Patum Peperium

Valiente!

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

(Many apologies - this was supposed to run last Friday)

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On June 3, 1898, the U.S. Navy conducted an operation that would have quickened the hearts of Stephen Decatur and William Cushing.

In May 1898, the U.S. Navy had discovered that the Spanish fleet that had been dispatched from Spain in order to defend Cuba and Puerto Rico has taken refuge in Santiago de Cuba.  The commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, Rear Admiral William Sampson, asked an officer on his staff, Assistant Naval Constructor Richmond Pearson Hobson, if it would be possible to trap the Spanish fleet—and, thus, neutralize it—in Santiago Harbor in one bold stroke: by sinking a blockship in the harbor’s channel.

Hobson returned with a plan. A ship would sail into the channel, put the helm hard to port, and then drop the bow anchor. Next, with the ship athwart the channel, the crew would drop the stern anchor.  Then, the crew would detonate ten explosive charges, which he called “torpedoes,” placed along the ship’s port side. With her hull breached and all her seacocks, doors, and hatches open, the blockship would sink in less than two minutes.

Sampson agreed to the general plan, gave Hobson the responsibility to execute it, and selected the USS Merrimac, a collier prone to engine and steering problems, as the ship to be sacrificed.

Insofar as the survival of the eight-man, all-volunteer crew was concerned, Hobson addressed that by placing a catamaran on the Merrimac’s deck. As the ship was sinking, he and his men would board it and sail out of the harbor and to the U.S. fleet.  
On the night of June 3, the Merrimac headed into Santiago Harbor at full speed. As she approached the channel entrance, the crew of a Spanish picket boat spied her, raised the alarm, and opened fire at point-blank range.

Roused by the picket boat’s warnings, Spanish shore batteries opened fire and soon shells of all sizes were hitting the Merrimac and whipping up the water around her.  Hobson would later writer of the experience, “The striking of projectiles and flying fragments produced a grinding sound, with a fine ring in it of steel on steel.  The deck vibrated heavily, and we felt the full effect, lying, as we were, full-length on our faces.  At each instant it seemed that certainly the next would bring a projectile among us.”
One shot hit the Merrimac’s stern, knocking out the steering controls and shooting away the stern anchor.  With control of the ship lost, Hobson could not place the ship in the position he had selected. Moreover, only two torpedoes were functioning; the other eight had failed, either because of bad electrical connections or enemy fire. Hoping that he still might succeed, he dropped the Merrimac’s bow anchor and fired the two remaining torpedoes.  

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By now burning intensely, the slowly sinking Merrimac was dragged by the current further down the channel where the fire of more shore batteries and, as she came closer to the harbor, a number of Spanish warships lashed her. Although the Spanish fire hastened the ship’s sinking somewhat, but the swift current also straightened out her path; therefore, when the Merrimac sank she was not blocking the channel.
Despite the ferocious fire, the Merrimac’s crew was relatively unhurt and able to abandon ship. However, the catamaran overturned when it was put over the side, and the current prevented them from paddling out of the harbor.  So, under fire that slackened only when the Merrimac settled under the water, Hobson and his men floated on the catamaran until dawn.

A Spanish launch approached them in the early morning, and Hobson hailed it, asking if there was an officer on board who could accept their surrender.  There was indeed: Rear Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, commander of the Spanish fleet.   After the brave Americans sailors were on board, Admiral Cervera turned them and spoke one word, “Valiente!”

The Americans were delivered to the Spanish cruiser, Riena Mercedes, where, as Hobson put it, “Special full dress . . . could not have brought out a whit more courteous and cordial treatment.”  The cruiser’s executive officer, Emilio J. de Acosta y Eyermann, gave Hobson the use his cabin to bathe and presented him Hobson some civilian clothes to wear.  Afterward, Hobson was invited to the officer’s mess for breakfast.  The Spanish officers were exemplars of courtesy and chivalry. Capitan Acosta offered “a hearty hand-shake of congratulations and repeated kind words,” according to Hobson.  He also “gallantly” said, “[T]here was no reason why officers engaged in honorable warfare, though opposing to their utmost in battle, might not be the best of friends.”  Sadly, Acosta would be killed in action later in the campaign.

