Your Own Sweet Way

Let's go beyond mellow and laid-back and sluggishly stumble our way to the almost comatose.  It's a quiet Saturday night, sit back in a comfortable big chair, relax, and listen to the Notting Hillbillies performing Your Own Sweet Way.  Featuring Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits on guitar and vocals (he also wrote the song).  Mark doesn't play a lot of notes but every one he plays is just right.

And remember:

It doesn't matter what I say
What I do or what I think
You can lead a horse to water
You can't make him drink
You'll go your own sweet
Your own sweet way

Unbarred

Bari Weiss, a progressive purged in 2020 from the New York Times, interviews former Attorney General William Barr.  I've excerpted some of the interview below and added my commentary in bold.  Bari does excellent podcasts with a wide variety of interesting people.  You can find the full podcast here. 

Barr was the Trump administration's indispensable man.  Without his willingness to take on the AG role, the administration's ability to govern would have continued to be impaired (leaving aside the remarkable ability of Trump to get in his own way) and the Mueller investigation would have continued until Biden took office, because the purpose of the investigation was to defeat Donald Trump.  By the time Mueller was appointed, the principles already involved in the investigation knew there was "no big there there" as the FBI's Peter Strozek wrote Lisa Page in May 2017.

It was a difficult and thankless task.  The best Barr could do in trying to undo the politicization of the Department of Justice under Eric Holder, was to work around the edges and control the worst excesses.  I'm glad he did it.(1)

 BW: I want to begin with a quote from your wife, Christine. “The Left and the Press have lost their minds over Trump and Trump is his own worst enemy. Any sacrifice you make will be wasted on this man.”  That’s what she told you in 2019 before you joined the Trump administration. Obviously, you did it anyway, which is why we’re talking. But was she right? 

THC:  Christine Barr is very perceptive.  Trump will eventually turn on everyone who is not 100% with him.(2)  In that way, he's like the progressives who cast into the darkness anyone who does not demonstrate 100% alignment with their mantra.  Like Bari Weiss, for example.

AG BARR: She was, as usual, dead on. The left has lost their mind over Trump. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing. But Trump is his own worst enemy. He’s incorrigible. He doesn’t take advice from people. And you’re not going to teach an old dog new tricks. 

THC: Yes. And that's why I will not vote for him if he is nominated in 2024.  More on this in a comment below.

AG BARR: I hoped that it wasn’t true. I thought there was a chance he would rally to the office and be more disciplined in his behavior. I thought he might recognize that the presidency is a unique office, which is not only a political leader but the head of state, representing the whole nation. I hoped he would rise to the occasion. He didn’t.

I said to him when I first started that I thought he was going to lose the election unless he adjusted a little bit. And if he did adjust, he could go down in history as a great president. He continued to be self-indulgent and petty and turned off key constituencies that ultimately made the difference in the election. 

THC: I agree.  Exhibit 1 is his clown show covid press conferences.  Andrew Cuomo and Trump have very similar personalities.  The only difference is that at least Cuomo could fake empathy.  Also, Trump is a one trick pony - if you attack him, he will attack you.  Once the press realized this, they simply baited him at the covid press conferences and he fell for it every time.  A big contrast with DeSantis, who when I first started watching him in the spring of 2020 always responded on his own terms (along with actually understanding the growing research literature on covid, as well as the related policy issues - another contrast with Trump).

AG BARR: [On Russia collusion] Information has now come out that supports the proposition that these ideas really got going because of a political ploy by the Clinton administration to try to hang Putin around Trump’s neck and claim they were in cahoots. I never thought there was any basis for this. The Russians did apparently hack and dump. They stole emails and they dumped them out in the public. That is really the extent of what happened. And that is their stock and trade—that’s what they do all the time. They don’t have to collude in order to do that. It never made sense to me that they would get Americans involved in that operation. 

Putin also had his own reasons for despising Hillary Clinton. He didn’t need any other motivation to go in and screw around with the 2016 election. The things that Trump was being accused of—the policy positions he took— had a constituency within the Republican Party for a while. Before the 2016 election, Kissinger had talked about the idea of Finland-izing Ukraine and recognizing that Russia had deep interests in Crimea. These were not wacky ideas. And they didn’t necessarily mean that he was in the pocket of the Russians. 

THC: Yes, as far as that goes, but Barr's institutionalism blinds him to the fact there were two threads to the Russia collusion hoax.  The first was the Clinton campaign, the second the intelligence community.  Those interests eventually combined.  As to the policy positions, here is a prime example of how the Democrats, the intelligence community, and the media distorted the GOP position - the Ukraine platform statement at the 2016 GOP convention - read The DC Bubble & The FBI.

. . . That was curious because, after the election, the dossier and the other stuff they had been relying on had collapsed. It was pretty clear not too long after the election that this whole thing was a farce. Yet that’s when both the F.B.I. doubled down on it, and the mainstream media kicked in. I always thought that was very strange. 

THC: Not strange.  The collapse of the dossier was irrelevant.  The goal after the election was to undermine the credibility of the Administration, hamper its operations, force it to constantly respond to Fake News about Russia, and to keep the Mueller investigation going as long as possible to create the mirage that something of substance was being investigated as well as hoping to lure Trump into agreeing to an interview so he could be charged with false statements.  The media, led by the New York Times, publicly announced their goal was to get Trump out of office, so creating a narrative in support of the hoax was their core mission.

AG BARR: I think it ended with Bob Mueller’s testimony over the summer of 2020. It really collapsed at that point. I’ve been surprised that the mainstream media and the people who fanned this to the point of hysteria haven’t come back to say: “Yeah, there was a big lie in 2016 that has hurt the country and distorted our politics and foreign policy throughout the Trump administration. It was unjust. It was wrong. And we made a mistake.” Very few, if any, have come out to say that. 

THC:  Because this is all about the creation and maintenance of a narrative.   Just as the objective truth about the 2020 election does not matter to Donald Trump, the objective truth about Russia does not matter to Democrats and their media allies.  The increasing lack of attachment to reality in American life across the political spectrum spells disaster, if not checked.

BW: If the firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey wasn’t obstruction, how would you describe it? Do you think that it was unwise? 

AG BARR: I would describe it as something that should have happened long before. Everyone I knew in Republican and Justice Department circles, including me, was advising Trump at the very beginning of his administration to fire Comey before we even knew his role in Russiagate. It’s because Comey, in my opinion, has some of the personality characteristics that can lead people, like J. Edgar Hoover, to run the F.B.I. according to their personal whims. I thought it was dangerous and that he should go. 

THC: Agree.  This should have been done on January 20, 2017.  The worst mistake Trump made.  I believe he kept Comey only because he knew of Hillary's dislike of him, another example of his reactive mode and inability to think things through.  She would have fired him on day one.   Trump talked tough, but Hillary is actually much tougher.

BW: Did you underestimate Trump’s disregard for the truth and disregard for the results of the election? 

AG BARR: I underestimated how far he would take it. I thought on December 14, when I tendered my resignation, the states had all certified the votes. To me, that was it. That was the last stop. There was no process beyond that which would allow him to challenge the election. I thought it was safe to leave at that point. I was wrong. I did not expect him to take it as far as he did with these very whacky legal theories that no one gave any credence to. 

THC: I also underestimated how far he would go with this insanity.

AG BARR: [After, in early December, he told an AP reporter that DOJ found no evidence of fraud significant enough to impact the election]  He was in a little dining room that adjoins the Oval Office. He was as furious as I’d ever seen him. He confronted me and said, “Did you say this to the AP?” And I said, “I did. Because it was the truth.” I went over some of the allegations. He said there was plenty of evidence of fraud. I explained in some detail why the allegations didn’t fly. I told him that there were only five or six weeks to challenge a presidential election because the Constitution requires the Electoral College to meet at a certain date and he didn’t have much time. He’d already wasted five of your six weeks with this crazy stuff about the Dominion machines. He’d wheeled out this clown show of lawyers that no reputable lawyer is willing to work with. 

