Ronald Reagan's D-Day Speech

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At his best, Ronald Reagan could redce an audience to tears with his speeches. I saw him do it on a number of occasions — when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1985, when Reagan accepted his renomination as the Republican standard bearer in the summer of 1984.

Speechwriter Peggy Noonan was often responsible for putting the words in Reagan's mouth that accomplished that. Noonan, more than anyone else, was responsible for Reagan&'s moniker

I'll be the the first to acknowledge that Noonan is a gifted writer. But few of Reagan's speeches could match "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" that was delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D–Day invasion 40 years ago today.

That really wasn't surprising. D–Day was the turning point of World War II, and the men who fought in it truly could be said to have saved the free world. Reagan paid tribute to them when many were still living.

The Eternal Randomness of Presidential Politics

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"There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear."

Buffalo Springfield

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Peggy Noonan recently observed in The Wall Street Journal that, so far, the 2016 presidential campaign has been full of surprises.

She made this observation in the context of another column that she wrote earlier this year in which she anticipated a "bloody" battle for the GOP's presidential nomination and a "boring" one for the Democrats' nod.

Now, she writes, the Republican campaign has become "exciting" with a record–setting debate night, and the Democrats' campaign has become "ominous." In other words, the presidential campaign — in which not one single vote has been cast in either party — has been full of surprises for Noonan.

That in itself surprises me. I've been aware of Noonan for 30 years, going back to when she wrote President Reagan's moving speech to the nation after the explosion of the Challenger in January 1986. If she's been around presidential politics at least that long, she should know how unpredictable it can be. Really. When has it ever been anything else?

As we approached the time last spring when Hillary Clinton made her candidacy official, I began to have a peculiar feeling about this campaign. Everyone acted as if it was a done deal that Hillary would not only win the Democrats' nomination but would breeze to victory in the general election.

Now, in my experience, nothing is that positive — and I have been following presidential politics most of my life. To be sure, there have been times when non–incumbent front–runners ended up cruising to the nomination as expected, but they usually struggle along the way, losing at least a primary or two. In keeping with history, it hasn't been the fait accompli that Hillary Clinton's march to the nomination appeared to be only a few months ago — and no one has even voted yet.

Now, Hillary insists that she never expected an effortless glide to the nomination, that she always expected it to be competitive. Part of that may be the residual effect of having been the presumptive nominee in 2008 only to lose it to an inexperienced — and largely unknown — guy named Barack Obama when the party's voters began participating in primaries and caucuses. And at least part of it is sure to be P.R.

It reminds me of Election Night 1980, when Hillary's husband lost a narrow race for re–election as Arkansas' governor. I guess you had to be in Arkansas at the time to understand just how popular Bill Clinton was there then — and how shocking it was that he had been voted out of office. True, he lost his first race, in 1974, for the U.S. House seat representing Arkansas' Third District, but he took 48% of the vote in that heavily Republican northwest quadrant of the state. Two years later, he was elected Arkansas' attorney general, facing only modest opposition in the primary and none in the general election. Arkansas elected its statewide officials every two years in those days, and, in 1978, Bill Clinton was elected governor.

1980 turned out to be a Republican year, with Reagan sweeping Jimmy Carter out of the White House and Republicans seizing control of the U.S. Senate. There were clear indications prior to the election that it would turn out that way nationally.

But Arkansas was solidly Democratic in those days. Four years earlier, it had given Carter his highest share of the popular vote outside of Carter's home state of Georgia. Even with a Reagan victory more or less expected, the feeling in Arkansas was that Carter would prevail there again.

But he didn't, and neither did Clinton. Both lost narrowly, and, when speaking to his supporters that night, Clinton said that he and his campaign staff had been aware, in the closing days of the campaign, of shifts within the electorate that pointed to the possibility that he would lose. It didn't come as a shock to them, Clinton insisted.

But I'll guarantee it came as a shock to many Arkansans.

I was probably too young at the time to recognize that for what it was — an early manifestation of the Clintons' obsession with controlling the conversation, whatever it was about. Even if you have been blindsided, never let 'em know that.

