The Statue You See From the White House North Portico. 
Speaking Sunday 9 with Jon Meacham of Newsweek, author of the new "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House," re the frantic, bloody-minded and deeply partisan
presidency of the man who created the ornery commander-in-chief. Andrew Jackson, the statue George W. Bush and Barack Obama will see from the North Portico of the White House when they stroll out together to ride to the Inauguration, has been a fascination for historians since his tenure, 1829-1837. Andrew Jackson's example of himself as a chief executive who battled all powers ceaselessly, no truce, his fight with South Carolina over nullification and secession, his fight with Nicholas Biddle and the bankers, his fight with the Indians he disinherited, his fight with the Congress over his veto power of the bank charter, his fight till the end of his time with the Senate over censure, all these contests describe two terms of uninterrupted bitterness, vulgarity, trickery, graft, smears, cruelty, war and massacre, slavery and piracy, and other extreme measures, some practiced by Jackson, some by the Congress, all by zealous elements in the country. No one was much sure, month to month, if keeping the Union together was a money-making idea or even a worthwhile endeavor, except that Andrew Jackson was certain that it was his country (26 states, then adding Arkansas and Michigan) and that it was going to stay his country: "Our Federal Union must be preserved," reads the base of Jackson's statue. Andrew Jackson was a man more stubborn than reasonable, more angry than cunning, though he was cunning, and America had the good luck to have as president a willful aggressor who decided unasked that running the raw Union his way was his God-given mission. He was educated just enough to make everyone of his fights into a torrent of biblical language, such as "Should the uncircumcised philistines send forth their Goliath to destroy the liberty of the people and compel them to worship Mammon...?" He was lucky enough to have ruthless, verbose opponents, such as John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Nicholas Biddle, so that each of his victories was magnified by the fury and wealth of his defeated foes. He was miraculous enough to survive swords, bullets, pandemics, mountains of tobacco and whiskey and coffee, and a lonely eight years in the target range without his worshiped wife Rachel, who died the Christmas after his election. The facts of Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), from his father's death before he was born, his two brothers killed by the British troops, his mother vanished into a grave, through the Indian fighting and cruelty, the unbelievable Battle of New Orleans, the slave-holding baronetcy at the Hermitage, the slanders of his wife, and the ceaseless duels, insults, threats, lies, deaths, and two assassination attempts in office, make the story over much to be anything but seventy-eight years of American history.
The Questions Is What Kind of President?
Andrew Jackson's demonstration of reckless, tireless commitment to his own passionate idea of the people, the country, the United States, has attracted the imagination of presidents as tested as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman. The question today is what will the new president Barack Obama take from Jackson's model of potency in office, if anything at all? TR divided presidents into two groups: "The course I followed, of regarding the executive as subject only to the people...was substantially the course followed by both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Other honorable and well-meaning presidents, such as James Buchanan, took the opposite, and, as it seems to me, narrowly legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress rather than of the people, and can do nothing, no matter how necessary it is to act, unless the Constitution explicitly commands the action." This sounds like Taft, (not Wilson), Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, (not FDR), (not Truman), Eisenhower, Kennedy, (not Johnson), (not Nixon), Ford, Carter, (not Reagan), GHW Bush, Clinton, (not GW Bush). What will it be for President-Elect Obama? The will of the experienced, imperial, monied Democratic Congress, or the will of the people? And what is the will of the people? There is no right answer. There is Jackson's statue in Lafayette Park, seen every day from the North Portico, Old Hickory on the attack.
Silly Money
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7722507045427920026&ei=T84WScaKFIKg2gLYiqDNDQ&q=Silly+Money
ok, it's Sunday people. Time to lighten up.
Did you vote for Lando Calrissian?