AG BARR: [On his leaving the Administration in late December and being complimentary to Trump in his resignation letter].  I was somewhat demoralized that he was leaving office this way. The left says, “Oh, you said all these nice things about him in your resignation.” But I felt that what he should do was focus on all his achievements and leave with dignity. Whether he thought there was fraud or not, he had his day in court and he lost. 

So I was demoralized that he was going out the way he was. I thought it was very unfair to all the people, especially the younger people, who had worked in the administration. It hurt them getting jobs and it also hurt the Republican Party, which I thought up until then, could take the high ground as the party of law and order. 

BW: So in other words, you were giving him a script for himself, rather than saying what you felt? 

AG BARR: Well, I did feel it. I just want to make it clear that I supported President Trump. I liked his policies. Up until the election, I didn’t have a problem with his policies. I found him very difficult to work with and I think it took a lot of effort from all his cabinet secretaries, not just me, to keep things on track. (He never really listened to his lawyers, so it was hard to keep things on track.) But I thought we got to the election in pretty good shape and I was proud of the record of the administration. 

I think things went off the rails after the election because I think he felt he had nothing to lose at that point. I was trying to say, “Look, you do have to take a bow for what you were able to accomplish.” I said in that letter that what I believe was distinctive about his administration was he was unjustly treated. He was sinned against with Russiagate. That colored the whole administration. I still think that had people responded to his victory speech—which I thought was a very diplomatic speech the night he won in 2016—we would have seen a different Trump. I think once he thought that the F.B.I. was coming after him and trying to throw him out of office, that affected not only Trump but also his hardcore supporters, who were made very suspicious. I think it fundamentally distorted our politics during his administration. I felt that it was important to say that he did fight against this Trump Derangement Syndrome. And he did accomplish a lot. And it was historic. The economic growth and the fact that people who had been left out previously were starting to participate more. It was a tragedy that Covid arrested that progress, but it was a historic accomplishment. 

THC: In one of my Russia collusion posts, I remarked that with Trump you started with someone who was gullible and susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories, and then his opponents actually constructed a real conspiracy with the Russia nonsense, which only made his tendencies worse.  I did not believe something like the collusion hoax was possible back in 2016.  The past few years have reoriented my thinking.

BW: How did you feel watching this? You’re someone who has served this country for decades. You’re also someone that served this administration and tried as best as you could to keep it on the rails. What were you feeling as you watched this scene go down? 

AG BARR: I was disgusted and mortified and feeling very angry. I felt this whole thing had hurt the Republican Party and hurt the reputation of the administration even more than before. I was angry about that. Everyone I knew in the administration was angry about that. I also felt that it was just a Keystone Cops exercise. There wasn’t a genuine threat of overthrowing the government, as far as I was concerned, it was just a circus. That’s true of a lot of things that Trump arranges. I felt that one of the sub themes of the administration was that when the president runs into people who don't agree with him, he tries these little jury-rigged operations with people who are not in government and they are frivolous. So the whole thing, to me, was a big embarrassment. 

THC: "as far as I was concerned, it was just a circus.  That's true of a lot of things Trump arranges" is how Trump has always operated.  He lives in the moment and once the moment passes, he improvises his next action based on the response he generates.  That works for reality TV, not such much as the chief executive of the United States.

AG BARR: I would say that it was a riot that got out of control. People breached the Congress, and were attacking police. Obviously not all the demonstrators were doing this. 

I would say it was an effort to intimidate Congress and the vice president. I haven’t heard words from the president that I would consider incitement under the law. That’s a very high bar because of our First Amendment, and it should be a high bar. But I did feel that he was morally responsible for it because he led these people to believe that something could happen on Capitol Hill that would reverse the election. That there’s something they could do involving pressuring the vice president and Congress that would overturn the election. 

AG BARR: Number one is that I think a lot of the attacks on the F.B.I. are over the top because a decision like this is not made by the F.B.I. In fact, I don't think the F.B.I. would push a decision that it’s best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half. The decision would be made at the Department of Justice, by subordinates of the AG, and ultimately signed off on by the AG. The F.B.I. would be told to go and execute it. I think the idea that the F.B.I. is the problem here is misplaced. 

Number two—and the main reason I’m irritated at the whole episode—is that it actually strengthens Trump and strengthens Biden and hurts the Republican Party going into the midterms. The focus has once again returned to President Trump and his persona and his modus operandi instead of the pocketbook issues that had been the focus before. I think this has been a bad development for the Republicans’ hopes in the midterms. That’s why I find it frustrating, because there’s political fallout.

THC: I partially agree with Barr but his reference to "pocketbook issues" indicates, that like many of the old-line GOP, he doesn't completely get what is going on today.  Institutional reform, in and out of government, and taking on cultural issues, is as high a priority.  The days of Republicans comfortable on economic issues, talking the Chamber of Commerce line, but unwilling to confront the other issues are over.  The Mitt Romney and Larry Hogan types have no national future.

BW: What do you say to conservatives who say: Why should we possibly trust these institutions anymore? You still give them the benefit of the doubt, but many in your party don’t. 

AG BARR: I think the Russiagate thing, to the extent that the F.B.I. was misused, was a series of decisions made by high-level officials in the F.B.I. I don’t think that Chris Wray is that type of leader, nor do I think the people around Chris Wray are those types of leaders. I think there are problems in the F.B.I. but it’s not that Wray is going to wake up and say, “How do I throw the F.B.I.’s weight around and interfere in the political process?” Just the opposite. I think he’s very cautious about that. 

In the department it’s spotty. There are some people in the career ranks that are partisans and can't check it at the door. And there are others that have more respect. 

I always say, “What’s the alternative?” We have these institutions that need reform. The first step is to win an election with a decisive majority that allows you to put a program into effect and fix some of these problems going forward. That is not done by just throwing fuel on the fire of outrage on one side of the equation while the other side does the same thing on their side. I don’t see anything productive coming out of that. I think we should basically try to persuade people. People like Youngkin, the Governor of Virginia, have shown that the Republican Party is a potential majority party.

THC:  I do not have the level of confidence that Barr still has in these institutions, and I certainly do not trust Christopher Wray.  Trump's wrecking ball approach is proven to be ineffective, so he is not the solution.  The rot in our institutions, and not just in government, is deep and will require a disciplined and Herculean effort, intelligently executed, to reverse.  I don't know if anyone, or any group, is capable of doing it, but Trump is definitely not.

AG BARR: I think you’re right that right now is a tremendous opportunity for the Republican Party. The defining dynamic of our period right now is the sharp leftward turn of the Democratic Party. That creates a huge opportunity because they’ve moved so far to the left, which can allow the Republicans to come in, as they did in 1980, and seize a decisive majority. That enabled Reagan to win two terms. It also forced the Democrats to elect a moderate Democrat like Clinton, who ran the country in the center. 

So it's a huge opportunity.  But instead of taking it, we are purging the party and starting civil wars over whether people are RINOs . . . The idea that there are RINOs, people that really don't support Republican principles, is simply not true.  What the president is defining as RINOs are people who are true blue Republicans and conservatives but who just have a problem with Trump personally.  This is all personal to Trump.  Trump is doing something that I can't think of any great leader in the past doing.  He controls, in my view, maybe a third of the Republican Party.  But what makes him powerful is that this is a man who's willing to say that if you don't do things my way and if I'm not the nominee, I'm taking my ball and going home.  I will sabotage anyone you put up.  He not only does that in the presidential election, but he'll also do that in state elections.  It's my person or sabotage. 

