Keep Hope Alive

"We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law. An offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to it, to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other — and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all."

" Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength; we see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty, and cruelty and corruption, are reaping untold rewards. Every single day we see that. And it’s hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged, to give in to cynicism. It may be tempting for some to compromise with power and grab what you can, or even for good people, to maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass. 

"But this man — Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson — inspires us to take the harder path. His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope; to step forward and say “Send me” wherever we have a chance to make an impact — whether it’s in our schools, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods and our cities. Not for fame, not for glory, or because success is guaranteed, but because it gives our life purpose, because it aligns with what our faith tells us God demands, and because if we don’t step up, no one else will."

President Barack Obama

at the Memorial for Rev. Jesse Jackson on March 6, 2026.

"Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law. An offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to it, to things you just didn’t think were possible."

On Saturday we woke up to a social media post from Boss Chaos, currently the commander in chief and fomenter of an illegal and unconstitutional war, which in its earliest days managed to kill more than a hundred school girls in Iran.  With language that no President has ever used, that borders on a promise of genocide, he announces another day of intense bombing:  “Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time.” 

We woke up to a stories about the continuing savagery of the implacable cruel and lawless federal thugs known as ICE: kidnapping a woman and her two young boys from a legal hearing, lying to her lawyers and sending them to detention in a place unknown to them in order that they could not file habeas corpus, and then quickly deporting them.  One of the boys, six years old, is deaf, and was hustled away without his hearing device.  The trauma inflicted is unspeakable.

This story appears in the Guardian, along with two related stories: of a man in California who died in ICE custody after he was refused medical care, and the death of an ICE prisoner in Arizona who was also denied medical care.

Jesse Jackson was a model of hope in dark times. His "Keep hope alive" came long before Obama.  He was a voice and a force I knew about throughout my adult life.  

He had an astute political mind, and his 1988 platform when he ran for the Democratic nomination for President remains a model for candidates today.  (I had press credentials to cover live his debate with Dukakis in western Pennsylvania when they were the last two candidates standing, but I wound up consigned to the secondary press room watching it on closed circuit TV.)

He went on campaigns for immediate changes but he also played a long game (and so he earned his tears at the moment that Barack Obama was elected President.  Martin Luther King didn't "get there" for this moment, but Jackson, who was with King in his last moments, did.) 

But Jesse Jackson also knew that people live in the present, every moment, and they need ways of getting through such very dark times as these, when official evil is relentless and overwhelming.  

For young people, "You are somebody" made a difference. At the memorial, Isiah Thomas, NBA Hall of Fame player, told how he heard those words directly from Jackson when Thomas was a boy in a soup line in Chicago with his mother.  

And for young people today, Obama highlighted the idea that life doesn't have to be focused on money values but on the value of finding something "that gives our life purpose."  Dedication to that purpose is going to be the story of the next several generations.

For the not young especially, finding and living in moments of beauty and empathy--for instance, moments in that Memorial itself--is vital and vitalizing.  And it, too, is an expression of resistance, as well as the renewal of hope.

Democratic Unconventional: Not Alone

Perhaps more than the first two nights, the third night of the Unconventional was often geared to young voters.  It related major issues of immigration, climate crisis and racism viscerally and particularly from the point of view of the young.  It had at least one mesmerizing musical performance by Billie Eilish.  And apart from introducing herself and telling her story, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris spoke especially (I thought) to a younger audience.

But major moments belonged to all, and especially to those who have had to numb themselves during these past four years.  There were more cathartic video moments, including outrages already forgotten because of the unremitting onslaught of new ones.  An absolute highlight was the appearance of Gabby Giffords, the centerpiece of a segment on gun violence.  She was a gun victim--a political assassin's victim--we shared, and we saw again the tragedy and her courage and resilience and determination.

We try to avoid the overload, but there are a range of benefits to realizing that we share these reactions to the past four years.  Kamala Harris expressed it this way: "The constant chaos leaves us adrift.  The incompetence makes us feel afraid.  The callousness makes us feel alone."

But it was President Barack Obama who embodied and expressed what we see and have concluded, but which we don't often hear from our leaders, or the media or the institutions that cannot operate unless they maintain some sense of normality, or at least aren't used to doing anything else.

The first part of his riveting 18 minute speech set the context for the paragraphs that will be the chief soundbites.  (Several outlets have the text, including this one.)

"The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us – regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have – or who we voted for.

