Days before she received the Pulitzer Prize for history, I captured Gordon-Reed on video as she delivered remarks at the grand opening ceremony of the Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center at Monticello. In this video clip, she is introduced by Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Last week's guest spot on Coy Barefoot's WINA-AM radio show was so successful that I have been invited back to do the show again tomorrow (Thursday), September 2, during the 4:30 to 5:00 p.m. segment.
One way to measure success on talk radio is by counting the number of listeners who call in with a question or comment. A couple of months ago, I was on Coy's show and nobody called in, which was disappointing. But last week's appearance attracted five callers on the air, with two others waiting to talk when the show segment had to break for the news at the top of the hour.
So tune in tomorrow to "Charlottesville Right Now" on WINA (1070 AM) and feel free to call with questions, comments, or challenges. Both land-line and cell-phone calls are welcome.
A much broader study in Pennsylvania examined 36 years of data from 48 states with varying degrees of alcohol control. It found that private states have lower per-capita alcohol consumption and lower drunken-driving fatalities than states where government controls segments of the industry. It found no significant difference in underage drinking between the two models.
Like the recent Virginia report, it was funded by a foundation that advocates smaller government. But its author has submitted the findings to an academic journal for review, and he defended the results as unbiased.
"The fact is, we can play that game, who gets funded by whom," said Antony Davies, the Duquesne University economist who wrote the report.
"What happens is, we all have to go home, and nobody asks any questions at all. Everybody gets funded by someone," he said. "The better thing to do is to give researchers the benefit of the doubt that they're trying to find truth, and then look at the data and the studies."
Please note that, before the Post ever wrote about Antony Davies, I interviewed him for Examiner.com, and actually quoted him on the substance of his research, rather than about the game critics play about "who gets funded by whom."
“….advocates claim that the social goals of reducing alcohol consumption, underage drinking, and alcohol-related traffic deaths justify controlling wholesale and retail alcohol markets.
“Evidence from 48 states over time shows no link between market controls and these social goals.”
Dr. Davies said in the interview that “we’re not seeing any evidence that greater control leads to better social outcomes.”
There is an exception, however, that Davies pointed out over the telephone: “DUI fatalities are significantly higher in states with more control than states with less control.”
Other factors, however, are different, he said. “If you look at per capita alcohol consumption, there’s no difference as you move from full to moderate to light control.”
Underage Drinking
As to claims that state-owned liquor stores are a better protection against selling alcohol to minors and underage drinking, Davies explained that people think “at a gut level” that private businesses “have an incentive to sell to minors. We see that’s not the case.”
Why not? “If alcohol is sold in the private market, the owner of the store has a profit incentive not to sell to minors, because if he gets caught, he loses his license. He wants to protect his business.”
Davies, who is also a visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, concludes: “If you look at the data, there’s no clear pattern [that emerges showing] that imposing more control reduces underage drinking.”
Note, too, that I specifically name the Commonwealth Foundation while the Post refers to it vaguely as "a foundation that advocates smaller government" (as if that's a bad thing).
Helderman deserves credit for seeking out a free-market economist like Dr. Davies for her story. But you heard about him from me first -- just like Governor Bob McDonnell telling me that the Post got it wrong in reporting that he was leaning toward selling the ABC system to a single high bidder.
Disturbed by reports in the Washington Post and repeated by Josh Eboch on the Tertium Quids blog that Governor Bob McDonnell's plan to privatize the state-owned liquor monopoly could include selling the whole system to a single high bidder, I decided to find out for myself if this was true.
Governor McDonnell held the sixth of his eight planned town-hall meetings on government reform last night in Harrisonburg, on the campus of James Madison University. Afterwards, he took questions from reporters and I fired off the first one.
This is a complete transcript of our exchange:
Q: I’ll ask you a question. The Washington Post reported yesterday or the day before that the ABC privatization could include selling the whole kit and caboodle to one high bidder. Is that off the table?
A: Absolutely. We’re not going create a private monopoly to replace a government monopoly. That’s not going to happen.
Q: So the Washington Post was wrong?
A: I didn’t read that, and so I’ve never heard that.
You can see that Q&A, plus Governor McDonnell's answers to questions posed about job creation and immigration, in this video on YouTube:
By the way, my latest piece on ABC privatization, an interview with John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, is available for reading on Examiner.com.
