Bill Lee

On this date in 1969, 22 year-old Bill Lee made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.  It was the second game of a double header at Fenway against the Cleveland Indians.  The Indians scored five runs in the top of the 3rd to take a 6-3 lead.  It was a freaky inning.  Against starter Mike Nagy and  reliever Vincente Romo the Indians recorded this sequence after a pop up for the first out:

Walk

Single (Pop fly)

Single (Pop fly)

Walk

Walk

Walk

Walk

Sacrifice Fly

 

Lee came in to pitch the top of the 4th and remained through the seventh. A bit nervous he walked the first two hitters, got the third to hit into a double play, and struck out the fourth.

 

Over four innings he gave up only two hits, one run, and got two double plays.  The unusual thing was that he had 5 Ks.  For the year he struck out 45 in 52 innings, very different from most of his career.  In 1974 he pitched 285 innings, winning 17 games, but only striking out 76. 

 

Bill went on to pitch in the majors for the Sox through 1978 and then for the Expos until 1982, winning 110 games.  At his peak from 1971 through 1975 he had two outstanding years as a reliever and then won 17 games for three years in a row.  He was also one of the most entertaining pitchers to watch, throwing a variety of off-speed pitches including the notorious eephus which, unfortunately, he chose to throw to Tony Perez in game seven of the 1975 World Series.  Perez, who'd been sitting on the pitch, hit it into Kenmore Square.

 

Always a competitor on the mound, he was a complete eccentric off it, always good for a quote, gaining the nickname Spaceman.  I sat with a hammered Lee in a Cambridge bar in 1978 as he told very funny stories.

 

He also had the honor of having Warren Zevon write a song about him.

 

Bill's life has also been made into a biopic.

 

Since he finished with the majors, he's spent much of the past 40 years pitching for independent league teams, most recently the Savannah Bananas.

I've mentioned Bill before - The Longest Home Run, Notable Quotables, and Rockin' The 70s.

Saumur

Twenty five years ago, while on vacation in France, the THC son and I visited an armored vehicle museum, the Musee des Blindes, on the outskirts of Saumur, a small town located on the south side of Loire River.  Curious as to how the museum came to be in this small town I discovered it was the site of the French military cavalry school which prior to WW2 became the locus of tank training for the army.

Today is the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Saumur in which cadets from the school fought the German invaders.

By June 18, 1940 the Germans were sweeping through France.  Paris had fallen on the 14th.  That same day the French government, which had already fled Paris for Tours, decamped further south to Bordeaux.  On the 15th, Marshal Philippe Petain became Prime Minister, announcing by radio the next morning that he had asked Germany for a cease fire.

In the midst of large scale French surrenders, 58 year old Cavalry School commander Colonel Charles Michon mobilized 800 cadets, determined to preserve the honor of France and its army. to defend the stretch of river near Saumur.  Michon was also able to find and rally about 1200 retreating soldiers to join the cadets.  With his 2,000 men, Michon was able to delay the 10,000 German attackers for three days, before ordering a withdrawal of his surviving force at 9PM on June 20.

(Colonel Michon)

Because the battle occurred after Petain's call to end the fighting, and began on the day when General Charles De Gaulle made his first radio appeal to continue the struggle, it is considered in France to be the first act of the French Resistance.

Seventy nine of the cadets perished in the battle, along with a similar number of other French soldiers. Colonel Michon died later that year in the unoccupied zone of France.

Turn Back The Hands Of Time

 Tyrone Davis from 1970.  Sweet and smooth.

And we would have a love so divine

If I could turn back the hands of time

Recent Reading: Non Fiction

 Alamo In The Ardennes by John McManus

The story of the Battle of the Bulge usually centers on the 101st Airborne Division and its defense of the besieged and surrounded town of Bastogne until rescued by Patton's Third Army, and it is indeed a memorable event.  Years ago, while noted WW2 historian John McManus was interviewing veterans of the 101st, some of them mentioned that the unsung heroes of the Bulge were the soldiers of the 28th Infantry Division, which prompted McManus to do the research and tell their previously untold story.

The German plan for their winter offensive, which began on December 16, 1944, was to capture the key road hub of Bastogne by mid-day on December 17 and then pivot northwest and cross the Meuse River.  The entire offensive was a desperate gamble with very little chance of success, but failing to seize Bastogne would doom even that small chance.

The 28th Division had just been through a brutal struggle in the Hurtgen Forest and was sent to a quiet section of the front in north Luxembourg to recuperate.  Instead they found themselves taking the main blow of the surprise German offensive.  What followed were a series of small scale engagements; company and squad size, in which the American infantry, usually outnumbered 5 or 10 to 1 and facing German Panzer divisions, were able to slow down the planned advance while sacrificing themselves in the process.  The hardest-hit regiment of the 28th lost all but 400 of its 3,250 soldiers.  Not to be forgotten was the assistance from from Combat Commands of the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions which were rushed to the scene with directions to slow down the Germans and suffered terribly in accomplishing that task.

The result was that German forces only began their approach to Bastogne late on December 19, which gave time for the 101st to reach the town and hold it.  By the next day, when the Germans reached the area in force, it was too late to launch a direct assault on the town.  Though the siege now began, the German strategic gamble had failed.

