From the Archives: Woodward and Bernstein agree Ford's Nixon pardon was 'right thing to do'

Woodward and Bernstein agree Ford's Nixon pardon was 'right thing to do'
November 3, 2012 12:20 AM MST

At a Virginia Film Festival screening of Alan J. Pakula's 1976 movie, All the President's Men on Friday, November 2, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose investigative journalism formed the basis for that film and wrote the book of the same name, discussed the Watergate scandal and the legacy it left for American politics and culture.

Woodward and Bernstein answered questions posed by former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles, one of the founders of the Virginia Film Festival and now director and CEO of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan institute that seeks to expand understanding of the presidency, policy and political history.”

'Wrong answers'
Near the end of the wide-ranging discussion, Woodward pointed out that he and other journalists are not always correct in their judgments – “sometimes you get the wrong answers” – and thus need reassessment.

Woodward, who has remained at the Washington Post for more than 40 years as reporter and editor, recalled how he had learned about President Gerald R. Ford's pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, one month after Nixon had resigned in disgrace in August 1974.

Ford, he said, chose to announce the pardon on TV early one Sunday morning. Woodward was awakened by his reporting partner, Bernstein, who asked if he had heard the news.

No, Woodward said, not knowing what the news was.

“The sonofabitch pardoned the sonofabitch!” Bernstein exclaimed, and Woodward needed no further explanation.

'Aroma of a deal'
“For a long time, we thought the pardon was dirty,” Woodward said. “Why does the guy at the top get off? There was an aroma of a deal, an exchange of the presidency for a pardon. There was a question of justice: why one guy gets a pardon, forty people go to jail, and so forth.”

Woodward asserted that Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter in 1976 “in large part” because of the pardon and suspicions about it among American voters.

About 25 years later, Woodward wrote a book about Watergate and the legacy it had on the presidencies of Ford through Clinton. He had never met Ford previously, but spent several hours with him, as part of his research, with a specific aim to learn about the Nixon pardon.

Ford told Woodward that Nixon chief of staff Alexander Haig had, indeed, offered a deal, but that he had rejected it.

“I pardoned Nixon, not for Nixon, not for myself, not for the political system,” Ford said to Woodward, “I pardoned Nixon for the country,” because the United States had to get beyond Watergate. A criminal trial of Nixon would prolong the scandal by three or more years and would be “unacceptable.”

'Cold shower'
Years later the Kennedy family gave Ford a Profiles in Courage award for his pardoning of Nixon. This event, Woodward said, was “a very important cold shower to get, because we had it absolutely wrong.”

At this point, Bernstein interjected, with Woodward nodding his agreement, that “it was the right thing to do for the country. It cost this man the presidency, because he did the right thing.”

After the discussion, Woodward and Bernstein autographed copies of their various books, including All the President's Men, for festival attendees.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 3, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Washington Post reporter gets several historical facts wrong

An article in the print edition of the Washington Post on Sunday, July 27 (p. C5), includes three glaring errors that would have resulted in a failing grade on an elementary school history test, yet only one of them has been subsequently corrected on the newspaper's web site.

The article, written by Ileana Najarro with a print-edition headline "Wolf is making his last push for holiday," explains how retiring U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA10) is advancing legislation that would make Washington's Birthday a federal holiday celebrated on the actual date of his birth, February 22, rather than floating each year on the third Monday in February.

One of Najarro's errors relates to how the holiday came to be celebrated on a date other than February 22:

President Rutherford B. Hayes established Washington’s birthday in 1879 as a holiday for the District’s federal workers, Wolf said. The holiday was extended to all federal workers six years later, but it wasn’t until 1971 that it was moved to the third Monday of February as part of President Gerald Ford’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

Gerald Ford did not become President until August 1974. The law was passed when Lyndon Johnson was President. Johnson signed it on June 28, 1968, and it took effect January 1, 1971, when Richard Nixon was President. Ford did sign a bill in 1975 that amended the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to restore Veterans' Day commemorations to November 11, regardless of its day of the week.

A second error, also not corrected, misplaces the origins of George Washington:

Sitting in his office, [Wolf] spoke of his geographical connection to the first president: Both were originally from Philadelphia, and both have held office in Winchester.

It used to be said that "every schoolboy knows" some fact about U.S. history. One such fact is that George Washington came from Virginia. He was born in the Northern Neck, in Westmoreland County near Fredericksburg. In later years, Washington made his home at Mount Vernon, just down the Potomac River from the city that bears his name. As a military officer, Washington did maintain an office in Winchester during the 1750s in a building that still stands near Cork and Braddock Streets.

Washington also served his country in Philadelphia, presiding over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and moving there from New York as President before the capital was established in its present location.

The sole error that was corrected reads, in the print edition, like this:

Although the holiday is still recognized as Washington's Birthday, it's come to be known as Presidents' Day, with several states honoring all presidents at once. Wolf said he abhors this "hijacking" because Washington's birthday is honored equally with that of President Richard M. Nixon, who was impeached.

Andrew Johnson was impeached. Bill Clinton was impeached. Richard Nixon resigned before articles of impeachment could be brought before the House of Representatives for a vote.  If any newspaper's editors should know this, it would be those of The Washington Post.

The Post's correction of this error appears at the top of the page on its web site:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that President Nixon was impeached. He resigned before he could be impeached. This version has been corrected.

The "corrected" paragraph says that Nixon "resigned in disgrace."

So... Where were the copy editors?  How did sloppiness like this make it through the Metro section's editorial process?  Will the other errors also merit corrections in print or on the Post's web site?

Note:  The web headline for Najarro's article is: "Rep. Frank Wolf’s final acts include restoring Washington’s Birthday."

(Cross-posted from Where Are the Copy Editors?)