During the segment from 4:30 to 5:00 p.m., Coy and I will discuss the 2010 election campaigns, primarily in Virginia's Fifth District, and other topics of interest.
No doubt some of the issues we talk about will be nabbed from my most recent posts on Examiner.com, based on one-on-one interviews with public officials, candidates, politicians, political activists, policy experts, and others from Virginia and beyond.
Yesterday the Senior Statesmen of Virginia sponsored a candidates' forum for those seeking to represent Virginia's Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
All three candidates who qualified for the ballot were invited to participate, but only incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello and independent challenger Jeffrey Clark chose to attend. Republican nominee Robert Hurt decided to sit this one out, missing the opportunity to appear on C-SPAN, NPR, several local radio and TV stations, and in newspaper and blog reports about the debate.
I have written three articles on Examiner.com based on interviews conducted before and after the debate.
Before the event began, I chatted briefly with Jeff Clark, a Danville Tea Party activist who is running without party affiliation, a conscious decision on his part. Even though we only spoke for a few minutes, he gave me enough material for at least three articles -- though so far I have only written one of them.
After the debate ended, I had an even briefer time to speak with Congressman Perriello, who was not, as I had expected, besieged by reporters from other media outlets. He answered three questions from me, including one that is starting to get attention outside the Fifth District: How does he plan to earn the votes of self-identified libertarian voters in this election?
In his response, Perriello suggested that his vote on the comprehensive health care bill was motivated by libertarian concerns, although his explanation was thin, to say the least.
As an aside, I also recorded nearly the entire debate on video. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera expired just before Jeff Clark's closing remarks. I have posted one short excerpt on YouTube, in which the two candidates answer a question I posed (in writing via the moderator) about same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). To my surprise, Clark gives the very libertarian answer that the best solution may be to get government out of the marriage business altogether. Perriello dodges the question about DOMA, both in the forum and when I asked him again later.
Here's the clip:
I did not, by the way, ask the question, "Do you believe that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness includes gay marriage?" I wish I had. (Mine was the wonkier question recited by Coy Barefoot.)
Update 3: A second article based on my interview with Jeffrey Clark is now live on Examiner.com. In it, he discusses his support for Governor Bob McDonnell's proposals to privatize Virginia's liquor monopoly. Be sure to visitmy CafePress storefor gifts and novelty items! Read my blog on Kindle! Followmy tweetson Twitter! See my articles on Examiner.com!
Nearly 15 years ago, syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock wrote an article that appeared in the Washington Times (February 26, 1996; not available on the Web) with the headline, "Prohibition, alive in Virginia."
Murdock focused particularly on a then-pending lawsuit concerning the Commonwealth of Virginia that had been brought by a wine distributor, in a case known as Brown-Forman Corporation vs. Sims Wholesale Company. He also took broader aim, however, at Virginia's post-Prohibition system of controls over the sale and distribution of beer, wine, and spirits, including a government-owned and -operated monopoly on the wholesale and retail sales of distilled spirits (that is, liquor).
Murdock quoted a libertarian political activist who at the time lived in Arlington County, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.:
Stiff limits on the importation of alcohol lift this 80-proof trade wall even higher. It is against state law to bring more than one gallon of wine, beer or spirits into Virginia. Despite the fact that "you could reasonably say that the prices in Washington, D.C. are lower than in Virginia," as Mr. [Curtis] Coleburn states, anyone who bought a case of beer in Georgetown and drove it to a barbeque in Fairfax would be a lawbreaker.
All of this limits consumer choice. "In Arlington County, with a population of 200,000, there are only four ABC stores I am aware of," says writer and policy analyst Richard Sincere. "In a four-block radius of my office in downtown Washington, D.C., there are six or eight liquor stores." Mr. Sincere also sees far more variety in District stores than in Virginia's. Washington retailers "sell more than liquor." "They have cheese, wine glasses, potato chips and newspapers. The Virginia ABC stores have all the personality of a DMV office. They're plain cinderblock structures with plain walls. There are no advertising posters, no color. They remind me of my trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. There were stores there that just were called `Milk' or `Bread.' In Virginia, they say `ABC Store' in big block letters. This is the last vestige of socialism in Virginia."
