On the slipperiest politicians; the path Joe Biden has chosen; Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; the great Terry Teachout; and more
A long time ago — student days — I heard this joke about FDR: He’s in the Oval Office, listening to someone giving a strong point of view. The president says to the man, “You’re absolutely right.” He listens to the next visitor, giving the opposite point of view, equally strongly. The president tells him, “You’re absolutely right.”
Now, all the while, Mrs. Roosevelt has been listening, outside the door. And she castigates her husband: “You shouldn’t be telling these people they’re absolutely right, when they’re saying opposite things.” FDR answers, “Eleanor, you’re absolutely right.”
That was probably a knee-slapper in 1937. I kind of like it now.
You remember Herbert Hoover’s gibe about his Democratic rival, FDR, don’t you? “A chameleon on plaid.”
We will always have chameleons on plaid in politics (and in life in general). There are pols who’re always where they “need” to be, on any given day — or at any given minute. I hate to tell you, but there are media people like that too.
If it’s convenient that second to say black, they’ll say black. If it’s convenient to say white, they’ll say white. If you want ’em to say pink — they will.
I thought of all this when reading about Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House. And when listening to Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina. Has there ever been a slipperier pol than Graham? (He’s also delightful, when you, and he, are in the right frame of mind.) And if you don’t like “slipperier” — how about “more flexible”?
“Count me out” (says Graham). Then count him back in. “Enough is enough.” Then enough is not enough. You want Reagan conservatism? Okay. Oh, we’re doin’ America First now? Okay.
Politics is not for the pure. There is a natural inconsistency in politics, as there is in the rest of life. On occasion, you have to shift, maneuver, double back — do some fast dancing. But, with some of these guys, some of these dancers, you have to ask: “Who are you, ultimately? What do you stand for? Anything? Why are you in politics in the first place? Merely to hold the office?”
Liz Cheney is the GOP’s bête noire (if it isn’t Mitt Romney). She will not sweep the election lies under the rug, and she will not sweep January 6 under the rug. She thinks Trump and Trumpism are a threat to the Republic. She won’t shut up. She refuses to be a good girl.
Peter Thiel and the rest of them are raising money against her. She is likely to be a trophy on TrumpWorld’s mantel. But at least she is standing for something. She has drawn a line.
What happens if a politician loses reelection? Poor baby: He may have to sit on corporate boards or give well-paying speeches. He may even have to see his grandchildren, heaven forfend. Maybe even get reacquainted with his wife. The horror!
Look, this is America: If you lose an election, you won’t be sent to a gulag, to freeze, starve, or be worked to death.
A few years ago, a veteran Hill staffer sent me a speech delivered by Henry J. Hyde, the Illinois Republican, in 1990. Hyde delivered it to newly elected Republicans: incoming House members. He said,
This may sound odd, even ironic. You are here in the flush of victory. And yet it is precisely now that I ask you to contemplate the possibility of defeat — perhaps even the necessity of defeat.
Edmund Burke, in 1774, set forth a model we should all emulate when he told his Bristol constituents: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Let me put the matter plainly: If you are here simply as a tote board registering the current state of opinion in your district, you are not going to serve either your constituents or the Congress of the United States weIl.
Your constituents expect you to represent their interests, and that you should certainly do. But you are also a member of the Congress, and your responsibilities are far greater than those of an ombudsman for your district. You must take, at times, a national view, even if, in taking that view, you risk the displeasure of your neighbors and friends back home.
Indeed, I feel obliged to put the matter more sharply still: If you don’t know the principle, or the policy, for which you are willing to lose your office, then you are going to do damage here.
This institution needs more members willing to look beyond the biennial contest for power, more committed to public service as a vocation rather than merely a career.
Hear, hear, as they say across the pond.
• For part of his career, Hyde was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Today, House Judiciary Republicans have their own Twitter account. Recently, those Republicans tweeted, “If the booster shots work, why don’t they work?”
Several questions to ask — among them: Do the booster shots not work? Is it the job of Judiciary members to pass judgment on vaccines and such?
In any case, that tweet was very, very today’s GOP. (Someone has since deleted the tweet, as this article relates.)
• Speaking on the Senate floor, Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat, said, “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy.” I think she may want to reconsider her words. Division is not a disease, exactly — it’s a normal part of a free society. People disagree, and say so. There is gridlock in the absence of consensus.
But it’s true: Things can get a little secession-y . . .
