A Mirror for Magistrates
by Thomas Fleming
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Here is the way the Constitution works now. Roland Burris, a longtime public servant in Illinois, will not be allowed to take his seat in the U.S. Senate because he has been appointed by a corrupt governor in a corrupt state. No matter that the Senate has never in its history denied a seat to an senator, whether elected or appointed, and no matter that there is not a hint of scandal about Burris’ appointment. It is highly doubtful that the Senate possesses the right to deny a seat for any cause, once a state has sent its representative. The Senate does have the power to expel members, but of 15 the senators thrown out of the Senate since 1789, all of them were charged with treason: one (in 1797) for conspiring to detach Florida from Spain and give it to Great Britain, the rest for supporting the Confederacy. These must be the precedents that Harry Reid has been gabbling about.
Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, a political nonentity who makes Sarah Palin seem like Senator Robert Byrd, by comparison, is almost sure to be selected by a corrupt process in a corrupt state that takes into consideration only her enormous wealth and powerful connections. If Governor Paterson names her, it can only be for dishonorable (and probably dishonest) motives. Paterson is hardly a pillar of moral strength: He cheats on the wife who cheats on him, admits to having used cocaine, and has so far refused to crack down on the corruption in state government that rivals the pay-to-pay politics in Illinois.
Ms Kennedy-Schlossberg’s* only claim on Hilary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat is her maiden name. If a corrupt influence buys her the seat, it will only be the fulfillment of the Kennedy legacy. As the grand-daughter of the bootlegger and black-marketeer Joe Kennedy, who bought and paid for the West Virginia primary for his son John, and as the daughter of John Kennedy, who stole the White House with the help of the Daley machine in Chicago, Lyndon Johnson’s ballot-stuffing parade of dead Mexicans in Texas, and the Mafia connections of Sam Giancana (who shared his mistress with Jack), she clearly has the right to inherit the seat once held by her Machiavellian uncle Bobby. What a family, what a party, what a country! Even without so much as mentioning her Uncle Teddy, no decent American can pronounce the name “Kennedy” without a shudder of revulsion. They are the Borgias of American history.
But stop, I am being unfair—and not just to the Borgias, but to Renaissance Italians. Alexander VI and his son Cesare were not held up by their contemporaries as the fulfillment of a dream, a combination of Gregory the Great and Charlemagne. They were simply the most unscrupulous (if even that is fair) exemplars of the noble families who used the papacy as a power base. Even their flatters did not speak of Camelot or a Vergilian Age of Gold. Taken as a whole, the ruling families of the Italian Renaissance—the Medici, d’Este, Gonzaga, and Montefeltro clans were, morally speaking, a dubious lot, but they were also brilliant and cultivated. Lorenzo de’Medici may have bedded many women—though only a fraction of JFK’s conquests—but he celebrated his amours in some of the best verse written in his day. He not only patronized scholars, poets, and painters, but he was a man of considerable cultivation. Lorenzo did not have to pay (à la Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School) professionals to write his term papers or cheat on his Spanish exam.
The Kennedys are not, then, our Borgias but our Medici, our Bourbons, our Plantagenets. When we look in Ray Bradbury’s funhouse mirror, where we see ourselves as we would wish to be seen, we see the faces of the Kennedys. They are the fulfillment of the dreams of Americans who lust after nothing loftier than wealth and celebrity, and when their goals are reached, they and their children are free to wallow in their vices—adultery, alcoholism, cocaine-snorting. Machiavelli and his later disciples, Pareto and Mosca, would have no trouble in interpreting the Kennedy phenomenon: They represent, if not a true nobility, an elite class, and since the character of every society is best represented by the elite the impresses its image on the less fortunate classes, the Kennedys are who we all want to be assuming we do not prefer the examples of Britney Spears, Kanye West, or Plaxico Burress. Perhaps if Rad Blagojevich chose Plaxico, instead of Roland, there would not have been a problem.
*Yes, I know, she is said never to have changed her name. But names are not simply nonsense syllables we give to children, as Ms Palin did, who can then do what they like with them. She is free to claim any name we likes, and civilized people are equally free to call her by her correct name.
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1 Comment by J Meng on 5 January 2009:
Excellent points; but, why was Jack assassinated? It wasn’t because he bedded Marilyn Monroe, was it? Or because his father was a bootlegger?
