Happy President's Day

I hope you are all celebrating with sheetcake.

People Don't Change

Frank Rich's column this morning in the New York Times was called "A Profile in Cowardice." If you haven't guessed, it was about President George Bush.

Rich points out, as we all grow to learn as we get older, that people don't change, and he draws a parallel between the younger George Bush who skipped out on his service in Vietnam and the older George Bush who unfortunately is now the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military force:

Mr. Bush’s failure to have the courage of his own convictions was apparent early in his history, when he professed support for the Vietnam War yet kept himself out of harm’s way when he had the chance to serve in it. In the White House, he has often repeated the feckless pattern that he set back then and reaffirmed last week in his hide-and-seek bestowing of the Libby commutation.

Rich's full argument about the Bush cowardice is here. And it's worth reading.

Why Gore (And America) Lost in 2000

Media hypocrisy ... Maureen Dowd ... and the mainstream media savaging (by ridicule) of Al Gore in 2000.

Mix it all together and you have exactly who holds at least partial blame for the ascendency of the worst president in the history of the United States.

Joe Conason, in a piece for Salon, seeks to answer the question: Why Do Journalists Suddenly Love Al Gore?

This is best thing I've read all week.

But whether we are talking about Ralph Nadar, Maureen Dowd (who used to love to ridicule Gore's pro-environment stances before they were the fashion), or any of the shouting head phonies on the cable TV news channels, nobody will acknowledge that they did anything wrong in their behavior running up to the 2000 election. Which means that nobody has learned a damn thing. And this thought is truly horrifying.

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"Democracy," wrote E.B. white in 1944, "is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."

This was certainly true in 2000, when Al Gore received half a million more votes than George Bush, who eventually was elected president by the Supreme Court, proving that Democracy is not the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the members of the Supreme Court are right more than half of the time.

Imagine what the world would be like if Gore -- he of moderation on many issues -- had won in 2000.

Would he have squandered the good will of the world following 9/11? Would he have ignored the intelligence warnings about bin Laden? Would he have sought to divide America along social issues? Would America be leading the world in environmental issues, health care and stem cell research?

Questions.

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I realize (despite the headline) that Gore really didn't lose in 2000, and that he was elected by the people, as reflected in the popular vote, and that Bush was elected by a popular vote (5-4) of the Supreme Court.

Seven years later: Have we learned anything at all from this? Has it changed anything about our antiquidated electoral college? Do we still have ballot problems in communities all across the country, whether it's faulty touch-screen systems or too few machines at certain precincts (usually in the poor regions)? Do we even care that "swift-boated" is now not just a word, but a way of life?

Is this mic on?

***

Click here for a quote from somebody who did
learn something, and thoughtfully reflects on it.

Confidence and Bravado: A President's Day Reflection

"The difference between the almost right word & the right word," Mark Twain wrote in 1888, " is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

I thought of this quote last week while reading an entry on Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish about Abraham Lincoln. It's a letter from Lincoln to Ulysses Grant in which he admits a mistake:

My dear General,

I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did -- march the troups across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port-Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.

I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.

Yours very truly
A. Lincoln

What is the one single quality a man would have to have to write such a letter? The word I came up with was "confident." Lincoln is a man who is smart and secure enough to be able to rationally admit a mistake.

But isn't George Bush -- who is pictured above in his 2009 Halloween costume aboard the ship the USS Abraham Lincoln -- a confident man, too?

The answer is "not quite." The word is not quite the right one. Rather, Bush demonstrates what you'd call "bravado," a foolishly unyielding confidence.

George Bush, unlike war hero John Kerry, is certainly no flip-flopper, so he certainly could have never written a letter like the Lincoln letter. But at least he has a liberal dosing of bravado to complement his swagger and his Andrew Johnson-like stubbornness.

Bush likes to compare himself to former presidents, like Harry S Truman and Abraham Lincoln. The comparisons are rubbish. Truman was our last true liberal president, advocating national health care and civil rights.

The comparisons turn into contrasts when you scratch the Bush-Truman surface a little:

• Truman founded the United Nations. Bush lied to the United Nations.
• Truman fought a limited war in Korea that was truly an international effort. Bush's Iraq fiasco was largely a U.S. effort, involving only an additional 24 non-combat Laundry Corps soldiers from Poland, a country that has since withdrawn not only all its troops but also all its fabric softener.
  
