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Is Giuliani "White" Enough?

There's a lot of talk these days about Senator Barack Obama's racial identity: "Is Obama black enough?" The question has become a kind of shorthand for a national discussion of the Illinois senator's mixed-race, international background and what it might mean for him as a presidential candidate. It plunges us into our oldest dilemma--the social construction of race and its meanings in the American polity. Who counts as "black"--whether measured by the old, ugly concept of "one drop of blood" or the new, indeterminate notion of authenticity of experience--is an issue it seems we've never been able to escape. And until our country achieves true racial justice, equality and harmony, I suppose it will always be with us. Race still matters so much in America. That might sound depressing--and it is in many ways--but it's better to talk about it--to open up our preconceptions and labels and misunderstandings to a searching examination and a freewheeling discussion--than to sweep it all under the rug as somehow too intimate, too painful, too troubling, too rude to raise in a presidential campaign.  Sunshine is the best disinfectant, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis liked to say. Obama himself has clearly thought deeply about these matters, and the excitement surrounding his candidacy stems in part from what he has to say about us as a multi-racial nation with a history scarred--and ennobled--by our struggle over racial difference, power and justice. His remarkable autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is a deeply moving contribution to this discussion. But I'd like to flip the question about Obama in a way, just to see what we might come up with here. So, instead of asking, "Is Obama black enough?" how about asking, "Is Rudolph Giuliani white enough?" Huh? Well, just as "blackness" is an identity we invent and impose on each other (a "socially constructed concept," as they say), so is "whiteness." And "whiteness"--or the "lack" of it--might also have important political ramifications. Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III is a proud Italian-American; both his mom and his dad were immigrants. He was mayor of New York City--perhaps the world's greatest experiment in diversity. And he's running for president in the Republican Party, a party that even former chairman Ken Mehlman has acknowledged faces genuine problems reaching out to non-whites. In 2000, George W. Bush won 62 percent of white males--and lost the popular vote. Bush won 60 percent of the white male vote in 2004--and just 50.7 percent of the overall vote. As any GOP strategist will tell you privately, the Republican Party has become too dependent on white male voters. So what does this have to do with Giuliani? He's a white guy, right? Well, yes and no. Who counts as white in America has been a fluid concept in our history, and Italians have only recently--and perhaps incompletely in some quarters--been admitted to the racial club. It was just 85 years ago, in 1922, in the fascinating case of Rollins v. Alabama, that a black man named Jim Rollins was tried and convicted for "miscegenation"--the crime of having sex with a white woman. On appeal, Rollins' conviction was overturned because the woman in question, Ms. Edith LaBue, was a Sicilian immigrant, a fact that the court held could "in no sense be taken as conclusive that she was therefore a white woman." (Anyone who's read William Faulkner's novels will recognize the Alabama court's unease about calling a Sicilian woman white.) Italians--like Irish, Jews, Poles, Greeks and now Hispanics and others--have struggled in our history to achieve "whiteness." It's not a given--not a fixed characteristic. It's always been a designation granted to a group by the dominant culture. But that's a done deal for Italian-Americans, long ago. They're white--now. But the question for Giuliani is whether there is some shadow, some echo of the old attitudes in how some voters might approach his candidacy. Giuliani is at odds with Republican base voters on several major issues: abortion, gay rights, gun control, immigration. His positions on these matters--combined with his background--confront Republicans with a distinctly "urban" candidate--an ethnic son of immigrants at ease with the roiling racial and social diversity of the big city that many GOP voters see as a threat to their notion of America. This is a party, after all, that has nominated precisely one ethnic immigrant candidate for national office in its history--Greek-American Spiro Agnew (the Roosevelts and Eisenhowers had been in America for centuries). Republicans have never nominated a Catholic for national office. Democrats have a different record--Irish-Americans Al Smith, John Kennedy and John Kerry; Polish-American Edmund Muskie; Norwegian-American Walter Mondale; Italian-American Geraldine Ferraro; Greek-American Michael Dukakis; Jewish-American Joseph Lieberman. Look at a map of the 2004 election results, county by county. What you see is a nation divided by diversity. Rudy Giuliani's candidacy challenges that division, and raises the question: Is he white enough? So the Giuliani candidacy might tell us something about today's Republican Party. And about America.

February 16, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (82) | TrackBack (0)

Pelosi's plane

"We're Article One."

