Barack Obama? Is That You?

Have you ever wondered what happened to Barack Obama? Well, the forty-fourth President of the United States is back.

The former President, who turned 57 this past Saturday, announced that he and his wife Michelle are endorsing 81 Democratic candidates for congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative elections, with more endorsements to come.  It's part of Obama's efforts to help the Democrats regain power nationwide.  Two of those candidates are in my home state of New Jersey - Andy Kim (no, not that guy who sang "Rock Me Gently" in the seventies) for the state's Third U.S. House District and Tom Malinowski for its Seventh U.S. House District.  No endorsement for Mikie Sherrill in my district, the Eleventh, just yet.

So why is Obama doing all this?  Because he says that, in the past decade, the Democrats lost far too many elective offices, including governorships and control of federal and state legislatures, to the Republicans, and they have to start winning these offices back if they have any chance of surviving going forward.

Hmm . . . it's too bad Obama was never in a position to do anything about this before!

And what Obama has said sounds suspiciously like what another Democrat who had hoped to succeed him as President has been saying for about nine months now. This other Democrat has been doing something about it for those nine months and counting  - and he's already done more than what Obama did for his party in eight years!

And here he is!            

Martin O'Malley has been toiling in obscurity - obscurity created by a media establishment that doesn't give a twit about him - helping Democrats win state and local elections (mostly special elections) through his Win Back Your State PAC.  The fanfare he has failed to get will likely be compensated by the numerous endorsements from the state and local Democratic officials he helps get elected this year and next should he run for President in 2020.  Obama isn't doing anything now that O'Malley hasn't already done.

O'Malley was always charitable toward President Obama (who apparently wants former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick to run for President in 2020) during Obama's two terms, saying that he couldn't solve every problem in America because he was merely the President, not a magician.  But Obama was a magician - he made the Democratic Party disappear!  And party chairs Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman Schultz were his apprentices.   

I'm glad Obama is helping people like O'Malley rebuild the Democratic Party.  But with Donald Trump having reversed every policy initiative Obama instigated, the sad truth is that Obama's legacy is a smaller Democratic Party with a thousand fewer elective offices - death by a thousand cuts.  Before 2017, no President had left office with his party in such a sorry state since Millard Fillmore left office in 1853.

Millard Fillmore, of course, was the last Whig President.     

John F. Kennedy - 100 Years

Born one hundred years ago today, John Fitzgerald Kennedy entered the office of President of the United States with a great deal of promise, with only part of it fulfilled.

Kennedy entered office in 1961, at a time of new possibilities, when new nations were forming in the Third World and the Soviet Union was pushing ahead to explore space.  It was also a time when European countries, more than fifteen years after World War II ended, were re-emerging with established democratic governments and re-affirming their places in the world.  The United States, by contrast, had slipped into a period of complacency brought on by a sense of conformity and contentment in the Eisenhower years.  John F. Kennedy came into office declaring that we could do better - but only if Americans were willing to do better.

Kennedy challenged the nation by talking about what he, as President, expected of the American people, not what he would offer them.  In that respect, he got the nation to start thinking about creating a more just society, bearing the burden of preserving liberty, and building a country that would be second to no one.  The success of the Soviets in sending a man in orbit around the earth inspired Kennedy to lead the country toward putting a man on the moon and returning safely to earth before 1970.  He initiated the Peace Corps to foster goodwill among the newly independent nations of Africa and Asia.  He moved forward on civil rights not only from being offended by bigotry but from being appalled by its lack of reason.  "Kennedy was not a bigot," Richard Reeves wrote in 1993.  "In fact, like many of his generation, he thought prejudice was irrational, a waste of emotion and time." 

Unfortunately, the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 left his Presidency as unfinished as a Schubert symphony.  His domestic agenda and his commitment to civil rights - manifested in his June 1963 address on the topic - were stymied in Congress, and the space program was only beginning to move beyond John Glenn's 1962 triple orbit around the earth.  The centerpieces of his domestic agenda would be left to his successor, Lyndon Johnson, to push through Congress, and the moon landing would ironically take place six months to the day into the administration of Kennedy's old nemesis, Richard Nixon.  The major question involving Vietnam - would Kennedy have withdrawn American troops and advisers had he lived?  - remains unanswered.  But his cool, deliberative approach to defusing the Cuban missile crisis suggests that he likely would have.

