Both modern 20th century presidential impeachments, Bill Clinton’s and Richard Nixon’s, one enacted, the other nipped in the bud by resignation, happened in each of the president’s second term. This is not a small matter. The problem with the Trump impeachment quandary is that this push for impeachment comes on the heels of his election, midway in his first term, thereby thwarting the recently expressed will of the people (or the will of the electoral college.)
This fact, though given short shrift most everywhere, including by Leader Pelosi, provides some lame substance to the president and his supporters' rhetoric of the Democrats wanting to stage a coup, to seek revenge for an election they should have won, etc. Though, for complicated reasons, the second term presidents, Clinton and Nixon, didn’t seem to be newly elevated figures ripe for political defenestration. Nixon, one needs to recall, had actually won his second term by a landslide, an electoral college one, in any case. Clinton, too, had won comfortably. But after serving five years or so both presidents had acquired a shop-worn aspect. Their failings had accumulated and their occupation of the White House had reached a tipping point.
Trump presents different, but not entirely foreign, similarities. One curious, but often overlooked aspect of Bill Clinton’s initial election, was how revealed his life had become. His campaign was shot through with publicized scandals, like Trump, mostly involving women and Bubba's randy ways. Indeed, Trump continues to get a pass on his abuse of women because of Bill Clinton's legacy. And there was, in addition, his avoidance, like Trump, of the Vietnam era draft. Before Clinton won his presidency, and shortly after, there had been many attack books published about him, more, by my count, than any previous contemporary president. In Nixon’s case, his long checkered career had already exposed him to the voters as a flawed vessel, and most of his faults would become more extreme after he was elected the second time. Nixon, as he once claimed, had been kicked around.
Ditto Trump. He likes to brag about how “transparent” he is and in any number of ways that is true. It is unavoidable, like Clinton and Nixon, for voters who were paying attention, to claim that these men were pigs in a poke. Trump looked impeachable before he was elected. And, for so-called low information voters, testy swing voters, those who want to throw the bums out, none of it seemed to matter.
The 2018 election was in its way an impeachment of Donald Trump. The Republicans forfeited congressional seats that surprised even them. The breakdown of voters by sex and race showed which voters Trump lost, or, finally, had second thoughts about who they may or may not have voted for in 2016. Buyer’s remorse was at work.
The shock was that the election didn’t seem to matter. Democrats won the House, but it was quickly made clear that the victory was gelded. With all the current worries about the Imperial Presidency it became obvious that the Senate held the most power, especially when Trump managed to finally find a sycophant Attorney General who actually had a demonstrable intelligence. William Barr, corralling the Department of Justice to be an adjunct of the White House and, coupled with the Senate’s undying allegiance maintained by the oily swamp-creature Mitch McConnell, lets Trump sit atop a formidable fortress.
But the Democrat-controlled House continues to fire spit balls at the Trump castle. Who actually thinks that if the House began impeachment proceedings its enhanced legal powers wouldn’t be similarly rebuffed and laughed at by Barr and McConnell, mucking up and delaying the process? All the House has is the power of the purse, which it doesn’t choose to use. Note the collapse on the Border bill. The representatives still want to spend money.
But, as voters did in 2018, let the people speak. Voting Trump out of office is the only way impeachment and the necessary conviction can occur. Power to the People, as the 60's slogan goes.
Showing posts with label Richard Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Nixon. Show all posts
Monday, July 1, 2019
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Ken Burns, Boy Capitalist, and The Vietnam War (Part II)
What the 18 hours of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War were was exhausting. I kept wondering about the demographics of the viewers. How many young people were watching this? Was the audience only aging Baby Boomers? Somebody must know. As usual in Ken Burns’ projects it was as much human interest as history. Indeed, if you didn’t already know a lot about the history of the Vietnam war, you wouldn’t be able to fill in the roughshod way Burns and Novick raced through those years. But, unfortunately, their project will become history, since it will be watched by a generation that prefers watching over most anything else.
Here are some odd things it would be helpful for watchers to know: Speaking of the friction college students felt when they were “ranked”, grade-point averages implied, in order to retain student deferments. Ranking drew protests, but, unmentioned, it was the “Selective Service Qualification Test” that was administered widely and was given preference. I took it in the spring of 1966. If you scored high enough you didn’t lose your 2-S deferment.
