O, Captain, My Captain

When I was in college, it was my honor to study reporting under a professor who truly lived the adage that journalism is the first draft of history.

His name was Roy Reed, and he once worked for the New York Times; in fact, he was there when the landmark Times v. Sullivan decision was rendered, and he enthralled us in class with stories of that time. He also worked for the Arkansas Gazette before becoming a journalism professor at the University of Arkansas.

He was on the front lines of history in the 20th century.

He covered Orval Faubus at the Gazette. In the Times job he covered the civil rights movement in the South of the 1960s.

I will always remember the stories he told in class about covering marches that were led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — and how he feared for his life when he and the rest of the reporters came under the hate–filled glares of the whites who watched the marches from the sidewalks of sleepy Southern towns.

The folks at the Times didn't think that was hazardous enough, I suppose, so they sent Roy to Northern Ireland to cover the Protestants and the Catholics.

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After doing that for awhile, life in Fayetteville must have seemed positively placid by comparison. I never saw anyone as completely happy as Roy was when I was enrolled in his class. He had lived a life to which many — myself included — aspired, and he told us all about it — the good, the bad and the ugly. He was paying it forward, as they say today, sharing the things he had learned in a lifetime in the profession with the next generation.

He didn't give away A's in his class. You had to earn them. And it has always been a source of pride for me that I earned an A in Roy's reporting class. It isn't exactly the kind of thing you can put on a resume. But I'm proud of it, and I carry it with me.

Roy had an aneurysm yesterday and died at the age of 87.

As I understand the sequence of events, he lapsed into a coma on Saturday and was kept alive for a time, but life support was removed today and he passed away.

Roy's life was all about communication and information — so it was fitting that it was through social media, which didn't exist when I was in Roy's class but is the method for spreading information in the 21st century, that I learned of his death. There is a Facebook page where my friends and former colleagues post news of interest, and the tributes to Roy have been pouring in over there.

We all have our own memories of Roy. For me, there are too many to count, but one stands out. I was in his class in an election year, and he recruited several of us to do volunteer work at the county courthouse on Election Night. I suppose many, if not all, of us were motivated by the lure of extra credit, but I was genuinely interested in participating in the process on an Election Night — which, in those days, required us to spend most of the evening on the phone taking down vote totals from precincts by hand and passing along the totals to others, who would compile them. When all the precincts had been heard from, the numbers were passed on to the secretary of state's office in Little Rock.

After I graduated from college, I participated in similar work for newspapers on Election Nights to come. Whenever I did I always thought back to that night during my college days. Among other things I owe that to Roy.

He influenced so many of us — and he will never be forgotten.

Where Is the Outrage?

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I support Americans' right to assemble peacefully, to protest peacefully when they believe an injustice has occurred. I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

I wish my government did, too.

For more than a week now, Americans have witnessed scenes in the streets of Ferguson, Mo., where a black teenager was shot and killed. They haven't always been peaceful — or anything resembling it. What are they protesting? A young man died. That is a sad thing. Some would call it an injustice.

I wouldn't.

Before you make any assumptions about me that are not true, hear me out. My definition of injustice is when justice has been denied. Has justice been denied in this case? No. The system has not had time to do what it was designed to do.

Many of the people I have seen involved in the protests in Missouri say they want justice — but they don't. They want revenge. Those are two different things. Justice requires facts, evidence. Revenge does not.

If anyone — in Ferguson or anywhere else — tells you he/she knows the police officer was guilty of murder, he/she is lying — because no one knows all the facts. That is — supposedly — why we have trials. To see the evidence, hear the testimony, then sift through it all and decide what the truth is.

Murder, by the way, is a legal term that is reserved for a case in which a jury has ruled that someone's death was caused deliberately by someone else. Until a jury has made that determination, legally (based on the laws of the state where the death occurred), no murder has happened.

Legally.

And I can tell you — as one who covered my share of trials in my reporting days — that almost no one knows the whole story until that trial has been held.

We don't really know what happened in Ferguson two weeks ago. We should reserve judgment because we do know that our system requires that we presume the innocence of the accused until he has been proven guilty in an open court. If I am ever accused of anything and find myself in court, I want that presumption of innocence. For it to remain strong, it cannot be denied to anyone. Nor can due process.

That is so important because often there is no unambiguous evidence of someone's guilt, and all the available evidence must be studied before a conclusion can be reached. Criminal charges of any kind are far too serious to be left to emotion.

We do know what happened in Iraq, though. It is not ambiguous. We don't know precisely when it happened, only when the video of the execution of photojournalist James Foley by an ISIS terrorist surfaced. Foley's beheading wasn't accidental. It was intentional. It was carried out by an apparent Briton — but nearly all of him — including his face — was hidden by black clothing.

He wasn't necessarily British. I have taught many foreign students; some spoke with distinctly British accents, but they weren't from the U.K. They came from other countries. Without exception, they were schooled in British schools by British teachers, and if you spoke to any of them on the phone, you would assume they were British. But they weren't.

The English–speaking jihadists were recruited deliberately. It's obvious. With their British accents, they can blend into places like America without arousing any suspicion while waiting for their assignments. Such accents are regarded as non–threatening by most Americans. And, even if they don't necessarily look British, with our borders as wide open as they are, who's going to notice another undocumented foreigner?

I am outraged on several levels by this act of blatant barbarism.

While I have done other things in my life, I will always consider myself a journalist. I never faced the danger that Foley clearly did, but I have known those who did. And when something like this happens, it is like a death in the family. I never met James Foley, but, as I say, I have known many like him.

The president, who never hesitates to stick his nose where it doesn't belong domestically, especially when it involves white on black crime (of which there is remarkably little), took some time from his vacation to acknowledge the murder — and took the unprecedented step of revealing details about a U.S. mission that failed to rescue Foley earlier this summer — then rushed back to the golf course in Martha's Vineyard, which is where he was when Foley's family held their emotional press conference.

He didn't have a photo op with Foley's family the way he did with Bergdahl's — even though he could have negotiated for Foley's freedom when he went against American policy to negotiate for Bergdahl's release.

What reason was there for disclosing details about the mission that failed? Politics. It was the president's way of getting credit for being tough — yes, he did try to do something, but, oops, it just didn't work. And, for all you bad guys, here's what we tried to do with material that we have at such–and–such location. Do you think that put any Americans in jeopardy? I do.

The president, along with his media enablers, is loath to use the word "evil," even when really no other word is sufficient. This is one of those times.

In just an hour or so on the internet last night, I found two references — in the New York Times and U.S. News and World Report — to ISIS' brownshirts as "militant."

My father is OK with the use of the word "militant," but I'm not. It strikes me as flippant. When I hear the word "militant," I think of the protests of the '60s — when campus militants, as they were called, threw Molotov cocktails at buildings — and people. Mostly, those "militants" were protesting for something (i.e., civil rights) or against something (the war in Vietnam). Sometimes, people got hurt. Occasionally (but, really, not that often) people were killed.

But it was never as blatant, as cold–bloodedly deliberate as the slaying of James Foley.

We need a word for these ISIS people. Judging by their behavior, people is far too generous, but there are those who would object if they were called animals, which is much closer to the truth. Do we need a new word? I'm not so sure. I think it would be appropriate to call them 21st–century Nazis. In the '40s, if someone said the word Nazi, you knew precisely what it meant.

Like the 20th–century Nazis, these people cannot be appeased. They are intent upon killing Americans. They said they would execute more Americans — and all they're looking for is an excuse. They asked for $132 million for Foley, then, when they were told that time would be needed to raise the money, they stopped communicating altogether.

They weren't interested in the money. They already control the oilfields in Iraq and Syria as well as all the sources of revenue in the larger cities. All the request for time to raise such a huge sum did was take away an excuse to kill an American, but they had another one ready. They blamed the pin–prick airstrikes and warned that, if they continue, more Americans will die. Obama said they would continue.

Do you doubt that they will make good their threat? I don't. Not for a second. They clearly want to kill Americans — and they want Americans to see them killing Americans.

It was naive for anyone to believe that the war on terror was over. Now, I fear, it will be deadly.

Do you believe that, somehow, ISIS will fail because evil always fails? The Nazis didn't fail. They were beaten by the Allies. It is the only way to deal with this kind of people. I regret having to say that because it contradicts the way I was brought up. But as long as these people exist, they are a deadly threat to us and our modern allies. Our friends in Europe should be especially concerned, being as close to ISIS as they are, geographically.

A few months ago, we observed the 70th anniversary of D–Day, the event that marked the turning point of World War II. A sustained effort is needed now if we are to rid the world of the menace that threatens us today.

We cannot delude ourselves into thinking it is over until it really is.

