The Democratic Post

Let's take a brief look at current and prospective candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2008:


Hillary Clinton

Pluses: Clear frontrunner in name recognition, can probably raise more money than anyone else, has the benefit of being married to the brightest political mind of our time.

Minuses: Higher negative ratings than anyone ever elected president, probably needs every penny of that bankroll to gain enough momentum to make anti-war Democrats forget that she voted "Aye" on the big issue, has the drawback of being married to the brightest political mind of her generation and she pales in comparison.

Outlook: Hillary HAS to win early and often, or she will be toppled. Has a tough choice to make whether to contest Iowa or move on to New Hampshire. Despite her tough talk on being able to beat the Republicans who she says "fear" her and Bill, Hillary is, in my view, too polarizing a figure to make history and become the first woman president.

Barack Obama

Pluses: Excitement at the mere mention of his name. Charisma, eloquence. Can raise tons of money.

Minuses: Three years ago, Barack Obama was a state senator. Now he's running for president. Is that too far, too fast?

Outlook: I have this sense when I look at Senator Obama that I'm looking at a future president of the United States. I'm just not sure he's taking the oath in 2009. He's a first term senator, he doesn't have much of a record, and he will have to avoid giving people an excuse to say, "Yeah, but...." if he is to make history of his own.

Then again, they said this about John F. Kennedy in 1960, you're too young, you have the Catholic hurdle to overcome, etc....

John Edwards

Pluses: Like Obama, charming and eloquent But Edwards has the advantage of having been through the fire of a national campaign before. Like Hillary, has high name recognition, but without the high negative ratings. Strong so far in Iowa, and a win there would give him tremendous momentum going into New Hampshire. Has a clear sense of where he wants to take the country.

Minuses: Has he tacked too far to the left in the effort to outflank Hillary? Also, Edwards only had one term in the Senate and thus can't present himself as the credentials candidate. Hillary has the resume, Obama has the excitement. What does Edwards have?

Outlook: Everyone is so obsessed with the possibility of the first female president, the first black president. Guess what? In all likelihood, it's probably going to be another white male. That's unfortunate, but I lived in a "red" state for 25 years. Maybe here in Massachusetts we don't see color or gender as much, but come on. It's still there. And as tacky as this sounds, this is good for Edwards. He said last week on Bill Maher's show that he's perfectly comfortable with the idea of being people's second choice as long as he ends up with the nomination. And he just might.

The Rest

Biden, Dodd, Vilsack, Kucinich, etc.

Well, Vilsack dropped out today in a concession to
A. Reality
and
B. The fact that he was the governor of Iowa until last month and yesterday he was polling fifth in Iowa behind Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Mayor George Shinn of River City.

Anyway, none of these guys are going to be the nominee. Every four years somebody runs for president even though they're running behind the "Also Receiving Votes" asterisk in the polls. They do it because they remember Jimmy Carter in 1976, criscrossing Iowa for a year and a half and catching fire just at the right time. Well, lightning strikes are remarkable because they are rare. Oh, and stop saying Bill Clinton came out of nowhere in 1992. If you didn't know about him in 1991, you weren't paying attention.

So there you have it. In all likelihood, it's Hillary, Obama, or Edwards. My guess and my preference is John Edwards, provided that one remaining possible candidate declines to make the race. Yeah, I know, I spoiled the surprise by posting his picture. C'mon Al. Run for president. Save the planet.

The Calvin and Hobbes Post

The Sorkin Post

Last night NBC aired what may very well be the last episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, this show clearly suffered in the shadow of it's spiritual predecessor, The West Wing. People expected this tremendous show that captured the imagination the way Wing did when it premiered in 1999. NBC certainly expected a hit, something that would drive ratings and haul in advertising dollars, particularly among the key 18 to 49 year old demographic.

There was just one problem with this scenario: Studio 60 isn't (wasn't?) as good as The West Wing. It was good, but not good enough given the inevitable comparisons. The cast of the new show didn't measure up to that of the old show, but the larger problem is this: when you go from the White House to a late night comedy show, inevitably you lower the stakes. What's the worst thing that can happen to the characters on Studio 60? Their show gets canceled, which ironically is the worst case scenario for its real life creator. That scenario is about to play out, and the reasons why are clear.

Having said that, the seemingly inevitable cancellation of Studio 60 says something about our taste, does it not? Don't judge Studio 60 against the West Wing, judge it against what's on television now. Intelligent shows like Studio 60 don't belong on television anymore, not opposite shows where contestants eat live cockroaches. Maybe the American viewing public is happier watching the formulaic sitcom where the mom is hot, the dad is a slovenly idiot, and the kids are snarky observers of the family chaos. Why don't we just combine all those sitcoms into one and call it The King of Everyone Who Loves Two Guys Til Death and make room for ONE show that entertains and makes people think at the same time? Because it would just make room for yet another night of American Idol, that's why.

