as well as above and beyond mere payback politics.

After all, payback politics is the child of “fear itself!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

MAY WE BE ENTERING A CALMER ERA?

By Edwin Cooney

No matter where you live or what social, religious, or political organization you may belong to, its unlikely that you can escape the feeling that we're doomed to endure a degree of emotional, intellectual and spiritual chaos that could result in the destruction of our civil society. However, I’m guessing that it's possible that a calmer society may be just around the corner.

Last Friday, January 8th, 2021, President-elect Joe Biden held a news conference to announce his nominees for Secretary of Labor, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and for Secretary of Commerce, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo.

However, what has been particularly encouraging and refreshing about the style and nature of President-elect Biden's communication with the American people is his overall civility. His instructions to incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland that he will not be the president's personal lawyer but the people's lawyer constitutes the highest degree of civil government.

Just as encouraging last Friday was his insistence that his priority wasn't the political destruction of President Trump and his supporters, but the construction of his administration and its plans for combating Covid-19 as well as the restoration of efforts to combat climate change along with the improvement of the economy for the benefit of victims of the pandemic.

When asked his reaction to President Trump's declaration that he would not be attending the upcoming Biden inauguration, the President-elect remarked that Mr. Trump's decision was one thing on which he and the president agreed. As for Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Biden said that the vice president would be welcome. Just as gratifying to this observer was Joe Biden's assertion that the nation needs a Republican opposition that's both principled and strong.

As vital as politics is in a free society, in order to be effective, political competition must be regulated by a free and responsible constituency. Such regulation can never be the government's business as much as it must be the people's business. Throughout the 1930s, FDR used to insist that: "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 its government.”

Over the years, I've heard and read what a number of commentators believe to be at the root of our present cultural divisions. Some insist that it all began with our national conflict over the war in Vietnam. Others say the civil rights struggle sufficiently divided America into hard conservative and liberal camps. Still others say it was the Watergate scandal. Still others point at LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. I suggest a more fundamental cause for the severity of our unhappy political, emotional, racial and religious divide is the loss of a vital break on political recklessness.

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission instituted "the fairness doctrine" that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues in an honest, equitable and balanced fashion. This regulation was abolished in 1987 during the Reagan administration. Since then, public broadcasting has become a powerful tool for those who possess ample funds to use the public airwaves to promote their political agendas. Not only are many of the owners of large broadcasting entities wealthy, they have an agenda designed to maintain the prerogatives of the wealthy against the demands of middle and lower classes of society. I believe that the withdrawal of the fairness doctrine has gone a long way toward poisoning the political process here in the United States.

As I listened to Mr. Biden's announcements and responses to questions asked him by the media in attendance, what was refreshingly apparent was the calm noncontroversial way in which he responded. If Joe Biden lacks dynamism in his responses, there's still something analytically reflective and thoughtful about his approach to issues. Chalk it up to my degree of emotional weariness or naïveté if you must, but I've sensed way before the outset of the late presidential campaign, that a significant majority of our people are fed up with purely confrontational politics.

Poison politics eventually leads to despotism! It's as simple as that.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHO WON AND WHO LOST LAST NOVEMBER 3RD — A MAN, A PARTY OR BOTH?

By Edwin Cooney

Throughout the years of my political interest and attention, I've generally resisted the wisdom of those who insist that they vote for "the man" rather than "for a political party."  In the wake of the 2020 election, it's increasingly evident to me that the majority of American voters voted against a man more than they voted for a political party. Perhaps we will know more after tomorrow's vote in Georgia, but that doesn't guarantee that the above question will really be settled.

You may well ask, how important is it that we know the answer to that question? The answer is very simple. In politics, it's dangerous to continue a pattern of conduct that doesn't work. Of course, what works and what doesn't work changes from time to time. For example, the late 19th and early 20th Century practice of "front porch" presidential campaigns is a thing of the past, and it's likely that candidate and incumbent tweets constitute an era that has just begun! While I was growing up, candidates and political pundits often scolded candidates for getting too close to "the water's edge” when they became too strident.