The Golden Anniversary of Times v. Sullivan

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When I was studying journalism in college, my professors all spoke of the landmark Supreme Court decision in the New York Times v. Sullivan case, and they did in reverent terms. Rightfully so.

Most of us students knew nothing about it — it had all happened before our time — but, within the context of my own experiences since college, I appreciate it more with each passing year. It reaffirms my faith in the First Amendment.

They told us that perhaps no other Supreme Court decision — certainly no modern–era decision — has been more important to the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the press than the one in the Times v. Sullivan case, and they were right.

(Richard Labunski, for one, asserts without hesitation in the Providence (R.I.) Journal that it is the "most important First Amendment case in the nation's history." I'm inclined to agree.)

I teach journalism in the community college system here, and Sunday's 50th anniversary of the Times v. Sullivan decision makes me wish I could teach a class in communications law. I'm not a lawyer, though, which I suppose would prevent me from teaching such a class, but I think I understand that case well enough that I could discuss it with my students. I'm sure it would be a lively conversation.

Maybe it is enough to know that it is possible for me to tell my students so many other things because of the freedoms that decision affirmed and strengthened.

It probably would be helpful to give a little background information.

Nearly four years earlier, in 1960, the New York Times ran a full–page advertisement that had the appearance of an article but was actually an attempt to raise money for Martin Luther King Jr.'s legal defense against perjury charges in Alabama. In modern lingo, I suppose you would call it an advertorial.

At issue wasn't deception but inaccuracy and defamation. The article in the advertisement described actions that had been taken against civil rights activists in Alabama. Some of the descriptions were accurate, some were not — and some involved the police in Montgomery, Ala.

The article in the advertisement incorrectly reported that Alabama's state police had arrested King seven times; in fact, he had been arrested four times. Montgomery's public safety commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, considered the advertisement defamatory (to him because he supervised the police even though he was not mentioned by name) and demanded a retraction (which was a condition, under state law, for a public official to pursue punitive damages; he could do so if no retraction was forthcoming).

The Times refused, and Sullivan filed suit against the Times and four black ministers who were mentioned in the advertisement.

At this point, there were hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of libel actions pending against news outlets covering the civil rights movement in the South, which had kind of a paralyzing effect on many members of the press. The fear of legal action prevented many news organizations from being more aggressive in their coverage of civil rights in the South.

Half a million dollars was awarded to Sullivan by a Montgomery jury, and the Times appealed the decision. The appeal made its way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the decision by a 9–0 vote and, in the process, established the standard of actual malice.

The Alabama law was ruled to be unconstitutional because it had no provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which are required by the First and 14th Amendments. The Court also held that, even if such provisions had been made, the evidence did not support the judgment against the Times.

The Court's ruling imposed a new burden on public officials who are plaintiffs in a libel suit — actual malice. There must be proof that the defendant knowingly published false information or acted with "reckless disregard for the truth."

As Justice Hugo Black wrote, it is hard to prove or disprove malice. Well, it might be easier to prove today, what with the digital paper trail that is left through emails, text messages and the like. I don't know. Undoubtedly, that part of the law will be shaped and refined in the years ahead.

That's how it has worked in the last 50 years. Subsequent decisions and Supreme Court appeals have addressed elements of libel law and actual malice. For example, while the original Supreme Court ruling applied only to public officials, it has been extended to include public figures as well.

And it has had implications that went beyond the working press to include commentary, criticism, even satire as well as the definitions of concepts such as privacy, indecency and obscenity.

For advocates of the First Amendment (which should mean all Americans), the real hero in the decision was Justice William Brennan, who wrote about the critical role a free press plays in keeping the public informed and encouraging open debate. Even "caustic debate" is vital in a democracy, Brennan said.

Inevitably, Brennan observed, inaccurate statements will be made, and incomplete reports will be published in a dynamic democracy. Public debate must be "uninhibited, robust and wide open," and it "may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." Consequently, "breathing space" must be permitted.

The Supreme Court didn't have to hear the case. It always has the option of refusing to hear a case. But the Justices saw the First and 14th Amendment implications in the case, and the ruling that was issued half a century ago safeguards the "unfettered interchange of ideas" that continues to be defined.

A Great Moment in American Journalism

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A great moment in American journalism occurred 100 years ago in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic.

Unfortunately, it is probably one of the lesser known stories surrounding the famous shipwreck.

Carr Van Anda, managing editor of the New York Times, scooped the competition largely because he put two and two together and concluded that the reason there had been no more communication from the ship was that it had sunk, and he insisted on publishing that information.

The problem was that the White Star Line, the shipping company that owned Titanic, had reported via wireless transmissions that the ship had, in fact, encountered some problems with ice, but it insisted the ship had not sunk.

But Van Anda had seen the wireless transmissions from the ship and noted the fact that there had been no more transmissions after the early morning hours of April 15. He was convinced that meant the ship had gone down, but, since Van Anda was nearly 1,000 miles away from the scene of the disaster, other newspapers were reluctant to dispute White Star's account. Van Anda, of course, did not have the benefit of modern technology; he went with his gut instincts.

It was a real gamble, a roll of the dice, and if White Star's version of events had been true, and it turned out that the reason there had been no more transmissions from Titanic was due to equipment failure or something like that, we might be commemorating the centennial of "Van Anda's folly" and not the sinking of the Titanic.

It was a few days before he was proven correct. The ship that brought the Titanic's survivors to New York was delayed by various factors (including the same ice that had brought down Titanic) and didn't get there for three more days — and it "was under a virtual news blackout," writes James Barron of the New York Times. "Its telegraph operators were not distributing messages from newspapers seeking information about the Titanic."

But when it finally arrived, the story was told — and Van Anda was vindicated.

Do You Really Want This Job?

That's what I want to ask anyone who runs for president.

I mean, I know full–time jobs are hard to come by these days — and that one does pay well, along with coming with a well–furnished, rent–free home in which to live for four years and an airplane that will take you anywhere you want to go.

But, other than that, I really would like to know why anyone would want to be president.

It wasn't that way when I was a kid.

I was always interested in the presidents when I was small. Looked up to them, I did. When I was little, I committed to memory all the presidents in chronological order — don't know why I did that, couldn't even hazard a guess. Nevertheless, I did that when I was in first grade. True story. I had been given a set of cards with each president's portrait on one side and brief biographical data on the other. Sort of like baseball cards — but with commanders in chief.

Somewhere I got the idea that serving as president was the greatest, noblest thing to which a person could aspire. My parents and my friends would tease me about coming to visit me in the White House. There was even a time when I believed I would be president one day.

But I gave up on that idea a long time ago.

To seek the presidency, I believe, requires an unholy alliance of selflessness and egotism. It is a combination one rarely finds in garden variety occupations (outside of politics). The successful application of those two personality traits is rarer still.

A president must be incredibly selfless, willing to accept the nearly constant scrutiny, the almost total lack of a private life that comes with the territory — and, simultaneously, he must possess an enormous ego to think that he can wear all the hats one must wear as president.

The expectations really are incredible. No human being could possibly live up to all of them — but that hasn't kept some from trying.

Some, of course, haven't even tried.

But most who have tried to be all things to all people — and most who have not tried to be anything — have not succeeded in the Oval Office.

The successful presidents, the ones who are remembered by history, typically are remembered for their strengths in spite of their weaknesses. They carved out their niches. You know what I mean — Lincoln, for example, is remembered as "Honest Abe" and "The Great Emancipator" (even though abolishing slavery was not his initial goal when the Civil War began).

The unsuccessful ones tend to obtain less flattering nicknames.

In the first 2½ years of his presidency, Barack Obama has shown time and time again that among his top priorities is a desire for bipartisanship — preferably while maintaining a certain amount of distance which gives the appearance of elitism to some.

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(Sometimes he reminds me of Frasier Crane, who was once the subject of an unflattering limerick that was scrawled on the men's room wall at work, and he sought to prove he was just one of the guys by inviting all of his colleagues, most of whom he did not know, to a party at his place.

(But his quest for acceptance backfired on him. His colleagues embraced him a little too warmly, and Frasier lamented the end of the days when he was "unapproachable" to most of the people in the office. "Couldn't they have sent just one representative?" he asked.

(After weeks of dealing with the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and their minions, I have to think Obama would sympathize.)

Maybe it was something else. I suppose, when Obama's presidency has been over for several years and historians have had the opportunity to assess every angle of every action and the long–term consequences, there will be an answer of some kind.

But what seems clear to me, at this point, is that Obama squandered much of his political capital on inconsequential fights early in his term when his party handily controlled both chambers of Congress, leaving him with little in reserve when he really needed it — on this squabble over the debt ceiling (which still isn't resolved as I write this, by the way).