For their valor, all of his crew would receive the Medal of Honor. As, at the time, the Navy and Marines restricted the Medal of Honor to enlisted men, Hobson had to be content with public praise—of which there was much—and being moved ten numbers up on the Navy seniority list.  In 1933, however, a special Act of Congress allowed the Medal to be presented to Hobson, and on April 29, 1933, he received it from President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House.  

 

The Crew

George Charette, Gunner’s Mate First Class, USS New York (Lowell, Massachusetts).
Randolph Clausen, Coxswain, USS New York (Boston, Massachusetts)  
Osborn Warren Deignan, Coxswain, USS Merrimac (Stuart, Iowa)
Francis Kelly, Watertender, USS Merrimac (Boston, Massachusetts)
Daniel Montague, Chief Master at Arms, USS New York (Born in Ireland)
J. C. Murphy, Coxswain, USS Iowa
George F. Phillips, Machinist First Class, USS Merrimac (Boston, Massachusetts)

 

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Memorial Day 2011

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

 

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“Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. . . “

 

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“All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.“

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Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic. . . .

 

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“Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor . . .”

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John A. Logan
Commander-in-Chief, Grand Army of the Republic  
General Order No. 11
May 5, 1868

 

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The Obama presidency has ended.

 

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

 

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It's over.

The Obama Presidency has ended.  There were indications that it was hastening to its conclusion late last year.  The November election results were, of course, the most apparent indication.  All the talk of the “Comeback Kid” was mere wishful thinking; with the Democrats’ strong majorities in the House and the Senate, passage of the repeal of “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell,” for example, was a foregone conclusion. Presidential  bravado only briefly masked the fact that the exodus of senior staff from the White House continued apace.  While the span of a political appointee’s service usually is between eighteen and twenty-four months, senior White House personnel, who often have something of a personal tie to a President, tend to stay through the first term at least.

With the presentation of Barack Obama’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2012, however, he made it clear that, apart from the inescapable demands of national security and foreign policy, his Administration has given up governing. The Second Obama Campaign has begun.

As many editorialists and commentators have observed, the timidity of the President’s budget indicates that the President and his campaign staff (for that is the true status of the White House staff) are trying to use the coming budget battle to gain political advantage.  Absent any real leadership on the issue on the President’s part and goaded by an energetic freshman class, the Administration hopes, the Congressional Republicans will dash into the fray with all sorts of unpopular spending "cuts" and—dream of dreams—ideas about reforming the major entitlements of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.  As soon as that happens, the Obama White House will follow the script of the Clinton White House. They will accuse the Republicans as being cold and heartless and cast their budget proposals as direct assaults on the poor, the elderly, and, yes, the children as well as gravely damaging to the economic recovery.  As in the 1990s, the GOP will be on the back foot, and the Democrat in the White House will sail on to an easy reelection.

For this plan to succeed, however, all of the players must adhere to their assigned roles, especially the press and the public. The press must do as they have done in the past, reporting about the misery that will be caused by these "cuts" and commenting approvingly on the President's political shrewdness. The public, too, must do as they did in the past: recoil with horror at the intransigence of Republicans and the cruelty that underpins it and then flock to the President's support.

Indications abound, however, that these players and others may not be willing to adhere to the script. The initial support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was tepid, and the House Democrats who went on the air to root for the President seemed to be going through their talking points unenthusiastically.  The Washington Post editorial board was distinctly underwhelmed, and even some commentators on—GULP!—MSNBC criticized the President for a lack of leadership.  In recent polls, the ratio of people who disapprove of the President's leadership on the budget to those who approve routinely hovers around three to one.

Just as potentially disruptive to the well-laid plans of the Second Obama Campaign, is the fact that, even if the news media realize where exactly it is their duty lies, we live in a new media environment.  While their audiences are smaller in relation to traditional media outlets, cable news, talk radio, websites, and social media can have an outsized effect in countering the narratives and refuting the agendas of traditional media.  Finally, polling figures show that controlling public spending and the national debt are high on the public agenda.

