The Bosque Boys

Does the Ninth Ward in hurricane-devastated New Orleans prove John Edwards's "Two Americas" thesis?

He thinks so. There he was today, against a backdrop of African American young people, calling for "action" and "responsibility" and announcing his candidacy for Activist in Chief.

Intent on "transforming" America, Edwards could have been reading from candidate George Bush's playbook, when he praised "faith-based groups, charitable groups and volunteers" for taking action and making a difference in New Orleans. Holding forth in his blue jeans and open-at-the-neck dark blue button-down, Edwards exuded youthful energy and earthy common sense: "don't wait for government. The people know what to do. Let's take action and responsibility now."

His Platform:

1. Leave Iraq NOW! No escalation.

2. "Take the lead on genocide in Sudan and Darfur."

3. Stop Global Warming by conserving energy.

4. Universal healthcare for all Americans (to start).

5. Eradication of Poverty.

My Analysis:

Edwards is an interesting person. The attending media, however, seemed cynical about his chances. I am too. I think he turned out to be a dud in the 2004 general election campaign, and I concur with the conventional wisdom that the race is already down to two candidates (and he is not one of them).

On the other hand, Edwards is attractive. He connects. He artfully blends his stolid progressive political menu with conservative rhetoric and personal charisma. Watching the C-SPAN coverage of him after the press conference reveals a candidate who has a Bill Clinton-like ability to press the flesh. He was the great surprise of the 2004 campaign. He could certainly exceed expectations again.

Having said that, Edwards is more likely the Gary Hart of this campaign (Monkey Business aside). He is the guy who seemed so fresh four years ago, but you cannot quite remember why exactly you were so impressed back then.

His main problem is that aside from his charm and winning smile, he doesn't offer much in the way of new ideas. As Walter Mondale asked of Gary Hart in 1984: "Where's the beef?" How exactly do we go about eradicating poverty and curtailing global warming? How do we pay for universal healthcare?

Well, we are going to raise taxes on the wealthy and shut down the government largesse to the oil companies. That is a big applause line--but is it a real solution? Since Edwards kicked off his campaign in South Louisiana, I suppose it is appropriate to remember Huey Long, who promised to make every man in America a king. When numbers crunchers, scratching their heads, asked him how he would pay for it, Long replied: "You don't have to understand it; just shut you damn eyes and believe it."

“I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers."




From the Washington Post: "Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., 93, who became the 38th president of the United States as a result of some of the most extraordinary events in U.S. history and sought to restore the nation's confidence in the basic institutions of government, has died..." (read the full obit from the Post here).

From the New York Times: "Former President Gerald R. Ford, who was thrust into the presidency in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal but who lost his own bid for election after pardoning President Richard M. Nixon, has died....

"He was 93, making him the longest living former president, surpassing Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004, by just over a month" (the full obit from the NYT here).

The Okie Gardener offered this insightful remembrance of Ford last month, when he eclipsed Ronald Reagan as the longest living former president. The Gardener also included this excellent tribute from Gleaves Whitney courtesy of National Review Online.

My Recollection:

Gerald Ford was the first president to whom I actually paid attention. I was nine years-old when he assumed the position. The media were merciless in their derision of the unelected president who pardoned Richard Nixon. I remember well the Chevy Chase bit on SNL in which the "president" oafishly stumbled around the oval office, speaking nonsense, wearing his football helmet and trying to receive snaps from his stuffed dog, Liberty. I don't think I realized at the time that Ford was the most decorated athlete of the presidents (1934 MVP of the Michigan football Wolverines); he was also a ten battle-star Navy veteran of WWII, and he graduated from Yale Law School with a B average (back when that was an impressive accomplishment).

After falling in love politically with Ronald Reagan during his campaign for the GOP nomination in 1976, I realized that I would be a Republican come hell or high water when Gerald Ford ascended the stage triumphant in Kansas City. Watching from my home in Southern California, on a tiny early-model color TV (at one point my cousin observed: "look the President is green"), I came to understand unequivocally that these were my people.