On the surface, one can say that Obama probably did about as well as he could have hoped for. Neither side was going to get everything it wanted, but the catastrophe that he and others feared probably has been avoided.

If the crisis really has been resolved, it can't be seen as a triumph for either side. Both sides will spin it to their best advantage, but the truth is that it never should have come to this in the first place.

The real "winners" — if it can be said that there were winners — were the millions of Americans whose existences may have been made much more difficult if nothing had been done.

Some people will say that was leadership — although, publicly at least, Obama remained at arm's length of the debate and let others do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile, the rhetoric from both sides remained quite partisan, suggesting that even more intense debates lie ahead in the 2012 election cycle.

Given the partisan tone of this debate, Obama couldn't be surprised at the criticism that has come his way from the right and the center. But he might be somewhat taken aback by the wrath that has come from the left.

Many Democrats in Congress aren't happy, and neither are columnists who are usually supportive of this president.

There was a double whammy for Obama in the almost always supportive New York Times.

Paul Krugman wrote that the president surrendered under pressure and there is more to come. A precedent has been set, he says, that will endure beyond the Obama presidency.

"[H]ow can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation's economic security, gets to dictate policy?" he asked.

Another of Obama's followers, Maureen Dowd, may have been even more damning. She wrote that Obama — in the eyes of an unnamed Democratic senator who, presumably, will be among those to vote on the deal today — is "turn[ing] into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes."

Such is the fickle nature of American politics. When Obama was elected and about to take the oath of office, he was compared to Lincoln and FDR. As his first year in office dragged on, the comparisons dropped to less historically impressive (flawed but successful) predecessors.

When the discussion deteriorates to comparisons with one–term presidents, I would suggest that you investigate the source. It's usually someone with an axe to grind. But Dowd was on board the Obama bandwagon before there was a bandwagon. She was an Obamaphile before Obama was cool.

And, over at the Washington Post, which has been nearly as supportive of Obama as the Times, Greg Sargent reminds those in power that, once the latest distraction is behind us, it's time for that long–promised "pivot to jobs."

That makes me think there may be some dissension within the ranks. At best, with his approval rating languishing in the 40s, Obama must realize that the 2012 election will be much closer than the one in 2008. States that narrowly voted for Obama — and rarely vote for Democrats — like Indiana, North Carolina and Colorado — are highly unlikely to vote for him again, and it will be touch and go in a lot of other places, too.

When liberals start saying a liberal president surrendered and is taking on the look of the Democrats' last one–term president, it could well lead to a challenge from within Obama's party (it isn't too late for a challenger to emerge, however unlikely he/she would be to succeed) and a possible victory for the other party in the general election — even if the opposition nominates someone generally seen as an extremist.

That was what happened to Carter — who entered the presidency on a wave of popularity that was similar to Obama's but is remembered by some as "President Malaise."

It isn't a fair characterization. As I have written here before, Carter never used the word malaise in his now–infamous speech from July 1979. But these things take on lives of their own.

It really makes me wonder why Obama would want to spend another four years in the White House — or why any of the Republicans who are challenging him would want to take his place.

Just the Facts

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"The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely."

Bob Herbert
New York Times

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In case you haven't heard, Bob Herbert is leaving the New York Times.

His last column was published/posted on Friday. He says he plans "to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society."

I'm sorry to see him go — but, if he can find a platform through which he can reach more people than he could as a columnist for the New York Times, all I can do is wish him godspeed.

Over the years, I have developed a great deal of respect for Herbert. I haven't always been able to read his stuff — and, with the Times apparently on the brink of returning to its unsuccessful pay–for–access policy, I probably wouldn't be able to read it in the future, either (although, I must confess, I don't know if everything will be restricted this time — or only selected content), so perhaps it is just as well that he no longer be on the staff.

I don't know if the "efforts" of which he speaks will include observations from a blog or a web site that I can access freely — but I hope they will because, if they do not, I will miss his insights.

He is one of the few writers out there who does not get carried away with emotion and still depends on facts to support his statements. I don't always agree with him, but at least he appeals to your head as well as your heart.

How times have changed. When I was in journalism school, it was presumed that, whether you were a newsgathering reporter or a columnist, you could support anything you wrote with facts.

If you could not, you simply weren't doing your job.

Speaking of journalism school, I recall having a professor during my undergraduate days who encouraged us to take the "Joe Friday approach" to writing about the news.

In my mind's eye, I can see him in the front of the classroom, reminding us of the catchphrase from the old Dragnet TV show and Sgt. Friday's gentle prodding to witnesses who got sidetracked: "Just the facts, ma'am."

I hope Herbert continues to give us the facts, whatever his platform may be.

Where Is The Outrage?

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"More than three years after we entered the worst economic slump since the 1930s, a strange and disturbing thing has happened to our political discourse: Washington has lost interest in the unemployed.

"... [N]o jobs bills have been introduced in Congress, no job–creation plans have been advanced by the White House and all the policy focus seems to be on spending cuts.

"So one–sixth of America's workers — all those who can't find any job or are stuck with part–time work when they want a full–time job — have, in effect, been abandoned."

Paul Krugman
New York Times

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If you read that excerpt in an opinion piece and had no idea what the identity of the author might be, you'd probably think it came from one of his diehard critics.

Well, perhaps not. But you probably wouldn't think the criticism came from someone who considers himself a liberal.

It did.

Paul Krugman is a widely respected economist. In fact, he is the 13th–most cited economist in the world, according to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), and he is a self–professed liberal.

Now, I was raised by progressive parents, and, for many years as an adult, I voted accordingly. My politics have shifted more to the center as I have gotten older, but I feel qualified to make the kind of assessment I am about to make ...

... which is ...

I believe there are essentially two kinds of liberals in America today, and you will find them in all walks of life. Some are economists. Some are journalists. Some are economic journalists. Krugman happens to be an economist who is also a journalist.

One kind of liberal cares more about the success of the Obama presidency than the results of his policies — because of (I can only presume) what Barack Obama represents. The logic behind this (and, again, this is my presumption) is that the first black president must be seen as a success because there will not be a second black president if he is not.

For that kind of liberal, perception is more important than reality. When the reality does not support the perception, it is because of racism — or something else that is beyond Obama's control.

To suggest otherwise undermines Obama's presidency.

The other kind of liberal is more realistic. To those liberals, Obama is a president who happens to be black. When he was battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008, it wasn't about black vs. female to those liberals. It was about who could get the job done.

Once the Democrats had settled on their nominee, those liberals backed him enthusiastically, even if they had not done so in the primaries. And now, when they see policies that are not succeeding, they do not hesitate to point that out.

A recent example that comes to mind is Ruth Marcus' column in the Washington Post about seven weeks ago, in which she worried about an absence of leadership in the aftermath of the State of the Union address.

That places policy above all other factors — personality, race, gender, everything — which is how it should be.

I think Krugman is caught somewhere in between. He has not hesitated to criticize policy. In fact, when Congress was voting on the stimulus package in the early days of the Obama presidency, Krugman often criticized it for not being enough — and, with hundreds of thousands of Americans slipping through the cracks two years later, one can only conclude that he was right about that.

But, in spite of the fact that he was so skeptical about the chances of the package's success when he believed that so much more money would be needed to repair the economy, he went along with it — often because (it seemed) that he was willing to give more than the usual amount of time for Obama to become comfortable in the job.

Today, however, Krugman seems to have reached his tolerance limit, and he tells readers, in today's New York Times, that "Washington has lost interest in the unemployed."

He seems genuinely baffled by this since, as he points out, "polls indicate that voters still care much more about jobs than they do about the budget deficit." Thus, he finds it "quite remarkable" that "it's just the opposite" in Washington.

He delves into some economic principles that are probably over the heads of most people, but then he gets back to the point that really ought to outrage the people who voted for Obama expecting him to be the champion and the defender of the average guy, the oppressed, the down–trodden.

"[T]he obsession with spending cuts flourishes all the same," he writes, "unchallenged, it must be said, by the White House."

He now asserts that Obama "surrendered very early" in the "war of ideas" and that it is understandable why most Americans see little difference between what Obama says about spending cuts and what Republicans say. Many Americans who are still employed no longer feel threatened by layoffs because that wave appears to have crested.

But, like the tsunamis that followed the earthquakes in Japan and Indonesia, they have left a great deal of human wreckage in their wake.

The price for this "unfortunate bipartisanship" in Washington, Krugman writes, will be paid by "[t]he increasingly hopeless unemployed."

"[Y]ou have to wonder," Krugman writes, "what it will take to get politicians caring again about America's forgotten millions."

