Ronald Reagan's D-Day Speech

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At his best, Ronald Reagan could redce an audience to tears with his speeches. I saw him do it on a number of occasions — when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1985, when Reagan accepted his renomination as the Republican standard bearer in the summer of 1984.

Speechwriter Peggy Noonan was often responsible for putting the words in Reagan's mouth that accomplished that. Noonan, more than anyone else, was responsible for Reagan&'s moniker

I'll be the the first to acknowledge that Noonan is a gifted writer. But few of Reagan's speeches could match "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" that was delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D–Day invasion 40 years ago today.

That really wasn't surprising. D–Day was the turning point of World War II, and the men who fought in it truly could be said to have saved the free world. Reagan paid tribute to them when many were still living.

The RFK Assassination

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"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live."

Robert F. Kennedy

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles after he had declared victory in the California presidential primary.

He didn't die immediately. He lingered for about 24 hours.

I have written on this blog before about my memories of that event. What I am thinking about today is the aftermath — when his body was brought back to New York for the funeral, then carried by train to Washington where he was buried next to his brother in Arlington Cemetery.

I remember watching the funeral service on TV — and seeing Sen. Edward Kennedy's moving eulogy to his brother. I remember the stoic demeanor of Kennedy's widow, Ethel. In the context of what had occurred in the preceding days, it was heart–breaking.

But I suppose my dominant memory is of the train making its way from New York to Washington. It is a distance of only about 200 miles — ordinarily a four–hour trip by train, historian Theodore White observed, but more than doubled by the crowds that came out to pay their respects. It seemed as if nearly everyone who lived between those two cities came out and stood beside the railroad tracks until the train carrying Kennedy's body went by.

At first, the crowds were mostly small groups, but as the train proceeded, the crowds grew larger, standing three, four, five rows deep, sometimes more. Every segment of the American population was represented — young, old, black, white, affluent, poor. Sometimes they spilled onto the tracks, forcing the train to slow down even more. My memory is that a handful of people may have been killed after being struck by the train.

There have been museum exhibits recently that sought to capture that experience for those who have no memory of that time, but the sensation is incomplete without knowledge of the signs that were always present during Kennedy's life — and followed him to his grave.

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When Kennedy walked among us, those signs encouraged him to seek the presidency or demanded justice after he made his decision to run. After he was shot and his fate was still unknown but widely anticipated, the signs read "Pray for Bobby." Along the train route, they simply said, "Goodbye" or "So long."

White tried to describe the scene — but how do you describe the indescribable?

"There were the family groups: husband holding sobbing wife, arm around her shoulders, trying to comfort her," he wrote. "Five nuns in a yellow pickup truck, tiptoeing high to see. A very fat father with three fat boys, he with his hand over his heart, each of the boys giving a different variant of the Boy Scout or school salute. And the people: the men from the great factories that line the tracks, standing at ease as they were taught as infantrymen, their arms folded over chests. Women on the back porches of the slum neighborhoods that line the tracks, in their housedresses, with ever–present rollers in their hair, crying. People in buildings, leaning from office windows, on the flat roofs of industrial plants, on the bluffs of the rivers, on the embankments of the railway cuts, a crust on every ridge and height. Pleasure boats in the rivers lined up in flotillas; automobiles parked on all the viaducts that crossed the line of the train. Brass bands — police bands, school bands, Catholic bands. Flags: individual flags dropped in salute by middle–aged men as the train passed, flags at half–staff from every public building on the way, entire classes of schoolchildren holding the little eight–by–ten flags, in that peppermint–striped flutter that marks every campaign trip. He turned them on, black and white, rich and poor. And they cried."

No other politician in modern history could connect with as many disparate groups as Bobby Kennedy. It is something no one tries to do anymore because it is so difficult to achieve. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

A Look at the Midterms on Memorial Day

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For quite awhile now, Democrats have been salivating over the assumption that they could win back the House in November. Nancy Pelosi has been speaking in public of becoming House speaker again. Just a matter of time.

And, for awhile, that assumption included the possibility of flipping the Senate, too.

I tended to agree with the former, largely because the historical trend has been for the out–of–power party to make gains in the midterm elections. That doesn't mean the control of either chamber (or both) always changes hands. It just means the out–of–power party makes gains.

I have never been as certain that the Democrats could capture the Senate in this cycle. The 2018 map simply does not favor them for achieving that task.

Gains in the House happen whether the president is popular or not. Barack Obama was popular in 2010, the year of the first midterm of his presidency, but Republicans made huge gains in the House and seized control of that chamber. Nearly 30 years earlier, in Ronald Reagan's first midterm elections, Democrats already had control of the House, but they added 27 seats to their advantage and virtually ensured their dominance for the next decade.

Reagan, it is worth noting, did not enjoy the kind of approval ratings in 1982 that he did in the rest of his presidency, largely because the economic recovery that would propel Reagan to victory in his campaign for re–election in 1984 had not begun. In fact, his 1982 approval ratings at that point in his presidency resembled Donald Trump's, which is a compelling historical reason for thinking that the House may well flip. The Democrats need about two dozen seats to gain control of the House, and House districts are more compact than statewide seats (unless those statewide seats are in the smaller states — by population).

Midterms have often been referendums on the president — and, because Trump's approval ratings have been so lackluster, it has been only natural to expect that he would drag Republicans on the ballot down.

Clearly the cards appear to be stacked against the Republicans in the House in 2018.

For awhile, it seemed that was what was going to happen. Trump's deficit in approval polls was in double digits — but the enthusiasm gap has been narrowing in recent months. According to Gallup's most recent survey, the deficit is nine percentage points. Some polls even show Republicans pulling even with or ahead of Democrats in that generic ballot.

Likewise, the generic congressional ballot that had Democrats leading Republicans by double–digit margins only a few months ago has witnessed a decline to below 5% in many polls. A couple of weeks ago, CNN reported that Democrats held a three–point lead.

That's significant because a national margin of around 5% could be accounted for by vote totals on the East and West Coasts, where Democrats ordinarily prevail. In the Hillary Clinton–Donald Trump presidential campaign, the coasts voted heavily for Clinton, which predisposes them to vote Democratic this time, leaving little or no room for error in the interior states.

Given how the 2016 election turned out, it is not surprising that I have heard many Democrats wonder if they can trust the polls. I believe they can. The 2016 polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the popular vote by 2–3%, and that is roughly the margin she received.

Most polls did not, however, predict which states would vote for which candidate; consequently, there was no warning that the celebrated "blue wall" would crumble on election night.

Recent primary results indicate that a battle is being waged within the Democratic Party between its far–left wing and its centrist wing, and the outcome can have a profound effect on Senate races. Centrist Democrats stand a much better chance of winning Republican–held Senate seats in the South whereas the more leftist Democrats are more likely to prevail in Northern states.

Here in Texas, for example, an agenda that favors abortion and opposes guns is going to be a dealbreaker, even though Texas' share of the vote for the Republican ticket in 2016 was smaller than usual.

Numerically, the odds would seem to favor Democrats even more in the Senate, where flipping only two seats would give them control of the chamber. But many of those Republican–held seats are in the South and the same dynamics at work in Texas apply.

