The Week

■ The latest from the Archives of the Foes of the Imperial Presidency: Benjamin Bradlee has written a memoir of his old friend Jack Kennedy. Mr. Bradlee is now with the Washington Post, and had a lot to do with saving the Constitution from the depredations of Richard Nixon. Anyway, it transpires that Kennedy used to sound him out on the possibility of securing and publishing information damaging to Mr. Kennedy’s political enemies. (He was particularly curious about where Nelson Rockefeller had been while Kennedy was commanding that PT boat in Japanese-infested waters.) Bradlee himself once suggested that Kennedy illegally leak IRS data on rich men’s tax returns. “Maybe after 1964,” replied Kennedy. Then there was the telephone call Kennedy got from Richard Daley in 1960 when the presidential vote was still apparently uncertain in Illinois. “Mr. President,” said Daley, “with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you’re going to carry Illinois.” Johnny, we hardly knew ye.

■ Some newly elected Democratic governors, brought face to face with the budgetary realities, have adopted a hard-boiled fiscal approach—in marked contrast to their Party colleagues in Washington. A congressman can blithely vote for programs entailing huge deficits, but a governor is responsible for meeting a state’s obligations; he cannot ordinarily appropriate funds today and then pass the bill on to posterity. To the dismay of the special interests in California that have a direct stake in larger and larger state budgets, newly elected Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. is, as one critic put it, “out-Reaganing Reagan.” He has held the line on educational costs, the biggest item in the budget, and evoked predictable cries of pain. He has clamped a lid on state salaries, and ordered the elimination of assorted minor but cumulatively significant frills. The governors in Massachusetts (Dukakis), in Connecticut (Grasso), and in New York (Carey) have with varying emphasis and in different tones warned the tax-guzzling interests that the days of wine and roses are over.

Featured Tags

■ The latest from the Archives of the Foes of the Imperial Presidency: Benjamin Bradlee has written a memoir of his old friend Jack Kennedy. Mr. Bradlee is now with the Washington Post, and had a lot to do with saving the Constitution from the depredations of Richard Nixon. Anyway, it transpires that Kennedy used to sound him out on the possibility of securing and publishing information damaging to Mr. Kennedy’s political enemies. (He was particularly curious about where Nelson Rockefeller had been while Kennedy was commanding that PT boat in Japanese-infested waters.) Bradlee himself once suggested that Kennedy illegally leak IRS data on rich men’s tax returns. “Maybe after 1964,” replied Kennedy. Then there was the telephone call Kennedy got from Richard Daley in 1960 when the presidential vote was still apparently uncertain in Illinois. “Mr. President,” said Daley, “with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you’re going to carry Illinois.” Johnny, we hardly knew ye.

■ Some newly elected Democratic governors, brought face to face with the budgetary realities, have adopted a hard-boiled fiscal approach—in marked contrast to their Party colleagues in Washington. A congressman can blithely vote for programs entailing huge deficits, but a governor is responsible for meeting a state’s obligations; he cannot ordinarily appropriate funds today and then pass the bill on to posterity. To the dismay of the special interests in California that have a direct stake in larger and larger state budgets, newly elected Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. is, as one critic put it, “out-Reaganing Reagan.” He has held the line on educational costs, the biggest item in the budget, and evoked predictable cries of pain. He has clamped a lid on state salaries, and ordered the elimination of assorted minor but cumulatively significant frills. The governors in Massachusetts (Dukakis), in Connecticut (Grasso), and in New York (Carey) have with varying emphasis and in different tones warned the tax-guzzling interests that the days of wine and roses are over.