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By Gregory Taggart, December 21, 2015 7:47 pm

The animated data visualization of World War 2 fatalities.

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By Gregory Taggart, August 29, 2014 9:26 am

I’m reading–well, listening to, anyway–Robert Caro’s Pulitzer prize winning biography of LBJ, a bio he refers to as a study of political power, how to acquire it and how to use it. I’m almost through with the second volume, Means of Ascent. The first volume, Path to Power, which chronicles his life (and his ancestors’s life) up through his years in Congress and his first run at the U.S. Senate–which he lost only because his opponent–literally–bought more votes than he did and then only because Johnson got a little cocky on the day of the election, is an enthralling read. (In case this sentence is a little too complex [a little?], here’s the essence: The first volume is an enthralling read.) The second volume has proved its equal.

Means of Ascent discusses Johnson’s time in the armed services during World War II and his second run for the Senate, an election he literally bought, paid cash for. This comes as no surprise to the reader. At this point in the story, the reader has already read where Johnson stole a student election in college, stole another election for the presidency of an organization of congressional staffers, stole an actual congressional seat, and attempted to steal a Senate seat in a special election.

I’m reminded of a great line from the movie Patton. The great general is facing Rommel in North Africa, and he’s beating him. George C. Scott, as Patton, peers through his binoculars at the unfolding spectacle and says, “Rommel… you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” Methinks more than a few politicians and their operatives have read Caro’s biography of LBJ.

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By Gregory Taggart, July 16, 2014 11:23 am

This:
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Reminds me of this:
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Cross posted to GregoryTaggart.com

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By Gregory Taggart, January 31, 2014 3:01 pm

I’ve been listening to Amity Shlaes’s book “Coolidge” as I run. The other day I listened to a story she tells about the recently inaugurated president still living at the Willard Hotel, apparently waiting until the Mrs. Harding moved out of the White House. In the story, Coolidge is asleep and awake in the middle of the night to discover a thief going through his clothes. As Snopes.com the story (remember, I’m listening to, not reading the story):

He watched as the thief first removed a wallet, then unhooked a watch chain. Coolidge calmly spoke
up from the darkness: “About that watch, I wish you wouldn’t take that.”

The startled man, gaining his voice, asked, “Why?”

Coolidge answered, “I don’t mean the watch and chain, only the charm. I’m very fond of that charm. It means a great deal to me. Take it near
the window and read what is engraved on the back of it.”

The burglar read: “Presented to Calvin Coolidge, Speaker of the House, by the Massachusetts General Court.” And now he was more surprised!

“Are you President Coolidge?” he asked. He evidently did not think he’d find the President sleeping in a hotel!

“Yes, I am, and I don’t want you to take that charm,” he said. Then he asked, “Why, Son, are you doing this?”

The young man explained that he and a friend traveled to Washington during their college break. They spent all of their money and had no
money to pay the hotel bill or pay for train passage back to school. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll just take the wallet.”

Coolidge did mind. He knew he had about $80 in his wallet. So he said, “How much will it take to pay your hotel bill and get you and
your friend back to the campus? Sit down and let’s talk this over.” Coolidge added up the room rate and two rail tickets. It came to $32.
That may not sound like much now, but it was a considerable sum then. “I’ll give you the $32 as a loan,” the President said, “and I expect
you to pay me back.”

The youth thanked him. Coolidge then advised him to leave by the same window he used to enter the room, as secret service agents were sure
to be patrolling the hallway. As the young man climbed out, Coolidge left him with this admonition: “Son, you’re a nice boy. You are better
than you are acting. You are starting down the wrong road. Just remember who you are.”

It wasn’t until after the death of Mrs. Coolidge in 1957 that this story was allowed to come out. It was first published in the “Los
Angeles Times.” And most interesting of all is that the President’s notes show that the young man was indeed better than he was acting.
He repaid the $32 loan in full.

Shlaes could have told me a million times what a good man Coolidge was, but she didn’t have to. The picture she described showed me who he was.

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By Gregory Taggart, November 6, 2013 11:51 am

Madison said it best,

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Alex Tabarrok rifs on that theme at Marginal Revolution when he asks Did Obama Spy on Romney? He answers his own question:

No. Some people claim that President Obama didn’t even know about the full extent of NSA spying. Indeed, I imagine that President Obama was almost as surprised as the rest of us when he first discovered that we live in a mass surveillance state in which billions of emails, phone calls, facebook metadata and other data are being collected.

Who knows? As Tabrrok reminds us, the NSA listened in on Angela Merkel’s phone calls. What if Romney called her during his 2012 campaign? In any case, he’s certainly right when he says that “Men are not angels.” Nevertheless, Tabarrok doesn’t think the NSA forwarded any tapes on to the Obama campaign. Still, “Men are not angels,” right?

Did the NSA use the information they gathered on Mitt Romney and other political candidates for political purposes? Probably not. Will the next president or the one after that be so virtuous so as to not use this kind of power? I have grave doubts. Men are not angels.

The Nixon administration plumbers broke into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in order to gather information to discredit him. They busted into a single file cabinet (pictured). What a bunch of amateurs.
The NSA has broken into millions of file cabinets around the world.

Nixon resigned in disgrace. Who will pay for the NSA break-ins? (Emphasis added)

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By Gregory Taggart, October 31, 2013 9:52 am

In a previous post, I told the following story about the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s advice to the Clintons:

Twenty years ago, when he was trying to persuade Bill and Hillary Clinton that universal health care was a politically unrealistic goal, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeated one insistent warning: Sweeping, historic laws don’t pass barely.’They pass 70-to-30,’ he said, ‘or they fail.’ [Rahm Emanuel gave President Obama similar advice.]

