Posted inPolitics: National

The only way out for Democrats is 1960 redux

Smoke-filled rooms have a bad reputation. Yes, they gave us Warren Harding, but they also gave us Harry Truman. The only way out now for Democrats is to light up the cigars, close the door and force a Kennedy-Johnson ticket.

The question becomes, who gets to be Kennedy? Surely Barack Obama, who has inspired so many, including, poignantly, JFK’s daughter Caroline, with the similarity. And Hillary, with her sharp elbows, my-way-or-the-highway style and even ham-handed speaking, resembles LBJ. Maybe she even has some of the better angels of his nature, although we would pray she didn’t reach the Oval Office through the same tragic circumstances.

But ah, my foes and oh, my friends, that won’t work. Obama must play the role of the outsized senator from Texas.

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Posted inPolitics: National

An America that tortures, and other nightmares

We have more than a recession. The bottom has fallen out.

We debate whether the United States should torture prisoners. We debate it and the “in favor” argument wins. Not once, but again and again, for years now.

At the birth of the Republic, Gen. Washington forbade the mistreatment of British and Hessian prisoners of war. He hoped we would indeed inaugurate “novus ordo seclorum,” a new order of the ages. Because the Founders knew they were establishing a republic of men and not angels, they set this new order on a firm foundation of the law, particularly a Constitution based on separation of powers and, especially, checks and balances against the excesses of the executive. It wasn’t just that the Founders had rebelled against a king; they took their cues from ancient Rome, and knew how an emperor could use constant war as an instrument to destroy peoples’ liberties.

Constant war and torture.

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Posted inPolitics: National

The problem with the Clintons

In a different world, with different Clintons — the idealized ones, not the real ones — Hill and Bill might have given more serious thought to their current endeavor. If she’s elected, her husband would not only be the first first gentleman, but a former president carrying the influence and power of that position.

George Washington was painfully aware that everything he did set a precedent, so he endeavored to set them with care and character. Bill Clinton set off in his usual fashion, the smartest man in the room, too smart for his own good. The Southern intellectual who forgot the redneck’s last words: "Hey, y’all, watch this!" With the Clintonian combination of recklessness and carelessness, he alone may have cost his wife the nomination by alienating so many in the South Carolina primary.

The Founders of this Republic frowned on anything smacking of the dynastic. And even when sons have followed fathers — twice — it hasn’t worked out well. Not for nothing did George H.W. Bush jokingly call his son "Quincy." The Clintons propose something far closer to real dynasty. He will be there, like his wife before him, as buy-one-get-two co-president. And, as usual, they seemed to be unaware of the magnitude of their ambition, and the care with which it needed to be presented to the nation.

Yet this may be one of the lesser problems with Hillary Clinton.

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