That's what former Speaker of the House Jim Wright liked to say. Wright was talking about the place of Congress in the Constitution: It comes first in the document, right after the preamble. Jim Wright, who was not a bashful man, believed placement was prerogative in constitutional law; Congress came first because the Framers saw it as primus inter pares, as the first among the co-equal branches, the main driver of our national experiment in representative democracy simply because it was closest to the people. Wright was right; that's a standard scholarly reading of the document, as well.

Jim Wright's institutional claims come to mind in the wake of the ridiculous flap over what kind of government plane the current Speaker of the House should be able to fly. By now, you surely know the story (or should, if you've been following my ABC colleague Jake Tapper's excellent coverage of it): Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California is now the leading constitutional officer of Congress--i.e., she's Speaker. Second in the line of succession to the presidency. She's a Democrat. She's a woman. She's a liberal. Her predecessor was Rep. Denny Hastert of Illinois. He's a Republican. He's a man. He's a conservative.

After the 9/11 attacks, Speaker Hastert was, for security reasons, given "shuttle service" by Pelosi military transport to and from his congressional district in Illinois. This year, citing the same security concerns, the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives asked the Department of Defense to provide a plane that could get Speaker Pelosi to and from her district in California--which would require a bigger and costlier plane than Hastert used.

What did the Bush administration do? Leak the story--to The Washington Times, a kind of house organ for conservatives in the capital. And sit back and watch the flap.

This is hardly bipartisan comity between the branches of our government. Moreover, it seems downright disrespectful. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker. Deal with it. If security requires the constitutional officer of Congress to fly military transport to and from her district, then fly her. The Sergeant at Arms requested "non-stop flights, unless such an aircraft is unavailable." Seems eminently reasonable. BUT--and here's complaint (or perhaps the fake complaint, given how much GOP lawmakers have used military transport over the past several years)--it will cost more. Perhaps a few million dollars a year more.

The federal budget will soon exceed $2.9 trillion. The "burn rate" of the war in Iraq is more than $8 billion a month. $12 billion in cash vanished into thin air in Iraq. The Capitol Visitors Center is $335 million over budget. And Congress is Article I.

Do the math.

February 8, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (67) | TrackBack (0)

Hate Speech: A response

Thanks to all who have weighed in on the issue of John Edwards' "blogmaster" Amanda Marcotte. All voices and views are welcome here. The whole point of "Pushback" is to provoke a discussion, to take a look at the news and start talking about it. And that, of course, is the hope of the blogosphere--a place where hard facts, sharp opinions, original insights and roiling passions combine to deepen and extend our national debate. With any luck, it'll make us all smarter and better citizens. So: I truly appreciate all who have pushed back at me here.

Let's continue.

First, a lot of you have objected to my suggestion that some of what Marcotte has written "might well be construed as hate speech." Here's what I hope is a representative sampling of some of those objections:

Posted by: Karen | Feb 7, 2007 1:20:57 PM: "The title of this post is absolutely ridiculous. None of those posts are hate speech. But nice attempt at silencing free speech, Mr. Moran."

Posted by: Seth | Feb 6, 2007 8:07:57 PM: "This is hardly hate speech. It may be raw and not my style, but it doesn't fall within the parameters of hate speech. Perhaps you're thinking of Limbaugh, Colter and Savage? They are the real experts on hate speech in commercial blog/radio show America today."

Posted by: Mark | Feb 7, 2007 2:51:36 PM: "Apparenlty Terry Moran has never read Blogs before, because if he had, he would realize that these remarks are hardly "hate speech", espeically when considering the lovely langugage Malkin, Coulter, and Limbaugh use on a daily basis."

A couple of points. First, it seems to me that trashing the sacred beliefs of another person in sexually explicit or scatological terms for the purpose of wounding and delegitimizing the other person could fairly be construed as hateful. The gutter is always the comfortable resort of haters. That's why white supremacists use the word "n*****" and slander all black men by portraying them as sexually predatory beasts; that's why antisemites repeat the blood libel. For another disgusting example of this kind of discourse, check out what "James" wrote about Islam in response to my post on Edwards and Marcotte (at 2:40:24 PM EDT); pure hatred, in my view.

There are all kinds of ways to dispute what another person says or believes. Sometimes, giving offense is a great way to make a point, to get heard, to break through the unspoken oppression of certain views. But to seek to obliterate the legitimacy of another person's faith or other allegiances--and wound them in the process with the vilest terminology--isn't debate. It's rhetorical gangsterism.

