Comment on Washington Post Book Review Pieces

A lesson taught by the March 16 Book World is that although we must learn from history we should avoid accepting instantaneous interpretations made by too many news accounts of today’s events.

The teaser on the cover of that issue of Book World about Iraq, a review of a 1964 book on the American Revolution inside, and the piece by Jonathan Yardley on the theory of history held by Gordon S. Wood tie together nicely.

Wood is precisely right about “presentism” when he writes, as quoted by Yardley. “Insofar as it teaches any lessons, [history] teaches only one big one: that nothing ever works out quite the way its managers intended or expected.”

The cover blurb states, “IRAQ. Six books on the lives lost, the money spent and the opportunities squandered. Pages 4-9” Certainly, that’s a summation of “present-mindedness” of recent military history.

Thomas E. Ricks in his review on page 8 of “The War for America, 1775-1783” notes that leadership in London failed to sustain its support of colonists loyal to the crown although those loyalists were vital to the plan for victory. Ricks compares British 18th century strategy in the American colonies with 21st century U.S. strategy in Iraq. An editor underscores the review using images of George III and George W. Bush along with a cutline that doesn’t appear in the piece, “These two wartime leaders might end up having more in common than just their first names.”

Yardley reviewed Wood’s “The Purpose of the Past, Reflections on the Uses of History.” His review of the book -- which is a compilation of Wood’s essays about histories by fellow academic historians -- concludes that “…deeply informed and resolutely fair-minded, it is essential reading for anyone who cares about history and the uses and abuses to which we subject it.”

Thesix inside pages, which we are encouraged by the cover’s squib to read, surely are examples of “instantism,” even though the history covered is contemporary. Wood is quoted as opining that historians should know “about the past and to be able to relate it without anachronistic distortion to our present” which to him means “having a historical sense.”

News writing is not history despite its later help to historians --- historians deserving the title.

IS THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE FAIR?

Before “1984” became a real year, Big-Brother-like politicians were using euphemisms to name legislative bills and administrative law. One such example: the Fairness Doctrine.

 

Nothing was much fair about undermining – perhaps suborning -- the speech and press freedoms among the five freedoms in the First Amendment..

 

Thankfully, the Federal Communications Commission undid the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Now, because of the perceived influence on public opinion by talk radio, moves are being made in Congress to reinstate the doctrine.

 

Old arguments about the so-called scarcity of space on the electromagnetic spectrum – the airwaves – the government has a right to regulate the content, particularly the political content, that is broadcast. More about that later.

 

Citizens have a right to criticize their government because “We the People …do ordain and establish this Constitution for the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />United States of America.” If the government could decide what could be said in criticism, there could be no freedoms, such as those guaranteed by the First Amendment.

 

Because those speaking about government and those writing and publishing opinions about it were protected from governmental interference when the Bill of Rights was ratified 1791 it is only rational to assume that words and images about government would have been protected had broadcasting  been invented by then.

 

Is that not logical? Why then the argument?

 

Broadcasting is inherently no different than the print media in transferring facts, ideas, entertainment, indeed, lies and deceits for that matter. In fact, neither are cable, the internet, broadband, sideband and whatever else might come along. Even proponents of the Fairness Doctrine must admit it does not apply to the content of cable because cable is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum and thus cannot be parceled out to licensees.

 

Blank verse

Autumn 2007

 

The leaves of brown

Come tumbling down,

The song says, but

The reds, the golds, the

Oranges, the yellows

Join them in drifting

To earth to compost in

The forest, to be raked

In the cities and towns

To be burned or collected

Or piled on trash heaps,

Or arranged in vases

To celebrate the season;

Were all the dying leaves

Brown the dreariness

Would overcome the spirit

Yet the variations on the theme

Of the shades of death

Only remind that beauty

Beyond human imagination

Lives beyond the grave.

 

Hilliam or Billary?

Is it too early to ask that if Hillary Clinton were elected the 44th president would the 42nd actually run the White House and the country?

 

Why has not that question received more attention? Surely it has been asked by some savvy pols, especially Republicans.

 

Back in 1992 the cry of William Jefferson Clinton was that voters would get two for one by electing him, meaning he had a smart wife. Senator Clinton isn’t using that line, although she hints her hubby might very well be more than a First Spouse looking after state dinners and flower arrangements in the executive mansion.

 

Let’s stipulate that there are many Democratic voters who would be most pleased if the Hon. Bill Clinton were more than just the husband of a sitting president. Might not his vast knowledge of statecraft be a boon to the good ol’ US of A? Would not his advice add an extra edge to someone called “the smartest woman in the world”? Perhaps there is some validity in that position. He could, perhaps, stop her from making some move that his experience would find unwise. Are two minds not better than one?

 

Yet, he would have to keep his influence from public view in order to prevent her authority from dilution. Should he be seen as the real power behind the Oval Office it would do her and the country no good. Could he sublimate his influence so that she, not he, would benefit from the synergy of their collective thinking? Would it be collective thinking? How would their occupancy of the White House be perceived by the news media, the pundits and the citizenry at large? How would foreign governments react, having once dealt with another President Clinton?

 

Perhaps any answer – certainly at this stage of the campaign – after she were inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, would be purely conjectural. Oh, the presidential press secretary would be peppered continually with related questions, but would any answer satisfy the press?

 

Mrs. Clinton’s rivals for the Democratic nomination have not pushed speculation about what role Bill Clinton would play as the president’s husband. The very mention of such an idea would increase her front-running position.

 

Any of the Republicans seeking the nomination might want to save such a stratagem until after the nominating convention. Broaching it too early might backfire.

 

Nonetheless, it seems that the electorate in the caucus and primary states needs to consider whether voting for Hillary Clinton is a vote for one person or two. Is a vote at that stage a vote for Hilliam or, even, Billlary?

 

Should Senator Clinton become President Clinton it might be difficult to know whether there were one chief executive or two. Would the commander-in-chief be commanders in chief? Even if Bill Clinton truly remain in the background and offered no more pertinent advice than an appointed aide would the White House be able to convince the news media and the public of that benign arrangement?

 

Surely these are legitimate questions although the election is 14 months out. Good arguments can be made either way They should be debated.