• Truman was instrumental in international efforts such as the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; Bush shows contempt for such globalism, opposing the Kyoto accords and showing absolutely no interest in international cooperation whatsoever prior to 9/11.
  
• Truman opposed generals for the right reasons; for example, he had the audacity (and the vision and good judgment) of disagreeing with the very popular (and possibly manic) Gen. Douglas MacArthur by refusing to use dozens of atomic weapons against China and Manchuria. Bush opposed generals, too, but the problem is that these generals, unlike MacArthur, turned out not to be insane.
  
• Truman demonstrated confidence and certitude; Bush demonstrates ... bravado and stubbornness.
  

From all of us here at The Cup of Joe, and by all of us I mean "me," here's wishing a Happy President's Day to you and all you hold dear. As you head off for a night of partying and celebrating the holiday with loved ones, remember that the difference between the right word and the wrong word, and the difference between a good president and a dreadful president, is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. May your lights shine brightly, my friends.

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President Logan: Now More Than Ever

Today is a big day: Millions of Americans will celebrate President's Day with parties, gift-giving, large family feasts and street festivals. It's one reason why President's Day has become in recent years not only a favorite of schoolchildren but also the 110th largest shopping day of the year, according to figures recently released and made up by the website The Cup of Joe.

So tonight, as you gather with friends and family for your annual President's Day observences, you may want to flip on Fox's 24, because ex-President Charles Logan returns with "new facial hair and a new attitude."

There's no specific hint about just what the Nixon-esque Logan will bring to the plot tonight, but I think it has something to do with either energy policy or wage and price controls.

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Gay Guy Wants to Jingle In Your Pocket

So, I hear they're going to put all 40-something ex-presidents on the new dollar coins? This is kind of neat, especially since there's already an alarming lack of white males on U.S. coinage.

But this is historic. Why? This country's only "confirmed bachelor" president, James Buchanan, has not yet been honored, making him the first gay person ever to appear on a U.S. coin.

Now, I'm not going to defend Buchanan just because we played on the same team. He was, frankly, a pussy, demonstrating no moral compass, no discernable leadership abilities (why do anything when you can find excuses for inaction?) and (perhaps worst of all) a really ghastly fashion sense. He is easily among the three worst presidents EVER, along with Harding and the guy with the jiggly legs who is currently keeping the chair warm in the oval office. That would be Bush the Lesser, of course, the worst president in the history of the United States, the world, and, quite possibly, the entire tri-galaxy region.

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Was Abraham Lincoln Gay?

First off, we here at The Cup of Joe need to send a birthday shout-out to Abraham Lincoln. He would have been 198 today, had he lived. (I understand he tells all his friends in heaven that he's only 129.)

Last week, on Andrew Sullivan's blog, Andrew got me thinking when he wrote that Walt Whitman was arguably the most distinguished gay American in history, then noted parenthetically that this is true "if you don't count Lincoln."

Now, I realize that Andrew is being a little tongue-in-cheek in so casually acknowledging the premise that Lincoln may have been gay, a premise advocated in recent years through various books and articles. But the idea has been around for decades, and was slyly alluded to in a Carl Sandburg 1926 biography that hints that Lincoln's relationship with Joshua Speed had "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets."

Was Lincoln gay? It's a good time to revisit the question, especially since the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Cheney, as in Mary Cheney.

I've read a good amount on Lincoln, so I've given this question some thought before. Of all the books I've read, I think the best single "straight" biography of Abe is David Donald's book Lincoln, for its scope, thoroughness, the objectivity of its decidedly unheroic portrait, and the author's emphasis on primary sources.

What do I mean by a primary source? Well, Donald didn't rely on newspaper accounts, or, say, the multi-volume biography of Lincoln by Sandburg or the biographical accounts of any number of other historians. Nope, Donald relied on primary sources, like letters and diaries and government documents and presidential papers. First-hand accounts. Straight from "Mary's" mouth, so to speak, as in Mary Todd and others.