McManus does a great job in the book balancing the big picture with the details on these small-scale engagements.  He tells the stories of individual soldiers and, at times, provides almost a shell by shell narrative.  A compelling book providing well-deserved recognition for these brave Americans.

The Widowed Ones by Chris Enss

When George Armstrong Custer died at the Little Bighorn in 1876, he did so along with two of his younger brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law.  The Widowed Ones is about the seven officer wives left as widows and what happened to them in the years after.  George's widow, Libby served as the center for trying to keep them together and sane in dealing with the aftermath.  It is a fascinating story but I was disappointed with the book which was not well-written and not particularly insightful about the women.

One Damn Thing After Another by William Barr

An autobiography of the two-time Attorney General and a rollicking read because the last three quarters are about his tumultuous 22 months as AG in the Trump administration.  He defends the President when he did things that are defensible, he criticizes him freely for things that weren't, and is very insightful about Trump's personality.  Worth a read.  Some of the content is captured in an interview Barr gave to Bari Weiss last year about which I wrote (see Unbarred).  I may write about the book in a separate post.

Napoleon In Egypt by Paul Strathern

Napoleon's expedition to conquer Egypt in 1798 is extraordinary.  Leaving Europe and revolutionary France on what seemed a quixotic adventure and one, as Paul Strathern explains, understandable in the context of an extraordinary man.  The author tells the story in an effortless way.  A pleasure to read. 

Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb by James M Scott

The subtitle tells it all.  The author provides a more sympathetic, or at least more understandable, portrait of LeMay than seen in most recent books on the subject.  We learn of the debates around the logistic, technological, political, and military considerations that led to the decision to firebomb Japanese cities.  Along the way, Scott also exposes the reader to the brutal reality of the horror in Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945, as we follow the fate of some of those caught in the firestorm which killed more than 100,000 residents.  Highly recommended.

Moral Capital by Christopher Leslie Brown

The history of British abolitionism.  A scholarly book on the origins of British sentiment on abolishing slavery, beginning in the early 18th century and exploring why that sentiment did not coalesce into an effective political program until the latter part of the 1780s.  It is very interesting but heavy going for a casual reader.  Brown emphasizes the key role played by the American Revolution in spurring British abolitionism to become a political force.  Contra to the argument made by the 1619 Project that the abolition movement started in Britain and the threat of ending slavery was a significant motivator in the revolution, Brown argues the opposite.  Brown points out that similar abolitionist sentiment began in the colonies earlier in the century and that, for British who supported the revolutionaries, the ending of slavery in several of the newly independent states, served as an inspiration.  For those opposed to the colonists who enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy of those proclaiming liberty while enslaving others, they, in turn, were forced to face their own hypocrisy because of the existence of large-scale slavery in the Caribbean sugar islands.

Gentleman Revolutionary by Richard Brookhiser

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Those words were written by Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), who also "wrote" or assembled the rest of the Constitution, stitching it together from the various resolutions passed at the Constitutional Convention.  Morris later served as Minister to France during the Revolution and Terror and late in life was responsible for the street grid pattern of Manhattan and instrumental in the construction of the Erie Canal.

Brookhiser has written a series of brief biographies of the Founders.  This one is fine, but more like a sketch of an interesting life, and it's not as good as some of his others.

The War On Heresy by R.I. Moore

Learned of this book while listening to a three-part The Rest Is History podcast on the Albigensian Crusade (honest, I really did).  The first part addressed the nonsense in the Dan Brown books, while the final episodes were on what really happened and why.  Moore is a well-known medieval scholar who, based on his more recent research, completely revised his views on the origins of the Albigensians and the reasons for the Crusade declared by the Church against the people of Languedoc.  According to Moore, there was not a secret church based on ancient beliefs.  Rather, unsophisticated people in the region had various versions of beliefs that were consistent with different strands of Christianity.  Unfortunately, they ran into a series of Pope's determined to regularize doctrine and bureaucratize belief.  There's a lot more to the book and it's another one I plan to write about in a separate post.

The Soviet Century: Archaeology Of A Lost World by Karl Schlogel

I've only read bits and pieces of this book, because it is 900 pages and not meant to be read all the way through in one burst.  The author is a German scholar of Eastern Europe and the book is a tour of the Soviet world, examining the artifacts of that lost civilization, exploring what it was really like to live in that unique place.  We have chapters on the queues that formed every day; on doorbells, nameplates and signals; communal apartments; on the management of libraries and publications; Stalin's cookbook; the Beryozka shops; and prison camp tattoos.  A great read in small doses.  In its strangeness and weirdness it reminds me of the best book on the post-Stalin Soviet Union, Red Plenty. 

I'm also nearing the end of the two volume journal of Lafayette's 1824-25 return to America of which I've written about recently and to which I will return once completing.

One I Forgot

From yesterday's post on recent fiction I've been reading, here is one more that I thought I'd written about previously but was mistaken.

Act Of Oblivion by Robert Harris

I'm an admirer of Robert Harris' historical fiction, having read Fatherland, An Officer & A Spy, and the Cicero Trilogy (since I find Cicero a fascinating figure having written of him here, here, here, and here).  However, I'd been disappointed with his most recent novel, The Second Sleep, so was happy to see he'd regained form with Act of Oblivion.

