John F. Kennedy

Mitt Romney: A Wealthy Person Without Work For Long Time!

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We hear so much talk about how IF a person is out of work for more than one to two years, that he or she loses their work skills, their talents, their expertise, by the long layoff from getting up daily and going to work.

Well, if that is the case, and many companies have made clear that they will NOT hire anyone who is unemployed for more than a short time, then Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, should be disqualified, as he has not “worked” in six years, and much of his life, he has lived off his wealth WITHOUT contributing to public service.

One might say: “Hey, rich people often do not work, as they make money on their investments”! Well, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, Nelson Rockefeller, Jay Rockefeller, Ted Kennedy, and even George Romney, among other very rich people, all WORKED their entire lifetime, some of it in private enterprise, but much of it in public life and service!

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, never produced any products in his corporate experience; and only served one term as Governor of Massachusetts, choosing not to run; and had a brief involvement with the Salt Lake City Olympics. He did not choose to run for re-election in Massachusetts, because he was looking to create as “mimimum” a public service as he could do, and be able to run for President.

This man does not know what the work ethic is, and has lived a privileged life with very minimal commitment to public service, and no commitment to creating new jobs, but rather simply to enrich his own pockets!

Romney sees the Presidency as something he is “entitled to”, because his much harder working dad was unable to reach that pinnacle. He has no plans or agenda other than his own aggrandizement, both in ego and in wealth.

Being a good family man is no big virtue either, as Barack Obama easily fits that image.

So, Mitt Romney, a wealthy person who has not worked most of his life, and not recently, is not “entitled” to become our 45th President. That will come to someone else in January 2017, when Barack Obama leaves the Presidency after two terms in the Oval Office!

The Issue Of Presidential Sexual Scandals And The Candidacy Of Newt Gingrich

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The controversy surrounding former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s private life has multiplied, with the revelation by his second wife of Newt’s desire for an “open marriage”, so that he could carry on an affair with the woman who became his third wife, since his second wife disagreed with his desire for an open marriage. This issue arose when the second wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, just as the move by Newt to divorce his first wife came when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Have Presidential candidates and Presidents before now been involved in sex scandals? Of course, the answer is yes, but only becoming public knowledge and controversy in the past 25 years with the candidacies of Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, and Newt Gingrich, and the planned but aborted candidacies of Mark Sanford and John Ensign.

Have Presidents had affairs in the past, in or out of office? Of course yes is the answer, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Buchanan, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, that we are aware of. But ONLY Bill Clinton was revealed to be involved in such scandals before he was elected, and during his Presidency, as news and gossip on other Presidents was kept well hidden from the news media and the general public.

Have Presidents or Presidential candidates ever been divorced? The answer is yes, although only Ronald Reagan has been elected. But Adlai Stevenson, Bob Dole, John Kerry, and John McCain all were married for the second time when they ran for the White House.

Has any candidate ever been married THREE times, and openly cheated on his first two wives, other than Newt Gingrich? The answer is NO, and the hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich is that he pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-1999 while pursuing his own affair outside of marriage.

No President or Presidential candidate has openly pursued the idea of a “open marriage”, although one could argue that Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton, at the least, seemed to accept such a concept in the sense that they knew their husbands were involved in cheating and did not choose to break up their marriages.

Other First Ladies and wives of Presidential candidates MAY have silently agreed to their husbands committing adultery and staying married, but that is all speculation at best.

The point is that the second wife of Newt Gingrich, in revealing the “open marriage” idea of her former husband, made it clear that Newt had said that Callista, the third wife, had no problem with “sharing” Newt.

So what this means is that IF Callista Gingrich becomes First Lady, we will have the first acknowledged believer in an open marriage, who has no concept of a problem with adultery. In the past, there were choice words for such a woman, which will not be used here. It indicates the likelihood of an “open marriage” between Callista and Newt from the beginning of their marriage, and the excellent possibility that there would be sex scandals in the White House, something we do not need to occur, or to learn about.