There are some who already praising the President for being politically shrewd, for luring the Republicans into a battle from which he will emerge victorious and strengthened.  Indications are, however, that the President may have outsmarted himself and, in turn, that the progress of the Second Obama Campaign will be nowhere as smooth as the progress of the first. 

 

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Election 2010

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

 

 

 

Rarely in American political history have the fortunes of the major parties reversed as quickly and decisively as they have between Election Day 2008 and Election Day 2010. Two years ago, pundits assured us that the Democrats’ sweeping victories translated into a new liberal consensus and a new Democratic ascendancy, one that could last as long as forty years. The Republican Party, they informed us, now was a much reduced and irrelevant rump.

Now, it appears that reports of the Republicans’ demise were greatly exaggerated (again), and the Democrats are about to receive a drubbing of historical proportions.    

House of Representatives

As of Monday, Real Clear Politics rated 43 House seats as toss-ups, 41 of which are Democrat-held. Furthermore, among the races it rates as “Leans Democrat,” only two of them are currently Republican seats (Louisiana 2 and Delaware At-Large). Taking those numbers as well as some more general trends into account, I predict the Republicans will win at least 30 of the current toss-up races, and enjoy a net gain of 65 to 75 seats, giving them between 243 and 253 seats in the 112^th Congress.

If you’re trying to catch a nationwide trend early, watch New England.  After the 2008 elections, Republicans did not hold any of the twenty-two Congressional seats in New England. This year, however, many competitive races are in New England. In Maine, for example, Republicans could win at least one of the state’s two Congressional seats. In New Hampshire, both seats are in play with New Hampshire 1 looking like a solid GOP pick-up. In Connecticut, two seats—Connecticut 4 and Connecticut 5—are in play, and I would not be surprised to see both fall into the Republican column.  The contest for Rhode Island’s 1^st Congressional District is now neck-and-neck.    

If you like to look at politics from a Southern perspective, then the trend could emerge in the Carolinas and Virginia.  In North Carolina, four Democrat-held seats are toss-ups:  NC 2, NC 7, NC 8, and NC 11.  A Republican sweep of those four races will mean the Democrats are in for a very long night.  In South Carolina, all eyes are on long-time Democratic Congressman John Spratt’s attempt to hang on to his seat in South Carolina 5. He is in trouble, and a Republican victory would be further evidence of a building GOP wave.  In Virginia 2 and Virginia 5, the Democratic incumbents rode to victory in 2008 on Barack Obama’s coattails. This year, however, it appears Barack Obama’s unpopularity could drag them down to defeat.

 Senate

As of Monday, Republicans had a solid hold on 45 Senate seats, including two now held by Democrats (Indiana and Wisconsin).  The balance of power, therefore, will be decided in the seven toss-ups races—California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia.  The Republicans will win in Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Washington.  That might not be all, however. The final polls on the Connecticut race show Democrat Richard Blumenthal’s lead over Republican Linda McMahon to be shrinking. He held a seven-point lead on Monday morning; he had been up by double digits. A McMahon upset is a long-shot to be sure, but if McMahon achieves it, it could be a very interesting evening indeed.

Perhaps, the character Margot Channing in “All About Eve” (played so well by Bette Davis) out it best.

 

 

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Memorial Day

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

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Day is gone, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky; 

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Gettysburg National Cemetery  

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All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

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  Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial

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Fading light, dims the sight,

And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright

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National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

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  From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

 

Korean War Memorial

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;;

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Thanks and praise, for our days,

’neath the sun, ‘neath the stars, ‘neath the sky;

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Vietnam War Memorial

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As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

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;;

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-- Excerpted lyrics from “Taps”

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What Rubbish!

Eccentric Observer

Old Dominon Tory

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As you read this, voting is taking place in Britain’s 2010 General Election after six weeks of campaigning. 