There are enough Republican–held Senate seats to give Democrats the majority if they can capture them. Two are open seats — in Arizona and Tennessee — and one is a Nevada incumbent, where Clinton won by more than 27,000 votes in November 2016.

But just winning those seats won't be enough for Democrats, who must defend seats in several states that voted for Trump, sometimes by wide margins. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, for instance, faces an electorate that gave Trump nearly 68% of the vote in 2016. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill must overcome Trump's half–a–million vote advantage.

Indiana is a traditionally Republican state that has supported only two Democrats for president (Barack Obama in 2008 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964) since 1940. Democrat Joe Donnelly faces challenging terrain there as he seeks a second term.

There are other seats Democrats must defend in states where they fared better in 2016, but the bottom line is that a great deal of time and money must be devoted to holding them.

Thus, while the odds still favor a Democratic takeover in the House, the Senate is likely to remain problematic for the Democrats in November.

Primary Day in West Virginia

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Democrat Joe Manchin was a popular guy when he was West Virginia's governor.

But that was when West Virginia was still a Democratic state.

Now, as Manchin seeks his second full term as a U.S. senator from West Virginia, he is regarded as one of the most vulnerable Democrat incumbents in this cycle, and three Republicans are vying for their party's nomination to oppose him in the fall. West Virginia Republicans are going to the polls today to decided which one it will be.

President Donald Trump has already made it known which Republican he hopes will not be the nominee — Don Blankenship, a former coal baron who served time in prison. In a Tweet from the president yesterday, Trump urged the voters of West Virginia to reject Blankenship on the grounds that he can't beat Manchin in November and compared him to Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican who lost an open Senate seat in a special election last year.

Trump recommended that the voters choose either Rep. Evan Jenkins or state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the leading contenders for the nomination. Three other candidates are in the race, but they have been drawing only modest support in the polls.

The most recent poll I have seen had Jenkins in the lead with 25%. Morrisey was second with 21% and Blankenship was third with 16%. Polls have shown that anywhere from 12% to 39% of Republican voters are undecided so the race is essentially a tossup.

The race apparently has energized voters. The Charleston Gazette–Mail reports that early voting turnout was more than 50% higher than in the last midterm in 2014. Early voting numbers also exceeded the tally in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Polls close at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.

A Blast From the Past

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It occurred to me this week, when 72–year–old Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested under suspicion of being the infamous Golden State Killer of the 1970s and 1980s, that it was a lot like when Dennis Rader was charged in another cold case, the BTK slayings in Kansas, in 2005.

Rader's crime spree started roughly the same time as the Golden State Killer's — in the mid–1970s. He continued a few years after the Golden State Killer's known attacks ended. (I say known because more facts may yet emerge as this case unfolds.)

Both men were regarded as a bit quirky — even menacing — by others; they held positions of authority and lived for many years in the communities they terrorized.

If DeAngelo turns out to be the Golden State Killer — he entered no plea when he appeared in court yesterday — he had a slightly higher body count. Of course, that doesn't include the roughly four dozen rapes or the more than 100 burglaries that have been tied to the Golden State Killer. That makes him a far more prolific criminal.

The men are roughly the same age — and had no reason to be concerned about DNA evidence at the time they committed their crimes since the development of that technology was still in the distant future. They knew enough about contemporary forensic evidence to avoid the evidentiary traps of the times, but DNA, which played a role in their eventual captures, was not on their radar.

DNA was discovered in the 19th century, but how to apply it to criminal investigations evolved well into the next century. In the '70s, high school science teachers could tell their students about DNA, but they couldn't say how it would influence law enforcement — or anything else — in the years ahead.

It would be a couple of decades before most people would get that kind of exposure via the O.J. Simpson trial — and even then DNA was misunderstood by many.

Neither man said much during the arraignment phase. DeAngelo confirmed his name when asked; Rader said nothing during his arraignment.

All serial killers are not created equal, though. While DeAngelo apparently has kept mostly silent since being taken into custody, Rader seemed to derive pleasure in letting the authorities know how clever he had been, confessing to crimes in addition to the ones with which he had been charged.

It all comes down to what motivates a serial killer, and they are as individual in their motivations as people in any other walk of life. For those who study serial killers, it will be instructive to learn what motivated DeAngelo.

Death, Free Speech and Tenure

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As a journalist, I am a lifelong advocate of free speech — well, the First Amendment in general. I guess it goes without saying that I am a supporter of freedom of the press.

It is very difficult to get me to speak against freedom of speech in any way.

But today I want to address freedom of speech because, contrary to what many people seem to believe, that freedom is not absolute. There are limits.

One of the most frequently mentioned is the one that says you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater — or any other public place — unless there really is a fire. To do otherwise is to invite panic that is apt to leave some people hurt or dead.

Another limit on freedom of speech is what I would label good taste. And Fresno State English professor Randa Jarrar, who self–identifies as an Arab–American and a Muslim American, crossed that line with her tweets about the late Barbara Bush, calling her an "amazing racist" and professing to be glad that Bush was dead. She also said she looked forward to the day when all the Bushes were deceased. That is disrespectful.

When others called her on it and called on the school to fire her, Jarrar fell back on the "I have tenure" argument and insisted she would never be fired — and posted a suicide hotline number as if it were her own. The number attracted a huge number of calls, the kind of calls the hotline was not designed to take, and gumming up the line may well have contributed to the deaths of others.

None of that is in good taste. In my book, it is reprehensible. But apparently, it is representative of the double standard of the modern political landscape. Canadian singer Shania Twain has been criticized mercilessly for saying in an interview that she would have voted for Donald Trump if she had been eligible to vote in an American election in 2016, and rapper Kanye West was similarly criticized as well.

The occasion of someone's death is neither the time nor the place for getting on a soapbox, and tenure was not designed to be some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card to keep people from being held accountable for incendiary remarks.

Tenure was intended to protect professors' freedom of thought from powerful donors and alumni. That is still a worthy and noble objective.

But, as is so often the case in this world, worthy and noble objectives can be easily corrupted.

This is not a free speech issue, and tenure should not prevent Fresno State's administration from doing the right thing.

Barbara Bush Dies at 92

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Former first lady Barbara Bush, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was a remarkable woman, and her attributes are justifiably being remembered today. She said many things that should inspire the rest of us on our journeys through life.

I have felt considerable empathy for the Bush family, especially Mrs. Bush's children, who have had the pleasure of having their mother with them longer than most. I learned when my own mother died that, no matter how old we are when it happens, it feels strange to be a motherless child.

And I have learned that is a feeling that never really goes away.

I have no doubt that George W. Bush, who is now 71 years old, is feeling that way tonight — in spite of his insistence that "my soul is comforted" by his mother's certainty that there was an afterlife waiting for her.

The loss of a parent is a blow for most people, whether it is expected or not.

But it is also worth remembering that she, like all of us, was human and subject to the same shortcomings we all have.

For example, when her husband, then–Vice President George H.W. Bush, debated the first woman to be on a national ticket, Geraldine Ferraro, in October 1984, Mrs. Bush, when asked her opinion of Ferraro, replied, "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich."