Perhaps it's time for a bumper sticker that says "I'm unemployed and I vote."

It's Tough to be President

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"It's good to be king and have your own world
It helps to make friends, it's good to meet girls
A sweet little queen who can't run away
It's good to be king, whatever it pays."

Tom Petty

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Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the fantasy of the presidency that fueled the Barack Obama campaign in 2008 has matched the reality.

I think Obama and the millions who believed in the simplicity of the "Yes, we can" slogan really and truly believed that a president is a kinglike figure whose word is law.

If something is not so, their reasoning went, it is because the king has not willed it to be so. Not for any other reason.

Well, it has taken more than half of Obama's term, but it seems to be dawning on some people that it's a lot more complicated than that. Many of those who supported him in 2008 are not so eager to support him today, at least not on the premise that he is going to be some kind of transformational leader.

They have seen that there are clear limits to what a president can do. It has nothing to do with race or gender or religion.

Rather, it seems to have a lot to do with the fact that man simply cannot control things to the extent that he likes to believe he can.

That's a lesson we never seem to learn. We thought we had conquered nature a century ago with the unsinkable Titanic, and few things seemed to have changed by the age of the space shuttle.

Obama's campaign began with an emphasis on ending the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has taken baby steps in that direction. Mostly they have been responsible steps and seem likely to keep things relatively stable, but things are boiling over in other Middle East countries now, and that is affecting gas prices here in the United States ...

... which, in turn, affects the nascent economic recovery upon which the very lives of millions of Americans depend.

Obama isn't an economist. I'm sure he imagined addressing all sorts of things as president — injustice, racial and gender inequality, educational deficiencies, health care, energy self–sufficiency, etc. Fiscal policy, belt tightening, that sort of thing wasn't high on his agenda.

I'm sure the last thing he wanted to do as president was promote job creation. But that is what destiny demands of the individual who is president at this time.

All the things Obama wanted to achieve depended on things remaining about where they were when he entered the presidential campaign in 2007. But the economy officially began its decline later that year, and job losses began to mount after Obama had claimed the nomination.

That changed things dramatically.

Obama used to be a community organizer. Like anyone else whose work requires them to promote a special interest, his only concern was getting his share (or more) of the pie. And it was from this perspective that he ran for president.

But now he is president, and, although he occasionally reverts to form, he slowly seems to be realizing that being president isn't what he — or his supporters — imagined it to be.

And, with fewer people working — and with many of those who are still working taking home a paycheck with less buying power — there is considerably less flexibility in either the presidential agenda or the federal budget.

Obama tried to have it his way. He devoted his energy to everything but job creation through the first half of his presidency — and tried to let nature take its course. But he has seen that nature doesn't always cooperate.

There was the three–month distraction of that oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but that was in our hemisphere. Now there is the triple threat of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster on the other side of the planet in Japan.

As well as the spreading unrest in the Middle East.

Even with all that is happening in the world today — and whatever may happen in the world in the months to come — now Obama has no choice but to devote all of his efforts to seeking dramatic — and less likely with each passing day — improvements.

Dubya once joked (well, I assumed he was joking) that everything would be easier if the U.S. was a dictatorship.

I was reminded of that when I read in the New York Times — in a piece that was published the day before the earthquake in Japan — that Obama "has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China."

You have to put it into the correct context, I think, because of the proximity of China to Japan. It was mentioned in connection with the instability in the Middle East.

I really doubt that, upon reflection, Obama would say that being president of a country with a population roughly four times that of the United States would be any kind of bargain — especially with all that is going on in that part of the world now.

Yet Michael Goodwin of the rival New York Post seized on that and wrote that there were two ways to interpret: "One is that Obama resents the burden of global leadership that comes with the American presidency. The other is that he longs for an authoritarian system, where he need tolerate no dissent.

"Under either or both interpretations, his confession ... means Obama has hit a wall."

Perhaps.

I'm inclined to think that things look a lot different from the inside than they did from the outside — where, on the night of his election, Obama reminded his fellow Americans that "we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers."

It's tough to be president.

Life Expectancy and the Oscars

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They'll be handing out the Academy Awards a week from tomorrow.

Ordinarily, I suppose, that would be a topic I would address at my Birth of a Notion blog. That's where I usually write about entertainment–related subjects.

But I want to write about it here because what I have in mind sort of transcends the entertainment boundary.

Last August, Katie Hafner had an intriguing piece in the New York Times about a University of Toronto researcher, Donald A. Redelmeier, who has done some fascinating work in the last couple of decades and has come to some thought–provoking conclusions ...

... One of which suggests that the winner of an Oscar is likely to live longer than the runnerup.

If you'll permit me to digress for a few moments ...

It all reminds me of a study I read once in Parade magazine, the Sunday supplement that was always included in the Arkansas Gazette when I was growing up.

Anyway, this study spoke of what a man killer the presidency was. It presented case history after case history of former presidents who died within a few years of leaving office. The stress of the job apparently was considered a leading culprit.

It was logical and reasonable. It made sense to me.

But language and history have always been my strengths, not science, and I failed to take into consideration (as did the researchers who wrote the article for Parade) that most of the presidents who had served up to that time (which would have been around 1970) lived when human life expectancy was not nearly what it is today.

Many scientific discoveries that have permitted people to live longer, more productive lives had not been made when John Adams or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison held the highest office in the land — and yet each lived to be well over 80 years old.

Two centuries later, average American longevity is at least five years behind the lifespans of those presidents.

I have discussed this with friends over the years, and a few have pointed out to me that the stress factor may have become more pronounced for later presidents when international pressures and tensions (world wars, natural resources, religious and regional conflicts, etc.) became more prominent considerations.

In the first half of the 20th century, only one–third of the men who were president lived past the age of 70 — and two–thirds of the presidents who did not die in office died within 10 years of leaving of office.

Most people probably expect (or, at least, hope) to live more than 10 years after they retire. I'm sure Teddy Roosevelt (who was the youngest man to take the oath of office) expected to live longer than that, but he died nearly 10 years after leaving the White House.

The trend seems to be changing. In the last half–century — with the present exceptions of the incumbent president and two of the living former presidents — Lyndon Johnson was the last ex–president who did not reach the age of 70. Richard Nixon was in his 80s when he died. Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were both in their 90s.

Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush are in their mid–80s and show no signs of decline.

The presidency doesn't really seem to be the man–killing job that Parade's researchers suggested. Sure, there are tensions and conflicts, but presidents also have access to state–of–the–art medical care. If a president so much as has a cold, he has a team of doctors seeing to his every need.

Thus, it seems likely to me that, even if a president serves only one term, he has had enough people monitoring his health factors that medical science will have all the information it needs to keep him going as long as possible.

(Redelmeier doesn't seem to have participated in any studies concerning presidential longevity, but he has done some research into the relationship between presidential elections and risk — and he came to the conclusion that more people die in car accidents on a presidential election day than usual — "which he attributes to increased traffic, rushed drivers and unfamiliar routes," writes Hafner.)

Of course, that doesn't mean an ex–president won't be afflicted with something deadly (and presently unpreventable). But recent evidence suggests that, if you or someone in your immediate family has been president, your health care is likely to be a lot better than just about anyone else's.

In that regard, people who are nominated for Oscars are more like the rest of us.

I don't really know what kind of health care plans actors or actresses or directors may have. My guess is that they have to provide their own health care coverage — for which they certainly have the resources, unlike millions of average Americans.

It's an individual choice so the quality of their health care coverage is sure to vary.

Redelmeier's reserch involving the Oscars apparently began around 2000 "when he was watching the Academy Awards and noticed that the celebrities on stage 'don't look anything like the patients I see in clinic,' " Hafner wrote. Redelmeier didn't think it had much to do with external things, like "the makeup and the plastic surgery and wardrobe.

"It's the way they move, it's their gestures. They seem so much more vivacious."

He found that Oscar winners live about three years longer than their runnersup.

That might go a long way toward explaining why Katharine Hepburn, a four–time Oscar winner, lived to be 96.

Of course, if nominations alone had been the determinant, he might well have reached the erroneous conclusion that, because Hepburn had been nominated 12 times for Best Actress, she was immortal.

Then again, that might be his conclusion about Meryl Streep, who has been nominated 13 times (16 if you count her three Best Supporting Actress nominations).

I'm still waiting for Redelmeier's conclusions on Oscar nominations.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

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"Carl Van Horn, the director of the Heldrich Center and one of the two professors ... conducting the survey, said he was struck by how pessimistic some of the respondents have become — not just about their own situation but about the nation's future. The survey found that workers in general are increasingly accepting the notion that the effects of the recession will be permanent, that they are the result of fundamental changes in the national economy."

