The Commentariat -- October 12, 2015

Defunct video removed.

Afternoon Update:

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: A Milwaukee civil suit puts a gun store owner on trial for allowing an obviously illegal sale of a gun used a month later to seriously wound two police officers.

CW: Of course I ignored Mark Halperin's latest prognostications, but Ed Kilgore takes on the drama queen. There are two great dramas! But they're like one! The fate of the world lies in Joe Biden's & Paul Ryan's hands!

Charles Pierce: Somehow the oligarchy that has taken over the country never comes up on the Sunday showz. CW: It would appear that Pierce did not get up early enough to see Anthony Mason on CBS's "Sunday Morning" kissing the ring on top oligarch Charles Koch, wherein Mason & crew allowed Koch to "come across as avuncular, sincere, and high-minded, a sweet, patriotic old man," according to Akhilleus. (See today's comments.) Somehow, both-sides-do-itism never takes account of us-v.-them. Only "them" gets a hearing.

*****

Might wanna move those indigenous Americans closer to the center of the frame.

AP: "As the US observes Columbus Day on Monday, it will also be Indigenous Peoples Day in at least nine cities, including Albuquerque; Portland, Oregon; St Paul, Minnesota; and Olympia, Washington." ...

... Alex Johnson of NBC News: "California became the first state to ban schools from using the 'Redskins' team name or mascot Sunday, a move the National Congress of American Indians said should be a "shining example" for the rest of the country. The law, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed Sunday morning, goes into effect Jan. 1, 2017. It's believed to affect only four public schools using the mascot, which many Indian groups and activists find offensive...." ...

... Becky Little of the National Geographic: "Christopher Columbus and his holiday are controversial today largely because of the way he and subsequent European explorers and settlers treated Native Americans. For years, there have been campaigns to celebrate an Indigenous Peoples' Day. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, many people ... argued that the real credit for discovering North America should go to [Leif] Erikson, whom they believed arrived 500 years before Columbus.." (CW: Last Friday, October 9, was Leif Erikson Day, in case you missed it, as I did.)

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama on Sunday called Hillary Rodham Clinton's use of a private email server 'a mistake,' but said it had not endangered national security and had been 'ginned-up' into a political attack by Republicans eager to keep her from being president. Mr. Obama made the comments during an interview on CBS's '60 Minutes' program in which he also defended his policy in Syria during a lengthy, contentious exchange with Steve Kroft, a veteran correspondent.... The president said Mrs. Clinton 'could have handled the original decision better' and might have been quicker to disclose work-related emails that had been kept on a private server outside government control." ...

... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "President Obama is refusing to say whom he will support in the 2016 presidential election, but that's not stopping him from pouring accolades on Vice President Biden, who is considering jumping into the race. 'I think Joe will go down as one of the finest vice presidents in history, and one of the more consequential,' Obama said in an interview on '60 Minutes' on Sunday. 'I think he has done great work.'... Obama said he did not know Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton used a private email server while serving as his secretary of State, but said it was 'not a situation in which America's national security was endangered.'" ...

... Video of the interview is here.

Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: "When the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks on American government outposts in Benghazi, Libya, was created, Democrats immediately criticized it as a partisan effort to damage the political fortunes of Hillary Rodham Clinton.... Now, 17 months later -- longer than the Watergate investigation lasted -- interviews with current and former committee staff members as well as internal committee documents reviewed by The New York Times show the extent to which the focus of the committee's work has shifted from the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack to the politically charged issue of Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state." CW: Emphasis added. Coming from the Land of He-Said/She-Said, this is a pretty bold statement. ...

... Jake Tapper's interview of Bradley Podliska, the Benghaazi! investigator whom the committee fired, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), "the chairman of the House committee on Benghazi, struck back Sunday morning at a fired staffer who is accusing the panel of engaging in a partisan probe to tarnish Hillary Rodham Clinton, with the lawmaker saying that the claims appear newly manufactured and that the staffer himself appeared obsessed with the presidential candidate. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Paul Waldman: "Could this be the time when Benghazi finally turned from a liability to an asset for Hillary Clinton? If so, it'll be because the issue has now become less about what the select committee Republicans set up to investigate the matter has found, and more about the committee itself."