Social scientists, then as now, worked with the military to arrange their own Darwinian methods for selecting soldiers to be. Now, it is torture that occupies them, then the draft.
The narration mentions that “banks” were bombed. It didn’t mention the radicals favorite targets were branches of the Bank of America, since it is one of the film’s major backers. The Weathermen were said to have blown up a statue of “six policeman.” It would be helpful to know that statue commemorated the Haymarket Riot, where seven, not six, policeman were killed, and the statue itself only featured one policeman, with his arm raised in an unfortunate position, presaging the Nazi salute some three decades down the road. The gathering at the Haymarket Square in Chicago was supporting the 40 hour week back in May of 1886. It eventually became the rallying point for May Day celebrations around the world, honoring workers, but not in the U.S.
In an early episode, Benjamin Spock is mentioned writing about children injured by napalm, but no mention of the Boston 5 trial in Boston in 1968 where he was a defendant because of anti-draft activity. There is, I suppose, a reason the series is called The Vietnam War. The war predominated and there was very little of the anti-war movement and its offshoots. There are other documentaries on the anti-war movement, but none got, or get, the play Burns and Novick’s has enjoyed.
There were other lapses. The documentary’s talking heads were barely identified. One of the most egregious was John Negroponte, notorious for his work in Central America. Wherever Negroponte went, death squads sprang up. To say the least, no one speaking was saddled with a full biographical notation. Most just were ID-ed by their affiliation: “Army”, “Air Force,” etc.
As was Tim O’Brien, who gets the documentary’s last word, which was “endured.” He was reading from his short story, “The Things They Carried.” Given all the horror that was covered, Burns and Novick seem to privilege endurance over all, the humanity of the ordinary person, despite all the evidence to the contrary. What was interesting was the coverage and the unstated linkage of that war with the present day. Especially, the foreign involvement presidents partook in: Nixon, primarily, getting the South Vietnamese to delay peace initiatives until after Nixon’s election. Reagan running against Carter did the same thing with the hostages in Iran, not released till after Reagan’s inauguration, through back channels, arranged by his old OSS and CIA buddy, Bill Casey. And, of course, The Donald and the Russians.
And, it was illuminating the difference between the Oval Office tapes of LBJ and Nixon. LBJ’s did seem to be used in the service of history, whereas Nixon’s were in the service of the prosecution and his removal. There was a lot that was illuminating. Such as the numbers. Over 300 thousand Chinese going to Hanoi to free up a like number of Vietnamese to carry on the war. The amount of war material supplied by the Soviets and the Chinese. Higher-up North Vietnamese sending their children to Europe for education during the war, avoiding their own sort of draft. Burns and Novick are after, it seems, all sorts of equivalencies. The Americans were heroes, the North Vietnamese were heroes. It's their kind of history, remaining sunny even during the slaughter.
Almost no one seems to think the war was a good idea, though there are some who seem to think we could have done it better. When we cut and ran out of Saigon is portrayed as a stain of sorts, how the South Vietnamese were better allies than we were and there is a tinge of regret, as if we somehow should have found a way to “win”. There was no winning, though it is implied the hope was always for some sort of South Korea solution. Yes, we should have remained in South Vietnam forever, as we seem to be heading to remain in Iraq and Afghanistan forever, is the import. The plea heard occasionally in the series was that they – the South Vietnamese – would tell us to leave. And that would have been peace with honor. Ah, yes, it is pretty to think so.
Back in the day, I thought the war was fought for all the usual reasons, natural resources, strategic location, Cold War ideology, etc. But, it is most ironic, and not covered by the film makers, that nearly 60 thousand Americans were killed, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, so Ralph Lauren and Nike and other apparel and shoe manufacturers could have access to cheap labor. No one in the anti-war movement, no matter how cynical, ever offered that as a reason for the war. The only other thing, the only positive thing, it seems to have created was the growth of Vietnamese immigrants, and the younger generation of Vietnamese-Americans. But it is still impossible to be thankful for that war for any reason.
The HuffPost version that ran on 10/06/2017 can be found here.
