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This morning on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Tulane-trained historian and former-speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, offered a succinct, reasonable, and balanced piece of analysis regarding the presidency of George Bush.

Peter Slen asked Gingrich to respond to a brief clip from the news conference yesterday, in which a reporter asked the President to assess whether he was an asset or liability to the 2008 Republican campaign. The President smiled, winked, and said forcefully with mock certainty: "Strong Asset! Next Question."

Newt chuckled and asserted:

"First of all, the President is a fact [of life for Republicans running for office in 2008].

"He is an honorable man who has worked very, very hard on very hard problems. He has succeeded more than some people want to give him credit for. We are safer than we might have been, if someone with less character had been president during this trying period. On the other hand, he did not recognize how deep and how hard the problems were. As a result, the nation is deeply dissatisfied with him and a government that seems supremely incompetent."

Well said. This struck me as a savvy summary, which I think will prove fairly close to the future consensus among open-minded historians.

Related (sort of):

Writing in the current issue of Imprimis, the monthly publication of Hillsdale College (view here), Amity Shlaes offers an unorthodox and critical account of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Election of 1936.

Her narrative bemoans the end of traditional American federalism and the beginning of interest politics, which she ascribes to the baser motives of the first Roosevelt campaign to retain the presidency (1936).

Read the article and decide for yourself.

An aside: if you are not a subscriber to the unabashedly conservative and eminently erudite Imprimis, which is absolutely free, I encourage you to sign up now.

My larger point: history is argument. We often speak to one another about the present through conversations about the past. This is a valid function of history.

Amity Shlaes takes the same set of facts employed by a generation of historians who admired FDR and made us admire him, and she turns them on their head. Perhaps she has a point. Perhaps she misses completely. Either way, she has every right to throw her interpretation into the academic arena and see how it plays.

My caution: history is, by definition, subjective. No matter how hard practitioners attempt to avoid prejudice and "presentism," history is always filtered through the personal, the political, and the present. That is, we cannot write the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about any historical subject. We can only write what we know, which is limited, as viewed through our lens, which is colored, delivered in language that will be subject to further interpretation by future recipients.

Having said that, May God Bless the Historians.
In honor of Constitution Day, 17 September 2007, I am re-running an essay from July of last year bemoaning the miserable treatment accorded to one of my contemporarty heroes, Joe Lieberman. The good news is that this story ended quite happily, and democracy proved much wiser than I feared on my less hopeful days. Nevertheless, I am convinced that some of my observations are worth revisiting.

8 July 2006

On one hand, the trial of Joe Lieberman in the upcoming CT primary, August 8, is a perfect example of American democracy in action (click here for some bg and context from the Wash Post). "Throw the bums out!" has been an effective rallying cry for frustrated voters since the earliest moments of American self government. James Madison et al constructed the federal government of the United States to be responsive to the desires of the people. Joe Lieberman has offended a core constituency of the citizenry of CT; therefore, Joe Lieberman must go.

However, the framers divided government into departments, and the departments into distinct institutions, making some sections of the government more responsive to the people than others. For example, the House of Representatives is elected directly by the voters every two years. That keeps representatives in the lower house on a very short leash. The House is rightly the people's conduit to government. Congressman ought to be taking polls and monitoring their phone calls and email, fittingly hyper-sensitive to the will of the people.

The President. Elected by the people every four years (albeit indirectly through the somewhat arcane institution of the electoral college), the president, traditionally, is the one person in the government empowered to represent all the people. The rest of the executive branch works for him and answers to him (or his management team) directly; the enormous executive department, sworn to uphold the Constitution and abide by federal law, answers to the people only indirectly through congressional oversight.

The Courts. Intentionally removed from the election process, judges are nominated by the President and approved by the Senate for life terms. Federal judges are only grazed by the consent of the people--and only once, during the process of nomination and confirmation.

Why all this variation?

» Read More

September 17 is Constitution Day, honoring the date of signing of the proposed Constitution in 1787. Fly the flag.

I am impressed with our Constitution for many reasons. One which has struck me this fall, as I've taught American Government, is the way the founders dealt with the issue of stability versus responsiveness.

For a people truly to be self-governing, government must be responsive to the will of the voters. But, the will of the voters can swing wildly in short periods of time, making pure democracy unstable. Stability is needed to avoid anarchy. On the other hand, even though government needs to be stable, too much stability means that the will of the people is ignored, until it explodes in rebellion.

Think of the Legislative Branch. Two houses.

The House of Representatives is designed to be RESPONSIVE. Representatives are elected by the voters. They serve two year terms and the whole body must face the voters at once. Theoretically, we could have a 435 seat turnover every two years.

