The View from Right Field

When Principles Are a Club, Instead of Principles

In contemplating the mess that is Virginia politics, it is perhaps most instructive to see how the calls for Governor Ralph Northam to resign have subsided as it became possible that the result of his resignation wouldn’t be just another Democrat as governor but a Republican.¹  In the meantime, at least from this distance, Virginia Republicans appear to be keeping fairly quiet because (i) they are checking their own yearbooks, (ii) they realize that, when the other side is shooting themselves in the foot, the best thing is to get out of the way, or (iii) they remember what the Senate Democrats did to Brett Kavanaugh and they aren’t going to do the same (probably the least likely alternative).

In any case, maybe a few people are beginning to realize that we should pick our principles based on what is right and fair as opposed to either what we can beat the other side on the head with or what we have to do to protect our own people.  In this regard, consider the following from Megan McArdle on what can happen when you care more about protecting your own side:

Margaret Chase Smith: The First Woman to Run for a Major Party Presidential Nomination

When Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif) announced her bid for the Democratic nomination for president last month, newspapers starting looking for other women and African-Americans who have run for president.  The problem is they just can’t seem to get even simple things like this right.

For example, yesterday, the print edition of the Chicago Tribune had an article¹ saying that, in January of 1972, Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) became the first woman and first African-American to run for the presidential nomination of a major party.  The latter may be true, but the former most definitely is not. 

Because, in 1964, eight years before Rep. Chisholm’s run, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine ran for the Republican presidential nomination.  Senator Smith announced her candidacy on January 27, 1964.  She competed in every primary that year, even winning 25% of the vote in Illinois.

Are We Bugging Out of Afghanistan?

According to news reports, United States and Taliban negotiators have agreed on two key points of a settlement in Afghanistan: (i) the United States will withdraw its forces from Afghanistan; and (ii) the Taliban will ensure that no international terrorist attacks are made from Afghanistan.  U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad told local media in Afghanistan said that the U.S. and the Taliban had agreed in principle on two important points, and Taliban sources said what the points were.  Still to come, though, are the details on these two points, as well as agreements on two other issues the United States has raised: (iii) direct negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government; and (iv) a comprehensive ceasefire, neither of which the Taliban has been willing to agree to. 

Predictably, observers such as David Rohde at The New Yorker were excited.  Mr. Rohde said:

“The news sparked surprise – and applause – from American diplomats who have tried and failed to negotiate with the Taliban in the past.  ‘I think this is the beginning of a credible process for the first time in ten years,’ Dan Feldman, who served as the Obama Administration’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told me.

When the Nixons Joined the Eisenhowers - for Life

Today is the 50th wedding anniversary of Julie and David Eisenhower.  The grandson of a President marrying the daughter of a President (President-elect, at that point).  They were married on December 22, 1968, at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale presiding.  The Richard Nixon Foundation has a special on-line exhibit on the courtship and wedding of Julie and David Eisenhower here.

Instead of More Politicians Like George H.W. Bush, We Need More People Like George H.W. Bush

On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune had an editorial entitled “Humility and civility: More pols, please, like George H.W. Bush.”  The editorial concluded:

“If enough politicians and others in the public sphere would take a lesson from the former president’s honorable conduct, Americans would have more respect for their governments – and for each other.”

While I agree that our politicians should take a decency lesson from George H.W. Bush, it would be even better if all of us took a lesson from former President Bush.  If we would act honorably.  If we would have more respect for those who disagree with us.  If we would post on social media, only things that we are willing to say to somebody in person.

If we want our politicians to be more decent and more honorable (which is something to keep in mind when we go to the polls), the first thing we need is to be more decent and more honorable ourselves.

George H.W. Bush, RIP

I have written a lot about George Herbert Walker Bush over the years, and while I am saddened by his passing, I am sure that he, and his family, are glad he is with Barbara once again.  Our longest presidential marriage is an example for us all.  As was his sense of duty, honor, and decency, something that is too often missing in politics today.