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

But he never did. For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before."

As Hillary Clinton reminded us earlier in the evening,  she told us so, and too many voters didn't hear or believe or take the possibility seriously.  They didn't vote, or they threw away their vote.  Without saying so exactly, President Obama spoke to them, shamed them and anyone who won't vote Trump out of office this year, in for me the even more powerful part of his speech, so genuinely delivered.

He addressed those who were disenchanted with democratic government, warning that this cynicism is the chief weapon of the autocrat in the White House. He began with a story.

"Last month, we lost a giant of American democracy in John Lewis. Some years ago, I sat down with John and the few remaining leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement. One of them told me he never imagined he'd walk into the White House and see a president who looked like his grandson. Then he told me that he'd looked it up, and it turned out that on the very day that I was born, he was marching into a jail cell, trying to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.

What we do echoes through the generations.

Whatever our backgrounds, we are all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.

If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life."

The words are powerful, but the way he delivered them makes you listen, really listen to them.  Maybe at last some will really hear the linkages: The "Irish and Italians" of my grandparent's generation, "and Asians and Latinos" of more recent generations, all "told to go back where they came from."  Not just the "Muslims and Sikhs" of today, but the "Jews and Catholics" of generations within living and especially family memory, "made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped."

The words went on to, again, today's young people who can "take our country to a better place."  But not inevitably--for they are "the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed."  And then the conclusion, the final fierce urgency of now:

"That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up – by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before – for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for – today and for all our days to come."

Historians are already on record saying that no ex-President have ever spoken like this before.  That it is this President, whose words and style many of us heard and saw for eight years or more, adds to their weight.  Yes, it's scary.  But it's out in the open now.  If you realized this before, now you're not alone.  Now there are things to do, even if it's just voting, and making sure those we know also vote.  It may take more than that, but saying it out loud is a start.

Juneteenth

He's Back

The headline was that President Barack Obama officially endorsed Joe Biden for President in 2020.  But this 12 minute video is much more.  It begins with the kind of message on the covid crisis that a President provides.  At last.  It continues with a personal summary about why Joe Biden would make the best President.   But then it goes on to a succinct indictment of the Republican presidency, within a progressive program for the immediate and farther future.  Plus a generous shout-out to Bernie Sanders.

In response to the covid crisis, President Obama called for "leadership that's guided by knowledge and experience; honesty and humility; empathy and grace."  And that leadership should extend beyond "our state capitals and mayors offices. It belongs in the White House."

So the voice we've been missing for almost four years is heard again.  He left the presidency as the most admired man in America, and guess what, he still is.  His silence was partly in service to uniting the Democratic party behind its nominee, and a New York Times article (for one) details how he did so successfully.  Now he's free to speak his mind, and he's not messing around.  We've needed this, particularly now. He's back.

Update: Washington Post gives the video itself a thumbs up review.

Chicago 1968: An American Tragedy

My memories of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago fifty years ago this week are scattered fragments: blue and white images of demonstrators on a defective television, a conversation in Chicago during the convention with witnesses to the carnage, personal consequences of the generation gap and a strange encounter with a Chicago policeman, as well as more detailed television images of the last days of the convention, including the infamous beatings in front of the Hilton, covered live by the networks fifty years ago tonight.

In late August, Mike Shain and drove Bill Thompson and his bride, plus a trailer with their possessions, to Hamilton, Ontario, where Bill would attend graduate school and live, as it turned out, for the rest of his life.

Christopher Walken in 1968 Stratford
production of Romeo & Juliet

This actually was the subject of one of the last email discussions between Bill and me before his sudden and untimely death last summer, but letters I recently excavated confirm it.  The car belonged to Bill's father, so Shain and I also drove it back to Libertyville.  I actually remembered the trip back much better, because Shain and I stopped in Stratford, Ontario and saw two plays at the Shakespeare Festival: a Romeo and Juliet in the afternoon (apparently we saw Christopher Walken as Romeo), and a late night contemporary play in their studio theatre with the same actors, which was riveting.

(I also remember that in leaving Stratford we spotted a sign at a newsstand that said the London Times was on sale there.  In those days, the idea of seeing a real newspaper from England was almost magical.  But alas, it turned out to be the daily for London, Ontario.)

We must have at least spent the evening of our return to at Bill's parents, because I associate my memory of the blue and white television picture with Libertyville.