** Paul Krugman: "What makes [Paul] Ryan so special [to Republicans]? The answer, basically, is that he's the best con man they've got. His success in hoodwinking the news media and self-proclaimed centrists in general is the basis of his stature within his party. Unfortunately, at least from his point of view, it would be hard to sustain the con game from the speaker's chair.... The truth is that his budget proposals have always been a ludicrous mess of magic asterisks: assertions that trillions will be saved through spending cuts to be specified later, that trillions more will be raised by closing unnamed tax loopholes.... crazies have taken over the Republican Party, but the media don't want to recognize this reality. The combination of these two facts has created an opportunity, indeed a need, for political con men. And Mr. Ryan has risen to the challenge." CW: Tell us what you really think, Krugman.

Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "If one Republican were willing to make the sacrifice, or Boehner were willing to stick it out for the remainder of his elected term, the Freedom Caucus would be neutered. Instead, the Freedom Caucus is empowered to play whack-a-mole with various pretenders to the speakership, and can hold out until a candidate emerges who will make insane promises to them, and then attempt to deliver. Crises at every turn. Everyone loses, except them -- and perhaps the press, which is understandably reveling in this story."

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is opening the door to changing the filibuster in response to growing pressure from Republicans angered that Democrats have blocked legislation from reaching the White House. McConnell has appointed a special task force to explore changes to the filibuster rule and other procedural hurdles -- including whether to eliminate filibusters on motions to proceed to legislation. That's a tactic the minority often uses to shut down a bill before amendments can be considered."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "The United States will 'make condolence payments' to the families of those killed last week in an errant strike on a trauma hospital in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced Saturday. A Defense Department spokesman said it's 'important to address the consequences of the tragic incident' which killed 22 people at the facility in Kunduz, which was run by the international aid group Doctors Without Borders." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Steve Ohlemacher of the AP: "For just the third time in 40 years, millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees can expect no increase in benefits next year, unwelcome news for more than one-fifth of the nation's population. They can blame low gas prices. By law, the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure of inflation, which is being dragged down by lower prices at the pump."

Matthew Teague of the Guardian reports on "the 1,000th mass shooting in the United States since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre almost three years ago." It happened in the small town of Inglis, Florida, last week, just after a gunman in Oregon killed nine people at Umpqua Community College.

Charles Blow discusses the march on Washington that took place Saturday & was organized by Louis Farrakhan.

David Hoffman of the Washington Post: "President Richard Nixon believed that years of aerial bombing in Southeast Asia to pressure North Vietnam achieved 'zilch' even as he publicly declared it was effective and ordered more bombing while running for reelection in 1972, according to a handwritten note from Nixon disclosed in a new book by Bob Woodward.... Nixon's private assessment was correct, Woodward writes: The bombing was not working, but Nixon defended and intensified it in order to advance his reelection prospects. The claim that the bombing was militarily effective 'was a lie, and here Nixon made clear that he knew it,' Woodward writes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Presidential Race

Fire Debbie! Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she was disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada after she appeared on television and called for more face-offs.... 'When I first came to Washington, one of the things that I was disappointed about was there's a lot of immaturity and petty gamesmanship that goes on, and it kind of reminds me of how high school teenagers act,' Ms. Gabbard said in a telephone interview on Sunday night.... 'It's very dangerous when we have people in positions of leadership who use their power to try to quiet those who disagree with them,' she added. 'When I signed up to be vice chair of the D.N.C., no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door.'"

Plato Predicted Trump & Carson. Jason Stanley in the New York Times: "In Book VIII of 'The Republic,' Plato is clear-eyed about these perils for democracy. He worries that a 'towering despot' will inevitably rise in any democracy to exploit its freedoms and seize power by fomenting fear of some group and representing himself as the protector of the people against that fear. It is for this reason that Plato declares democracy the most likely system to end in tyranny. Plato's prediction is most dramatically exhibited by Weimar Germany.... The fragmentation of equal respect is a clear alarm for the United States. We must heed it by categorically rejecting politicians who seek to gain office by exploiting the mistaken belief that democratic values are weaknesses." ...