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3 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
There were so many people with so many motives: the husbands of Marilyn, whom Jack and Bobby helped drive to her death–if it was not a Chappaquiddic accident–the Mafia and Teamsters whom he betrayed, Castro, whom he tried to assassinate, the CIA and Pentagon officials whom he must have terrified by his incompetence and lack of resolution. I have always wanted to do an Agatha Christie play called, “Murder in the Dallas Motorcade.” In the end, it will turn out they all did it and a vast number of Americans were happy they did. This is fiction, mind you.
4 Comment by D Simmons on 5 January 2009:
We like our gloss in America, and we like to debate our trivia and call it politics. Those fit together, and they chart our paths to ruin. But any people who cannot think to ask, “Who are these people”, deserves its fate. An example of this is the debate on the neocons, a billion words to debate the trivia of their ideas, but none outside of the anti-semetic circles who cloaked everthing in dark conspiracy as to who they were. It at least would be fun listening to Bill Kristol describe himself as an heir to George Washington (minus all the negative isms that plagued our first president).
5 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 5 January 2009:
Dr. Fleming,
I’m with you on your disdain for the Kennedys, and in accord with your view that Caroline has no special claim to a Senate seat. Not that mediocrity is disqualifying; they have to warm the seats somehow.
As far as I know, Mrs. K-S has led a respectable life–wife of one husband, mother to her children, co-author of bland books, a society matron who does charitable works.
Money in this country, my father said, purifies itself. The bootlegger’s granddaughter and philanderer’s daughter is, seemingly, a quiet bourgeoise.
We live in a country and an age where not only Rotarian bumpkins and District Attorneys, but heiresses, can aspire to the magistracy.
6 Comment by robert on 5 January 2009:
“The Kennedys are not, then, our Borgias but our Medici, our Bourbons, our Plantagenets. When we look in Ray Bradbury’s funhouse mirror, where we see ourselves as we would wish to be seen, we see the faces of the Kennedys.”
Yes, TJF, has got it right. There is a huge audience for Kennedys. Perhaps a smaller audience for the Bushes, a still smaller audience for rogues like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul and hardly any audience at all for folks who honestly make the attempt to understand the principles of living and living well. The unexamined life is all in vogue even as our very own, and we should recognize it for what it is. The sooner we (whoever reads this stuff ) come to understand this obvious fact, the sooner one will begin to appreciate those smaller, more beautiful gardens of family, loyal friends, lasting truths, local customs and the occasional poem or song that provides the delightful and necessary relief in this vale ot tears.
7 Comment by George on 5 January 2009:
@Robert
Ron Paul a rogue? Please explain.
8 Comment by robert on 5 January 2009:
George,
A rogue in that he refuses to follow the propaganda of his party. He takes his service in the Senate seriously, he probably even respects certain virtues and vices of the people of Texas. Rogue as in a rare bird, an honest man, the type Diogenes looked for in vain. I liked Ron Paul as I do Pat, but it seems we paleos never want to face the facts of losing, and it is getting worse and worse each time. Re-trench and re-arm over the next hundred or two hundred years — raise a family, become familiar with a real neighborhood, study, muse, pray, work and try as best one can to keep the crowd at the door. But whatever we do in the political realm, we should not expect much or devote more time and money to that aspect, than the local saddle repair shop, gunsmith, or Will Roger’s roping school.
9 Comment by Steve Berg on 5 January 2009:
I feel sorry for Burris as he gets caught up in this mess. He really does not deserve what he is going through. It is also sadly humorous to see the U.S. Senate get into a huff about corruption and the seating of members as Dr. Fleming has explained here. But the result of all this is to make Illinois a laughing stock world wide. Blago holds some pretty good cards up his sleeve. He knows where a lot of bodies are buried, and no doubt has plenty of dirt to throw at his foes in his own defense. The trump card is what he must know about Obama’s considerable interaction with the rest of the Chicago Machine, and it will be interesting to see if this one gets played. We will all have to be shocked! shocked! if and when our Dear Governor winds up in Ft. Marcy Park.
10 Comment by Tom Flinn on 5 January 2009:
I don’t like the Kennedys and I don’t like their political persuasion, but how much less qualified is Caroline Kennedy than most of the clowns who presently occupy the Senate? Even those who have spent many years in politics and should be well prepared to act the role of statesman are basically grasping hacks whose idea of “public service” is to keep getting elected. I mean, our “experience” candidates in the past election were John McCain and Joe Biden!!!! Whoever the governor appoints is not going to be to my liking, so why not appoint someone who at least has a modicum of class? I am unaware of any scandal involving Caroline Kennedy (unlike 99% of the rest of her clan), but anyone with knowledge to the contrary please feel free to enlighten me. The trouble with the Kennedys (and others like them) is that they are NOT nobility. However corrupt a system it can be sometimes, I still wonder if we wouldn’t be better off with a Senate comprised of a hereditary nobility. At least the qualification for service wouldn’t simply be how much money one can squeeze out of special interest groups. As to Burris, he is no doubt another liberal Democrat which is to be expected, but there doesn’t seem to me to be any reason to exclude him from the Senate. I am going to enjoy watching the Democrats try to explain this one to their black constituents if they decide to “stand in the schoolhouse (or Senate) door.”