In a suggestion aimed at then-Governor George F. Allen and the still-Democratic-majority General Assembly, Murdock said that privatization was overdue:
The Elliott Ness-era moonshine still that is Virginia's alcohol policy should be streamlined for the 21st Century. Wine and spirits manufacturers should be free to hire and fire distributors as swiftly as law firms can pick and choose among FedEx, UPS and Airborne. State liquor stores should be privatized, perhaps with their public-sector employees given the first crack at buying the means of alcohol distribution at a fair market price. Virginia's alcohol consumers should be free to shop in Washington. and surrounding states to satisfy their wallets and taste buds. And if they drink what they buy on the drive home, they should be arrested and stripped of their drivers' licenses.
Fast forward a decade and a half, and we can see that this issue is still on Virginia's agenda. Governors since George Allen have urged consideration of privatization proposals, but there has been no movement. Now, however, a window of opportunity may exist for Virginia's political leaders to make a decision that modernizes and liberalizes the ABC system, acknowledging that the free market is better than socialism. This time, ABC privatization is a top priority for Virginia's governor.
While McDonnell insists (see video below) that there are "hundreds" of suggestions for government reform -- making government more effective, more efficient, and less costly -- the centerpiece and most popular (and most controversial) of those suggestions is the one he made during last year's gubernatorial campaign. That is, to privatize the state's monopoly on liquor sales, turn it over to the private sector, and use the hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds to pay for improving Virginia's transportation network.
About an hour before the town hall meeting began in the chamber of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors in front of a standing-room-only audience, Governor McDonnell sat down with me for a one-on-one interview on the specific issue of ABC privatization.
On Friday night I went to the Albemarle County Fair. The weather was near-perfect -- pleasant temperatures, low humidity, and no rain or wind to dampen the festivities.
If you need evidence that the Tea Party movement is made up of grassroots, neophyte activists, look no further than this email invitation sent out on Friday by the Jefferson Area Tea Party, which is based in the Charlottesville area.
If the amateurishness of this email message is not immediately apparent, don't worry that you've missed it. It took me several minutes to figure it out.
A truly professional operation -- the alleged "grass tops" that exercise cynical control over the Tea Parties from some undisclosed hideaway in Washington -- would never have let this pass, because a basic piece of information is missing.
Did you figure it out yet?
The invitation to the rally does not tell recipients of the message where they should go to protest Congressman Tom Perriello.
Yes, it does say "Carysbrook Performing Arts Center," but unless you live in Fluvanna County or near Fork Union (where the Carysbrook Center stands), you're unlikely to know where it's located. I had to look it up on Google, and even then got the impression that it was near Lake Monticello. (Maybe it's near both places; my sense of rural geography is not well-formed.)
I can imagine that other Tea Partiers from Albemarle, Greene, and Nelson counties, as well as from the city of Charlottesville, scratched their heads in ignorance. How many would have bothered to look up the name of the performing arts center to learn where they should be on Saturday morning?
It's a simple rule of political activism: Spoon feed the troops with information as much as you spoon feed the media. They're not going to bother to find out for themselves what you should be telling them in the first place.
The accusations of top-down manipulation of the Tea Party are clearly misdirected. Professional political operatives don't make these kinds of basic mistakes.
In Sunday's Las Vegas Sun, Anjeanette Damon suggests that "None of the Above" might be the favored option of Nevada voters faced with the choice of Harry Reid and Sharron Angle on the ballot this November.
Damon explains:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s 55 percent unfavorable rating is matched by the 56 percent unfavorable rating of his GOP rival, Sharron Angle.
The most popular ballot option might not be for a person at all. “None of these candidates” is expected to draw a significant portion of the vote in November because of the candidates’ unpopularity and the pessimistic mood of the electorate.
More than merely a gauge of Nevada’s ennui, “none of the above” could determine the outcome of the election and will almost guarantee that the Senate race victor emerges with less than 50 percent of the vote.
Citing UNLV political scientist David Damore's recent study of the "NOTA" phenomenon, Damon goes on to note how it plays into other elections:
Nevada is the only state to allow voters a none-of-the-above option in statewide races. The Legislature instituted it in 1975 amid the mistrust of government brought on by the Watergate scandal.
In researching its effect, Damore found voters rely on it more in primary elections, nonpartisan races and down-ticket races. Generally, the less information a voter has about the candidates in a given race, the more that voter is inclined to vote none of the above. It can draw from 15 percent to 18 percent in statewide judicial races, for example.