There have been many remarkable stories in this campaign. For example, the Liberal Democrats, a perennial also-ran of a party that appeals to a certain type of leftish, earnest middle-class voter and promotes a foreign policy both slavishly Eurocentric and stridently anti-American, had a stroke of good fortune. Its leader, the featherweight Nick Clegg, was invited to share the stage with the Tory leader, David Cameron, and Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at the American-style leaders “debates,” newly added this year. Mr. Clegg had a very good evening, coming across as charming and honest and presenting his party as “a middle way” (it’s actually more left than Labour on many issues and hasn’t met a tax it didn’t like). “Cleggmania” took hold, and the LibDems’ poll numbers shot up to the upper 20s. Seeing as the LibDems usually poll in the high teens and low 20s, this was heady stuff for Mr. Clegg—and it went to his head. He began parading about as a kingmaker in a coalition with Labour.  This behavior and Clegg’s less than stellar performance in the last two debates caused Cleggmania to wane considerably. However, the Liberals continue to poll in the mid-20s. In some polls today, they actually are back in the upper 20s. The explanation for the Liberals’ continued appeal can be summed up in one word: Labour.

Even the most die-hard Labourite is hard-pressed to admit that Labour’s campaign has been utterly shambolic.  After Gordon Brown laid an egg in the first leaders’ debate, many in Labour openly admitted that their best chance of retaining power was to enter into an anti-Tory coalition with the Liberal Democrats.  Many of Labour’s wounds have been self-inflicted. For example, one Labour candidate described Gordon Brown as the worst prime minister in British history. But the biggest self-inflicted wound came courtesy of Gordon Brown himself.  Driving away from a “walkabout” in a traditional Labour stronghold, Brown was recorded—courtesy of a microphone he was wearing--describing a 66-year-old woman and life-long Labour voter who voiced her concerns to him about immigration as “bigoted” and savaging the staffer who had introduced them. To Brown’s critics and not a few voters, this summed up everything wrong with Brown: his disdain for people, his volcanic temper, his reptilian coldness, and his abusive treatment of his staff. Labour’s polling numbers are mired in the 20s, and some polls now predict that Labour actually might place third in national voting. 

The Tories, led by David Cameron, now are routinely polling between 35-37% of the vote. Alas, because of the peculiarities of the current Labour-drawn parliamentary constituencies and the fact that the Tories need to increase their current number of MPs by more than 50% to gain a majority, they need every vote possible, especially in tightly-contested “marginal” constituencies. Although a fairly well-oiled machine with a positive message, the Tory campaign has come under its share of criticism for not staking out a bigger lead in the face of the opposition: a doleful Labour and all sizzle, no steak Liberal Democrats. Some put this down to the breaks of the game (e.g., Cleggmania). Others, though, criticize Cameron for reshaping the Tories into what one pundit called, “New Labour in a blue dress,” and so alienating more traditional and “small c conservative” voters. 

Based on the polls and trends in them, I think the results will be as follows: The Tories will pick up 37.5% of the vote nationally against Labour’s 25% and the LibDems’ 24%. This will give the Tories 120-125 more MPs, raising their numbers from 208 to 328-333. Labour will lose 130-135 seats, saved from utter humiliation by Labour redoubts in such places as Scotland, Wales, South Yorkshire, and Greater Manchester.  The LibDems will have a net gain of 5-7 seats, depending on the breaks and tactical voting by Labour voters.  Again, depending on the usual vagaries, the Tories should come in with a slim majority of 15-20 seats.

Other predictions: 

1. Almost total Labour wipeout in East Anglia, southern and southeastern England, Essex, the West and Southwest. The handful of saved Labour seats will be in urban areas, such as Southampton and Bristol.  
2. The LibDems will retain their hold on the Southwest for the most part, losing 2-3 seats to the Conservatives.
3.  The Tories will win 3-5 seats in Scotland and as many as nine in Wales.
4.  As I mentioned in a Facebook post, all eyes will turn to Northern Ireland on Friday morning. Any success by Unionist candidates in Ireland will strengthen the Tories hand as it is expected that Unionist MPs will take the Tory whip.  Ian Paisley’s Democrat Unionist Party, however, now is the dominant force in Unionist politics, and they might demand too high a price for Cameron to bring them into the Tory fold.
5. All of my predictions will be utter rubbish.       
 