That trait is often interpreted as deceitful, and perhaps it is. What I have known about Hillary Clinton for a long time — and others only seem to be understanding now — is that she is a cold fish politically. Her husband is a scoundrel, but he is a likable scoundrel. He has sure–footed natural political instincts. It is why he hasn't lost a general election since he was beaten in that 1980 campaign I mentioned earlier. He lost some presidential primaries but always won the nomination he sought.

Hillary has none of her husband's strengths and all of his weaknesses. It is a combination that isn't likely to hurt her much in the race for the nomination — but it is apt to be troublesome when she is trying to win as many independent and even Republican votes as possible. Because she can't win a national election on the votes from her party alone. No one can — not in a country where more than 40% of voters identify as independents.

Self–defined independents are important because they now outnumber Democrats and Republicans. They may lean to one side or the other, but the fact that they call themselves independent suggests that they cannot be taken for granted.

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In spite of what Noonan says, though, I'm not sold — yet — on the narrative that holds that the emergence of Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail and the possible entry of Vice President Joe Biden — who met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently in what may have been the strongest signal yet that he will throw his hat in the ring — suggest that a race Noonan once described as "boring" is becoming "ominous." Well, perhaps "ominous" really isn't the right word. Perhaps Noonan — who is a gifted writer — should use a word like "threatening," because, at the moment, that is what this looks like to me.

As usual, I look to history for guidance. All history, really, but I prefer recent history when it is applicable.

There have been times in the last half century when insurgents have won their parties' nominations. Historically, Democrats have been more prone to it — eventual nominees George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, even Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were nowhere in the polls more than a year before the general election when they were the standard bearers for the out–of–power party — so history does suggest that Sanders might have a chance to win the nomination — provided he can peel off some rich donors and make inroads into certain demographics that currently are in Hillary's camp.

But those donors and demographic groups are going to have to get a lot more nervous about Hillary before they'll be ripe for the picking. The fact that Sanders is drawing huge crowds on the campaign trail indicates to me that a sizable segment of the Democrats craves a real contest for this nomination, one that requires Democrats to take clear stands on issues and promote policies that are designed to help the voters, not the candidates.

I think that is true of voters of all stripes. They want to have a conversation about the issues that affect them and their children. They don't want that conversation to be disrupted by distractions. And the emergence of people like Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina suggests voters have lost confidence in career politicians to confront and vanquish the problems and are looking for someone who can bring common sense from another field to the White House.

I would say that Hillary is still the odds–on favorite to win the nomination, but those odds are growing ever smaller. If Biden challenges her with a platform that appeals to an electorate that has clearly soured on politics as usual, things could get dicey for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton could find herself in political history books with all the other sure things — like Ed Muskie and Gary Hart.

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Then there's Donald Trump.

A lot of Republicans fear that, if Trump is denied the GOP's nomination, he will run as an independent — and, in the process, hand the White House to the Democrats for four more years. I suppose they are the new Republicans, the ones whose party has lost five of the last six popular votes, a skid that began with Ross Perot's first independent candidacy.

I'm not so sure about that one, either. Hey, it is still very early in the process, and the folks who fear that Trump, with his deep pockets, will keep the Republicans from winning the presidency by running as an independent overlook a few key points that separate 2016 from 1992.

In 1992, the Republicans had been the incumbent party for a dozen years. They never had majorities in both houses of Congress simultaneously — in fact, for half of that time, Democrats controlled both houses — but the general public perception was that the Republicans had ownership of just about everything.

In 2016, Democrats will have been in charge of the White House for eight years, and the policies that will be debated are policies that, by and large, are products of this administration. If historical trends persist, voters will hold them responsible for conditions that exist, even though Republicans have controlled one or both houses of Congress through most of the Obama presidency; and Trump, although he has been seeking the Republican nomination, was supportive of many of those policies — and may tend to draw as many votes from disaffected Democrats as Republicans if he runs as an independent in the general election.

In short, an independent Trump candidacy won't necessarily work against Republicans, as many fear.

I learned a long time ago not to predict what voters will do until we are close to the time when they have to go to the polls. Attitudes are volatile more than a year from the election, and there may be events ahead that will shape the race in ways we cannot imagine.

One thing that voters in both parties must decide is whether essentially political matters are best left to essentially non–political people. If the answer to that is no, the primaries will bear witness to a thinning of the Republican field. I think that is bound to happen anyway. Virtually none of the GOP candidates mired at 1% or 2% in the polls can afford to stay in the race for long, and I am convinced the field will be half its current size before New Year's Day. At least one of the non–politicians is certain to be among those who drop out.

