Andrew Johnson statue on the grounds of the Tennessee state capitol
By John Ruberry
One of the heroes in the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, which was credited to John F. Kennedy but largely written by Ted Sorensen, was Edmund G. Ross, a Radical Republican senator from Kansas who is credited as the deciding vote against the removal from office of President Andrew Johnson, who had been impeached by the House of Representatives.
Ross was appointed to the Senate in 1866, when, Sorensen wrote, “the two branches of government were at each other’s throats.” Such as it is now between the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and President Donald J. Trump.
Johnson, like the man he succeeded, Abraham Lincoln, favored a quick readmission of the former Confederate states into the Union. But Johnson had few of the political skills of the Great Emancipator, and compared to the Radical Republicans, Johnson was very weak on the Civil Rights. Johnson was impeached in 1868–an election year–for violating the recently enacted Tenure of Office Act for firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The president deemed that law as unconstitutional, it was repealed a few years later and the courts later proved Johnson correct.
In a large sense, the independence of the executive office as a coordinate branch of the government was on trial…If…the president must step down…a disgraced man and a political outcast…upon insufficient proofs and from partisan considerations…the office of the president would be degraded, cease to be a coordinate branch of the government, and ever after subordinated to the legislative will.
If Johnson had been removed from office America would have seen a weakened office of the presidency. One subject to the whims of an emboldened Congress.
Trump’s crimes in regards to the Ukraine call, if any–and I don’t believe there are any–are subject to interpretation. Say what you will about the only other president to be impeached, Bill Clinton, but he clearly perjured himself when testifying about Monica Lewinsky.
If Trump is impeached by the House, the likelihood of his being convicted by the Senate and removed from office is remote. But a precedent could be set by future Congresses to impeach presidents, well, simply because member of the “loyal opposition” opposes him. Or her, of course.
The impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson had important political implications for the balance of federal legislative–executive power. It maintained the principle that Congress should not remove the President from office simply because its members disagreed with him over policy, style, and administration of the office. It also resulted in diminished presidential influence on public policy and overall governing power, fostering a system of governance which Woodrow Wilson referred to in the 1870s as “Congressional Government”.
But most of the current crop of Democrat members of the House don’t care about history. They simply want to, in the crass words of freshman congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, “Impeach the motherf—er.”
When impeachment comes to a full vote in the House, will any Democrats–and not just those from districts that are overwhelmingly pro-Trump–offer a profile in courage?
It seems right now that most House Democrats have profiles in cowardice–they answer only to the MSNBC–incited mob who fill their campaign coffers.
Blogger next to Berlin Wall slab at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in 2018
By John Ruberry
Saturday was the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most profound events of the 20th century, the fall of the Berlin Wall. What began as a bureaucratic slip became a people power moment as oppressed East Germans stormed the wall checkpoints and with the help of West Berliners, literally began hacking away on what Winston Churchill called “the wall of shame.”
It was also a wall of failure. The smartest and most gifted people of communist East Germany were more likely to seek freedom and prosperity in the West. The brain drain threatened the stability of East Germany, so after receiving permission from his fellow dictator, the USSR’s Nikita Krushchev, Walter Ulbricht ordered construction of the wall in the summer of 1961.
Just a few days ago Dennis Prager explained on his show that there is a difference between a dictatorship and a totalitarian state. Augosto Pinochet’s Chile was a brutal nation in the 1970s, but if you didn’t like it, you could leave Chile. Not so in the USSR, until its final days, where my wife was born, or in the absurdly-named German Democratic Republic. East Germans who tried to escape to West Berlin would have to conquer not just the wall, but also beds of nails, attack dogs, and barbed wire, as well as avoid sharpshooters in watch towers. The number of people killed attempting to escape in the 28-year existence of the wall is disputed–about 200 is a common estimate.
Of growing up in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Mrs. Marathon Pundit told me this morning when I was discussing this post, “We were slaves, really.”
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll released last week shows that over one-third of millennials approve of communism, which betrays the failure of our schools and universities that seem much more interested promoting the 56 genders and waving their fingers at guys like me over “white privilege.” Oh, the founders of the communist movement, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were white dudes. As were the earliest communists in power, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky. All five of them came from middle class or wealthy backgrounds. They had white privilege.
OK, millennials!
The lessons of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the evils of Nazism obviously should never be forgotten. But what is overlooked by schools and society are the murderous regimes of Stalin (20 million killed, maybe more), Mao Zedong (65 million killed, maybe more). and Cambodia’s Pol Pot (1.5 million killed and perhaps more, roughly 20 percent of that nation’s population).
Another 30th anniversary involving a repressive communist regime passed this summer–the Tianammen Square protests in China that ended in the slaughter of pro-democracy activists. For 24 straight weeks there have been pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong. The more things change…
Ulbricht and his successors’ East Germany didn’t have the high death count, but it excelled in mental torture. Its KGB was the Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi, whose goal was to “know everything about everyone.” Two movies are essential viewing for millennials–actually for everyone–to learn more about East Germany. Both of them are available on Netflix, Karl Marx City, a documentary, and The Lives of Others, an Academy Award winner for Best International Feature Film. Fittingly, The Lives of Others is set in the year 1984.