THC: I agree with Barr regarding what Trump is doing but, once again, I don't like the term RINOs, but Republicans unwilling to tackle the cultural and institutional issues do not have a future in the party.

AG BARR:  They were wrong, in my opinion, because although we've been sort of harping on the warts of Trumpism, I think the greatest threat to the country is the radical progressive movement and what it's degenerated into.

THC: Absolutely right.  The impulsive, chaotic nature of Trump and his followers can be disruptive and destructive but there is no institutional traction and also provides further rationalization for the Democrats to justify and exercise their authoritarian instincts.  The control of the federal bureaucracy, and of the major institutions in our country outside of government, has set the stage for the interlocking crackdown on dissent we are already seeing.  Moreover, the phony election reform bill, narrowly defeated in the Senate, would have federalized elections, preventing any efforts at state level attempts to control fraud, and would have established the groundwork for a permanent Democrat government at the federal level.  It is this institutional support that marks the difference between the dangerous tendencies in the Republican and Democratic parties.

In November 2021, Margaret Hoover of PBS interviewed the Chinese dissident and exile Ai Weiwei.  Based on something Ai had written, Hoover asked if he saw Donald Trump as an authoritarian.  I think she was surprised at the answer (the relevant part starts at about 15:45):

Ai: If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you.  You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself.

He goes on to say that in today's conditions you could easily have an authoritarian and that, in many ways, the U.S. is already in that state, pointing to political correctness and its similarities to the Cultural Revolution of Mao.   It reminds me of the interview I saw with the Yeonmi Park, the young woman who escaped North Korea, endured more brutality in China, and eventually made it to the United States.  Reflecting on the political and cultural attitudes she encountered at Columbia University she remarked that "this is a suicidal civilization".

And you can read this piece on which party is an outlier on substance.

BW: In the 2024 election, if we have Joe Biden versus Trump, Kamala Harris versus Trump, or Gavin Newsom versus Trump, you’re voting Trump? 

AG BARR: Right now, I would say yes. 

THC: It's a no for me, under any circumstance.  I will work for, and support, the R candidate with the best chance to beat Trump, if he runs, and will not vote for him in the general, if nominated.  Nor will I vote for the D candidate.  Here are my 7 Theses on the subject:

(1) As Barr says, I think Trump had a clear path to winning in 2020 but his inability to control himself, dug him a deep hole.  He has even less ability to control himself now.

(2)  His post-election behavior was a disgrace and made him unworthy to be an American president.  Here's what I wrote on January 6, 2021.

(3)  From a purely political perspective, his post-election behavior was idiotic.  No sane person would have believed he would still be president on January 21, so what was his plan?  What was his thinking?  The agitation to get his most fervent supporters fired up about January 6 was a dead end.  It was reality show theater, as much of Trump's political career is.  After the rioters entered the Capitol what was supposed to happen?  Was there some rational path that led to another term for Trump?  And, at the same time, he was venting his personal spite in way that depressed R turnout in Georgia, losing control of the Senate.  If, after the electoral college vote on December 14, Trump had simply stated that while he thought there was election fraud, he accepted the results, and was certain, once the American people saw how the Biden administration governed, they'd be yearning for his return, both Trump and the party would be in much better shape today.

(4)  If Trump runs and fails to get the nomination he will sabotage the R nominee.

(5)  If Trump gets the nomination he will send two conflicting messages during his campaign - vote for me and the system is rigged against you, just as he did during the Georgia Senate runoffs - vote for the R's but, by the way, the system is rigged against you.  Trump depressed voter turnout.

(6)  If Trump runs and loses, as he did in 2020,  he will refuse to accept the results as legitimate, but this time he will have primed even more to believe him, and plunge us into an even more serious crisis than in the post-2020 election period.  The last time around he managed to lose R control of the Senate, so that we are left to the whims of Manchin and Sinema, as to whether the country will fall under a Democratic authoritarian regime.  His post-election behavior more broadly damaged R credibility, and a 2024 revenge tour will only add to this disaster.

(7)  If Trump wins in 2024, we will get a lot more of the bad and a lot less of the good.  He is focused on revenge.  He still shows no interest in the nuts and bolts of governance needed to address the serious issues we face.  He still has terrible judgment in the people he hires, and now that he's established a reputation as a terrible and untrustworthy boss, the types of people still willing to work for him are of the worst capability and character.  He'll be a 78 year old guy, set in his ways, with declining mental abilities.  Sound familiar?  The damage he will do to the issues I care about is incalculable.  

Donald Trump is a malignant force in American politics.

AG BARR: I like a lot of these guys, some of them much better than others. I don’t know Ron DeSantis that well, but I’ve been impressed with his record in Florida. I’m going to support whoever has the best chance of pushing Trump aside. 

What we’ve moved to is a bipolar system that’s more typical of revolutionary countries, where you have a party like the Marxists or some other totalitarian party trying to take power. It’s all or nothing and anything goes. It’s war by other means. That’s where we are, and it doesn’t end well. 

THC:  Again, I think Barr is correct. Any corrective course we take entails dangers to this country's founding principles.  Our current dilemma led to this conclusion in my essay on Elihu Root:

America works to the extent the large majority of its citizens, no matter how they may differ, generally accept common process outcomes or "sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains" (yes, I'm quoting Bull Durham).  This aspirational belief in neutral processes, supported by freedom of conscience and speech, along with equality under the law and due process rights, is the only way Root's vision can be sustained. 

Can we confront and defeat the enemies of liberal democracy merely by using the traditional Constitutional tools to achieve the aspirations set forth in that document?  Do we now face the scenario written of by Frank Herbert in Children of Dune:

When I am Weaker than you, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom because that is according to my principles.

Having effectively used our concept of tolerance (as something we owe each other) to seize control of institutions, these forces now seek to destroy the mutuality inherent in that concept and return to the older, medieval meaning of tolerance, as something bestowed by rulers and revocable at their discretion. 

Can we effectively oppose them using these long standing general principles, neutral processes and reliance on the Constitutional protections enunciated by Root or does that strategy lead to inevitable defeat if large portions of society refuse to play by the same rules?  Does it mean adopting the same techniques in order to defeat those who seek to embed these dangerous principles into our government and culture?  If so, how does one ensure that in doing so, we do not become what the enemies of American principles have become?  A decade ago, I never thought this question would arise and would certainly have objected to straying from those principles.  I underestimated what was happening within those institutions and am no longer certain as to the right answer; an answer that will determine if we will govern ourselves or be governed by others.

-----------------------------------------------------------

(1)  Here's a sampling of what Holder did to destroy the reputation of DOJ:

- Proclaim himself as President Obama's "wingman" whose job it was to protect the president.  Any previous AG making that statement, particularly if a Republican, would have been condemned by the press, and prompt protests within the Justice Department.  Instead we heard crickets from within DOJ.  Interestingly, President Trump understood what Holder was up to.  We learned from the Mueller report that, on at least two occasions, he complained to his staff that he needed an AG like Robert Kennedy or Eric Holder to defend him.  He was right.  Jeff Sessions was an honorable man but he was no Eric Holder.

- When President Obama proclaimed on 60 Minutes that Hillary Clinton was innocent, even as his DOJ was supposedly conducting an investigation of her conduct regarding government emails, his AG, Holder's successor Loretta Lynch, failed to act on the President's improper intervention and appoint Special Counsel.  Once again, we heard no protests from DOJ attorneys.

- In 2014, two thirds of the Inspector Generals in federal agencies signed an open letter to Congress complaining that Holder's DOJ was interfering with their investigations.  The letter was a one-day story in the Washington Post and not covered in the New York Times.