Bob Herbert
New York Times

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I have heard that the New York Times will go to a pay–for–online–access format in 2011.

The Times tried this a few years ago and eventually dropped it. Apparently, it wasn't paying off. But, with the horrid economy, the folks who run the Times — in spite of the somewhat obvious comparisons it invited to Einstein's definition of insanity — made the announcement several months ago that they would give it another try, starting in January.

I suppose we'll find out soon if all systems are still go for that move or if cooler heads have prevailed at the Times. But, acting on the assumption that the bean counters at the Times still can't see the forest for the trees, I have been checking in at the website more frequently — in case that will no longer be an option this time next week.

Well, I suppose it will be an option — but only if I pay the admission price.

My background is in journalism, and I guess I prefer this revenue–enhancing procedure to the one to which so many news outlets have turned — personnel cuts — but I'm not terribly optimistic that it will work.

I feel that way for several reasons, which I may explore next week if the Times follows through with its previously announced plans, but today I am interested in Bob Herbert's column in the Times titled "The Data and the Reality."

Essentially, Herbert reminds readers that, in spite of optimistic talk, in spite of the flurry of bills passed by the lame–duck Congress, in spite of Barack Obama's rhetoric during the midterm campaign, "in the rough and tumble of the real world, where families have to feed themselves and pay their bills, there are an awful lot of Americans being left behind."

In an America where the word "trillion" has become commonplace to describe budget figures, unemployment numbers that are measured in millions seem to have lost their impact on those who still have their jobs and homes — even though, in a nation of about 300 million, any number that has the word million in it should alarm people.

It doesn't, of course. In the America that existed nearly 30 years ago, when the last recession to see a double–digit unemployment rate threatened the re–election of a president, such numbers still impressed some people. They certainly impressed the Americans who lived half a century before that, when a quarter of the population was jobless in the darkest years of the Great Depression.

But in today's America, when people like Herbert remind us that "[m]ore than 15 million Americans are officially classified as jobless," I suspect that prompts knowing nods from people who are jobless — and mostly neutral shrugs from the rest of America, where six—figure monthly job losses were routine for a year or more.

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"The fact that so many Americans are out of work, or working at jobs that don't pay well, undermines the prospects for a robust recovery. Jobless people don't buy a lot of flat–screen TVs. What we're really seeing is an erosion of standards of living for an enormous portion of the population, including a substantial segment of the once solid middle class.

"Not only is this not being addressed, but the self–serving, rightward lurch in Washington is all but guaranteed to make matters worse for working people. The zealots reading the economic tea leaves see brighter days ahead. They can afford to be sanguine. They're working."

Bob Herbert

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And now, on the eve of the second anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration, we are told that four–fifths of the modest number of jobs that were gained in November were temporary.

Midway through his term, Obama's economic policies can't be seen as resounding successes — and it is on the economy — not health care, not judicial appointments, not his basketball game — that his presidency will be judged when voters are asked whether to re–elect him in 2012.

The unemployed — be they official or unofficial (the part–timers, the underemployed, the ones who should be counted but aren't because they no longer qualify for assistance based on some arbitrary guidelines that were enacted in another time by and for people who are mostly gone from the workforce now) — understand.

They are realistic, according to the survey about which Herbert writes today. "[W]orkers in general are increasingly accepting the notion that the effects of the recession will be permanent, that they are the result of fundamental changes in the national economy," writes Herbert.

The rest are not realistic. Perhaps they're in denial. Perhaps their ignorance is deliberate, sort of a self–defense mechanism. Perhaps they just became numb to the human suffering after awhile.

It's not a pleasant topic to discuss during the Christmas season, is it?

Actually, it shouldn't have to be discussed now at all. It should have been discussed long ago — by Obama and his advisers starting the day after the 2008 election, or, even better, by George W. Bush and his people before the election.

But it wasn't. It got the same treatment as energy independence and infrastructure and the other serious issues that have threatened the nation. It got swept under the rug by bureaucrats who hoped the ship would right itself.

No, no one wants to talk about human suffering at Christmas. I understand that. It spoils the illusion.

I give Herbert credit for trying.

But this is nothing new for him. He's been writing about this for a long, long time. People just don't seem to be listening.

I wish him success. And I'd like to watch and see if his future columns finally get some sort of response from the powers that be — as more and more Americans are sucked into the black hole, as inevitably they will be.

But if the Times follows through on its plans, I simply won't be able to read Herbert's columns online anymore.

I haven't had full–time work in more than two years. I've been working as an adjunct instructor at the local community college since August, but the income from that job only goes so far. I haven't been able to find anything to supplement it.

If the Times starts charging for access, the choice is mine, but it won't be much of a choice, I'm afraid. Fact is, as much as I like reading the Times' columnists, I like to eat more. And, with gas prices on the rise, I need to save whatever money I can simply to be able to drive back and forth to my part–time job.

If something must give, it will have to be the Times.

That's the reality of the unemployed, the part–time employed, the underemployed. It's like slowly bleeding to death while the people with the blood are arguing about whose fault it is.

I've been reading a lot of articles offering advice to Obama for the new reality he will face when Congress convenes in January. Most speak of him moving more to the center, as Reagan and Clinton did, and it would make sense to emulate those presidents who went on to win second terms. They demonstrated their leadership skills when the numbers on Capitol Hill were no longer as favorable for them.

Those numbers certainly don't seem terribly favorable for Obama right now. The super–majority his party enjoyed in the Senate has been gone for nearly a year, ever since the loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in last January's special election, and it is anyone's guess how much Obama will be able to accomplish with a six–seat advantage in that chamber.

Obama has not proven to be a pragmatic politician, but Senate Democrats, who hold two–thirds of the seats that will be on the ballot in 2012, need him to become one in a hurry. The longer his approval ratings remain mired in the 40s — or, worse, if they fall into the George W. Bush–like 30s range — the less inclined those senators are going to be to want him joining them on the campaign trail.

I certainly don't think they will be inclined to support many initiatives from a president, however popular, whose policies are perceived by the voters to be leading the country down the wrong road.

Of course, the likelihood that Obama will achieve anything in the House, where Republicans grabbed more than 60 seats from the Democrats in last month's elections, is virtually zero.

We're a long way from 1992, but it is still the economy, stupid.

Thanksgiving Travel

I've been teaching a news writing class at the community college here in Dallas this fall.

It's been an interesting and challenging semester for me. I've been away from the classroom for several years, and I've been away from the newsroom for several years as well, and a lot of things have changed.

It is not my intention to recite all those differences here in some kind of "those were the days" rant. I expected things to be different. That's the nature of things. Nothing remains static.

Certainly, the relative health of the newspaper business hasn't remained static. As the economy has worsened, many newspaper subscribers have stopped subscribing in an effort to save a little money. That means that circulation numbers have dropped at most newspapers. And, as circulation has dropped, advertisers have been more reluctant to invest money in advertising that (presumably) fewer people will see.

Newspapers, in turn, are forced to take certain steps to save money because, as I have said here before, advertising revenue is the life blood of a newspaper.

It's a vicious circle.

I guess it always has been volatile, always vulnerable to economic downturns and technological shifts. Computers and the internet play roles today that my colleagues and I never could have imagined when I was on the copy desk or the last time I was in the classroom.

To say the least, it has been an educational autumn for me. But it has also reinforced my belief in certain things, one of which is that, no matter what kind of news delivery system comes along in the future, people will be needed who can exercise news judgment and apply it to that news delivery system in some way.

Not everyone can resolve technical issues. Many of the journalists I have known in my life probably couldn't balance their checkbooks, much less fix software problems. But most journalists can write, and if they know basic HTML or SEO stuff, they can apply it to their work and help prepare it for use on the internet as well as the publication for which they work.

Admittedly, HTML and SEO are mostly technical. But the skills I learned in college, polished in my work for newspapers and now hope to pass on to my students can, with modification, be put to practical use outside of newspapers. And such modification these days tends to involve adjustments that

I tell my students that the way to enhance their value as modern journalists is to be community–oriented. They should focus, I tell them, on giving their readers what they cannot get anywhere else

In hindsight, I guess, I have always felt that way, but the internet has made that even more relevant to the survival of journalism. And, in spite of its current problems, I do believe journalism will survive as long as it focuses primarily on the needs of its local readers.

I am guided in this by the knowledge that the New York Times is planning to start charging for access to its website. The Times tried this a few years ago, and it didn't work so it made its content available at no charge again. The poor economy apparently has prompted the Times to revisit that policy.

As tempted as I am to remind you of what Albert Einstein said about the definition of insanity, I will resist.