Well, we all have our shortcomings, as I said.

And most of the time Mrs. Bush was inspirational, reminding us of things that really count in life. But she wasn't perfect. None of us are.

We shouldn't lose sight of that fact as the accolades pour in.

Thomas Jefferson's 275th Birthday

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"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

President John F. Kennedy
At a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere
The White House
April 29, 1962

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It was 275 years ago today that my favorite president, Thomas Jefferson, was born.

Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and may well have been the most brilliant of the Founding Fathers — but he probably draws mixed reviews today.

A product of colonial Virginia, Jefferson benefited from the work of slaves on several plantations. He also, as Fawn Brodie's 1974 biography of Jefferson, "An Intimate History," revealed, fathered children with Sally Hemings, a slave who was said to be the half–sister of Jefferson's deceased wife.

Critics of Jefferson contend that Jefferson's ownership of slaves is a clear contradiction of his assertion that "all men are created equal."

But to focus on that is to force Jefferson, in hindsight, to live according to standards that were in place nearly two centuries after the end of his presidency. Ironically, Jefferson might not be an especially popular candidate for president today. He was tall — 6 feet 2½ inches — and voters do tend to prefer tall presidential candidates, but he was perhaps a little too relaxed for many voters' tastes. Jefferson, a senator of the day remarked, "sits in a lounging manner on one hip, commonly." He wasn't a particularly finicky dresser, either. He paid little attention to fashion and preferred to dress in whatever was comfortable, resulting in frequent mixing of styles from different periods.

Most fair–minded historians prefer to focus on his advocacy of the principle of individual rights, his championing of religious freedom and tolerance and the Louisiana Purchase, which was made during Jefferson's first term as president and doubled the size of the United States.

Jefferson considered himself a Deist, and his thoughts on religious freedom stemmed from Virginia's laws that made it a crime "not to baptize infants in the Anglican church; dissenters were denied office, civil or military; children could be taken from their parents if the parents failed to profess the prescribed creeds," wrote Jon Meacham in "The Art of Power."

"Jefferson believed it unjust (and unwise) to use public funds to support an established church and to link civil rights to religious observance," Meacham wrote. "He said such a system led to 'spiritual tyranny.' In theological terms, according to notes he made on John Locke, Jefferson concurred with a Christian tradition that held the church should not depend on state–enforced compulsion."

As for the Louisiana Purchase, it is hard to imagine any acquisition by any country that has been as financially feasible. For about 3 cents an acre, the United States acquired all or part of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

Jefferson had authorized his negotiators to purchase only New Orleans and West Florida, but Napoleon, strapped for cash on the brink of war with Britain, offered the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson had his doubts about the constitutionality of the deal but quickly agreed to it before Napoleon could change his mind.

Farewell to a Great Journalist

There was a time in my life when I was on the journalism faculty at the University of Oklahoma.

The director of the school of journalism was a man named David Dary. A native of Manhattan, Kansas, he began his career as a broadcast journalist (he introduced President Kennedy on CBS just before Kennedy delivered his Cuban Missile Crisis speech in 1962), then moved on to teaching and writing about "old–time Kansas," as he put it.

I just learned today that he passed away less than a month ago.

In Dary's obituary, Beccy Tanner of the Wichita Eagle called Dary "one of Kansas' best storytellers." I have no doubt about the truth of that statement.

I have read excerpts from his books — I have never read one of his books from start to finish, but I have long wanted to and may well do so — and, being something of a historian myself, I think his engaging storytelling style was made possible by his training as a journalist. He wrote more than 20 books, most of them focused on the old American West — and he did it well enough to be inducted into the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2010 for his literary contributions to the history of the cowboy.

From what I have read, his research was impeccable and his style was entertaining — which, frankly, I would expect. During my time at OU, I spent many hours in his office, discussing all sorts of journalism–related topics and learning more from him than I ever learned in a classroom.

At the beginning of my first semester at OU, Dary and his wife hosted a dinner for the journalism faculty. I became acquainted with most of my new colleagues on that occasion, but what I really remember is looking at the bookshelves in his home, where he kept copies of all the books he had written up to that point. I was mesmerized. He walked up behind me and said something — I don't remember now what he said — and I told him how impressed I was. He smiled and said something typically modest — probably "thank you" — and then he asked me if I was getting settled in to my new job all right.

I once served on a search committee with him to find a new professor for the print journalism department. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

A family crisis prompted me to leave Oklahoma and return to Texas a few years later, but I never forgot his kindness to me while I was there.

He was a dedicated journalist, having rebuilt the OU journalism program during his tenure — and I know he inspired the students who took his classes.

Rest in peace, sir.

Fifty Years Since the Death of Martin Luther King

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"Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
April 3, 1968

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn.

Many articles have been written recapping that event for those not old enough to remember. It is not my intention to add to them. If the reader wants to know what brought King to Memphis, there are many sources for that information.

Nor is it necessary for me to discuss the aftermath of the assassination. Dr. King was the face of the civil rights movement. When that face was taken away, it sparked predictable violence across America — sadly, that violence also led to widespread looting, prompting Roy Wilkins, the executive secretary of the NAACP, to lament that "Martin's memory is being desecrated." It was more than that, really. It was a violation of the concept of home and the security that word implies.

"For home in America is as much home to blacks as to whites," historian Theodore H. White wrote at the time, "and violence menaces them as much as it does Americans of any color."

The night before he died, Dr. King said something that could just as easily have been said yesterday: "Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

Trouble is in the land today. One need look no further than San Bruno, Calif., or Austin, Texas, to see that.

Sometimes there is a racial aspect to the violence, but to focus on that alone is to miss the point; the truth is that race relations have improved in half a century. Segregated schools still existed in 1968. If they exist today, it is in the form of private schools to which only affluent families have access. Laws protect Americans from racial (and sexual) discrimination in the workplace.

Are there areas where improvement is needed? Of course. Wholesale change does not happen overnight — or even over decades. America has always been a work in progress. But there can be no denying that the America of 2018 is better than the America of 1968.

So on this day I would say that Dr. King's dream is partially fulfilled. Much work has been done, and much remains to be done.

The work will not be finished until all Americans, regardless of their color — or gender or age, for that matter — enjoy the same rights and privileges of citizenship.

Then the dream will be fulfilled.

What Will It Take to Flip the House?

The Democrats are going against the tide of history in this year's midterm elections, which are now slightly more than seven months away.

Conventional wisdom says the out–of–power party outperforms the in–power party in a midterm, and that is likely to be the case in 2018 — but conventional wisdom says nothing about whether the former is likely to win control of either chamber of Congress.

And that is the prize the Democrats really seek. It would nice to narrow the gap, but it wouldn't be the same as seizing control of the chamber and being able to block any White House initiatives in the next two years.

Doing well on the state level is vital for the Democrats as well for it is in the state legislatures that most of the district boundaries for the 2020s will be drawn. High turnout for Democrats running for federal office may help with this farther down the ballot.

In the House, the Democrats need to flip roughly two dozen seats, and the ever–increasing number of Republican House retirements may very well make that a possibility. But the odds are that Democrats still will need to defeat some Republican incumbents to achieve their goal.