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a863be2b6f/vote-for-lando-calrissian-w-billy-dee-williams-from-fod-team
TR's two groups of Presidents - "servant of the people"; "servant of Congress" - matches the two groups of Aristotle - "True forms of government govern with a view of the common interest... Corrupted forms rule with a view to the private interest" (Politics 3. 7). And how do we fix the problem when we suffer from the rule of a selfish and corrupt leader? Aristotle replies: "Just as the physician ought to be called to account by physicians, so ought men in general to be called to account by their peers" (Politics 3. 11).
I hope we have contemporary versions of Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan working in Washington, D.C., who will restrain the President.
Real Estate Downfall
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM
Hilarious, Kilroy. Thanks!
Unlike Jackson, Obama sees America only within the context of the global community. He will regard it as a mere chip on the global gaming table – albeit, as one significantly more powerful than the others (let us call her the “queen”). As POtUS he will feel empowered to change the world - to make it conform to some utopian template - rather than seek the advantage for the queen alone.
He will be confronted with essentially two major problems. First and foremost, he will find that the world at large does not share his vision; that the people of other nations will not easily abandon their allegiances in favor of some far-fetched utopian dream. As POtUS he will have considerable power, but only enough to affect the movements of the queen alone. As such, he may seek expediency, i.e. to bargain away the queen’s advantage in order to gain the good will and cooperation of others. He may, for instance, reduce our military; reduce our influence in areas of conflict; and/or, in his own words, “spread (or transfer) the wealth” of his nation to include the chronically poor around the world.
His second problem will emerge when Americans discover the consequences to themselves. They will not be willing to pay the price to erase hunger in Africa for example. Neither will they be pleased to learn that heretofore allies are being swallowed up or jumping into traditionally defined enemy camps. Pledged to non-violent intervention, the carnage continues while we talk: Taiwan, Israel, South Korea, Georgia, etc. (Did I say Georgia? I did say Georgia! Sorry. I believe that one already happened.) Now we turn up the heat and threaten to raise the point in a revitalized (but still corrupt) UN. It continues: Ukraine, Somalia, Pakistan, etc.
At home, things go no better. Gas gets more and more expensive. Industries shut down. Capital flees the country. Unemployment soars. “It’s Bush’s fault” no longer works and the people once again demand “change”. Even the left wing media has abandoned him now. They attack him ceaselessly, day after day. They demand his impeachment. But there are no leaders standing in the wings to take his place – only the weeping castrati from another era.
Considering he'll have a democrat congress, and it's been suggested he'll use executive power(http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081109/D94BM1O00.html), I think he'll be an active president to say the least. I also agree with the global sentiment and we now already have encouragement from across the pond:http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CBUS/nbusinessNews_uUSTRE4A900K20081110?src=RSS-BUS
It's going to be hideous.
There's nothing like the symbolism of our history and the preciousness of the sacrifices that are made for the preservation of the idea of freedom, self determination, and national security.
Stroll the monuments and it is easily realized that a nation's undeniable volition and an incomprehensible abstraction of an obligation of goodness to the world have come to meld themselves into a perception that we are the teat that the world can suckle and thereby be pacified. Not likely that they will be pacified until they are weaned.
Wonder why a WWII memorial took so long to build and is it truly worthy when considering the immensity of the challenge that this generation confronted? Korea has somehow been lost in the ongoing investment in worldwide freedom. Come to view a stark black wall and understand what a lack of fortitude can bring and ask, "What seems to be the price of freedom around the world?" It is, in too much measure, American blood.
We have the capability of annihilating our enemies on the battleground. We listen to their threats and we treat them with respect? We see their inhumanity and we excuse their behavior? We make the mistake that our enemies will adore us if they come to really know us. Wake up! They are sucklings and we lay on our side while they get their fill.
None of these, that have taken our fortune and goodwill and then turned it against us, are worth one drop of the precious blood of our youth. Not one drop!
None of these that rail against us and spit in our eye are worth one drop!
We have the capabilities to annihilate. We have invested great resources into them... we should use them and be done with it.