Instead, I simply want to point out that the Times' experience confirms what I believe — that newspapers (print publications of all kinds, really) were far too slow to recognize the role that computers and the internet would play in the dissemination of news.

By the time the owners of traditional newspapers realized that the internet was the wave of the future and, more importantly, there was money to be made in it, the public had grown accustomed to the idea that there were many free news sources out there.

Consumers like myself, who read the Times online, are not likely to pay for access to its content unless they live in New York and are looking for information they can't get anywhere else.

I do not live in New York, and I can find articles on just about any national or international news event on many other sites — so, when the Times starts charging for its content, I will simply stop visiting the site (unless I hear that, once again, it is making its content freely accessible).

Anyway, back to my news writing class ...

Earlier this semester, I concocted some scenarios and acted like a public information officer. In these scenarios, the students took on the roles of reporters and had to ask me questions to get important details. Then they had to write their stories based on the information they had gathered.

As the semester progressed, I wanted to combine some of the more routine tasks I often had to perform when I worked for daily newspapers with the internet environment and the work of internet research in our in–class simulations — so a few weeks ago, I cast my students in the roles of writers for a locally based internet site that emphasizes local news.

I asked them to use the internet to gather information for their articles and provide a list of their sources so I could check on them. Their first such assignment was an article that would be "posted" all week, reminding visitors to the site to adjust their clocks when daylight saving time ended the following weekend.

A couple of weeks later, I asked them to write a similar story reminding readers that the annual Great American Smokeout was coming up.

I'm a "recovering smoker," I told my students, and there were many times when I heard the Smokeout was coming up and I made a mental note that I wanted to take part in it, but, when the time came, I was busy with my life and I forgot about it — so I went ahead with my daily routine, smoking while I got ready for work, smoking while I drove to work, smoking on my breaks — and I might not have heard that it was the Smokeout until the day was half over.

By then, it was too late for anything except maybe a symbolic gesture.

People need to be reminded of these things, I told my students, and smokers need to know if there will be any efforts locally to provide them with support while they try to go 24 hours without lighting up.

I reminded them that it isn't a matter of "willpower." It goes much deeper than that. Nicotine, we have long been told, is a tougher addiction to beat than heroin.

I was pleased that they found some noteworthy support services that were being offered locally but hadn't really gotten any publicity. I regretted that what my students had written had no website on which to be posted.

Then, this week, I decided to combine something that was coming up with something that has been in the news recently — the traditionally heavy travel that usually occurs on the day before Thanksgiving and the reports of overly intimate "patdowns" conducted by security personnel at airports and intimate X–ray images that were supposed to be destroyed when no longer needed but instead have ended up on the internet.

I told my students to write about anything that might influence a local reader's decision about any aspect of travel. DFW International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the country, but none of my students uncovered any recommendations from DFW's administrators that suggested that things might be easier for travelers if they came at particular times or took any other precautions.

At the time, I really thought there might be more problems than apparently there have been today.

Some things may yet surface, but right now — at least according to the Associated Press — things have been pretty smooth at the nation's airports.

Oh, there were some rumblings about a movement among disgruntled travelers to "opt out" of invasive procedures. And, apparently, there were some people who took that approach. But they didn't make a big show of it at the airports.

Most appeared to follow the recommendations of protest organizers and simply stayed home.

Indeed, inclement weather seems to be the most urgent concern for travelers right now.

If that's the worst thing that happens to the TSA this Thanksgiving, that should be something to be thankful for.

The End of 'Recovery Summer'

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The summer of 2010 is coming to a close — and thus, I suppose, "Recovery Summer" also is ending.

But, while the administration may have had high hopes when it launched "Recovery Summer," things seem to have flatlined, at best, and a lot of folks just aren't feeling it.

They aren't all Barack Obama's political opponents, either. Some of them are like Velma Hart (see video), an Obama supporter who told the president that she was "exhausted" from having to defend him and his administration while she has seen little evidence of improvement.

Hart joked about having thought that she was past the "hot dogs and beans" stage in her life, then meekly asked Obama if that was the "new reality." If so, she seemed prepared to defend that — as if that's the way it is supposed to be.

But it may be hard for millions of unemployed Americans to see how her life has been affected by the recession. She has a high–paying government job, with all the benefits it provides, and she and her husband are putting their two daughters through private school — which is a choice that they made (as opposed to losing your job, which, in most cases, is a decision that is made for, not by, someone).

Perhaps they have had to make some sacrifices — most Americans, after all, have had to make some concession to the bad economy, even if it has been something as modest as not eating out as often or going to the movies as frequently.

If that's all that Hart's family must do to weather this economic storm, though, they're undoubtedly a lot better off than most blacks in America. Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times about how "black voters ... have been hammered disproportionately by the recession and largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party."

The Democrats' neglect of their black base "is likely to translate into lower turnout among blacks this fall," Herbert writes.

Well, it wouldn't surprise me. Black voters haven't exactly been turning out en masse in this year's primaries the way they did in 2008. Of course, neither are young voters or liberal voters. Without them, Obama could not have won the election in 2008, and it is highly unlikely that the members of his party will succeed without them this year.

It really must be difficult for the Obama apologists, and it's only going to get tougher. We're down to six weeks until the midterm elections. If there is no truly dramatic improvement in the economy between now and November 2, the only thing that can possibly (but not absolutely) reverse the Democrats' fortunes would be an international crisis.

And no one — other than the Democrats who are all but certain to be defeated in November — wants that.

But those who all too eagerly embraced an imprecise call for "change" are realizing, I think, that, in 2008, many people attached many interpretations to that call — and darn few are satisfied with the results, no matter how much Obama may protest that his solutions are long term.

In hindsight, a number of things should be clear, but hindsight is always 20/20, they say. All of which makes it even more ironic that Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker that former Vice President Walter Mondale sees many similarities between the Obama presidency and the one in which Mondale played a key role, the presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

Now, I voted for President Carter in 1980. It was the first presidential election in which I was old enough to vote, and I believed that President Carter had been doing a good job in spite of the obstacles that kept being thrown his way. I was also deeply suspicious — and, I still think, rightfully so — of Ronald Reagan's policies.

But I was in the minority that year.

When Mondale tells Mayer that the American people "just turned against us — same as with Obama," I know exactly what he's talking about. I lived through it. And it has had a profound influence on how I perceive political movements in America.

Mondale is candid about the things that Carter did wrong — and the lessons Obama and the other members of his party should have learned from that experience 30 years ago but apparently didn't.

The former vice president does seem to have learned from the Clinton experience, noting that Obama "needs to get rid of those teleprompters, and connect. He's smart as hell. He can do it. Look right into those cameras and tell people he's hurting right along with them."

In other words, make sure the voters know that he feels their pain. With his professorial demeanor, he often comes across as a cold fish — which was one of the criticisms of Carter the engineer.

Carter, Mondale reminded Mayer, had an impressive list of legislative and diplomatic accomplishments, but they didn't seem to help him with the voters. And his image wasn't enhanced by his handling of Congress.

In all, Mondale favors a more hardball approach. "[T]he idea of turning things over to Congress — that doesn't work even when you own Congress," Mondale said, and he spoke from experience. Democrats enjoyed large congressional majorities in the post–Watergate years. "You have to ride 'em."

And he was critical of Obama's quixotic quest for bipartisanship. "You should explain clearly what you want, and, if [the Republicans] oppose you, attack them for it."

Mondale is somewhat encouraging in his assessment of Obama's future prospects. Unlike 1980, when President Carter was challenged for the nomination by Ted Kennedy, Mondale does not envision anything like that for Obama.

But I'm not sure about that. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the recession ended more than a year ago, but millions of Americans remain unemployed 15 months later. If things get worse in 2011, it isn't hard for me to imagine a Democrat challenging the president for the nomination — either seriously (i.e. Kennedy) or symbolically (i.e. Pat Buchanan).

That really isn't the worst of it for the administration.

As Catherine Rampell observes in the New York Times, "The announcement also implies that any contraction that might lie ahead would be a separate and distinct recession, and one that the Obama administration could not claim to have inherited."

Well, that's not really true. The Obama administration could still claim — although not plausibly — to have inherited it. Maybe they could get away with it. Probably not, though.

And the race card probably wouldn't work, either. And "change" can't be brought back for an encore because the voters already have seen how that one worked.

I guess the strategy will depend on how much Obama and the Democrats are forced to neglect the economy while trying to defend the tenuous turf they won in their extended skirmish over health care reform.

Because Republicans are making no secret of their desire to chip away at, if not repeal outright, the health care reform law.

Such talk was the fodder of jokes a year ago. It's no joking matter for Democrats today.