WHEN ABRAHAM MET JOSHUA

I've snapped a photo of the page from the Donald book that describes how Lincoln first met his best and most intimate friend, Joshua Speed. (CLICK TO ENLARGE THE PHOTO.) It should be noted that David Donald has made clear in interviews that he does NOT subscribe to the notion that Lincoln was a Friend of Dorothy.

So why do some people say Lincoln was gay? Here's a quick review:

* Joshua Speed and Lincoln shared a bed for four years, a fact that is not up for historical debate. It happened. Does this make Lincoln gay? Not necessarily, because it was common for men to share beds in rooming houses at the time. So you can't say for sure.

* Lincoln also is said to have shared his bed with a solder (David Derickson) for an eight-month period during The Civil War but only when his wife was away, according to C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005). Does this make him gay? Well, it's impossible to say. The behavior is a little strange, but during a Civil War when you're the president, wouldn't you want a bodyguard close by, particularly if it's a strapping soldier with buns of steel and the guns to match?

On second thought, you don't have to even answer the question since the book's conclusions based on available evidence have already been pretty much discredited.

* Lincoln didn't have particularly close relationships with women, but Joshua Speed was his closest and most intimate friend. Even an old-fashioned and cautious historian like David Donald emphasizes this closeness and intimacy.

* Lincoln certainly suffered from depression, which sometimes sounds more like bi-polar disorder. Was Lincoln depressed in part because he had, on some level, a kind of self-hate that many closeted homosexuals experience?

A PENNY FOR MY THOUGHTS?

What's the bottom line for me?

You can't say that Lincoln was definitely not gay. There's evidence to indicate that Lincoln hardly was what you'd call a Kinsey 1 or zero, and that on the spectrum of sexuality he certainly wasn't in the same camp with, say, Sam Elliot.

But to leap to the conclusion that Lincoln was gay is quite the stretch. In Lincoln's day people didn't discuss sex. Sex wasn't a topic for polite company during the Victorian Era. This generation didn't leave us the evidence we'd need to arrive at some sound answer to the question. (And we also have to be careful not to read a 19th century letter or diary entry with a 21st century mindset.)

We'll never know whether Lincoln was gay or not, and anybody who claims otherwise is going to have to show me the YouTube video (shot in secret by Matthew Brady, of course) to prove that Lincoln was splitting more than just rails.

Maybe if we had video-shooting cell phones, gay.com, blogs, gay hooker Mike Jones and crystal meth way back when, we'd have some clearer and substantial evidence on the whole matter, and we could declare Lincoln as not only America's finest president, but also its greatest and finest Otter as well.

Two Unrelated Statements of Fact

1. Four out of the last six presidents have been left-handed.

2. Barack Obama is left-handed.

Election 2008: Presidential Quick Thoughts

I really need to give this more thought, but here goes:

Hillary Clinton: Could make a great president. Would divide America. America needs uniting.

Christopher Dodd: Is known as the quickest wit in the Senate. All my friends have quick wits. I don't think my friends should be president.

Joseph Biden: Is exactly the opposite of what I write later about Al Gore.

John Edwards: He's the best looking candidate in the race. The better looking candidate usually wins, which explains why that HOTTIE Chester Arthur (a dapper widower who attracted much interest from the ladies) was on the winning ticket in 1880. Something to consider.

Barack Obama - Bill Richardson, in any order: Wouldn't having on the same ticket a black man of mixed ancestry and a hispanic -- both considered men of competence and ability -- tell something to the world about the greatness of America, at a time when so much of the world hates us?

Generic Republican: The candidate who can convince primary voters that they hate The Gays more than the other candidate -- and appoint judges who will hate The Gays, and pass constitutional amendments to restrict the rights of The Gays -- will win the nomination.

Al Gore: He supported the first War with Iraq. He was against the second War in Iraq. What other potential candidates and candidates got it right both times? What other candidates demonstrated such wisdom?

And wouldn't the world be a better, safer and "cooler" place if five members of the Supreme Court had not elected their fellow party member George Bush in 2000?

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QUICK! You Have Three Seconds to Pick the Next President

Respond in the comments. You have three seconds starting NOW.

