Photographs and Anxieties

I seldom hear much about Gabrielle Giffords these days.

That is how it should be, I guess.

After all, she was news on the day she was shot — and in the days that followed, when her dramatic fight for life was played out on the nation's TV screens in the form of medical briefings.

But, for most of the last five months, she has been just another patient and the details of her treatment have remained out of public view. She did survive a wound that was worse than many that hospital personnel usually see, but most of the milestones in her recovery have been observed in private.

Lately, though, Giffords has been back in the spotlight — sort of. She has remained in the shadows, but she was on hand when her husband's space shuttle mission began, and then she was in the news again after undergoing major surgery to repair her skull.

Her doctor says she is coming along splendidly and has taken to calling her "Gorgeous Gaby."

Giffords will probably recede from public view now and resume the arduous task of recovering from her injuries — which is fine with me ...

... except for the fact that her mere presence at the shuttle launch, the reports of her milestone surgery and now the posting of the first photos of Giffords since the shooting have revived thoughts that I couldn't avoid in January but nevertheless managed to tuck away for the last few months.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since January, but try to recall the atmosphere if you can.

The immediate reaction of Democrats was that the shooting had been perpetrated by a right–wing extremist and that it was the inevitable outcome of the incendiary political environment.

A lot of the blame was directed at the so–called Tea Party and Sarah Palin — even though all evidence suggested that the gunman was not motivated by politics and had no links to either.

Democrats were reluctant to acknowledge that, which I believe reveals the true source for the Democrats' behavior. Fear of a — for the most part — faceless them.

It's political paranoia that is worthy of Richard Nixon.

I sensed a lot of fear among Democrats when Republicans captured both houses of Congress in 1994. Democrats had held at least one chamber of Congress every year for 40 years, and many were fearful that they had lost their grip on legislative power forever.

That hasn't happened, of course. President Clinton was re–elected in 1996, and a Democrat was elected president in 2008. In between, Democrats recaptured Congress and expanded their majorities before losing the House last year.

But that 1994 experience is fresh enough in their memories that many Democrats are fearful of losing whatever they have and will do whatever they believe must be done — including sacrifice some of their commitments — to keep it.

Some saw what they interpreted as unmistakable signs of erosion in their base when Republicans took control of the House in 2010's midterm elections, and they are fearful that the second shoe will drop in 2012 when Democrats could well become victims of their own success as they defend two–thirds of the Senate seats that will be on the ballot.

That is only one fear, though.

Another fear, I believe, was to be found in the response to the attack on Giffords.

Since the 1960s, Democrats have been conditioned to believe that someone or a group or a conspiracy of some sort has been resisting their leaders and their causes. They saw three of their prominent leaders assassinated in the 1960s, then they saw Democratic presidents smeared (one successfully, one unsuccessfully) in the 1970s and 1990s.

And they have been fearful that something like that could happen again.

With this president — the first black president — there was always an unspoken concern in every conversation in which I participated — even before he was elected — that, at some point, somebody would take a shot at him.

I believe that is, in large part, why Democrats have been so quick to accuse people who disagree with Obama of being racists. It's kind of a proactive measure, understandable in a way — but it is still offensive to millions of Americans who honestly disagree with the president on policy and could care less what color his skin happens to be.

Fortunately, no one has taken a shot at Obama yet — and, hopefully, no one will.

Presidential security has improved a lot since the last time someone shot a president, even more since someone was successful in killing a president. But it still could happen. It has happened four times in our history. If the methodology for protecting a president is better now than it was, so too is the technology that can be used to attack a president.

Most presidents have accepted the fact that they could easily be killed if someone is, as Lincoln put it, willing to trade his life for the president's. If someone is that determined, it seems unlikely that anything can stop him.

I don't know if the first black president will be assassinated — or re–elected. I was not born with the ability to see the future.

I do know that the only trait that all great leaders share is confidence. They practically exude confidence — in America, in themselves and in the people. Without that, others won't follow — or, at least, they won't follow for long.

When a president takes the oath of office, no one truly knows what the fate of his presidency will be. Fifty years ago, no one knew that John F. Kennedy would die in a Dallas motorcade before the voters could give his presidency a thumb's up or a thumb's down. One hundred and fifty years ago, no one knew that Abraham Lincoln would preside over a bloody civil war — and be killed a few days after its conclusion.

