Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Sic semper tyrannis — Thus always to tyrants."Latin phraseWhen I heard the news that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had been killed, it came as no real surprise to me.It's been this way as long as I can remember — and, according to the undocumented history of the Latin phrase, it goes back at least to the time of Julius Caesar, when he was killed with the words "sic semper tyrannis!"Modern historians have suggested that phrase wasn't really spoken...

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'I Still Laugh When I Am Able ...'

Today is the birthday of my childhood friend Phyllis.It's the second one since she passed away in August 2010.I still miss her, as so many others do, but the pain has been receding for me since this day last year. I guess I was more melancholy then. I think I'm doing better now. It was, after all, barely two months since my friend had died. I was still grieving.I think of Phyllis nearly every day — which is the most I can truthfully say about almost...

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'Democrat Wars'

Lately, a proposal that is usually made as a way to offer a glimmer of hope to an embattled president seeking re–election — dropping the vice president from the ticket — has resurfaced.In the case of Barack Obama, the idea has been bandied about for more than a year now. The latest to bring it up is Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun–Times, who writes that "[t]he idea still has juice" and that Joe Biden's logical replacement would be Hillary Clinton, providing instant appeal to certain groups with whom Obama had problems in 2008.Washington acknowledges,...

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Remembering the Old Gray Lady

Next Tuesday — October 18 — probably won't have much significance for most people.Oh, I guess they'll have a party of some sort in Sarah Palin's home. It's Bristol's 21st birthday, and Sarah will have no excuse not to be there since she isn't running for president.Like any other day on the calendar, October 18 has had some noteworthy events, although most have been, to borrow Lincoln's phrasing, little noted nor long remembered.But tomorrow, a group...

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He Said, She Said

Twenty years ago, the nation watched as the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas — while outside opposition to his appointment was growing, based on his past positions on topics like affirmative action and abortion.Many Democrats suspected that Thomas had been selected to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall solely because both were black and Thomas would maintain the Supreme Court's existing racial balance. But Marshall and Thomas certainly didn't share the same views, and groups like the NAACP and...

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Herman Cain to Unemployed: Drop Dead

"Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."Herman CainOK, Herman Cain never told the nation's 14 million unemployed or underemployed Americans to drop dead.Neither, for that matter, did President Ford tell New York City to drop dead — as a famous headline in the New York Daily News proclaimed during Ford's brief White House tenure.But Ford might as well have told New York to drop...

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Ford's Self-Inflicted Wound

On this night in 1976, President Ford and Jimmy Carter met in the second of their three televised debates.Ford had been making gains on Carter since their first debate. He still trailed Carter in the polls by a considerable margin, but that margin clearly was narrowing. And Carter, who was known to be a "born again" Christian, received negative publicity for an interview he gave to Playboy.In early October 1976, things seemed to be moving in Ford's direction.However, Ford himself froze his momentum in its tracks with what can only be called a self–inflicted...

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The Role of Government

An important intangible in the presidency is what George H.W. Bush once breezily dismissed as the "vision thing."That is the sort of attitude that presidents who lack such a vision — and their supporters — tend to have about it. They treat it as if it isn't important, as if competence alone is all that is necessary.(But the voters don't see it that way. Competence is kind of a relative thing, don't you think? What strikes one person as competent may well strike another as incompetent.)I have heard defenders of Barack Obama saying much the same...

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