Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  Diane and I were talking recently about how the incumbent President, Joseph Biden, has seemed to do relatively little campaigning for his Vice President, Kamala Harris.  We both agree on that observation, but we had different interpretations.  My initial thought was, "Maybe Joe is grumpy.  Yes, he has supported her and done everything he had to as a party guy, but he was dumped over and may be ticked off." Diane thought this must be wrong.  The reason is more likely not that he is grumpy about campaigning but that she and her team have decided he is more a liability than an asset on the trail.  Whatever.   Looking at this from a broader PoV. Harris is in a familiar position in US presidential history. She cannot seem to be disloyal to the incumbent president whose mantle she has inherited -- nor can she present herself as a mere acolyte. She has to be both her own woman and a loyal party gal.  It is easy to get this wrong. George H.W. Bush ...

Justice O'Connor has passed away. May she rest in peace.  My first thought upon hearing of this sad event was about the CASEY decision in 1992, and about how this looks in retrospect.  Casey came just as a twelve-year period of continuous Republican occupation of the White House was ending. Clinton won the election that year -- before then, Reagan and the elder Bush had been President, and it was widely believed that they had put enough Federalist Society types on the High Court to ensure that ROE v. WADE was going to be overturned.  Yet Casey surprised people. Not only was ROE not overturned, what the court called its "essential holding" was specifically retained. This was due to the emergence of a  "centrist bloc" consisting of Antony Kennedy, David Souter, and ... Sandra Day O'Connor. Although their decisive opinion in CASEY was put out as a joint opinion -- no one author among the three -- O'Connor was the one of the three with the greatest seniorit...

It's been four years since publication,so I'm late to the fair. I'm only now looking at Judith Miller's book, THE STORY (Simon & Schuster)-- chiefly a memoir of her years with The New York Times.  That covers a lot of years. The Times hired her in 1977, and she was forced out in 2005. In all the controversy about the supposedly hidden "weapons of mass destruction" in Saddam Hussein's hands in the run up to the Iraq War, Miller is for me the most fascinating single character. I am happy to report that the book doesn't make her seem less so. A terminological point: she doesn't use the phrases "first Gulf War" and "second Gulf War." She refers to the war of 1990-91 as the Gulf War -- there is only one -- and the war of 2003 as the Iraq War. Today, I'll quote a bit of what she wrote about the Gulf War, the war associated with George H.W. Bush, portrayed above. The Times' coverage was coordinated by Johnny Appl...

I've annoyed a semi-famous person. I'm stoked. Bruce Bartlett is a veteran Republican guru -- and, often, a staffer for successful Republican politicians. He was a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan, and a senior policy analyst in the White House under George H.W. Bush. Since leaving the White House, he's been known largely as a pundit and scold in intra-Republican matters. He is the author for example of IMPOSTER (2006), a broadside at what he saw as the ruinous policies of Bush the younger. Bartlett since has built something of a reputation as a pundit engaged chiefly in those intra-Republican battles. He is unhappy in particular with certain libertarian institutions and websites. This is where I enter the picture. Soon after 9 AM Tuesday morning (all my times here will be eastern time), Bartlett tweeted "Ron Paul's favorite website attacks the transcontinental railroad. Way to stay relevant, guys." This was a reference to something on ...

The year 1990 in business and finance. Big Picture: the two Germanies formally re-united, the Soviet Union tottered toward its end, Bush reached an agreement with Congress that raised taxes, despite his lip-reading pledge, and Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady was still at work implementing an ambitious plan hatched the previous year to retire unpayable debts by undeveloped countries, i.e. the Brady Bonds plan. Little Pictures: The following items may all have seemed mere details, but it is my contention that each imply important stories, and these small-picture stories help us understand why we are where we are even today.  But I'll make no effort to explain the significance of each as mentioned. January: Time Inc. merges with Warner Communications to become Time Warner February: The US Supreme Court decides REVES v. ERNST & YOUNG, struggling with the question of what is a "security" for reg purposes. March: FASB issues a pronoucnement on the discl...