Gerald Ford's Views on a Hillary Clinton Presidential Run

Hillary Clinton at the 1996 Democratic National Convention

Today is former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's 66th birthday. In 2016, she will be 69 years old, the same age that Ronald Reagan was when he became the nation's oldest elected president. Still, Clinton -- also a former senator from New York and First Lady during the two terms of Bill Clinton -- is widely seen as a likely presidential candidate to succeed Barack Obama.

Clinton is not the only potential Democratic candidate for 2016. Vice President Joe Biden has made known his desire to run for his current boss's job. Others whose names have been suggested are New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

I was intrigued, while recently reading a book about former President Gerald Ford, to find out that Ford had some strong opinions about Hillary Clinton as a potential president and presidential candidate.

In Thomas M. DeFrank's 2007 book, Write It When I'm Gone, Ford was unusually candid. The premise of the book is that, over a series of interviews conducted in Ford's post-presidency (mostly in the 1990s but also as recently as a year before his death), DeFrank wrote down Ford's thoughts about politics, policy, and personalities with the understanding that nothing from the interviews would be published until after he died.

Ford did not meet either of the Clintons until after Bill's inauguration in 1992, but he admired Hillary (somewhat begrudgingly) and predicted she could be the Democrats' presidential nominee in 2004 or 2008. (Ford did not have the prescience to see the formidable challenge HRC would face in Barack Obama. At Ford's death in December 2006, Obama was barely on the national radar screen, much less Ford's own.)

Over three pages of Write It When I'm Gone (pp. 149-152), DeFrank recounts several conversations with the former president about his assessment of the then-First Lady:

... he and Hillary were polar opposites ideologically, and he wasn't sure she would be a particularly appealing candidate if she ever ran for the White House.

But those first encounters [at the Fords' Colorado vacation home] convinced him she had the emotional toughness for the job:

"I learned this: she's stronger and tougher than he is," he told me in 1994. "When she takes a point, you're gonna have to be damn sure you're well informed, because she won't compromise as quickly or as easily as he. She's very bright, she's strong, and I think he defers to her. When she gets her dander up, she ain't gonna roll over."

When Clinton ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, Ford thought it was a cynical move to give her a stepping-stone to the presidency, but he also thought it would backfire on her. "Truth is," he told DeFrank, "that's a handicap to her."

Nonetheless, Ford still foresaw a White House run in Hillary's future:

"The Republicans will make a mistake if they think she is gonna be a pushover. She is a tough, knowledgeable,articulate lady. On the other hand, her toughness in the political arena may not be a big asset. She obviously wants to stay in the political spotlight."

By 2002, he was certain Hillary had already decided to make a presidential bid:

"I'll make this prediction, as long as this is off the record. I'll gar-antee [sic] you, either in 2004 or 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton will be a candidate for president. [And] I wouldn't rule out Hillary in 2004, I really wouldn't."

Obviously, Ford was wrong about 2004 but he was right about 2008 -- 2016 was beyond the scope of his predictions in 2002, of course.

DeFrank reported further:

Asked if Hillary would be formidable, he replied that her nomination by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion: "Hillary is gonna be on the ticket in '04 or '08, one or the other, and you can write that down."

Why was he so sure Hillary was running?

"Because she has unlimited ambition. When you look at her record, she's a bona fide liberal with unlimited ambition.

"You look at her track record. She went to Arkansas and married Clinton because she saw in him a way to get national recognition 'cause she thought from the beginning he would be a candidate for president and she would get to be president. There's nothing in her track record, Tom, which shows any [inclination] to stay in the background."

I have to wonder whether Ford heard that joke making the rounds in the 1990s, which went something like this:

Bill and Hillary were driving in the countryside when they stopped for gas. The gas station attendant smiled and said, "Hello, Hillary, it's been a long time."

Curious, Bill asked her who he was.

"Oh, that's an old boyfriend of mine. We were once engaged to be married."

Bill chuckled and said, "Isn't that interesting! If you had married him, you'd be the wife of a gas-station attendant."

"No, Bill," Hillary said. "If I had married him, he would be President of the United States."

In any case, DeFrank also noted Ford's doubts about Hillary's electability as a presidential candidate.

... he thought she'd have trouble getting elected because of all the personal and political baggage she'd be toting.

"It depends on the public sentiment in the years out [at the time]. Of course, she's very vulnerable -- she was the mastermind of that terrible health care program which she tried to sell. So that would always be a liability for her."

(After 20 years, would Hillarycare be more popular than Obamacare?)

Later in the book (p. 252), DeFrank recounts a 2006 interview in which he and Ford discussed the upcoming 2008 presidential campaign.

His Republican favorite was still Rudy Giuliani. "I think Giuliani is an electrifying guy. He's a great speaker. He's had a good record of winning in New York City, and he can be tough."

Ever the political junkie, the House minority leader who used to travel 250 days a year boosting Republicans said he was relishing a head-to-head confrontation between Hillary Clinton and Rudy. For years he'd been telling me Hillary was consumed by ambition, was intent on running in 2004 or 2008, and that despite her political baggage -- and her husbands -- would make "a darned good candidate."

"That would be a great contest between Hillary and Giuliani." He wasn't sure who would win -- it would depend on what else was happening in the country -- but he thought Giuliani had the edge.

"What else was happening in the country" turned out to be the operative phrase in that speculative paragraph.

It happens that I was present at the 2006 presentation of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes at the National Press Club, where Thomas DeFrank was one of the recipients. That turned out to be the first time that Ford himself was not able to attend the event, because of his poor health. Dick Cheney, then vice president and much earlier White House chief of staff in the Ford administration, was the principal speaker at that ceremony.

Spiro Agnew Resigned as Vice President 40 Years Ago Today

Another piece from the archives, marking the 40th anniversary of Spiro T. Agnew's resignation as vice president on October 10, 1973. Agnew left office under a cloud in the midst of the unfolding Watergate scandal, leading to the first use of the 26th Amendment procedures for selection of a vice president by Congress to fill a vacancy in that office. (Previous vacancies had gone unfilled throughout the rest of the presidential term.)