There are plenty of examples of this tactic across the airwaves, the Internet and campaigns these days. A lot of what Ann Coulter has said could certainly be construed as hate speech; Rep. Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised the issue in the last election, demanding that Republicans "denounce Ann Coulter's hate speech." When the Catholic League's Bill Donahue declares, ""Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular," that could be construed as hateful (and stupid). Rush Limbaugh comparing liberals to cockroaches could be construed as classic eliminationist rhetoric, used by haters for centuries to avoid real debate against their opponents, delegitimizing and dehumanizing those who disagree with them. The list goes on--on both the right and the left.

Now, it's a free country. Rush Limbaugh can spew all the hatred he wants. So can Ann Coulter, Amanda Marcotte, or me. But political leaders are different. In order for a government of compromise, consensus and common sacrifice to work, we expect our leaders to disavow hate, to conduct our public business in a manner respectful of all our citizens, consistent with our best traditions. Hate breaks down the sinews of the body politic and sets us against each other as enemies to be defeated. This is fatal to a diverse, democratic republic. Lincoln, as usual, said it best: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." And so it seems fair to me that we ask politicians who embrace those who spew what might be construed as hatred whether they endorse or disavow it. That goes for Vice President Cheney--who is a regular guest on Limbaugh's program--or for John Edwards, who has hired Amanda Marcotte. This isn't about censorship. It's about leadership.

Second, there's the issue of the blogoshpere itself. A lot of people have told me that what Marcotte and others (liberal and conservative) are writing is just par for the course out there. Blogs, I'm told, are different. They're new--they're edgy--they're breaking the boundaries of old-fogey media and ushering in a new era of public discourse. I buy a lot of that. But speech is still speech. And hate is still hate. If you call a black man a "n*****" on a blog, it's just as offensive as shouting it in his face. It seems to me that bloggers (and those who post comments on them) sometimes forget this; the lack of a flesh-and-blood interlocutor and the anonymity the internet offers unleash the rhetorical beast in us. Rage, vituperation, insult, slur, infantile taunting--you see a lot of that on many blogs. That, I am told, is just the rough-and-tumble world of bloggers, having at each other and everyone else with raw gusto, just like those old pamphleteers to whom they are so often compared. OK, fine, whatever. But you don't get a pass from the tenets of basic decency in civil discourse just because you blog.

Third, my bro. Many of you have noted that I am the brother of Rick Moran, who writes the Right Wing Nuthouse blog, and you have concluded that I am somehow in cahoots with Rick, or share his view of the world. For the record, I had no idea Rick was writing about this subject when I posted yesterday. But far more important: I love my brother something fierce. I am very proud of him. We do not agree on many, many things (as decades of uncomfortably loud dinner table disagreements have demonstrated). In no way do I endorse anything he writes; that's not for me to do here. But I will never disavow him. I will always defend him as an honorable man. And I really don't care what anyone says about it. He is my brother.

Finally, can we all lighten up a little? In that spirit, try this little piece of internet genius: http://roxik.com/pictaps/. Have fun.

February 7, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (124) | TrackBack (0)

Does John Edwards Condone Hate Speech?

A bit of a tempest is brewing over the strident and profanity-laced writings of John Edwards' official campaign "blogmaster," Amanda Marcotte. She joined the Edwards campaign last week, and she's already gotten a lot of attention.

At issue are Marcotte's comments on her own blog, Pandagon (http://www.pandagon.net/), which has staked out a prominent place in the left-wing blogosphere. It's pretty strong stuff; her comments about other people's faiths could well be construed as hate speech.

Questions: What, if anything, does it tell us about Edwards that he's joined up with this blogger? Is Edwards' association with a person who has written these things a legitimate issue for voters, as they wonder--among other things--whom he might appoint to high office if he's elected? If a Republican candidate teamed up with a right-wing blogger who spewed this kind of venom, how would people react? Is the mere raising of this issue a kind of underhanded censorship, a way of ruling out of bounds some kinds of opinion? Are we all just going to have to get used to a more rough-and-tumble, profane, and even hate-filled public arena in the age of the blogosphere?

ON THE CATHOLIC TEACHINGS ON BIRTH CONTROL:

Last year, Marcotte blasted the Catholic Church's position on birth control: "Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology." (Side note: Would there be a different reaction if John Edwards "blogmaster" had insulted Islam to this degree? Is it "okay" to trash Catholicism--but not Islam?)