11 Comment by NGPM on 5 January 2009:
“Yes, I know, she is said never to have changed her name. But names are not simply nonsense syllables we give to children, as Ms Palin did, who can then do what they like with them. She is free to claim any name we likes, and civilized people are equally free to call her by her correct name.”
Side note: it is interesting that we speak of names on the day following the Feast of the Holy Name. Mgr Fellay said Mass at my parish yesterday and gave an excellent homily on the significance of the name. He opened by explaining how it was difficult, with our mentality, to grasp the true importance of a name.
This being said, I was under the impression that the ancient Romans did in fact allow name changes. I know the French Civil Code does not, except on a case-by-case basis (for example, if your name is obviously ridiculous or if you are a foreigner pursuing nationalization).
A piece on names, their significance and the legitimacy and illegitimacy of changing them throughout history, would be a most interesting read, if I haven’t already submitted more than my allocation of topic suggestions…
“In the end, it will turn out they all did it and a vast number of Americans were happy they did. This is fiction, mind you.”
I would like to get my hands on the killers for turning the Kennedys into gods. Martyrs for the cause of American decadence. But perhaps we deserved it after all.
Although, personally, I do not find Joe Kennedy so offensive, mostly because I like to have some wine now and then (more and more since B. Hussein O. was appointed our new patron god) and then and I cannot understand why I would not have been allowed to have one in 1925. As for buying and paying for primaries, wouldn’t Joe have used his own money? FDR, LBJ and B. Hussein O. all bribed the electorate with taxpayer dollars.
12 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
The point is not whether anyone in the US Senate is qualified or what the qualifications should be for a Senator. There is, in the case of the Senate, a normal Cursus honorum. You either give and receive bribes on the way from being a state legislator to being a Congressman or you lay out huge amounts of money to buy an election. Ms Kennedy-Schlossberg has done neither; in fact, she has not even contributed seriously to the warchests of Democratic politicians in NY State. A modicum of class? If class has ever meant anything, the Kennedys possess not a particle. Joe Kennedy the patriarch was such a lowlife that while he was cheating on Rose with Gloria Swanson, he managed Swanson’s affairs and took her to the cleaners. She has about as much “class” as granddaughter of one of her granddad’s Sicilian partners.
I could scarcely care less about who will be the next Senator from Illinois. My interest in whomever the blind Don Juan of NY picks is much less. The only possible interest can be the very point you are inadvertently making: In this low comedy we call America, our nobility are rabble.
13 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
On names, my point is that every society’s naming customs are a reflection of deep-seated ways of looking at the world. In the late Republic, a man had three names: his middle name, e.g. Julius, identified the broad clan to which he belonged, the last name, e.g. Caesar, said which branch of the clan his family belonged to, and the first name, e.g. Gaius, was one of a fixed group of licit praenomina. All of this man’s daughters, however, would officially be known only as Julia, because their legal and political identity was limited–though the girls were often nicknamed prima, secunda, tertia, etc. New or additional cognomina were given to great men in honor of their accomplishments, such as P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus after the defeat of Carthage. The fact that we think it is ok to name children after starlets, athletes, and brand names indicates precisely who we think we are.
14 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 5 January 2009:
TJF @ 12
“She has about as much ‘class’ as granddaughter of one of her granddad’s Sicilian partners.”
Alas, Dr. Fleming, you cut me to the quick! I am a proud Sicilian.
15 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
I envy our friend Giuseppe. I was referring only to the lowclass Mafia hoods that swallowed their pride and made deals with Rumrunner Joe. I love Sicily and admire the gravity and intensity of the Sicilians I have known, both over there and here. Southern Italy is a lot like the American South: Both have a not totally undeserved reputation for poverty, crime, and violence–some of which derived from a northern conquest in teh 1860’s–and both have contributed disproportionately to their national literatures. Imagine modern Italian letters without Verga, Pirandello, and Sciascia, or political thought without Pareto, Mosca, Croce, and Gentile
16 Comment by Red Phillips on 5 January 2009:
Dr. Fleming, do you agree with me that Back to School is an overlooked classic? Some good social commentary in there. The English treacher who proclaimes that the author of the paper written (for pay) by Kurt Vonnegut didn’t know a thing about Kurt Vonnegut. Dangerfield telling the business class that they were forgeting to calculate the money needed to grease the politicians and pay off the Mob. Funny stuff.