Soon however I was down in Chicago, though nowhere near the convention.  I met up with available Knox friends, who may have included graduates of earlier years. One was involved with several other former Knox students in a peace cafe in Old Town--it may even have been called Alice's Restaurant. (That Arlo Guthrie song became the unofficial antiwar anthem at Knox, sung spontaneously when encountering military recruiters on campus, for instance.) I don't recall who this ex-student was--the only name I remember as being involved with that project is Steven Goldberg. Maybe it was him.  Anyway, someone told us about Sunday in Old Town.

Lincoln Park during that day, before police attacked.

 On Sunday August 25, the day before the convention officially opened, a "Festival of Life" was held in Lincoln Park, organized by Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Yippies.

 Politics was leavened with music.  The park was open to everyone until the 11 p.m. curfew, when there were an estimated 2,000 people left. At that point the police moved in and started clubbing people, including those already attempting to leave the park, as well as reporters and photographers.  The crowd sought refuge in Old Town but police followed them and kept clubbing them.  Our friend told us that their peace cafe became a field hospital, as they tended to the injured.

It was not a complete surprise.  It had happened before, not only in the civil rights and free speech movements, but specifically to anti-war demonstrators.  In a 1967 letter to me, Knox grad Michael Hamrin described police busting up a demonstration in Oakland.  It had the same characteristics: indiscriminate violence by police--clubbing, tear gas and mace--against protestors, credentialed reporters and passers-by.

In fact, a specific warning had come out of Old Town earlier in the month, from a group that possibly included Knox people.  It was a letter warning peace demonstrators to stay away from Chicago, because "the cops will riot."  The festival of life could become "a festival of blood."   (The information that brutality was authorized may well have come from the local police they worked with in Old Town.)

The letter was published in a number of underground newspapers.  Such warnings are probably part of the reason I never thought about going.  In fact many demonstrators had been warned away.  I was on the busload of demonstrators from Knox that joined the 50 to 100 thousand at the Pentagon the previous October. Chicago didn't have nearly that many.

But the brutality script got even worse later in the convention.  Reporters were followed, harassed and detained, even delegates were harassed, on the convention floor.  On the day after the convention was over, police actually invaded the Eugene McCarthy suites in the convention hotel and beat up staffers, even breaking into rooms and pulling people out of their beds.

The Lincoln Park brutality was on Sunday.  On Monday night police attacked demonstrators, press and Chicago residents on their own porches in the vicinity of Grant Park.

On Tuesday there was more violence at Lincoln Park while the National Guard oversaw a peaceful Grant Park full of demonstrators.

But what most people saw on television happened on Wednesday, August 28.  In the convention hall, a carefully negotiated "peace plank" for the party platform, opposed by LBJ and his puppet candidate Hubert Humphrey, was voted down.  Inside the hall, people began spontaneously singing "We Shall Overcome," punctuated by the frantic gavel at the podium that failed to stop them.  But the news of the vote also reached demonstrators outside, in Grant Park.

It was perhaps the largest gathering of the week, estimated at 6,000.  Organizers once again attempted to march to the convention hall.  Police and National Guard (with machine guns) blocked the march and police were ordered to clear the streets.

“The police attacked . . . like a chain saw cutting into wood, the teeth of the saw the edge of their clubs, they attacked like a scythe through grass, lines of twenty and thirty policemen striking out in an arc, their clubs beating, demonstrators fleeing,”wrote Norman Mailer in his celebrated book on the two 1968 political conventions, Miami and the Siege of Chicago.

Demonstrators were backed up to the Hilton Hotel where networks had their cameras.  The resulting carnage--beatings, mace, tear gas--were covered on live television, along with the demonstrators' haunting chant: "The whole world is watching."

Delegates inside the convention hall were also watching.  They could see the police riot (as the Kerner commission later officially called it) on television monitors as nomination speeches for the party's presidential candidates were proceeding.  Delegates could be seen (and heard) reacting, but the convention chair tried to squelch any protest.

But then it came time to nominate George McGovern, a peace candidate meant to absorb votes of Robert Kennedy supporters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Eugene McCarthy.

 McGovern's name was placed in nomination by Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, an RFK supporter who had served in JFK's cabinet. He looked down from the podium directly at Mayor Daley in the Illinois delegation that was positioned front and center when he said, "and with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago."  Daley, his face contorted with anger, shouted something back which some heard as "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch."

Humphrey was nominated on the first ballot.  Some 400 delegates joined protesters in Grant Park.