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What The Patum Peperium Reader Will Be Driving This Summer

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Eccentric Observer

Old Dominon Tory

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 Or Sir Basil’s idea of a proper SUV,

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Not So Fast

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The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

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Scott Brown’s victory is—and ever will be—utterly astonishing. As a state senator representing a Boston exurb and bearing the standard of party that commands the loyalty of eleven percent of the state’s voters, he defeated a statewide office holder who represents the dominant party in Massachusetts politics. He did so a little more than fourteen months after Massachusetts gave almost 70% of its votes to Barack Obama. He did so after being 30 points down in most polls a month before Election Day. 

As John F. Kennedy observed after the Bay of Pigs, defeat is an orphan and victory has a thousand fathers. I won’t be surprised, therefore, if innumerable members of the Republican Party’s establishment in Washington, D.C., start claiming some share of the credit for Brown’s victory and patting themselves on the back for all that they did to ensure his win.

Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen. The reality is, of course, that Scott Brown and his team deserve all of the credit for the victory. Brown refused to adhere to conventional wisdom and mount “a feisty challenge” (editorialists’ lingo for a forlorn hope). He sensed he could pull off the upset, went out among the voters (many time alone with a few signs and some leaflets), and brought his campaign right to them. When he hit the airwaves, he kept it cool and kept it positive (often, we discount the power of likeability in politics). He was a quintessential “happy warrior.” This meant that by the time Martha Coakley and the Massachusett(e)s Democratic Party finally took him seriously and tried to demonize him, this positive image already was cemented in the minds of many voters.  Therefore, the negative ads just rolled off him. 

Please don’t forget that many of the people in the Republican establishment who will sing Scott Brown’s praises and bask in the reflected glow of his victory are the ones who wrote him off earlier, who viewed his chances of winning as slim to none. Recall, too, that they are the members and the leaders of the same GOP establishment that governed and campaigned in a way that lost them majorities in the Senate and the House and, so, subjected the country to the leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Suffice it to say, therefore, that there is every chance that these men and women will mistranslate Brown’s victory as an indication that voters have forgiven them for past record of lackluster leadership and chronic mismanagement by voters and their return to the heady days of the 1990s and early 2000s is just months away.

What these “Potomac Village Republicans” need to do, after finishing making the rounds of the news shows, is to study how victories were won in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey, how energetic, imaginative candidates managed to revive the fortunes of the Republican Party in their states, and how they often managed to do without the “assistance” of the national GOP establishment. They must do so calmly and diligently, but, more important, they must do so humbly because, unless they are willing to admit that a lot of the damage done to the GOP over the past seven years can be put down to them, even the Democrats’ growing disarray--and voters burgeoning dismay with them—won’t be enough to reestablish the GOP as a natural governing party.
 

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Martha Coakley and the Perils of a One-Party State

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

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 Martha Coakley, center, performs a skit in the aptly named "Banned in Boston" Improv, 2008

As Martha Coakley staggered into the last weekend of what was supposed to be a pro forma campaign for the U.S. Senate, reports abounded that Democratic “strategists” have started to offer a common explanation for what could be a stunning victory by Scott Brown. As occurred in the aftermath of Virginia gubernatorial election last November—when the Democratic candidate was utterly drubbed—it is meant to squelch speculation that somehow, some way, Americans aren’t too keen on what the Democrats have been doing with their Congressional majorities or that President Obama has lost his luster.  The explanation is simple: “Our candidate was a bad candidate who ran a bad campaign.”

As much as I dislike giving the current Democratic establishment anything of a pass, I will agree with this explanation—in part, at least. Martha Coakley *is* a lousy candidate. She lacks any type of pizzazz. She has a tin ear politically, is inept at thinking on her feet (as her recent comments about Catholics’ proper place in health care loudly attest), and spouts hoary bromides.  Thus, she has a marked inability to generate any excitement. Even the endorsement from The Boston Globe –normally full-throated cheerleaders for any and all Democrats—was, well, whelming.