• From the Associated Press, there was this headline: “GOP’s midterm dilemma: How closely to align with Trump.” (Article here.) You know what I think? Hold on to your socks: I think campaigners should say what they think, and try to persuade people of their point of view — and let the chips fall where they may.
Rad, right?
• In my view, Joe Biden could do himself a world of good — and the country a lot of good — by simply not being a partisan jerk. (I’m thinking of his recent voting-rights speech, as an emblem.) Many non-Democrats are open to him, given the Trumpification of the GOP. Biden could be the Great Normalizer, if he wanted to be. He campaigned that way in 2020. But he is on a different path.
• You never win the war on crime — it is not a war that is winnable, in some final way. But you have a choice: and the choice is whether to wage it or not.
This basic truth came to mind as I read, “Woman killed in subway shove at Times Square.” (Article here.)
• A phrase came to mind: “none dare call it conspiracy.” This was the title of a book, published in the early 1970s: a wildly best-sellling, and bonkers, book. (Birch stuff.) A report from last week begins, “Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
None dare call it sedition? None dare call it insurrection?
What to call the assault on Congress, a year ago, is a touchy, touchy subject.
• This was amusing, sort of: A bill in the Virginia legislature spoke of the debates “between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass” (rather than Stephen A. Douglas, the real debater).
Frederick Douglass needs his second ess — it makes him so distinctive; it makes him stand out from others in the wide Douglas world.
Speaking of Lincoln: He loved wordplay. One of his friends was John H. Addams, father of Jane Addams. He would address letters to him, “My Dear Double D-ed Addams.” And you know what he said about his future in-laws, who were a little on the hoity-toity side? “One ‘d’ was good enough for God, but not for the Todds.”
God, I love that man (Lincoln).
• I said that Frederick Douglass was distinctive — for his name and other things. My Detroit Lions, too, are distinctive: “With Bengals’ victory, Lions own NFL’s longest drought without playoff victory.” (Article here.)
• A little music? For a review of Igor Levit, the (great) pianist, go here. He played a recital in Carnegie Hall. For a review of a Met Figaro — a performance of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera — go here.
• We’ve had some sports, and we’ve had some music. Would you like a combination of the two? “Eddie Basinski, Who Played Both the Infield and the Fiddle, Dies at 99.” A little excerpt from that highly interesting obit:
Soon after his arrival at Ebbets Field, Basinski was in the Dodger clubhouse, in uniform, playing Strauss waltzes, when manager Leo Durocher, who was evidently skeptical about reports that Basinski was a professional violinist, walked in.
“He stopped and looked at me and said, ‘Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,’” Basinski said in a 2011 interview . . .
• Earlier, I mentioned the Metropolitan Opera. Sarah Billinghurst was an important administrator at the Met. She was married to Howard Solomon, who has just died at 94. In the New York Times, Richard Sandomir has written his obit. It is terribly moving.
. . . in 1994, a family crisis intervened: His older son, Andrew, a writer, had fallen into a deep depression. Mr. Solomon moved Andrew into his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and took weeks off from work to take care of him; he even cut his food. He talked to experts about pharmaceuticals that might help Andrew.
Andrew Solomon made this statement — paid this tribute: “My father was like a reef that took the violent waves of a frightening world and broke them down into gentle, manageable undulations before they reached the beach where I stood.”
Absolutely extraordinary.
• Terry Teachout was so wonderful to read — so wonderful to know and talk with. He enriched my life, and the lives of many. He enriched life itself — especially cultural life. Clay Risen, of the Times, has written an excellent obit of him, here.
He was authoritative on music, theater, film, and other things. He was a man of letters — arts and letters. He knew the arts, yes, but he knew literature, too. On top of it all, he was a very good political thinker: a conservative, but not in the sense now widely accepted.
The last several years were bitter for Terry, politically. In 2020, he tweeted the following, in response to something I had said:
You keep using the word “conservative” as if it meant what it did when we were younger, and still applied to the people it used to describe. That usage is no longer valid in the age of Trump. I’m afraid we need a new word.
Yeah. (I’ve written about this subject a fair amount, e.g., here.)
Bill Buckley thought a great deal of Terry, and so did Pat Buckley. So did we all. He was such a good writer. I keep offering links. Terry wrote several biographies, including one of Louis Armstrong. For my review of it, go here.
Terry thanked me with a note beginning, “Jeepers.”
A great soul, Terry Teachout was — is. I am grateful for his life, and trust that he’s doing better than ever.
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