* Senator Joe Biden of Delaware
* Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
* Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina
* Former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska
* Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio
* Former Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa
* Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York
* Senator Barack Obama of Illinois
* Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico
* Retired General Wesley Clark of Arkansas
* Reverend Al Sharpton of New York

* Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas
* John H. Cox of Illinois
* Representative Duncan Hunter of California
* Michael Charles Smith of Oregon
* Former Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia
* Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York
* Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas
* Senator John McCain of Arizona
* Representative Ron Paul of Texas
* Former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts
* Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado
* Former Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin
* Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia
* Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska

* Bush tool Ralph Nader

***

Is America Ready?

At near right is Wayne Palmer, the new president of the United States on this season of Fox's 24.

I've given this a lot of thought, but frankly I don't think America is ready for a president with facial hair.

The audacity of not shaving gives me no hope that Wayne Palmer could ever have survived the Iowa Caucus.

My Five Favorite "Seldom Used Verbs of Attribution"

THIRD IN A SERIES

The usual verb of attribution is said. As in, "I'm a complete disaster as president," Bush said.

I will now use my five favorite seldom used verbs of attribution using actual quotes from George Bush's State of the Union Address.

"The rite of custom brings us together at a defining hour -- when decisions are hard and courage is tested," Bush ejaculated.

"We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies -- and the wisdom to face them together," Bush belched.

"America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil," Bush gushed.

"When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children," Bush chortled.

"My fellow citizens, our military commanders and I have carefully weighed the options," Bush snorted.

Bush snorted? Bush snorted.

Mmmmm-kay?

EARLIER:

My five favorite seldom heard nouns of insult.

My five favorite seldom used expressions.

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George Bush Makes Me Want To Dance

When George Bush talks, as he did last night during his State of the Union address, isn't it just like hearing the Adult Voice on the Peanuts cartoons?

Watch the short cartoon: Would you call Bush a "Failure Face"?

Shocking News From Fox News

Fox News thinks it has a smoking gun to help derail the reputation of a U.S. Senator who may run for president, disclosing that Barack Obama smokes cigarettes.

Boo!

Scared yet?

***

Four Presidents And A Funeral

President Bush is speaking live, right now, about Gerald Ford at the former president's funeral. Also at the funeral are Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Bush the Greater.

Every single one of them is thinking about what is going to be said at their own funeral, and I'm sure they're a little wistful.

Ford was praised for various things: the Nixon pardon, of course, but also his stands while a congressman to support voting rights and civil rights.

Years from now, at the funeral of Bush the Lesser, I wonder if the name Terri Schiavo will be mentioned, and whether any Great Figure of our time will recall in a moving eulogy that special Sunday session of Congress convened on March 20, 2005, by Republicans to save her life, exactly two years to the day from the opening shots of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which also might get a mention.

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Ford Drops Dead

With former President Gerald Ford now dead at the age of 93, I wonder if FORD DROPS DEAD was the headline in the New York Daily News today.

This headline is, after all, a little more accurate and fair than the famous headline at right. Ford never, ever used the phrase "drop dead" when describing New York City -- and this headline probably cost him the 1976 presidential election.

Oh well, what are ya going to do?

My condolences to Betty.

And with 2007 ALMOST here, my wish for the country? A president from the Midwest who came from modest means, whose grandfather wasn't a Senator, whose father wasn't a president, a good and decent man, a man who never really had the ambition to be president, a man who, even after years in politics, lived in a modest middle class home right up until the day he moved into the most famous white house in the world.

I'm talking about Harry Truman. And Gerald Ford. Two midwestern accidental presidents who both left the world on the day after Christmas.

His Other Son Makes Me Cry

From the AP news wire:

Former President George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he cited his son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership.

Bush was addressing lawmakers, his son's top administrators, and state workers gathered in the House chamber Monday for the last of the governor's leadership forums.

He said he was proud of how his son handled losing the 1994 governor's race to popular incumbent Democrat Lawton Chiles, and vaguely referred to dirty tricks in the campaign.

Now, as a simple laborer I'm certainly no psychoanalyst or psychiatrist, but do you think, just maybe, that some of those tears had to do with the fact that Jeb was the one who was supposed to be president, that he was and is the cream of the crop in this family, and that his loss in the governor's race is what killed his presidential hopes? And that maybe, just maybe, the former president knows what a complete mess his other son has created?