- At the beginning of the Obama administration, Holder hired nearly 100 attorneys for the Civil Rights Division.  An IG report criticized Holder for ignoring highly qualified candidates and only hiring from four activist groups, including the legal funds for the NAACP and La Raza, all of whom take the legal position that the anti-discrimination language in the Civil Rights Act does not apply to white people.  This position is also taken by Kristen Clarke, the lawyer appointed by Biden to lead the Civil Rights Division of DOJ, as well as by Vanita Gupta, the current #3 at DOJ.

- Funneled tens of millions of dollars to activist groups supporting the administration as part of its settlement of lawsuits against major banking and other institutions, a practice ended when AG Sessions took office, though perhaps the GOP would have been smarter to emulate Holder's corrupt practices.

Today, we are saddled with a DOJ led by Democratic partisans and largely staffed by partisan Democrats, having now destroyed its credibility with half of America.

(2)  In footnote 1, I mentioned Jeff Sessions, who is also a perfect example of Trump's insistent on total personal loyalty and its short-sightedness.  Sessions was a very good Senator, knowledgeable about substance and process, an expert on the details of immigration law, and respected by his colleagues.  Like many Senators, he proved a bad fit as a Cabinet officer.  Trump was furious he recused himself on the Russia matter, something AG Holder never would have done, and I think a mistake as it was clearly part of the maneuvering to eventually get Special Counsel Muller appointed.  

In 2020, Sessions attempted to get the GOP Senate nomination in Alabama, and strongly supporting President Trump's policy positions. Trump, still angry about Sessions as AG, instead endorsed Tommy Tubs, or whatever his name is, an inexperienced candidate who knows nothing about policy or how the Senate operates but pledged 100% personal fealty to Trump.  That endorsement was enough for Tommy to get the nomination and win the election, but the GOP lost someone who knew substance and process, was an effective Senator, and was considered one of the Senate's leading experts on immigration, with similar views to Trump.  If Trump had won in 2020 he could have used someone like Sessions in the Senate.  Instead we have Tommy Tubs, a blockhead who will vote the right way, but has no ability to influence the greater outcome or the writing of legislation.

The GOP desperately needs skilled politicians who understand substance and process, and are willing to spend time on the details and understand how to negotiate.  Trump prefers loyal "show horses", who delight in tweeting and being the center of attention, like MTG and the high forehead guy from Florida, but who have no interest in governance or in learning how to do it.  "Owning the libs" is enough for them.  It is precisely why so much of what Trump did domestically was ephemeral and so effortlessly reversed by Biden.

The Petition

(Arnold Bertonneau)

On the afternoon of March 3, 1864, two Creole mixed-race Louisianians from New Orleans, Jean Baptiste Roudanez and E Arnold Bertonneau, entered the White House to meet with President Abraham Lincoln.  Their purpose was to present a petition seeking enfranchisement of "all the citizens of Louisiana of African descent, born free before the rebellion".  Both the 46 year old Roudanez and 27 year old Bertonneau had French fathers and African mothers.

Thirteen years later, Bertonneau filed the first federal lawsuit seeking desegregation of public schools (Bertonneau v School District).  The circuit court's ruling dismissing the case was later cited by the Supreme Court in support of its decision in Plessy v Ferguson (1896).

In 1912 when Bertonneau, then living in California, died, his death certificate listed him as white. (1)

Bertonneau's life encapsulates the tortured nature of how race was handled in his lifetime, and the crushing disappointment of his hopes, and those of the black population, during the post Civil War era.

Bertonneau came to my attention because he appears in two books I've recently read; A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House by Jonathan W White, and The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, & the Pursuit of Racial Equality by Michael Burlingame (2).  Both authors are noted scholars of the era; White is a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, while Burlingame is Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois.

The topic of both books is Lincoln's relationships with African Americans, with a focus on the White House years, though Burlingame spends more time on Lincoln's experiences in Illinois where he had free black neighbors.  While I knew about some of these events, such as Lincoln's three meetings with Frederick Douglass, and his controversial August 1862 meeting with black ministers about colonization, the sheer number and variety of encounters between the president and blacks during his time in the White House was surprising to me.(3)  It truly was revolutionary, a revolution ended in the wreckage of Reconstruction.

Prior to Lincoln, we know of only two occasions when black Americans were invited to the White House.  The first, in 1812, was when James Madison and Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, met with Paul Cuffe, a wealthy black merchant, ship builder, and fascinating figure in his own right, at which Cuffe successfully appealed to the president to overrule a customs decision to seize cargo on one of his vessels.  The second, John Tyler's invitation to minister Daniel Payne to preside at a funeral for the president's body servant.  Twenty years later, Payne had the opportunity to meet with Lincoln, later writing that he:

 "was a perfect contrast with President Tyler . . . President Lincoln received and conversed with me as though I had been one of his intimate acquaintances or one of his friendly neighbors".

There was also one other noteworthy interaction with an American president, though it took place in Philadelphia, the year before the White House was completed.  In 1799, a black diplomat from Santo Domingo dined with John Adams and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering.

One of my favorite incidents, occurred on July 4, 1864.  In late June a delegation of black Catholics met with Lincoln.  Barred from the sanctuary of the Catholic church in the city, and their children barred from public school, they sought to raise funds for a chapel and school, for which they sought the President's approval to use the White House grounds for a fund-raising picnic.  Lincoln granted their request, apparently the first time any group had used the White House grounds for  private fund-raising.  The picnic was a great success, in attendance and financially, and a month later a black Baptist church held a similar event at the White House.  These events triggered horrified reactions in the Democratic press.

Reading about Lincoln over the years, I've become more aware of his flaws and his mistakes.  Yet, even with that, my appreciation for his greatness and humanity has only grown, as well as my appreciation for how good a politician he was.  

While the books shed much light on Lincoln, they also reveal the world of free blacks as it existed in mid-19th century America, what they thought about Lincoln at the time, and the conditions and limits under which they had to navigate within white America.  Learning about their stories was what led me to do more reading on E Arnold Bertonneau.

Bertonneau and Roudanez sprang from a unique American community, the Creoles of southern Louisiana and, more specifically, the Creoles of Color.  Creoles were the descendants of French settlers prior to the American acquisition in 1803, as well as the French and mulattoes fleeing the turmoil in Santo Domingo and the Haitian Revolution in the early 1800s.  Within the category of Creoles were a significant number of mixed race persons who, in contrast to the rest of the country, were free, educated, and played a role in the general society of New Orleans.  In fact, many of these Creoles played a prominent role in the region, often large property owners, merchants, and sometimes owning slaves.  By the beginning of the Civil War there were 11,000 free blacks in Louisiana (predominantly Creole) and, in order to maintain their position in an increasingly race-conscious South, where the prior three decades had seen increasing restrictions not just on slaves, but also on free blacks, they emphasized their difference from other Africans.  Burlingame quotes an 1864 article in the New Orleans Tribune, the paper of the Creoles of color, to the effect:

". . . while we are of the same race as the unfortunate sons of Africa who have trembled until now under the bondage of a cruel and brutalizing slavery, one cannot, without being unfair, confuse the newly freed people with our intelligent population which, by its industry and education, has become as useful to society and the country as any other class of citizens."

This was also reflected in the views of whites.  In 1859, the New Orleans Picayune observed in an editorial:

"Our free colored population form a distinct class from those elsewhere in the United States.  Far from being antipathetic to the whites, they have followed in their footsteps, and progressed with them, with a commendable spirit of emulation, in the various branches of industry most adapted to their sphere.  Some of our best mechanics and artisans are to be found among the free colored men.  They form the great majority of our regular, settled masons, bricklayers, builders, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers . . . whilst we count among them in no small numbers, excellent musicians, jewelers, goldsmiths, tradesmen and merchants."

