The View from Right Field

On Convicting Donald Trump

Even though I think the better constitutional argument is that it is constitutional to impeach and try former President Trump (he was, after all, impeached while he was still in office), I probably wouldn’t have impeached him (for the reasons stated here).  However, once he was impeached, given what he did, I couldn’t not convict him. 

As I said here, I don’t know if he “incited” an “insurrection” in the legal meaning of those words, but what he did was wrong.  A president doesn’t have to be guilty of a crime to be impeached and convicted (and a president doesn’t always get impeached and convicted just because he committed a crime – see, for example, Bill Clinton).  What former President Trump did was sufficiently wrong that, as I said above, I couldn’t not convict him.  Unfortunately, it appears that not enough Republicans agree with me.

Polio – and the Covid-19 Vaccine

With Covid-19 and everything else that is happening, polio isn’t something most people think about right now.  But I do – because I remember when polio was a big deal. 

In the early 1950s, 25,000 or more children were getting polio every year.  Some years it was more.  In 1952, it was 58,000, and in 1953, it was 35,000.  But then, in the spring of 1955, it was announced the Salk vaccine worked!  I don’t remember much about it, I was only six at the time, but I remember getting a shot early in the process.  Maybe it was because of what was happening in Joliet, where I lived.  I don’t know.  But what I do remember is getting that shot and how happy my mother and dad were when I got it.

And that’s why I am getting the Covid-19 vaccine.

Are Joe Biden’s Problems Greater Than Franklin Roosevelt’s?

In Monday’s Financial Times, Rana Foroohar, in defending Joe Biden’s tightening of “Buy American” rules for federal government purchasing, said “the political challenges facing the Biden administration … are arguably greater than Franklin Roosevelt faced in the 1930s.”¹

While I understand President Biden faces challenges, to compare today’s problems with the 1930s is to not appreciate the situation then.  The unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.9%.  With no nationwide unemployment insurance system, no job meant no money.  When thousands of banks failed in 1933, people’s money was gone because there was no national deposit insurance scheme.  While these might be called economic problems (as opposed to political problems), if they were not dealt with to at least some extent, they would have resulted in real political problems.

Impeachment Jeopardy: The Only Senator to Vote to Convict a President of His Own Party

Who is Mitt Romney?
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UPDATE (2/13/21 5:30 pm): The answer should be changed to: “The Only Senators to Vote to Convict a President of Their Own Party.”
The question should be changed to: “Who are Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Paul Toomey, Richard Burr, and Bill Cassidy?”

Making Sure This Week Is Our Last Memory of Donald Trump

Kimberley Strassel said, in Friday’s Wall Street Journal: “A politician has to work hard to destroy a legacy and a future in a single day.  President Donald J. Trump managed it.”  Early Thursday morning, after a mob, urged on and incited by Donald Trump, assaulted and occupied the Capitol, the Senate voted 93 to 6 against his objection to Arizona’s electoral votes.

And that is the way I want Donald Trump to leave Washington.  I want these things to be the final memories his supporters have of him as he leaves office: A President who incited a mob to assault his own Capitol and a man who lost in the Senate 93 to 6.  Because that is how he deserves to be remembered.

How Will Their Great-Grandchildren Look at Today’s Woke Leaders?

One of the favorite activities of the woke seems to be looking back in history and re-judging our leaders of the past based on the standards today.  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves; their statues have to come down.  Abraham Lincoln didn’t treat Native Americans right, not to mention all of the racist things he said; schools need to be renamed.  Ulysses S. Grant owned a slave¹; his statue must come down.  And so on.  It is never a matter of looking at the total of what these people did or looking at what they did in light of the times in which they lived.  Or even looking to see if they helped push the direction of history a little bit in the right direction.  If they didn’t fully live up to our standards today, their statue comes down; the school is renamed. 

As Donald Trump’s World Continues to Turn – Around Him

I have no idea if Donald Trump really thinks he didn’t lose the presidential election.  But then I generally have no idea what President Trump is thinking about anything.  And he will be gone in seventeen days (even if he doesn’t think so), so I don’t have to worry about him too much longer (– I hope).  What is worse (at least for me) are the Republican politicians who are continuing to lend support to President Trump’s claims that he really won the election – even after the Electoral College met on December 14.  (I would have preferred if they had done it before December 14, but continuing to deny Joe Biden’s victory after that date is appalling.  I wrote here about what a better person did 60 years ago where there was real evidence of fraud.)

It now appears that Missouri Senator Josh Hawley will support claims by several House Republicans challenging one or more state’s electoral votes when the House and Senate meet for the counting of electoral votes on January 6.  Obviously, Democrats did this to President George W. Bush in January of 2005 with respect to Ohio’s electoral votes (even though President Bush won Ohio by over 100,000 votes).   Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California supported claims by Democrats in the House.  It wound up delaying the counting of the electoral votes by a couple of hours, but that was all – other than maybe setting a bit of a precedent for what supporters of President Trump are doing today.  (John Kerry did not support the effort to overturn or reject Ohio’s electoral votes.  He was a classier guy.)

What Donald Trump Is Doing Doesn’t Have to Damage Our Democracy

Democrats and much of the mainstream media¹ are saying Donald Trump is damaging American democracy by his continuing refusal to accept defeat in the presidential election and to start the transition process for President-elect Biden.  I agree that what President Trump is doing is appalling and that it makes the United States look stupid around the world, but it’s not the first time President Trump has done that, and given that January 20 is still two months away, it may not be the last (unfortunately).  It is, after all, what President Trump does.  We all know that by now.  Why should we be surprised he continues to do it?

But, as for whether President Trump is causing lasting damage to American democracy, that’s up to us.  What he is doing doesn’t have to cause lasting damage to democracy – unless we let it.  We can agree that what President Trump is doing is wrong and that we will never do it ourselves.  We can make what President Trump is doing a one-time thing by agreeing that we will concede when our opponent gets more votes and that we won’t go around saying our opponent wasn’t really elected once the votes are counted. 

Probably Not the Best Lincoln Quote for Right Now

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum¹ in Springfield had a quote from Abraham Lincoln at the top of an E-News email I received from them today, along with references to two websites, “CoronaVirus.Illinois.gov” and “PresidentLincoln.Illinois.gov”.  It’s this quote, which I am sure is intended to refer to the pandemic:

“Let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.”

It is a great quote, but given that the date and context of the quote, i.e., it was from Lincoln’s Farewell Address to Springfield on February 11, 1861, I am not sure it is the best quote for right now.
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¹ A great place to visit, though you might want to wait until the virus settles down a little

Brent Scowcroft, RIP.

A truly great American, Brent Scowcroft, died on Thursday at the age of 95.  Mr. Scowcroft was National Security Adviser to two Presidents, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.  Mr. Scowcroft initially did not want to be National Security Adviser to President Bush, saying he had already done that job.  But President Bush persisted and Mr. Scowcroft took the job, helping President Bush achieve one of greatest foreign policy records in the post-World War II era, including peaceful reunification of Germany while remaining in NATO, creation of a large coalition of nations to oust Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait – and stopping when the job was done, and working to ensure the dissolution of the Soviet Union was peaceful, the only time in history such an empire ended without war.

While some of the articles on Mr. Scowcroft like to focus on the op-ed he wrote in 2002 urging that the United States not invade Iraq, they fail to mention that he wrote another op-ed in August of 2003 saying that, once we were in Iraq, we now had to succeed and that he testified before Congress in early 2007 in favor of President George W. Bush’s “surge” of troops .