This article appeared in The Metro Herald in September 1996 as "Spiro Agnew: Up from the Memory Hole?" It was written on the occasion of Agnew's death on September 17, 1996.

- - -

Early in 1973, a Sunday "Doonesbury" comic strip by Garry Trudeau showed eight panels of the south portico of the White House. Phones are ringing; suddenly a recording answers: "Good morning! This is the White House. We are sorry but all our lines are busy right now. Please hold on. A service representative will be with you in a moment." There is a beep and a pause, followed by: "Good morning. Thank you for calling the White House. May I help you?" "... Ah ... yes," says the caller. "I'm trying to reach Mr. Agnew." Comes the reply: "Speaking."

To many people, this is the predominant image of former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who died late Tuesday evening [September 17, 1996] at the age of 77. In the swirl of controversy that defined the Nixon White House -- Vietnam, Watergate, the Energy Crisis -- Agnew was a but a blur, a minor player relegated to the lower levels of the administration; indeed, he was little more than a messenger or telephone operator.

Plucked from obscurity on [August] 8, 1968, by Republican presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon to be his running mate, Spiro Agnew had served as Baltimore County Executive and Maryland's Governor. Though some may claim he remained obscure throughout his truncated tenure as Vice President, the fact is that President Nixon assigned him major duties in both the domestic and foreign policy realms. Those who do remember him recall his lurid turns-of-phrase in his role as the administration's political attack dog.

"Nattering nabobs of negativism" was how Agnew characterized the press in one memorable speech in 1969. Spoken by Agnew, that phrase is ascribed to speechwriter Patrick Buchanan. (Is it necessary to ask, "Whatever happened to him?")

Spiro T. Agnew as Maryland governor

A year later, during the midterm election campaign, Agnew spewed forth against the administration's liberal opponents, saying that "ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy, and a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order."

Agnew did not limit his criticism to Democrats, either. During that year's campaign season, he turned his sights on New York Senator Charles Goodell, who as a "Rockefeller Republican" was fairly liberal in his voting record. Goodell was in a tight three-way race that included Conservative candidate James Buckley. Nixon was upset by Goodell's attitude toward the administration's Vietnam policy, and wanted to undercut his re-election efforts in an attempt to favor Buckley.

So Agnew was sent out on the attack. At a meeting of newspaper editors in New Orleans, Agnew suggested that Goodell's most recent statements about Vietnam were wildly inconsistent with the statements and votes he had made as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. By comparing his earlier and later statements, Agnew said, "you will find Goodell is truly the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party." (Jorgensen, in the 1950s, became the first person to have a successful sex-change operation.) Ms. Jorgensen, by the way, was not pleased at the comparison and objected to being used by Agnew as a "political pawn." (Goodell, by the way, lost his race to Buckley, who lost in turn to Daniel Patrick Moynihan six years later.)

Nonetheless, Agnew's role in the Nixon administration was more than just fodder for the media. Behind the scenes he performed important tasks. Henry Kissinger notes in his memoirs, for instance, that Agnew was one of the administration's point-men in the negotiations to end the Vietnam War, and during the drawn-out bargaining of late 1972 was always on stand-by, ready to fly to Paris to sign a peace treaty on the President's behalf.

Agnew's downfall, of course, was petty political corruption. I remember clearly the night of October 10, 1973, when Agnew resigned the vice presidency. My high school classmates and I learned a new Latin phrase: "nolo contendere" (no contest), the plea entered by Agnew that was short of an admission of guilt but still earned him punishment for accepting bribes (and failing to pay taxes on his bribery income) while he served, not only as Governor of Maryland, but as Vice President.

Strangely enough, Agnew treated his graft practices with an eerie sort of lightheartedness. One of the contractors who had delivered thousands of dollars in bribes to Agnew was being pressured to give money to the Nixon re-election campaign in 1972. After hearing his complaint, Agnew said to the man: "Tell them you gave at the office."

Agnew resigned; Nixon appointed Gerald R. Ford to succeed him. When Nixon himself resigned just 10 months later, Ford became "the accidental president." Had Agnew forestalled his own troubles for less than a year, he too could have been president -- and perhaps the second U.S. chief executive to resign in disgrace. What an ironic twist to history that would have been.

Panel Discussions at the 2012 Virginia Film Festival

Carl Bernstein

Although a presidential election has intervened, absorbing much of our attention, since the last popcorn was popped and the last screening went dark, I think it's worthwhile to visit the 2012 Virginia Film Festival and look at a few of the stimulating panel discussions that followed some of the features.

The headliners on Friday night were former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles, who was one of the founders of the Virginia Film Festival, along with authors Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Baliles led a conversation with Woodward and Bernstein about the 1976 movie based on their book, All the President's Men, which chronicled their investigation of the Watergate break-in and cover-up as young reporters with the Washington Post.

Bob Woodward

All the President's Men won four Academy Awards (supporting actor, sound, art direction-set decoration, and adapted screenplay) and was nominated for four others, including Best Picture. (By odd coincidence for me, the screenplay was by William Goldman, who also wrote The Lion in Winter, a play I saw last night at the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton last night.)

Woodward and Bernstein discussed many aspects of their investigative work, the making of the movie, and the legacy of the Watergate scandal. One nugget that I excerpted from the longer discussion focused on President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon just one month after Nixon resigned the presidency.

Woodward explained that he interviewed Ford about the pardon some 25 years after it occurred, and that Ford said he did it to spare the country of further pain over Watergate. Although he and Bernstein had been appalled by the pardon at the time it happened, they now agree that Ford "did the right thing."

Here's the clip:

The longer, more wide-ranging, conversation is also worth a look. Considering that Watergate happened 40 years ago, it is fascinating to hear the stories directly from some of the principal players in the investigation that brought down a president and proved that our Constitution can endure even the worst crisis that threatens its integrity.