But George H.W. Bush was more than a good man.  He was a good president.  Many of the obituaries talk about how President Bush went back on his pledge at the 1988 Republican Convention: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”  What they didn’t mention is why President Bush felt he needed to agree to a tax increase in the fall of 1990.  In October of 1990, there was a short government shutdown over the Columbus Day weekend.  By then, however, and following on President Bush’s statement of August of 1990 that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait “will not stand,” U.S. troops were already beginning to deploy to the Middle East.  President Bush explained his decision to agree to a tax increase in order to avoid a further government shutdown as follows: “When push came to shove and our troops were moving overseas, we needed a fully functioning government.  I simply had to hammer out a compromise to keep the government open ….”¹  This is obviously an approach to government, and responsibility, that not many people in Washington, at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, seem to have today.

America’s Future Foreign Policy: “The Jungle Grows Back” – Do We Care?

Dr. Robert Kagan has written a fascinating book on the future of American foreign policy: The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World.  His main points are laid out in this excerpt available at Amazon.com:

“The American-led liberal world order was never a natural phenomenon.  The past seven-plus decades of relatively free trade, growing respect for individual rights, and relatively peaceful cooperation among nations – the core elements of the liberal order – have been a great historical aberration. … Our own era has not lacked its horrors …. Yet by historical standards…, it has been a relative paradise. … The great Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union ended peacefully, a historical rarity. … Since the end of the Second World War the world has also enjoyed a period of prosperity unlike any other …. Since 1945, some four billion people around the world have climbed out of poverty. … But all this has been an anomaly in the history of human existence. The liberal world order is fragile and impermanent. Like a garden, it is ever under siege from the natural forces of history, the jungle whose vines and weeds constantly threaten to overwhelm it. …

Brett Kavanaugh and His Accuser

Several comments on the Brett Kavanaugh controversy:

1.  Almost regardless of what happens after this point, both Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser, whose name does not need to be repeated here, will, for the rest of their lives, be identified with this moment. One of them correctly and one of them, possibly, wrongly. 

2.  The Washington Post says that its article, etc., were not done “at the eleventh hour” because it was only last week that the accuser was willing to have her name mentioned publicly. I wonder whether that means the Post would not have published this accusation if the accuser had not been willing to identified by name.

Another August 8 Anniversary: Georgia, 2008

I am referring, of course, to the Georgia of Tbilisi, not Atlanta.  Ten years ago today, during the Olympics in Beijing, Russia invaded Georgia.  Robert Kagan recalls what happened: 

“Vladimir Putin struck one of the first major blows [against the liberal world order] when he sent Russian forces into South Ossetia in neighboring Georgia in support of Russian-backed separatists.  The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, fearing a full-blown invasion, ordered his troops to attack [i.e., attack the Russians who were in Georgia], thus springing Putin’s trap.  Using the Georgian attack as a pretext, Putin launched that full-blown invasion, with tens of thousands of troops, fighter aircraft and elements of the Black Sea Fleet all pre-positioned and ready to move the instant Saakashvili acted.”

The West pretty much ignored the Russian attack.  Even though Georgia had contributed more troops to the war in Iraq than any other non-NATO country, George W. Bush refused to provide military equipment.  We only provided humanitarian aid (like the Obama administration did in Ukraine).

August 8 Anniversaries: 1968 and 1988

August 8 this year brings up two significant anniversaries.  The first, which I have commented on before (and here), is the 30th anniversary of the first scheduled night game at Wrigley Field.  I say “scheduled” because, while the game started, it never finished.  It starting raining in the fourth inning and didn’t stop.  (Well, it eventually stopped, but not soon enough.)  And so, instead of a baseball game, we got Greg Maddux, et al, sliding on a rain-slickened tarp.  (You can just barely see it here, along with a really young Paul Sullivan.)  The first official night game was the next night.

The other is the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s nomination for president by the Republican Party in 1968.  As we said back then, “Nixon’s the One.”