The tale is set in the aftermath of the Restoration, when the British Republic of Cromwell has come to an end, and Charles II has restored the monarchy.  The hunt is on for the regicides, the most prominent republicans who participated in the death sentencing of Charles I.  Most, remaining in England or seeking shelter nearby on the Continent have been seized and executed but three have fled to the colonies in New England.  Act of Oblivion is about the hunt for the fugitives both in the New World and Old.  Well told and gripping.

I learned a lot, though already aware of the story because we lived near New Haven for many years, where two of the fugitives sought refuge and ended up living in the wilderness outside the town.

Recent Reading: Fiction

Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather

A novel I'd been aware of for many years, but had never read.  Wonderfully written; evocative, and moving.  Set in New Mexico in the thirty five years after the American conquest in 1846, it tells the story of two childhood friends from the remote Auvergne region of France who enter the priesthood to become Catholic missionaries in Ohio, and are then assigned to Santa Fe where one becomes bishop (later archbishop) and the other his vicar.

The two main characters are based on real people, the French born first archbishop of Santa Fe and his vicar.

Cather's vivid descriptions of the landscape and of the peoples, Mexican and Indian, are beautifully drawn but not overdone.  There is a spareness to her writing.  Weaving in and out of the book, which consists of a series of episodes over the decades, are historical figures like Kit Carson and the Navajo Eusabio.  

At the heart of the book is the friendship and faith of the two priests.  Opposites physically and temperamentally, they complement each other and they recognize the value in their differences. Though their friendship is deep it is their faith that towers above all and provides the ultimate meaning for their lives.

I'll read it again.

Standing In The Shadows by Peter Robinson

The 28th book in the DCI Banks series set in Yorkshire.  I've greatly enjoyed this series (though the BBC telly version was badly miscast).  It had an odd start.  Though I enjoyed the plot and setting in the initial three or four novels, the writing was mediocre.  I don't know what happened (writing lessons?) but all of a sudden, from one book to the next, it improved dramatically.  Standing In The Shadows is one of his best, a body uncovered during an archaeological dig leads to the investigation of a murder 40 years ago.  Sadly, I was startled to see the author note at the end starting "Peter Robinson was  . . ." resulting in a quick internet search to find out he passed away last fall.

Gods Of Deception by David Adams Cleveland

I caught the author on CSPAN Book TV, and was impressed by the depth of his knowledge about the Alger Hiss - Whittaker Chambers spy case, which is the topic of his book.  It is a novel regarding the Hiss trial, its back history, and the lingering impacts on the family of one of the Hiss defense lawyers, who later becomes a Federal judge.  While the research is impressive, the book is much too long, overwritten, with too much uninteresting plot regarding the family.  While there is speculation regarding Soviet activities and American spies that I don't agree with, the bottom line is accurate; Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy; Whittaker Chambers an American hero.  The book did lead me to additional reading of the literature regarding the Soviet spy rings of the 1930s and 40s and the revelations from the Venona intercepts and from that brief period in the early 1990s when some of the Soviet archives became available.

Falling Sky by Harry Sidebottom

The most recent entry in the Warrior of Rome series, featuring the daring Ballista, sent to Rome as a young barbarian captive who gains favor with the emperors and marries into the aristocracy.  I love this series and pretty much everything Sidebottom writes on Rome, whether fiction or fact.  This one is set in Gaul during the third century when that province, along with Britain and Spain, have split from Rome and set up their own empire.

The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes

Hughes is a little remembered literary critic, poet, and novelist whose career spanned from the 1930s into the 1970s.  Three of her novels were made into film noirs, most famously, In A Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame (it's worth a viewing).  The Expendable Man, published in 1963, was never made into a film.  One of the TCM hosts, from whom I learned about the book, remarked that both then and now it could never be made into a movie.  After reading I know why, but to mention the two aspects would prematurely divulge key plot points.  I found the opening quarter of the book creepy and strangely written but later understood why and it became more engaging. Glad I stayed with it.

And on deck . . .

No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

I saw the Coen Brothers movie when it came out in 2007.  As I've written (see Friendo), I admired the film but never wanted to see it again.  Same for Cormac McCarthy; twenty years ago I read Blood Meridian, a stunning reading experience, but never wanted to read another book of his.  However, I've recently listened to some commentary on the book and movie, which I found intriguing, so I've braced myself to read the book and rewatch the movie.

On a lighter note, I'm awaiting the August release of the latest entry in the Bruno, Chief of Police series by Martin Walker, set in the Dordogne region of France.

Here We Go Again

When I read Roger Stone's 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, released after Adam Schiff's year-plus stonewalling, during which period the congressman repeatedly went on national media to lie about what had happened in those hearings, I did so with a copy of the Justice Department indictment of him, an indictment based, in part, on Stone's testimony to the committee (for more on my reading of the 5,000+ pages of testimony released in 2020 see the 53 Transcripts series). My reaction was that Stone might as well have worn a "Please, Indict Me!" T-shirt to the hearing.  His lies, and contempt for the committee, though not material to the Russia collusion narrative, were evident in the transcript.  Perhaps no surprise, as his successor as Trump's campaign advisor, Corey Lewandowski, had this to say to the committee about Roger:

"Roger Stone is a liar"

"What did he lie to you about?"

"The time of day, the color of his tie, what color of shoes he was wearing, basically everything and everything." 

