End of An Era... Ben Bradlee Dies

If you're a person of a certain age, you know the name Ben Bradlee.  You know he was executive editor of the Washington Post.  He supported and protected young reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward while they sought to uncover the greatest government scandal in our nation's history.  He worked with  Katharine Graham, owner of the WaPo, for 26 years; they published the Pentagon Papers and are closely aligned with the defining moment that changed politics and how we will forever view our elected officials, our government, our defense department and our country: the burglary at the DNC headquarters in the Watergate building ultimately resulting in the resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon 

Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee changed politics in America forever.  As editor of The Washington Post during the critical years of the Viet Nam War - the beginning of the Clinton presidency, 1965-1991, he and Post owner Katharine Graham prevailed against the U.S. Government in a 6-3 Supreme Court decision, allowing the Post to publish the Pentagon Papers,a study of U.S. political and military activities in Viet Nam.   They went on to support and publish the Watergate scandal as written by two unknown-at-the- time reporters, Woodward and Bernstein. 

He was a great newspaper man.

When Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, then two young reporters, first approached Bradlee about a burglary in the Watergate complex the details were murky, but he was certain there was a story...he supported Woodward and Bernstein as they began pursuing leads and took direction from an anonymous source known as “Deep Throat.” They were young reporters, though, without sources on the record. PBS NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer asked Bradlee in 2005 how he knew they were right.

“Because nobody told me they were wrong and nobody could prove they were wrong; they weren’t wrong,” said Bradlee. PBS Newshour The Rundown 10/21/14

In reading a few of the hundreds of articles published since his death was announced, I am struck by stories of his humanity, his sense of right and wrong, his kindnesses.  Often, portrayals of people who've changed the world are two-dimensional.  Bradlee sounds anything but that. 

He was a great mentor. 

He left us alone. He never told us what the story was, how he wanted it written, or what it was supposed to prove that he already believed. You were in charge. And when you’d had your say, he stood by you, battling the detractors, defending your choices, answering all charges of incompetence with praise for your guts and good sense. “You can’t do any better than surround yourself with the best people you can find,” he wrote in his memoir, "A Good Life,” “and then listen to them.”  M. Sherrill Washington Post 10/21/14

I received a letter from Ben dated March 6, 1970. It began: “Dear Ted: You got nosed out in the finals of the toughest competition we have ever had... You are really a year premature and your lack of previous experience in journalism was a tough hurdle for us to overcome. I was particularly sorry about you, because I was attracted by your love of writing, and your attitude generally. I hunch that you have a hell of a future in this business, and I hereby urge you to reapply again and again. I enjoyed my time with you enormously. Keep up your interest in this business. You will make it. Sincerely, Ben Bradlee”  Ted Gup  New York Times  10/22/14

He was a patriot.

 “You don’t think of journalists automatically as patriots, one. You don’t think of them as real authorities in the question of what is classified and what isn’t, and what is a threat to the United States and what isn’t. But in fact at that time, we were,” said Bradlee in his interview with the Academy of Achievement. “We were more expert that a lot of the government witnesses who testified against us…most of us had served in World War II and had quite fancy security clearances. So we did, and there was no threat to the national security, and information, truth, is not a threat to security, and we believed that.”  PBS News Hour  The Rundown 10/21/14

He was a leader.

He took over an also-ran newspaper and turned it into a battleship like the one on which he served in World War II. Once the newspaper he ran gained steam, there was only the relentless effort to beat the competition, to find and woo talent, to afflict those that The Post deemed worthy.In the more than quarter-century he helped lead the newsroom, from 1965 to 1991, he doubled its staff and circulation, and multiplied its ambitions. He would have been a terrible newspaperman in the current context — buyouts, reduced print schedules, timidity about offending advertisers — but he was a perfect one for his time.   David Carr NY Times  10/22/14

I find the last line in the above David Carr excerpt particularly appropriate as I wonder what Ben Bradlee would think of today's media, sensationalist reporting and irresponsible journalism.  