ON THE DUKE RAPE CASE:

"I had to listen to how the poor, dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and f***** her against her will--not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."

ON REPUBLICAN VOTERS:

“Voters who are motivated by misogyny, homophobia, and racism aren’t going to leave a racist, misogynist, homophobic party for one that is all those things but just less so.”

ON CHRISTIAN SUPPORTERS OF ISRAEL:

"...on top of the usual motivations behind Christian Zionism—hatred for Muslims, a desire to bring the end of the world, political opportunism and a chance for ministers to make their congregations feel like they are a part of something dramatic and important so their pocketbooks fall opeN..."

ON NASCAR:

“There’s no real reason that NASCAR has to have a political edge to it, much less be some weird symbol of Southern male white supremacy and yet through careful Republican marketing, it has become just that.”

ON THE CRUCIFIXION, FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS, AND TORTURE

"The paradox was this—how can anybody look at the figure of Christ on the cross and think that’s anything but a condemnation of torture? For the thinking person, it clearly is. But for the fundamentalist, that image creates anxiety about death and makes them cling to their hierarchical values even more, and those values include the belief that Muslims are inferior, not-saved, and eligible for torture. They’re going to hell anyway, by the fundie logic, and why should god get all the fun of punishing them and making them suffer?”

February 6, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (629) | TrackBack (0)

Mitt Romney: The Interview

So after spending a long day campaigning in Iowa with Mitt Romney, I was struck by a couple of things: First, the number of people who came out to see him even now, a full year before the caucuses. There were a couple hundred people in both Waterloo and Dubuque--for a candidate with low name recognition at this point in the race. There's clearly a lot of buzz around this guy right now.

And there's something else. This winter, Iowa is burning with presidential political fever--in both parties. Veteran activists and reporters find it striking just how tuned in so many Iowans are to the race at this point, how intense the game's already gotten. This early enthusiasm for the presidential race might stem from many factors--the wide-open nature of this coming contest, the sense many people have that the country's off course somehow--but it also seems to me it's a sign the Bush era is over. Even for many Republicans, the president is a such a thoroughly known quantity--a man who will not surprise anyone and whose course is set in stone--that there is a palpable sense the time has come to look forward. Eagerly.

The other thing that struck me is Mitt Romney himself: He is personable and smart. He's done his homework. He takes tough questions without blinking and dodges them like a member of the great Average Joe's 's squad--just as all top politicians do these days. And he's already got what seems to be a crackerjack team on the ground. Watch for him; he's a real contender.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the sit-down interview I had with him. You can see it on ABC News' World News Sunday, Good Morning America on Monday, and a of course a full report on Nightline Monday night.

I'll be blogging more about it later.

ON PRESIDENT BUSH:

Moran:  “Would you describe yourself as a Bush Republican?”

Romney: “I describe myself as a conservative who I hope will be thought of as a thinking conservative. And that means I don’t just knee jerk react to every issue that comes up. I’m a little different than other folks. I don’t think anyone can be pigeon holed in one particular bucket or another--if you pardon the mix of metaphors. I’ve said, allow people to understand who I am, understand my perspective on issues. Understand where I stand, understand my principles and values and then they can decide whether that’s for them or not.”

Moran:  “So one of the issues before voters will be President Bush’s leadership. Grade him.”

Romney: “Well I don’t give grades to anybody, including myself.”

Moran:  “But that is an issue.  How well has he done?”

Romney: “Well, when I look at President Bush, I respect that he is a man of character and conviction. I don’t believe for a minute those people who ascribe ulterior motives, or say he’s not telling the truth. I think he’s done as well as he believes he can possibly do and he’s done it out of a compassion for this country and a belief that what he is doing is right for America….Has he made any mistakes? Of course, he’s a human being. Clearly our conduct with the conflict in Iraq has not been something which has been perfect. Part of the problem that we face today is a result of the mistakes that we’ve made over the last three years. That being said, our president is a person who is doing his very best, listening to his advisors, and doing whatever he can to help the American people.”

ON IRAQ:

Moran: "Was it the right thing for the United States to invade Iraq?"

Romney: "Well I supported the president at the time. He indicated that based on intelligence we had weapons of mass destruction as a threat to this land. He proposed a solution and I supported it. And I’m not going back and trying to second guess that. I don’t have the data or the inside sources to suggest doing that."

