Thursday, December 31, 2009

Fw: 2009-12-31 BRUCE MORTON column for ann - CORRECTION

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-----Original Message-----
From: ANN HAWTHORNE <aphawthorne@verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:45:33
Subject: 2009-12-31 BRUCE MORTON column for ann - CORRECTION

The Dole-Kemp ticket was 1996.
 
Mr. Morton's editor apologies to him and to his readers.

December 31, 2009

       At the end of the year, this column always thinks about those we've lost during the year.  It seems like a lot this year, but then it always does.      We lost Edward Kennedy, the youngest and most troubled of the brothers, as many frailties as most of us possess.  But health care reform, perhaps his favorite cause, seems headed toward success.  Good night, sweet prince.  I hope they pass it.  Maybe that can be his monument.  We lost his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a tireless advocate for those with special needs.      In my own former trade, news, we lost Walter Cronkite, the ultimate anchor. When he said, "That's the way it is," it usually was.  And Don Hewitt, creator and first executive producer of "60 Minutes."  Now there's a legacy.     Author Dominick Dunne died the same day as Kennedy. "He'd have hated that," one friend said.  And John Updike, a great American novelist whose four books about a high school basketball star named Rabbit Angstrom told us much about our country.      Marilyn Chambers died, an actress who made pornographic movies and "Ivory Snow Girl" ads.  How many of us can say that?  Oh, and in 2004 she ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket.  She got 946 votes.      We lost Jack Kemp, a gifted NFL quarterback and later a articulate conservative Congressman, Bob Dole's running-mate on the 2004 Republican ticket.  He got more votes than Chambers, of course.  We lost Ed McMahon, best known for two words, "Heeeere's Johnny!"  Lost Irving Penn, a photographer best known for shots of fashion and glamour.  Movies:  Farah Fawcett, Jennifer Jones, Bea Arthur, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze and Karl Malden, a wonderful character actor, all left us.      Popular music lost Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, guitarist Les Paul and Michael Jackson, who was only fifty.      We lost Robert McNamara, a brilliant Defense Secretary, burdened with a pointless war in Vietnam--he didn't start it, Lyndon Johnson did, but 58,000 Americans and even more Vietnamese died in it.  I remember him, out of office, talking about getting a memo from the Soviets saying, in effect, if you want war, you can have it.  He didn't.  We didn't have it.      Oh, and we lost Gidget, the chihuahua who worked for Taco Bell.      I always leave out of these columns, I know, some people who should be in them.  I'm sorry. 
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Monday, December 28, 2009

December 28, 2009

      Should the U.S. Senate be euthanized?  Put to sleep?  These days you could make a case for it.      I remember the 1960s when white Southern senators filibustered the Civil Rights Act.  It went on for weeks.  Filibusters were rare back then and the bill did finally pass with bipartisan support.      It takes three-fifths of the Senate--60 votes--to end a filibuster.  Nowadays somebody seems to threaten one every time a senator asks permission to sneeze or scratch his nose.   In a recent New York Times column Paul Krugman quotes political scientist Barbara Sinclair as noting that in the 1960s filibusters - threatened or actual - affected 8% of major legislation.  Now?  70%.      The Senate finally passed a health care bill.  Every single Democrat had to vote for it for that to happen because every single Republican voted against it.  One dissenting Democrat and the debate would have continued, the filibuster would have begun.  Certainly that is the most partisan approach to legislating, but probably not the best one.        Krugman, in that Times column, notes that in the 1990s  Senators Lieberman of Connecticut and Harkin of Iowa proposed a change--60 votes needed on the first vote to cut off debate, but 57 votes a day or two later and so on down to a simple majority.\     I don't know if that's the best fix but, come on guys, ya gotta do something!      The filibuster is not part of the Constitution;  it's just part of the Senate rules.  The senators can change those anytime they want to--usually at the start of a new session.       I'll say it again...I don't know if that's the best fix but, come on guys, ya gotta do something!
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Thursday, December 17, 2009

December 16th , 2009

    
 
     Come on, Congress, pass a health care bill!  You can do it...or maybe you can't.
 
     It's painful to read the paper these pre-Christmas mornings and learn about Congress' struggles with health care.  We are, of course, the only major industrialized country that doesn't have some form of national health insurance and we have million of citizens with no insurance at all.  That doesn't seem to bother many in the Congress.  Republicans in the Senate, for instance, seem united in the belief that that's just fine.  If you can't afford any, you don't deserve any--it's not up to government to fix that.
 