The Senate is designed to be STABLE. Senators originally were chosen by their state legislatures, which presumably know their interests with greater stability than the voters. Senators serve 6 year terms with only 1/3 of the terms expiring on the two-year election cycle. At most a 1/3 turnover is envisioned every two years, not counting the occasional resignation.

Stability and Responsiveness built into one branch. Of course, the House of Representatives is not complete democratic chaos, the terms are for two years, not monthly or weekly turnover.

The Executive Branch seems geared to Stability. Chosen by Electors, chosen by their states, and assumed to be more stable in their opinions than the average voter. And, 4 year terms. More stable than annual or every two-year elections. But, some responsiveness, mandatory election every 4 years.

The Judicial Branch: Stability. Once confirmed by the Senate, lifetime tenure on good behavior.

The Amendment Process. Responsiveness in that there is a process of amendment. No revolution needed to alter the Constitution. But, Stability is affirmed by the difficulty of the amending process. After coming out of Congress (by 2/3) or out of a Convention when requested by 2/3 of the states, then 3/4 of the State Legislatures must approve the amendment. Very stable, but still responsive to the will of the people.

A thinking out loud: is the responsiveness the Founders wanted for the House of Representatives eliminated by the creation of "safe" districts when State Legislatures do redistricting? It seems so to me. As it now stands, an incumbant Senator has a somewhat greater chance of being voted out of office than a Representative. You can't gerrymander a state.

Rolling Stone once called him "the most influential evangelical you've never heard of." The Miami Herald has this story on his legacy. Despite a somewhat negative tone, it is worth a read.

A leader of the schism that created the conservative Presbyterian Church in America in 1973, Kennedy co-founded the Moral Majority, the Coalition on Revival and the Alliance Defense Fund, which files lawsuits in church-state issues.

. . .

Kennedy once declared it his followers' ''job'' to ``reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise Godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.''
Powerful and influential pastor, writer, and leader D. James Kennedy is dead at 76. He had been in ill health since late December. Kennedy was an important leader in evangelicalism, a strong and active voice and activist on the Christian Right, and a force in the resurgence of Calvinism in the U.S.

The Sun-Sentinal has a good article on his death here. Link from Layman Online.

Kennedy was almost the only popular radio and TV preacher I would listen to. I did not always agree with him, but he was worth paying attention to.

RIP
Here. From the New York Sun. Link from Instapundit.

Pete Seeger, folk-singer legend and member of the Old Left, now acknowledges the evil of Stalinism and sings about it in his new song The Big Joe Blues.

"I'm singing about old Joe, cruel Joe," the lyrics read. "He ruled with an iron hand / He put an end to the dreams / Of so many in every land / He had a chance to make / A brand new start for the human race / Instead he set it back / Right in the same nasty place / I got the Big Joe Blues / (Keep your mouth shut or you will die fast) / I got the Big Joe Blues / (Do this job, no questions asked) / I got the Big Joe Blues."

Better late than never. I think it was Susan Sontag who wrote that it should discomfort New York liberals that subscribers to The Readers' Digest were given a truer understanding of the Soviet Union than subscribers to elite journals.



We left Georgia by way of Chattanooga. Just south of the city we visited the Battle of Chickamauga historic site. Visiting Civil War battle sites is always a moving experience for me; I think of the men who died for Liberty and their suffering. Ironically, both sides fought for Liberty, each side defining it differently. I am glad the Union won, for its definition of Liberty, by the end of the war, made possible today's multiracial nation.

We drove around the site, following the tour map. I knew very little about this battle, other than it was part of the campaign by the Army of the Cumberland to secure Chattanooga for the Union. The tour map, and the signs at each stop, gave the story. The battle event that struck me most was the near rout of the Union forces. General Rosecrans was informed that a gap had opened in his lines. He ordered units shuffled to fill the gap. However, there was no gap, faulty information. Shuffling the other units created a real gap that Longstreet immediately exploited with his Confederate troops, driving Union forces back and threatening to turn the battlefield into a killing field for the Army of the Cumberland. Even Rosecrans fled. The remaining Union ranking officer on the field, Thomas, moved the troops who remained into a defensible position and held off wave after wave of Confederate assaults until after dark, then withdrew. His actions allowed Union forces to regroup and hold Chattanooga.

American voters need to know more military history. We expect today, and our media heighten this expectation, that everything will go according to plan in military operations. Never has. Never will. War is the most complex of human undertakings. Whether called the "fog of war" or the "friction of war" or by some other name, plans and decisions are based on limited information, sometimes wrong. No plan survives intact the first contact with the enemy. Armies must improvise under fire, when clear heads and stout hearts count most. Our modern media is too quick with hysterical reporting when things do not go perfectly in America's modern wars. Learn some history.

A brief summary of the battle is here. The website for the Chickamauga & Chattanooga Military Park is here.