This hardly should be surprising, however, considering Massachusetts’ status as a one-party state. Almost uniformly, one-party states produce politicians of little stature and scant excitement (although often of boundless entertainment value). They foster a class of politicians who contentedly work within the apparat, paying their dues, and patiently waiting their turn for a chance to move up for the next better job. The one-party state doesn’t foster any real principles beyond gaining and maintaining power; therefore, it routinely moves the goal posts on its members, and most of them uncomplainingly accept their new position. Those who object are seen as eccentrics to be tolerated or threats to be crushed.
 People who rise through such a system do not so much lead it as they serve it. On their way up, they don’t challenge the party’s thinking because doing so will queer their chances to move up. Once on top of the heap, they see no reason to change the system as their prominence is proof positive that it works just fine.  Cronyism, sweetheart deals, and jobbery as well as an occasional instance of truly bald corruption are tolerable, just the price of doing business. The system is as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that the Massachusetts Democratic Party ended up the political equivalent of a bowl of cold oatmeal that is Martha Coakley as its candidate for the U.S. Senate. She dutifully came up through the system—one cannot get more “inside” than in Middlesex County—punching her tickets and preparing to run for the next better job.  Finally, she considered the nomination to be tantamount to election. So, it has been with no little peevishness that she now fights for what years of experience told her was rightfully hers.

If Scott Brown wins the Democrats can assign—rightfully—a large portion of the blame to Martha Coakley and her ineptitude as a candidate. However, they would be better served if they also admitted that she was the logical creation of the system that they have maintained for almost 50 years. 

The Hurricane Song

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

The Hurricane Song

(Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things")

 

Panicking people who clog all the highways

Hungry green seas that go ripping ‘cross causeways

Hurricane Hunters taking to wing!

These are a few of what hurricanes bring!

 

 

Huge waves that on the beaches are crashing

High winds that on the houses are lashing

Roiling black clouds that blot out the sun

These are what make hurricane season so fun!

 

 

When the wind’s calm

When the sky’s blue

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember what hurricanes do

And, then I don’t feel so bad!

 

 

Sharp winds that send the sand to go raking

Wild seas that soon on seawalls are breaking

Bright-eyed young weathermen starting to drool

These are what make hurricane season so cool!

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Rising floodwaters and rains that are whipping

Warnings to seamen and dangers to shipping

Cutters and choppers and rescue at sea!

This is why hurricanes give me such glee.

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When the wind’s calm

When the sky’s blue

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember what hurricanes do

And, then I don’t feel so bad!

 

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Copyright owned by ODT Music, Ltd. 

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Operation Overlord

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

Operation Overlord
June 5-6, 1944

Paratroopers - 101st Airborne Division

 
Paratroopers – 6th Airborne Division

 

USS Nevada

U.S. Army Air Force A-20s

Sword Beach

  
Gold Beach

Juno Beach

 
Omaha Beach

Utah Beach

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s D-Day Prayer

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Memorial Day

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms.

We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.

 Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

 

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

--John A. Logan

Comander-in-Chief, Grand Army of the Republic

General Order No. 11

May 5, 1868

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The Asterisk Administration

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

                                                                                                                     

Only the naïve would be surprised by Barack Obama’s quiet reversal of his many of his campaign pledges. For example, he said that no lobbyist would have a place in his administration, and then he hired a bunch of them. In the aftermath of that particular about-face, however, came the breezy assertion by Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs that, although the Obama Administration had broken a campaign promise, its ethical standing remained unalloyed because unnamed “experts,” who had said its ethical rules were “the strongest in history,” also had informed the Administration that it would need to make exceptions to its anti-lobbyist rule.

The laughable idea that the Obama White House needed expert advice to arrive at that conclusion notwithstanding, Mr. Gibb’s statement was one in a series of instances in which the still-young Obama Administration’s claims of all sorts of accomplishments as well as possession of the moral high ground cry out for qualification. Indeed, it is getting so that every nearly every policy pronouncement or appointment seems to demand an asterisk.  For example:  

 

According 

to Joe Biden, 

a willingness to pay higher taxes 

is a hallmark of patriotism.*

 

The 

Obama Administration 

will set and maintain a high bar

 in regards to ethics.**

 

The 

Obama Administration 

will stop the 

“revolving door” 

and not be staffed by those 

icky lobbyists.***

 

The 

terrorist detention facility 

at Guantanamo Bay will close 

within a year.**** 

 

The 

Obama Administration

will not continue the policies of 

the Bush Administration 

in regards interrogation of terrorists 

because they violate our 

  nation’s values.*****

 

Afghanistan 

soon will be the “main front” 

in the war against Islamist terror with 

more than 30,000 troops 

          added to the force there.******

 

        The

    stimulus bill -excuse me, the

      American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

   -will focus on rebuilding our infrastructure

 and creating or saving millions 

             of jobs.*******

 

       The 

   Obama Administration

           will regain the respect 

                  of our allies.********

 

        The President 

     will end the practice 

   of 

       Congressional earmarks

               on spending bills.*********

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*However, having a Treasury Secretary and Trade Representative who did not pay their full tax bills until very recently is OK.

