Obama And Presidential History
contributed by Charles Lemos
Over on the progressive blog TalkLeft, they posted a rather interesting interview of Senator Obama in the New Yorker magazine from November 2006. The interview is one good read, not to mention short. The link is here:
In the interview one comment by Obama did irk me (apologies to my new best friend JoAnn in advance). Obama noted:
”By the way,” just as an aside. You know, I’m not a historian, so— There’s a hotel, I think it’s the Capitol Hilton, in Washington; and downstairs, where there are a lot of banquet halls, there’s a whole row of all the presidents. You walk by the forty-three that have been there and you realize there are only about ten who you have any idea what they did.
La di da. You want the Presidency so please read up on it. While I am a historian, I do not work on the history of the United States. Granted I have taken many classes on American History and, of course, I am a citizen who reads. Senator Obama's comments just struck me as odd and he is, of course, a Senator who most certainly deals on issues that are leftovers or better put hangovers from previous Administrations. That 1872 Mining Law that you are so fond of for example. He should be aware of accomplishments and short-comings of past legislative agendas. He was also a Constitutional lawyer and professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago, surely he must remember some bit that caught his mind. To not understand history and to be so dismissive of it is frankly rather disconcerting. Where is Doris Kearns Goodwin when you need her. Have her give you a quick lesson or two. Frankly hire me. I work for cheap. Ask Norm.
But this is not all Barack, all the time. I now turn to unexpected heroes at unexpected times. There are, of course, many damn good forgotten Presidents and some that we could all forget, the present incumbent comes to mind. And so I am here to defend the honor, reputation and legacy of one of my personal favorite Presidents, a forgotten one. One comment on that TalkLeft thread attacked poor Chester A. Arthur, an accidental President and one of the most unpopular within his party in his own time and yet wildly popular with the American people. Could it be he accomplished something rather remarkable to earn such ignominious treatment by his party and such unfair dismissal by posterity? To be fair he accomplished several things that set him apart from the other 42 who have held that office. There is also something else that he did that stands apart from both his all of his predecessors and some of his successors.
Chester Arthur was an accidental President via being a compromise choice for the Vice Presidency, an assassin's bullet and the most serious case of Presidential medical malpractice. Technically the bullet did not kill James A. Garfield. His doctors did. The bullet lodged in his shoulder. Had they left him alone to recuperate, he would have lived. Instead, they tried for over a month to dislodge the bullet, failed to do so and in the process weakened him and the infections took his life. In hindsight, we are lucky that Garfield died for otherwise the most competent and selfless man, in my view, ever to hold that office would have never held it. Chester Arthur was a one term President because his party, the GOP, hated him and apparently they still hate him. He ended the cronyism of the GOP that run the country since "Useless" Grant. He was put on the ticket because he was reformer from New York who did battle with the political machines such as Tammany Hall. The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 was his doing. It established a nonpartisan professional civil service. That is his legacy. Quite a legacy and one that this administration has tried to undo. Witness Heckva job Brownie. See why I keep on saying we are fighting battles from the 1870s. They want to return to “Useless” Grant, the one who gave us that Mining Law of 1872.
He also reformed the US Postal Service and gave us “special delivery.” Arthur also gave us the first comprehensive immigration reform opening the doors to increased immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. How many of your ancestors came to America because of Chester A. Arthur? I suspect quite a few. It is true that to get that immigration reform, he was forced to accept the Chinese Exclusion Act that banned Chinese immigration for the next sixty years (to be fair Arthur fought for only a ten year ban, Congress overruled him). There were trade-offs even then. Sad but true.
But don't think him a racist. Because the other great legacy of Chester A. Arthur was that he stopped the genocide of the American Indian that had been on-going since the Pilgrims. True there were few left to kill, but he stopped it. He was the first President to visit the West, sitting down with tribal leaders and getting securing protection for them from the US Calvary. Unfortunately, Benjamin Harrison, who only ventured out of the White House to go duck hunting, reversed that. The massacre of the Lakota and the Sioux came on Harrison's watch. The unfortunate choice to admit Utah as a state came on Harrison’s watch as well. Chester Arthur also set aside Yellowstone preventing mining interests from raping it. That pesky Mining Law again. What will we do?
Chester A. Arthur, so reviled by his party, was shunned at the GOP convention. He is the last incumbent President to seek the nomination of his party and not receive it. If he had had a party to stand on, he would won the Presidency. Here is a tribute from his era:
Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected."
Funny how things work out. Chester A. Arthur a great American, a damn good President and much underrated. I might add he wins my fashion award for best dressed and best groomed President ever. He wasn’t called “Elegant Arthur” for nothing. This gay boy is quite the fan.
Read the interview and offer your thoughts. On Obama, on Chester A. Arthur, on your favorite or least favorite President. Or perhaps my new favorite topic, that heinous Mining Law that some love so much. I will close with this: Obama clearly has chosen to model his candidacy and perhaps his Presidency on both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Perhaps ask yourselves why he chose these two among the ten he professed to know anything about.
Comments
Everyone knows who Chester A. Arthur was. He was the answer to the riddle posed by bad buy Simon in the Bruce Willis movie "Die Hard with a Vengeance"
I hear that Obama eats nails with his fruit loops in the morning.