Here's the complete panel discussion with Baliles, Bernstein, and Woodward:

For the record, here is Governor Baliles' introduction of the film and the participants:

Another political movie was also featured at this month's film festival. A screening of John Frankenheimer's 1962 psycho-political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate (starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and a cast of distinguished character actors of the 1950s and 1960s), was followed by a discussion among the hosts of the public radio program, BackStory with the American History Guys.

The American History Guys are two University of Virginia historians, Brian Balogh (20th century history) and Peter Onuf (18th century), and the president of the University of Richmond, Ed Ayers (19th century).

The screening and panelists were introduced by Jody Kielbasa, director of the Virginia Film Festival, who notes that The Manchurian Candidate has been added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry.

Here's the full discussion, including questions and comments from the audience:

In a non-political category, on Saturday afternoon, actor and Oscar-winning songwriter Keith Carradine discussed his role in Ridley Scott's 1978 film, The Duellists (costarring Harvey Keitel). The conversation was moderated by New York University film scholar Harry Chotiner and included questions from the audience about Carradine's career and the art/craft of acting.

Here's the post-screening discussion, which lasts just over one-half hour:

Finally, a new movie, based on a popular young adult (YA) novel, from a first-time director was one of the closing-night screenings in a newly refurbished Newcomb Hall Theatre on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Director Matthew Lillard (better known as an actor for such films as Scream and Scooby-Doo) discussed his new film, Fat Kid Rules the World, along with actor Billy Campbell, who has a major role in it. The conversation was moderated by Sandy Hausman of WVTF-FM.

Fat Kid Rules the World is based on the novel of the same name by K.L. Going and stars Jacob Wysocki, Matt O'Leary, and Dylan Arnold, as well as Campbell (who attended Western Albemarle High School).

The conversation took some interesting turns. As Lisa Provence reported in The Hook, for instance,

Billy Campbell's shocking confession about what really went on at Fork Union Military Academy: The star of The Killing says his six years at FUMA provided the military experience for playing a former-Marine dad in Fat Kid. "What were you doing there?" asks Hausman. "A lot of masturbating," replies Campbell.

Here's the whole rollicking thing:

For more of my coverage of this year's Virginia Film Festival, see this Examiner.com article about Woodward & Bernstein and this pre-festival interview with Jody Kielbasa.

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Video from Nathanael Greene Freedom Festival

On Saturday evening, I posted a photograph of five candidates for the GOP congressional nomination in Virginia's Fifth District. All five are campaigning for the privilege of facing incumbent Representative Tom Perriello (R-Ivy) in the general election of November 2010.

I was also able to capture video of four of the five when the spoke to the political activists gathered at the Nathanael Greene Freedom Festival, which took place on the grounds of Ruckersville Elementary School in Greene County. Unfortunately, my videotape ran out just before the fifth candidate, state Senator Robert Hurt, took the stage.

I apologize to Senator Hurt and want to make clear this was not intended as a slight. There were other video cameras present at the event, and they might have captured his speech and posted it to the Internet by now. I am sure I'll have other opportunities to record speeches by Senator Hurt and the other four candidates between now and the convention/primary/unassembled caucus next spring. (The Fifth District Republican Committee has not yet chosen a method of nomination.)

Before the candidates spoke, WINA-AM radio talk-show host Rob Schilling gave a short address. You'll notice how windy it was: papers were blowing everywhere, flags were mostly unfurled, and it often sounds like someone is snorting into the camera's microphone. That's not a snort, it's the wind.

Rob Schilling:

I would like to gently correct Rob for a misquotation. He attributes the line, "A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have," to Thomas Jefferson. This mistaken attribution is common. It was not said by our third president, however, but rather by the 38th president, Gerald R. Ford. He used a similar line in the early 1960s, when he was a congressman, and repeated it in an address to a joint session of Congress in 1974. I remember hearing it in his 1976 speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination, but have not been able to find a reference that confirms my recollection.

Thomas Jefferson said many marvelous things, but this is not one of them. Gerald Ford said more than "Whip Inflation Now" and "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"

The first congressional candidate to speak was Feda Morton of Fluvanna County:

The second candidate to speak was Michael McPadden of Albemarle County:

The third candidate, also from Albemarle County, was Ken Boyd:

The fourth candidate (another from Albemarle County) was Laurence Verga:

At this point, my camera hit a wall, to my chagrin. I missed several other speakers who followed, including Delegate Rob Bell (R-58) and business owner Tom Slonaker (Forest Lake Arby's) as well as state Senator Hurt.

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To Sur, With Love

As part of the gargantuan (1,000-page-plus) health care "reform" package introduced by members of the Democratic majority in Congress, the Obama administration proposes to raise taxes through a "surtax" on Americans who earn the most money.

The Washington Post explained this "soak the rich" policy in a front-page article on July 15:

The surtax would start at 1 percent and rise to 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. Combined with the expiration next year of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, the surtax would drive the top federal tax rate to 45 percent, the highest level since lawmakers rewrote the tax code in 1986.

The Washington Times, for its part, points out that this raises U.S. marginal tax rates to their highest levels since the 1980s:

A new surtax of 5.4 percent in the health care bill, which would apply to married couples' income above $1 million, would bring the top federal income tax rate to 45 percent.

After consideration of state and local income taxes and the Medicare payroll tax, which applies to all wage and salary income, taxpayers in 39 states would face a top marginal income tax rate of more than 50 percent, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group based in the District.

"That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers," said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "The lowest tax rate would be 47 percent - and that's in the nine states that don't tax wages."

Businesses say the surtax would hurt the economy.

"The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America's small-business owners," said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Placing a big tax burden on the small-business community would rob them of the resources they need to create the jobs that will lead us out of the recession."