I've now read the DOJ indictment of Donald Trump.  I can't judge the merits, either factually or regarding the legal arguments that are certain to be raised, or predict the outcome, but based on the indictment and the circumstances around it, all I can say is that Trump might as well have been wearing a "Please, Indict Me!" T-shirt for his handling of the documents situation, from start to finish.  This is a much more serious legal matter than the ridiculous case filed by the Manhattan DA or, from what I can tell, the case that may be filed in Georgia.

That's a consistent pattern for Trump.  Put a rake in his path and he'll step on it every time, the handle clocking him in the head, and yet he'll learn nothing from the experience.  He's a one-trick pony.  His unorthodox style (I likened it to a left-handed boxer) and weird charisma, which appeals to a segment of the electorate, got him far.  But he is not the 3-D thinker his admirers claim.  He's not a thinker at all.  He's instinctive.  He reacts to a situation, says what he needs to say to get through it, sees what the reaction is, and then decides what he'll say next.(1)  Early on that was enough to throw off most opponents in both parties and the media, but eventually people caught on.  You pile up enough "off-the-cuff" statements or tweets and people realize this is no logical consistency or thoughts behind them.  You can really see this in play recently with his statements on Ron DeSantis, most of which make absolutely no sense, are inconsistent from one statement to the next, and often endorse Democrat talking points.  It's also why no lawyer representing Trump would ever recommend he take the stand in his defense.  He'll say anything to get past the moment.  That sometimes work in politics, but doesn't in a trial.

The media caught on to this by the time Covid hit.  Reporters realized they could get him to say anything in reaction to their questions, no matter how outrageous, in fact, the more outrageous the question, the more they could get him to sound outrageous.  They, not Trump, controlled those press conferences, but he never realized it.  In his defense, people would say that the public hated the press and their questions made them look liked idiots.  Did the press often look like idiots?  Sure, but the public expects that.  What they don't like is their President looking like an out of control idiot, and that's what Trump did every time he took their bait, which was every time.(2)

It would have been easy enough, once the archives asked for the documents, for Trump to cooperate, as Biden did.  This all could have been avoided.  Why he didn't is simple.  And it's simple, because the simple explanations work for Trump.  Despite the fevered progressive fantasies, this is not because he wanted to sell the documents to Putin or the Saudis.(3)  It's because he wanted trophies to show to friends and celebrities, demonstrating his importance and brilliance.  If it became a problem, he'd improvise his way through it.

There's been some speculation by his supporters that he held on to some of the documents because they proved the Russia collusion conspiracy.  Actually, that is already proven (see the Russia Collusion series - I am slowly making my way through the Durham report and will write a summary next month) but, more importantly, it's not true or, if it is, is just another example of Trump's incompetence.  As president, Trump often tweeted that he would require declassification of all Russia collusion documents, but it never happened.  Why, if he now had the documents would he continue to hold on to them for two years, once out of the presidency?

There is a cautionary note and it's why I'm not expressing a view on the merits.  An indictment is not evidence, even if, like this one, it is written in an unusually long and narrative form.  In 2018, the Muller gang filed a similar, very long, and very detailed indictment against a number of Russian individuals and companies alleging interference in the 2016 election.  It got enormous press coverage but then the Mueller team got a big surprise.  Because the U.S. had no jurisdiction over the defendants, Mueller never expected the case to proceed and to have to prove the allegations; it was filed as a publicity stunt to keep coverage going on the Russia collusion narrative, because by that time Mueller's crew knew they had nothing.  The surprise was that one of the Russian companies employed US counsel, and demanded the discovery it was entitled to from the government.  The Mueller team, knowing its scheme was unraveling, resisted disclosure and foisted off the case to the local U.S. attorney office.  A year later, the U.S. attorney asked that the case be dismissed.  However, it served its purpose by creating the desired media narrative.

I think there are a couple of differences between this case and that of the alleged Russian interference.  First, unlike Mueller's political and media stunt, this case will go to trial and the government knows that.  Second, if the testimony from Trump's own attorneys at trial is consistent with that alleged in the indictment it will be devastating.  The lawyers were compelled to testify, they did not turn on Trump, and it will present enormous problems for the defense.  And as mentioned above, Trump's trial attorneys will be very reluctant to recommend the defendant testify in his own defense.

Trump's ploy is to say to his supporters that "They're not out to get me, they're out to get you".  There is some truth to this.  Anyone who watched what happened to Brett Kavanaugh knows this.  Anyone who is aware of the censorship efforts by the Biden administration and its institutional allies, knows it.  Anyone who has lost their job because of Biden's allies, or is staying silent to keep their job, knows it.

The problem is that it is Trump making the argument.  He makes it so easy for his opponents and he drags down everyone with him.  And he's made chumps of his own supporters.  What happened to all of those who got fired up by the "stop the steal" nonsense and his cockeyed theories, and were inspired to get involved with January 6?  Trump raised well over $100 million on the strength of January 6 and, last time I looked, none of it went to the January 6 defendants.  He left them on their own.  Loyalty with Trump is a one-way street.  In contrast, Democrats look after their own.  During the George Floyd riots, Democrats raised millions for defense lawyers and bail for their supporters who had caused so much destruction and committed violent crimes.

Trump's perfect genius is in creating messaging and imaging to undermine himself and his supporters.  For examples, read Images and Ukraine Blues.