In a country in which many “religious” people claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, and the importance of “family values”, to have Newt and Callista Gingrich in the White House would be a mockery of the concept of marriage and loyalty, and a degradation of the Presidency as an institution.

And for conservatives, such as Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh to ignore this, and to support Newt, indicates the total hypocrisy of the Right, which was only too eager to remove Bill Clinton from office on moral grounds.

Birthday Of The Most Misunderstood And Underappreciated Founding Father: Alexander Hamilton!

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On this day, January 11, in either 1755 or 1757, depending on which historical records one believes, Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies.

Hamilton went on to a life of success, migrating to the American colonies, serving George Washington in the American Revolution, being a delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, becoming President Washington’s first Secretary of the Treasury, founding the first political party (the Federalists), and promoting what has become the “liberal” interpretation of the Constitution (although it was termed “conservative” at the time).

Hamilton was always controversial, outspoken, opinionated, egotistical, and had so called “skeletons in his closet” regarding his financial and love lives.

But he saved the country during its early years under George Washington with his policies of paying off the national and state debts. He developed the broad interpretation of the Constitution, utilized later by Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court in the doctrine of “judicial review”. He developed the US Mint; the US Coast Guard; emphasized the importance of manufacturing and industry in the American economy alongside agriculture; started the Bank of New York; and developed the oldest continually published newspaper in America, the New York Post.

Hamilton would be tragically killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in an infamous gun duel in New Jersey in the summer of 1804, dying at the young age of 47 or 49, and remains one of the tragic losses of a young politico, alongside John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others.

It is hard to imagine how America would have evolved without the contributions of Alexander Hamilton!

Amazing How Republicans Are Attacking The “Religion” Of Capitalism, And Yet Claim Barack Obama Is A “Socialist”!

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It is actually quite hilarious how many Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, are attacking Mitt Romney over his career with Bain Capital, and yet have enriched themselves in similar ways through Wall Street and other capitalistic interests without any shame, and at the same time, have no concern about the sufferings of the middle class and the poor, as a result of the Wall Street bank collapse of 2008-2009!

While attacking Barack Obama as a “Socialist”, the Republicans have been willing to support government aid to the corporations and the banks, a different form of “Socialism”, which benefits the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the middle class and the poor!

Without realizing it, the Republicans are presenting to us the evils of capitalism, and the dire need for MORE reform and regulation, which is actually “Progressivism”, as in the early 20th century, but is being labeled by them as “Socialism”!

But the same charges were leveled against “Progressives” in the early 20th century, and against the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a time when the government, instead of setting out to destroy capitalism at the peak of the Great Depression, instead SAVED capitalism from those who truly wanted to destroy it!

What Barack Obama is trying to do is also NOT revolutionary! It is the same purpose as FDR had, to save capitalism from its own shortcomings and weaknesses, by increasing government regulation and intervention in the public interest.

So the internal GOP debate over capitalism and its excesses can have the purpose of bringing about what needs to be done, a recognition that Barack Obama is NOT a revolutionary, but in the best progressive tradition of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton!

99th Anniversary Of Richard Nixon’s Birth: Anything To Celebrate? YES!

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Today, 99 years ago, Richard Nixon was born in California, and went on to become the most complex, most controversial, most divisive President we have ever had.

There is so much that is negative about Richard Nixon, and more is coming out from the Nixon Library itself, with the Watergate exhibits, and the constant revelations from the Watergate tapes, and the research being done by scholars in political science and history, and by veteran White House journalists, including a recent book in October on his judicial appointments (Kevin J. McMahon) and a scathing attack on his ethics and policy making (Don Fulsom), due out at the end of this month.

So Nixon will never be able to rest easily in the afterlife, so to speak, but since it is his birthday, can we find anything decent to say about his time in office, in the midst of the mountain of evidence of negativism?