The Ford presidency was brief but mature. He was honest. He was forgiving. His later rapprochement with Jimmy Carter, who defeated him in 1976, was an example of his character. Like Adams and Jefferson or Bush-41 and Clinton-42, I give the credit for this famous reconciliation to the loser (it is much easier to be gracious in victory); it is the vanquished who must overcome the sense that they were defeated through unprincipled ambition and injurious machinations on the part of their opponent. Ford emerged eventually from 1976 with no public bitterness.

As Henry Kissinger observed: "Providence smiled on Americans when, seemingly by happenstance, it brought forward a president who embodied our nation's deepest and simplest values."

Jerry Ford was unabashedly the quintessential American.

I invite you to post your own thoughts and tributes.

We are engaged in a conversation about American life through the lenses of history, culture, politics and religion.

The Okie Gardener and I envisioned this blog as an electronic salon where reasonable and earnest people might come and exchange beliefs and impressions regarding important issues. We understood that we would not agree with one another all the time nor would we always agree with the greater community we hoped to create. No matter, we envisioned ourselves arguing with conviction and disagreeing without being disagreeable.

Language is an imperfect form of communication. For a conscientious historian, clarity is paramount. Notwithstanding, even with attention to detail, written communication provides endless opportunities for misunderstanding. In that regard, we have embarked on a journey fraught with risk. Truly, the essence of communication is not in what you say, it is in what people hear. For that reason, I ask my friends, family, and our reading community to hear us kindly.

This seems a fitting time to extend our thanks to all of you who participate in this discussion in that spirit. We appreciate the myriad gifts you bring to this table. We wish you the blessings of the Christmas season and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

May God bless our endeavor and protect us all in the coming year.

Note: I have modified this statement slightly since I originally posted it as a Christmas and New Year greeting.

I missed observing Stalin's birthday yesterday. What a colossus of evil. For an accounting of the deaths for which he is responsible see this post on Old War Dogs. Link from the Rott.

The 20th century showed the range of human potential. Poe was right--the human heart and mind hold terrors. What things someone will do with genetic engineering.

Gateway Pundit has the story on the recent executions in Iran, with links.

Yesterday was sunny and mild here in Southwest Oklahoma. Some of our hardy plants were greening a bit, after 3-4" of rain several days ago. December came in with sleet and 4" of snow followed by cold temperatures, but now we are mild again.

Late in the afternoon I turned my compost pile. Using my garden fork I moved the blackened, crumbly, hard-to-tell-what-it-was-before-rotting bottom of the heap to the top, and the leaves, grapefruit rinds, zinnia stems, coffee grounds to the bottom, with some mixing throughout.

I enjoy making compost. I get a deep satisfaction from improving the soil in my garden. Of the basic elements necessary for life--sunshine, water, air, soil--only rich, black soil can I make. When I work the compost into my garden early this spring, along with some manure, I'll feel like a partner in creation. (more below)

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The Final Solution reached into Arab and Muslim lands. Some of this I knew, some I did not. From an op-ed by Max Boot in the LA Times here. Link from LGF. Portions of the essay:

POINTLESS though it may be to argue with a madman, it is worth noting that Muslims were not as blameless in the genocide of the Jews as Ahmadinejad and his ilk would have it. Arabs were, on a small scale, cheerleaders and enablers of the Final Solution. The most famous example was Haj Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem (and uncle of Yasser Arafat), who took refuge in Berlin in World War II. A rabid Nazi, he personally lobbied Hitler to kill as many Jews as possible and even helped out by recruiting Bosnian Muslims to serve in the Waffen SS.

Robert Satloff, one of the world's smartest Arabists, reveals other links between the Arabs and the Holocaust in his groundbreaking new book, "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab Lands." He shows how the Nazis set up the machinery of death in North Africa. Although "only" 4,000 to 5,000 Jews died before the Allies liberated the area in 1943, many more were consigned to forced labor camps in hellish conditions.

"Arabs played a role at every level," Satloff wrote. "Some went door to door with the Germans, pointing out Jews for arrest. Others led Jewish workers on forced marches or served as overseers at labor camps."

. . .