All of this goes to demonstrating that even if, by some strange set of circumstances, Trump were to win the GOP nomination and the presidency, his second term will be a disaster for the causes his supporters most believe in.  He is incapable of governance.  He has learned nothing and wants to learn nothing.

The other argument is to raise the dual standards regarding Trump, Hillary and Biden.  While I have no sympathy for Trump because he put himself in this spot, I understand the political appeal of the argument.  I'm outraged by that aspect and don't want to be lectured by any Democrat about the importance of the rule of law.

Hillary Clinton broke the law, a strict liability statute.  She had the choice of complying with the law and running the risk that the American public might eventually be able to see some of her correspondence, or breaking the law and risking that the Russians and/or Chinese could intercept her communications.  She chose the latter.

She also destroyed evidence and got away with it (having experience with the Department of Justice on criminal matters, this is the part I find the most astonishing).(4)  And now we know she created the Russia collusion hoax to divert attention from the political fallout created by the hacking of the DNC emails.  She hired FusionGPS which, at the same time, was representing a Putin-connected oligarch.  FusionGPS in turn hired Christopher Steele who, at the time, was working for another Putin-connected oligarch.  Steele, in turn, hired Igor Danchenko, a Russian national, someone investigated by the FBI for ties to Russian intelligence, who provided Steele with information alleged to come from Russian intelligence sources.  And the source for one of the most scandalous allegations, Trump's comporting with prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz Carlton (which proved as false as everything else in the Steele dossier), came from a DC lobbyist (Charles Dolan) who had worked extensively for the Clintons, and was also advising the Kremlin on how to improve its public relations in the U.S. while regularly meeting with Putin's spokesperson.  The FBI, DOJ, and the Obama White House were aware of what she was doing, thought it just fine, and she got away with it. 

And those at the FBI and DOJ who kept the fake narrative of the Russia collusion story going for three years also got away with it.  The Federal bureaucracy collaborated to clear Hillary in time so she could beat Trump and then, after she unexpectedly lost, collaborated to protect themselves, undermine the Trump administration, and help the Democrats win the mid-term.(5)(6)

As for the Democrats this is about practical politics.  The bottom line is that they want Trump to be the nominee, because they think him the easiest opponent to beat or, failing that, to keep him in play to disrupt the campaign of whoever else comes out of the GOP primaries.  With the indictments they have ensured that Trump will be the GOP story right through to the election.  Every GOP candidate will be peppered with questions about Trump because the media outlets also want this to be about Trump.  This suits Trump, as well as the Democrats.

The most likely outcome if Trump is nominated is that he will lose and drag down the rest of the GOP with him, opening the floodgates to the authoritarian Democrats, a fate only narrowly avoided after the 2020 election because of Senators Manchin and Sinema.  In the unlikely event he wins, it will still be a disaster.  If he loses the nomination, he will undermine whoever the GOP candidate is.  Trump cannot afford for another GOP candidate to win the 2024 election.  If they do, it undermines his entire "stop the steal" argument and makes him into a big loser, the one thing Trump can never accept.(7)  We saw him pull the same stunt in the Georgia run-off election in January 2021.  At rallies he would give a lukewarm brief endorsement of the GOP candidates and then rant on for a half hour about how the election was rigged.  He successfully depressed GOP turnout because if the GOP candidates won it would have undermined his claim that the November election had been stolen from him.  For Trump, it is all about Trump, not America.

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(1) This has been a consistent practice of Trump's.  In the Art of the Deal he brags about not wanting to be trapped by a schedule or agenda and prefers to come in to the office each day and react to what is going on.  From all reports, he followed the same practice in the White House, refusing to read briefing papers, acting impulsively, and watching hours of cable TV every day to figure out what his next move would be.  This had always worked for Trump, particularly after his business model changed after his bankruptcies in the 1990s.  He saw no reason not to continue to employ it as President, not understanding the enormous differences between being a developer selling his brand and his new role.  And he knew from his stint on The Apprentice that his act was a success and that a 40 rating made you a star, failing to realize that a 40 rating made you a loser in Presidential politics.

(2) He's simply incapable of thinking a couple of steps ahead.  If, after the electoral college voted on December 14, 2020, he'd said, "I think there were big problems with the election, but we've gone through the process, and Biden will become president.  I think people will regret it once they see what Biden and the Democrats do but, in the meantime, I'll focus on improving the election process for the next time around, because I'll be back", he would have clinched the GOP nomination by now and probably win the 2024 election.  I would not have liked that outcome because he would be as ineffective a Chief Executive as he was last time around, but I think that's where we'd be right now if he had thought ahead.  Instead, he followed a dead end strategy that promised no favorable outcome for him and led to January 6.

(3) The hysterical reaction to Trump's election remains unabated.  Trump's own rhetoric and bizarre and repulsive mannerisms contributed but, until the November 2020 election, his actual actions were within the norms of modern presidents (the opposite can be said of Biden).  And, as far as foreign policy goes, I'd argue he was the best president in the past thirty years, which is said less in praise of Trump than in recognition of the utter mediocrity for what passes as the foreign policy establishment of both parties.   How do his repeated warnings about the security threat posed by the Nordstream Pipeline and hectoring NATO allies to increase defense spending, for both of which he was relentlessly mocked, sound now?  What Trump did is to expose the corruption, lack of integrity, and hostility to democracy of so many once respected institutions.  If they had reacted normally to Trump they would have found much to legitimately criticize, but by going so far over the top they ended up acting in the very ways they criticized Trump for, discrediting themselves as much as Trump discredited himself.  Holman Jenkins of the Wall St Journal best summed it up back in 2019:

Mr Trump is said to upset the norms of our political life, but how exactly?  By lying? By engaging in demagoguery?  By making absurd claims?  His real trick has been to be a one-man satire of our politics.  And so far he has yet to find an opponent or critic - whether Mr Biden, or Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney - who doesn't prove his point.