Just thinking out loud here.

Here's some more data for you amateur psychologists/sleuths to consider as well. In an interview a few years ago in which Bob Woodward was promoting his book Plan of Attack, there's a very revealing segment. It describes W's reaction about whether he sought advice from his father, Bush the Greater, before making the critical decision about going to war in Iraq. Here's the description from a CBS News story:

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"

So Bush the Lesser didn't ask his dad, a man who was president for four years and vice president for eight years and who used to be in charge of the CIA, and who had orchestrated the first Persian gulf war during the early 1990s, for any sort of advice before he decided to go to war in Iraq?

Doesn't it just make you want to cry?

LINKS: The full story on Bush I crying here and, from a few years ago,
a story with info about the prodigal son who didn't ask for dad's advice.

We Really Liked Abe

We here at The Cup of Joe are thankful, very thankful, that U.S. News & World Report editors, in confidently declaring The Gettysburg Address to be "America's Greatest Speech" on its most recent cover, opted for this most eloquent and brilliant expression instead of, say, the Sally Field "you really like me" Oscar acceptance speech.

However, we also believe that many historians (and as a construction worker I can't count myself to be a historian) would argue that the Gettysburg Address can't possibly be "America's greatest speech" because it probably wasn't even Lincoln's greatest speech.

These historians would probably point to the extraordinary words (and historical context) of his Second Inaugural, and they might say that his famous "Address at Cooper Union" (Feb. 27, 1860) was so masterful that it propelled a failed politician and a relatively unknown country lawyer right into the White House, and that maybe these speeches are even more extraordinary than The Gettysburg Address, and that maybe declaring something as the "best ever" might sell magazines but is really a little silly and a little self-important.

When 1,500 New Yorkers listened to Lincoln for 45 minutes at Cooper Union, they really, really liked him, just as America would later embrace Sally Field.

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You Can't Beat War Coverage Like This

With the situation in Iraq and the Middle East deadlier than ever, now is a good time to give pause and reflect on which major U.S. newsweekly does the best job of covering the American Civil War.

This would be U.S. News & World Report, of course. The magazine's latest issue, now on newstands and pictured at right, lends some insight into Lincoln at Gettysburg and promises on the cover to take a "new look at America's greatest speech."

Here's a suggestion for editor-in-chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman for what his cover should be next week: Do another Lincoln cover, and celebrate the 13th anniversary of Garry Wills winning the Pulitzer prize for Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992), a superb and influential work that took a new look at America's greatest speech way back in the early 90s.

We wish U.S. News well, as well, in their future reporting on that other Civil War, the one going on in Iraq, and on reporting on the eloquent speeches (from 2006) that will shine a shimmering and welcome light on this happening-right-now blood bath.

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It Was the Jiggles That Worried Me

Years ago, before Bush the Lesser was appointed president the first time by five members on the Supreme Court, I attended a campaign rally of his to hear what he had to say. I had seen his father speak before, too, and ditto for President Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

When I heard Bush the Greater speak in person back in the 1980s, he seemed so much taller and more charismatic in person that he had ever appeared on TV. Ditto for Al Gore. And when I shook President Clinton's hand at a rally one time, his hand sweaty from a long day of summer campaigning, you couldn't help but feel that this guy seemed to absolutely love what he was doing.

So back to 2000, and I'm at the Bush rally, and I see the future President (not yet on stage) during the rally introductions, and he seems fidgetty. He is standing, and I notice that his right leg is jiggly in an "I want this damn thing to be over" way.

People with jiggly legs aren't suited for the office, I say to myself, so there's no way this guy can win.

I had not thought of this moment for years until last Sunday, when I read a review of Bob Woodward's State of Denial in the New York Times Review of Books.

According to Woodward, the president's legs anxiously jiggle under the table in meetings. He also suggests, as others have, that our adventure in Iraq had less to do with the promotion of democracy and more to do with the president's relationship with his father. Bush wanted to outdo his dad by taking down the tyrant his old man had left standing.

This scares me. Jiggle is a verb best reserved for the hijinx of buxom blondes going wild on spring break, and definitely not for the leader of the free world.