17 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
Back to School is one of a number of rather sweetly funny movies of the Reagan era. Like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, Back to School celebrates nerve and initiative and ridicules corrupt liberal institutions. Dangerfield, though not exactly an actor, has found the perfect part: the Aristophanic hero–low-class, honest, subversive of authority, but ultimately right. The Vonnegut bit is more or less borrowed from a Woody Allen bit with Marshall McCluhan in Annie Hall–but there Woodie is deliberately paying homage to a wonderful scene in Fellin’s 8&1/2.
18 Comment by Sempronius on 5 January 2009:
Fleming,mi fai cadere le braccia!
You didnt mention the greatest of them all.
What about Tommaso Di Lampedusa?Giambattista Vico?Giulio Evola?
You are skating on thin ice Sir.I am about to dispatch some scary looking Sicilians to Rockford.
Sei stato avvisato!
19 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 5 January 2009:
Dr. F points out quite rightly that Burris is constitutionally correctly appointed Senator. Of course, in these circumstances any honourable man or woman would refuse such an appointment.
It shows how far we have come from a proper understanding of the Constitution. The provision for interim appointments to the Senate was intended to guarantee that a State not go unrepresented in the Senate. But States are no longer represented in the Senate—politicaql parties are. The haste to place a new Senator has to do not with the rights of Illinois but with the rights of the Democratic Party and the symbolic satisfaction of African America.
In regard to the legally elected Southerners who were refused seats during Reconstruction, may I make a slight demurrer. They were not charged with treason. They were labe4lled by the Republican majority as representing States engaged in “rebellion.” Of course, any that agreed to become Republicans would have been excused “rebellion.”
20 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
Per quanto riguarda Rockford, non c’è bisgogno di Siciliani stranieri, spaventosi o non. La nostra città è molto famosa, dappertutto, per i suoi uomini d’onore. Parlando sul serio, ho letto Il Gattopardo due volte in italiano e due volte in inglese. Evola è un’altra cosa–intelligente e originale, certo, ma una persona, come tante altre, impazzita dal secolo scorso. Ho appena letto una recensione di “The Force of Destiny” (La Forza del destino), un libro recente sulla storia italiana moderna, nella quale ho criticato la trattazione di Sicilia. A noi!
21 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
I thank Dr, Wilson for the correction. I am guilty of repeating the Senate’s own official account of their proceedings. As for honorable men, I shall repeat E.E. Cumming’s great observation (as I have done many times) that “a politician is an arse upon which everything has sat except a man.”
22 Comment by Bruce on 5 January 2009:
Thanks for the point on names, a pet peeve of mine. We now name based on what sounds cute or cool.
23 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 5 January 2009:
um, you know, Caroline Kennedy is as fit as George W. Bush was when he decided to run for governor of Texas on the record of running oil companies into the ground and being the son of a failed president. The people get what they deserve. Here in the Washington area, liberals are even getting teary-eyed with the retirement of a 30 year institution and dimwit named Senator John Warner, better known as Mr. Elizabeth Taylor when he won his first senate race in 1978. Nobody can point to what use Senator Warner was to the people of Virginia but, by golly, he acted like a senator. Senator Warner held a seat in the US Senate for thirty years, accomplished little but to keep navy pork pouring into Norfolk and northern Virginia, and was most famous(and most useful to the Left) in knifing Judge Robert Bork and Oliver North in the back. Good riddance, Senator Warner, you have Caroline Kennedy and Al Franken to fill your shoes. The Republic is saved.
24 Comment by Sempronius on 5 January 2009:
Complimentoni! Domini bene l’idioma Italiano.Si,Il GATTOPARDO e’ davvero classico.L’ho letto soltanto una volta,in Inglese.Non so perche’,ma e’ uno di quei Romanzi che quasi ti stregano.Lo metterei alle pari con I PROMESSI SPOSSI.Più in avanti lo ripassero’.
Pero’,con tutto il rispetto dovuto,sei sbagliato per quanto concerne Evola (posso dare del tu?).RIVOLTA CONTRO IL MONDO MODERNO,GLI UOMINI E’ LE ROVINE,e’CAVALCARE LA TIGRE sono dei più nobili saggi del Novecento.Altro che pazzo,ne era il piu’ sobrio di tutti.
