Covid’s real danger is political on November 26, 2020A pandemic is war by different means. Death counts are far greater. The enemy is invisible. But, paradoxically, rallying publics against a pandemic is much more difficult than in wartime. This paradox between the disparity of magnitude of loss and public support is partly what makes a pandemic potentially dangerous to the political and not […]
Two presidents, two pandemics, two comparisons on November 19, 2020At first, comparisons between Woodrow Wilson and Donald Trump as presidents a century apart would seem misplaced. The only commonality was that both were confronted with two pandemics: the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and Corona/Covid-19 of 2020. The first came at the end of World War I at a time of great disruption and civil […]
A plea to the President-elect on November 12, 2020November 11th, established to memorialize the end of World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, is an appropriate date to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their victory marking the end of another form of war. Of course, assuming office on January 20th, 2021 means […]
A PLEA TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT on November 6, 2020This column was written before yesterday’s elections as a plea to the next president, no matter who takes the oath of office on January 20th, 2021. The next three months may be the most critical since 1861 and the Civil War in determining the nation’s future. Of the major crises and challenges facing the nation, […]
A PLEA TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT on November 5, 2020This column was written before yesterday’s elections as a plea to the next president, no matter who takes the oath of office on January 20th, 2021. The next three months may be the most critical since 1861 and the Civil War in determining the nation’s future. Of the major crises and challenges facing the nation, […]
Guy Fawkes Comes To America on October 28, 2020Two days after America’s presidential election is Guy Fawkes Day, commemorating the failed attempt in 1605 to blow up the English House of Lords and assassinate King James I memorialized by the phrase “gunpowder, treason and plot.” Rebellious Catholics, headed by Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes, were apprehended hauling 36 barrels of gunpowder into Parliament […]
A Chinese Trafalgar on October 21, 2020To many observers in the United States, China is now America’s main threat and enemy. The litany of wrong doings and evidence of China’s malevolence is long. Theft of IP; militarization of tiny islets off its coasts in international waters; repression from Hong Kong to the Uighars; hostile penetration of American society; and of course […]
October nightmare? on October 6, 2020Now that the Corona Virus has infected the president, three Republican senators (at this writing) and a number of other officials, American politics may not have been so disrupted since Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina starting the Civil War in 1861. It is still far too early to know how seriously […]
January nightmare? on September 30, 2020Two tragedies and two laws could very likely turn the forthcoming presidential election into a January Nightmare that directly threatens the Constitution and the American political system. And the New York Times’ release of President Donald Trump’s tax returns add another level of uncertainty to the election. CoronaVirus/Covid-19; the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader […]
A matter of uncommon decency on September 24, 2020Few elections can be cast as resting on a single issue. But no matter whether voters support the president or the former vice president, one issue stands above the others. It is decency. Whatever one thinks about Joe Biden, he is a thoroughly decent man. Even former Defense Secretary Robert Gates who savaged Biden in […]