And things are looking bad for Democrats in places they never would have expected a year ago. Such as:

• West Virginia, where the state's voters must select a replacement for late Sen. Robert Byrd. Public Policy Polling says the Republican candidate leads the state's popular Democratic governor by three percentage points in a poll of likely voters.


• Wisconsin, where a Daily Kos/PPP poll of likely voters shows the Republican challenger holding a double–digit lead over three–term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Many races in states and districts are volatile this year, more volatile than just about anyone predicted 18 months ago.

I remember, after Obama had been elected and Democrats were giddy with their victory, there was plenty of talk about which great American president Obama's administration would most resemble.

Not whether he would be up to the enormous challenge he faced. It was taken for granted that he would be.

Would he be another Lincoln? Or another Washington? Or another FDR? In some scenarios, he was going to be another JFK because, like Kennedy, he broke a barrier that many thought could never be broken.

But we're almost halfway through Obama's term, and the question must be asked by Democrats when they ponder the 2012 campaign. It can no longer be avoided.

Is it possible? In an electoral context, could he be another Jimmy Carter?

Imperial Hubris

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"Mr. Obama and the Democrats have wasted the once–in–a–lifetime opportunity handed to them in the 2008 election. They did not focus on jobs, jobs, jobs as their primary mission, and they did not call on Americans to join in a bold national effort (which would have required a great deal of shared sacrifice) to solve a wide range of very serious problems."

Bob Herbert
New York Times

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At least once in every presidency, it seems that a president is said to have squandered a golden opportunity that had been given to him by the voters or fate or whatever.

More than once, for example, I have heard George W. Bush criticized for failing to use September 11 as a way to unite a divided America in a common cause. In fact, he did precisely the opposite. He exploited it for political gain. He used it to drive wedges between people, between races, between faiths.

I will always believe that Bush was a terrible president, but, in all fairness, he did nothing most other presidents did not do. He just had far worse results than most — perhaps because he utilized far worse tactics than most.

What did he do?

Well, he bought into the myth that the president is infallible. And when a president is seduced by that particular myth, inevitably he makes at least one bad choice — and then spends the rest of his presidency, if not his life, justifying and rationalizing.

I don't know when this idea of infallibility took hold. But most presidents seem to have concluded — even if they entered the presidency as "men of the people" — that they know best. The transformation seems almost biblical. Apparently, all one must do to become infallible is to repeat the presidential oath of office.

Maybe there is something magical about that oath. Or maybe the American people are just natural enablers. That might explain a lot.

I suppose the attitude at its most extreme was summed up best by Richard Nixon, who told David Frost, "[W]hen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."

I have seen no evidence that any other president crossed some criminal threshold in his actions, but history sure is loaded with bad presidential decisions.

And one of the worst may turn out to be Barack Obama's decision to emphasize health care reform over job creation when his presidency began — even though job losses had been increasing for months prior to his inauguration, and they continued, sometimes at alarming monthly levels, through his first year in office. (I criticized Obama in this blog last Labor Day when he declined to make any speeches about the nation's joblessness crisis — a decision that all too clearly demonstrated how much he cared about the unemployed.)

Despite occasional lip service, this president has done little in defense of the unemployed. He only seemed to discover the problem after his party lost its filibuster–proof majority in the Senate with Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts.

That has been a tragic mistake.

The appearance of bipartisanship — so fervently desired that it was claimed to have been achieved if even a single Republican vote was drawn to the Democrats' side in either the House or the Senate — took greater precedence for Obama.

"Employment is the No. 1 issue for most ordinary Americans," writes Bob Herbert of the New York Times. "Their anxiety on this front only grows as they watch teachers, firefighters and police officers lining up to walk the unemployment plank as state and local governments wrestle with horrendous budget deficits.

"And what do these worried Americans see the Obama administration doing? It's doubling down on the war in Afghanistan, trying somehow to build a nation from scratch in the chaos of a combat zone."

From just about this time last year (when Democrat Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota) until this past January (when Brown won the seat that had belonged to Ted Kennedy), the Democrats could have done anything they wanted and the Republicans would have been virtually powerless to stop them. Why didn't they?

Why didn't they?

It's no wonder to me that people feel a disconnect between themselves and their government.

Want to know what really astonishes me? The administration's blase attitude toward unemployment in general has been stunning, but its apparent lack of interest in the joblessness epidemic among the nation's older workers truly is appalling.

Perhaps Obama isn't as smart as I gave him credit for. I mean, the numbers have shown that those who routinely vote in midterm elections are not the liberals or the young or the blacks — the groups that showed up in unprecedented numbers to elect Obama in 2008. Midterm voters tend to be older Americans. And CNN reported a few days ago that older Americans, particularly those 55 and older, who find themselves out of work face an especially daunting task in finding new jobs.

Doesn't common sense suggest that a president whose party holds majorities in both houses of Congress would want to do anything he could to appease older voters in a midterm election year? Including promoting legislation that would reward employers for hiring older Americans?

But Obama and the Democrats in Congress look backward instead of forward, assigning blame instead of standing up in defense of the jobless. They aren't accomplishing much for the unemployed, are they? A bill that would have extended jobless benefits through November failed. And, while Obama and the Democrats are justifiably proud of their achievement in passing health care reform, the truth in America today is that many must choose between health insurance and their daily expenses. Guess which one wins?

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"The Obama administration feels it should get a great deal of credit for its economic stimulus efforts, its health care initiative, its financial reform legislation, its vastly increased aid to education and so forth. And maybe if we were grading papers, there would be a fair number of decent marks to be handed out."

Bob Herbert

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"By nearly 2 to 1," Herbert says, "respondents to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll believed the United States is on the wrong track. ... Mr. Obama is paying dearly for his tin ear on this topic. Fifty–four percent of respondents believed he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. Only 45 percent approved of his overall handling of the economy, compared with 48 percent who disapproved."

Some of Obama's diehard apologists may think that is an aberration, but the truth is that other polls (NBC News/Wall Street Journal, Ipsos/McClatchy, Associated Press/GfK, ABC News/Washington Post) have reported similar, if not worse (Rasmussen) findings in recent weeks.

Things may well look different to most people three or four years from now, when the health care reforms are going to start to kick in. But right now, as Herbert points out, "Destitution is beckoning for those whose unemployment benefits are running out."

No matter what the Labor Department's figures tell you in a few days, most of America's unemployed could probably tell you they've had a bellyful of change.

But they're running short of hope.

An Early Glance at the Senate Races

We're well into the nominating season for the 2010 midterm elections.

Some people have suggested that 2010 will be an anti–incumbent year, although there hasn't really been much evidence of this in the primaries — as cable TV's Rachel Maddow pointed out recently.

But political parties rarely reject incumbents. Instead, if an incumbent is going to be denied another term, it is likely to happen in the general election.

My argument — which, I must admit, was somewhat discredited by the results in Arkansas this month, although I'm sticking with it for now — has been that the parties, of late, have been pulled to greater extremes and nominate candidates who represent those views. Rarely, it seems, does a party nominate a self–proclaimed centrist for anything other than the presidency (and the "centrist" presidential candidates often turn out to be a lot less centrist than advertised).

Since there are no presidential nominations to be won this year, states will be holding their primaries through the summer months, even into the autumn, and we won't know until perhaps mid– to late September the identities of all the candidates who have been chosen by their parties to run for governor, senator, congressman. Voters in three states — the Carolinas and Utah — are going to the polls today.

My guess — keep in mind that we are barely past the first official day of summer, more than four months from Election Day — is that most of the nominees are going to reflect the views and values of the national party leadership. There will be some exceptions, but not many.

And, even though more Americans identify themselves as independents than Democrats or Republicans, most will have to choose between the candidates who were nominated by the two parties.

If the nation's independents truly are centrists, the elections may be decided by something as simple as which way the political wind is blowing.

And the prevailing wind seems to be blowing from the right.

Gallup reports that Republicans are very enthusiastic about voting in the midterm elections. Their level of enthusiasm smashes the numbers shown by either party since Gallup first asked respondents about their enthusiasm in 1994.

If Gallup's numbers imply anything, it is that enthusiasm usually translates to turnout because the party that has more enthusiastic members usually does better. And when one party has the edge in enthusiasm, it becomes a numbers game. If certain groups show up in greater numbers than other groups, their agenda, whatever it may be, is likely to prevail. And a party's agenda typically is embodied in its nominees.

If the majorities in either chamber are diminished, Barack Obama and the Democrats will have more difficulty enacting their initiatives than they have had in the first 1½ years of the Obama presidency — when the numbers in both chambers have been so favorable to the Democrats that it is hard to understand why anything in their 2008 platform has not been voted into law.