The next day there was another emotional moment in the convention hall when a short film on the life and death of Senator Robert Kennedy was shown.  This was the first Democratic Convention since 1964, when Robert Kennedy introduced a film about his murdered brother, President John F. Kennedy.

Again spontaneous singing rang out in the hall.  This time it was The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was the song that crowds in some places had spontaneously sung as Robert Kennedy's funeral train passed by.  One witness wrote of the singing in the hall, "It seemed that they would never stop."

It is highly likely that none of this would have happened if Robert Kennedy hadn't been murdered in June.  In 1968 the state primaries elected relatively few delegates--the power was still with party officials, who were essentially controlled by LBJ.  Even after RFK won the largest primary in California, LBJ's anointed successor, VP Hubert Humphrey, would arrive at the convention with more delegates.

But things would probably have changed there, and the key ironically would have been Mayor Daley.  Daley had no firm conviction about Vietnam, but he wanted a winning candidate, and he'd helped JFK win the White House.  He let it slip once in the time leading up to the convention that his candidate had died.

Two Conn. McCarthy delegates: Paul Newman
and playwright Arthur Miller

Even after RFK's death, Daley and reportedly many other party regulars knew that Humphrey was a weak candidate.  He was running far behind Nixon in the polls, and even behind McCarthy in Illinois.  Daley was one of those leaders who during convention week tried to persuade Senator Ted Kennedy to accept a draft for the nomination, but the Kennedy family was still in disarray after RFK's death and Ted was now the head of the family.  He was only 36, just a year beyond the age of eligibility to run for President.   In the end he declined.

But had RFK lived and Daley delivered the Illinois delegation, others would have followed, and it is likely that Robert Kennedy would have won the nomination, with every chance of winning the presidency and in short order ending the Vietnam war.

The demonstrations in Chicago would probably have been different as well.  Some groups had begun planning them immediately after the October march on the Pentagon, but when McCarthy and then RFK entered the race and were winning primaries, interest slowed to nearly a stop.  It was only after RFK's assassination, when it was clear that McCarthy wouldn't make a real run at the nomination, that calls for demonstrations became louder and more urgent.

Bumper sticker I plastered on my guitar case after 1972
election.  Particularly popular during Watergate.

The debacle of the nomination itself led to reforms within the Democratic party to give wider representation at the convention and more decision-making to voters, including the expansion of primaries that now usually decide the candidate.

 But the immediate effect was mostly to replace the violent chaos of 1968 with the joyous chaos of the 1972 convention.  Humphrey in 1968 came within a half million votes of the presidency.  George McGovern in 1972 went down to the most resounding electoral college defeat in history, losing every state but Massachusetts and DC to Nixon, re-elected by that margin despite what was already known about Watergate.

Part of the reason was that a lot of people didn't like chaos.  They didn't like rampant impropriety (and worse) that threatened stability and security, and seemed to insult their careful lives.  So even though polls and primary results showed that a great many Americans wanted the Vietnam war to end, and some saw the horror of official police violence, they tended to blame the demonstrators more.

That's why, some say, Humphrey lost in 1968, and a contributing reason for McGovern's loss in 1972. And it's probably why, one night of convention week in Chicago, I couldn't find a place to sleep.

A star of TV coverage, young Julian
Bond, who had to pass on a vice-
presidential nomination bid  because he was
too young.

I have strong memories of watching the TV coverage of the last three days of the convention.  I just don't remember where I was watching.  But it seems likely I left Chicago on Tuesday.  So it must have been on Monday night that I was out with Knox friends.  My train was leaving the next morning, so I needed a place for that night--in other words, the guest room or floor of somebody's parents' house in the Chicago suburbs.

But there was too much chaos on television, and one by one, my friends failed to get permission (let alone an invitation.)  I imagine the question was asked more than once, "Does he have long hair?"

So I had no recourse but to sleep in the train station.  I find myself in memory walking Chicago streets at night, a little stoned and a little lost.  I thought I was close to the station but wasn't sure.  I was cutting through a large parking lot when I saw a policeman in the gear I'd seen on TV, perhaps returned from the battle, leaning against a car in the semi-dark.  His head was down.  He seemed to be shaken.  I don't even think he saw me before I spoke. For whatever other instincts I had, my first was from childhood training: when you're lost, ask a policeman.