The Sorensen Post

This afternoon, I attended a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. The topic was presidential speechwriters, and the main attraction was Theodore Sorensen. While Mr. Sorensen is not a household name, he's without question the best known presidential speechwriter in American history. My friends who only casually follow politics will not know Mr. Sorensen's name. They will likely, however, recognize this little phrase that Mr. Sorensen wrote: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Actually, many historians think that Kennedy himself wrote that quote, but there is no denying that Ted Sorensen wrote most if not all of JFK's speeches. It was even alleged that Sorensen was the ghostwriter who penned Profiles in Courage, a Pulitzer Prize winning book authored by Senator John F. Kennedy. Sorensen was the star attraction at this forum. Also on the dais was Ray Price, the man who wrote Nixon's resignation speech, and speechwriters for George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. But at this venue, in this city, the other three guests might as well have been shadows for the relative attention that they received. I have to admit, given the opportunity to ask a question (okay, fine, I showed up early to be able to sit closest to the Q&A microphone) I directed my question to none other than Ted Sorensen. (He said it was a thoughtful question, by the way.)

It was an interesting afternoon. All of the panelists were informed and engaging. The forum was very well attended, with the large auditorium filled to capacity and then some. But the lingering image for me doesn't spring from the forum at all. It's from something that happened before I even walked in the door.

As I said, I arrived early. On the way in, I passed a limousine on Columbia Road headed toward the library. Sure enough, Ted Sorensen was the passenger. So I arrived and parked, and I walked in just behind him. I was struck by how delicately he moved. He was assisted into the library by a young woman who grasped his arm to steady him and he proceeded very slowly inside. Later, when he ascended the dais in the auditorium, he again moved quite gingerly while taking his place.

Now this is unavoidable. The man was born in 1928. Of course he's not going to rocket up the stairs like a seventeen year old. Still, I was struck by the irony. Here we were in a library dedicated to the memory of a president frozen in our memories as a young man, and his much younger adviser needs assistance getting in the door. That's how much time has passed since John F. Kennedy was president. Does it seem that long to Mr. Sorensen? Does it sometimes seem like it was yesterday? That's the question I would have liked to ask him. I didn't, because I wanted to pose a scholarly question, and I also didn't want to inject a melancholy note into the proceedings. But that's what lingers in the mind. That, and how different JFK was from the president we have now.

The Wikipedia Post

This evening, I read an article on ESPN.com about the imminent retirement of Frank Broyles, who has been either football coach or athletic director at the University of Arkansas since 1958. This led me to look up something on Wikipedia related to this event, where I read the following sentence: "Houston Nutt is married to his wife, Diana."

Really? He's married to his wife? That's amazing! How did he manage that?!?

And here, folks, is why Wikipedia is a bad thing. ANYONE CAN EDIT IT. This is not good. If we're going to have a widely accessed online reference tool available for anyone to edit, then we're only helping the sort of people who want Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments shown after An Inconvenient Truth because we need to hear both sides of the argument on global warming.

The Nixon Post

Continuing with the apparently unavoidable theme of each post having nothing to do with the previous one, let us now discuss Richard Milhous Nixon.

I am not a fan of history learned by television. My cousin will bring up something about a president and I'll ask where he got that information and invariably he will reply, "Oh, I saw it on the History Channel." Now, don't get me wrong, I would much prefer that people take enough of an interest in history to at least watch it on television. But to my mind, there is no substitute for a good thick book on the subject. Serious history is far too shaded with subtlety and imbued with meaning to be told in 44 minutes with 16 set aside for Cialis ads.

So it may come as a surprise that last night I watched a portion of the History Channel's examination of the Nixon Presidency. They called it "Nixon: A Presidency Revealed" and then proceeded to "reveal" Watergate for two hours.

Now, I'm no fan of Richard Nixon. I wasn't even alive in 1960 and I have a Kennedy campaign poster from that year hanging from my office wall. But I am a fan of the idea that history shouldn't reduce important figures to one line epitaphs. For instance, the word "Iraq" will undoubtedly appear in George W. Bush's obituary someday. Which is fine, but hey, let's not forget about all the other things he's fucked up in the last six years!

You might think I'm making the same point as Nixon, but I'm not. What gets lost in the History Channelization of Richard Nixon is why he matters beyond Watergate, and the sum of that relevance is enormous. His story is told badly by contemporary historians, in a way that not only doesn't account for his accomplishments, it's also just bad storytelling. In his farewell speech, Nixon said, "Only when you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." The problem is, the people who learn about Nixon from the History Channel only hear about his journey in the deep valley of Watergate. You never hear about Nixon on the highest mountain.