However, in high-profile, hotly contested races, such as Nevada’s U.S. Senate contest, the none-of-the-above option is a way for the electorate to register a protest vote. The draw in these races is smaller, perhaps 1.5 percent to 3 percent, depending on how unpopular the two major candidates are.
Seeing the article this week reminded me of a letter to the editor I sent to the Christian Science Monitor about 18 years ago. It was published on June 19, 1992, under the headline, "The 'None of the Above' Option":
The Opinion page article "Vote `No and `Yes' to Democracy," June 12, on voter dissatisfaction and the possibility of adding "None of the Above" (NOTA) to United States election ballots, mentions that variants of this choice have been used in Eastern Europe. It is also used in Nevada, where it is nonbinding, and regularly in nongovernment elections, where it often is binding.
The Libertarian Party includes NOTA on ballots for party elections and its platform has long called for NOTA's inclusion on US federal, state, and local election ballots. In the party context, in any election in which NOTA wins, that office goes unfilled and unfunded until the next scheduled election.
Beyond serving as a vent for "throw-all-the-bums-out" steam, NOTA also provides a mechanism for voters to indicate their belief that an office itself - not just the politician who holds it or wants it - is unnecessary and should be eliminated.
Unfortunately, incumbent legislators know the dangers NOTA poses for their comfortable existence. It will take a strong grass-roots effort to get career politicians to approve laws that allow voters authentic choices in every election.
Richard Sincere Jr., Arlington, Va., Chairman, Libertarian Party of Virginia
Although I was registered to vote in Nevada for nine years (1979-88), I never exercised the NOTA option. I don't think I knew it existed and in those (personally pre-political) days I was not paying close attention. I wish I knew more details its origin so I could pursue getting it adopted into Virginia's election code. Be sure to visitmy CafePress storefor gifts and novelty items! Read my blog on Kindle! Followmy tweetson Twitter! See my articles on Examiner.com!
A few months ago, the Wauwatosa Historical Society put out a call for reminiscences of the Wauwatosafire department. The idea was to collect memories and memorabilia to put into a time capsule that will be embedded in the new fire department headquarters building.
I responded to the request with an original Wauwatosa News-Times edition featuring photographs and an article about the fire that ravaged my family's house in July 1975, along with the two blogposts I did about that event, printed on paper.
The latest issue of the Historic Wauwatosa newsletter reports that I was one of four people who answered the call. I suppose it's a good thing that more people did not have recollections of interactions with the fire department -- it means most homes were not touched by disaster.
So I guess my materials will be immortalized -- or at least be found by some future generation that opens the time capsule. I wonder if those who dig it up will be human or alien. Will they be able to read 21st century English?
That may not seem to have much significance except that, ten years ago this month, a TV series in which he played the central character, Freaks and Geeks, had the last of its original episodes broadcast on NBC, the network that launched and rejected it.
It happens that Freaks and Geeks, which lasted not even a full season on NBC, is having a resurrection on IFC, the Independent Film Channel, where episodes can be seen on Fridays and Mondays at 11:00 p.m. It is also available in at least two DVDeditions.
Freaks and Geeks is not significant just because it was well-written, well-directed, and well-directed (see below) but also because it sparked the careers of some of today's biggest TV and movie actors, most of whom have become members of Judd Apatow's repertory company, appearing in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Pineapple Express, among many others. It should come as no surprise that Apatow was one of the co-creators (along with Paul Feig) of Freaks and Geeks.
In addition to Daley, who is best known today for his featured role on Bones, the young actors who got their big break in Freaks and Geeks include Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, and Linda Cardellini. There were also some who appeared once or twice during the season but did not have featured roles, such as Ben Foster, Jason Schwartzman, and Shia LeBeouf. (Note for trivia buffs: Becky Ann Baker, who played the mother of Daley and Cardellini, also played Mary Flynn in the Arena Stage's 1990 revival of Furth and Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. I saw that show twice.)
When Freaks and Geeks met its demise in July 2000, I wrote an elegy for The Metro Herald. It seems a bit hyperbolic in retrospect but, at the time, it was a tribute to a show that seemed unduly destined for oblivion. (The article shows its age in the way in which Web site addresses were presented.)