President Obama would be wise to look to history to see what happened the last time a president made a surtax the centerpiece of his economic program. (Some might object that this is a "health care" program. That's true, up to a point. The fact that the bill has been referred to the Finance Committee in the House suggests that this is really a revenue bill.)

In Yanek Mieczkowski's 2005 book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, the Dowling College historian relates what happened when Ford proposed a 5 percent surtax on all incomes above $15,000 (more than it sounds like; remember, these were 1974 dollars) in his first major economic legislative package:

As what he termed "the acid test of our joint determination to whip inflation in America," Ford pronounced the cornerstone of his new economic program, a one-year, 5 percent surcharge on corporate and personal incomes. The surtax was directed at individuals with yearly earnings of $15,000 or more for married taxpayers and $7,500 for the unmarried. (Taxpayers would have to figure out what they normally owed the government, then add the 5 percent surtax to it.) The advantages of the surtax were that it would be mildly progressive, since the rich would pay more, and temporary, lasting only the calendar year 1975. Nor was it onerous. For example, a single person earning $15,000 would pay a federal income tax of $2,549; the surcharge would add $78. (p. 121)

Despite its modest appearance, Ford's proposal was met with strong opposition, especially from the Democrats who held a majority in Congress (a majority that would grow substantially after the midterm elections a few weeks after his proposal was announced). Republicans were not too fond of it, either.

Ford took a political risk by proposing a surtax less than a month before congressional elections. Unveiling a tax increase at such a time was like unleashing a skunk at a picnic; representatives and senators ran in the opposite direction, refusing to embrace or even come close to it. Officeholders facing difficult reelection battles, such as GOP senators Bob Dole of Kansas and Marlow Cook of Kentucky, deserted their president rather than support the proposal....

The program itself was a political bomb. The jumble of proposals gave the whole thing an eclectic feel, and the centerpiece -- a tax increase -- fell flat. One poll showed that Americans opposed the surtax, 58 to 34 percent. Members of Congress resisted it. Just two days after the speech, William Baroody warned Ford that it was "in serious trouble on the Hill and very unpopular politically" and that Congress was in no mood to reduce spending. Two weeks before the election [William] Seidman publicly acknowledged that the surtax faced an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill and called its prospects "uncertain." The overwhelming Republican repudiation in the ensuing elections turned "uncertain" to "doomed." Ford's policy making was off to a rocky start. (p. 124; footnotes omitted)

In one of the more significant parenthetical partial paragraphs of any work of recent history, however, Mieczkowski writes:

(One economist's skepticism about the surtax generated what later became a mainstay of Ronald Reagan's "supply-side" economics. Arthur Laffer doubted that the 5 percent surtax would generate much revenue, and while dining at a restaurant with Ford administration members Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, he drew a graph on a napkin to illustrate his belief that tax cuts -- rather than increases -- would raise more revenue because of increased business activity. His illustration became known as the "Laffer Curve.") (p. 122)

Apparently other economists caught on, even if they hadn't seen the napkin. Yanek Mieczkowski writes on page 130:

By November, many economists, realizing that Ford had miscalculated, urged him to drop the surtax proposal and switch his focus to fighting the recession. The president stuck by the surtax and still urged budget cuts.

In the end, the surtax proposal crashed and burned. Mieczkowski notes on page 131:

A political science axiom says that "the president proposes, Congress disposes." Congress certainly disposed of Ford's surtax, and quickly. Although he developed a fiscally balanced program incorporating many recommendations from the economic summit conferences, it was also like a multipronged barb that Congress could not swallow. And it soon became incongruous. The deteriorating economy, coupled with the inherent unpopularity of a tax increase, doomed Ford's first major economic initiative. But that failure was fortunate; as events played out, a surtax would have aggravated the downturn. (emphasis added)

History teaches us, and not just in this example from the mid-1970s, that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea.

Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have not absorbed this lesson of history and economics. Should they succeed in raising taxes to finance their ambitious program to socialize medicine, they -- or, rather, we -- will live to regret it.

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Lamentation for Independence Day

The editorial board of the Jewish Daily Forward gets it exactly right in the June 26 issue, written in anticipation of Independence Day one week from now. Under the headline, "The Gift of Freedom," the Forward says:

Most of us seldom give much thought to the Fourth of July. It’s one of the most important holidays on our national calendar, one of the very few that is observed simultaneously by all Americans without regard to faith, origin or regional whim. It is, some say, the only holiday specifically dedicated to celebrating this nation. For all that, we mostly celebrate with barbecues or trips to the beach. If we seek some holiday spirit, we might watch a parade or catch some fireworks. A few of us might even get to thinking — some joyfully, others with mixed feelings — about patriotism, the flag or our soldiers overseas.

Ever since I moved to Charlottesville (with, I think, one exception), I have spent the morning of the Fourth of July on top of Mr. Jefferson's Little Mountain to celebrate Independence Day with new citizens as they take their oath of naturalization at the able hands of judges from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Over the years the speakers have included Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (in 2000; photo at left), author Frank McCourt, newspaper publisher Al Neuharth, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and actor Sam Waterston (in 2007, photo below) (I've been hoping that late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson will be invited soon; he became an American citizen in February and talked about the process on his show -- his pride in being an AmCit is palpable.)

I've been lucky in that some years I've gone as "press" (even before I was blogging) and usually had a great seat in the media corral. Consequently, I've got some terrific pictures and (last year, for the first time) video. In addition, Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville take turns, year by year, in setting up a voter registration table to grab the new citizens before it's too late.

I won't be going up the mountain this year, however, because although it was earlier announced that the speaker would be documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, today the word went out that Burns has been bumped by Bush -- President George W. Bush, that is.

It's not that I have any objection in principle to the president speaking. Under other circumstances, it could be interesting. But his presence is going to cause inconvenience of major proportions. What has been a rather informal, local event -- the Charlottesville Municipal Band plays patriotic tunes, local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts lead the Pledge of Allegiance -- will be turned into a circus.