And 30 years ago, no one knew that the oldest man ever elected president would survive not one but two terms in office — as well as an assassination attempt.

History is full of contradictions, full of twists and turns. A president must be confident and steadfast, sure that the course he is following is correct; the people always seem to sense uncertainty and hesitance.

I'm glad Giffords is recovering so well.

And I would urge the president and those who are embarking on campaigns to replace him to avoid incendiary arguments.

The nation was not served by the introduction of unwarranted charges and counter–charges about patriotism in 2004, and it will not be served by the introduction of unwarranted charges and counter–charges about racial attitudes in 2012.

Let's talk about the issues and the nation's problems in 2012.

No matter what else happens.

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A Short Presidency

I often wonder what James Garfield, America's 20th president, might have accomplished if he hadn't been shot about four months after taking office — and died of his wounds two months later.

Garfield, who died 129 years ago on this day, had a mere 200 days as president — only William Henry Harrison's one–month presidency was shorter — and nearly 40% of that time was spent in bed with the gunshot wound that ultimately killed him.

But he showed so much promise.

He wasn't a Rhodes scholar, the way Bill Clinton was. In fact, his academic career appears — to 21st century eyes, at least — a bit sparse. He attended Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (which later became Hiram College) and graduated with honors from Williams College — where he was regarded as an excellent student in everything (except chemistry).

Did you realize that, not only did he know both Latin and Greek, but he was a professor of both at Hiram College for a time? He also was ambidextrous — and he could use that particular talent to write both languages simultaneously. Well, that's the story, anyway.

Relatively few modern presidents have been able to speak a second language. And even fewer have been ambidextrous. Ronald Reagan, I have heard, was born left–handed but was forced by teachers to learn to write with his right hand when he was a child. And biographer David McCullough has suggested that something similar happened to Harry Truman when he was growing up.

Truman's and Reagan's experiences probably were typical for lefthanders of their generation, and I know from my own somewhat limited experience how challenging it is to try to learn to do things with your non–dominant hand.

When I was 13, I broke my right wrist and it had to be in a cast for about eight weeks. I am right–handed and, because of the nature of the break, virtually my entire arm, from my fingers to my upper arm, had to be encased in this cast and remain locked in one position while the break healed.

Because of the way my arm was positioned, it was impossible for me to write with my right hand so, for eight weeks, I had to turn in spelling tests and any other handwritten assignments with the messiest handwriting you ever saw from the pencil of a seventh–grader.

Anyway, I can respect what Truman and Reagan apparently were forced to do, but I would classify theirs as acquired ambidexterity. Garfield, as I understand it, was left–handed by nature, but I have heard nothing that says he was forced to do things with his right hand. His type of ambidexterity appears to have been natural.

Or perhaps it was the result of the subtle influence of a person in Garfield's life when he was growing up. As I say, I am right–handed, but there are certain things that I do — or did when I was a child — with my left hand, and I have always believed it was because my father, who is left–handed, must have shown me how to do them when I was small. And I just mimicked what I saw him do.

For example, I have always used a pool cue from the left. And, although I do not own a rifle, on the occasions when I have fired a rifle, I have done so from the left.

And, when I was a child and I played kickball or kicked a football with my friends, I kicked with my left foot. I never was able to kick with my right.

So it is possible that environment played a role in whatever ambidexterity Garfield acquired.

But it does seem to me that a distinction must be drawn between acquired ambidexterity — and natural ambidexterity, in which one can move effortlessly between the two, kind of like a natural switch hitter in baseball.

And Garfield's ambidexterity, as I say, appears to have been natural.

Of course, ambidexterity is not necessarily evidence of above average intelligence. But it seems to me that, to be able to apply one's ambidexterity to one's other pursuits does require a certain amount of creativity — which does, in my experience, require a certain level of intellectual depth.

Well, whatever his ambidexterity may have said about his intelligence, Garfield had about as varied a resume as anyone who ever took the presidential oath. He was the first former college president — and, as far as I know, the only former preacher — to be president.