Several days ago, an acquaintance of mine who is a Trump supporter wondered why the country would elect someone as old, sleepy, out of touch and, worst of all, as socialistic as Joe Biden who has been in politics far too long. As I see it, the reason Joe Biden was elected was because he was the only alternative to re-electing President Trump. I agreed with this particular gentleman that it didn't have to happen. Unlike this particular Trump supporter, I insist that the 2020 campaign ultimately was solely about Donald Trump just as the 1936 presidential election was about the person of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the difference being that FDR was personally about the well-being of the people. President Trump is more about settling scores whether they're with domestic political opponents or with foreign governments.

President Trump's candidacy or agenda in office was never about the nation's fears, hopes or priorities. Clearly a chronically angry man, Mr. Trump's resentments govern almost everything he has done from his continuous tweeting to his efforts to build a wall he never realistically could get Mexico to pay for.

Someone in the not too distant future will document and publish the reasons for the defeat of Mr. Trump last November. It's my guess that the results will show that most of his predecessors, whether or not they were defeated or re-elected, accepted the results with dignity if not always with grace. President Trump's major political flaw is his tendency to emphasize his resentments over the people's priorities.

History demonstrates that a new administration, in order to be successful, has to allow for some degree of continuity with its predecessors. For instance, President Eisenhower resisted Old Guard GOP efforts led by Senator John Bricker, Thomas E. Dewey's 1944 running mate, to limit the power of the president to negotiate treaties as FDR had done at Yalta and Harry Truman had done at Potsdam. Furthermore, Ike, in the face of conservative objections, challenged McCarthyism, and advanced a national highway reconstruction plan that was as New Deal-like as anything else you can imagine. The GOP under Ike went so far as to establish the cabinet department of Housing and Urban Development putting a woman at the head of it. The 1950’s Republicans hated FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal, but they respected its appeal, if not its method or purpose. President Trump demonstrated no sense of continuity, but sought to destroy everything President Obama did regardless of Mr. Obama's continuing popularity with a sizable portion of the voting public.

Bill Clinton's welfare reform act was moderate enough to get the endorsement of conservative Republicans whose primary loyalty was to Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush  and centrist Democrats. Many liberal Democrats opposed President Clinton's brand of welfare reform.

I can think of no instance when President Trump sought to bring progressives into an effort to modify and improve Obamacare. Mr. Trump's alternative to Obamacare never saw the light of day because healthcare was never on the president's agenda or that of his party despite their insistence to the contrary.

As I see it, one of the realities of 21st Century America is that "we, the people,” whether we call ourselves Conservatives, Populists, Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, or Republicans, expect the United States government to protect us from what we regard as the dangerous consequences of outrageous fortune. Furthermore, regardless of how contradictory the elements of our complaints and fears may be, we expect the person of the President of the United States of America to be our champion. President Trump certainly championed a number of popular causes both legitimate and controversial, but few presidents in our history have ever sought to destroy the causes of the opposition like President Trump.

It's my guess that millions of Americans who voted for Mr. Biden remain uncertain as to the likelihood of his success. However, he comes to his office both approachable and optimistic. Unlike President Trump, he generally doesn't see his political opponents as corrupt or criminal. The criminalization of political opponents on the part of ideologically oriented candidates and supporters has gone on so long that it has poisoned the well of freely elected government which was one of President George Washington's fears about the establishment of political parties.

History will record that President Donald John Trump ultimately was his only real constituent. His self-indulgence became too evident for a truly united people to endorse!

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell (who would serve as Lord Protectorate of the British Commonwealth) used the following words to describe the uselessness of the parliament then in session. I suggest that these are the precise words which should be used as President Trump leaves office:

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart and let us have done with you! In the name of God, I say -- go!”

Only time will tell who won and who lost the 2020 election. Republicans made gains in the House which may be countered if the Democrats can take Georgia tomorrow.