     ... CW Translation: Ben Carson says Hitler can happen here. It's happening, Dr. Ben, & you're the guy. ...

... CW: The fact that the party of demagoguery has turned the Second Amendment on its head -- now it's a "right" to take up arms against the government, instead of for the government, as it was originally conceived -- is an important element in this dynamic. Don't kid yourselves; the Five Supremes are actively interpreting us right out of any semblance of democracy. It ain't just the ironically-named Citizens United.

The Ponzi Candidates. Helaine Olen in Slate: Both Donald Trump & Ben Carson have "a history of entanglements with companies that have been rightly criticized for hawking get-rich-quick schemes to the broke and desperate. The business model, which is perfectly legal, is called multilevel marketing." Why don't the other candidates highlight these nefarious associations? Because they're collecting campaign cash from the same "perfectly legal" crooks.

Still Crazy. Patrick Temple-West of Politico: "Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said on Sunday he wasn't exaggerating when he suggested limiting access to guns in the U.S. could hinder Americans' ability to topple a government authority like the Nazis.... Appearing Sunday on CBS's 'Face the Nation,' Carson said the history of the Nazis' rise to power could repeat in the U.S. if access to guns were to be limited." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

The Gun Lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies - the militia - would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires. --Chief Justice Warren Burger, The Right to Bear Arms, Parade Magazine, January 14, 1990

Beyond the Beltway

Erica Hellerstein of Think Progress: "An attorney for [Tamir] Rice's family called the reports [which called the killing of Rice "reasonable"] a 'charade' and blasted the prosecutor's office for 'releasing supposed "expert reports" in an effort to absolve the officers involved in Tamir's death of responsibility.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "... a pair of outside reports released Saturday concluded that [Cleveland police officer Tim Loehmann] was 'reasonable' in deciding to shoot Tamir [Rice], who was carrying a replica gun that looked much like the real thing. Though the investigation will continue, and a grand jury will ultimately decide on charges, some believe that those reports, which were commissioned and released by the prosecutor's office in Cuyahoga County, signal that an indictment is unlikely.... Craig B. Futterman, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago, criticized the reports' 'laser focus' on the shooting itself and said the reviewers should have placed more weight on the events leading up to the shots. 'There's strong evidence to believe, in the aggregate, the actions were unreasonable,' said Professor Futterman, who founded the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the university."

Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "For 15 minutes, a man shot by an off-duty officer [in Houston, Texas,] lay bleeding from two gunshots in his abdomen as the responding officers stood by without providing first aid. At one point, as the victim, a 53-year-old black man, raised his head, an officer used his foot to keep the man's face on the pavement, according to a dashboard camera video supplied to The New York Times recently by the man's relatives."

David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "Police in Charleston, South Carolina declined to press any charges against a Waffle House customer who shot and killed a man who was reportedly trying to rob the restaurant.... North Charleston Police spokeswoman Lt. Angela Johnson told Channel 5 that the customer had a valid permit to carry a pistol.... The Post and Dispatch quoted an officer at the scene as saying, 'It says something about firearms ... for good people with firearms being in the right hands.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "Prof. Angus Deaton, a British economist, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for improving the accuracy of basic economic gauges, including measures of income, poverty and consumption."

Washington Post: "Breaking news: Iranian state television says jailed Washinton Post reporter Jason Rezaian has been convicted." ...

... Statement from Martin Baron, executive editor of the Post. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Iran appeared to be moving on Monday to position Mr. Rezaian's case as part of a broader effort to get the release of Iranians detained in the United States."

Comments

[NiskyGuy]

Yes, Krugman (linked above) tells us part of what he really thinks, and it is an important branch of discussion. I kept thinking he was leaving out another very important branch that was discussed in the October 10 Comments here, that of the yearning for simplicity.

One of the R complaints against Obamacare is that it was 2,000 pages long. 2,000! They want to replace it with something written on the back of an envelope. And of course Krugman and others have given that version, many times. But you can't run a country on an envelope. Someone will ask: "What happens when...?" and there has to be an answer that can be implemented in a variety of circumstances. That's hard. Your policy has to be built like a Pascal program (as I was taught in my CompSci class once upon a time), a nice tidy program up front and a whole lot of subroutines following behind, ready to be called up as needed.