Here are some odd things it would be helpful for watchers to know: Speaking of the friction college students felt when they were “ranked”, grade-point averages implied, in order to retain student deferments. Ranking drew protests, but, unmentioned, it was the “Selective Service Qualification Test” that was administered widely and was given preference. I took it in the spring of 1966. If you scored high enough you didn’t lose your 2-S deferment.
Social scientists, then as now, worked with the military to arrange their own Darwinian methods for selecting soldiers to be. Now, it is torture that occupies them, then the draft.
The narration mentions that “banks” were bombed. It didn’t mention the radicals favorite targets were branches of the Bank of America, since it is one of the film’s major backers. The Weathermen were said to have blown up a statue of “six policeman.” It would be helpful to know that statue commemorated the Haymarket Riot, where seven, not six, policeman were killed, and the statue itself only featured one policeman, with his arm raised in an unfortunate position, presaging the Nazi salute some three decades down the road. The gathering at the Haymarket Square in Chicago was supporting the 40 hour week back in May of 1886. It eventually became the rallying point for May Day celebrations around the world, honoring workers, but not in the U.S.
In an early episode, Benjamin Spock is mentioned writing about children injured by napalm, but no mention of the Boston 5 trial in Boston in 1968 where he was a defendant because of anti-draft activity. There is, I suppose, a reason the series is called The Vietnam War. The war predominated and there was very little of the anti-war movement and its offshoots. There are other documentaries on the anti-war movement, but none got, or get, the play Burns and Novick’s has enjoyed.
There were other lapses. The documentary’s talking heads were barely identified. One of the most egregious was John Negroponte, notorious for his work in Central America. Wherever Negroponte went, death squads sprang up. To say the least, no one speaking was saddled with a full biographical notation. Most just were ID-ed by their affiliation: “Army”, “Air Force,” etc.
As was Tim O’Brien, who gets the documentary’s last word, which was “endured.” He was reading from his short story, “The Things They Carried.” Given all the horror that was covered, Burns and Novick seem to privilege endurance over all, the humanity of the ordinary person, despite all the evidence to the contrary. What was interesting was the coverage and the unstated linkage of that war with the present day. Especially, the foreign involvement presidents partook in: Nixon, primarily, getting the South Vietnamese to delay peace initiatives until after Nixon’s election. Reagan running against Carter did the same thing with the hostages in Iran, not released till after Reagan’s inauguration, through back channels, arranged by his old OSS and CIA buddy, Bill Casey. And, of course, The Donald and the Russians.
And, it was illuminating the difference between the Oval Office tapes of LBJ and Nixon. LBJ’s did seem to be used in the service of history, whereas Nixon’s were in the service of the prosecution and his removal. There was a lot that was illuminating. Such as the numbers. Over 300 thousand Chinese going to Hanoi to free up a like number of Vietnamese to carry on the war. The amount of war material supplied by the Soviets and the Chinese. Higher-up North Vietnamese sending their children to Europe for education during the war, avoiding their own sort of draft. Burns and Novick are after, it seems, all sorts of equivalencies. The Americans were heroes, the North Vietnamese were heroes. It's their kind of history, remaining sunny even during the slaughter.
Almost no one seems to think the war was a good idea, though there are some who seem to think we could have done it better. When we cut and ran out of Saigon is portrayed as a stain of sorts, how the South Vietnamese were better allies than we were and there is a tinge of regret, as if we somehow should have found a way to “win”. There was no winning, though it is implied the hope was always for some sort of South Korea solution. Yes, we should have remained in South Vietnam forever, as we seem to be heading to remain in Iraq and Afghanistan forever, is the import. The plea heard occasionally in the series was that they – the South Vietnamese – would tell us to leave. And that would have been peace with honor. Ah, yes, it is pretty to think so.
Back in the day, I thought the war was fought for all the usual reasons, natural resources, strategic location, Cold War ideology, etc. But, it is most ironic, and not covered by the film makers, that nearly 60 thousand Americans were killed, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, so Ralph Lauren and Nike and other apparel and shoe manufacturers could have access to cheap labor. No one in the anti-war movement, no matter how cynical, ever offered that as a reason for the war. The only other thing, the only positive thing, it seems to have created was the growth of Vietnamese immigrants, and the younger generation of Vietnamese-Americans. But it is still impossible to be thankful for that war for any reason.
The HuffPost version that ran on 10/06/2017 can be found here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)