It seems like the inmates will be taking over the asylum. The adults have abdicated their responsibility. We’ve handed our car keys over to our three-year old. What did we think would happen? Think of it! What can we expect?
Of course, we’ve been toying with the idea for a long time. Remember Woodstock? We still watch the movie and thank God we weren’t there (or, if we were there, that it’s now over). Little by little, we’ve whittled away our foundation; we’ve thrown away our anchor; we’ve shredded the sails. Already we’ve suffered the consequences. Our retirement nest egg is in a state from which it may never recover.
Why we’ve become so self-destructive is for sociologists to ponder. ...and the whole world eggs us on, looking up at the tower we’ve built, shouting, “Jump, jump!”
So, now we’ve jumped. What can they expect? To witness the bloody mess from the same square in Tehran where they routinely hang dissidents and gays from crane hooks? Will they now also storm the tower and carry off our shoes?
Obama is a conduit for the last gasping of the 60's radicals and today's youth that have at last become enculturated to the possibility of socialism through our notorious educational system, and like all youth, ignorant of the consequences of their actions. It'll be up to us middleagers to say "No you can't!" For a paleolibertarian like myself, this is a difficult time. I don't see very many like myself.
You all really know how to cheer a guy up!
My wife listened to the entire 3 hour show with me last night and she agreed that it was the best in a long while. We especially enjoyed the Greider and Andrew Jackson segments. Too bad John didn't get a chance to talk more about the parallels between Nicholas Biddle and Hank Paulson. The guy complaining about Kharzai was interesting, too, although the connection made him tough to understand. The lady's comment about the air strikes "only" killing 76 civilians this year was a bit callous I thought. There were some ground strikes that killed a lot more than that. Doesn't seem like anyone ever looked into them. Not through coverup but just through jaded apathy - what's one generation's My Lai Massacre is the next generation's yawner.
The thing we most enjoyed about last night's show was that it had a more upbeat tone. Let's please remain upbeat! I'm not looking at the world with rose-colored glasses, I know we have serious problems, but what is gained by all this high-flung doomsaying? If all that stuff happens, it's gonna happen anyway in its own good time. Let's just follow that old saw about imagining the worst is going to happen, and then set about what seeing what we can do to improve on that.
"For a paleolibertarian like myself, this is a difficult time. I don't see very many like myself." Too true. But the real problem isn't the incomprehension of the Left. No, it's the sheer damned fool obliviousness of so many conservatives and essentially all neoconservatives.
They are the ones who now embrace embrace Teddy Roosevelt’s expansive notion of the Presidency, which must lead to America’s ruin. It is the political equivalent of putting on the Ring of Sauron, and is bringing us closer to a nightmare of dictatorship and endless war than most realize. I am reminded of this whenever I hear someone—invariably a civilian ignoramus unable to distinguish between nationalism and patriotism, and who reads Bill Kristol’s drivel but has never even heard of Russell Kirk, much less Edmund Burke—refer in reverent tones to “my Commander-in-Chief.”
It's an abdication of responsibility by the Democrats. A political cartoon I saw yesterday summed this up well. Barack Obama is sitting down at a dinner table and Dick Cheney is serving him this monster "Dagwood Special" sandwich with the layers labelled as "Financial Crisis", "War in Iraq", "HealthCare Costs", etc. Cheney says to Obama, "Compliments from the Chef". Of course, the "Chef" is President Bush, seen in the background smiling with a chef's hat on and an apron.
Very clever except that it's telling that the cartoon labels Bush as "the Chef". Why not the entire Democrat-controlled Congress with their own chef hats and aprons on? Especially since Bush himself has been the lamest of lame ducks for the last two years or so. A more accurate representation would be Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank serving the sandwich, with the entire Democratic party behind them, standing on the corpses of Bush and Cheney.
We heard in 2006 how everything was going to change now that Pelosi was in charge. Well, it changed all right.