It's a tall order, but it can be done. There have been 16 midterm elections since the dawn of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, and Democrats have flipped two dozen or more House seats in four of them. They did it one other time, too, in a presidential election year — 1964, when Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in a landslide.

Historically, Democrats need some kind of catalyst to flip seats at that rate. The main catalyst in 1958 was a recession, which contributed to the flipping of 49 House seats.

In 1974, Democrats flipped 49 House seats again, thanks primarily to the fallout from the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation that summer.

Democrats flipped 26 seats in 1982, Ronald Reagan's first midterm, when the recession that began under Reagan's predecessor, Jimmy Carter, continued.

In 2006, Democrats flipped 31 seats, thanks to a lowered national opinion of President George W. Bush, the war in Iraq and congressional scandals.

Democrats' distaste for President Donald Trump likely will not be enough by itself in 2018, and the economy is not doing them any favors.

Remembering My Friend

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It was five years ago today that I lost Steve, one of my best friends, to lung cancer, and my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of him.

I knew Steve when I lived in Arkansas — Little Rock, to be exact. He and his wife Kathy moved in across the hall from a friend of mine, Brady, who lived in an apartment complex close to the one where I lived — easily within walking distance. In fact, I recall a time when we had no choice but to walk to each other's apartments. It was in the last winter I spent in Little Rock, and we got an uncharacteristically heavy snowfall (for Arkansas). We were snowbound for a few days, but the three of us passed the time playing a computer football game at my apartment — and watching TV at Steve's.

In the past, Arkansas snow tended to disappear by midday after an inch or two accumulated during the night. But on this occasion, several inches fell — they still speak of that blizzard in Arkansas — and it was two or three days before enough snow melted for cars to start getting around again.

I have many fond memories of that time. I suppose everyone has periods like that in their lives that they wish would never end, but they always do, of course. When I left Arkansas, it was to enroll in graduate school; at the time I didn't think the move would be permanent. I always figured I would move back to Arkansas after I finished working on my master's. I never did, though, and there are times when I really regret that. It wasn't a conscious decision on my part — it is just the way things turned out.

Steve and a mutual friend of ours, Mike Culpepper (who is also deceased), came to visit me in Texas not long after I moved here. When they arrived and I answered the door, Steve's first words to me were, "You don't live across the parking lot anymore!" That was certainly true. I now lived more than 300 miles away.

I do regret not seeing Steve before he died. I would have liked to have told him how much his friendship had meant to me and how much I was going to miss him. Near the end of his life, I'm not sure Steve would have comprehended what was being said, but still it would have meant a lot to me to express those thoughts to him.

Steve was a typical Arkansas sportsman. I'm not speaking only of the Razorbacks — although Steve was a diehard Hogs fan. He loved to hunt and fish. I went fishing with him a few times, but I never went hunting with him. I've never been a hunter, and I have never owned a gun, but I did join him at deer camp once. The picture at the top of this post was taken that weekend. That was how I did my hunting on that occasion — with a camera.

This picture wasn't as sharp as I would have liked — I've never been more than an amateur photographer — but it is one of my favorites. It captures the vivid sunlight of that day (there is no real indication how chilly it was), and it shows Steve and my dog Pepper (he's that black lump behind Steve).

Steve and Pepper met each other that weekend, and they bonded over a box of fried chicken that Steve had. They would have bonded anyway, I'm sure. Steve was a friendly guy, and Pepper was a friendly dog, especially to anyone who gave him food. Both are gone now, and I miss them very much.

It isn't my way to be melancholy about the past, but sometimes melancholy thoughts take over for awhile, and today is one of those times. If I could go back to any day in my life and re–live it, today I would probably pick that day at deer camp.

Steve would probably understand, but he wouldn't want me to live in the past. Pepper, of course, wouldn't understand much except that I wasn't happy, and it would be his way to try to cheer me up.

In their own ways, they were both forward–looking personalities. I am grateful they were in my life, and I strive to learn from their examples.

I miss you, my friends. Wish you were here.

Vice Presidents Who Live in Glass Houses

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I found it amusing recently when former Vice President Joe Biden, speaking of Donald Trump's well–publicized "locker–room" recording made public during the 2016 campaign, a recording in which the future president spoke indelicately about women, boasted that, if they had met in high school (which is just barely possible since Biden is more than three years older than Trump), he would have taken Trump "behind the gym and beat the hell out of him" for the language he used.

Thus, Biden sets himself up as a defender of women.

I'll grant you that "beat[ing] the hell out of" someone isn't as offensive as the description of female genitalia that Trump used in the recording — but neither is exactly the kind of language traditionally expected from a president or a would–be president.

What's more, while there is no evidence of Trump having done what he described in that infamous recording, there is ample photographic evidence of Biden groping the wife of Ash Carter, the new secretary of Defense, in February 2015.

Seems to me the vice president should remember that old adage about those who live in glass houses.

Is It Over in Austin?

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The recent series of bombings in Austin — and one in San Antonio — appears to have ended overnight. The suspect blew himself up in the wee hours of the morning, and authorities have expressed confidence that he was, indeed, the serial bomber.

That, of course, is hard to confirm this morning. What can be confirmed — but has not yet been made public, pending notification of the 24–year–old suspect's kin — is the identity of the individual.

It has been reminiscent of the 2001 serial anthrax attacks, which were made through the mail and remain unsolved.

I have also been reminded of the D.C. sniper attacks of 2002 that terrorized the Beltway for three weeks.

Investigators may also know other things that point definitively to his guilt, but the only way for anyone outside of law enforcement to be sure that this reign of terror is over will be if there are no other explosions.

Investigators can't be certain at this point that there are no other bomb–laden packages out there so they are still urging caution. Consequently, I expect folks in Austin — and, given the explosion that occurred in San Antonio a couple of days ago, the rest of Texas — to be on edge for awhile.

It is strong circumstantial evidence that the suspect blew himself up rather than be taken into custody — but, while such evidence carries substantial weight in the court of public opinion, it is far less conclusive in courts of law.

Perhaps authorities have forensic evidence that links the suspect to the bombings. If so, we may learn about this evidence in the days and weeks ahead.

But questions will remain until such evidence is made public.

And some questions may never be answered. For example, the greatest question on the minds of most Texans, I suppose, is "Why did he do this?"

Investigators undoubtedly will speculate about his motivation, but only the suspect himself could provide the answer. Did the suspect have a grudge against someone? Did he want to see how far he could go before authorities caught him?

Sometimes, of course, there is no answer — and that is something with which the people of Austin and the rest of Texas may have to live.

What Does the Future Hold for Democrats?

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We don't yet know the outcome in Tuesday's special election in Pennsylvania.

Well, OK, we do know — probably — that Democrat Conor Lamb beat Republican Rick Saccone for an open House seat — but it is so close that, even after the mail–in ballots are counted, there will probably be a recount. Recounts usually confirm the initial results — but not always so there is still no winner.

But the question will remain — what does this victory mean for Democrats in a political environment that appears to favor them?

Lamb did not run as a far–left Democrat. Indeed he took more centrist positions on issues like guns, and he disavowed Nancy Pelosi, which was the prudent approach in Western Pennsylvania. Other positions would have meant almost certain defeat.

But centrists are a vanishing breed in American politics.

From the days of Jimmy Carter to the days of Bill Clinton, the area was fairly reliable territory for Democrats, and that was frequently seen in its House representation as well, although two future Republican senators represented the district in the '70s and '90s, but it has been trending Republican since the turn of the millennium.

Much was made of the fact that Donald Trump won the district by 20 percentage points in 2016 even though Trump's share of the vote in that district was the same as Mitt Romney's four years earlier. Barack Obama fared slightly better in 2012 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 only because Libertarian Gary Johnson siphoned off 3% of the vote in 2016. John McCain received 55% of the district's vote in 2008, and George W. Bush carried 54% of the district's ballots in 2004.

An extreme–left stance probably would have resulted in Lamb's defeat, which leads us to the question of what the immediate future holds for Democrats. The assumption is that this will be the Democrats' year, and extreme positions will work in some places like San Francisco and New York, but they won't work in places like Pittsburgh.

Midterm election years are quite different from presidential election years. It is easier to nationalize campaigns when there is a presidential race on the ballot. In midterms everything is more localized. Yes, to a degree, midterms are referendums on the president, but they are more about issues that concern the voters in specific states and districts.

Obviously, what works in one place won't necessarily work in another, but the midterms will be crucial for Democrats to establish their identity for the 2020 election, when the presidency will be on the ballot. Now is when the Democrats need to decide if they are going to take a more moderate approach or veer farther to the left.

If they want to take a more inclusive approach in the hope of luring disaffected Democrats who abandoned the party in recent years, they may risk a rebellion from the radical fringe.

It will be interesting to see which direction they choose.

The First Time the World Trade Center Was Attacked

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History tells us — correctly — that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

But that was not the first time terrorists targeted the iconic towers.

Terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade Center 25 years ago today with a car bomb in the basement of the North Tower (which would be the first of the towers to be struck by a hijacked airplane in 2001). The plan was for the North Tower to collapse into the South Tower, killing tens of thousands of people in the process.

That plan did not succeed. It caused some damage, killed half a dozen people and injured hundreds more (most of the injuries occurred during the process of evacuating the tower), but the Twin Towers remained standing for more than eight years.

Outraged initially, Americans became distracted by other things, and they went on with their lives. The terrorists learned from the experience and returned with a far deadlier plan in 2001.

The names of the conspirators on that first occasion — Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj and the financier Khaled Sheikh Mohammed — became infamous in American history. Most were convicted in U.S. courts.

Osama bin Laden, who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, was not found to have any connection to the 1993 bombing.

The body count 25 years ago today was significantly lower than the one on Sept. 11, of course, and that seems to make forgetting about what happened in 1993 justifiable — but it is instructive in evaluating the mentality of the terrorists.

The 1993 attack didn't produce as many casualties and the damage wasn't as extensive, but these people weren't like jilted boyfriends who impulsively acted on urges to get even with their exes. The terrorists were — and, presumably, still are — very patient and willing to devote as much time as necessary to learn from their mistakes. They waited more than eight years before trying again, but their attack in 2001 was far more productive from their point of view.

That will be worth remembering if the terrorists attempt something else in the future. If they fail, don't think that it is over. They will almost certainly be back.

The First Impeachment

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It was 150 years ago today that an American president was impeached for the first time.

It has been fashionable in recent years for those who lose presidential elections to start calling for the impeachment of the winner — even before the winner has taken office — but impeachment had never been attempted before this day in 1868. Only two American presidents have faced the genuine prospect of impeachment since that time, and only one (Bill Clinton) faced a trial in the U.S. Senate. The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against Nixon in the summer of 1974, but Nixon resigned before the full House could vote on them.

Four years earlier, Johnson (a Democrat) had been selected as the running mate for Republican President Abraham Lincoln in his bid for a second term. Not only was it unprecedented for a major–party nominee to pick someone from the other party to be his running mate (they actually ran under the National Union banner), but Lincoln's choice was the military governor of Tennessee, a state that had seceded and was still not a part of the Union (it was occupied by the Union army). Tennessee did not participate in the election of 1864.

Johnson was an inspired choice for a president whose mission was to preserve the nation. While a supporter of slavery, Johnson was an unapologetic Unionist who had been the only Southern senator to oppose his state's decision to secede.

I don't think vice presidents deliver inaugural addresses anymore, but they did in Andrew Johnson's day. At least, Johnson tried to deliver such a speech, but he wasn't feeling well so he drank some whiskey, believing that would help. Instead, he got gassed and gave a rambling speech. Thus, the inauguration of 1865, which is remembered in history for Lincoln's magnanimous call for "malice toward none" and "charity for all" in the North's treatment of the vanquished South following the Civil War, was an awkward introduction for Johnson to his fellow Americans.

That was particularly unfortunate since Johnson became the nation's leader a month and a half later.

Six weeks after the inauguration in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated, and Johnson became the 17th president. Things didn't go well for him, and by this day in 1868, 11 articles of impeachment, largely related to Johnson's efforts to dismiss the secretary of war, were adopted by the House. The case was sent to the Senate for trial — where Johnson was ultimately acquitted by a single vote.

Johnson failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1868 and left office in 1869.

He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875 and died shortly therafter.

Billy Graham Passes Away at 99

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"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."

Billy Graham (1918–2018)

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It has been more than a decade since Billy Graham's last crusade; consequently, there are many people living today who have no memory of the evangelist in his prime — when he routinely drew huge crowds to massive stadiums and counseled presidents at critical times in our nation's history.

There are people in our lives that we can't imagine living without. They tend to be people with whom we share some sort of personal connection — friends, parents, siblings, etc. My mother's mother was such a person for me. When I was little, I believed everything she said. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize now that there were some things she told me that weren't true, but I understand why she told me most of those things, and she is undiminished in my eyes. She will always be wise and a model to follow, however I may stumble.

One thing she told me — many times and in many ways — was what a wonderful person Billy Graham was, how inspiring he was, how fulfilling it was to be in his presence. She went to a couple of his crusades, and I can recall her vivid description of the experience of a Billy Graham crusade at Texas Stadium.

My personal religious beliefs have been less certain than hers over the years. Let's be clear: I have never regarded myself as an atheist. For awhile, I looked upon myself as an agnostic, but now I tend to empathize with Timmy in "The Subject Was Roses" when he said, "I believe there is something bigger than myself. What you call it or what it is, I don't know."

There may have been a time in my grandmother's life when she had her doubts — most people do — but by the time I came along she was certain of things. She knew what was bigger than herself. I'm not there yet.

Billy Graham gave her that assurance — as he did millions around the world.

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There was a time when I thought my grandmother liked Billy Graham because he was a friend of Richard Nixon. My grandmother was an admirer of Nixon, but I realized that her fondness for Graham was entirely separate from her admiration for Nixon. The fact that they were friends was, for my grandmother, a happy coincidence.

Those who were close to Nixon always seemed to suffer for it. I suppose Graham suffered for it, too, because, after Nixon left office, he tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship. He was mostly successful, too, but he continued to pay a price.

I have written before of people I thought would always be there. That was a foolish state of mind, and I guess I always knew that. Everyone dies. We all know that.

Still, I just always thought that Billy Graham would go on forever. His body did not. He passed away early today after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer, pneumonia and symptoms of Parkinson's. I knew he had been sick, but I figured he was one of those people who would live to be 100. That would have been a suitably biblical age for him. It was not to be, though.

But he built a legacy that will live on — in his writings, recordings and videos — so that those who never knew what it was like at a Billy Graham crusade, even those who can remember when they were still being done but never had the first–hand experience, can learn from them.

The Dilemma of Guns

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The topic of conversation for the last few days has been the school shooting in Florida this week.

I understand that the process of burying the victims begins today. It's a necessary ritual, but it is sure to fan the flames awhile longer.

It is important for everyone to understand that, in the aftermath of such an event, we all want to feel safer, but individual definitions of safer tend to vary widely. Emotions dominate the discussion. That is precisely the time when cooler heads need to prevail.

I'm going to say something now that is sure to be ridiculed and misunderstood, but I'm going to say it, anyway.

We need to have a rational and logical discussion about this.

Both extremes on the political spectrum go into kneejerk mode when something like this happens, and that gets in the way of having a meaningful conversation. The extremes actually represent a fairly small portion of the population, but their arguments are so shrill and their insistence upon being heard is so dedicated that they drown out everything else. Talk about sucking the oxygen out of the room.

I don't really have to describe their by–now quite predictable arguments, do I?

Deep down, I often suspect that both sides secretly love it when children account for most of the victims of a tragedy like this because it magnifies both causes. Both would deny that, but it is surely true. Dead children give the extreme left a chance to trot out its favorite position — America must outlaw military–grade weapons in civilian hands (psst: That's already been done).

And they give the right a chance to argue that everyone should be armed because a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. Like many things, that looks good on paper but not so much in practice.

Both extremes are uncompromising, and that is simply undemocratic, but it is the inevitable outcome of our tribalistic, polarized culture. It is a clear indication of just how polarized we are that each side blames the other for this. The right blames Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. The left blames Ronald Reagan or the Bushes. The truth is that no one is blameless. This problem predates all of those presidencies. The buck has been passed for many decades.

This nation has faced many problems in the past, and it was through compromise that we found solutions. But sometime — and I am not sure when — it was apparently decided that compromise equals weakness. That is undemocratic.

No one is willing to compromise anymore. No one is willing to listen to the other side — or even to acknowledge that the other side might have a legitimate point or two to make.

We need to pull back from the extremes now and have this conversation from a more centrally located perspective. If we can do that, we will have taken the first crucial step to finding an answer instead of making the situation worse.

The Turning of the Tide

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In hindsight it is neat and orderly to say that the Tet offensive, which began in late January 1968, was the turning point in Vietnam.

And, strategically, perhaps it was.

But public opinion had been turning against the war for quite awhile. The escalation of the conflict in the mid–1960s had spawned Eugene McCarthy's insurgent presidential campaign that would force President Lyndon Johnson to abandon any plans he had to seek another term, and it would lead to Bobby Kennedy's campaign as well. There were protests — and chaos — in American cities. It was a turbulent and terrifying time in American history.

Through it all, I suppose, a majority of Americans continued to believe that victory was still possible in Vietnam — until the Tet offensive revealed the weaknesses of America's war effort. While the Tet offensive failed to meet its military objectives, historian Theodore H. White called it "the shadow on the walls."

Again, in hindsight, it was. But no one really recognized the shadow for what it was — at least at first.

Two days into the offensive — 50 years ago today — one of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam era was taken. It would lead to a Pulitzer Prize for the photographer, Eddie Adams of the Associated Press, who snapped a picture of the execution in Saigon of Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong operative who had been involved in the slayings of a South Vietnamese officer's wife and children.

It was a powerful picture, powerful enough to mobilize opposition to the war even — or, perhaps, especially — if the person looking at the picture did not know the details behind it. To the uninformed, it could well appear as if Vietnam was like the lawless old west with people being randomly murdered in the streets. The picture did not say why the man was being executed.

The executioner was Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, chief of South Vietnam's national police. He shot Nguyễn Văn Lém in front of Adams and a TV cameraman for NBC News. According to Adams, the shooter walked up to him and said, "They killed many of my people and yours, too," and walked off.

Film footage of the shooting was subsequently broadcast worldwide, invigorating the antiwar movement and providing the first of many shocking, unexpected and critical moments in what would be a thoroughly unpredictable year, filled with riots in the streets and assassinations.

But it could really be said to have begun on this day with the shooting of one man in the streets of Saigon.

Lessons From the Past

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Our political system is an amazing thing.

It really is. Oh, I know we all complain about things that government does or doesn't do, and we get mad at our elected officials from time to time — but nearly without exception our system has permitted us to make peaceful periodic changes in our elected leadership. We take that for granted, but we wouldn't if we lived in many other places in the world.

But our system also has its idiosyncracies.

The pendulum is always swinging, and the out–of–power party always has plenty of reasons to be energized by midterm elections, starting with the clear historical trend that favors the folks who are outside looking in. This time it is the Democrats' turn as the out–of–power party, and everything seems to point to a big year for them. The president's approval numbers remain low, and Democrats continue to hold a lead in the generic congressional ballot.

Along with that, nearly three dozen Republicans in the House have announced their intention to retire, and more seem likely. The terrain certainly looks favorable for Democrats in 2018.

But history has some cautionary tales.

Let's start with the most recent history that Democrats ignore at their peril.

In 2016 polls showed Hillary Clinton with the lead over Donald Trump — and, indeed, Clinton did win the popular vote by a considerable margin.

But the United States has never elected its presidents by popular vote. It has always elected its presidents by electoral vote, and Clinton's popular votes were too heavily concentrated in the coastal states to influence the Electoral College. (In fact, if you took California's vote entirely out of the mix, Trump would have won the popular vote as well as the electoral vote; Clinton's margin in California was about 3.1 million whereas her margin nationally was 2.86 million.)

The same thing appears to be likely in this year's congressional races. Democrats are concentrated in urban districts, and the Democrats' nominees in those districts are likely to pile up impressive margins. Nancy Pelosi, for example, routinely rolls up incredible margins in her Bay Area district. It's even likely in some places here in Texas, where Clinton carried the metropolitan counties of Dallas, Travis, Bexar and Harris by wide margins.

But all you need to win an election is a single vote. You'd like to do better than that, of course, but some Democrats are likely to roll up huge margins in some districts — when many of those votes would be more beneficial elsewhere.

In Texas, outside of the metro counties and the ones that border Mexico, Republicans still dominated in 2016 — and likely will continue to do so. Some Democrats are salivating at the thought of the open seats that have been held by Republicans, like the South Texas district that has been represented by Republican Lamar Smith for more than 30 years. Smith is retiring, and there have been rumblings of how Democrats think they have an opportunity there, but one of the Democrats seeking the seat once served on Pelosi's staff. That might help win the Democratic primary, but it isn't likely to be a general–election winner in a district that voted for Trump by 10 percentage points.

That brings me to another point. The Democrats, like the Republicans in the first midterm of the Obama years, are engaged in a battle from within. The battle is between the establishment and the extremists. At stake is the direction of the party.

As the battle plays out, the establishment will prevail in some places, and the loose cannons, who are typically the most energized in the midterms, will prevail in others.

Democrats are certain to try to nationalize the campaign, but midterms are not national campaigns. They are held in every state and every House district, but the issues and candidates vary. It is tempting to vote for the loose cannons because they typically oppose everything the in–power party does, but Democrats need to remember how some of those loose cannons worked out for Republicans in the past.

In 2012, Missouri Republican Todd Akin made his widely reported remarks about "legitimate rape" that helped politically endangered Sen. Claire McCaskill win a second term by 16 percentage points. McCaskill is back, still politically vulnerable and running for a third term in a state that voted for Trump by nearly 19 percentage points.

Similarly, Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock's remark that "even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." Mourdock won the nomination by defeating six–term incumbent Richard Lugar in the primary.

Indiana has only voted for a Democratic presidential nominee once since 1964, but it voted for the Democrat in that Senate race, Joe Donnelly. He, too, is up for re–election — in a state that supported Trump by slightly more than 19 percentage points.

McCaskill and Donnelly were originally expected to lose in 2012, and their victories are big reasons why, when Democrats need to win only two seats from Republicans to have a majority in the Senate, they must defend more than two dozen Senate seats in November.

Democrats have a rare opportunity in 2018, but it is not a slam dunk.

Taking Back the House

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Democrats face a similar situation to the one Republicans faced eight years ago. In 2010 Democrats held the White House and both chambers of Congress. Today Republicans do.

Granted, the Democrats had larger majorities in both the House and Senate — and they had a more popular president, too — in 2010. Yet they still managed to lose their advantage in the House when Republicans gained a net of 64 seats that year. They lost ground in the Senate and eventually lost that majority as well.

Today many political observers are convinced that the tables have turned — which is based on solid historical data. This is a midterm year, and midterm years almost always go against the party in the White House. That has been true whether the incumbent was popular or not.

Indeed, presidential approval ratings play an important role in midterm elections, but the responses have become increasingly polarized over the years. In the 1950s, for example, an average of nearly half of Democrats said they approved of the job Republican Dwight Eisenhower was doing as president. In the 1980s, an average of less than one–third of Democrats approved of the job Republican Ronald Reagan was doing, and in the 1990s, slightly more than one–fourth of Republicans approved of the job Bill Clinton was doing.

Clinton's successors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, failed to average even that much support from the opposing party.

But Bush's Republicans benefited electorally from the terrorist attacks of 2001. They might have been expected to lose ground in the midterm elections of 2002; instead, they gained ground in both chambers, the first time a president's party accomplished that in a midterm election in nearly 70 years.

(It is unwise to ignore the influence that circumstances can have. At the same time, though, it is not wise to expect too much from things like scandals. The Iran–Contra scandal dropped Reagan's approval rating below 50% in January 1987, but he rebounded to higher than 60% by the time he left office two years later.)

I have a theory about that trend. When it is a president's first — and, in many cases, it has been a president's only — midterm, that president is two years removed from winning the presidency, and his supporters are complacent while his foes are energized. When it is a president's second midterm, his supporters are generally demoralized by something, a scandal or whatnot, and the rest of the country, from those who are indifferent to long–time detractors, is just weary.

It takes truly unusual circumstances for any incumbent to overcome that, and so far such circumstances have not materialized in this election. But it has been observed frequently that the 2016 elections rewrote the rules so I wouldn't rule it out.

In 2018 Democrats need fewer than half as many seats as they lost in 2010 to claim a paper–thin majority in the House. That sounds plausible — and it is — but there is something that is worth remembering.

Unlike Senate seats, which are decided every six years, House seats are on the ballot in every election. There have been 22 elections since Watergate, and a single party has gained that many House seats (or more) in four of them. The rest of the time the gains were less than 24.

It's a tall order — but not one that is impossible to fill.

As Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball recently noted, there is already an unusually high number of House incumbents not seeking re–election — twice as many Republicans as Democrats.

In fact, there are enough open seats in Republican–held districts for Democrats to entertain thoughts of capturing the majority in the House by winning most of them — but that would be a foolish strategy. It ignores the fact that not all districts are created equal.

Some districts have long histories of voting for one party or the other. Like mine, for instance. I live in Texas' Fifth District. It has been represented by Republican Jeb Hensarling since 2003. The only time he was held under 60% of the vote was when he was originally elected in 2002 — and he received 58% in that election. He announced a couple of months ago that he would not seek re–election.

Hensarling is not leaving because he anticipates a tough election. He is highly regarded here and would be sure to win another term if he wanted one. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be a heavy favorite to win the general election — if he/she is even opposed.

If the voters in this district elect a Democrat to succeed Hensarling, it will be a clear indication that a wave election is underway.

Democrats are more likely to gain ground in districts like Arizona's 2nd District, which was represented by Democrat Gabrielle Giffords before she was shot in 2011 and had to retire. One of Giffords' aides was elected to fill her vacancy in 2012. Voters narrowly chose the loser of the 2012 election — Martha McSally — in a rematch in 2014. McSally was re–elected with 57% of the vote in 2016 and now is running for Jeff Flake's Senate seat.

Democrats are favored to win that House seat this November.

Other open districts are just as evenly divided — and could be prone to flip in the next election with no incumbent on the ballot. The power of incumbency, as I have noted here before, is considerable.

But it is not absolute.

Open seats do present opportunities for the party that does not occupy the White House, but Democrats have to be selective about which ones they pursue. Kondik says they need to net at least half a dozen Republican–held open seats to be on track to seize the majority in the House. The rest, he wrote, will need to be taken from the officeholders. His estimate is that Democrats will need to beat 15 to 20 incumbents head to head.

That may seem like a challenge, but Kondik insists the number is not too high by historical standards.

Time will tell.

Losing Another Part of My Childhood

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A snowy day in another January many years ago. Matt is second from right.

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Life happens in waves.

Life is also, as John Lennon observed, "what happens while you're busy making other plans."

With that in mind, I have been writing a lot about death lately. I didn't plan it that way. It's just how it has worked out.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I wrote about the death of my favorite journalism professor.

There have been other times when I have been touched personally by death but not lately — until this week. Death is a topic no writer can avoid for long, though. Shortly before Thanksgiving Charles Manson died. A few days ago the mastermind of the notorious 1964 triple slayings in Mississippi died.

As I say, I have enjoyed a respite from personal experience with death — but that never lasts.

And my vacation from the deaths of personal acquaintances ended this week when I learned that a fellow who grew up near me in Central Arkansas passed away. I don't know the specifics, but I have heard it was heart related.

We were friends. I can't say we were best friends or anything like that. He was about six months older, which isn't a lot, even when you're kids and months seem like years — but, because of when our birthdays fell on the calendar, he was a year ahead of me in school, and so he graduated the year before I did. I always felt like that was a bit of a barrier between us as we got older. We went to school each day with different classmates. We had different teachers.