Apologists for communism regularly point out that the reason these Marxist regimes failed is that the wrong people were in charge and “real communism” has never been tried. It is they who are wrong. People in power, for the most part, have one thing in common. They want even more power.
There are exceptions of course. King George III asked an American what George Washington would do now that he had defeated the British Empire. When told that the general would return to his farm, the king replied, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
Is that lesson being taught in many American schools? I doubt it.
While Da Tech Guy was technical hiatus, former Illinois Republican congressman Joe Walsh announced his presidential run, which is why I’m only now weighing in.
I’ve had mixed feelings over the years on Walsh, who was part of the GOP Tea Party wave in 2010 but was essentially gerrymandered out of office by Illinois Democratic Party boss Michael Madigan. His triumph, without any Illinois Republican Party financial support over Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean was a shocker, many people viewed his chances of winning as dismal because of a then-ongoing child support dispute with his ex-wife and a lawsuit, since settled, from his onetime campaign manager over fees he said were owed to him.
The only positive thing I heard during that 2010 race about Walsh was from my wife. She was thoroughly impressed by a speech he gave at a Tea Party event where I live, Morton Grove, Illinois. She predicted, “He’s going to win.”
Always listen to your spouse.
During his single term in Congress, for the most part I supported Walsh. I met him at a different Tea Party event and I was impressed that he was familiar with my blog, Marathon Pundit, and what I wrote about him. Still, I always thought he was a bit nutty. But that goes for many politicians of course.
Walsh seemingly found his place in 2013 after when Chicago conservative talk radio station WIND-AM hired him for its coveted afternoon drive-time slot. Early on his show was enjoyable and informative–regularly trashing President Obama on just about everything, including the economy. Salem Radio Network picked up his show for national distribution in 2017, while he was a third-tier talker, his future was still bright.
Then something snapped within Joe. If you are familiar with the 1970s movie, Network, like the mentally unbalanced TV anchorman Howard Beale, Walsh changed. Beale went from decrying big government and big business every night to preaching that the latter wasn’t really bad after all. Then Beale’s ratings dropped. As for Walsh, who was never completely on the Trump Train, earlier this year he began to sprinkle his program with bits of criticism of Trump–which quickly became a flood. I tuned out and so did many of my friends. How many others bailed? I dunno. WIND-AM stopped subscribing to Nielsen in 2016. I listen to other radio shows besides right-wing talkers, it’s a good idea to see what the other side is up to. But like Beale’s later performances, I felt I was being preached at by Walsh, not spoken to. Not fun. So on my way home from work I’d connect my iPod and listen to Mark Levin’s podcasts instead.
Since his announcement, Walsh has been struggling to get noticed, just as the other Republican challengers again Trump have. Those other candidates are another nut-job, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, and former Massachusetts governor William Weld, the vice presidential candidate in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket.
Presumably because last week President Trump made his first appearance in Chicago since his election–not surprisingly he trashed the city–Fox 32 Chicago’s Mike Flannery interviewed him this weekend on his Flannery Fired Up program. Playing devil’s advocate, Flannery mentioned the “booming economy” and Friday’s strong jobs report, Walsh countered on the economy, “It was booming under Obama.” Which one is true, Joe? What you said this weekend about Obama, or your unilateral condemnations of Obama as president, including of course on the economy?
No one should take Walsh seriously as a presidential candidate.
And then there is this Tweet.
Unemployment ticks up to 9.2% in June. RT if you think President Obama is failing the American people on jobs & the economy.
Actually, it’s better to have the economy in the care of the American people, as far away as possible from the destructive hands of government. Unlike Obama, Trump understands this. https://t.co/0QOMxXFEDe
But we will still be hearing from Walsh every now and then; the mainstream media, which mocked him for years, fell in love with Walsh after he announced his campaign against Trump, I mean that he is running for president. With the anti-Trump media it’s all about hating the president.
Fifty Octobers ago a brilliant musical work was released that Rolling Stone called, “By all odds the best British album of 1969,” adding, “It shows that Pete Townshend still has worlds to conquer, and that the Beatles have a lot of catching up to do.”
The Who issued Tommy that spring and the Beatles’ last recorded album, Abbey Road, was released in September.
What was that “best British album?” Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) by the Kinks, written and produced by Ray Davies.
To celebrate, the Kinks, who broke up in 1996, but the surviving original members appear to have re-formed, last week released a twelve disc vinyl collector’s edition filled with remixes, demos, mono versions, new songs, and a never-released Dave Davies solo album.
There’s shorter version also available too. On Friday I downloaded the 1 hour 22 minute edition on Apple Music, with mono versions (why?), some alternative cuts, and one new song, “The Future,” credited to Arthur and the Emigrants (with Ray Davies).
Arthur is a great as I remembered. But the album was released at a troubled time for the Kinks. Fed up with the band’s lack of success, bassist Peter Quaife left. In 1965 the Kinks were banned by performing in the United States by the American Federation of Musicians. The ban, which to this date was never explained, was lifted in 1969, but much had changed by the end of the 1960s. The Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles had expanded their fan base–it was always large for the Beatles–and they also expanded the breadth of their music.
