Historian Richard Reeves

August 30, 2008

Who is Prepared to be President? Nobody

By Richard Reeves

Article HERE

...On Perspective

Ah, time to flush politics out of the system. It has made me cranky for 36 hours and I want to move on. Bottom line, politics is a fun game to follow, like baseball, but there are only two teams and one is going to win and one is going to lose. So it's like a death match between Yankee fans and Red Sox fans that spirals into infinity. When there are 30 teams it is not as intense because every year 29 groups of fans will be ultimately disappointed. When there are only 2 teams fans can get way too involved.

As long as the system is in place (democracy and capitalism) and neither team is really trying to change much (and people they're not) and we step back and realize that Presidents don't make laws, we need to understand it will all be okay.

If anyone has the time (and they don't) go back to the last four or five presidential elections and list what the candidates wanted to do and promised to do and what they actually did. No matter who wins in November nothing monumental will change (or at least the odds are highly against it). Since 1976 there have been no earth-shaking policy shifts on the domestic front--yes, the size of government and taxes has ebbed and flowed and safety nets have been strengthened to some extent but its more of the same. The biggest giant in the forest often is the most content. The ratings Obama's speech hit is half of what the Super Bowl reaches and less than the Academy Awards or most nights of the Olympics.

Pols fight and curse and rage over minute issues that rarely alter the big picture. Don't sweat the small stuff. Even I have to remind myself of it sometimes. Our last two presidents had big promises and a few years each of a Congress of their own party and came through with little memorable (NAFTA, Welfare Reform, Lower Taxes, Homeland Security) and even blunders (Impeachment, Iraq) have done little to slow the juggernaut of the USA. Congress holds the power and if you can't tame Congress you're not going to get much done. Pelosi and Reid will be as much of a pain to President Obama as they will to President McCain. Congress wants to wet their beaks as much as the next guy. The Washington establishment isn't going anywhere.

• Think of it, 16 years and only two presidents. The only time that has happened in our history was 1801-1825 when the Virginia Dynasty of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe gave us 3 in 24 years and the 20 year interim of FDR and Truman between 1933-1953.

• As much as a solid minority of Americans lust for change, the mob known as the majority doesn't much care for it.

• I probably won't comment on politics for a while. I take everything personally and an attack on my essence. That's why I could never be a politician, I can't cage the emotional aspect.
  

...On First Impressions--Sarah Palin

I pray that Sarah Palin has thick skin, because the wolves are circling. Hell, they're are already pouncing. (See Dee Dee Meyer in Vanity Fair for an instant attack and Barbara Boxer's two cents). "Heartbeat away", "Dangerous" "Dan Qualye 2"etc. Her life will never be the same.

I, like almost everyone in the lower 48 states, have only recently heard her name (about 3 months ago for myself) and are really only looking at her closely in the last 24 hours. I'm sure the Alaska State page will crash today.

McCain has made a bold choice and a wonderfully scary calculated-choice. Roll the dice! He didn't go with the safe pick like Obama did. Between Obama's speech last night and McCain's pick today we have reached the end of the beginning of this crazy campaign and have truly entered the next phase.

Obama got his McCain in the form of Joe Biden and now McCain's gone with a Obama/Hillary hybrid (young, female, outsider, reformer)

I don't mind the Democrats and their talking head's comments. What do you expect? "The Republicans picked a Republican as their VP?! Pro-life? Pro-Individual gun ownership!? Pro-property!? Free Markets!? Less Government?! An Alaskan who likes OIL! Outrageous!" It reminds me of all the anger in the noosphere when the Catholic Church had the audacity to pick a Catholic as pope. What really matters is how Palin will play with Republicans and the all important fence-sitters.

Reading up on Palin there is much to like for conservatives and libertarians and reformers. She may be a little too evangelical for my own personal tastes but you can't get everything. My first impressions are good (almost exciting), but we'll all have to wait and see.

Other Related stories

Mark Steyn comes out firing at the left

Jay Cost on PALIN Calculate Risk

New York Times

National Review's TAKE

AP Analysis on inexperience between Palin and Obama

VIDEO of Speech

The Economist

From Peggy Noonan

Just a bit from the most recent column by Peggy Noonan (former speech writer for Reagan) from the Democratic National Convention. I often enjoy her insight, especially when concerning the political trenches.

Michelle Obama's speech was solid, but not a home run. First impression: She is so beautiful. Beautifully dressed, beautifully groomed, confident, smiling, a compelling person. But her speech seemed to me more the speech of a candidate, and not a candidate's spouse. It was full of problems and issues. I continue to be of the Dennis Thatcher School of Political Spouses: Let the candidate do the seriousness of the issues, you do the excellence of the candidate. This is old fashioned but nonetheless I think still applicable. It has made Laura Bush (with a few forays into relatively anodyne policy questions) the most popular First Lady in modern American political history. Another problem with the Michelle speech. In order to paint both her professional life and her husband's, and in order to communicate what she feels is his singular compassion, she had to paint an America that is darker, sadder, grimmer, than most Americans experience their country to be. And this of course is an incomplete picture, an incorrectly weighted picture. Sadness and struggle are part of life, but so are guts and verve and achievement and success and hardiness and…triumph. Democrats always get this wrong. Republicans get it wrong too, but in a different way.

Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.

Who happen, also, to be a generally beset-upon group.

Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.

Neither party ever gets it quite right, the balance between the taxed and the needy, the suffering of one sort and the suffering of another. You might say that in this both parties are equally cold and equally warm, only to two different classes of citizens.