Normally, anyone can attend the naturalization ceremony. It requires no ticket, no entry fee. People are free to wander the grounds. (The ceremony ends just before noon, so that those who wish to do so can walk down to Mr. Jefferson's gravesite to observe a family service commemorating the anniversary of his death.)

None of that will be true this year. Security will be at a premium. People will be searched, prodded, and scrutinized for their political opinions. It won't be fun, entertaining, or informative -- just a hassle.

It's not just the metal detectors and body cavity searches that concern me. When President Bush comes to a public event, those who disagree with him are discouraged from attending -- sometimes even prevented from attending by force. What will happen if someone shows up with t-shirts indicating support for Barack Obama or Ron Paul? Or t-shirts with slogans like "The Constitution Means What It Says," "Stop the War!," or "What Part of 'Limited Government' Don't You Understand?"? (Placards and signs of any sort will, of course, be forbidden, though t-shirts can be hidden under other garments and displayed at the right moment.) Will Albemarle County police be on hand to arrest people for exercising their First Amendment rights?

This won't be the first time a sitting U.S. President has spoken at Monticello on July 4th. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford was the featured speaker. Unlike our current president, Ford was modest in his approach to the office. (Churchill might have said he "has a lot to be modest about," but he would have been incorrect.)

Ford inherited the White House from another president who, like Bush, failed to understand that the Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government. Like Bush, Richard Nixon tried to expand the powers of the presidency with utter disregard for Congress and the Courts. Like Bush, Nixon was paranoid and rigid, with little understanding for free markets or individual liberty. Nixon famously compiled an "enemies list" of those who disagreed with him on policy issues.

Ford, in contrast, understood that Congress and the Courts also had a role to play in the making of public policy. He rejected the "imperial presidency" model, although his chief of staff (later vice president) Dick Cheney took away from the Ford White House a festering theory of the "unified presidency," which manifests itself in such things as "signing statements" in which the President, rather than vetoing a bill as provided by the Constitution, signs it but explains what parts he feels the Executive Branch can disobey. (Ford vetoed more bills in a month than Bush has vetoed in the entire eight years of his presidency.)

One of the traditions at the Monticello Independence Day celebration is for the Clerk of the Circuit Court to read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (the part that begins, "When in the course of human events ...")

Wouldn't it be delicious if this year, in addition to the preamble, he could also read the bill of indictment that makes up the core of the Declaration? For those unfamiliar with it, here are a few lines of reminder:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good...

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only...

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:...

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:...

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:...

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation...

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people....

While I would love to see the expression on George Bush's face as that text is being read out, I still prefer to spend my Fourth of July without being wanded by a security guard. So I expect I'll be as far from Monticello this year as possible. I may even head up to D.C. for the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival and the fireworks on the National Mall.

Leave it to this White House to ruin the Fourth of July.

Update, Monday, June 30: Monticello has announced that there will be a limited number of tickets available to the ceremony on July 4. Only one thousand free tickets will be distributed beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 2. I wonder whether the friends and family members of the new citizens will be required to get those tickets, or if they have another means to attend the ceremony.

'Swingtown' and the Challenges of the 1970s

When Dick Cheney called the home stretch of the 1976 presidential campaign "the ten-day orgasm," he might have been referring to the new CBS-TV prime-time soap opera, Swingtown.


He wasn't, of course. Swingtown was 32 years in the future, and few people in October 1976 would have thought that a 21st-century TV drama about wife-swapping would turn out to be a weekly nostalgia trip for the leisure-suit generation.

For those who have not yet seen it, Swingtown may be the raciest show on broadcast television these days -- or ever. (I will admit that I seldom see nighttime soaps -- or even so-called "daytime drama" -- so my ability to judge the relative raciness ratio is limited.)

I expect this show will become a sort of guilty pleasure -- not just for me but for many others who came of age in the 1970s. Yet I hardly expected to like the show; from the promotions CBS ran in advance of the premiere on June 5, I thought I would find it too laughable to be watchable. I was wrong.

The test will be whether, unlike other TV shows that purport to be representative of a particular block of time, Swingtown remains true to its premise.

Both Happy Days and That '70s Show began as focused nostalgia exercises that promised to portray a specific time and place -- Happy Days in 1950s Milwaukee and That '70s Show in a fictional (coincidentally) Wisconsin town two decades later. In both cases, however, the producers lost sight of this sense of setting and devolved into typical sitcoms that could have been set at any time, in any place.

During its first season, Happy Days was meticulous about its setting. Shot with a single camera without a live audience, it had a dramatic feel of verisimilitude without losing its essential humor, which derived from its '50s-era situations. We knew we were in Milwaukee, for instance, because Earl Gillespie could be heard announcing the play-by-play of a Braves baseball game on the radio. Howard and Marion dealt with issues like racial prejudice in a sensitive yet realistic manner.

Yet even before Happy Days jumped the shark -- not the first TV show to do so, but the first to put a name to the phenomenon -- it began to be just another teen-oriented comedy, with less emphasis on the adults and on parent-child relationships and more on the outlandish antics of Richie, Ralph, and Potsie, who relied on Fonzie to rescue them from their predicaments. Any observable sense that this was the 1950s was lost by the third season.

So, too, with That '70s Show, whose first season was steeped in Seventies cultural and topical references. While music and costumes remained true to the premise throughout the show's run, by the third season it became detached from whatever grounding in the cultural milieu of the decade. It even trafficked in anachronisms: In one episode in which the kids visit Marquette University, the college walls are covered with banners for the "Golden Eagles," when everyone knows that the MU teams in the 1970s were named, in glorious political incorrectness, the Marquette Warriors.