Even worse, while Europe has disowned its terrible history, the Nazis continue to be glorified in the Middle East. ("Mein Kampf" is a perennial bestseller in the region.) Nowhere else in the world is Holocaust denial so prevalent. Ahmadinejad deserves thanks for calling the world's attention to this pervasive sickness

Earlier A Waco Farmer challenged us, partners and readers, to articulate a coherent political philosophy. I am easing into the challenge first by stating what I am not, and why not. Libertarian. Socialist.

In a nutshell, I am not a Libertarian because I perceive that political philosophy to have a faulty view of human nature: it thinks of humans essentially as isolated atoms without an appreciation for the social aspect of our nature. And, it tends to see sin only in structures like government, not in the hearts of individuals.

In a nutshell, I am not a Socialist because I perceive that political philosophy to have a faulty view of human nature: it thinks that humans can behave altruistically for the common good, and, not have their virtue corrupted by dependency.

Today Fascist, Nazi, or Communist. While these may seem diverse political philosophies, in my view they are foxes tied together at the tails, capable of burning down all that is good in life (let's see which commentator can recognize the biblical reference).

First, all of them put a nearly absolute priority on the collective, the social, over against the individual. In other words, they are the mirror image error of Libertarianism. If the latter system absolutizes the individual, these three absolutize the state. They misread the human situation, that of social individuals.

Second, all of them are totalitarian systems. That is, they are philosophies and ways of life that seek to explain and to govern every aspect of human life. They therefore make the claim of omnicompetance for human systems, and try to exert omnipotence over individual life. If Libertarianism is individual hubris, this is social hubris.

New in Print: Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide. Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters
By Arthur C. Brooks
(Basic, 250 pages, $26)

Bosque Boys favorite Wilfred M. McClay offers a very fine review of the book in today's Wall Street Journal.

McClay writes:

"If Mr. Brooks is right, our era's common sense of the matter -- that the political left is more compassionate than the political right, and that America is a remarkably ungenerous nation by world standards -- is demonstrably inaccurate. In fact, Sen. John Edwards's repeated claim that there are "two Americas" turns out to be correct but misstated: The line of separation runs most saliently not between the haves and have-nots but between the gives and the give-nots, between those Americans who respond to social needs with their own money and time and those who do not."

"The correlations are strong and unmistakable. For example, people who attend houses of worship regularly are 25% more likely to give and 23% more likely to volunteer, and the religious give away four times the amounts of money that the secular do. Working families without welfare support give three times as much to charity as do welfare families with the same total income. Conservative households give 30% more to charity than liberal households. Redistributionist liberals give about a fourth of what redistributionist skeptics give. And perhaps most interesting of all, in states in which George W. Bush got more than 60% of the 2004 vote, charitable giving averaged 3.5% of income, as compared with states in which Mr. Bush got less than 40% of the vote, in which the giving averaged a mere 1.9% of income. So much for the idea that red states are red in tooth and claw."

I agree with McClay's articulate backhand to sociology as a discipline: "The social sciences even at their best do nothing but restate the obvious in obscure language." However, he heartily recommends this effort as a "lucidly written, carefully distilled and persuasively cogent work, a tidy time-bomb of a book whose findings will, if they are taken to heart, transform much of what we thought we knew about charity and the social good in America...."

We'll see. If nothing else, we can expect a needed conversation and perhaps reevaluation of some hackneyed negative stereotypes regarding conservatives.

Bill McClay's review online in full here (registration may be required).

From Jay Winik, "The Day Lincoln Was Shot," in I Wish I'd Been There, Byron Hollingshead, ed:

"Throughout his wartorn years, Abraham Lincoln had been pilloried by his critics as a duffer, mocked as poor white trash, criticized for ignorance of everything but Illinois politics. And as he steered the Union around one obstacle after another, eduring generals who wouldn't fight and Northerners deeply opposed to the niggers, Lincoln was often criticized by the press (there is a cowardly imbecile at the head of the government), scorned by Washington society, branded a dictator, and even defied by his own military men. If that weren't bad enough, he had to repeatedly weather a storm of antiwar protest arrayed against him--that is, when he wasn't being accused of shredding the Constitution."

George Bush is no Abe Lincoln. He is no Harry Truman. But he is president of the United States during a time of war; it is a tough job.

Press on, Mr. President. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.