Moran: "We have a lot of data now though.  Would you, knowing what we know now, have supported an invasion against Iraq?"

Romney: "I’ll go back and say again, I wouldn’t make a decision like that without extensive data and analysis, and without the input of a lot of different people. Putting Americas men and women in harms way has to follow a process which has a very high bar to clear. And im not gonna try and go back and look at that particular conflict. But I can tell you what I'd do now. And, that is that, as long as there’s a pathway to success, we ought to pursue that. If the pathway gets closed off and there’s no visible way of achieving our success then you go to plan B. But plan A is to try and achieve a success....But that’s far from being a certain thing. And it may not even be a high probability. But as long as there’s a reasonable probability of success, it’s something you have to pursue. And if you reach a point where milestones aren’t being met, and there’s no prospect of success, then and only then do you consider any other options."

Moran: "So you’d be prepared as president to pull the troops out even if there was no success in Iraq?"

Romney: "I’m not going to describe scenarios I don’t want to think about. We are where we are today."

ON BEING A MORMON

Moran: “You’re a Mormon. Would you describe yourself as a devout Mormon, a true believer?”

Romney: “Absolutely. I’m proud of my faith, part of my heritage. I think the American people respect individuals of faith. That’s the kind of people want to lead the country. I don’t think they get into doctrines and if you will the periphery of a faith. My faith has made me a better person than I would have been otherwise…

Moran:  “You may be the most serious Mormon candidate for president the country has ever had, and a lot of Americans don’t know much about the faith--at some point polygamy was involved, et cetera. Is that a hurdle for you?”

Romney: “I think people are going to not spend a lot of time looking at a religion of a candidate. Everytime I consider our history of the nation, I look back at someone like John F. Kennedy, people thought his faith was going to be an issue that just got overwhelmed by the differences and the perspective and character and viewpoints and issues. When I ran for governor of Mass. At the beginning people said gosh what do you think about his religion? And that was quickly brushed aside and the real issues because the central focus. I think the same thing will happen at the national level. After all I subscribe to what Abraham Lincoln called American's political religion. That is you abide by the constitution and the rule of law. And when you take the oath of office, that’s your highest responsibility.”

Moran:  “I don't want to press you on this. As people get to know you and get to know your faith they may have questions...for example, like do you believe that the garden of Eden was in Missouri  and that Jesus Christ’s Second Coming will be there. Or that God has a physical body? Do you expect those questions? How would you handle them?”

Romney: “I don’t expect those questions. What I expect people to do is to say there are differences between faith, theology is different, but we don’t judge a candidate based on the theology of the religion they grew up in. my family’s heritage is in our faith and I’m proud of that. But I’m not going to go through and cafeteria style talk about each doctrine, and which I accept. That’s not the nature of a campaign. As Dr. Richard Lance said, I’m not running for pastor in chief. And the differences between faith really aren’t what’s critical. Instead I look at the commonality of faith. And in our faith, like the other faiths in this land, we try and serve others with compassion. We believe in a divine creator. We believe in the family nature of humankind, we believe in marriage, and devotion to our spouse, and to our kids.”

January 28, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)

Let's Talk About It: Hillary

Well, I certainly seem to have struck a nerve with that post on Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

Some of you took the opportunity to voice your opinions of her fitness--or unfitness--for office, depending on your point of view. Thanks, but that's not a discussion for me.

What really struck me was the range of opinions on the issue I raised: Does the fact that Senator Clinton's rise to national prominence came in part because of her marriage to Bill Clinton matter at all as Americans consider her candidacy for president?

Some of you felt that her rise to power has depended too much on the marriage she made, clouding our perceptions of her real strengths and weaknesses. Here's how End the Oligarchy put it:

"If you look at Hilary's advantages, they're all tied to her marriage. Money, through the network and connections of her husband, near universal name recognition because of her time as first lady, and seeming inevitability because of the Democrats' strong regard for President Clinton's record in the White House. Sure, she's smart, hardworking, tough, but none of those things would make her much more than a successful lawyer, let alone a Senator or a legitimate stakeholder in the run for the White House. She lacks charisma, she's not a particularly warm or eloquent speaker, she's diligent, but she's not an amazing legislator. I can't think of anything she's accomplished offhand."

A lot of people disagreed with End the Oligarchy.