I have seen the yearning for simplicity (second-hand) in the creation of policy for an academic institution where very smart, well-meaning people would ask why the policy couldn't just be made simpler. The answer was because it would then be more unfair and/or more expensive.

I, too, yearn for simplicity, and yet my desire to see it in Krugman's column would have put him way over the word limit for the day and distracted him from his primary target for the day. It would have made his column more complex. Arrgh!

[Victoria D.]

Last night's 60 Minutes also featured a study of Glenn Ford, who spent 30 years on death row at Angola prison in Louisiana for a robbery it turns out he did not commit. The prosecutor at the time treated the case casually (he is now repentant), as did the jury and Mr. Ford was convicted in three hours by an all-white jury, although the evidence was weak.
After thirty years, someone else confessed to the crime and Ford was released at the behest of the current prosecutor, Dale Cox. Cox is notorious among prosecutors for his support and even passion for the death penalty: he thinks it should be used more, not less. He also doesn't see a miscarriage of justice here, since Ford was eventually released.
Just after Ford's release it was discovered he had Stage IV lung cancer and had only a few months left. The only good news for him was that he was entitled to compensation for his wrongful imprisonment of over $200,000, or he should have been. Cox actively worked to prevent Mr. Ford and his heirs from receiving the money that was lawfully theirs over a weak loophole. Ford died penniless and in great pain.
When confronted, Cox was combative and insistent that justice was done, and compassion should be left for the clergy. In short, Cox comes through as a monster, yet the good people of Louisiana are happy to keep him in office.

[Akhilleus]

NiskyGuy,

Simplicity can play a role in role in governing: do your job. It's that simple.

The fact is that not only don't Confederates do their job, they don't even know (nor do they care) what "doing their job" entails. As far as I can tell their interpretation is "Make a lot of noise, make any claims you want as long as the goal is to obstruct, don't worry about truth or facts, or ethics, just stop the damn lib'ruls from 'ruining' the country; right wing ideology comes before everything. And don't forgit it."

The idea that the country can be run with a few simple rules scribbled on the back of a napkin is all of a piece with their contention that the economy is so simple any Leave it to Beaver era housewife who washes the kitchen floor wearing high heels and pearls can do it. It's no different than basic household budgeting. Such canards appeal to people who are, well, simple minded. They can't be bothered with details, besides, isn't that where they say the Devil resides? Oooooh. Let's have none of that.

But this is also why a fraud like Paul Ryan is accorded the mantle of economic genius. It's a simple matter of reverse engineering. Start with the desired outcome (lower taxes but trillions in revenues) then toss in the usual simple "common sense" ideas beloved by Confederates, add a few asterisks and don't sweat the details. Voila: a budget that would make June Cleaver run out and buy a couple more strings of pearls.

But unlike the yokels he's trying to deceive, Ryan is not an idiot. He knows perfectly well that nothing he's ever done has a stitch of validity, except maybe renaming a post office in his home town. He realizes that for him to pick up the Speaker's gavel he'd have to produce. He couldn't hide behind the asterisks and nod sagely and make with that condescending smirk that says, "I feel so bad for all of you who are not as smart as me".

But that smirk and those asterisks and his refusal to accept that gavel say a lot more about Ryan and about his party.

He, and they, are cowards. At the moment his party (and by extension, his country, for like it or not, we are all in this together, unfortunately) needs his self-proclaimed genius the most, he has decided to turn tail and run for the safety of his cozy congressional sinecure from which he can utter nonsensical Republicanisms and pretend to be a great man. And it's much easier than actually doing your job. What's he afraid of? Why, of being found out, of course. Of being outed (remember that turned around baseball cap?) as a hustler and a duplicitous grifter.