That will make it possible for all the candidates to participate in the same debate — and voters can judge them side by side. The race will become more focused, as it should.

Read My Lips

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Twenty–five years ago tonight, George H.W. Bush delivered his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He had delivered two vice presidential acceptance speeches — when he was nominated to be Ronald Reagan's running mate. But this was his first presidential nomination acceptance speech.

He may well have won the presidency — and simultaneously doomed his re–election bid — with a single pledge he made in the convention hall in New Orleans — "Read my lips. No new taxes." The polls wouldn't reflect the shift in popular support until a few weeks later, but I have no doubt that what Bush said on this night 25 years ago played a significant role in his eventual triumph.

It clearly played a role in his defeat four years later.

I understood why he said it, and I understood why he broke his promise as president.

To put this into historical perspective, the American voters had not given the presidency to the nominees of the same party in three straight elections since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

Until that time, it happened fairly regularly; FDR himself was elected president in four straight elections. But since World War II, voters had not stayed with the same party in more than two consecutive elections — no matter how popular the incumbent was.

In 1988, the general consensus was that Reagan could have won a third term if he had been permitted to run. But he was limited to the two terms he had served.

That left the Republican nomination up for grabs, and Bush did as every incumbent president or vice president (when the president was prohibited from doing so) had done for more than 35 years — he sought his party's nomination. But so did others, including Sen. Bob Dole (who would be his party's nominee eight years later).

Although he had been vice president under Reagan for eight years, Bush had never persuaded the party's conservatives that he was really one of them. Not when Reagan — grudgingly — named Bush as his running mate in 1980.

Not even in his eight years of loyal service as vice president (during which Bush frequently supported policies he had opposed as a candidate for the GOP nomination in 1980) did he earn their support, let alone their respect.

He felt he had made a gesture to that wing of the party when, in what was widely called his first presidential–level decision, he chose Dan Quayle to be his running mate, but it had been met with ridicule.

So when it came time to deliver his acceptance speech, he needed something that would stir up the conservatives, a line that would remind them of Reagan and, at the same time, show them that Bush had learned some things as Reagan's apprentice and was ready to assume command.

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"I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' "

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That "Read my lips: no new taxes" thing was a good line, written by speech writer Peggy Noonan, who had crafted some winning speeches for Reagan during his presidency.

"It was a strong, decisive, bold statement," wrote TIME in 2008, "and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going."

No, you didn't. After Bush made his speech, the poll numbers began to turn in his favor — and the previously unthinkable, that Bush would defeat Dukakis, started to seem possible.

Suffer the Children

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As I'm sure you knew, yesterday was Good Friday. It was also the fifth anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II — and, by a quirk of history, it also happens to be a time when allegations of pedophilia on the part of a now–deceased American priest have been dogging the Vatican, largely because John Paul's successor, Pope Benedict XVI (who was born Joseph Ratzinger), did not act forcefully when the matter was brought to his attention as a cardinal.

I really regret that this casts such an ominous shadow on an anniversary that should serve as an opportunity to pause and reflect on the life and works of John Paul, but that's how history is sometimes.

And, while I would prefer to be writing about John Paul's positive contributions to the church and the world, it is more important, I think, to address the issue that plagues his church today — or, more to the point, the way that issue has been addressed recently by others.

That is easier said than done. There have been times when all sides have left me speechless — literally. Yesterday was one of those times. In fact, yesterday may have been the topper. So far. But stay tuned. This story definitely has legs.

It started with Peggy Noonan praising the Vatican for facing the scandal — mostly because the press compelled it to do so. She exonerated the pope in the process and lamented the "victims" — not just the children who were abused and carry the emotional scars (and who, in my opinion, were the real victims) but also the clergy (who get tarred with the same brush as the perpetrator) and the rank–and–file Catholics in the pews.

I think I'm a fair–minded person. I don't want to see anyone suffer because of the misdeeds of others. It was primarily for that reason that, when I was younger, I opposed the death penalty (I have modified my position since the development of the methodology for processing DNA evidence). When I was young, I wanted to avoid punishing the innocent. When DNA evidence is available, I'm not concerned about that now.