**Having two Cabinet-level officials with murky tax records is completely acceptable. 

***Unless, the fixer in question is a “strategic advisor.” Oh, heck, even of he or she is a registered lobbyist, it’s fine.  After all, some animals are more equal than others.

****Even though the Administration is nowhere close to sorting out any of the thorny legal and security issues, such as where to hold the terrorists and how to try them.

*****But if we really, really need to sweat information out of terrorist suspects, we’ll do whatever is necessary.

******The Administration is about to cut the Pentagon’s budget—in wartime.

*******Congress created a trillion-dollar pork-laden mess that will do little to rebuild infrastructure and save jobs and a lot to expand the scope and cost of government.

********So, it is giving the British and the Australians the cold shoulder and slobbering all over the Russians and the Chinese.

*********And, as soon as he signs the bloated omnibus spending bill that is larded with earmarks, he’ll get to that reform. Really.

In any administration’s early days, a gap between campaign rhetoric and the realities of governing is hardly surprising. However, the Obama Administration* has a habit of ignoring the yawning gaps before them or, if called on them, denying that any gap exists. If it doesn’t reverse this trend and quickly (the honeymoon soon will be over), it risks not merely have asterisks appended to nearly every statement and action, but also becoming a colossal joke.

 

A Proper Tribute

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

  

 

One of the greatest annoyances inflicted upon us by our government in the past 25 years was the conflation of Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday into the amorphous “Presidents Day.”  Besides diminishing the importance of Congress in the public’s historical and Constitutional thinking even further, it also fades the reputations of the two greatest Americans—not just presidents—in the minds of their countrymen.

 

Not to detract from the homages paid to the Great Emancipator by the likes of Irish Elk and President Obama last week, I offer the following words and images as an antidote to nebulous public holiday we observed yesterday, but more importantly as a reminder of why Lincoln indeed “belongs to the ages.”

 

 

  

I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army, who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.  This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence. - Independence Hall, Philadelphia, February 22, 1861

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. - First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. - Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

 


 
 

Christmas In The Great War

The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

In 1914, the French illustrator Lucien Hector Jonas was called to the colors and almost immediately began serving as a military artist. For the next four years, Jonas traveled to many different fronts on behalf of the Musee de l’Armee, producing thousands of paintings and illustrations of the war, both at the front and behind the lines. His art, while always depicting French soldiers, metropolitan and colonial alike, as gallant and ardent defenders of France , often was somewhat somber and just as often suffused with religious imagery.

 

Like many French war artists, Jonas was keen to include in his work the dashing and colorful soldiers of France’s Army of Africa (Zouaves, “Turcos,” Spahis), Senegalese Tirailleurs as well as the British Army’s Highland regiments (shades of “The Auld Alliance”) and Indian Army soldiers. They feature prominently in two Christmas-related illustrations.

 

In one from 1914, Les Nouveaux Rois Magee, Jonas depicted a French mother and child being presented with gifts from three “new” Magi—a Spahi, an Indian Army sepoy, and aSenegalese Tirailleur. A French poilu is close by as well, offering the child a small doll while another holds a lantern, illuminating the scene. In the background, a French dragoon watches, and a Highlander serenades everyone.

In this 1918 illustration of British soldiers buying geese and turkeys for Christmas dinner on the Italian front, the scene is much jollier with France ’s allies front and center.

Another Christmas image from Lucien Jonas was created after the Armistice. An illustration at once sentimental and poignant, it depicts three French children praying in a ruined church, “Christmas for Children without a House.”

 Joyeux Noël.