Day: January 8, 2012

Crossing Party Lines To Serve A President: The BEST American Tradition!

Ronald Leave a comment

Following up on Jon Huntsman’s defense of serving President Obama as Ambassador to China for two years, when one looks at American history, one sees many examples of public figures crossing party lines to serve a President of the other party, a commitment that is in the BEST American tradition of bipartisanship and service to country.

A look back reveals many examples of such bipartisanship and putting the country ahead of party, as witness the following examples:

President Barack Obama

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense
Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation
John McHugh, Secretary of the Army
Jim Leach, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities
Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve

President George W. Bush

Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation

President Bill Clinton

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve
William Cohen, Secretary of Defense

President George H. W. Bush

Robert Strauss, Ambassador to the Soviet Union/Russia
Richard Stone, Ambassador to Denmark

President Ronald Reagan

Mike Mansfield, Ambassador to Japan
Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Ambassador to the United Nations
William Bennett, National Endowment for the Humanities
Secretary of Education

President Jimmy Carter

James Schlesinger, Secretary of Energy
Lawrence Eagleburger, Ambassador to Yogoslavia

President Gerald Ford

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ambassador to India and to the United Nations

President Richard Nixon

Sargent Shriver, Ambassador to France
John Connally, Secretary of the Treasury
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ambassador to India

President Lyndon B. Johnson

Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to South Vietnam and to West Germany
Edward Brooke, Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders

President John F. Kennedy

Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense
C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury
McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser
Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to South Vietnam

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Martin Durkin, Secretary of Labor
William McChesney Martin, Jr., Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Robert B. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury

President Harry Truman

Warren Austin, Ambassador to the United Nations

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy
Henry Stimson, Secretary of War
William Donovan, Head of the Office of Strategic Services
John G. Winant, Ambassador to Great Britain
Harlan Fiske Stone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

President Herbert Hoover

Benjamin Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

President Warren G. Harding

Pierce Butler, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

President Grover Cleveland

Walter Q Gresham, Secretary of State
Theodore Roosevelt, Civil Service Commissioner

President Rutherford Hayes

David Key, Postmaster General

President Ulysses S. Grant

Caleb Cushing, Ambassador to Spain

President Abraham Lincoln

Edwin M Stanton, Secretary of War
Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee

This is quite a list of distinguished Americans who served their country for a President of the other party, and Jon Huntsman, as Ambassador to China for two years, adds to that distinct list, and it should NOT disqualify him to run for President of the United States!

Jon Huntsman: Winner Of The New Hampshire Republican Presidential Debates!

Ronald Leave a comment

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman came across in this weekend’s Republican Presidential debates as the winner by far, among all six candidates, particularly in the Sunday NBC debate.

The fact that he was willing to ignore partisanship and serve his country as Ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, which should be seen as a positive, has been attacked by Mitt Romney and others, but Huntsman gave a strong defense of his decision to serve the President of the United States.

Huntsman has moved up in the New Hampshire polls, and has a shot at ending second behind Romney, and if one uses the reaction of the audience at today’s debate, extremely supportive, more than any other candidate, one might wonder if a surprise is in the offing.

The problem is that Jon Huntsman is, in comparison to all other candidates, too centrist and moderate by comparison, but that is what is needed to overcome extreme partisanship and division, as Huntsman himself pointed out.

The real problem, ultimately, is that Jon Huntsman is too smart, too intelligent, too principled, to be the Republican Presidential nominee. He is a person who is NOT a career politician, and has done better serving his country in trade negotiations and in ambassadorships to Singapore and China.

To reject a man who can speak Mandarin and other foreign languages, and is very skilled and talented in more ways than all of his opponents combined, is a sign of just how the Republican Party has declined, a sad chapter in the history of a political party going back to the time of Abraham Lincoln!

The new American Research Group poll just out shows Huntsman with 17 percent, ahead of Ron Paul with 16 percent, with both behind Romney with 40 percent. If Huntsman continues to surge, it may be closer than that on Tuesday, and we know any poll could be wrong, so it will be exciting to watch what happens between now and Tuesday evening.