This first appeared on Friday, July 14, 2000:
FREAKS AND GEEKS: QUALITY TV, DEEP-SIXED
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor
Last Saturday night, the final curtain fell on one of the 1999- 2000 television season's highest quality new shows. America is poorer for it.
The critically acclaimed Freaks and Geeks never found its audience. A large part of the blame must be put on NBC programmers, who seemed to treat F&G with a special disdain. Early in the season, they scheduled the show on Saturday night, television’s great wasteland. No one watches TV on Saturday night, and certainly not those most interested in watching a drama about teenagers and their lives.
Preempted frequently during its first foray into our homes, the situation became worse in January, when NBC put the show on Monday nights, and then proceeded to preempt it with other programming for two out of every three weeks. Consequently few viewers found this delightful creation. By March, Freaks and Geeks was simply, unceremoniously canceled.
Why was F&G treated so badly? Why was it never given its proper chance to work its way into America’s heart?
Perhaps the reason is that it was well-written, well-directed, and well-acted. Strike that: Freaks and Geeks was probably the best-written, best-directed, best-acted show of its drama in this or any other season. And American TV audiences reject the best.
For those unfamiliar with Freaks and Geeks, a few words of description. Set in 1980 and 1981 in suburban Michigan, the story revolves around the Weir family father Harold (played by SCTV's Joe Flaherty), mother Jean (Becky Ann Baker), 15-year-old daughter Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), and 14-year-old son Sam (John Francis Daley). The other characters are friends of the Weirs, their teachers and counselors at school, and others who come in contact with their world.
More than any other drama, the creators of Freaks and Geeks—primarily Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, but meaning no disrespect to any of the other writers or producers—have simulated the world in which teenagers really live. These kids are real in the way that other TV kids are not: they are angst-ridden, to be sure, but they also experience the joy of discovery that comes with growing up. They are not smarter or wittier than their parents, but they recognize their limitations and wish to overcome them. As for the parents, Flaherty and Baker, in particular, portray the genuine concerns and anxieties of two people (in an intact family, no less—no divorce, widowhood, or single-motherhood here) raising teenagers at the end of an era of uncertainty. At the same time, their pride in their progeny shines through.
Sam and his friends (the “geeks” of the title) are freshmen in a large suburban high school, trying to fit in while simultaneously finding and maintaining their own identities. Fearful of being outcasts, they overLook their good qualities (Sam, for instance, is a bottomless pit of adorability hut he doesn’t know it; and he and his friends are quite intelligent, although they are unable to appreciate those gifts) while seeking to emulate the less-admirable qualities of the “popular” kids.
Lindsay, an academic star, rebels against her nature by hanging out with the “freaks” of McKinley High, exploring her own feelings while discovering the humanity of the people who formerly would neither associate with her nor expect her to associate with them.
Freaks and Geeks is realistic without descending into mawkish naturalism. The actors are uniformly perfect for their parts, although a few seem uncomfortable in their skins at first. After a few viewings, it suddenly becomes clear that these characters are supposed to be uncomfortable. They are, after all, teenagers, still coming to terms with life and unsure about what they should be and what they will become.
Themes were treated with a certain maturity, as well. The producers dealt with such questions as drug use, cheating on tests, pushing the limits of parental discipline, the dangers of misdirected practical jokes, and pornography in a non-didactic, matter-of-fact way that only added depth to the show as a whole. There was no preaching, and topicality was treated as integral—or sometimes peripheral—to the plots of each episode.
Moreover, the direction was blessed with a fine sense of detail. This extended to the costumes and props, of course (letting us know we are in the late Carter administration, not the Clinton years), but was most evident in the choice of music on the soundtrack, which included Rush, the Charlie Daniels Band, Ted Nugent, KISS, the Grateful Dead, Cheap Trick, and Gloria Gaynor, just to name a few—and not to mention the theme song by Joan Jett. (Can there be a CD soundtrack on the horizon?)
Like Action, a Fox comedy that was too sophisticated for prime time and also met an early demise, the cancellation of Freaks and Geeks demonstrates that both network programmers and the bulk of American TV viewers have no concern about quality when it interferes with ratings. If a show doesn’t skew to the right demographic, it’s destined for the ashcan of broadcast history.
A show like Freaks and Geeks would have had a limited run, in any case—once the teenagers grew up and graduated from high school, there would be no more show. (Witness Beverly Hills 90210 for the past six years if you want proof.) But what a wonderful four years we could have had.