I'm not just talking about Nixon going to China, although that was a stunning diplomatic triumph. Nixon brilliantly played China and the Soviet Union off of each other to get a good arms treaty for the United States, paving the way for the end of the Cold War. Nixon was the one who carried out the desegregation policies that were largely theoretical before he became president. He planned an ambitious and surprisingly progressive domestic agenda that really would have been "compassionate conservatism." He contributed to the quality of American life in many relatively unnoticed ways - the creation of the Product Safety Commission comes to mind.

So, in the end, yes, Nixon was a bastard. He was intensely paranoid and maintained a fierce hatred for his enemies, both real and perceived. The excesses of his conduct and the abuse of his presidential power are documented fact. The Watergate scandal, for which he rightfully bears responsibility, produced a constitutional crisis in this country unrivaled since the Civil War. Perhaps most importantly, Watergate eroded the public's confidence in the presidency and government as a whole, and I'm not sure that trust has ever been fully regained. All of these things are true, and deserve to be the lead item and focus of any biography of Richard Nixon. But what makes Nixon a great story is that while he routinely ranks among the worst presidents, he could have been one of the very best if not for his flaws. Maybe they could mention that before they cut to the commercial break.

The Katrina Post

I'm typing this from my comfortable residence in Medford, Massachusetts. But before Hurricane Katrina, I called New Orleans home. Here are a couple of pictures from my 1st trip back, in September of 2006.

What you see below are two photos of the first game back in the Louisiana Superdome after Katrina. The New Orleans Saints, who spent the entire 2005 season on the road, occasionally practicing in parking lots for lack of space, took on the Atlanta Falcons in a nationally televised game on Monday Night Football. U2 and Green Day performed before the game, and former president George H.W. Bush did the coin toss. A multitude of celebrities descended upon New Orleans for this game. The top photo was taken immediately after the emotional win by the Saints. Immediately below is an odd but interesting shot of Saints rookie Reggie Bush arriving at the Superdome in his brand new Hummer.

Still further down you see evidence of not only destruction but neglect. These pictures were taken more than a year after Katrina, and clearly nothing had been done. I drove through the streets of the Ninth Ward in my goofy rental car, and it was like driving through a ghost town. This was an area I knew well. I used to drive through this neighborhood every day to get to work. I would pass through the Ninth Ward before dawn and even then there was activity. Now, on a Monday afternoon, it was deathly still, and that's the correct phrase.

It may seem incongruous to post pictures from a football game next to those from a natural disaster. Many people have been critical that the Superdome was fixed before neighborhoods were rebuilt. There are a couple of points about that I want to make:

-First of all, I had to flee that storm with my wife, our two dogs and four cats. We stayed in a motel for as long as we could. Then we had to burden her aunt and uncle, spent weeks wondering when we could go home, wondering if everything we owned was destroyed. I spent hours online trying to find out if the kids I taught for three years survived the 20 foot storm surge that destroyed St. Bernard Parish. Then we had to burden MY aunt and uncle for five months until I found a job to replace the one Katrina took from me. And this is the Cliff's Notes version of the experience! The point is, I don't want to hear criticism about how things are done in New Orleans from people who don't know what Pat O'Brien's is, who can't pronounce Tchoupitoulas because they never drove on that street, who don't know what it means when you find the baby in the king cake.

- Second, look at the people reaching out to Reggie Bush in those pictures. Look at the people in the crowd cheering after the game. You can see what this meant to them. They NEEDED this. I grant you that these are mostly white faces, and you wouldn't have seen those faces in the Ninth Ward even before Katrina. But I talked to rich white people who arrived at the Superdome in a Lexus, and I talked to the black fellow who drove me there in his taxi, and they held the same opinion that this was a good thing. Hell, it meant more to the guy driving the cab because he finally had another Saints game to generate business.

- Finally, I don't really expect many people to see these pictures, because I don't expect many people to see this blog. It's mostly for my own amusement. I'll get my friends to check it out, and that will be about it. But I feel about this post kind of the way I felt about teaching. Whenever I would get frustrated trying to help a kid who wouldn't or couldn't help himself, I would remind myself that if just one student benefitted from what I taught, then that in itself was a victory. And so if just one person - someone in my family, a colleague from work - ANYBODY - remembers what happened in New Orleans from seeing this post, then mission accomplished.

The Emersonian Post

Anything written alongside a photograph like this ought to be Emersonian, reflecting a love of nature and beauty. I realize Thoreau would have been a better reference but how would you write that? Thoreauzian? Thoreauistic?

Anyway, the point is...well, I'm not sure. Maybe the photograph says more than I could even if you gave me the stereotypical thousand words to work with.

-Photo taken at Camp Clement in Maine on a quiet afternoon in November of 2006