Swingtown, therefore, has a challenge before it, which may be easier to meet because it is a drama rather than a comedy (although it has its comedic moments). One signal of its seriousness of purpose may be found in its costume room: A promotional video at the CBS web site says that the show has a collection of 10,000 pieces of period clothing (not counting accessories) ready to be used. (Some of those costumes look like they're straight out of this 1977 J.C. Penney catalog.)

Another challenge the producers face is that, despite the economic dislocation caused by a sudden spike in oil prices, the distrust of government caused by Watergate, and a general sense of malaise, the 1970s were -- in contrast with, say the 1960s -- dull.

Yanek Mieczkowski writes in his book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s:

With the nation's cities and campuses at peace, the political turmoil of the past decade was easy to forget. In an essay simply entitled "Sigh!" columnist Russell Baker wrote, "The nineteen-seventies are boring. The decade is already half over and its chief legacy is an engulfing swamp of boredom." Baker noted that "President Ford is boring, which is his chief political strength." But Baker added, "In the nineteen-sixties, of course, Americans hungered for boredom. A sleepy Government, some peace in the streets.... In all that turbulence, it seemed an unattainable dream of paradise. Now we may have it, and may even be enjoying it."

That is the climate from which Swingtown emerges. Its first episode is set during the weekend of July 2-4, 1976, and has all of the hallmarks of reaction to ennui: beer and bratwurst, Penthouse and pot, unabashed cocaine use, skinnydipping in Lake Michigan, and wife swapping.

Apropos of that holiday weekend, Mieczkowski continues:

The serenity, which was a welcome relief, was evident again the following summer during celebrations commemorating the nation's bicentennial. Douglas Bennett recalled that in 1976, while campaigning for Ford, he reminded audiences that less than two years earlier Americans "were angry ... we trusted nobody, and in the course of two years this president has restored a confidence. And this past Fourth of July was the bicentennial, hundreds and hundreds of people gathered at places around this nation, without incident -- and I think that is a direct tribute to the leadership of President Ford and the restoration of confidence, tranquility, and trust in our nation." Ford himself spoke of "a new spirit" in America that he observed during bicentennial celebrations.

That "new spirit" certainly manifests itself in Swingtown, but undoubtedly with details that would have made President Ford -- though maybe not his First Lady -- blush. In many ways, the "retrograde" Swingtown may be an antidote to two decades of puritanism that has predominated in American culture. Swingtown, perhaps, is a backlash against the backlash.

Put another way, Swingtown may be representing (in a carnal and vivid fashion) what Ford expressed during the Bicentennial celebrations and the political campaign that year. Mieczkowski again:

During the nation's bicentennial year, Ford often urged consecrating America's next hundred years to the individual, shifting focus away from government: "Now we are on the threshold of our third century. I see this as the century of individual freedom.... [That] means liberty from oppressive, heavy-handed bureaucratic government.... That is a goal we must achieve in our third century."

(We're still working on that. A warning label on that speech might have stated: "Some backsliding may occur.")

In terms of plot and character development on Swingtown, I am less interested in the interactions of the featured couples (Molly Parker and Jack Davenport as Susan and Bruce Miller; an often shirtless Grant Show and Lana Parrilla as Tom and Trina Decker; and Josh Hopkins and Miriam Shor as Roger and Janet Thompson) than I am in the subplot involving Susan and Bruce's son B.J. and his friend, Roger and Janet's son Ricky.

A viewer would have to be blind to miss the proto-gay relationship between these two teenagers. Watching the show with a friend of mine, we both reacted the same way to the body language and yearning looks that characterize the B.J./Ricky friendship. (It actually looks like B.J. might be abandoning his friend to explore his heterosexual side, but -- given the quality of the pilot's writing and direction -- I expect this to be a multifaceted plot development, with complications ensuing week by week.) The tableau of the Thompson family at the end of the pilot episode speaks volumes about the repressed emotional volcanism waiting to spew.

It was not until after watching the June 5 broadcast of Swingtown that I found this interview with the show's creator, Alan Poul, on the web site of The Advocate. Poul, who is openly gay, is asked by interviewer Kyle Buchanan:

I'm curious whether any of the characters in Swingtown will be exploring their queer sides as the series progresses.

Poul replies:

There are certainly hints that there is a certain amount of sexual fluidity within the group dynamics -- in particular, that the Deckers[played by Parrilla and Grant Show] get involved in. If you've studied open-marriage tracts of the time, it was true that within the early days of open marriage, girl-on-girl contact was tolerated to a much higher degree than boy-on-boy contact, which was strictly prohibited -- sort of like the straight male porn aesthetic, right? On our show, I would say that the relationship that develops between Trina and Susan is certainly a deep, enduring friendship, but that doesn't mean that it's a friendship that has to be devoid of physical content.

You know, I'm surprised you didn't bring up any of the younger characters.

Then Buchanan follows up, and Poul responds:

You mean the friendship between young boys B.J. (Aaron Christian Howles) and Rick (Nick Benson)?
That's the ringer. So far, we haven't explored it except in subtextual terms because we're depicting them as presexual. But it's clear in the pilot that little Rick, B.J.'s best friend, has a boy crush.

How so?
Just the way that Rick is attached to B.J. and is constantly jealous of him. Actually, there was originally a scene that we never shot that made the subtext a little bit more overt in terms of Rick's boyish attachment to B.J. We screened the pilot for test audiences, and they just jumped to the assumption: "Yeah, I liked the friendship between the two boys, one of which is gay." You can interpret it as you like. These are feelings that the people having those feelings were not even aware of.

Having been a gay kid named Rick growing up in the '70s, I instantly recognized Rick's (and, by extension, B.J.'s) predicament.

Now I would like to do a bit of compare-and-contrast. First, take a look at Swingtown's portrayal of a "Bicentennial Block Party." (Be sure to check out the parting glances between B.J. and Ricky.) Then, as an added treat, watch a video of an actual family picnic on the Fourth of July 1976. (No secrets here: it's my family, my backyard, at 1503 N. 70th Street in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.) That archival footage ends with the Bicentennial Fireworks as seen that night from Tosa's Hart Park; the CBS footage begins with a commercial.

