The Inquiring Manatee

Three Kennedy Men

     

There is no doubt that we would be getting a much better health care bill out of Congress this year if Ted Kennedy had not been stricken. And that is just one measure of his leadership and effectiveness in a long career of public service as a national policymaker.
       Kennedy was required to redeem himself after the entirely unworthy Mary Jo Kopechne incident at Chappaquiddick in 1969. He did redeem himself, becoming one of the great senators in modern U.S. times.
       It's plain now that he was meant to stay in the Senate. Otherwise, his inarticulateness during his 1980 challenge to President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination would be inexplicable. His heart simply wasn't in the fight, and that is why he was unable to answer interviewer Roger Mudd's simple question: Why do you want to be president?
        I saw Kennedy on a number of occasions, most recently in Boston's historic Faneuil Hall when John Kerry conceded the 2004 election. I was present at his historic speech at the 1980 Democratic convention in New York -- the "dream will never die" speech. But I never met the man. I regret that today.
        In contrast, I met John F. Kennedy several times during his 1960 presidential campaign, and I traveled with Robert F. Kennedy in Oregon and California in the week before he was assassinated. I was just a few yards behind him in the crowd at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when he was shot.
        I had tremendous regard for both John and Bobby Kennedy. Ted, especially after Chappaquiddick, had to prove himself in my eyes. Ultimately, he did. Only the most doctrinaire, hate-filled rightwingers -- and there are thousands of them, sad to say -- will begrudge today the outpouring of respect and affection for this fallen lion of the Senate. For my part, I am saddened as an American, a Democrat and a proponent of universal health care.
        As Abraham Lincoln said, let us go on to finish the work we are about. Let us enact a comprehensive and meaningful reforming of our health care system in the name of Ted Kennedy. And let such a Kennedy Act be his lasting legacy.

Can You Believe it? Tom DeLay on "Dancing With the Stars"

    

Casting the vicious and discredited former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay for the new season of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" is the stupidest idea of 2009.
     I don't care if this cash-crazed Texan is the next Baryshnikov. Putting his smirking, Bible-spouting face in front of the cameras on this popular show is anything but entertainment. It is a slap in the face to all educated, intelligent TV viewers who already suspend critical judgment in choosing to watch the mass-market program in the first place.
     I'm hoping this move is a ratings bust for ABC. I can't imagine what made the producers try it. Washed-up football players and "The Bachelor" contestants are one thing. Bitterly partisan, poisonous far right wing politicians are another.
     Who's next? Mullah Omar? Kim Jong-il? Baitullah Mehsud?
     None of the above. For in a Tehran dance studio at this very moment, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is sweating through lessons with a pro, hoping he'll get the call next season. And in a cave on the Northwest Frontier, Osama himself is capering to the tune of "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry" as a U.S. drone buzzes high overhead and the wily Pathans clap out the rhythm.

Myanmar's Generals Are the Pits

   

This blog heartily joins in the world's condemnation of Myanmar's illegitimate military junta for its outrageously unjust conviction of the revered Aung San Suu Kyi for violating state security laws.
     It was, of course, a foregone conclusion that the power-crazed Burmese military would tack on additional time (it proved to be 18 months) to Madame Kyi's saddening house arrest for the shocking crime of letting some insane American stay overnight at her home after he had without authorization swam a lake and flopped exhausted onto her property. It was obvious that the junta wanted to keep Kyi out of involvement in "elections" next year. And now that has been accomplished, thanks to that idiotic American interloper.
     In reaction, toughened enforcement of international sanctions against the generals will have the usual effect on these gangsters: No effect at all. This will count as yet another victory for force and cynicism against democracy, the voice of the people, the international community and in particular the West. The conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi without effective punishment of her jailers is of a piece with Iran's successful suppression of protest against the fraudulent June 12 presidential voting there, and with China's effective crackdown on Tibetans and Uighurs.
      These are frustrating times for democracy around the world. The despots are in the saddle, and riding hard.