It is good news that jobs are being added to the economy, but the pace is too slow for many Americans who have already been asked to be patient long enough. Right now, it is barely keeping pace with the growth of the working–age population. Admittedly, that's better than the constantly–losing–enormous–amounts–of–ground cycle that we were in, but we aren't reclaiming those jobs we lost or creating jobs to replace them nearly as rapidly as we lost them.

Think about it. Millions of Americans have been left jobless since the recession began in December 2007, and we are often reminded that the number of long–term unemployed (six months or more) is higher than it has ever been.

I think it is safe to assume that many of the long–term unemployed have been out of work since before Obama was elected president. For them, the prospect of a "lost decade" is not theoretical. It is frighteningly real.

And it's the kind of reality that influences a working man's vote. A working man who isn't working has time on his hands to think about his predicament. Democrats tell him, "It was Bush's fault that you lost your job," and he may agree with them.

But that man who is unemployed and may have a family to feed and clothe may then reply, "But I voted for your guy to fix things. And things aren't fixed."

The fact is that the Democrats can continue to control the agenda in the House, even if their majority is reduced. But Senate Democrats will be in serious trouble if they don't have the votes to break a Republican filibuster.

So, barring the kind of political tidal wave that swept in Republican majorities in both houses of Congress in 1994, this year's Senate races hold the keys to federal legislative power in the next two years.

Midterms typically go against the party in power — especially if the party in power seems to be controlled by events and not in control of events. How Democrats are perceived in November may well depend on how (and if) the oil spill in the Gulf is resolved or how many more jobs have been added to the economy (and whether enough have been added to bring unemployment down significantly) — or events yet to come.

Things may be better or worse — or unchanged — by the time the voters go to the polls this fall. Many had already come of age or were coming of age when Ronald Reagan summarized the perpetual question facing Americans — are you better off than you were four years ago? For far too many, the answer to that question seems likely to be a resounding "No!" (Interestingly, Bob Herbert of the New York Times warns today that "the greatness of the United States ... is steadily slipping away.")

With that in mind, here are the Senate seats I think Democrats are most likely to lose in November. A lot can happen in 4½ months, but if nothing of any positive significance occurs — like a dramatic decline in the unemployment rate — these are the seats Democrats need to worry about.

• Arkansas: Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln won the battle with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, but I think she will lose the war.
  
  Different polls report different results, of course, but Arkansas has been trending more to the right in recent years, and I'm inclined to believe the GOP will take Lincoln's seat in November. The only poll I've seen so far since the June 8 runoff showed Lincoln's opponent, Rep. John Boozman, leading by nearly two to one. His margin was smaller in a couple of polls I saw before the runoff — one co–sponsored by liberal–leaning Daily Kos, the other commissioned by Arkansas News Bureau — but Boozman seems likely to win Arkansas in what is shaping up to be a Republican year.


• Colorado: When Barack Obama picked Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar to be his secretary of the Interior, Colorado's governor picked Michael Bennet to complete Salazar's term, which is about to conclude. According to a Denver Post survey, Bennet and Republican Ken Buck are likely to win their parties' nominations and face each other in the fall.
  
  If that comes to pass, the same survey (which concluded last week) suggests Buck has a slight advantage that almost falls within the margin of error.
  
  Elections often seem to be close in Colorado. I'm guessing this one will be, too.


• Delaware: The seat that was once held by Vice President Joe Biden was expected to remain in the family, but Biden's son decided not to enter the race.
  
  I haven't seen any polls lately, but I've heard and read commentaries that suggested that Republicans are favored to win the seat.


• Illinois: Does it seem strange that Obama's old Senate seat is in jeopardy? Perhaps. But the corrupt governor, who was responsible for appointing Obama's replacement, did the new president no favors by virtually auctioning the seat to the highest bidder. And then Obama's replacement made the situation worse with his own ethical issues.
  
  The good news for Democrats is that the replacement won't be on the ballot. That's also the bad news. Because, although the seat is currently held by the Democrats, it is an open seat — and that, I'm guessing, will work in the favor of the Republicans.


• Indiana: It was my opinion, when I watched the election returns in November 2008, that Indiana's support for Obama was an aberration. Indiana has a long Republican history, and it makes sense that Republican Dan Coats enjoys a solid lead over Democrat Brad Ellsworth — Rasmussen says he's up by 14 points — in the campaign for the seat being vacated by Democrat Evan Bayh.


• Nevada: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in trouble, and everyone seems to know it.
  
  His opponent, a Christian conservative and a darling of the Tea Partiers, Sharron Angle, leads him by 11 points, says Rasmussen in a survey that was published a couple of weeks ago.


• Pennsylvania: Here is a rare example of an incumbent being voted out by his party. But that isn't the whole story. Arlen Specter had been a member of the Republican Party most of his adult life. But he switched parties last year and ran for the Democratic nomination this year. He wasn't the first party switcher to run into problems with his new party. He wasn't even the first this year. Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith suffered the same fate when he left the Democrats to join the Republicans.
  
  Anyway, Joe Sestak, the guy who beat Specter in the Democratic primary, is even with Republican Pat Toomey, according to Public Policy Polling. Rasmussen says Toomey has a seven–point lead. Daily Kos' findings are nearly a month old, but they showed Sestak with a narrow lead.
  
  I anticipate a close race.

Well, the Democrats currently hold 59 seats in the Senate so they could lose all seven of those seats and still maintain a majority. But such a majority would have much more in common with the majority Democrats enjoyed following the 2006 midterms, not the "filibuster–proof" majority they had when Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota at the end of June last year — and then lost when Republicans won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in January's special election.

As I say, events in the next four months will influence things in ways we can't imagine right now, but, assuming nothing changes dramatically, Republicans will need to win three additional seats to seize control of the chamber. Is that possible?

On the surface, I would say no. A couple of seats that are currently held by women — Barbara Boxer of California and Patty Murray of Washington — could be in jeopardy. Recent polls suggest that both Boxer and Murray have seen early leads shrink in recent weeks.

And Republicans are not free of anxiety seats, either. Take, for example, the Ohio Senate seat currently held by George Voinovich, who is retiring. A couple of weeks ago, Rasmussen reported a tie between Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher. If Republicans lose that seat, it means one more seat will be needed to accomplish a takeover.

Presumably, the same thing could be said of Florida's race for a Republican–held Senate seat. At one time, Gov. Charlie Crist was a candidate for the Republican nomination. But, apparently convinced he could not win, Crist withdrew and decided to run as an independent. Now, Rasmussen reports that Crist is locked in a tight race with his former GOP rival, Marco Rubio.

In Florida, the Democrat appears to be far behind. And, given his background, I would expect Crist to vote far more often with the Republicans than the Democrats if he should win the election. So, while it is possible the Republican Party will lose technical control of the seat, it is unlikely that the Republican philosophy will lose control of it.

But, even if the Republicans hold on to Voinovich's seat in Ohio, and Boxer and Murray are upset in California and Washington, that would mean a 50–50 split. Joe Biden would get the deciding vote, which would give the Democrats the same kind of control over the Senate that the Republicans had in the first few months of George W. Bush's presidency.

Republicans would still need one more seat, but where would they get it? Wisconsin, perhaps. Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold appears to face a stiffer challenge from Ron Johnson than Bob Westlake, but Feingold won't know the identity of his opponent until the primary is held in September. Feingold is accustomed to tight races. He is seeking his fourth term; in his previous three victories, his share of the vote was 53% (in 1992), 51% (in 1998) and 55% (in 2004).

Other than the Wisconsin seat, I can't really think of any Democrat–held seats that would make viable targets for Republicans, but that, I suppose, can change, depending on whether the voters think they are better off now than they were a few years ago.

Still, there is that Gallup survey that shows enthusiasm at an astonishingly high level for Republicans this year. Maybe that will affect the outcome in Wisconsin — or in Connecticut, where Chris Dodd's seat is up for grabs.

But even a tidal wave of voter discontent seems unlikely to dislodge any other Democratic senators in 2010 — at the present time.

We'll see how things look at the end of the summer, when we probably will have some answers to some questions, such as ...

• Has the leak been plugged in the Gulf?


• If it has, how is the cleanup progressing?


• Is the economy still adding jobs ... or has it been stumbling?


• Is the American military presence in Iraq really winding down?


• And what about the military mission in Afghanistan?

At National Review, Jim Geraghty wonders if Democrats can re–create the magic that led to Obama's victory two years ago.

It's still a little early to reach a conclusion on that, and there is plenty of time for both parties to influence the answer, but, right now, I would have to say that answer will be the same as it was to Reagan's question 30 years ago.