Art:

Life:

I plan to watch the second episode of Swingtown tonight on CBS at 10:00 o'clock. I expect millions of others who enjoy guilty pleasures will be joining me. Will you?

Mourning and Remembrance

The nation has ended a week of ceremonies commemorating the life and career of former President Gerald R. Ford.

It has been more than four decades since a president died after a comparable period of time in retirement: Herbert Hoover passed away in 1964, or 31 years after he left office. In Ford's case, he was barely a month short of the 30-year mark.

By comparison, Lyndon Johnson died four years after leaving office; Dwight Eisenhower eight years; Ronald Reagan, 15; and Harry S Truman and Richard Nixon, each about 20.

Jimmy Carter is still vibrant in his ninth decade; he is likely to surpass Ford in the length of his retirement. (He has now been out of office for nearly 26 years.) Like Carter, Bill Clinton was still quite young when he left the White House, as will be George W. Bush, whose father (Bush 41) is still going strong 15 years into retirement.

Permit me one more reflection on President Ford, one day after his interment in Grand Rapids.

In contrast to the current occupant of the White House, Gerald Ford -- being the sort of Goldwater Republican that he was -- showed a remarkable sensitivity and supportiveness to gay individuals and the issues that concerned them.

Detroit News columnist Deb Price wrote earlier this week of an interview she did with President Ford a few years ago:

I had many reasons to admire Ford, yet long felt tremendously disappointed by him in one way: I'd read that after a San Francisco man thwarted a would-be assassin on Sept. 22, 1975, Ford sent a thank-you note but did nothing more because the hero, Bill Sipple, was gay.

That account gnawed at me. Although I'd never known Ford to take a public stand on anything gay, I just couldn't square the story with what I knew about him.

So, in October 2001, I faxed an interview request about this stain on his record. I soon received a call asking me to please hold -- the president wished to speak to me.

Ford, then 88, was eager to correct the record and sounded hurt that anyone had ever thought of him as anti-gay.

"I wrote (Sipple) a note thanking him. As far as I was concerned, I had done the right thing and the matter was ended. I didn't learn until sometime later -- I can't remember when -- he was gay. I don't know where anyone got the crazy idea I was prejudiced and wanted to exclude gays," Ford told me.

Pleasantly surprised by how comfortable Ford was talking about gay issues -- not a trait I've found in many politicians -- I asked whether the federal government ought to treat gay couples the same as married heterosexuals. "I think they ought to be treated equally. Period," Ford replied.

Trying to get a better sense of what he meant, I pressed on, asking whether he believed gay couples should receive the same Social Security, tax and other federal benefits? "I don't see why they shouldn't. I think that's a proper goal," Ford replied.

Price notes that, after her original column based on that interview first appeared, Ford was invited to join the Republican Unity Coalition, and he accepted, lending his name in support of that organization's mission of equality and tolerance within the GOP.

Price added:

Ford also said that he wanted gay Americans to be part of his party. "I have always believed in an inclusive policy, in welcoming gays and others into the party. I think the party has to have an umbrella philosophy if it expects to win elections," he said.

What Price learned is backed up by a recent Wall Street Journal article about the gay couple, Tim England and Robert Kent, who restored, preserved, and renovated Gerald Ford's boyhood home in Grand Rapids.

According to the article, when Ford learned about the gay men's efforts, he visited them and had a nostalgic tour of the house he grew up in. Afterwards, Ford and his family kept in touch with the couple, who have been together for almost 20 years:

Later in 1994, the house was declared a national and state historic site. At a dedication ceremony the following year, the former president stood on the front porch and, before a crowd of local dignitaries, thanked Messrs. England and Kent. "I have such wonderful memories," he said, recalling how the police used to close the sloped street in the winter so children could sled.

After that, the Fords began sending Christmas cards to the two men, sometimes including photographs of family weddings. Messrs. England and Kent filled their foyer with campaign memorabilia and a framed letter from the Fords. Each July 14, Mr. Ford's birthday, the men hang an enormous American flag across the front porch.

In 2005, the men called Mr. Ford's office on his birthday to ask his assistant to pass on their good wishes. To their surprise, Mr. Ford jumped on the line and struck up a conversation. He thanked them for recently repainting the outside of the house, Mr. England recalls.

Just past midnight on Wednesday morning, after Messrs. England and Kent went to bed, a friend called and told them to turn on their television. Watching the report of Mr. Ford's death, Mr. England says he felt sick to his stomach. A few minutes later, a local news crew pulled up in front of the home in the darkness. Mr. England went
outside and pleaded with them to wait before they started shooting. He brought out the big American flag and draped it over the front porch. Then he told them they could start their cameras.

(The Wall Street Journal article, which appeared on January 2, is unfortunately available on line only to subscribers. Written by Janet Adamy, it can be found under the headline "In Grand Rapids, Fixer-Upper Leads To Unusual Bond; Mr. Ford Took Pleasure In Couple's Renovation Of His Childhood Home.")

Gerald Ford goes to his rest as a personification of the politics of inclusion, rejecting the exclusivity and divisiveness that, unfortunately, characterizes sectors of the Republican Party today. He lived and worked during a time that compromise and cooperation for the common good was not viewed with partisan disdain. Yet through it all he held to firm conservative principles of small, limited government that keeps its hands out of our pocketbooks and its nose out of our bedrooms.

One of my favorite sayings, which Gerald Ford used during his 1976 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and which was also often repeated by Barry Goldwater, in a similar form, is this: "The government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."

This is as true today as it was 30 years ago; it is a maxim that should be memorized by the current leaders of the Republican Party -- and by the ascendant Democrats, for that matter.