He's also very likely fearful of the kooks he's been hustling. He saw what they did to Boehner, and Cantor and how they were sharpening the pitchforks for McCarthy. Just a few years ago Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy co-wrote a book titled, with all humility, "The Young Guns" in which they declared their superiority and their ability to simplify Washington. They just left out the part about how they'd be lying through their teeth. The book is full of rehashed 'bagger bromides, but now the 'baggers are bilious and looking for the next scalp to hang on the clubhouse wall, next to the Confederate flags, and Ryan wants to be sure it's not his.

So.....he takes the coward's way out. A fraud AND a coward. Nice legacy.

Oh, and speaking of simplicity and budgets, remember that the cornerstone of any Ryan budget, and all Confederate budgetary machinations, is the Laffer Curve (honestly, could it have a more appropriate name?).

And famously, it was written on the back of a napkin.

[Akhilleus]

Victoria,

Dale Cox is not a monster.

He's a garden variety Confederate. There are several just like him now running to be president. Just ask Carson or Trump or Liarina or Jeb(!) about compassion.

But it would be one thing to sniff that there was no reason to apologize because, after all, the guy finally did get out. It's quite another to use a loophole to vindictively grind your boot in the guy's face while he's on his deathbed. But then again, Republicans have never had much of a bedside manner (see Gingrich, Newt and Bush, Jeb).

And such actions give the lie to the sanctimonious bullshit about their love of god and belief in the Bible that such asswipes are always parading around (see Davis, Kim). That too is fraudulent (and I don't know for sure but I will bet the farm that this prick is a Christian) because if Cox really did believe in what Jesus preached, there's no way he could act that way and not fear the eternal fires for such infamous behavior towards a dying--and INNOCENT--man.

Oh wait. I forgot. Ford was black, right?

Never mind. It's all good.

Like I said, just a garden variety Confederate.

[Akhilleus]

This weekend I happened to catch part of an "exclusive" interview with Charles Koch on CBS Sunday Morning. (Sorry, no link; you'd just throw up.) The "reporter", Anthony Mason, was about as obsequious as you could imagine and even the "tough" questions ("Are you trying to buy your way to power?") were nothing but softball set ups (answer: "Of course, not, I'm trying to keep special interests from buying their way to power.")

Koch comes across as avuncular, sincere, and high-minded, a sweet, patriotic old man, which, I suppose was the promise some producer had to make to get inside his house and his Wichita offices.

He's just a regular Joe. Why, he even eats in the same cafeteria as his employees! Whaddaguy.

I'm not suggesting that CBS produce a hit piece without giving Koch a chance to lay out his side of the story, but it must have been hard for Mason to ask questions with Koch's koch in his mouth. But then again, this is the same network that gave pride of place to an ideologue who produced a most egregiously reported story on 60 Minutes, a piece that helped propel the original Benghazi mania. Even after Lara Logan was suspended and her story completely disproved, it was too late. And today, several years later, Confederates are still running with the fabricated nonsense she peddled. Ed Murrow must be spinning like a top.

And now CBS, all the for sake of being able to say they got "inside" with one of the Kochs, is propping up these billionaire Machiavellis and providing Charles with a platform from which he can proclaim his patriot and victim bona fides. Did you know he gets death threats from liberals all the time? Did you know that Al Qeada has him on their hit list? But, asks Anthony Mason, do such things not give you pause? No, says the Great Man, he is committed to his country and will suffer any consequences for standing up for AMERICA!!!

There really is no need to wonder where the press is and what their role is in today's serious debates of great moment.

They're in the bag. And happy to be of service.

Just not to the public.

[Akhilleus]

Seeing as it's Columbus Day (along with the somewhat inartfully named "Indigenous Peoples' Day"), I thought I'd reprise an appropriate remembrance of the coming of the Great Nations of Europe to the New World.

Like the man says:

"Columbus sailed for India,
Found Salvador instead.
Shook hands with some indians there,
Soon they all were dead"

For god and country, I guess.

[Marie Burns]

If you want to know more about Dale Cox, some while back I linked this New Yorker story by Rachel Aviv.