     It's painful to read about efforts to trim the bill to attract this waverer or that: Lieberman might be for it if we drop the public option--the notion that the government itself might sell insurance;  Nelson might be for it if...and so on.
 
     Well, Congress, it doesn't have to be perfect.  If it turns out that section 7C is a bummer, you can amend it next year and make it better.  It's a law, not a concrete bunker.
 
     When I lived in England, years ago, you had a choice.  My then wife, who didn't like waiting in line, went private and got excellent care;  my daughter was born there.  A good friend, less well-paid, got very ill and went national health, was hospitalized, seen by distinguished specialists and finally diagnosed as, of all things, allergic to wheat.  The cure was obvious, of course;  he lived happily for years.
 
     What's the Emma Lazarus poem on the State of Liberty?  Something like, "Send us your hungry and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore..."  Well, we're still pretty good at offering better jobs, more hope.  But if you're sick and poor, stay where you are.  You'll probably get better care.  


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December 17th

       This column is usually about politics, news analysis, that sort of thing.  But today I'm just passing along an amazing story about a young Cleveland woman's bravery and sense of adventure.  She's Katie Spotz, 22, and this winter she plans to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone--no sail, no motor, just two black oars.      She'll row from Dakar, Senegal, on Africa's west coast at least 2500 miles to South America.  "I never thought I could do something like this," the New York Times quotes her as saying.  "But it's not like a rowing machine in a gym. You just pace yourself."  Yes.  And the rowing machine in the gym, of course, is on dry land.  The Atlantic Ocean has fifty-foot waves.      The Times says the voyage will take between 70 and 100 days.  If she makes it, she'll be the youngest person, and the first American, ever to row alone from mainland to mainland.  The paper, which always knows stuff like this, says the first rowed crossing was done by two Norwegian immigrants in 1896.  In the last nine years 109 rowboats have crossed the Atlantic, Pacific or Indian Oceans.  About as many failed--they either returned or were rescued.      Spotz says her nickname on her high school swim team was Turtle, meaning she says, that she was no superstar.  "I see this," she told the Times, "as a form of active meditation."      I'm not a bit sure what that means.  But I want to wish this pioneering young American the very best of luck.  May she succeed!      Editor's note:  Mr. Morton and his editor are both taking a holiday break.
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

December 10, 2009

       Nobel laureate Barack Obama accepted the Peace Prize by talking, of course, about war.      "Evil does exist in the world," the President said, "Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary...is a recognition of...the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."      Well, yes, but some wars are more necessary than others.  An American surrender after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unimaginable.  But Vietnam?  I'm still not sure why we were there.  George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, threw Iraq's Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait after he invaded it.  Fair enough.  But then his son, the 43rd president, went ahead and invaded Iraq, toppling Saddam.  I'm not sure we had to do that.      And Afghanistan?  Well, al-Qaeda was there.  But they're in several different places.  They are still in Afghanistan, though we've been after them there for eight years now.  And Obama mentioned Iran and North Korea as possible threats, potential nuclear powers.  Well, maybe.  But the United States was the first nuclear power, of course, and the only country ever to use atomic weapons in a war.  We attacked cities and killed thousands of civilians.      I would have dropped those bombs too;  avoiding an invasion of Japan saved many American lives.  But to assume the moral high ground, the notion that some nations can be trusted with nukes but not others?  I'm not so sure about that.  
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

December 9, 2009


 
 
     Gay marriage is one of those issues that just won't go away.  This week it's playing in New Jersey, and some big games are involved.
 
     Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is for it, saying it's a civil rights issue.  Not such a big name?  Okay Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, is for it, writing on his website that he has "always spoken out for the rights of same-sex couples."   The Boss and the Gov?  It's a lock, right?
 
     Well, no.  The Governor-elect, Republican Chris Christie, says he'll veto it if he gets a chance.  It passed a Senate committee by one vote on Monday.  The full Senate votes tomorrow.   Democrats are conceding, the wire stories say, that they may not have the twenty-one votes they need for passage.
 
     Some religions regulate marriages.  The Roman Catholic church opposes divorce and therefore remarriage. Some forms of Islam allow men to have more than one wife.  And so on.  But governments?  I don't see why they need to regulate it.  If Susie and Doris, or Fred and Chuck, want to get married, whose business is it but theirs?
 