In Fatigue Veritas: The Real Hillary Clinton

   

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's bristling reaction to a question seemingly about her husband in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday lifted the diplomatic cover on the woman's underlying personality.
     Revealed was the same Hillary Clinton that I first met at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in September 1991: a peevish, short-tempered person, full of resentments and ready to jump down the throat of anyone giving the slightest inadvertent offense.
     Bill and Hillary Clinton were in Los Angeles to show the flag for Bill's 1992 presidential primary campaign to Democratic National Committee delegates. At a reception the couple sponsored at the Biltmore, I found myself in a small group asking Hillary a few questions. I casually alluded to a mildly critical story about her husband in that morning's Los Angeles Times. She immediately snarled, attributed that newspaper's views to me and attacked me -- a wild overreaction. I recoiled at her amazingly thin skin.
      Later, during her husband's first term as president, I was a member of the White House press corps. My few encounters with Mrs. Clinton were more polite -- at least as long as I stuck to subjects such as the mansion's Christmas decorations and Socks the cat. She was generally gracious.
      But a wearing, 11-country trip to Africa weakened her defenses on Monday. As a translator, perhaps erroneously, relayed a question from a Congolese university student at an event in Kinshasa, Mrs. Clinton responded with great annoyance to the question posed: What did "Mr. Clinton" think, speaking "through the mouth" of Mrs. Clinton, about World Bank opposition to a loan offered by China to the troubled African nation? (The student later said he intended to ask, What did "Mr. Obama" think?)
      Hillary could scarcely believe the question. To paraphrase her, she wanted to know if the questioner really was asking her what her husband thinks. "He's not the secretary of state, I am," she snapped. If she were asked for her own opinion, she would give it, she said, but "I am not going to be channeling my husband."
     Sensitive, sensitive. Brought back memories of the Biltmore Hotel.
     Beyond that, the whole man-woman thing and an attitude of "it's my turn" remain big issues with Hillary. She is proud of her accomplishments and is quick to feel belittled if she feels she is not getting the proper respect. She is tired of being overshadowed by her husband, who for the most part has withdrawn into relative shadow to make way for her during her presidential run in 2008 and now as she attempts to maintain a prominent role in the Obama administration against competition on foreign policy from Obama, Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell and a cast of thousands.
     It all came out on the banks of the Congo. As the Romans might have said, In jet lag veritas.
     

Sotomayor Vote: A Great Day for Americans

          

Within a couple of hours, the U.S. Senate undoubtedly will have voted to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.
     Despite her ill-advised and easily mischaracterized "wise Latina" quotes, Judge Sotomayor is extremely well-qualified for the Court. Her 17-year record on the bench was difficult for ideological opponents to attack, even though her opinions have been more workmanlike than truly intellectually distinguished in the vein of Learned Hand or Benjamin Cardozo, great predecessors on the New York City-based 2nd Circuit appeals court.
      More than a deserved personal triumph, the confirmation is a win for President Barack Obama and, even more importantly, a signal to women, to all American minorities and, yes, to disaffected and angry white males that change truly has come to this country. Any meritorious person of any minority can now work and hope for any public honor and office, including the presidency.
      Today, the first Hispanic on the high court. Tomorrow, if not Sotomayor than somebody else, the first Hispanic president. The first woman president. The first gay president. The first Asian-American president. The first Native American president.
       The promise of America is being realized before our eyes and the eyes of history. Let us celebrate. And let us hope that in her new robes, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor rules as a wise Latina -- and always, as well, as a wise American.
   
    Martin Kasindorf is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and a member of the California legal bar on inactive status.

Bill Clinton's Good Deed in Pyongyang

   

The rigidly moralistic Clinton-haters who look at the former president and think nothing but "Monica, Monica, Monica" will be hard put to find anything nasty to say about Bill Clinton today.
     Like Bill Richardson before him in North Korea, the 42nd president has performed a profoundly important humanitarian service to his country, to journalism and to two unfortunate women in working with dictator Kim Jong-il to obtain freedom for Lee and Ling and fly them to the U.S. in rich friend Steve Bing's private jet today.
      The surprise story brightens up a summer of continuing recession, bombs worldwide and bickering over health care reform in Washington. And it illuminates the humanitarian work that Clinton has been doing all along, eclipsed by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
      Clinton is a great American asset. The administration should make more use of him on selected and appropriate occasions such as this. He may have his faults (I observed him closely as a member of the White House press corps all through his first term), but he is on his way to joining Jimmy Carter as one of the nation's best former presidents in history.