A proposito della Sicilia,non preoccupartene.Oramai e’ marcia alla stregua di tutta l’Occidente.Senno,un pizzico in piu’.
25 Comment by Beau on 5 January 2009:
@1 J Meng: In death Kennedy’s been at least ten times as useful to the democrats and to his family as he would have been in life. In people’s imaginations he’ll remain eternally young, and the keepers of his legacy will be able to present forever how he was when he was killed, young, ostensibly healthy and intelliegent; instead of what he would most likely be today had he lived, old, doddering, drooling on himself and maybe even plagued by incontinence.
26 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 5 January 2009:
In thirty years, John F. Kennedy will be about as remembered as Rudolph Valentino, Liberace and, yes, even Ringo Starr. Time is not good to pop idols.
27 Comment by Bob Johnson on 5 January 2009:
Thomas @13,
I’ll wearily admit that the ancient Romans have us beat when it comes to having named their daughters like how Charlie Chan named his adopted sons.
Though if memory serves me, I think that when Ralph Kramden was trying to adopt a daughter, he wanted to name her “Ralphina”.
So maybe there’s some small amount of hope for America after all.
28 Comment by Vincenzo il Magnifico on 5 January 2009:
Signori,
Non posso capire le parole che Signor Fleming ha detto, molte volte, che la famigila Borgia era una famiglia italiana. Coi rispetto, non e’ vero.
Il Professor Fleming dovrebbe sapere che la famiglia Borgia viene de una famiglia spagnola, non italiana, e questo e la ragione per tutti i peccati nel Vaticano durante i pontificio di questi stranieri.
Lo juro.
Vincenzo il Magnifico
29 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
Gentile “Sempronius”:
Perhaps we should switch to English. I have read a good deal of Evola, and while he is often brilliant, he is also a bit mad. The other postwar fascists seem to have avoided him. Like Nietzsche, he is filled with insights, but he strikes me as sharing Mussolini’s delusion–and with a worse case–that you could turn the Italians into something they are not. I concede his genius and have derived much profit from reading him, but I do not think he is well balanced. On Tommaso di Lampedusa, it is interesting how embarrassing he is both to his relatives today and to the Italian Left, who insist there is nothing “conservative” about him or his great novel. It is, by the way, one of the more difficult Italian novels to read, partly because of the minutely careful descriptions of plants, landscape, furniture. I also recommend strongly my friend Eugenio Corti’s masterpiece, Il Cavallo Rosso.
Here is what famous is:
Mr. Sandman, bring us a dream
Give him a pair of eyes with a “come-hither” gleam
Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci
And lots of wavy hair like Liberace
and
You’re the top, you’re the great Houdini
You’re the top, you are Mussolini.
Admittedly, Cole Porter eventually dropped the reference to the Duce, much as Savoyards drop the line “And the n-gger serenader and the others of his race…” Anyway, Lerner and Lowe neglected to put Don Jack into Camelot, so is fame is terminally ill, while everyone mentioned in “You’re the Top” or “If you want a receipt for that popular mystery, known to the world as a heavy dragoon, take all the remarkable people in history, rattle them off to a popular tune…” have a chance to survive the Bonfire of the Inanities being lit by cellphone shouters, text-messagers, and internet bullies.
30 Comment by TJF on 5 January 2009:
In checking the history of the Cole Porter lyric, I discovered a Times article in which it is claimed–or rather demonstrated–that Porter did not write the verse in question: It was added by the immortal P.G. Wodehouse for the London (1935) production of Anything Goes, which opened the year after the New York opening.
31 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 5 January 2009:
Cole Porter did write, “You’re the top, you’re a Coolidge dollar.”
Enough. “As the French would say, I’m just in the way, de trop.”
32 Comment by Allen Wilson on 5 January 2009:
All of this about the Kennedys reminds me of why I prefer to study the corruption and crimes of Byzantine monarchs. They were more interesting, and even the worst were often far above the best we have, who are less than light weight by comparison. Even the most disgusting Byzantines were interesting at least to some degree. I think that if the empire falls, in 100 years no one will remember much about domestic events in post WWII America, because it’s all so boring that no one will care to study it, except for pathologists and perverts.
I believe that a proper history of America should concentrate on the best of it’s history, which is the colonial period, the founders and the old republic, the confederacy, and the settlement of the west. After that, perhaps the conspiracies that led to involvement in two world wars should be examined, followed by a portal through which one walks on his own and at his own risk, under a sign that reads ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter’.