Kennedy's greatest legacy as President was encouraging and inspiring America to do better and not to be satisfied with standing pat.  It is a sentiment has been tapped by JFK wannabes like Gary Hart, a cartoon Kennedy for the cartoon republic that was 1980s America, and sought by politicians too young to remember Kennedy, like former President Barack Obama.  But, in all actuality, no one possessing Kennedy's virtues and values - not even Kennedy himself - could possibly inspire Americans today to pursue public service.  People are too jaded.  Kennedy's questionable personal life would not have survived the scrutiny of today's 24-hour news cycles, and he likely would have withered from relentless criticism on social media.  Indeed, he might have been laughed at by urging Americans to pledge service to country today to provide for a better world tomorrow.  

After all, look what happened to the most Kennedyesque presidential candidate since JFK himself, Martin O'Malley.                      

I supported O'Malley as someone who hoped to see the Kennedy story repeated, but in a more indulgent, more ignorant, and more cynical time, it's hard to imagine anyone repeating the Kennedy story.  The unfinished work he left behind and the squandering in trust in government of Johnson and Nixon left a big hole in this country, but Kennedy's example shows that his faith in public service and what it means to be an American can be revived.

But it's going to take a long time before we regain the ability to revive it.  

Edward M. Kennedy: 1932-2009

Edward Moore Kennedy, United States Senator from Massachusetts, died last night of brain cancer.

This death comes at a peculiarly poignant time, what with his older sister, Special Olympics founder Eunice Shriver, having just died a couple of weeks ago.

Everyone on the cable news channel MSNBC has been talking about what a giant Ted Kennedy was, and it's impossible for even the most politically arch-conservative Americans to argue. Kennedy, in nearly 47 years in the Senate, crafted legislation that reshaped America far more than most lawmakers were able to do, from civil rights legislation and education equality laws to job training programs and expansion of medical insurance. It is this legacy that remained incomplete in Kennedy's last months as President Obama tried to push universal health care through, only to meet unexpected opposition in a political climate more poisoned than anyone realized.

Kennedy was a compromiser in the Henry Clay mold who could work with Republicans and counted several of them among his friends. He commanded the attention and respect of that another Massachusetts senator, Daniel Webster, in standing up fro a stronger nation. His faults and his mistakes aside - that's enough about Chappaquiddick, thank you - Kennedy's personal compassion and his unwavering fight for equality and justice were a perfect match match for the kind of temperament that is so sorely lacking in Washington today. To sat that he will be missed is an understatement. RIP. :-(

Style Over Substance

One of the most fascinating things about Michael Jackson's death is how quickly history has been revised right after he received the weaver's answer. One commentator on MSNBC commented on how Jackson broke the color barrier in popular music and how he gained a large white audience when he crossed over into the mainstream.

Interesting. That's news to me. Let's see . . . Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis, Jr., Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington . . .. Dude, how far back do you want to go? White people were listening to Louis Armstrong in the twenties.

Jackson's barrier breaking was limited at best. "Beat It" got airplay on white rock radio thanks to Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo on that single, and even Prince benefited from Jackson's achievement for awhile, but the breakthrough didn't last. Things quickly reverted to business as usual. And it's hard to imagine someone "crossing over" to the mainstream when he'd been in the mainstream since his career began. The Jackson Five performed on Ed Sullivan's show, and in the sixties, you couldn't get much more mainstream than that. If you wanted to go against the mainstream, you played on the Smothers Brothers' show. Ask Pete Seeger.

Jackson did shatter the barrier for black musicians that kept their videos from being aired on MTV, and it legitimized the channel as a pop-cultural institution, but with his emphasis on style, visual charisma, and elaborate production, Jackson made it possible for anyone with more style than musical substance to break through.

And so there was Duran Duran. And then came . . . Madonna.

Not a great legacy . . .

On the other hand, the inclusion of Jackson's videos on MTV meant that the channel had to cut some performers from its playlist. That's one thing I'm grateful to Jackson for - I never had to watch videos from obscure but awful bands like LeRoux or Red Rider ever again.

Then again, Night Ranger still managed to break through anyway.