Richard Nixon continued to expand on the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, even while claiming to cut back on the economic and social programs of both Democratic Presidents. After all, he signed into law many initiatives that are now opposed by Republicans who would like nothing better than to repeal what he signed into law.

Nixon accomplished the following in domestic policy:

The Environmental Protection Agency
The Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Affirmative Action for Women and Minorities
Appointed Associate Justice Harry Blackmun
Supported the Equal Rights Amendment for Women
Initiated Wage and Price Controls in a time of inflation

He also had the following successes in foreign policy:

Negotiated Detente with the Soviet Union
Began Economic and Diplomatic Ties with China
Supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War

This list of ten accomplishments in no way makes up for the many negatives of the Nixon Presidency, and the damage he did long term to the institution itself.

This post is NOT an attempt to whitewash the Nixon record of horrible abuse of power, just a recognition that the 37th President did have a positive impact in ways worth remembering, a year before the Centennial of his birth, which will NOT be celebrated quite the same as Ronald Reagan’s centennial in 2011, or the future centennial of John F. Kennedy in 2017, or the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln in 2009!

The Persistent Hillary Clinton For Vice President Chatter: Does It Make Sense? YES!

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Chatter is arising again, as it has on and off for a year, that President Barack Obama might ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to become his Vice Presidential running mate for the Presidential Election of 2012, with Vice President Joe Biden dutifully steeping aside and becoming Secretary of State in a second Obama term.

This is something that has been dismissed in the past as not going to happen, and not advisable to happen. The author himself is a great Joe Biden fan, and the general feeling is that Joe Biden has done a great job as Vice President, adding distinction to the office.

However, the arguments for Hillary Clinton as Vice President are as follows:

1. Hillary Clinton has improved her credentials as Secretary of State, but is tiring of the constant travel and wants to leave the State Department.

2. While Hillary claims she wishes to retire, and proceed to write, speak and travel, it is hard to believe that the highly competitive Mrs. Clinton really wants to do what she says!

3. With the possibility of a close election due to the slowly recovering economy, Hillary would certainly be a plus for Barack Obama, more so than Joe Biden, as she has great public support, with a present public opinion rating of 64 percent, higher than anyone.

4. Hillary Clinton running for Vice President would be likely to bring more Democratic victories in Congress, which is essential to accomplish the goals of a second Obama term.

5. Hillary would bring more support for the President among women, Hispanics and Latinos, African Americans and young people, the core of the Obama victory in 2008, but flagging somewhat in all areas after the realities of three years in power.

6. Hillary running would bring about the first woman Vice President in reality, an exciting proposition after the disastrous candidacies of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008.

7. The Democratic Party would have a front runner for President in 2016, although others would challenge Hillary, but it would increase the chances of a third Democratic term, and even possibly a fourth Democratic term, in the White House, and extra strength for the Democrats in Congress for the future beyond Barack Obama.

8. So called “shotgun marriages” in politics have occurred before with success, such as John F. Kennedy with Lyndon B. Johnson in 1960 and Ronald Reagan with George H. W. Bush in 1980.

9. Having Bill Clinton, supremely popular almost on the level of his wife, fully working for Obama and his own wife, would make for an exciting, dynamic campaign, creating a “marriage” between two powerful families, and would work well electorally.

10. Hillary could help President Obama in the crucial Midwest, with white working class men and women, her strong point in 2008, and his weak point.

11. Joe Biden would be a “good soldier”, who would willingly agree to step aside, but would get his ideal job, based on his career in the Senate, as having been former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and loving that area of policy, he would have great impact as Secretary of State in a second Obama term, and being 74 by the end of the second Obama term, would not be likely to seek the Presidency or be a real challenge to Hillary or other Democrats at that stage of his life. But since he has good relations with Hillary, he could have a future in the position of Secretary of State or some other important position in 2016.