Class Warfare and the Social Contract

Friday's Washington Post article by Sally Kohn dives into the history of our current bout of "class warfare".  It has always existed but she maintains this come-to-fruition edition began in 1971.

The class war began in 1971. That year, soon-to-be Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote a confidential memorandum to a friend at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the “Attack of the American Free Enterprise System.” In the mid-20th century — from the New Dealto Social Security to environmental and civil rights laws — the government had cut into corporate profits while creating middle-class prosperity. Falsely believing that capitalism was under attack, Powell wrote: “It must be recognized that businessmen have not been trained or equipped to conduct guerrilla warfare with those who propagandize against the system.” His proposal, from which the modern conservative movement grew, was to equip business elites for that battle with aggressive policies to make Americans believe that what’s good for wealthy chief executives is good for them, too.

She goes on to cite statistics detailing the growth of the income gap, corporate profit and executive pay.  It's succinct and worth the read.  According to the article, it is all according to plan.

Paul Krugman writes about the "social contract" applying to everyone but the lucky few in his New York Times Thursday op-ed:

To be fair, there is argument about the extent to which government policy was responsible for the spectacular disparity in income growth. What we know for sure, however, is that policy has consistently tilted to the advantage of the wealthy as opposed to the middle class.

Some of the most important aspects of that tilt involved such things as the sustained attack on organized labor and financial deregulation, which created huge fortunes even as it paved the way for economic disaster. For today, however, let’s focus just on taxes.

The budget office’s numbers show that the federal tax burden has fallen for all income classes, which itself runs counter to the rhetoric you hear from the usual suspects. But that burden has fallen much more, as a percentage of income, for the wealthy. Partly this reflects big cuts in top income tax rates, but, beyond that, there has been a major shift of taxation away from wealth and toward work: tax rates on corporate profits, capital gains and dividends have all fallen, while the payroll tax — the main tax paid by most workers — has gone up.

Krugman goes on to quote Elizabeth Warren saying "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.  Nobody."   

That was so good I had to find the video.

I still believe President Obama made a HUGE mistake not making her head of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau she helped create.   That said, perhaps it is kismet.  She's now running for the former U.S. Senate seat held for decades by the late, liberal Ted Kennedy, now occupied by Republican Scott Brown.   Perhaps the balance of power will shift...again.

Now What?

Qaddafi Forces Hold Strategic Town as Allied Attacks Continue

Rebels want Qaddafi alive to face trial. Per HuffPost, they don't want any international forces to invade the country..."believe we can do it ourselves..." 

Death toll from Japan’s disasters over 8,000; more than 13,000 missing

Japan's "worst crises since WWII." 

Workers Flee Japan Nuclear Plant As Smoke Rises 

They know what needs to be done; question is, can they do it in time?

A Very Liberal Intervention

I hope this guy is right about the President's intentions but I'm not feelin' it.

Are Americans Spoiled Brats?

Eugene Robinson, one of the best newspaper editorialists on the planet, calls the American electorate "spoiled brats" having a "temper tantrum".  In today's Washington Post, he writes

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

...And one thing (President Obama) really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.

The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.

Barack Obama was elected to an impossibly hard presidency.  He knew it going in.  He ran on a platform of "Change", which ties in nicely to Mr. Robinson's argument. 

President Obama can point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long-range project. But his campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, "Let's go change the world" -- not, "Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor."

But the paramount issues for Americans kept shifting.  First it was the war, then the economy, then jobs, etc.  My guess is the majority of us did not agree with TARP or the auto industry bailout.  Many economists said they were necessary.  But I doubt if 98% of us, including those economists, politicians, etc, understood any of the ramifications, let alone the criteria for receipt of the monies.  In retrospect, my personal opinion is all companies should have had to adhere to the good old capitalistic
values they espouse and "let the market decide". 

I don't like being in a recession of this magnitude.  But if it teaches us restraint in spending, if it teaches us to begin saving again, I understand the American people have a 6% savings rate at present, then it will be worth it.  We've been  spending like drunken sailors for the past twenty five years.  I am hoping the discipline we learn during this very difficult time will stick.  If it doesn't, the recession will look like a picnic in the park.