When the war began, almost 800 free blacks in New Orleans volunteered for the Native Guards, including Bertonneau who was appointed  captain, forming a regiment to protect the city from federal forces.  Bertonneau later wrote of this action, "Without arms and ammunition, or any means of self-defense, the condition and position of our people were extremely paralyzed; could we have adopted a better policy?".  Colored Creoles had been members of the Louisiana militia in the past, with several hundred fighting in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, of whom twenty eight survivors were signatories to the petition presented to Lincoln in March 1864.

At the time, Bertonneau, then 24 and very light skinned with blue eyes, was already a prominent member of the Creole community, a prosperous wine merchant, member of La Societe d'Economic d'Assistance Mutuelle, and supporter of La Societe Catholique pour L'Institution des Orphelins dan L'Indigence (known also as the Couvent School, the first community school dedicated to education of black children in the Deep South).

Although Confederate authorities allowed the Native Guards to drill, they were not provided with arms or uniforms and so did not participate in the defense of New Orleans when the Federals successfully attacked in April 1862.  After the city's capture Union general, Benjamin Butler, urged the Native Guards to join the Union Army, which many did, along with escaped slaves, eventually forming three regiments.  Bertonneau was among these, being reappointed as a captain.

In early 1863, after General Nathaniel Banks replaced Butler, Banks decided to weed out black officers and Bertonneau resigned in protest stating:

"When I joined the Army I thought that I was fighting for the same cause, wishing only the success of my country would suffice to alter a prejudice which had existed.  But I regret to say that five months experience has proved the contrary."

In mid-summer 1863, when a Confederate attack on New Orleans seemed possible, Bertonneau reenlisted for a sixty day stint.

In the latter part of 1863 President Lincoln began putting pressure on Generals Banks and Shepley (the military governor of Louisiana) to hold elections for civilian officials and to convene a constitutional convention, in order to begin the process of bringing the state back into the Union.  Shepley responded by calling for elections and enfranchising white Union soldiers.  The colored Creole community sent petitions to Shepley and Banks asking for the right to vote, but neither responded.  It was decided to appeal directly to President Lincoln.

In January 1864, Roudanez and Bertonneau drafted the petition requesting enfranchisement for all of African descent, born free before the Civil War.  The petition was eventually signed by about 1,000 free blacks.

Accompanied by Pennsylvania Congressman William D Kelly, one of the founders of the Republican Party, the two met with the President on March 3, and presented their petition. (4)  The meeting is described by all sources as cordial.  

Author White summarizes Lincoln's reaction at the March 3 meeting:

If giving black men the right to vote became "necessary to close the war, he would not hesitate," he said, for he saw "no reason why intelligent black men should not vote".  But black suffrage was "not a military question" and he believed it had to be handled by the constitutional convention in Louisiana.  As president, Lincoln said that he "did nothing in matters of this kind upon moral grounds, but solely upon political necessities."  Since the petition based its claim "solely on moral grounds" it "did not furnish him with any inducement to accede to their wishes."

According to one observer of the meeting, Lincoln said "I regret, gentlemen, that you are not able to secure all your rights, and that circumstances will not permit the government to confer them upon you".

The president then went out to suggest that the petition be amended, and then sat down with his visitors to write out the suggested modifications, shocking some of the white observers in the room.

It is not known what changes the president suggested, but Roudanez and Bertonneau rewrote the petition over the next few days to include poor, uneducated, and newly freed blacks and it was resubmitted to Lincoln.  Ultimately, the change was not just tactical, as we can follow Bertonneau's own thinking and the realization that the fate of the free Creoles of color and those of the newly freed former slaves were linked.

The meeting apparently encouraged Lincoln to take an additional step.  On March 13, 1864 he wrote a letter congratulating Michael Hahn, who had just been elected governor of Louisiana.  It was brief, but pointed:

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first-free-state Governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a Convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in---as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

 After Lincoln's letter became public, journalist Whitelaw Reid (5) noted it was written at a time:

when negro suffrage was a thing to speak of in bated breath, and with many of shudder.  Even then, in advance of almost every leading man of the party which supported him, Mr Lincoln was found inquiring - in a quarter where he knew inquiry to be almost equal to command.

Even prior to the March 1864 meeting, Lincoln was taking cautious steps towards black suffrage.  In August 1863, Secretary of War, with the president's approval, directed military governor Shepley to register "all the loyal citizens of the United States" as eligible voters, omitting the qualifier of white; Shepley ignored the hint.(6)

 

Governor Hahn showed the president's letter to many constitutional convention delegates, all of whom were white, urging the enfranchisement of at least some blacks.  The delegates rejected doing so, but under pressure from Hahn and General Banks (who Lincoln directed to lobby for suffrage), they added a provision to the constitution allowing a future legislature to grant the vote to black men based on military service, intellectual merit, or payment of taxes.  Lincoln also showed the letter to Congressmen in DC as he lobbied unsuccessfully for approval of reconstruction in Louisiana.

It was only toward the end of the war that, for the first time, Lincoln spoke publicly about the enfranchisement of some black men (with specific reference to the situation in Louisiana), on April 11, 1865, in an impromptu talk from the balcony of the White House.  In the crowd that night was John Wilkes Booth, who, enraged by the prospect, told his fellow conspirators David Herold and Lewis Powell, "That means n ---- citizenship.  Now by God I'll put him through" and "That is the last speech he will ever make."  Three days later Booth fulfilled his vow.

From Washington, Roudanez and Bertonneau traveled to Boston where they were guests of honor at a banquet hosted by the governor of the state and attended by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison at which Bertonneau delivered a plea for equal rights.

We ask that, in the reconstruction of the state government there, the right to vote shall not depend on the color of the citizen; that the colored citizen shall have and enjoy every civil, political and religious right that white citizens enjoy; in a word, that every man shall stand equal before the law. To secure these rights, which belong to every free citizen, we ask the aid and influence of every true loyal man all over the country. Slavery, the curse of our country, cannot exist in Louisiana again.

In order to make our state blossom and bloom as the rose, the character of the whole people must be changed. As slavery is abolished, with it must vanish every vestige of oppression. The right to vote must be secured; the doors of our public schools must be opened, that our children, side by side, may study from the same books, and imbibe the same principles and precepts from the Book of Books, learn the great truth that God “created of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth”; so will caste, founded on prejudice against color, disappear.

You can read the entire speech here. 

Bertonneau continued to play a role in lobbying for equal treatment, joining protests in 1866 of President Johnson's reconstruction plan allowing readmission of states without enfranchisement of blacks.  He was at the 1866 constitutional convention in New Orleans, as part of a group urging black suffrage, when it was attacked by a white mob which killed more than 30 blacks.

That attack and other violent incidents in the South, led Congress to impose a harder path towards reconstruction which resulted in another constitutional convention at which blacks, including Bertonneau, were delegates, and led to provisions allowing blacks to vote.  Bertonneau also helped establish integrated Masonic lodges in the state.

In the 1870s, Bertonneau held a position at the Customs House in New Orleans but the gains of the late 1860s were already starting to erode as Northern support for reconstruction began to fade.

In 1877 the Orleans Parish school board decided to resegregate New Orleans schools.  Bertonneau, by now the father of four children, filed his lawsuit in Federal District Court (you can find the case file here and the circuit court decision here) though two prior suits in state court had already failed.  As recounted above, his suit also failed.