That's what I did.  He looked up to see a long-haired kid carrying a duffel bag and a guitar case.  I repeated the question and he straightened up.  He seemed to come to himself.  He thought about it a second and gave me walking directions to my train station.  I thanked him and moved off into the darkness.

Grand Central Station circa 1968, demolished in 1969.

Here's where the memory gets fuzzier.  I recall the station I was looking for as the Grand Central Station (which no longer exists.)  I know I sometimes took trains from there to Pittsburgh, and indeed there was at least one train--the B&O Chicago Capitol Limited--that still left from there.

Chicago Grand Central Station interior

But I was going back to Galesburg and eventually to Iowa City.  For awhile I thought it had to be Union Station but recently I found a note that suggested it was Dearborn Station, where the Santa Fe Railroad train left for Galesburg.

Santa Fe train leaves Dearborn Station in 1968.
These trains moved to Union Station in 1971.

In any case, I made it to the station that night, and was dozing in the waiting room when a worried looking man in a vaguely railroad uniform woke me up, and asked me what I was doing there.  I told him I was taking a train in the morning.  Somehow I satisfied him this was this case--maybe I had a ticket, or I bought one from him.  In any case his attitude changed completely once I was a passenger, and he escorted me up some stairs to another waiting room where other passengers were sleeping.  I would be safe there, he said.

There are many books, articles and videos on the Chicago convention, as well as information online. ( I found this timeline particularly useful.)  One of my favorite books covering the subject is An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 by three British reporters.  But their title is wrong: this was an American tragedy.

There are recent recollections and commentaries, including David Denby in the New Yorker, who basically writes about Mailer writing about Chicago. He ends with a comparison to today.  He quotes Mailer:

"Since obsessions dragoon our energy by endless repetitive contemplations of guilt we can neither measure nor forget, political power of the most frightening sort was obviously waiting for the first demagogue who would smash the obsession and free the white man of his guilt. Torrents of energy would be loosed, yes, those same torrents which Hitler had freed in the Germans when he exploded their ten-year obsession with whether they had lost the war through betrayal or through material weakness. Through betrayal, Hitler had told them."

Denby concludes:

"This premonition of Donald Trump and of what Trump has “loosed” in his audience was written exactly fifty years ago. At the moment, not one word of it seems excessive. “Miami & the Siege of Chicago” was composed at the worst time in our national life, though the current moment is a close second. Reading it gives not only pleasure of a literary sort but strength and solace. If the country could survive 1968, it will survive Donald Trump, too."

Inevitably I think instead about contrasting moments in Grant Park.  Photos from 1968 show it filled with protestors, who on several occasions got battered by police.  It was in political terms the center of frustration and futility as well as brutality.

Then there was election night of 2008, when thousands gathered in that same Grant Park to hear the networks say that America had elected its first black President, and then to see Barack Obama and his family make their first post-election appearance on the stage before them.

It's not a sight that I would have imagined possible forty years before.  And now, ten years after, it's hard to believe that it ever really happened.

The Passing Show: Joe Kennedy

 Bill Clinton, who as a teenager shook hands with President Kennedy, was inspired by JFK to pursue a political career.  Barack Obama, too young to have met either John or Robert Kennedy (both assassinated in the 1960s), nevertheless was inspired by them.  The sudden support of JFK's daughter Caroline and then the rest of the Kennedys provided Senator Obama's campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination with a huge boost.  A special friendship developed between President Obama and Senator Ted Kennedy, ending only with Kennedy's death.

So in turn, when Representative Joe Kennedy gave the official Democratic rejoinder to the anti-president's state of the union address, he made a speech before an audience in a Massachusetts auto assembly plant that echoed Obama themes and language to an almost eerie extent.

Joe Kennedy is the grandson of Robert Kennedy, a US Attorney-General and Senator from New York who was fatally shot minutes after winning the final big primary of 1968 in California, preparing to go to the August convention with the most delegates won for President.

Joe's father, Joseph P. Kennedy II, served in the US House of Representatives for about a decade, from the late 80s to the late 90s.  He was actually the third Joe Kennedy in his family line.  The first Joseph Kennedy was the family patriarch who built a fortune and served as US Ambassador to England for FDR.  He was grooming his eldest son, Joseph Jr., to run for President, the first Irish Catholic to do so.  But Joseph Jr. was killed in combat in World War II, and eventually his younger brother, John F. Kennedy, ran for President in 1960 and won.