To show what a liar he is, his enemies entangle themselves in lies.  Democrats have turned themselves into a party of Adam Schiffs, who, whatever his previous virtues, now is wholly defined by his promotion of the collusion canard.  It's an amazing psychological feat to squander their advantage over Mr Trump in this way.

Ditto the media.  In their eagerness to traffic in falsehoods about Mr Trump, his media critics lend him strength.  We face the weird prospect now of a world-class scandal involving the FBI and the intelligence community being aired even while much of the press is committed to being part of the coverup.

A reminder; the Russia collusion hoax is worse in substance than Watergate, with the extra added bonus being it is as if Watergate happened and the New York Times and Washington Post took the side of the Nixon administration.

(4) In the indictment, Trump allegedly makes a reference to this remarking to his lawyers about how Clinton had her lawyers protect her by destroying documents.  Typical of Trump, this is a garbled reference to what happened - Clinton's lawyers did not destroy documents, rather they were probably the ones who instructed Clinton's IT guy to destroy the documents (in contrast to how Special Counsel went after Trump's lawyers in this case, DOJ handled Hillary's lawyers with kid gloves).  In one sense, Trump does know how things really work as this example shows.  Another is in the Mueller report where repeatedly Trump complains to his team that he needs an attorney general who will protect him, citing Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder as AGs who did precisely that.  He's right about that - Holder even publicly bragged about being Obama's "wingman", and proved it through his actions that effectively destroyed the Justice Department.  For more on Holder's conduct read Footnote 1 from this post.  The next non-Trump Republican president needs to appoint an AG who will protect him and go after the opposition; no more gentlemanly ex-Senators like Ashcroft and Sessions.  One further note - the source for the Trump statements cited in the Mueller report is Trump's own White House Counsel.  Trump cooperated to an unprecedented degree with the Mueller investigation, waiving executive privilege and allowing his staff to testify and producing documents.

(5) Democrats attempt to counter this argument by pointing out that Comey's reopening of the email investigation in late October may have cost Hillary the election, so he clearly was not in her corner.  However, Comey has explained his reasoning.  His deputy, Andrew McCabe (a Clintonite) became aware of Weiner's laptop and the emails in September, but waited a month to tell Comey.  With the election imminent, Comey's thinking was that Hillary was going to win (we all thought that!) and if he didn't make an announcement the news would inevitably leak out after the election and it would stain her presidency and reflect poorly on the FBI.  Comey, having been assured that there was nothing damaging in the emails, thought he could resolve the matter quickly, which he did, and clear the deck for Hillary.  Could he have miscalculated?  Maybe, but he was prompted by a desire to help, not hurt, Hillary.

(6) There is a much broader problem of double standards which is evident to many of us.  See, Correction for one example.

(7) It occurs to me that if Trump does poorly in the early primaries he might accept a plea deal and drop out or just drop out and blame it on the government's "persecution" of him.  It would provide a face-saving excuse for him.

Pancho And Lefty

All the Federales say

They could have had him any day

They only let him slip away

Out of kindness, I suppose

From Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.   Number one on the country charts in 1983.  Written by Townes van Zandt, who appears in the video as one of the Federales.

One of Dylan's selections in The Philosophy of Modern Song.

 

Actual Malice

Interesting article by Glenn Reynolds, law professor at the University of Tennessee, and proprietor of Instapundit.  In the guise of reviewing a new book, which he quite likes, by Samantha Barbas; Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan, Reynolds suggests a new approach to libel law.

The 1964 Supreme Court case limited the ability of public officials to sue for defamation.  The case was triggered by an advertisement in the Times designed to raise funds for the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights advocates campaigning in the South.  Unfortunately, the ad contained a number of factual errors, creating potential liability for the Times and an opportunity for segregationist officials to strike back against a thorn in their side.  Two Alabama officials quickly won jury verdicts totaling $1 million.  Reynolds notes the stakes for the Times:

The $500,000 judgments would be chump change to the NYT today, even adjusted for inflation (the online Inflation Calculator shows $500,000 in 1960 as amounting to $5,124,375 today).  But the Times was poorer then, and in the middle of a financial crisis and an expensive confrontation with the printer’s union.  There was reason for worry that if these lawsuits succeeded, the proliferation of copycat suits would either bring the Times down financially or completely neuter its coverage.  And other organs would not be immune.

Sullivan's attorney stated that the only way for his client to lose the case was if the Supreme Court changed the law.  It did:

Deciding that the libel law of the past 150+ years offered too much power over national media to local officials, the Court established a new rule:  Where a public official claimed libel, he/she would have to show that the publisher acted with “actual malice,” meaning knowledge of falsity, or a “reckless disregard”as to whether the report was true or not.  The “actual malice” standard was an entirely new invention of the Court, and wasn’t even argued by any of the parties.  Brennan chose that standard because he knew the Times would lose on a negligence standard, since it had in fact been negligent. 