So, do we get a long lecture about the "foreign policy ready from day one expert" Hillary Clinton not knowing the next leader of the largest country in the worlds name as well?
Oh Charles,
He was just making a point. Climb off the high horse already
I've often pondered the question of how many really great people could have been excellent presidents, who could never have endured what we put our candidates through in these campaigns.
An Australian friend was explaining to me the other day about how they elect their prime ministers; it all happens within six weeks, very simple.
think about how much the media prospers from all this extended airtime
American culture is indeed a very strange phenomenon
la di da indeed Another day, another cantankerous and nitpicky smear piece on Obama. I really used to love this site, but now its just starting to piss me off. Please cut it out already, Norm. Can't you spend your time trying to find something positive to say about your candidate instead of boring us with all of these mean spirited and irrelevant observations of our next president?
Charles Lemos, noted historian: Where is Dolores Kearns Goodwin when you need her.
Try Doris. Dolores is busy embroidering "Bitches get shit done!" on a pillow.
Charles is fabulous. That was fun and great to learn about a forgotten president.
Some of you need to lighten up, he is clearly poking fun at Obama and saying something about his supporters who think Obama can't be criticized.
Get a clue. Charles is not mocking Obama. He is mocking you. It is called satire.
Since you are so dense, he is mocking the suggestion that one can't criticize Obama without getting criticized. You fell for his trap. It's fucking brilliant. He comes off as above it all and you come off as a fool.
Score one for Charles. And Norm.
When did onegoodmove move into Faux News territory?
IT isn't Faux News. Someone other then Charles Lemos would need to care before it became news.
Have you read his previous writings. I have yet to see Charles exhibit something I would call humor.
He is saying something about the obsessive Obama haters, what they lack in material they make up for with perseverance.
Me neither -- not intentional humor, anyway.
Yes, folks, by all means read the 2006 interview and decide whether it reveals Obama to be disconcertingly ignorant and dismissive of history or anything else.
History's important, but shit, I'd settle for someone who knows stuff about the world now--from "Day 1" (bum, da, da, dum!). Like, for instance, who Putin's successor is:
"be...me...be...do...ve-be-devich...-be-du [or some such combination of Russian syllables!] --"You mean Medvedev" --"Um, ya, that guy!"
(!!!)
Entrancemountain: you raise a very interesting point, one that's occurred to me as well. But whatever it's shortcomings, the U.S. election process may not be without its redeeming qualities: you get to go state to state meeting people, and get preparation for the media hanging on every word, distorting it, scrutinizing your every move, being under constant stress and pressure. Good training to be President, probably.
I read it. Obama was talking to the audience when he made the statement. I think it was a metaphorical "you" that only knows about "ten" presidents. He wasn't referring specifically to himself, just to the way history has treated the presidency. Has any president ever been as knowledgeable of presidential history as President Bartlett?
Charles, you pretentious self-serving tool. In your great plea for a broader sense of context you have missed entirely the context of Obama's statement. His so-called admission of "not being a historian" was a tongue-in-cheek way of avoiding the question "Was George W. Bush the worst President in history?" This interview shows Obama at his humblest, most contemplative, most honest, and yet even in his honesty he still has the uncommon grace not to engage in easy and obvious anti-bush talking points. You obviously saw this one line about not being a historian as a great chance to prove to your online club how gosh-darn well-read you are, rather than to ingest the interview as a whole and see that we've got a guy running who's one of the few humble and decent men to ever have a shot at the white house.
(haughty voice) Sir, I do not come here to be mocked!
That said....I did find the following comment from Charles in the post about Hillary's 'Shame on you' moment to be genuinely funny:
Mrs. Clinton you have found your voice again. I love it! Sending you another cheque.
It was the first time I didn't want to throw a shoe at him.
"USeless Grant"
Damn right, damn yankee too, ever since, the whole damn country run for the benefit of bankers two thousand miles away (folks are happier in Danemark, Schweitz, post-Belgium Flanders, little countries). The true West was/is--all cowboys were was--white niggers (pardon the truism), and John McCain's brown carpet bagging liquor mafia too("he stopped the genocide of the American Indian"? Good for him, but...It's still going strong, strict Islam, Mormonism, Treatment?, a-rab rehab? Self-esteem affirmations? Who knows?). Not only Nader, but the soft drink king (Kalil): again, A-rabs to the rescue. Or maybe Kenyans. Run like the Gingerbread man, man (pardon the truism), a race that can WIN!
"the Capitol Hilton"
I know the Beverly Hilton, very well, but is there really a Paris Hilton? Or is that just a fabulation, like the Great Lobowski?
Presidents knowing about presidents bla bla bla... A better point from the article -
Hum... how would he react to these words being thrown back at him?
i guess charles would make a better president than barack because, while obama has claimed a comprimised understanding of presidential history in the name of casual self-deprecation, charles actually has a crush on a former president, thereby demonstrating his deeper involvement with presidential history.
what else am i supposed to learn from this, other than the history itself (thanks charles) and that charles himself is making mighty, squeaky, creaky efforts to be humorous (thank you charles)?
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