Well, at least we still have Malcolm in the Middle. That Fox comedy, despite its high quality, also draws viewers. Sometimes a good show can be a hit in spite of itself.
Here's a question: Why do so many TV series use the name "McKinley High School" for their settings?
Not only was this the Michigan high school in Freaks and Geeks, it is the Ohio high school (where it makes more sense) in Glee, as well as the California school Miley Cyrus attends on Hannah Montana?
Is the ghost of Mark Hanna working in Hollywood, trying to build a legacy for his protege?
(Note: This entertainment-related blog post is free of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber content.)
One might think, based on the lyrics of his famous song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” that songwriter-impresario George M. Cohan was “born on the Fourth of July.” While Cohan’s song is not precisely autobiographical (he was actually born on July 3rd), plenty of other Americans can claim Independence Day as their birthdate.
In fact, Jeopardy could use “Born on the Fourth of July” as a category whose “answers” were well-known American entertainers, writers, artists, business leaders, and politicians for 12 straight episodes and still have a few names left over.
Today's edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch features an opinion piece I wrote about another American who was born on the Fourth of July -- Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.
Coolidge is severely underrated by historians and others. A Siena College survey of 238 historians, presidential scholars, and political scientists that was released on July 1 gave Coolidge an "overall" ranking of just 29th out of 43 presidents. (Another underrated president whom I admire, Grover Cleveland, rounded out the top 20. Perhaps he had a higher ranking because he was a Democrat, not a Republican like Coolidge.)
In his 2008 book, The Cult of the Presidency, the Cato Institute's Gene Healy wrote that Coolidge is remembered "mostly for his reticence and for fiscal policies that combined Yankee parsimony with generous tax cuts."
That "Yankee parsimony" is on display in a short film that is thought to be the first time a U.S. president appeared in a "talkie" -- a movie with sound.
In this four-minute clip (viewable on YouTube), Coolidge says that he wants to "cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can re-establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty."
Here is that filmed speech, well-preserved after more than eight decades:
In his book on the presidency, Healy also notes about Coolidge:
Less well known is Coolidge’s admirable record on civil liberties. Coolidge ordered the release of [Woodrow] Wilson’s remaining political prisoners, and his attorney general, Harlan Fiske Stone, put an end to political surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, abolishing the FBI’s General Intelligence Division.
Coolidge was a student of American history and politics. He valued the Constitution and expected others to value it, and pay it heed, too. As I point out in today's Times-Dispatch:
"Liberty" is a theme that appears again and again in Coolidge's speeches and essays. In 1924, Coolidge published a volume of his writings, called The Price of Freedom. For a man known as "Silent Cal," Coolidge was unexpectedly loquacious and sage.
In his short (437-word) inaugural address as vice president, Coolidge, referring to the responsibilities of the United States Senate, said that body's "greatest function of all, too little mentioned and too little understood . . . is the preservation of liberty. Not merely the rights of the majority, they little need protection, but the rights of the minority, from whatever source they may be assailed."
Coolidge took his oath of office seriously. He believed that, under the Constitution, the authority and reach of the federal government were severely limited and that the rights of the people were expansive. And he ran a tight ship: The entire White House staff under Coolidge consisted of fewer than 40 people; the Obama White House has more than 60 working in the press office alone.
Coolidge tried to reverse the accumulation of power that presidents began in the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. While he had some, temporary, success, we know that our most recent presidents have discarded any sense of modesty and use the White House not as a bully pulpit, but a hammer to get their favored legislation passed by Congress and, if Congress does not cooperate, they expand power through executive orders.
The nation would be a better place if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama read a biography or two about Calvin Coolidge and consulted Coolidge's own essays and speeches on occasion.
"One of the smarter blogs is the libertarian-leaning collection of Charlottesville posts put up by Rick Sincere..." -- Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2005
, scratched their heads in ignorance. How many would have bothered to look up the name of the performing arts center to learn where they should be on Saturday morning?
, and 
's Joe Flaherty), mother Jean (Becky Ann Baker), 15-year-old daughter Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), and 14-year-old son Sam (John Francis Daley). The other characters are friends of the Weirs, their teachers and counselors at school, and others who come in contact with their world. 
, Healy also notes about Coolidge:
