Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Joseph Kennedy III, the grandson of Sen. Robert Kennedy and the grandnephew of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, announced recently that he is a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for the seat in the US Senate now held by another member of that party, Sen. Edward Markey. The nomination will likely be decided by a primary on September 15, 2020. Ed Markey is 73 years old and has been either in the House of Representatives or the Senate continuously since 1977. This makes him the second longest-serving member of Congress from New England. Joseph Kennedy turned 39 on October 4. There is certainly a generational aspect to this challenge, just as in other parts of the country younger Democrats are challenging party elders for other seats. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was born in October of 1989, notoriously won her seat in the House, representing New York's 14th district, by knocking off a party elder, Joe Crowley, at the conclusion of Crowley's tenth term in...

This year, the gentleman delivering the Democratic Party's rebuttal to the President's State of the Union address bore (for most Americans) an unfamiliar face, but a very familiar surname: Joseph Kennedy III. The Family Tree: This Joseph Kennedy is the son of Joseph Kennedy II and Sheila Kennedy, nee Rauch. He is thus the grandson of the late Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States who was largely responsible for the imprisonment of Teamsters President James Hoffa in 1964. That of course makes him the great-grandson of Joseph Kennedy (I), and the great-nephew of President John Kennedy. The leadership of the Democratic Party needs fresh faces. The old crowd, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (70 years old) and Senator Chuck Schumer (67) needs to make room for new blood. Bernie Sanders isn't properly a Democrat at all but wouldn't improve the demographics if he were. This generation's Joseph Kennedy, though, is just 37. ...

JFK authorized the Attorney General, his brother, to cut the deal that the US for years thereafter would deny it had ever made, the deal agreeing that the US missiles in Turkey would be dismantled in return for a withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Robert Kennedy wrote the following of the moment of the crucial contact, with Dobrynin. "We have to have a commitment by at least tomorrow that those bases [in Cuba] would be moved. This was not an ultimatum, I said, but just a statement of fact. He should understand that if they did not remove those basis, then we would remove them. His country might take retaliatory action, but he should understand that before this was over, while there might be dead Americans, there would also be dead Russians. He then asked me about Khrushchev's other proposal dealing with removal of the missiles from Turkey. I replied that there could be no quid pro quo --- not deal of this kind could be made ... If some time elapsed --- and ... I me...

On a SLATE comment thread, I recently wrote as follows: Is it just me, or does all this have a very 1968 vibe for anyone else? Here as there, the incumbent President is a Democrat. In '68, of course, LBJ was eligible to run again, but was knocked out early. Let's ignore that difference for a moment and see what else lines up. There are two Democrats each with a plausible claim to continue the incumbent administration, for those who WANT to see it continued. There is a former cabinet member (Attorney General or Secretary of State, as the case may be) on the one side, and the sitting Vice President on the other. The establishment of the Dems could live with either of them.  There is also a very non-establishment figure coming off from the flanks, with a surprisingly strong following in the base, call him Eugene or Bernie as you please. All very '68. The signature domestic accomplishment of the incumbent is in the area of health care reform, Medicare/Medicaid. Ove...

The Hon. Robert Bork (1927 - 2010) passed away on December 19. He had been a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit from 1982 to 1988. Bork had been put on the DC Circuit largely as a stepping-stone, but he never got to take the next intended step. The Reagan administration thought of him from the start as a Supreme Court candidate. And it is as such that he achieved his most intense moment in the spotlight, during the confirmation fight of 1987. I have written of that fight, and of Bork, at some length, specifically in chapter 9 of my book, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE SUPREME COURT. I won't repeat myself unduly here. I'll simply say that among the various obituaries, paying tribute or otherwise, that I have read in recent days I have to give pride of place to one by Jeff Greenfield. Who is Greenfield? He has been an [at least somewhat] left-of-center political commentator for decades. He was a speechwriter for Senator Robert Kenn...