Later I began to wonder, what was the vote on the original Social Security bill? Medicare and Medicaid?

Social Security:

The Ways & Means Committee Report on the Social Security Act was introduced in the House on April 4, 1935 and debate began on April 11th. After several days of debate, the bill was passed in the House on April 19, 1935 by a vote of 372 yeas [including 81 of 102 Republicans], 33 nays, 2 present, and 25 not voting. . . .

The bill was reported out by the Senate Finance Committee on May 13, 1935 and introduced in the Senate on June 12th. The debate lasted until June 19th, when the Social Security Act was passed by a vote of 77 yeas [including 16 of 25 Republicans], 6 nays, and 12 not voting. (Emphasis added)

Medicare and Medicaid:

H.R. 6675, The Social Security Admendments of 1965, began life in the House Ways & Means Committee where it passed the Committee on March 23, 1965 (President Johnson issued a statement in support of the bill after the favorable Committee vote) and a Final Report was sent to the House on March 29, 1965. The House took up consideration of the bill on April 7th, and passed the bill the next day by a vote of 313-115 [including 70 out of 140 Republicans] (with 5 not voting).

The Senate Finance Committee reported the bill out on June 30th and debate began on the Senate floor that same day, concluding with passage on July 9, 1965 by a vote of 68-21 [including 13 out of 32 Republicans] (with 11 not voting). (Emphasis added)

For those without a calculator, Social Security passed with 86% of the vote in the House and 81% in the Senate. Medicare passed with 71% of the vote in the House and 70% in the Senate. Both bills had strong, bi-partisan support. In contrast, the Affordable Care Act garnered just 50.57% of the vote in the House and 60% in the Senate–without a single Republican vote.

I repeat, it was hubris that killed the beast.

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By Gregory Taggart, June 27, 2013 10:25 pm

Music appropriate to commemorate this day, 169 years ago, June 27, 1844.

Lyrics

1. Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!
Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.
Blessed to open the last dispensation,
Kings shall extol him, and nations revere.
(Chorus]
Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven!
Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain.
Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren;
Death cannot conquer the hero again.
2. Praise to his mem’ry, he died as a martyr;
Honored and blest be his ever great name!
Long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins,
Plead unto heav’n while the earth lauds his fame.
3. Great is his glory and endless his priesthood.
Ever and ever the keys he will hold.
Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom,
Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.
4. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven;
Earth must atone for the blood of that man.
Wake up the world for the conflict of justice.
Millions shall know “Brother Joseph” again.
Text: William W. Phelps, 1792-1872
Music: Scottish folk song

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By Gregory Taggart, February 7, 2013 8:16 am

A Connecticut Congressman is upset because the movie Lincoln portrays the state’s senators voting against the proposed 13th Amendment to abolish slavery when in fact they voted for it. That’s interesting, but even more so–to me anyway–is the following quote from historian Christian McWhirter, a researcher with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln:

Lincoln is an exceptionally good Hollywood historical film, so I think we have to have a certain amount of tolerance for certain amount of error. (Emphasis and italics supplied)

To put a face on the obvious (and to rework the quote a bit), Mr. McWhirter could have said what he said this way:

For Hollywood, that wasn’t a bad historical movie–if you ignore all the errors.

Oh, and then there’s this, lest we forget:

Going through the movie script vote by vote, CNN found that the important details are correct. By the narrowest of margins, after a breathless and unpredictable roll call, the amendment passes, with most Republicans in favor but many Democrats opposed. (Emphasis supplied)

By the way, I enjoyed the movie.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 6, 2013 9:16 am

So what we’ve been told about the Haymarket riot may not be true?

I love that the professor’s discovery was prompted by a student’s question.

Timothy Messer-Kruse doesn’t remember her name, but the question she asked in his college classroom a dozen years ago changed his career — and now it may revolutionize everything historians thought they knew about a hallowed event in the imagination of the American Left. “In my courses on labor history, I always devoted a full lecture to Haymarket,” says Messer-Kruse, referring to what happened in Chicago on the night of May 4, 1886. He would describe how a gathering of anarchists near Haymarket Square turned into a fatal bombing and riot. Although police never arrested the bomb-thrower, they went on to tyrannize radical groups throughout the city, in a crackdown that is often called America’s first Red Scare. Eight men were convicted of aiding and abetting murder. Four died at the end of a hangman’s noose. Today, history books portray them as the innocent victims of a sham trial: They are labor-movement martyrs who sought modest reforms in the face of ruthless robber-baron capitalism.

As Messer-Kruse recounted this familiar tale to his students at the University of Toledo in 2001, a woman raised her hand. “Professor,” she asked, “if what it says in our textbook is true, that there was ‘no evidence whatsoever connecting them with the bombing,’ then what did they talk about in the courtroom for six weeks?”

The question stumped Messer-Kruse. “It had not occurred to me before,” he says. He muttered a few words about lousy evidence and paid witnesses. “But I didn’t really know,” he recalls. “I told her I’d look it up.” As he checked out the standard sources, he failed to find good answers. The semester ended and the student moved on, but her question haunted him. “My interest grew into an obsession.” As Messer-Kruse began to look more closely, he started to wonder if the true story of Haymarket was fundamentally different from the version he and just about everybody else had been told. (Emphasis added)