12. Finally, some might say that the Bill and Hillary Clinton shortcomings might be revived in a race in 2012 and beyond, but that is all old news, not new, and would have little impact, as their reputations have soared, rather than declined!

So therefore, it makes sense at this point for Barack Obama to ask Hillary Clinton to be his running mate, and for Joe Biden to replace her in 2013 as Secretary of State in a second Obama administration, good for all of them, for the Democratic Party, and for the future of America!

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

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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!

The “Bible Belt”, Religion, And The Republican Presidential Race

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After Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucuses by EIGHT votes over Rick Santorum, some saw it as a victory.

But others pointed out that Romney actually received SIX fewer total votes than he did in 2008 in the Iowa Caucuses!

And Romney did not do well among evangelical Christians, which are a very large portion of the Republican vote in Iowa. Considering also that he received just 25 percent of the vote, the same percentage as in 2008, brought to mind that his Mormon faith MAY have an effect in the Southern primaries and other Midwest primaries where evangelical Christians still look at Mormonism as a religious cult, in areas considered the “Bible Belt”!

So Mitt Romney is not seen as overcoming the religion question as John F. Kennedy did in 1960.

But the problem is that Jon Huntsman is also a Mormon, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are Catholic, the problem that existed for Kennedy. Only Rick Perry and Ron Paul are evangelical Christians or Baptists, which is predominant in the South.

The question is whether Rick Santorum, who shares the religious and family values of many Southerners, but is a Catholic, can win them over and have an impact in future primaries. He is already trying to appeal to blue collar whites who are often rural in environment and religious more than the rest of the country. Will Perry and Paul have a better shot, particularly in the South, and can Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism, overcome that fact?

The point is that religion COULD be a factor in the final decision as to who the GOP Presidential nominee will be!

Further Evidence Of Insignificance Of Iowa Caucuses, And Significance Of New Hampshire Primary!

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So much attention is paid to the Iowa Caucuses, but the more one examines them, one realizes how unimportant to history Iowa really is.

Only George W. Bush and Barack Obama have won the Iowa Caucuses and gone on to being elected President. Jimmy Carter fell behind “Uncommitted” in 1976. One could say that since the two most recent Presidents won Iowa, that it is an indication of the changing role of Iowa, but that is really highly doubtful!

At the same time, New Hampshire’s Primary HAS been VERY significant in picking Presidents, as Jimmy Carter in 1976 and John F. Kennedy in 1960 won the state, and Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, Richard Nixon in 1968, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and George H W Bush in 1988 also won the state.

In Interview, Barack Obama Compares Himself In Accomplishments To Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, And Lyndon B. Johnson! Is That Appropriate?

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President Obama has now compared his accomplishments after three years in office to three other Presidents–Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.

This comment will stir much reaction and commentary, and it requires analysis and judgment, which will go on forever!

Certainly, Obama’s time in office has caused tremendous controversy and turmoil, but one could argue the same for Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ!

Assuming that the Supreme Court does not declare Obama’s Health Care plan unconstitutional, that achievement will stand out as one of the most profound in American history!

Obama also has saved the auto industry, prevented a Great Depression, and has brought about more reforms in his time in office than anyone except FDR, LBJ, and possibly Woodrow Wilson! He also has been extremely impressive in his attack on terrorism and Al Qaeda, and in ending the war in Iraq.

It is certainly true that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan had a great significance in our history!

It is also true that even James K. Polk, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton had major accomplishments that will not be forgotten.

But in terms of pure legislative accomplishments, Obama must, at this point, rank with FDR and LBJ, and again possibly Wilson, and Lincoln always needs to be mentioned when talking about accomplishments, although for Lincoln, it was in time of the Civil War.

But it will be the whole record of Obama, not just the first three years, that will be part of the ultimate judgment on his tenure. If he is reelected, the odds of a favorable view of his Presidency will grow, while if he is defeated for a second term, his reputation will be dimmed, typical of one term Presidents.