Bertonneau's first wife died in 1888.  He remarried in 1891, had three more children, and opened a dry cleaning business (this photo shows Bertonneau, on the left, and two of his sons at his cleaning establishment).  His once active community involvement declined, perhaps because times for blacks were becoming much grimmer as Jim Crow took hold.  The 1896 case, Plessy v Ferguson, had its origin in the efforts of the black community in New Orleans to stem the tide of exclusion and repression.  Two years later the Louisiana legislature effectively disenfranchised most black voters, and two years after that riots in New Orleans destroyed many black businesses.  These events prompted many colored Creole families to leave.

In 1902, Bertonneau and his family joined the exodus, moving to California, where he died in Los Angeles in 1912.  His eldest son, Arnold John Bertonneau went on to a very successful business career in southern California, in the grocery and hotel business and becoming an organizer of a bank in Pasadena.

For Creoles of color, the 19th century was progress moving in reverse.  Their maximum period of rights peaked before the acquisition of New Orleans in 1803.  Until the Civil War they had to struggle to maintain those rights under a more rigid racial regime, that was tightening in the decades leading up to secession.  The return of the racial regime under Jim Crow led to even harsher repression, made even worse by the knowledge that the events of the 1860s had shown promise of a world where equal rights might be attainable, a promise that proved false. 

-----------------------------

(1)  Bertonneau is not unique in changing race.  Homer Plessy, the litigant in the famous 1896 Supreme Court case, was 7/8 white, but considered black in Louisiana.  In the 1910 census he is listed as black, but in 1920 is shown as white.

(2)  The title of Burlingame's book is taken from Frederick Douglass' speech on June 1, 1865 at Cooper Union in New York City, where he proclaimed Lincoln as:

"emphatically the black man's President, the first to show any respect for the rights of a black man, or to acknowledge that he had any rights the white man ought to respect"

Burlingame also points out that in December 1864, a Democratic opposition newspaper also called Lincoln "emphatically the black man's president" along with being "the white man's curse".

At different times, Douglass gave different perspectives on Lincoln.  In 1876, at the dedication of the Freedman's Monument, he called Lincoln "preeminently the white man's President".  Douglass was quite astute in tailoring his messages for his audience.  The 1865 speech was given to a black audience, while the 1876 talk was to a mixed audience, but with a message clearly designed for whites, including President Grant who was in attendance.   For more on the Freedman Monument speech you can read my 2016 post linked here.

(3)  One of those who met the president was Robert Smalls, a young man who escaped slavery by seizing a Confederate warship in Charleston Harbor and sailing it out to the blockading Union fleet.  Smalls eventually became the first black commander in the Union navy and, after the war, served five terms in Congress as a South Carolina representative.  His incredible saga is told in Be Free or Die by Cate Lineberry.

(4)  To my frustration, I've been unable to locate a full text of the petition.

(5)  Reid later become editor of the New York Tribune after the death of Horace Greeley.  A Republican, he was later appointed ambassador to Britain and France and was the party's vice-presidential nominee in 1892.

(6) The prior year, Attorney General Bates issued an official opinion "that the free man of color, if born in the United States, is a citizen of the United States", repudiating the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of 1857.

School Days

I recently researched college costs, using my own experience.  My undergraduate and law school education from 1969 to 1976 cost (tuition + fees + board, the latter for five semesters) about $120,000 in 2022 dollars.  I looked at the current tuition + fees for the three undergraduate institutions (state university; community college; small liberal-arts college) and the law school I attended and that same education would cost $430,000 today.  These costs rose more than 3 1/2 times the rate of inflation, which is in line with other studies I've seen.

I think most of this rise is attributable to the increased emphasis on as many students as possible going to college, thus increasing demand, and the availability of increasing amounts of loan dollars to fund such education.  The result is reported to be a large number of graduates with useless degrees, huge debt, and poor paying jobs.

What to do about student loans is a topic of discussion over the past couple of years.  There is merit to the argument not to give any relief, as well as to the argument for some relief limited in amount and with an income cap to any such relief.  However, the worst of all worlds would be to give relief and not address underlying causes, which would just be absolving colleges and universities for their responsibilities for this mess, and give them further incentive to continue to raise costs at rates in significant excess of inflation.  In effect, student debt relief without associated reforms to prevent this from happening again would be a gift to academia.

Why not make institutions responsible for 50% of the defaulted debt of any student incurred during the time they attended the institution?

Perhaps, if the government continues to run the loan program, restrictions should be placed on the types of courses or degree programs or educational institutions eligible for loans, with an eye towards those likely to be of most value to the student after graduation, and the country.

Maybe a tax on endowments above $1 billion to help fund defaults or provide backing for loans (Harvard and Yale alone have endowments totaling $73 billion)?

Update: I forgot to add one other reform - allowing college loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy, like most other debt, which would also help determine legitimate financial distress.

A more radical solution would be for the government to exit the loan program altogether.  In 2010, the federal government took over the direct loan program.  The argument to do so was based on (1) ending alleged high-interest private bank loans, and (2) that the program would actually make money for the government.  Outstanding student loans were $811 million in 2010; today they amount to $1.7 trillion, and are running at a loss to the government.

I'm sure there are other good ideas out there and I'm open to them.  The only thing I'm 100% against is relief without reform.  And this is separate from the reforms desperately needed to address other issues in K-12, undergraduate, and graduate education.

Unbearable Weight

Watched The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

In trying to evaluate this movie, I realized it exists outside the normal continuum of good/bad; 1-5 ratings; or A to F grading. 

It's best described as a film that starts with Nicholas Cage playing Nicholas Cage and eventually becomes a Nicholas Cage movie.

The concept was better than the execution.  For a better executed example see Being John Malkovich.

Pedro Pascual is terrific as Cage's partner in whatever it is they are supposed to be doing on the screen.

I'm out of here.

The Hardest Thing

All breaking balls, no fastballs.  Really breaking, breaking balls.

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports pic.twitter.com/WX9jXti7A6

— Baseball (@mlbelites_) August 15, 2022

A Post About What I'm Not Going To Post On

The Mar-a-Largo search.

I don't trust the FBI, I don't trust the Department of Justice, I don't trust Donald Trump.

I don't trust the media reporting from any source.

This will take a while to sort out and get an understanding of the underlying facts.

The only thing I am certain of is that both the Democrats and Donald Trump are very happy to have Donald Trump as the center of attention.

The New Guy: Ringo

On this date sixty years ago, Ringo Starr made his first performing appearance with The Beatles.  He turned 82 last month and still looks good.

I've come to really appreciate Ringo's drumming, which I did not so much during the 60s.  If you've read this blog you know that I love Keith Moon, who played with flash, incredible energy and often was musically leading The Who.  Ringo's style was very different and listening more deeply over the decades, I understand how well they served the songs.  Ringo didn't have a "style" in the sense that Moon or John Bonham did.

The first time I noticed it in the 60s, was in the intro and first verse of Sgt Pepper's A Day In The Life (listen as Ringo kicks in about 47 seconds into the song) but, other than that, I didn't pay much attention to him.  Now I understand much better what he brings to the music of The Beatles.

For one thing, there are few drummers who have more recognizable drum riffs.  If all you heard were the drums you'd know what the song was.

Some examples:

I Feel Fine - the drum break at around 1:20, though Ringo's samba style beat throughout is outstanding.

Ticket To Ride - the off-kilter beat throughout the song; so distinctive.

Come Together

Others I enjoy, listed chronologically:

The punctuated beat of She Loves You

The intro on the exuberant Tell Me Why, which also features one of Lennon's best vocals

In My Life

Ringo has been often quoted that Rain is his favorite drumming part.  Great interplay with McCartney's bass.

She Said She Said - that compressed cymbal sound and the subtle tempo change in the middle

Groundbreaking in many ways, Tomorrow Never Knows is held together by Ringo's unusual metronomic drum pattern and Paul's drone bass.  This is before digital magic was available in the recording studio.  It's Ringo live throughout. 