So this Joe Kennedy is political and American royalty, and like the young royals of the UK, he is informal and unassuming.  He doesn't seem to have a trace of the famous Kennedy accent, a unique combination of Boston and New York.

His speech was widely applauded, though some on Twitter etc. fixated on what appeared to be flecks of chapstick on a corner of his mouth.   He clearly has a political future if he wants one--the previous generation of Kennedys for one reason or another withdrew from political life after a time.

Joe Kennedy is an heir to Kennedy concerns (he served in the Peace Corps) but is also tech savvy (graduate of Stanford) and serves on the House technology committee, as well as foreign relations and energy committees.  But he will be only 40 in 2020, and hasn't generated the buzz needed to be a serious presidential candidate so far.

Yet Democrats know they need some younger prospects, and the time is getting short.  Immediately after this November's congressional elections, the media will focus on presidential possibilities.  Right now the Dems don't have clear choices.

Senator Bernie Sanders also gave a rebuttal to the state of the union, which was much more specific in response to the actual speech.  (Joe Kennedy's sounded as if it was written much earlier.)  But Sanders will be 79 in 2020.  Another likely candidate is Joe Biden who will be 78.  Even Elizabeth Warren, not talked about so much these days, will be 71.  (It was in a Harvard class taught by Warren that Joe Kennedy met the woman he would marry.)

There are a number of other names that insiders and media mention as potential presidential candidates next time, especially of women and Latino men, but none has emerged with the kind of support that Barack Obama had by the time he declared for the presidential primaries in February 2007.  He'd been talked about since his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. So there's still time but it's getting short.

It also strikes me that the pure Obama message of inclusion and change is probably not going to be enough.  That positive message is ultimately unifying, but already we can see how degraded our politics and our country has become due to the current administration.  That's going to have to be acknowledged somehow.  The right balance that at least acknowledges if not expresses anger and pain suffered by many these days is tricky.  It's going to take somebody special--as Barack Obama was--to heal these wounds and move the country forward.  Not to mention winning the primaries and the general election.

Hey Cuz, I Mean Mr. President

Thanks to stumbling on my parents' names in a genealogy online, I discovered for the first time that I've acquired new relatives.

An email exchange to the person who posted it confirms that the daughter of one of my first cousins married into this family.  But in first trying to figure out why my parents were part of this family tree, I followed one of the branches to find some familiar names: George Bush, George W. Bush.  Yeah, those Bushes.

So I am distantly related to the Bushes, which means I am even more distantly related to the Clintons and the Obamas, because they are all related.

So, however distantly, I am related to the last four Presidents of the United States, and maybe the next one.






And not one of them invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.

Republicans Revert to Lies

It may be the New Age of Obama, but Republicans can't break their old habits, including the one they used most often to rule for 8 years: lying.

Right now they're getting their mugs on TV and filling their media blather with lies about the Obama economic recovery and stimulus package, and those who support it. In recent days, two economists called them on it.

Paul Krugman wrote about the plausible sounding lies GOPer lawmakers are telling any camera or microphone that sits still long enough. Some of it is the usual lying with selective misuse of statistics. Some of it involves assertions that have proven not to be true, such as tax cuts (especially if not exclusively to the wealthy) stimulate the economy better than spending programs. Krugman doesn't think these Republicans themselves even believe this. "The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending."

Some of the lying is word play. Programs that create jobs and perform necessary public work is demonized as "pork." Republicans complain that Obama's choices can't be proven to be the best ones. That's just a non sequiter.

Beyond stuffed shirt lawmakers, there's the roiling windbags of the right, and economist Robert Reich is fighting back at them. On his blog, Reich wrote:
"In the last few days, manifestly distorting my words and pulling them out of context, you have accused me of wanting to exclude white males from jobs generated by the stimulus package. Anyone who takes a moment to examine what I actually said and wrote knows this to be an absurd misrepresentation of my position (see this). My goal is and has always been to create as many opportunities for as wide a group as possible, and not exclude anyone from access. There is and has never been any ambiguity about this. The hate mail I have received since your broadcast suggests that the mischievous consequences of your demagoguery are potentially dangerous, in addition to being destructive of rational and constructive political discourse. I urge you to take responsibility for your words. Words and ideas have real world consequences, and you have demonstrated a cavalier disregard for both."

We've had decades of this kind of toxicity ruling the roost. It's going to take time to get beyond them, but that's part of what President Obama meant when he said in his Inaugural that it's time to put away childish things.