But, over time, the Court expanded on its original ruling:

But when government officials come together to use government institutions against private entities, it looks less like a duel and more like war.  So it’s plausible that in this special circumstance the First Amendment might reach farther than it has historically reached in libel cases.

This provides a useful and compelling defense of the Sullivan decision, and a plausible reading of it as well.  The only problem is that it’s not what actually happened.

Sullivan’s legacy quickly became one of generalized protection for the institutional press against, basically, anyone who might call it to account for false and defamatory content.  In very short order, the “public official” standard, which is manageably limited to government officials, became the elastic “public figure” standard, which means whatever judges want it to mean, as illustrated in this clip from the movie Absence of Malice:

In the St. Amant case, the Court interpreted the “reckless disregard” part of actual malice to only involve publications choosing to publish anyway when they entertained serious doubts about the accuracy of the material – there was no duty to investigate even outlandish charges so long as there was no subjective doubt.  And proving the subjective doubt became much more difficult as the Iqbal and Twombly cases held that charges of malice must be “plausibly” pleaded before any discovery – which would yield information demonstrating the existence of such doubts -- could even commence.

The result, according to Reynolds, is that the current standard:

. . . amounts to a subsidy, allowing press outlets to externalize the costs of poor or slanted reporting by dumping them on those defamed, and on news consumers, rather than paying those costs itself in the form of libel judgments and insurance premiums.   It is perhaps no coincidence that trust in the press has declined steadily since right about the time the decision was handed down.  And it is probably no coincidence that American politics has become more acrimonious and divided over the same period.

This analysis holds true anytime you tilt a playing field in favor of some person or institution.  It encourages bad decision making because the risk of consequences are so low.  I've seen this personally at play with federal administrative agencies, which between Federal court deference doctrines, and the overly expansive authority granted legislatively, know they can be sloppy and get away with it because the chances of successful challenges are low and the time and cost involved in such challenges discourages contests in the first place.

His prediction, which I hope proves to be correct:

My own prediction is that the Court will not formally overrule Sullivan but that it might return to the “Public Official” rather than the “Public Figure” standard, and that it will probably overrule St. Amant, and, even more likely, Iqbal/Twombly.

Electrifying!

From Shorpy.

June 1942. "Knox County, Tennessee. Electrification of farms made possible by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Mrs. Wiegel, farm wife, uses electric vacuum cleaner."

The dramatic transformation of daily rural life that came with electrification in the first half of the 20th century is difficult for us to grasp today.   The time and physical savings from the exhausting daily routine of laundry, cleaning, and keeping a fire going in order to cook made life much easier.

In The Path to Power, the first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, the author compares in detail the pre-electrification life in the Texas Hill Country to that after electrification.  It was LBJ, using all his guile, manipulative talents, and relentless energy, who was responsible for bringing power to the region and that accomplishment solidified his electoral support for decades. Read The Need For Gratitude for more on Caro and LBJ.

Electrification also plays a role in the Coen Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, when, at the climax of the film, a rural Mississippi Valley is flooded to form a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam.  The event provides Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) an opportunity to lecture his companions Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) on the virtues of electrification:

"Everything's gonna be put on electricity... Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes sir, a veritable age of reason, like the one they had in France."

The Last Championship

On this date in 1986, the Boston Celtics won the last of three NBA championships during the Larry Bird era, beating the Houston Rockets 114-97 at Boston Garden.  Bird averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists a game during the six game series.

I watched the game, which was memorable, not so much for the score - the Celtics won easily - but for the atmosphere (as a Celtics fan in those years I watched or listened to a lot of games).  The Rockets had won game 5, played at The Summit in Houston, with Bird playing poorly with only 17 points, 7 rebounds, and four assists, but that wasn't the story.  In the second quarter Houston center 7'4" Ralph Sampson was ejected for slugging Celtics bench player Jerry Sichting who was 6'1".   Game 6 was back in Boston Garden and the crowd was out for blood; Sampson's blood.

We'll let Bill Simmons tell what happened next:

For Game 6 of the Finals in Boston, my father and I were sitting right on the tunnel where the players walked on and off the court. People were holding "SAMPSON IS A SISSY" signs and the entire building was chanting "SAMPSON SUCKS!" even before Houston came out for warm-ups. When Ralph came out to earsplitting boos, there was legitimate hatred in the air. Ralph walked right by us and I remember thinking, That guy's done. He looked rattled. You know the rest — Ralph played terribly, Bird played out of his mind and the Celts blew them out. But Celtics fans never stopped holding a grudge after the Sichting fight — they booed Ralph every time he came to Boston.

The 85-86 Celtics squad was the finest of the Bird years.  Bill Walton joined the team that year, squeezing 20 minutes a game out with his damaged feet and establishing a telepathic on-court relationship with Larry.  The team went 67-15, winning an incredible 40 of 41 in the Garden during the regular season and all ten of its home games during the playoffs.

Before reaching the finals, the Celtics swept the Milwaukee Bucks in four, beat the Hawks in five games, and in the opening series swept the Chicago Bulls in three.  Despite the sweep it was the Bulls series that resulted in the most memorable moment of the playoffs.  The Celtics won Game 2 in double overtime, despite second-year player Michael Jordan's 63 points.  After the game Bird said:

“I didn't think anyone was capable of doing what Michael has done to us. He is the most exciting, awesome player in the game today. I think it's just God disguised as Michael Jordan."(1)

 Bird would go on to have two more great seasons, though the Celtics lost the '87 finals to the Lakers and the '88 conference finals to the hated Pistons.