Strawberry Fields Forever - wistful and beautiful.  Ringo stays away from obvious choices.

And then we arrive at Abbey Road, the band's last recording and Ringo's consistently best and most innovative work from start to finish.  It's worth listening to him on every song.  We've already listened to Come Together, but we also have Something (particularly on the bridge), Here Comes The Sun. The End, and Polythene Pam/She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.

The special treat on Abbey Road is You Never Give Me Your Money, which is several different song snippets put together by Paul.  I think it is one of the 5 best songs by the group.  This video deconstructs each track so you can hear Ringo's brilliance but you should also listen to George and John's guitar work, Paul's piano track and the vocal track.

It Wasn't All Great

  As someone who's done so many posts on the great music of the 1960s and 70s, this chart, which I came across today, is a forceful reminder that we also had a lot of popular dreck on the radio.  This shows the top 20 singles for this week in 1969.

In The Year 2525 remains one of the top contenders for worst #1 song and it held that spot for weeks on end.  #2 is Honky Tonk Woman and, no question, it is a great tune.  But look at the next three slots.  Junk from Tommy James and Neil Diamond (though the latter was given a second life by the Red Sox), and a terrible song by an artist I like, Johnny Cash.  Going further down the list we have one of the weakest singles ever released by the great Stevie Wonder, a below-average entry from The Guess Who (an above-average band I need to do a post on), and Get Together by The Youngbloods, a soppy song from one of my favorite bands of that period.

You've got to get to #15 before there is something decent again, Green River, my favorite Creedence song. Dylan's Lay Lady Lay is another good one, as is Mother Popcorn.  Then we close with more mediocrity, capped by the execrable Give Peace A Chance.

That's only four good songs in the Top 20, a poor batting average.  No wonder I preferred FM to AM.

Sunset At Aqua Claudia

 

By Hermann Corrodi, an Italian painter; done sometime in the 1870s.  The remnants of a vanished world.  

The Aqua Claudia was one of the largest capacity aqueducts supplying water to Rome.  Started under Emperor Caligula (37-41 AD) and completed in the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), it eventually extended to most of the districts of Rome, including the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill.  Most of its 43 mile length was underground until it emerged on the plains outside Rome from where it was carried on arches the last few miles into the city.   The cutting of Aqua Claudia and the other aqueducts during the 6th century siege of Rome by the Goths accelerated the decline of the classical city, prompting the abandonment of the Palatine Hill, and migration of the city's remaining population to other locations in Italy or closer to the Tiber River.

From Wikipedia, this is a current view of the largest remaining section of the aqueduct.

 

Well Done

Better Call Saul wrapped up last night, bringing to an end 14 years, 11 seasons, 125 episodes, and one movie (El Camino) for the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe (and we've seen it all).  Unlike Breaking Bad's blood soaked finale, Better Call Saul ended without violence, though with much drama and many twists.  In this final go-round, we had the return of so many characters (most now dead) - Walter White, Mike Ehrmantraut, Chuck McGill, Marie Schrader - but it never felt forced.  Well done.  Amazing work by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould in bringing this world into existence and with the consistent attention to the minute details of setting, scene, story, and characters that sustained it for so long.  And by Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy/Saul/Gene.  Who would have thought the slimy, comic relief character from BB could have shouldered an entire series as a compelling character? 

The Baseball Memory Bank

Over the years I've reconstructed many baseball games I've attended, or thought I'd been at, trying to match my memories to accounts of the games at Baseball-Reference.com or in publications available online.

During the 1960s, I attended many Mets games at Shea Stadium, most of them with my Dad.  We saw a lot of the San Francisco Giants because of Willie Mays but also went to other games.  Among my memories is a distinct remembrance of watching Warren Spahn pitch during his brief stint with the Mets, but I've had conflicting memories of what the game was.  One dim memory is of Spahn being beaten by the Dodgers on a home run by the opposing pitcher, Don Drysdale, and the other is of Spahn pitching against Bob Gibson, who hit a triple, and was so tired the next inning that the Mets got to him for some runs.  Based on my research I now think I may have seen Spahn pitch twice.

From 1946 through 1964 Warren Spahn had a great career with the Boston and then Milwaukee Braves, winning 356 games.  In 1963 at age 42 he'd gone 23-7, with one of those losses in the classic 16-inning pitching duel with Juan Marichal, which Spahn lost 1-0 on a home run by Willie Mays.  After four days rest, Spahn pitched a complete game, 5 hit shutout (he also completed his next 9 starts!).  In 1964, age finally got to Warren and he went 6-13, pitching poorly for the entire season.  During the off-season, the Mets purchased his contract from the Braves.

In 1965, Spahn started 19 games for the Mets, before being released and signing with the Giants with whom he finished his career.  I probably was at two of his starts.

On May 11, Spahn started against the St Louis Cardinals and the opposing pitcher was Bob Gibson with 24,519 in attendance.  In the 3rd inning, with the score 0-0, Gibson hit a line drive to center and is credited with a double, not a triple.  But, with the help of Baseball-Reference, I found that Gibson was thrown out at third base, trying for a triple!  I can still visualize Gibson sliding into third but did not remember he was thrown out on a relay from CF Ron Swoboda to SS Roy McMillan to 3B Bobby Klaus.

My recollection that the Mets touched a tired Gibson up in the bottom of the third was incorrect.  After giving up a single and walk to the first 2 batters, Gibson retired the next three.  He held the Mets scoreless until the 5th when they pushed across one tally, followed by two more in the 6th.  The Cards won the game 4-3 with Gibson going the route, while Spahn tossed eight innings.

On June 11 the Mets played the Dodgers.  The Dodgers and Giants were always the biggest draws and it was a Friday night so the attendance was 55,023 with Spahn and Drysdale the starting pitchers and both in top form that night.  The game was scoreless until the 5th, when John Roseboro took Spahn deep and the Mets pushed across the tying run in the bottom of the frame.  It stayed that way until the 8th, when Drysdale hit a home run to center, just like I remembered, giving the Dodgers the lead which they held, winning 2-1.  Both pitchers threw complete games, Drysdale giving up only 4 hits and Spahn 5 with both walking only one hitter and striking out six.  Spahn also picked Maury Wills off first base! Though he lost, it was Spahn's second-best outing during his time with the Mets, only surpassed by his May 5 start against the Phillies, giving up only 4 hits but once again losing, this time 1-0.

Until confirming my memories via Baseball-Reference I wondered if I was confusing events and had only been at one Spahn start.  This also clarifies how I remember the crucial acts.  My visual of the Gibson attempted triple is from the perspective of someone sitting in the left-field grandstand, while that of the Drysdale home run is viewed from the right-field grandstand.  It really was two different games I attended and got to see three Hall of Fame pitchers in action.

The Leopard

 If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

In 2013 I wrote a post after reading Guiseppi Tomasi de Lampedusa's magnificent and melancholic novel, The Leopard.  Set in Sicily in the 1860s during the unification of Italy, it tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, as he maneuvers to provide for his family's survival amid the turmoil, even as he knows the era of the aristocrats is fading.  It is the Prince's nephew, Tancredi, a volunteer in Garibaldi's revolutionary army, who gives him the advice quoted above.

I finally got around to watching the 1963 film version of the book, directed by Luccino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, and Alain Delon.  The film was an award winning hit in Europe but was not well received in the U.S., where a half hour was cut before being shown in theaters.  The version I watched was the restored European cut of the film - the only annoying part is that Lancaster is dubbed in Italian.

The film is quite good and a visual feast.  This video essay explores its main themes.