From what I have learned of Garfield, he was quite well read, which certainly suggests a high level of intelligence.

He was a "policy wonk" a century before the Clinton candidacy and presidency popularized the phrase. He never appears to have been bored with the minutiae of policy making.

And he seems to have been a very outgoing man, the sort who enjoys the politician's life. He was muscular and handsome, and he enjoyed good health.

Now, none of these things tell us that Garfield was unusually gifted or special, although he has been described as one of the most talented orators of his day. He appears to have been somewhat Clintonesque, actually. He was "[e]xtremely tactile," wrote historian William DeGregorio. "[H]e liked to hug and stroke friends and characteristically slung an arm around the shoulders of whomever he was talking to."

But he was unique in at least one way. In more than 200 years, he remains the only sitting member of the House to be elected president.

I'm not sure, though, if much can be learned from Garfield's experience in the House. He was there for nearly 20 years, and during that time he appears to have earned a reputation as something of a waffler. He seems to have been far too concerned with making everyone happy — and, as a result, made relatively few people happy.

That, too, may seem somewhat Clintonesque, although, in an odd kind of way, Garfield seems to have managed to combine the qualities of both Clinton and the man he defeated in 1992, former President George H.W. Bush.

DeGregorio writes that (in true Clinton fashion) "he was most ambitious," but (like Bush) he was modest and disinclined to self–promotion.

"I so much despise a man who blows his own horn," Garfield reportedly said, "that I go to the extreme of not demanding what is justly my due."

But if his pre–presidential career suggested an indecisive presidency, that was not what came across after Garfield took office — certainly by modern standards.

One of the earliest tasks — and perhaps the most crucial — of a new president in the 19th century was that of making political appointments, and the federal system was fraught with corruption. By the time Garfield took office, there was a burgeoning movement for civil service reform in the land, and it was against that backdrop that Garfield made his stand against a power broker from his own party, Sen. Roscoe Conkling of New York.

Conkling felt it was his responsibility to appoint the chief collector for the Port of New York because he was the state's senior senator. And, traditionally, it was something that the state's senator handled, even though it seems brazenly corrupt today — especially the way Conkling doled out patronage.

To put this in a context that 21st century people might understand, it would be comparable to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb claiming that, because the Pentagon sits on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, he, as Virginia's senior senator, should appoint the secretary of Defense.

As I say, it seems brazenly corrupt today, but it was a pretty common procedure at that time. It was covered by the principle of "senatorial courtesy," which is still observed to a certain extent but not as widely as it was then, in no small part because of Garfield.

Garfield decided to challenge the practice of a spoils system by appointing one of Conkling's political rivals chief collector. Conkling and his senatorial colleague from New York both resigned in protest, only to discover that the state's Republican Party was not going to support them against the president, and Garfield had struck a blow for civil service reform.

It might be obvious, given his background as a college president and a preacher, that Garfield took an extremely unusual route to the presidency.

As a young man, Garfield fought for the North in the Civil War, achieving the rank of major general. He earned a certain amount of notoriety for that, but it hardly served as his launch pad into presidential politics. Instead, it launched him into 18 years of service in the House of Representatives.

Then, fate intervened in 1880, and Garfield became the Republicans' compromise choice when 35 ballots failed to produce a presidential nominee.

One of the candidates for the nomination that year was former President Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, Conkling had been the leader of the movement to nominate Grant (who had been president from 1869–1877) for an unprecedented third term. But Grant deadlocked with James G. Blaine and John Sherman, and the delegates turned to the dark horse Garfield.

In the general election, Garfield defeated another former Union commander, Winfield Hancock, becoming one of the youngest men (48 on Election Day) to win the presidency.

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The men who originally sought the nomination that became Garfield's did not have kind things to say about him, either while he was president ("Garfield ... is not possessed of the backbone of an angle–worm," said Grant) or more than a decade after his death ("His will power was not equal to his personal magnetism," wrote Sherman in 1895. "He easily changed his mind and honestly veered from one impulse to another").

In his inaugural address, Garfield spoke of civil service reform, and he can be said to have fired the first real shot of that revolt in his skirmish with Conkling. Actual reform, however, was ultimately achieved by his successor, Chester Arthur — although it was done, in large part, as a tribute to Garfield.

He might have been remembered in the history books as a crusader against corruption, but after only four months in office, Garfield was shot by a disgruntled and mentally unbalanced office seeker. And, instead of being recognized for the influence he could have had on American life, he is often regarded as a footnote, an oddity.

It has been suggested by some that Garfield could have survived his wound if it hadn't been for inadequate medical care.

"At least a dozen medical experts probed the president's wound, often with unsterilized metal instruments or bare hands, as was common at the time," wrote Amanda Schaffer of the New York Times in 2006. "Historians agree that massive infection, which resulted from unsterile practices, contributed to Garfield's death."

What might have been?

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Back to the Future

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Today is the 42nd anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

When many people think of King, they think of his inspiring, uplifting messages — his "I Have a Dream" speech that he delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the August 1963 March on Washington or the speech he gave 42 years ago last night, the night before his assassination, when he told his followers he had been to the mountaintop.

In the 1950s and 1960s, King was reviled by segregationists, but he had the support of many who held positions of power in Washington and many who held positions of influence in the media. Among those groups, his work for racial equality was perceived as being on the right side of history.

But I have long believed that it was a speech he gave exactly one year before his assassination, at Riverside Church in New York, that changed his relationship with many who had supported and protected him. On that occasion, he spoke against American policy in Vietnam.

His allies would not stand with him on the subject of Vietnam. The war had nothing to do with racial injustice, they argued. Not so, said King, who believed that peace and prosperity went hand in hand. And he believed that to remain silent was betrayal.

(Or, as Edmund Burke put it, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.")

Because so many rejected his message in 1967, the tragedy of Vietnam went on, and thousands more Americans died needless deaths. In recent years, I have felt that we were repeating that mistake in the Middle East.

Apparently, Bob Herbert agrees with me, although the focus of his attention is mostly on Afghanistan, not Iraq — of the two, I have believed for many years that Iraq was the unjustifiable war.

King's message in that speech at Riverside Church in 1967 wasn't a radical departure from what he had been saying throughout his public life. But, as Herbert observes in the New York Times, it was controversial because he questioned what the government was doing in Vietnam.

Even the NAACP thought he was making a mistake in shifting his focus from civil rights to foreign policy. But King felt (and said so, in words that were far more eloquent than mine) that economic opportunity and peace were compatible, and economic opportunity was the key to equal rights. The war in Vietnam ran counter to the ultimate objective of the civil rights movement.

In 1967, to question the government's policy in Vietnam was seen as nothing short of heresy — and those who spoke out were often seen as advocating communism. Even entertainers (i.e., the Smothers Brothers) were censored when their comedy was believed to be contrary to national policy abroad.

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King was not a communist, and, eventually, a majority of Americans came to share his view of Vietnam. But his speech drove a wedge between him and many who had supported him in the past.

And things, Herbert argues, haven't changed all that much in four–plus decades. True, America has a black president now — something that even Dr. King may not have dared to imagine — but Herbert sees that president making the same mistake that Lyndon Johnson made in the 1960s — sending more troops (this time to Afghanistan) "in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support," to use King's own words.

"More than 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 1,000 in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration has chosen to escalate rather than to begin a careful withdrawal," writes Herbert. "Those two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have told us, will ultimately cost us more than $3 trillion.

"And yet the voices in search of peace, in search of an end to the 'madness,' in search of the nation–building so desperately needed here in the United States, are feeble indeed."

Until America learns from the mistakes of the past, it will continue to make them.

And the madness will go on.

During his life, King was an advocate of civil rights, as everyone knows, but he advocated civil rights for all, not just one group. That is why the words he spoke still speak to us today. He spoke of fairness, not unfair advantage. And he knew that economic opportunity was at the heart of the human struggle.

No doubt he agreed with Gandhi, who said, "Poverty is the worst kind of violence." He certainly made it clear what he thought of a government that would commit so much money and so many lives to waging war overseas instead of dedicating those resources to programs designed to improve things at home.

I wonder how he would feel about an administration that, faced with massive unemployment and under–employment and budget crises in nearly every state, chose to escalate a war?

Well, just as in Dr. King's day, the poor, the hungry, the unemployed will pay the price for it.

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