Basic Peggy Noonan info HERE: You'll probably be shocked by how many of Reagan's great speeches were hers

...On Life

George Weigel (Catholic social activist and biographer of Pope John Paul II) writes a very serious essay for Newsweek regarding the recent statements regarding life and abortion from Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

WEIGEL_NEWSWEEK

You can see video of the Meet the Press segment with Pelosi being interviewed by Tom Brokaw HERE. All I can say is wow, what a terrible response to a very serious question. She had to have seen this question coming. How can you be a politician for so long and not have a strong abortion canned statement regardless of your position? Speaker of the House, eh? She couldn't have been more clueless about Catholic doctrine. At least Brokaw stepped in once.

Pelosi's "And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that," statement regarding the Catholic Church's firm stance of the beginning of life is cringe-worthy.

The whole Meet the Press transcript can be found here.

...On Poetry

Babel

We surround ourselves in mythical worlds—the dreams of others, long dead. They shroud our barbarity—the essence of pain and violence and lust that cores our evolution. We play games concocted by dreamers—that assuage our boredom—that give us respite from the tug of war and death and heartbreak. Each new generation of dreamers pulls on these flights of fancy as they do clothes—shields to shelter us from the drudge of years. Some dream of new fashion, new armor, others of burning it all down—taking us back to the substance of our lives—to the base realm of humans as apes—bent on creation and destruction—a cycle of environmental metaphysics—manipulation of destiny and passion and words.

Rarely do we ask, why? Why should this all continue? Why do we love layers of falsehoods and joyous deceptions? Because they keep us warm at night and during the long hours of day. If not, we would certainly kill each other until the fields were awash in bones and ash. All this because we are floating the perfect distance from the sun. Because we tell ourselves we have purpose—that we have logic—that we can create theorems and rhythms and piece together an understand of why. That we matter.

It seduces us and drives us forward. Because we need to paste mud over our broken hearts. Because we lust for the unattainable. Because we hallucinate over love we can never have—objects and titles we think will give us ecstasy—a higher plane of being. We make idols to worship—fragile ones made of powdered glass and wisps of straw. We build them higher and higher, our own personalized towers of Babel—lifted onto pedestals and positioned behind glass—dreams made to fall, to crumble, to bury, and to be forgotten.

We are cowards of flesh and marrow. We are creatures of lies and perversions.

Because we dare not live any other way.

...On Cliff Lee

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, just haven't felt it. But I wanted to chat a little about baseball today. It is no big secret that the Cleveland Indians have been a big disappointment since they were only 1 game from making the World Series last year. They have played better since the All-Star break, though getting to .500 seems to be the only realistic goal now. They are 9 under right now but they were 16 back at one point so here's to optimism.

Anyway the one big bright spot this year (though Grady Sizemore has had a nice year so far) is Cliff Lee. Not to jinx him, but he is leading the AL in both wins, ERA, and strike-out to walk ratio. He is the front runner for the CY Young award. That would give the Indians that award two years in a row. Pretty rare. For a guy who was sent down to Triple-A last season and left off the post-season roster that's pretty darn good.

He makes me tune in for Indians games. I love his determination on the mound. But he also comes off a little laid back. He loves to pound the strike zone, which is a must for big league pitchers.

FYI Cliff Lee will be pitching against the Tigers (I believe) next Tuesday. I know more Tiger fans read this than Indian fans. So you can get the change to see Lee pitch. If you are a Tiger fan you'll want to know that they clobbered Lee the last time they faced him. It was Lee's worst start of the year. He have up 6 runs. Time for some revenge. Go Tribe!

Here is a good article about Lee from ESPN

Poetry: Der Kriegsglück, IX-XI

These next three parts of Der Kriegsglück fit better with the poem as a whole and don't hold up quite as well by themselves.

IX.

Mince the bodies. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Torsos and heads.

Hands and limbs.

Die. Kill.

Mold yourself in the dirt.

Under the tank treads.

Fall in upon the game.

There, a smart knock of skulls.

Now’s the time. Pop. Pop. Pop.

It’s time. It’s time.

Stand tall in face of death.

Hurl fists. Pump up chests.

Smell the burning fire.

Fall in upon the grave.

X.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation.

A wasteland. Smog and smoke.

A winter evening, burning coke.

Beyond the eyelids is the fire

Can you taste it? Can you hear it?

The flash of Russian death. (Of death by fire.)

Crowded trenches. Bodies deep.

The heirs of empire.

Clogged with blood and promises.

So many a forgotten daughter.

Throats long for baptism water.

XI.

Listen to letters.

Hold that cross tight.

Pictures in backpacks.

Lovers in dreams.

Breasts and legs and lips.

Warmth they never knew.

Lost in the shuddering bodies of comrades.

Dying eyes. Bloody mouths.

To wives. And girlfriends.

To nights in another world.

The peace of the sheets.

R.I.P. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This would have been more timely of a post, but my monitor is almost kaput. I can barely see what I'm writing. But I wanted to mark the passing of one of the most influential men of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn just didn't survive the Gulag, he made it known to the world what the Communists and Stalin were doing to crush the spirit of the individual. His most famous book, The Gulag Archipelago, published in 1973, was a dagger in the side of the USSR. It is a painful and brilliant breakdown of what he sadly called, "The History of Our Sewage Disposal System." Unfortunately the sewage were human beings. Anyone with nostalgia for the USSR or Che or Mao just needs to read this book and see what an "Idea" can lead to. If fiction based on fact is more up your alley his best is the novella, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

I could go on, but the monitor is hurting my eyes. I'll leave you with three additional articles written about him upon his death and a link to his famous/infamous Harvard address.

An Icon of His Age by The Economist

Stronger than the Gulag by Anne Applebaum

The Man who Kept on Writing by Christopher Hitchens

A World Split Apart by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, June 8th 1978

Harry Potter World

Just announced that JK Rowling is publishing The Tales of Beedle the Bard in December. It is a collection of five fairy tales translated by Hermione Granger.

AMAZON LINK for More Info