Why We Need It Now

President Obama's Weekly address (about 5 minutes), concerning the need for his economic recovery legislation. Transcript here.

More details on the plan were released, according to the New York Times: "According to the report, the Obama plan would double the generating capacity of renewable energy over three years, enough to power six million American homes. It would retrofit two million homes and 75 percent of all federal buildings to better protect against the weather, saving low-income homeowners an average of $350 a year in utility costs and the government $2 billion a year.
The White House also envisions using loan guarantees and other financial support to leverage $100 billion in private sector investment in so-called clean energy projects over three years. The plan would lay 3,000 miles of new or upgraded transmission wires for a new electric grid.
The plan would help 8.5 million Americans keep health care coverage by providing workers who lose insurance with tax credits to pay for continuing coverage under the federal law known as Cobra, and by expanding Medicaid coverage for low-income Americans who lack access to Cobra. The Medicaid formula would be adjusted to protect 20 million Americans whose coverage might be in jeopardy because of state budget shortfalls.
The plan would modernize 10,000 schools, improve security at 90 ports and build 1,300 wastewater projects. It would bolster Pell Grants to help seven million students and offer a new tax credit for four million college students. And it would increase food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans and increase Social Security benefits $450 for 7.5 million disabled and elderly people."

President Obama's First Day

YES to ethics and transparency.

NO to secrets prisons and Guantanamo.

NO to the Iraq War.

According to news briefs, President Obama's second day will focus on foreign affairs, particularly the Mideast. But other problems may be brewing, including what seems to be growing anxiety about Mexico, according to this AP report. The Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State on Wednesday.

On the Economy, while Congress begins discussions on the recovery plan, there are stories that banks and the financial system require more attention. This intriguing piece at TPM suggests how big the plans may be to deal with this. However, due in part to the fact that the Treasury Secretary has not yet been confirmed, proposals that some said would come as early as this week may not happen for a couple of weeks.

Of course there were lots of stories Wednesday about the Inauguration, and accounts of experiences in Washington and elsewhere. This one caught my eye for its link to what began with the JFK Inauguration (the one I went to Washington to see) through the Peace Corps and Harris Wofford, who I worked with on a project in Pennsylvania when he was PA Sec. of Labor in the late 80s--and heard some of these Peace Corps and JFK stories first hand. I'm happy to hear how well he's doing--and how well he's dancing!

The First Couple

An Inaugural Ball tonight; the Inaugural Parade today. NYTimes photos.

When Imagination is Joined

"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage." Barack Obama January 20, 2009

The Day

Three images from the New York Times from Inauguration Day: Barack and Michelle Obama walking for part of the parade route; the Inaugural platform; a wide version of the oath. Hours after the many Inaugural balls end early Wednesday morning, President Obama will be at work. Already he has requested that all prosecutions of prisoners at Guantanamo be halted pending a review of the tribunal system, and there is likely to be big news before this time Wednesday night. It was a day that comes once in a generation, at most, and this one in some ways was the culmination of the entire history of the U.S. But things are going to start happening--big, and fast. You ain't seen nothing yet.

The Inaugural Ceremony

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." click to enlarge.

President Barack Obama

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

The Beginning Hour

Supported by an astounding 85% of Americans in a new CBS poll (while the outgoing Bush gets 22% and Cheney 13%), Barack Obama is just hours away from taking his oath of office as the 44th President of the United States. It promises to be an unforgettable day.

A Long and Winding Road

A reminder of an incredible campaign. Click to enlarge.

One Day to Change

According to reporting by Elizabeth Drew, Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 election was so large that he could have won without the vote of a single African American. Nevertheless, the Inauguration tomorrow of the first African American President reminds us on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday that tomorrow is a victory for racial justice and of King's dream of a society in which people are judged not on their race but on the content of their character. It is clearly a significant source of hope for young people, but particularly for those of perceived minorities, and especially for African American children, like this one.

Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial (2)

"Despite the enormity of the task that lies ahead, I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure — that it will prevail, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time."--Barack Obama at the Lincoln Memorial. AP story here. Click to enlarge. AP photos.

Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial

New York Times story on the event here. Click to enlarge. AP photos. The figures in the photos include Bruce Springstein, Pete Seger, Beyonce, will i. am, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Bono, Tiger Woods, Denzel Washington, Malia Obama. Garth Brooks (not pictured) led the crowd (estimated at 750,000 or more) in a rousing rendition of "Shout!"