33 Comment by travis on 5 January 2009:
@31 Allen Wilson
I agree with your last paragraph. I would add the space program to the list.
34 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 5 January 2009:
Senate majority leader Harry Reid has tipped his hand by saying he won’t seat Roland Burris. Great! Now we can accuse him of racism — the worst crime an American can commit today.
The good news is that the totally unfunny and boring ex-talk show host Al Franken will be seated in the senate now that the Minnesota election has been fiddled. Couple that with the appointment of intellectual lightweight Ms. Kennedy-Schlossberg, and we might enjoy the stupidest deliberative body ever assembled. After all, their top intellectual is a West Virginia hillbilly klansman.
35 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 6 January 2009:
33. In the circumstances, a West Virginia killbilly Klansman looks pretty good.
36 Comment by Bruce on 6 January 2009:
I’m half descended from West Virginia hillbillies (not Klansmen) and I can tell you they’ve got a lot more sense than those who are leading the country.
My paw-paw was of the old, Southern Democrat type and didn’t give a flip about sodomites, minority victimology, and “climate change.”
37 Comment by D Simmons on 6 January 2009:
D. W. Griffith’s portrayal of a Reconstruction Era legislative body will look serious compared to this group of mongrels that C-Span will inflict on its tiny audience.
38 Comment by TJF on 6 January 2009:
Vincenzo above is making the point that the Borgias were a Spanish family, as indeed they were. My point was only that Pope Alexander VI was acting as a Riario or Rovere Pope would act. His son Cesare and daughter Lucrezia, however, were born to an Italian mother and grew up entirely in Italy. The family played the dynastic politics of the day with zest and brilliance. Perhaps the Spanish blood made them more impetuous, but it was an Italian game they were playing.
39 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 6 January 2009:
For all his faults, Senator Robert Byrd is one of the few men in American political life who has an inkling of respect for the prerogatives of the three branches of the federal government as understood by the Founders. Byrd was also, I believe, the only Democrat who voted against the ending of the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s trademark back in the 1990s, a cause celebre of the original holder of the black Senate seat representing Illinois, the egregious Carol Moseley-Braun.
40 Comment by Virgil Caine on 6 January 2009:
Dr Fleming:
Here Here! Your passing allusion to the late great Rodney Dangerfield’s cinematic tour-de-force “Back to School” was magnificient. I highly recommend Rodney’s finest work, “Easy Money” as well. Perhaps if Papa Joe had imposed on Tio Teddy what Rodney’s deceased aunt laid down as condition precedent to cashing in on his inheritance…
41 Comment by J Meng on 6 January 2009:
Beau, @25: Yes, but I asked why he was assassinated. If as you say, the Democrats have garnered political benefit by keeping alive the memory of John Kennedy as an endearing and inspiring Democratic President, it does not answer my question, unless, you are suggesting he was killed to provide an endearing and inspiring image for the Democratic Party’s political aspirations. If so, then, one has to ask the question, Why was his brother Robert assassinated? It seems to me that someone or some group hated them for a specific reason or reasons, like the ruling cliques of the Roman Senate hated Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus. Was someone’s power base threatened by the Kennedy’s?
42 Comment by TJF on 6 January 2009:
My reference to Byrd, the gun-totin’, Cicero-quotin’ klansman from West Virginia, I hope it will be understood, was not to his pecccadillos but as the most experienced man–and the last member of any worth– in the Senate.
43 Comment by polemicscat on 6 January 2009:
TJF, this is a splendid article.
The nation’s preoccupation with celebrities and elites at
the expense of prescribed and just procedures is ominous.
44 Comment by travis on 6 January 2009:
@ 41J Meng
“If so, then, one has to ask the question, Why was his brother Robert assassinated?”
It’s really no mystery why a Palestinian would assassinate a US politican. But I guess you think there was a hidden motive. What are you suggesting? Just come out with it.
45 Comment by J Meng on 6 January 2009:
Travis, @44: Yes, that is true, but why Robert Kennedy? why not Eugene McCarthy or Dick Nixon? They were running in the California primary, too. I am just seeking answers to situations that don’t make sense to me. If you have any ideas, please, relate them.
46 Comment by TJF on 6 January 2009:
This subject is not only completely off the point but, since it cannot be answered, lends itself to idle speculation and conspiracy theories. No more.