    


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Monday, December 7, 2009

December 7, 2009

            In 1987 David Halberstam's "The Making of a Quagmire" was published, an account of events in 1961 as the U.S. stumbled into a deadly war in Vietnam.   That war lasted for years and cost 58,000 American lives.  Now, someone may want to reuse the title.      The headline in today's New York Times is simple: "No Firm Plans for a U.S. Exit in Afghanistan."  Well, why should there be?  We've only been there eight years.  The quotes in the piece support the headline.  Defense Secretary Robert Gates on CBS:  "There isn't a deadline."  National Security Advisor General James Jones on CNN:  "We're going to be in the region for a long time."      I remember George McGovern, campaigning for president in 1972.  His speech always included the line, "Come home, America."  The voters rejected him, of course, and we didn't come home, but it wasn't a bad idea then and isn't now.      The original purpose in invading Afghanistan, as I remember, was to get Osama bin Laden. But that was eight years ago, and we haven't.  The reports I read say he doesn't live there, just visits from time to time.  Terrorists, anyway, tend to operate in small groups.  They can be attacked successfully by small groups--commandos, air strikes, and so on.  No need to try to occupy a whole country, especially one with a history of resisting occupiers.      Come home America?  Sounds like a plan to me.     
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December 2, 2009

    
 
     Wilfred  Owen, a poet and soldier in World War I, wrote, "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/ The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est/ Pro patria mori."
 
    It means, of course, "It is sweet and right to die for your country."  Not always a lie, I think.  Most Americans were willing to die for their country in World War II.  In Vietnam, many were not;  President Johnson, in 1964, promised, "We seek no wider war."
 
     But the war grew and grew, went on and on.  58,000 Americans died in that war and many more thought the dying was not sweet and right.  I remember the demonstrations.  Now comes Afghanistan.  How do we feel about young Americans dying there?
 
     President Obama announced he is sending more troops, but added that he later plans to withdraw some.  "...the nation that I am most interested in building is our own."  I am no expert;  I was there only once briefly, years ago.  But we have learned some things.  Nation-building is very hard, as witness our efforts in Iraq. Nation-building in Vietnam has had some success, but of course that's a war we lost.
 
     Afghanistan is primitive, poor and full of problems.  Hamid Karzai, the president, is widely reported to be a crook.  So is the rest of his government.  We've been there eight years already.  How much of a nation have we built?  The Associated Press today quotes the U.S. commander there, General Stanley McChrystal, as saying we should offer the militants a way to quit "with dignity."  The same story quotes a villager, "What did you do for the last eight years against your enemies? You have killed Afghans and your enemies have killed Afghans."
 
     I'm sure that President Obama, a wise man, thinks it's possible.  I suppose Lyndon Johnson thought it was possible.  But as Alessandra Stanley notes in today's New York Times, "All president seek to improve on history.  But history has a way of getting the better of even the best intentions." 
         


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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

December 2, 2009

            Wilfred  Owen, a poet and soldier in World War I, wrote, "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,/ The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est/ Pro patria mori."     It means, of course, "It is sweet and right to die for your country."  Not always a lie, I think.  Most Americans were willing to die for their country in World War II.  In Vietnam, many were not;  President Johnson, in 1964, promised, "We seek no wider war."      But the war grew and grew, went on and on.  58,000 Americans died in that war and many more thought the dying was not sweet and right.  I remember the demonstrations.  Now comes Afghanistan.  How do we feel about young Americans dying there?      President Obama announced he is sending more troops, but added that he later plans to withdraw some.  "...the nation that I am most interested in building is our own."  I am no expert;  I was there only once briefly, years ago.  But we have learned some things.  Nation-building is very hard, as witness our efforts in Iraq. Nation-building in Vietnam has had some success, but of course that's a war we lost.      Afghanistan is primitive, poor and full of problems.  Hamid Karzai, the president, is widely reported to be a crook.  So is the rest of his government.  We've been there eight years already.  How much of a nation have we built?  The Associated Press today quotes the U.S. commander there, General Stanley McChrystal, as saying we should offer the militants a way to quit "with dignity."  The same story quotes a villager, "What did you do for the last eight years against your enemies? You have killed Afghans and your enemies have killed Afghans."      I'm sure that President Obama, a wise man, thinks it's possible.  I suppose Lyndon Johnson thought it was possible.  But as Alessandra Stanley notes in today's New York Times, "All president seek to improve on history.  But history has a way of getting the better of even the best intentions." 
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