It's just possible that our fears rather than our hopes prevailed last November!

I'll have more to say about fear very soon!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE PARADIGM OF AN INSTANT!

By Edwin Cooney

At 12:05 on Saturday, December 12th, 2020, as I was working on that week's column to you, our microwave suddenly caught fire after my wife Marsha moved it from its usual place on the left counter of our sink onto our stovetop while she cleaned the space under the microwave. At her call that something was amiss, I hurried into the kitchen and stood before the burning microwave. Marsha had already unplugged it so we couldn't imagine why it continued burning. After about a minute or two, Marsha called 911 and the fire company was on its way. As the trucks pulled in, the microwave began making a series of popping sounds and we evacuated the apartment as fire personnel came in. Immediately, the fire personnel began shouting for tenants to leave the building and we feared that the fire was progressing beyond our apartment. However, it soon became clear that such wasn't the case, although the cause, the costs, and the consequences were uncertain to us. What had happened still is a bit of a mystery to me, but it does make sense. When the microwave was moved onto the stove, the back part of it came in contact with the knob that controls the burner. Subsequently, we were literally cooking the microwave just as we would boil water or heat up other food on our stovetop. Had I known the stove was on, I'd have turned it off, but I didn't realize such was the case. Perhaps a sighted person would have realized what was happening, but we just didn't notice the cause. Believe me, we'll forever keep this instance in mind when we purchase, utilize and clean around a new microwave!

In my mind and, to some extent, Marsha’s, everything in our thoughts was pre and post 12:05 on Saturday, December 12th, 2020. It seemed clear to us in the wake of the incident that our lives might never be the same.

Of course, both of us can vividly recall other much more serious and lasting instances that have shifted our lives including the births of our children during our previous relationships, the passing of Marsha's father four years ago, our respective divorces, along with the joyful and tragic instances that have happened to others close to us.

History is loaded with instances beyond the anticipation of most of us. Surely our Founding Fathers couldn't have anticipated all of the headaches the people would face in a newly independent nation such as The War of 1812 with Great Britain or even the Civil War, the cause of which was largely due to our own treatment of a significant group of people we had imported to enslave. (Jefferson called slavery our national "fire bell in the night!”)

All of us have experienced joyful and tragic instances in our lives. Our individual task is to strive to recognize both the causes and effects of these instances so that we have a better chance of managing them when they occur.

The most difficult and ultimately devastating tragic instances are those we could have avoided had we modified our behavior before they occurred.

Neither civil law, international law, religious belief or faith, individual or protective wisdom can protect you or me from the forces of nature that can break our hearts. Still, awareness of how our personal activities affect the lives of people we've never even met can potentially modify the severity that those same people will experience in their personal lives.

I believe that the “Serenity prayer” ultimately reflects the surest pathway toward avoiding the "slings and arrows” of outrageous fortune!

May our God-granted intelligence focus our attention towards those attitudes and behaviors that will make the most of all of the opportunities open to us!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

‘TIS THE SEASON!

From December 15th, 2006

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 20^th 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 23^rd, 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

THE GOP — IS IT A PARTY OR A CULT?

By Edwin Cooney

When one studies the rise and dominance of our political parties, Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Nixon, Reagan, and, finally, D. J. Trump all come to mind. Space for this commentary doesn't allow me to justify why I designate all of the above presidents as party movers and shakers, but I will now compare and contrast the following presidents as examples of what I'm driving at.

Early in the 1960’s, Republicans decided that because of their emphasis on states' rights and limited government, they would never be successful in attracting the "Negro vote." Thus, the party under its then national chairman William E. Miller (whom Barry Goldwater would select as his vice presidential running mate in 1964) adapted its "Southern strategy." By the time Richard Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, he began following the concepts of states' rights, limited government and a hawkish foreign policy which were a tradition of post World War II Republicanism appealing to  Senator Goldwater's 1964 constituency. Almost as significant was the fact that the GOP positions on both domestic and foreign policies were counter to those of Lyndon B. Johnson — the president who had failed in Vietnam and whose civil rights programs increasingly irritated millions of northern middle class mainstream voters. Hence, throughout his presidency and beyond, Richard Nixon (who as vice president under Ike was largely regarded as a moderate mainstream politician) often called himself a conservative. . 