47 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 January 2009:
@23 Derek
You forget how that limp fish drunk also stabbed the most honest, decent, intelligent candidate for Virginia statewide office in the back — I’m talking about Mike Farris. His role as lieutenant governor would have been harmless, but Warner, who woke up every morning and thanked God for the plane crash that killed Richard Obenshain, had to listen to his main squeeze instead of the will of his GOP.
48 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 January 2009:
@ 35 and 36
Don’t get me wrong, I love West Virginia. I ski Snowshoe and hike the Dolly Sods every chance I get. But after so many years of West Virginia jokes about men being men and sheep being nervous, I found it ironic that Sen Byrd would hold the title of “conscience of the senate.”
49 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 January 2009:
Oh yes, I almost forgot, the other WV senator is a Rockefeller, and a complete nonentity at that.
50 Comment by Lee on 7 January 2009:
I think the joke is about women being women and the sheep being nervous.
51 Comment by Sean Scallon on 7 January 2009:
Ahh all the chaos Obama’s election has caused the U.S. Senate. It almost makes me wish McCain was elected. Almost.
It looks likes the icebergs are breaking up and Burris will be seated in due course as he should. Leading Democrats like Feinstein and Feingold are coming to their senses and realizing penalizing Roland Burris for Blago’s sins is foolish and unconsitutitonal. They have no legal ground to stand on other than pig-headedness and stupidity and I don’t recall what part of the canon of law that comes under. Next time Sen. Reid may be a little wiser before acting so self-righteously.
The only question one can ask is why didn’t Blago name Burris right away instead of engaging in a Dutch auction for Obama’s seat. He could saved himself the perp walk and the cuffs.
Of course when it comes to Senate appointments Minnesota may very well top Illinois in hubris. In late 1976, after Walter Mondale was elected vice-president, then Governor Wendell Anderson resigned and had his lietenant governor Rudy Perpich, who succeeded him, appoint him to the seat. Needless to say Minnesota voters rewarded those shenanigans by booting both Perpich and Anderson out of office in 1978.
All this goes back to the need to repeal the 17th Amendment. Not justn because it really save the TV airwaves every two years from more awful commericals and save millions of dollars, but because it would produce a different kind of Senator. This is not to say that politics would be completely removed from the equasion or that the Senators pre-17th were all demonstrably better than those post 17th Amendment, but certainly you may very well see more non-political and non-ambitious and non-empire building men and women be chosen for the officie (especially as compromise candidates within fractous state legislatures). Someone like Caroline Kennedy may very well be appointed to the U.S. Senate in such a process but at least it would be far more diginified than doing a tap dance in front of a blind governor or looking for your checkbook when Blago quotes a price or being another Robert Redford in the movie “The Candidate” and ask “Now what?” after winning. That U.S. Senate election he won. Suprised?
52 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 7 January 2009:
If I were a Republican, I would fully endorse the appointments of Caroline Kennedy and Roland Burris. Along with the non-entity named to the vacated senate seat in Colorado, the Republicans have decent shots at those seats as senate appointees have a much greater tendency of losing re-election. Of course, the Republicans are a dry-rotted entity and will do little with any sort of election victory. And I am not a Republican.
Whether Roland Burris or Jesse Jackson Jr. or Tammy Duckworth becomes the next Illinois senator is about as an appealing a choice as, say, choosing between Julian the Apostate or Romulus Augustulus to become emperor of Rome. In the last decade, we have had a dot.com bubble collapse, a real estate bubble collapse, a Wall Street bubble collapse, a bond bubble collapse due next year, trillion dollar budget deficits for the foreseeable future, an anti-American “community organizer” elected president, and unfunded entitlements about to become due as the baby boomers retire. We are heading into interesting times that seem likely to produce great upheaval. It is this revolution to come that conservatives should have their eyes on, not which squalid politician becomes the next senator of Illinois. At most, think of the Burris situation as entertainment.
53 Comment by Daniel McCarthy on 8 January 2009:
There are a few other examples besides the Southern senators alluded to above of the Senate refusing to seat someone elected or appointed to the chamber. In the 1920s, both William S. Vare of Pennsylvania and Frank L. Smith of Illinois were not seated because of suspicions of corruption. (I only know this because Sen. James A. Reed, whom I had occasion to write about recently http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookman/article/show-me-a-statesman/ , was instrumental in preventing Vare from taking office.)
Neither of these precedents would seem to apply to Burris, however, since no one has seen fit even to allege that Burris was paying or receiving bribes.