My wife, for one. When she read the post, she had a straightforward response:"How do we know that Bill would have been president if he hadn't married Hillary?" She's right, of course. A marriage is a partnership, a journey with incalculable consequences for each person in every aspect of life. Bill Clinton would probably be the first to acknowledge this truth. That it took my wife telling me in order for me to grasp it says something. I'd prefer not to speculate about what.

Others echoed my wife's point, in more pointed fashion. Joan wrote earlier today:

"I love how men take all the credit for their successes and half the credit for their wives. Whether the topic is parenting or politics, they seem to manage to take time out of their busy schedules to co-opt the "little woman's" curtain call.

Here's an article you'll never see written by a man: 'How HIllary Got Bill to the White House.'"

OK. I get it. But I still think dynastic politics aren't healthy for democracies.

January 24, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

An Uxorial Candidacy?

First things first: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a hard-working, intelligent, and accomplished public servant in her own right. What I am about to say doesn’t contradict that a whit.

But—let’s get real. Senator Clinton would not be considered a serious candidate for president--many believe--if she weren’t married to a former president. Should that make any difference? And does it tell us anything about contemporary American politics?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure it’s entirely possible that a person with Clinton’s gifts and drive and inner toughness would have ended up at the threshold of the White House on her own. Her classmates in college and law school certainly expected great things for her.

But it’s also true that there are many brilliant and talented and ambitious women in her generation who never rose to the heights Senator Clinton now commands. They were victims of the abiding gender discrimination in our society, or bad luck, or simply the vagaries of life. Presidential politics is in some ways like show business—it’s about the breaks. Senator Clinton got a big one—when she married Bill.

Now, it’s become a kind of national parlor game to try to psychoanalyze the Clintons’ marriage, and it strikes me as quite pointless. Marriages, it seems to me, are essentially mysterious to outsiders—and sometimes to insiders, too. So it does not matter—and it’s none of our business—what the nature of the Clintons’ partnership is. What counts is that it is the main factor in the Democratic Party’s presidential frontrunner’s rise to national prominence.

And should that matter? In one sense, it might. Dynasty is anathema to true democracy. Just because your dad was president, or your husband, oughtn’t to give you a leg up on everyone else. Of course, in real life, it does—and always has. From the Adamses of Massachusetts, to the Tafts of Ohio, to the Daleys of Chicago—lucky birth or marriage has been the fuel of many American political careers.

Still, what seems like our current fascination with dynastic politics—will Jeb run? where’s the next Kennedy?—strikes me as fundamentally unhealthy. Is consanguinity or matrimonial relation really the best way to choose presidential candidates?  Whatever happened to the old saw that any American kid can grow up to be president?

Though, as Adlai Stevenson quipped, “In America, any boy may become president. I suppose that’s just one of the risks he takes.” Stevenson himself, of course, was the grandson of Grover Cleveland's second vice president.

Perhaps it was never true. But I can’t help thinking that the triumph of the feminist civil-rights struggle represented by Senator Clinton’s candidacy is a bit diluted by the simple fact that her path to power was launched from her marital bed.

January 23, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (46) | TrackBack (0)

Is the Bush Presidency Over?

President Bush gives the annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress tonight. Does it matter?

In one sense, of course it does. Bush is still the president. He’s still got the bully pulpit. And he’s still got the “energy in the executive,” as Alexander Hamilton famously described it. A president is always gonna be driving the bus--or the pickup.

But this one may be running out of gas. Bush has got a problem—a big problem. A majority of Americans—51 percent in the latest ABC News poll—now strongly disapprove of the job he’s doing. That’s not just disagreement. It sure ain’t indifference. It’s anger. “Strong disapproval” is the harshest judgment offered to respondents in our poll. It translates into people who have made up their mind, without flinching, that the Bush presidency, at this point, is a failure.

It is going to be very hard for the president to change those people’s minds. Iraq is the millstone around the president’s neck, and unless the course of events there changes radically and palpably—and soon—George W. Bush as a political force is probably doomed. Sure, he’ll offer a passel of domestic proposals tonight on energy, health care and education. But who will listen? Who will follow his lead?

Even in the president’s own party, his influence has dimmed. Who today would describe himself or herself wholeheartedly as “a Bush Republican”? 

So tonight marks a tough moment for the president.  But he’s got no choice except to soldier on. As Harry Truman said, “Being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding, or get swallowed.” Right now, that tiger is breathing down Bush’s neck.

January 23, 2007 in Politics | Permalink | User Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)