Meanwhile, the Kinks were in a way marooned in England. Like children forbidden by their parents from playing outside after a blizzard and the usual resultant bitter cold temperatures, Ray Davies and the Kinks were locked inside and forced to rely on what they could find at home musically to entertain themselves. Much of their mid-1960s output owed much to British Musical Hall, the tunes of their parents. Music Hall in Britain is what Vaudeville was to America, only it spawned a distinct musical style that centered on spirited singing and catchy melodies that begged for sing-alongs. Famous, or used-to-be famous Music Hall songs include “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag,” and “I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am.” That last one was a 1960s hit for Herman’s Hermits. That band scored another hit with “Dandy,” a Kinks song.
The Kinks first American hit was “You Really Got Me” in 1964, that tune and similar early Kinks aural assaults inspired two genres, punk rock and heavy metal. In 1967, the Music Hall-inspired “Mr. Pleasant” was the last Kinks single to break the Billboard Hot 100 until “Victoria,” the opening track of Arthur.
The Kinks clearly were back as hard rockers with “Victoria,” but there are still are Music Hall influences on Arthur. This is a concept album meant to be the soundtrack to a television play that never aired. Even in success they failed. When introducing a song on their last album, the (mostly) live To The Bone, Ray laments, “It kind of summarizes everything we’re about, the Kinks. Because everyone is expecting us to do wonderful things and we mess it all up, usually.”
The Arthur narrative centers on an elderly English suburbanite who symbolizes the disappointment that in 1969, Britain was not a classless society, as was hoped for after World War II ended.
Arthur? Oh, of course–England and knights and round tables, Excalibur, Camelot, “So all day long the noise of battle roll’d among the mountains by the winter sea.” Sorry, no. This is Arthur Morgan, who lives in a London suburb in a house called Shangri-La, with a garden and a car and a wife called Rose and a son called Derek who’s married to Liz, and they have these two very nice kids, Terry and Marilyn. Derek and Liz and Terry and Marilyn are emigrating to Australia. Arthur did have another son, called Eddie. He was named for Arthur’s brother, who was killed in the battle of the Somme. Arthur’s Eddie was killed, too–in Korea. His son, Ronnie, is a student and he thinks the world’s got to change one hell of a lot before it’s going to be good enough for him. Derek thinks it’s changed a bloody sight too much–he can’t stand England any more, all these bloody bureaucrats everywhere, bloody hell, he’s getting out. Ronnie and Derek don’t exactly get on.
Families split along political lines? You mean like now? Brexit versus EU? Donald Trump versus Elizabeth Warren?
Derek and family’s move to Australia mirrors the Davies’ sister Rosie and her husband, Arthur, relocation to Down Under a few years earlier, which inspired the 1966 Kinks’ song, “Rosie Won’t You Please Come Home.” That tune, as with many Kinks songs, is also a story. While watching Ken Burns’ Country Music series on PBS, one of the commentators mentioned that many of the greatest country songs involve stories, sometimes dramas. Which deep down is why I love the work of the Kinks. Their music is compelling. The tales they tell even more so.
One story from Arthur, a Music Hall romp, is “She Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina.”
She’s bought a hat like Princess Marina’s To wear at all her social affairs She wears it when she’s cleaning the windows She wears it when she’s scrubbing the stairs But you will never see her at Ascot She can’t afford the time or the fare But she’s bought a hat like Princess Marina’s So she don’t care.
He’s bought a hat like Anthony Eden’s Because it makes him feel like a Lord But he can’t afford a Rolls or a Bentley He has to buy a secondhand Ford He tries to feed his wife and his family And buy them clothes and shoes they can wear But he’s bought a hat like Anthony Eden’s So he don’t care.
The saddest song I know of, from anyone, is another story from Arthur, “Some Mother’s Son.”
Two soldiers fighting in a trench One soldier glances up to see the sun And dreams of games he played when he was young And then his friend calls out his name It stops his dream and as he turns his head A second later he is dead.
Some mother’s son lies in a field Back home they put his picture in a frame But all dead soldiers look the same While all the parents stand and wait To meet their children coming home from school Some mother’s son is lying dead.
The music on Arthur rises to the occasion too. Unlike many late 1960s efforts, the horns compliment, not dominate, the songs. And the Kinks, led by lead guitarist Dave Davies, are at the top of their instrumental game here.
Arthur was not a hit but it enjoyed modest sales, unlike its pastoral predecessor The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, which wasn’t able to crack Billboard’s Hot 200 Albums chart. The stage was set for the Kinks’ return to well-deserved prominence one year later with Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. That album of course contained “Lola,” their biggest American hit since 1965’s “Tired of Waiting for You.”
The Kinks were back.
But then it was time to “mess it all up” again. There wasn’t a Part Two of the Lola album. The next year the Kinks released a country rock collection, Muswell Hillbillies which began another decline in popularity. Only this time their time in the wilderness would last much longer.
Oh, one more item. After 50 years, the play Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empirewill finally be performed. That will happen later this year on BBC Radio.
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