54 Comment by TJF on 8 January 2009:
Thanks for the correction, Dan. Vare was personally corrupt but won the election, but the governor–a political rival in the primary–refused to certify. Vare then drank himself into a stroke and the Senate, while acknowledging the election, refused to seat him. Vare believed it was because of the governor (Gifford Pinchot), so here the case is the opposite of Burris. The case of Smith was closer: He was notoriously corrupt throughout his career. He defeated the sitting senator in the primary and won the election, and when his defeated rival died, the governor naturally appointed the elected successor, who was, however, refused by the Senate because of the corruption.
55 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 8 January 2009:
Dr. Fleming, I would appreciate your assessment of Grover Cleveland who seems to have been one of the politically cleanest presidents yet one with some dubious personal arrangements.
56 Comment by resh on 8 January 2009:
Damn good website, Doc. Yours?
But maybe I better ask: what’s the deal with your Kennedy angst? Surely their political DNA, while not angelic, is suitable enough to satisfy the democratic impulse and sentimentality.
Or is it the latter to which you object?
57 Comment by TJF on 8 January 2009:
HL Mencken used to say, when asked who the last good president was, “Grover Cleveland, God help us.” And I think that is still basically true. In an era of unprecedented corruption–as exemplified then and now by the GOP– in America, Cleveland did his best to restore some honesty to government and business. I don’t think all his measures were good–Civil Service reform assumes that one can safely take politics out of the bureaucracy, a dangerous notion. As for his personal problem, he acknowledged an illegitimate child as his own and paid for it. Although he probably enjoyed the lady’s favors, he was not the father it would seem. The lady had been generous to a number of men, and the bachelor was Cleveland, and so he did the decent thing and took the blame.
As for the Kennedys, there is nothing personal. The closest I came to meeting was when I took my wife and her former roommate to lunch in DC. The waiter said there were no tables, but when I mentioned the influential friends–actually former friends–who had taken me there, he put us in a room near one of the kitchen entrances. The only table set up had a champagne bucket and, I believe, some roses. It was only when Senator Ted came in with a rather young assistant that I recalled that this was the restaurant and the room where he had been photographed. The phrase that comes to mind is “butt ugly.” He glared in our direction more than once, but I instructed my wife and friend that his private life was none of our business and not to look at them at all. The problem with the Kennedys is precisely the rotten qualities in the American character that respond to them. And, yes, this is the website of Chronicles magazine, of which I am the editor, and The Rockford Institute, of which I am President. The man who designs and maintains it is Aaron Wolf, our associate editor.
58 Comment by resh on 8 January 2009:
Well, thanks for the GC update. From Mencken, no less, though I’m a bit surprised you’d reference him. Mencken would have observed that the presidency rather mirrors the public’s soul-and that whom it elects is who it is. If one concedes that, say, Bush refected our base nature, than the flip side is to stipulate that Obama reveals a more munificent, inspring ethos.
Thus, by saying “The problem with the Kennedys is precisely the rotten qualities in the American character that respond to them” is a bit disjointed in terms of a Mencken overview. Just saying.
Again, nice website. Good to read a decent fellow.
59 Comment by TJF on 8 January 2009:
Oh, I quite agree with you on our beloved outgoing President. But no, it is my strong impression that Obama reflects our fear, our cowardice, and our self-deception. But then, as HLM once observed famously, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the American people.
60 Comment by Sean Scallon on 8 January 2009:
Kudos on the new website design. It’s very well done.
61 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 8 January 2009:
Dr. Fleming remembers the Grover Cleveland situation with regards to the “Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa?” scandal as I remember reading about it. His marrying a much younger woman, Frances Folsom, whom he was guardian of since the age of 11(she was the daughter of a fellow Buffalo lawyer), might be considered dishonorable by some but it seems to have been a genuine love match between two mature adults.
Grover Cleveland was a much more honorable creature than almost all of his successors. He left school to support his family after his father died. Although folks like David Frum and Bill Kristol would criticize him for hiring a substitute in the Civil War, he did so to continue supporting his mother and younger siblings financially. And, after all, didn’t Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have other things to do in their era’s misguided war? As Erie County sheriff, he carried out his own hangings rather than force underlings to do the work. Cleveland fought the political machines of both parties as mayor of Buffalo. As governor of New York, he fought Tammany Hall. As president, he refused to deal with the American scoundrels that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy. And, although his fealty to absolute economic liberalism during the 1893-1897 depression was unwise, at least he showed backbone in sticking with what he thought was constitutionally correct. This contrasts strikingly with the Bush/Paulson/Demorepublican panic of the last few months.