I was quite struck by how The Leopard must have influenced the making of The Godfather I and II a decade later.  The music for all three films was composed by Nino Rota and has obvious similarities.  The look of the Sicilian countryside and towns prefigures the Sicilian scenes in both Godfathers; some of the hillsides and street scenes look identical.  And the figure of the Prince, as embodied in Lancaster, bears a resemblance, in his dignity, reserve, perceptiveness, and intelligence, to Marlon Brando's Don Corleone.

Sunrise

 From Thursday morning.  In Maine.

Manual

A lament by Ian Bogost on the looming extinction of manual auto transmissions.  Manuals now constitute less than 3% of new cars sold in the U.S., some European car makers are completely phasing them out in the next few years, and electric cars don't even have gearboxes.

I learned to drive on a stick shift in 1967 and drove manuals exclusively until the mid-80s, when I finally gave in and got an automatic.  But then, in 2003, I began driving a 6-gear Nissan 350Z and rediscovered the joys of real driving, and continued to do so until 2016, even taking it out on the Lime Rock track in CT, an exhilarating and exhausting experience.  During our occasional Europe trips I'd always rent a manual with the highlight being mastering the coastal road on the Amalfi Coast with its blind corners and clearances of an inch or so between you and cars going the opposite direction (don't forget to fold in your side view mirrors!).

On our recent France trip I once again rented a manual.  Finding out on our first day I had Covid, I was concerned about getting so sick I could not drive, and Mrs THC, while she'd driven manuals on the hills of San Francisco decades ago, was no longer comfortable doing so, prompting me to try in vain to rent something automatic but finding nothing available, other than large panel trucks not suitable for where we'd be.  Fortunately my very mild symptoms abated within 24 hours (and the Mrs never got it) and was able to enjoy a month of shifting on constricted, winding country roads and navigating through the narrow alleys, in the little town in which we were staying.

From Bogost's piece:

I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out. . . And when I’m at the wheel, I can’t hold a cold, delicious slushie in one hand, at least not safely. But despite the inconvenience, I love a manual transmission. I love the feeling that I am operating my car, not just driving it.  

But the manual transmission’s chief appeal derives from the feeling it imparts to the driver: a sense, whether real or imagined, that he or she is in control. According to the business consultant turned motorcycle repairman turned best-selling author Matthew Crawford, attending to that sense is not just an affectation. Humans develop tools that assist in locomotion, such as domesticated horses and carriages and bicycles and cars—and then extend their awareness to those tools. The driver “becomes one” with the machine, as we say. 

The manual transmission’s impending disappearance feels foreboding not (just) because shifting a car is fun and sensual, but also because the gearshift is—or was—a powerful cultural symbol of the human body working in unison with the engineered world.

To lament the end of the manual transmission is to eulogize much more than shifting gears. When the manual dies, little about driving will fall away that hasn’t already been lost. But we’ll lose something bigger and more important: the comfort of knowing that there is one essential, everyday device still out there that you can actually feel operating.

Dear Comrades!

 Dear Comrades!, a 2020 film by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, is about the events of early June 1962 in the Soviet city of Novocherkassk.  A Moscow directive raising the price of meat and milk, combined with a reduction of pay in a city factory, led to worker protests, which were suppressed when KGB snipers fired on unarmed demonstrators in a city square.  Accurate information on the events was also suppressed until the last years of the Soviet Union.  The bodies of those killed were buried secretly in unmarked graves at undisclosed locations.  It was only in 1994 that relatives were notified of the location of the burials.

The Novocherkassk massacre also serves as the climax of one of the finest books I've read, and written about twice - Red Plenty and Khrushchev Reflects - a book which should be required reading in college.

The movie is focused on Lyudmila (Julia Vysotskaya, Konchalovsky's wife), a member of the Communist Party City Committee, an absolute believer in the Party who stridently expresses her views and support of the party line. When her daughter becomes a participant in the protests and then can't be found in the aftermath of the shootings in the city square, Lyudmila begins a frantic search to find if she is dead or alive, during which she learns how the Party is literally covering up the extent of the carnage.

Filmed in striking black and white, Dear Comrades! is a movie made in outrage and anger, but it also shows the psychological confusion induced in Soviet citizens, and particularly among Party members when, after a lifetime of immersion in Communist education and sloganeering, they are faced with its brutal reality.  If all their beliefs and sacrifices meant nothing in the end, what is left?  They had no other context, no other reference points, having been so isolated from the rest of the world, and any counter viewpoints within their country silenced - for Lyudmila it is either Stalin or Khrushchev; the striking workers carry posters portraying Lenin.  At one point, Lyudmila, thinking her daughter is dead, laments that if only Stalin were still alive this would not be happening, an echo of those who, in the midst of the Great Terror in the 1930s would say, "if only Stalin knew!" when hearing of yet another random arrest and somehow disassociating the Great Leader from the act, believing he would intervene to stop it, though the truth was Stalin knew very well and, indeed, was its director.

Recommended.

California Scene Painting

California Scene Painting is defined in Wikipedia as "a form of American regionalist art depicting landscapes, places, and people of California. It flourished from the 1920s to the 1960s."

One of its leading practitioners was Emil Kosa Jr, whose paintings are featured in this post.  Born in 1903 in Paris, his family moved to the U.S. and then to Czechoslovakia in 1912.  Returning to the U.S. in 1921, Kosa moved to California where, in 1933, he joined the newly formed special effects department at 20th Century Fox where he was soon named art director, a position he held until his death in 1968.

In 1964, Kosa won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Cleopatra and is credited with designing the famous logo of 20th Century Fox.

Ain't Misbehavin'

On this date in 1901, Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans.  I've done a bunch of posts on Louis which you can find by clicking on the tag at the bottom.  Let's celebrate with his 1929 recording of Ain't Misbehavin', featuring that phenomenal closing horn solo in which he musically quotes Rhapsody In Blue (the man loved every type of music from jazz to classical, pop to opera).  Armstrong was to record this tune several more times, but this was his first attempt.

It was this recording that broke Armstrong to a wider audience and set him on the path to stardom.

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Have We Learned Anything More?

I've updated my July 14 post on covid origins, Have We Learned Anything?, with additional text, footnotes, and links.  Rather than do a separate new post, I prefer to keep everything relevant to the discussion in one post.  You can find it here.

Poseidon Adventure

Came across this photo which reminded me that the future Mrs THC and I visited the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Greece in September 1978.  It is an hour or two from Athens - we must have reached the site by bus.  At the time there was nothing around it - don't know if that has changed.

This version of the temple (it had been a cult site for hundreds of years prior) was built in the mid-5th century, at the same time as the Parthenon, and at the height of Athen's power.

It was later that month we boarded the Magic Bus.

Cape Sounio and the Ancient Temple dedicated to the Lord of Seas, the god Poseidon🔱
©Makis_akrivos#Archaeology #AncientGreece pic.twitter.com/CSeTfhcj6p

— Arys🏺🪶 (@ArysPan) August 3, 2022

Everything Everywhere

Mrs THC and I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once a couple of evenings ago.  Despite the presence of the wonderful Michelle Yeoh and 93 year old James Hong, who has over 650 movie and TV credits including 92 film and 205 TV appearances and voice overs since turning 60, it was disappointing.

The film certainly looks good but once you get the basic multiverse concept, it drags on for far too long, and for all its attempted unpredictability, it became pretty predictable how it would end.  It's a 140 minute film that would have been better served at 105 minutes.

Stephanie Hsu is saddled with playing a very dreary character as Yeoh's daughter (her girlfriend is much more interestingly written but we don't see much of her).  Ke Huy Quan, as Yeoh's husband, looks unnervingly like Jackie Chan at times due to lighting and camera angles.  Jamie Lee Curtis is quite good and quite unrecognizable as an IRS agent.