In the case facing the Catholic church today, the only ones who are truly innocent are those who were children when they were abused (to make things worse — if such a thing is possible — most, if not all, of them were handicapped).

I'm not Catholic, but I have friends who are, and I sympathize with them. I also sympathize with the priests and the nuns who strive to serve their parishioners' needs. Whenever a priest has been accused (rightly or wrongly) of this kind of thing, it seems to have a ripple effect, staining the reputations of good and decent Catholic clergy in the process.

So the clergy suffer and their congregations suffer, too. And that certainly isn't right. But I don't think they are "victims" — at least not to the same extent as those who suffered the abuse all those years ago.

Then, not long after reading Noonan's column, I read the latest from Rome.

According to Daniel Wakin and Rachel Donadio in the New York Times, a Good Friday service became something of a pro–Vatican rally when a senior Vatican priest "compared the world's outrage ... to the persecution of the Jews."

I'm not really sure what to make of the logic of that. I gather that the priest, like Noonan, sees Catholic clergy as victims, guilty by association. Thus, the innocent are being persecuted along with the guilty.

But, as I see it, that analogy falls apart. For it to work, isn't it necessary for at least one of the persecuted Jews to be guilty of something? Because, as I see it, the priest who was responsible for all this abuse clearly was guilty of something.

And what could any Jew have done to justify the murders of 6 million during World War II? Nothing, for, in fact, the Jews who were killed during that dark period in history were slain not because of anything they did but because of what they were. Individually, they may have been guilty of transgressions, as most mortals are, but those transgressions had nothing to do with the unspeakable tragedy that was — and continues to be — the Holocaust.

I have known a few survivors of the Holocaust in my life, and I have known some of their descendants. The pain they have lived with is beyond the comprehension of non–Jews. Their gaping wound is never allowed to heal because virtually any group that believes itself to be wronged in some way compares its suffering (nearly always without justification) to that time because it is the most notorious example that history provides.

Thus, the priest from the Vatican compares the Catholics to the Jews during the Holocaust, even though most Catholics have not suffered the pain that those who were abused suffered.

And right–wing leaders equate the imposition of health care reform on them to the pain that was imposed — not just on the Jews but on the world in general — by the Nazis.

But if there is a Holocaust–based comparison to be found, I don't think it calls for presenting the church as a victim. The more apt comparison, I believe, may be to the Germans who stood by and did nothing while truly terrible things were being done by others.

(It seems pointless, to me, to carry that analogy any farther, though. While it might be possible to prove that there were some Germans who genuinely knew nothing about what was being done — a suggestion that is patently ridiculous, given the long existence of the anti–Semitic Nuremberg Laws and the unchecked attack on Jewish property that was carried out on Kristallnacht ["Night of Broken Glass"] — that number would be relatively small, I'm sure. I'm equally certain that, since there are more than 1 billion Catholics in the world, most are sure to be ignorant of what happens in a single parish.

(On the other hand, though, for the comparison to be accurate, the designation would have to apply to knowledge of the charges of child sexual abuse that have originated around the globe, especially after the Holy See acknowledged last year that "in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases." That's between 1.5% and 5% of the "world's" Catholic clergy, not the clergy of any particular nation. Fewer Catholics could plausibly claim to be unaware of that.)

Actually, it seems to me that, if we are invited to compare the child sexual abuse scandal to something from history, it is the Watergate scandal, not the Holocaust, that makes the most sense. In fact, a Watergate–era phrase keeps popping into my head with some regularity now, the more I read and hear about this case — "Stonewall it."

I guess that's why I was both intrigued and amused by a post from one of my favorite bloggers, John McIntyre, a former newspaper editor who writes the You Don't Say blog. He suggested some things the Vatican could learn from the Nixon/Watergate experience.

One of his lessons for the Vatican was the futility of trying to cover up. "Cover–ups magnify and spread the initial crime," he writes. And he is correct.

It's either ironic or appropriate — or both — that he should make his observation a few days after the death of Gerald Ford's first press secretary, who was so incensed when Ford granted a pardon to Nixon that he resigned. His resignation was hailed — and rightfully so — as an act of conscience.

The Catholic church would benefit from having more of that sort of conscience — rather than wrapping itself in the cloak of the victim.