Still we were practically neighbors. We lived in the country — where neighbors has a different meaning than it does in a city or town. We didn't live in houses that were so close that we could see each other's front doors. You had to do some walking through tree–filled hillsides to get from one to the other.

But we were neighbors. My brother and I played with Matt and his younger brother in the afternoons. Our parents socialized regularly.

Would we have done that if we had lived in town? I don't know. Options tend to be much more limited when you live in the country.

But what might have been is speculation. What was — well, that is a matter of fact.

And since I learned of Matt's death, my thoughts keep returning to memories of my childhood — and what was.

Matt's father built a treehouse that we kids used a lot in the summer. It gets hot and humid in Arkansas in the summer, but we spent many summer nights in that treehouse, playing card games and doing things that kids do when the seemingly limitless free time of summer stretches out before them. Heat and humidity was a small price to pay for all that freedom.

Sometimes the four of us would spend the night in that treehouse. We would lug our sleeping bags up there, then we would sleep on top of them because it was too suffocating to try to sleep inside our sleeping bags.

That treehouse was kind of like a junior frat house, though. We didn't do much sleeping there, and things tended to get broken. Mostly we played cards — and Monopoly — by the light of a lantern or told ghost stories.

When it was quiet in the treehouse, I would sit and let the light summer breeze wash over me, and I would look at the stars sparkling in the sky and the shimmering moon.

We all learned to ride bicycles at about the same time, and that really was like being set free. That was the first time that we were truly mobile, and from that moment on if we were going anywhere we were on our bikes. No longer did we need someone to take us to a neighbor's house a couple of miles down the road. We could get on our bikes and take ourselves there.

Later on, of course, cars replaced bikes, and our journeys took us even farther from home. But that came later.

Our parents and their vehicles still had a place in our lives. We rarely got snow in Central Arkansas, but when we did, we usually needed Matt's father's truck to take us to school. I remember all of us piling into the small cab of that truck (this was before the days of club cabs) on winter mornings and listening to his tape of Charley Pride's greatest hits as we rode into town.

Matt's family moved to Arkansas from Texas when he was in elementary school, and there was always friction between us when the Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas Longhorns in anything — but especially football. Both our loyalties were to the places where our roots were.

So it was ironic that Matt stayed in my hometown the rest of his life — and I moved to Texas.

Sports always played a prominent role in our relationship. When we were about 8 or 9, we collected and swapped baseball cards and football cards — as many boys did (and, I presume, still do). We usually watched major sports events together, and we played the games as best we could.

Folks in town had the advantage over us in the latter. They had empty lots and open fields in which to play. We lived in the country, which was rocky and hilly. If we wanted to play touch football, we had to do it in the dirt road that slithered past our homes. That was not a problem, though. People seldom drove along that road in those days, and we could usually hear cars coming long before they reached us, giving us time to clear off the road until they went past.

I remember one unusually snowy winter that brought a significant snowfall, not just the usual dusting, and we couldn't wait to play football in it — because we could actually play tackle football for a change.

We soon learned that playing football in snow is a lot colder and wetter than it looks on TV. But when we had had enough, we went to one of our homes — where there would be tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to warm us up.

Matt was a much better athlete than I was. He played youth baseball with my brother (who was also a better athlete than I was), and I remember watching his games with a touch of envy. Matt looked like a big–league ballplayer in his Little League uniform, whether he was playing in a game or getting a snow cone between games.

As I understand it, Matt coached youth baseball after he grew up.

Matt and I seldom saw each other as adults. The news of Matt's death, consequently, triggers no memories of my adult years — it seems to me that the last time I saw Matt was at my high school class' fifth reunion (Matt wasn't in my class, but his wife was) — but plenty of memories of my childhood.

While I am mourning the loss of my childhood friend, I am also mourning the inevitable loss of my childhood. Matt wasn't my first childhood friend to die — and, unless I'm the next one to go, he certainly won't be the last.

But it is a stark reminder of the constant state of change in which we all must exist.

It is also a reminder that life is short, much too short to not do the things you love. Matt's life was shorter than I ever would have expected when we were growing up. I hope he spent it doing things he loved to do.

And I hope I do the things I love to do before my time on this planet runs out.

One Man's Death

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As I wrote here when Charles Manson died less than two months ago, I get no joy from hearing that another human being has passed away, even one who caused great pain and suffering.

That, essentially, is how I received the news yesterday that Edgar Ray Killen, the mastermind in the conspiracy to murder three young civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964, died in prison a few days shy of his 93rd birthday.

By modern standards, plotting to murder three people usually merits little attention outside the community where such an act occurs.

But the '64 murders were different. Everyone from the president on down was watching developments in Mississippi. A priority was given to finding the missing civil rights workers; then, when their bodies were discovered, the emphasis shifted to bringing their killer(s) to justice.

Killen, an organizer for the Ku Klux Klan, was not present when the workers were abducted and murdered, but he was the one who coordinated everything — then made sure he had an alibi.

Homicide is usually a state charge, and juries in the South of the 1960s tended to be all white — and to acquit white defendants in the slayings of blacks. It was believed the only way a conviction could be obtained was through the federal judicial system, and Killen was among 18 men who, in 1967, faced federal charges of violating the civil rights of the three young men.

Seven of the defendants were convicted and sentenced to from three to 10 years in prison, but the jury couldn't agree on Killen. Eleven voted for conviction, but one refused, saying she did not believe a man of God could participate in something like that.

Killen was a part–time Baptist preacher.

He was convicted of participating in the murders in 2005, 41 years to the day after the triple slaying that inspired the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning," and spent the rest of his life in prison. But he was convicted of manslaughter. So much time had passed since the murders that many witnesses had died, and the jury did not have enough evidence for a homicide conviction. Still three consecutive 20–year sentences were likely to be more than the 80–year–old Killen could survive.

And, indeed, he did not.

Since Killen's death, the only things I have seen written about him were news accounts of his demise. I have seen no columns, no editorials, no commentaries of any kind about him or the era in which he lived — and that he influenced.

I'm not sure what to make of that because I certainly expected to see something, particularly in a polarized time like this. It was only a few months ago, after all, that statues of Confederate soldiers were being brought down from coast to coast — and the Confederacy ceased to exist more than half a century before Killen's birth.

Killen was from the 20th century, about the same age as a fellow who lived down the road from me in central Arkansas. He wasn't, as far as I know, a member of the Klan, but he was a segregationist and an unsuccessful candidate for first governor and then U.S. senator when I was in elementary school.

Well, that was what the public saw. I saw a man who was kind and treated me like a member of the family. In fact, I spent many of my waking hours outside of school at his house, playing with his twin sons.

When he committed suicide eight years ago, I was stunned by the hateful comments I saw on social media sites where folks from my home state tend to congregate.

It was probably because of that experience that I anticipated an equally rabid reaction to Killen's death. Once again, I am stunned — but happily so.

I am inclined to think that maybe that is a good thing. Maybe the fact that a notorious Klansman like Edgar Ray Killen can die in prison and cause barely a ripple is a sign of a maturing society.

That is a welcome development when words like racist, sexist and Nazi are thrown around almost casually.

It is important, once in awhile at least, to be reminded of what those words really mean — and for whom the label is appropriate.