Early in the 88-89 season, Larry had double Achilles surgery, ending his season.  Though he returned for three more years, his chronic back problems, which often required spending nights at the hospital in traction, and having to lay on the floor during games, limited his playing time.  Even with those limitations, during his final two seasons, the Celtics were 77-28 when Larry played and only 30-29 when he did not.

Bird had his last memorable playoff outing in the '91 series against the Indiana Pacers.  Tied 2-2 in a best of five series, Bird crashed to the floor face-first in the second quarter.  It turned out he had fractured his cheek bone, and with a possible concussion was advised by the team doctor to sit out the rest of the game.  Instead he returned in the middle of the third quarter and dominated the rest of the game, which the Celtics won. 

Bird was a member of the Dream Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics but his back was so bad he could not play.  However, while the Dream Team was training, a bunch of college all-stars was brought in to practice against them leading Jamal Mashburn to tell this very funny story about Larry and Magic Johnson. 

And there is no better way to end this post than with a Larry Bird highlight video.  Enjoy the passes.

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

(1)  I can't resist throwing in this quote from Pat Riley: 

"If I had to choose a player to take a shot to save a game, I’d choose Michael Jordan. If I had to choose a player to take a shot to save my life, I’d take Larry Bird."

At The Border

It's worth listening to this entire press conference in Nogales AZ by Senators Sinema (I-AZ) and Lankford (R-OK) regarding their recent border visit. Sinema is chair of the Senate subcommittee on the Border, while Lankford is the ranking minority members.  They have made several prior visits, and Sinema has been very vocal about the need for better border control.

Sinema, Lankford Hold Press Conference at Arizona/Mexico Border https://t.co/OGVLwz5axY

— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) May 24, 2023

 A few things that jumped out at me:

The composition of border crossers has changed dramatically with Spanish-speakers no longer in the majority.  More and more illegals are coming from Central and South Asia, Russia, Africa, and China.

Unlike with Mexico and some other Spanish speaking countries, where we have agreements allowing us to access criminal records, we have no way of knowing if these illegals from other regions are criminals.

The Mexican cartels control the flow of illegals, determining when and how many are coming on any given day.

Border Patrol personnel are bogged down processing asylum requests at Ports of Entry and unable to adequately police the rest of the border.

Only about 10% of asylum requests are legit.

Notwithstanding the above, once the asylum requests are made the applicants are released within the United States and it usually takes years before they have a hearing, which they often don't show up for.

Not stated directly by the senators, but evident to anyone knowledgeable, is the Biden administration's game playing with the process and with public reporting of illegal entry to the United States.  They know the public is unhappy with the collapse of border security so they want to appear to be doing something, but they also want to keep the flow of illegals coming.

I applaud the effort by both senators to come up with a bipartisan legislative proposal, but doubt they will be successful.  The dominant Progressive wing of the Democrats is opposed to anything that would stop the border flow (and they hate Sinema) and a number of Republicans are opposed to any compromise and would rather keep the border as an open political issue.

The bigger problem is that President Obama, and now President Biden, have sent the message the compromise is not possible legislatively and any Republican supporting a compromise would be a chump.

Compromise means both parties don't get everything they want.  Sometimes it means compromising in the middle, sometimes it means I get this provision and you get that provision.  Any Republican participation in a compromise will require increased border security and enforcement.

With his DACA Executive Order, President Obama demonstrated that, with the stroke of his pen, he could undo a legislative compromise and there was nothing his opponents could do about it.  And President Biden has demonstrated that with Democratic control of the federal bureaucracy, he can make any statutory language meaningless by manipulating the budget and enforcement process.

It's hard to see how any Republican legislator could support compromise legislation, no matter how good the wording is, because any Democratic administration will simply gut the enforcement provisions via the bureaucracy.

The Aftermath

 

Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day.   There will be plenty of articles on that topic.  Almost forgotten is that on June 4, 1944 Allied forces liberated Rome, as part of the Italian campaign that began in September 1943 and ended on May 2, 1945 with the surrender of the remaining German army in northern Italy.

The Allies (American, British, Canadian, Polish, French, Brazilian and those from several other nations) suffered 60,000 to 70,000 killed in the course of the campaign, of whom half were Americans.

The photo above (from Life Magazine), taken in May 1944, shows the ruins of the town of Cassino, and above it, those of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.  The town and the hill on which the monastery were located had to be taken by the Allies because it controlled the only viable route north towards Rome.  In early November of 1943, Allies forces reached a point twenty miles south of the town and monastery.  It took over six months of gruesome fighting, crossing rivers and rocky open-faced mountains amid terrible weather and stubborn German resistance to cross those twenty miles; a distance that is now a leisurely half hour drive by car (which we did in 2006).  After failed assaults in January, February, and March the monastery was finally captured by Polish troops on May 18.

The town is now rebuilt as is the monastery.  The first monastery was constructed around 529.  Destroyed by the Lombards in 570 it was not rebuilt until 718.  The second monastery was destroyed by Moslem raiders in 883 and rebuilt in 949.  It was that 10th century structure that was bombed in 1944.