Marie

[D.C.Clark]

Happy Columbus Day,

And now for one of the more innocuous bats flapping about my well stocked belfry:

The Americas were discovered by (wait for it) Amerigo Vespucci, and nobody else. Vespucci, an Italian astronomer and cartographer, was the first Human Being ever to stand in the Western Hemisphere and understand where he was, and what it meant for geodesy. He was the first to obtain an accurate west longitude, accurately mapping the east coast of South America.

Columbus had no idea where he was, neither did the Vikings, the original inhabitants, or anyone else before Vespucci.

You ain't discovered nothin' if you don't know what it is.

By a wonderfully ironic accident of history, the hemisphere got named for the one man who really deserved it.

The book to read is the excellent "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin. Chapter 33 will sell you on Vespucci.

Thus endith the rant. We're all entitled to a few eccentricities.

[Akhilleus]

D.C.,

If I recall my Boorstin, Columbus thought he was in Asia because he chose to believe Ptolemy's calculation as to the size of the earth rather than the much more accurate estimate done by Eratosthenes. It seems that the smaller earth fit in better with Columbus' notions of exploration. Plus it was probably an easier sell to both Ferdy and Izzy as well as any potential crew members.

Interestingly, Eratosthenes, like Daniel Boorstin, was a librarian. Boorstin, for the Library of Congress, and Eratosthenes for the fabled library at Alexandria.

The current Librarian of Congress, James Billington, succeeded Boorstin and will retire this year. Thankfully the Senate is not as demented as the House because the next Libraian of Congress will be appointed by the president with the support (or not) of the upper chamber. Just imagine who we might get if Confederates had control. The next L'nOC might be a criminal like Dinesh D'Souza or a wingnut imbecile like David Barton.

Sheesh.

But if you are so inclined, pick any of Boorstin's books. They're all excellent reads.

[D.C.Clark]

Hi Akhilleus,

Boorstin also relates that Columbus was a religious fanatic and Biblical literalist. He was hung up on a passage, now defunct, holding that "God created the six parts dry land" as proof that the oceans covered only 1/7th of the Earth. Unable to reconcile his own discoveries with this and Ptolemy, he finally concluded that the Earth is pear shaped, the South American continent a great bulge "like a woman's breast" with a nipple comprising the Earthly Paradise. I am NOT making this up, and neither was Boorstin. But I don't suppose it's any more wacky than the stuff Dr. Ben and other fundamentalists believe.

Two of my other favorites of Boorstin are "The Creators" and "The Seekers".

Speaking of appointees. My good friend Ray Smock, see:

http://www.byrdcenter.org/index.php/intro/staff/raymond-w-smock-director/

was the first Historian of the House of Representatives. Appointed by Tip O'Neal, and retained by Wright and Foley, he was relieved by The Newt. Which was OK, as the position is held at the Speaker's pleasure, and Newt was perfectly entitled to appoint his own historian. He appointed Christina Jeffery, and was compelled to dismiss her a few days later, after she made some egregiously stupid remarks (even for a Republican) about giving fair and impartial consideration to the views of Nazis and the KKK.

The post remained vacant for 10 years.

[Ken Winkes]

So...I'm back and hasten to say I missed the RC circle, if not always the daily reports on American politics.

Mostly went cold turkey for the last five weeks, but we did visit both Gettysburg and Antietam on our journeys, whose history and the still-present cultural rifts they tell of were depressing enough. Didn't need the news, too.

That said: this on Boorstin. Though have read and admired much of what he wrote, was often made uncomfortable by the undercurrent of his Ain't America great! cheerleading. As I remember, Nixon liked him, and that should be enough to induce if not shudders, at least a small degree of skepticism.

His THE IMAGE, though, was a book before its time and I would highly recommend it. In its few pages Boorstin nailed our growing willingness, even eagerness, to accept appearance over substance and "truthiness" over truth, tendencies bad enough in commerce, absolutely poisonous in our politics.

If Boorstin was the Republican I suspect he was, he was one of the old ones, now so hard to remember; his fine brain was informed by a conscience, and in that he is history, too, an artifact we can still observe, consider, and remember fondly.

[Haley Simon]

My oh my. What a great batch of wonderful reading - although the Cox story probably needs another adjective, but I'm glad to know of it anyway.

Great to have Ken back and everybody else in such fine form.