Conservatism began to come into its own during the 1970’s. The 1976 candidacy and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan brought conservatism out of the fringes of political thinking into the mainstream of American thought and existence. The most articulate and personable president since JFK, Mr. Reagan was a highly successful practitioner of conservatism rather than an elitist Intellectual. Even more powerful was a principle he had been stating since 1966 when he was elected governor of California. It was what he called the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican." One might openly oppose another Republican seeking the same office you were (such as Gerald Ford in 1976 and George H. W. Bush in 1980), but such disagreements were never to be about that Republican's honesty or his personal abilities.

President Reagan's appeal was wide and deep. It extended beyond ideology and attracted Independents and Democrats. That isn't to say that Mr. Reagan wasn't determined to prevail. (After all, Thomas M. DeFrank recorded in his book "Write it When I'm Gone” about Jerry Ford that the one thing that drew Ford and Jimmy Carter together was Ford's resentment of Reagan's attempt to deny him the presidential nomination in his own right in 1976.) However, from the beginning to the end of Mr. Reagan's political career, he was a good politician even through the rough spots in 1976 and 1980.

Until the nomination and election of Donald Trump, the Reagan legacy was at the soul of the Republican party. Now, something else has overshadowed it. Some call it a form of populism. Others insist that "Trumpism" is a prelude to autocracy. (Note that conservatives throughout the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s used to warn about a “steady, deadly drift to the left.” However, Trumpism, as I see it, represents a steady, deadly rush to the autocratic right!) 

What's baffling about the GOP since the election last month has more to do with the party than it has to do with the president himself. Historically, partisans in both parties have insisted that politics should "stop at the water's edge." Exactly where the land ends and the water begins in 2020 and on into 2021 (or perhaps as late as 2024) is the question. Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush and their contemporaries accepted their political defeats, for the most part, with grace and dignity.

Contrary to both tradition and plain old-fashioned patriotism, today GOP leaders, along with President Trump, appear to believe that the election of a very moderate and traditional Democrat poses a serious and permanent threat to our national well-being.

What does this tell us about today's GOP? What has Mr. Lincoln's party become? Is it still a political party capable of accommodating men and women of a kindred philosophy such as conservatism or liberalism while allowing differences of understanding or approaches to national issues? Should President Trump expect to remain its leader four years from now? Is it likely that possible GOP candidates can afford or would be willing to put their ambitions on hold to accommodate someone of the character of President Trump? Has the Republican Party truly become exclusively Mr. Trump's party? If so, how does that status differ from a social or religious cult?

As 2021 approaches, there are signs both ways. Republican governors such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, and Doug Ducey in Arizona along with election officials and Republican judges and even attorney General William Barr have publicly stated that there is no evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election results. On the other hand, some pretty prominent Republican leaders are clearly more interested in the president's right to protest the results of the recent election than they are interested in a tranquil and helpful transition from one administration to another for the benefit of a free but vulnerable public during a national pandemic.

In  order to belong to a cult, one must fully endorse and be accountable to a social or a religious philosophy or leader. It's difficult if not impossible to believe that the 21st Century Republican Party isn't rapidly becoming a cult. When political parties become cults they invariably become authoritarian rather than democratic. Anyone who defies the leader of a cult often risks his or her safety and sometimes even his or her life!

The most prominent nations to adopt such cults were led by men named Hitler and Stalin! While you may legitimately insist that President Trump is neither Hitler nor Stalin, he is pretty close to being a David Koresh or perhaps an L Ron Hubbard — neither of whom would be my idea of a president of the United States!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY