The Day Hitler Died

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"Outside in the passageway, Dr. (Joseph) Goebbels, (Martin) Bormann and a few others waited. In a few moments a revolver shot was heard. They waited for a second one, but there was only silence. After a decent interval they quietly entered the fuehrer's quarters. They found the body of Adolf Hitler sprawled on the sofa dripping blood. He had shot himself in the mouth. At his side lay Eva Braun. Two revolvers had tumbled to the floor, but the bride had not used hers. She had swallowed poison."

William L. Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

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World War II and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis all came before my time so I only know what I have read or seen in documentaries.

It was real for my parents, though. They were not quite grown when the war began, not even when the war ended, but they were old enough to know who was fighting and what the stakes were.

And when the news that Hitler had committed suicide 70 years ago today reached them, they must have known that the war in Europe would be over soon.

I don't know if that means they felt the war in general was over — or if they realized that the war in the Pacific continued.

My guess is that, in 1945, most people who were old enough to remember Pearl Harbor knew there would still be a fight to finish in the Pacific. There was considerable angst about the prospect of an invasion of Japan — widely believed in April 1945 to be the only way to end the fighting but just as widely believed to be likely to claims hundreds of thousands of American lives in the process.

The Japanese were determined fighters, and no one thought they would go down easily. The invasion of Japan was expected to be won by whoever was the last man standing.

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But that was a matter to consider some other time. Seventy years ago today, Hitler was dead, and the German surrender was only days away.

Hitler's death, TIME magazine recalls, was shrouded in mystery.

"It wasn't immediately clear what had happened on April 30, 1945," wrote TIME. "This much the world knew: Adolf Hitler was gone, one way or another."

And Hitler had been at the core of Nazi Germany. The tide had turned against the Nazis — it was why Hitler committed suicide — and, when Hitler was gone, all motivation to continue fighting was gone, too.

Questions remain, though, about Hitler's final hours, even after seven decades. Was his suicide the last act of an irrational man who had been waiting vainly for the arrival of Nazi troops who never came? Or was it the cool, deliberate act of a man who had considered all the possible endings to the scenario and concluded suicide was the best choice? The people who were with him in the bunker insist they heard a single gunshot — and that Eva Braun's revolver was not fired. Papers in the Russians' files indicated that Hitler poisoned himself. Were both accounts true? Did Hitler shoot himself after (or while) biting down on the poison capsule? Or did someone else pull the trigger?

We'll probably never know — and it really doesn't matter, does it?

Of Myths, Heroism and Flight 93

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I realize that this is a weekend of somber reflection, of remembering the thousands of lives that were lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11.

And I realize that it is true, as President Clinton said during his remarks at the dedication of the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania, that there has always been a special place in the American heart and memory for heroes who sacrificed themselves for others.

But one of the things my mother taught me was that there is true value in genuinely inspiring words and deeds, and I don't think what happened with Flight 93 was exactly what we have been told.

I agree that the story of that flight is very moving. It is tragic, as are the accounts of the other three hijacked flights, but it differs from the other three primarily in one way — the passengers on Flight 93 had the benefit of the knowledge that everyone on the ground had, that other flights had been turned into missiles that had struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Those other three plane crashes happened so rapidly that relatively few passengers on those flights probably knew what was happening. It was that element of simultaneous surprise that the terrorists apparently were counting on — to strike before anyone realized what was happening.

But there was a delay in the departure of Flight 93, and it disrupted their timing. It wasn't terribly long as these things go (I've been through worse even though I have never been a frequent flier), but it was long enough that, after the flight finally was airborne, the pilot and co–pilot nearly got a general warning from the ground about hijackings, and it was long enough for the passengers to learn what had happened in New York and Washington.

That gave them some time to consider their situation — and their response.

Consequently, many people have accepted the myth that has emerged that the passengers revolted as some sort of selfless sense of patriotism and sacrifice swelled within them.

I don't doubt that they were patriotic, but neither am I convinced that their motives were as altruistic as we have been told for the last 10 years, either.

If they put two and two together — as most of them apparently did — they must have realized that their plane was not going to land safely. They must have realized they were part of a suicide mission. They must have known that it was almost certain that they would die — unless some sort of miracle happened and they were able to take control of the plane and one of the passengers could, either alone or with assistance from the ground, manage to land it.

I'm reminded of a scene from the movie "Lenny" about comedian Lenny Bruce. In the movie, Dustin Hoffman re–created segments from Bruce's shows, including one about the famous Zapruder film, the graphic account of the JFK assassination.

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After the fatal shot, Jackie Kennedy could be seen climbing from her seat onto the trunk of the car and a Secret Service agent coming forward to help her back into her seat. A sequence of photos from the film was published nationally (in TIME, I think) with a caption that said something about how the first lady gave no thought to her personal safety and tried to shield the president from further gunshots.

Bruce/Hoffman said it was a "dirty lie."

"I think that, when she saw the president get it and the governor get it, she decided to get the hell out of there," he said. I agree. I think it was a split–second decision, reaction without reflection. Human instinct.

If she had had more time to think about it, she might have said yes, she would try to protect her husband if she saw he had been hurt.

But others assigned more meaning to it than that.

That's the feeling I get when I hear people speak of the passengers' revolt on Flight 93. They speak of them as if they sat in the back of that hijacked plane and had an in–depth discussion of American history and the principles of freedom and democracy — and then voted to stand up to terrorism.

I'm not saying that the passengers of Flight 93 reacted without any reflection. And the fact that they forced that plane to go down in a Pennsylvania field instead of Washington probably did save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

But I don't think that possibility crossed their minds. I think they were thinking only of their own survival. And that isn't a bad thing. It's a normal human instinct — self–preservation.

I've read the transcripts and heard the recordings that have been released to the public. I recall one of the passengers telling the others, "In the cockpit ... if we don't, we'll die!"

I have heard nothing about passengers shouting "Give me liberty or give me death!" or any other patriotic slogans from American history.

Their fates were sealed when that plane left the ground, but they mentally resisted that knowledge. They weren't thinking beyond the moment and doing whatever they could to live to the next moment ... and the next and the next.

There was, I should add, a certain poignance in Vice President Joe Biden's words about rising to the occasion and overcoming adversity. As a young senator–elect, Biden's life was forever altered by the loss of his first wife and their small daughter in a car accident, and for a time he considered leaving politics, but he did not.

Nor did he withdraw from life. He raised his sons the best he could and re–married a few years later. And his nearly four decades of public service stand as testimony to his survival.

Perhaps that will be the future inspiration of September 11 — the way the friends and relatives of the victims rose from the ashes and survived and persevered.

Things were over fairly quickly for the passengers of the planes. Sometimes just surviving is the hardest part.

The Day Reagan Was Shot

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On this day in 1981, the president of the United States was shot by a would–be assassin — a (thankfully) rare occurrence as it is, but this time was unique in American history.

This president lived to tell the tale.

That president, Ronald Reagan, wasn't the first to be the target of an assassination attempt, but he became the first president to survive being shot.

There were many reasons why that probably should not have been so, but it was.

Fortunately, Americans have been spared the agony of the shooting of their president for three decades now — and you just about have to be in your mid–50s (at least) to remember the last such attempt that succeeded.

I don't know why that is so. Are protection methods so much better now?

Surely, the Secret Service's methods must have evolved, but they would have to have done so quietly, wouldn't you think? I mean, I presume the changes that have been made in presidential protection have not been publicized — sort of like the policy that prevents most police departments from revealing certain details of high–profile cases.

They know that, many times, the guilty party will reveal himself because he has knowledge that only the person who committed the crime would have.

It is the same sort of thinking (in a kind of reverse fashion) that tells me that anything law enforcement knows and prepares for without the knowledge of any would–be assassins improves the chances that such an attempt will fail.

That would make sense to me. I played some poker in college. I wasn't very good at it, but I knew there was a lot of value in bluffing and keeping your opponents in the dark.

And I also know (or, at least, I think I know) that the murders — or attempted murders — of public figures were far more commonplace when I was growing up than they seem to be today. Presidential assassinations have been rather infrequent in our history, but there was a time when I was growing up when two attempts were made on the life of a president within a month of each other.

I can only conclude that presidential protection methods must have improved in the last 30 years, but it also seems to me that — with the exception of the recent shootings in Arizona — the methods for protecting most public figures have improved as well.

It may not seem like attacks have declined appreciably — maybe the preferred targets have shifted, from public figures to private (or, at least, less public) ones — but the atmosphere seems entirely different today than it was when I was growing up.

If anything, the political dialogue is more venomous, more toxic than I can recall at any other time in my life — and, for all I know, actual death threats may be more numerous than they have ever been, as well — but actual attempts on the lives of public figures are way down from what they once were.

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When I was small, two of the most admired men in America, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, were assassinated within a couple of months of each other. A few years later, political firebrand George Wallace was paralyzed in an assassination attempt.

In the years that followed, John Lennon was murdered, and Pope John Paul II was shot but survived.

Sometimes it seemed like the world was a shooting gallery, but even the attempts on Gerald Ford's life in 1975 didn't spark the chaos that Reagan's shooting did on this day in 1981.

On a day that was as confused and bewildering and filled with uncertain moments as any I have witnessed in my life, perhaps the most noteworthy was Secretary of State Al Haig's pronouncement that "I am in control here" in spite of the fact that the vice president, the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate are ahead of the secretary of State in the constitutional line of succession.

Haig insisted that he was not speaking of presidential succession but rather of the chain of command in a crisis. But, even on that point, he was on shaky ground.

In addition to loopholes in the chain of command that were exposed by the shooting, there were problems in presidential protection that were uncovered as well.

Lead Secret Service agent Jerry Parr told Ari Shapiro of NPR that "we still took a defensive posture" on March 30, 1981.

"With this event we realized that wouldn't work anymore, and we did it in a flash. That's what came out of it."

Perhaps the four presidents who followed owe their lives to the lessons that were learned that day.

And what of the man who tried to kill Reagan 30 years ago today?

John Hinckley Jr. is "moving closer to the day his doctors may recommend he go free," CNN's James Polk reported a few days ago.

The assessment of the doctors at the mental hospital where he has been held for nearly 30 years is that he is no longer a threat to anyone.

And, because Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity — even though video and still photographs taken at the scene show beyond any doubt that he was the man who pulled the trigger — his case is handled differently. He has received privileges for which he never would have been eligible if he had been found guilty of attempting to assassinate the president — and, consequently, may one day be set free.

I remember people complaining about that very thing when the verdict was announced — it was quite controversial at the time — and the knowledge that such a thing still is possible — however improbable it may be — continues to bother some people.

One of those people is Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis, who writes movingly in TIME of the damage that is still present in the lives of those who were shot — and the people around them.

"Time is a matter of perspective," Davis writes. "Sometimes 30 years isn't so long. There are times when the American legal system works brilliantly. There are times when it fails."

The presiding judge and Hinckley's defense lawyer, she suggests, have made this case one of the latter.

Davis, like Ron Reagan Jr., has a record of supporting progressive causes, but on this issue she sounds more like their father.

I'm not saying she is wrong. She is entitled to her pain and suffering, just like the other victims and their families.

But Reagan lived for nearly a quarter of a century after being shot and did not appear to suffer any lingering effects from the experience — unlike the others who were shot that day.

Or most of the nameless, faceless Americans who are shot every day in America. Many are killed, but some survive and must adapt in whatever way is made necessary by the injuries that have been sustained.

They continue to pay the price, but Davis' father turned an enormous profit.

Not quite 10 weeks into his term, suggests Jonny Dymond for BBC, Reagan was handed a priceless opportunity to connect with the voters — and he seized it. With his gentle, good humor when faced with personal peril, Reagan's presidency was "lifted ... out of the mere normal." He went on to become the first president since Eisenhower to serve two complete terms.

"Just a few weeks ago, what would have been Reagan's 100th birthday was commemorated with a slew of rosy retrospectives," writes Dymond. "But the legend that was celebrated was arguably born 30 years ago today."

When Failure Was Not an Option

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It struck me as ironic — perhaps that was by design? — that Barack Obama came to the Kennedy Space Center this week to defend the changes he has proposed for the space program.

I say that, not because of the Tea Party's now annual April 15 protests or the increasingly strident criticism that comes Obama's way from the Republicans, but because this month marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 space mission.

In fact, today is the anniversary of the Apollo 13 crew's return to earth, so Obama made his remarks during the 40th anniversary of that ill–fated mission.

Jeffrey Kluger, a writer for TIME magazine who co–authored "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13" with Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, reflected in TIME recently that the mission was a miracle that was "due to the extraordinary technological and navigational improvisations the people on the ground and in the spacecraft dreamed up along the way." But he also gave considerable credit to Lovell and flight director Gene Kranz and their "surreal cool."

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As well he should.

Essentially, Lovell and Kranz were products of a special mindset that has always existed at NASA. Some folks would call it a "can–do" spirit. In a memorable scene from Ron Howard's movie about the mission in 1995, Kranz (played by Ed Harris) summarized it for the ground crew during the crisis — "failure is not an option" — although it is my understanding that Kranz never said that.

Maybe that's an example of the differences in word usage from one generation to the next. In 1970, an option was something extra you had installed in your car. "Option" simply wasn't used in that "failure is not an option" context in those days. But it was used in that context when the script writers were doing their interviews in preparation for the 1995 film.

Dramatic dialogue, yes, but it also pretty efficiently describes the problem that NASA faced in April 1970.

It may be hard for many modern people, conditioned by the convenience of the internet and cell phones and global positioning systems, to imagine how challenging Apollo 13 was. The folks on the ground had to figure out how to bring the crew back to earth when an oxygen tank exploded — I guess it was more or less understood immediately that, once that tank blew up, the original mission was out of the question.

After the crew returned safely to earth 40 years ago today, it was frequently called a "successful failure" as people learned how remarkable the accomplishment had been, even though the original mission had to be scrapped.

President Nixon didn't seem to be nearly as jubilant posing with a crew that never made it to the moon as he did the year before when he was only too happy to bask in the glow that came from Apollo 11. I always thought Nixon regarded the Apollo 13 crew as losers. Well, it was an election year. Perhaps he felt he had been deprived of a victorious photo for campaign pamphlets.

I was pretty young at the time. I remember the incident and being as stunned as everyone else to discover that something actually could go wrong on these space missions, which often seemed to be routine. But I don't think I understood the issues that had to be dealt with.

And I don't think many outside NASA's ground crew and the three men in space knew how perilously close the crew came to losing their lives.

To preserve power, the crew had to power down. Back on earth, the ground crew had to design and then describe "the mailbox" that would remove carbon dioxide. It had to be built from materials that were on board the space ship — it wasn't just laying around the capsule.

Modern folks, immersed as they are in 21st–century technology, may wonder why an image wasn't transmitted to Apollo 13. But there was no e–mail in 1970. I don't know if fax machines existed, but, if they did, no one had figured out how to send a fax from earth to outer space.

In fact, the computer you use at work or at home is far more powerful than the computers NASA was using 40 years ago. In hindsight, the space program was nowhere near as advanced as most Americans believed it was — but it did represent the best that was available at the time.

It wasn't primitive, but if it sounds primitive, that is only in comparison to what we have now. But let's not lose our perspective. Modern technology was made possible to a great extent by the research that was done by America's space program in the 1960s and 1970s. Even Apollo 13 made its contributions to scientific knowledge.

So, when Obama insists that the federal government will continue to support NASA financially as it has done over the years, I hope he is telling the truth.

I hope he will always remember the United States consistently and adequately supported NASA, even at those times when its work could not be linked to any tangible benefits.

And let's all remember a couple of truisms that emerged from NASA's moon program:

First, discoveries don't follow preset timetables. They happen when they happen.

Second, when the new technologies of tomorrow emerge from the research that is being done today, let's take steps to use it to benefit our economy. Let's encourage companies to keep the jobs that will be created by new industries we can't even imagine here instead of outsourcing them to other lands.

The View From the Summit

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This is the video that opened the jobs summit.

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They held the White House' jobs summit today. Unless some sort of specific policy initiative comes from it, it was one big photo opp.

Nevertheless, it's odd how joblessness is suddenly getting all this attention. And everybody has an idea what should be done — or what shouldn't be done.

In TIME, Michael Scherer calls the jobs summit a "show" that Barack Obama has presented before. "They are all," he writes, "to put it bluntly, somewhat painful exercises — long, monotone and repetitive."

Before the summit began, David Malpass wrote, in Forbes, that "[t]he answer [to creating jobs] lies in small businesses that take advantage of freedom, a sound currency and low tax rates. Anytime those three things are available, they hire like crazy."

Malpass added that job creation is thwarted by "a weakening dollar and the threat of high tax rates."

Tami Luhby of CNNMoney.com writes that the summit brought together "130 executives, economists, small business owners and nonprofit officials," who discussed a number of important issues. But Luhby touches on a point that has bothered me — Washington's limitations.

"The administration and Congress are tied up with health care reform and foreign policy issues," Luhby writes. "And their ability to institute new programs will be hampered by the nation's record budget deficit."

Federal spending will get even tighter when additional troops are deployed to Afghanistan on their high–risk, low–reward mission.

If the Democrats are going to enact anything, it is my guess they will have to do it on their own. Republicans, as Luhby points out, have used the unemployment rate as evidence that the president's economic policies have failed. Democrats can expect few, if any, Republicans to side with them.

Katrina vanden Heuvel urges, in The Nation, the enactment of "a bold jobs bill." Good idea. Wish someone had thought of it about 10 or 11 months ago.

Let's see what the jobs report says tomorrow.

The First Pacific President

The longer I live, the harder it seems to be to anticipate what people will get worked up about next.

Sometimes it isn't hard to guess. A good example is the attack at Fort Hood, Texas. It comes as no surprise to me that, in the aftermath of that event, people are discussing the red flags that always seem to be so abundant in hindsight.

Many years ago, this was called "going postal." I can't tell you how many times I have seen news reports about a tragedy that is similar to this one in which former co–workers and neighbors seem shocked — and then someone says something like, "You know, he wasn't quite the same after [pick a traumatic event]."

It is, perhaps, an unfortunate coincidence that, while the people at Fort Hood were honoring the memories of their fallen colleagues, news reports included the plans to hold the trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York, only a few city blocks from the site where the World Trade Center once stood.

Those seem to be the high–profile topics these days, although some journalists, like Bob Herbert of the New York Times, write that "it's fair to wonder why the president and his party have not been focused like fanatics on job creation from the first day he took office."

I think it's reasonable to ask that — and I have, frequently. Perhaps Mr. Herbert, being black, won't be accused of racism for wondering that, as I have.

In my opinion, the topics of employment and war and peace are always legitimate subjects for discussion. But sometimes there are topics that take center stage that I find bewildering.

Like Michael Scherer's item in his blog for TIME in which he takes Barack Obama to task for calling himself the "first Pacific president."

Scherer said he felt "obligated to object" to that assertion because of his California roots. He went on to point out that "two of our recent presidents" — Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon— won statewide elections in California before being elected president.

The coast of California, of course, sits on the Pacific Ocean — as do the coasts of Oregon, Washington and Alaska. But many of Scherer's readers appeared to interpret Obama's remarks as referring to Pacific islands — presumably because he delivered his remarks in Tokyo.

But also because he spent his formative years in Hawaii and Indonesia.

This apparently strikes some readers as a case of splitting hairs, although many seem guilty of the same thing in their responses. I read comments that implied that Obama was referring to Pacific islands, not nations. One reader wrote, "i completely knew what he meant. the 'pacific' is the islands. california isn't in the pacific, it's on the west coast."

I must say that I often wonder how such people reach the conclusions they do.

If they had bothered to read the text of Obama's remarks, they would have found that he spoke repeatedly of America's alliance with Japan. The word "island" never appeared in the approximately 4,300–word statement, but very early on, Obama said, "The United States of America may have started as a series of ports and cities along the Atlantic, but for generations we also have been a nation of the Pacific."

The phrase "Pacific president" appears only once — at the end.

In that context, Obama spoke of "America's agenda." And he spoke of himself as America's first Pacific president — not the first Pacific islands president of America.

His remarks clearly labeled America as a Pacific nation.

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"This is America's agenda. This is the purpose of our partnership — with Japan, and with the nations and peoples of this region. And there must be no doubt: as America's first Pacific President, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world."

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Let's see. Early in the statement, he told his listeners that America had considered itself a Pacific nation for generations. Based on the text of the statement, I got the impression he was speaking of nations that touch the Pacific and are, therefore, part of the Pacific region. Hawaii is the only state that is surrounded by the Pacific, but I would argue that the phrase "for generations" (plural, therefore two or more) would suggest that Obama was saying America looked upon itself as a Pacific nation before Hawaii became a state 50 years ago.

And the states on America's west coast have been part of the United States for a long time — California was admitted in 1850, Oregon was admitted in 1859 and Washington was admitted 1889. That's a century and a half of being a Pacific nation.

And if having those states in the Union made the United States a bona fide member of the Pacific region's nations, any president with connections to one or all of the states on the Pacific coast would qualify as a "Pacific president." Because those states formed the nation's physical link to the Pacific Ocean.

That would include Reagan and Nixon. It could even include Herbert Hoover, who was born in Iowa but attended college at Stanford University in California and was a registered voter in the state as an adult.

"For generations" could mean only two generations — it is a vague phrase — but I found nothing in the statement that made me think Obama was limiting his remarks to a period that is only slightly longer than his own lifetime. Some people, like the reader I quoted, will insist that they know what Obama meant.

The problem with that is, he didn't say it.

Crimes of the Century?

TIME has compiled a list of the top 25 "crimes of the century."

Such a list is, of course, bound to spark arguments because people always believe something obvious has been left off the list.

I don't have too many qualms about TIME's list, but there are a few things that didn't make the list.

And their absences are conspicuous enough that I don't think I would recommend regarding TIME's list as the last word.

Before I get to that, I'll point out that I think most of the entries on the list do deserve to be there. Like, for example, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. And the Manson family murders. And the Patty Hearst kidnapping. And Ted Bundy. And John Wayne Gacy. And Jeffrey Dahmer.

Likewise, the Unabomber case belongs on the list. So does O.J. Simpson.

And I definitely feel that the Columbine massacre belongs on the list. But if Columbine is there, why isn't the Virginia Tech massacre? Is it because Virginia Tech actually occurred in the 21st century? Well, the theft of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" took place the year before the shootings at Tech (2006), yet it made the list. And Andrea Yates killed her children in 2001, but those killings made the list, too.

If notorious killings and their perpetrators qualify as crimes of the century, why didn't the Boston Strangler make the list? Or the Hillside Strangler? Or the Night Stalker? Didn't all of those killers terrorize entire cities? How about BTK? Or Charlie Starkweather?

How about Aileen Wuornos, the female serial killer who was executed a few years ago and was the subject of an Academy Award–winning film starring Charlize Theron?

Any of them would make more sense to me than including Andrew Cunanan's murder of Gianni Versace in 1997 ... or the still unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

I'm thoroughly baffled as to why the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which took 168 lives, wasn't on the list.

And shouldn't the September 11 terrorist attacks be on the list?

If the list is expanded to include foreign events, the murders of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics deserve to be recognized.

For that matter, it seems to me that the Watergate break–in should be on the list, given all the things it put into motion.

Here's one that definitely took place in the 20th century but did not appear on the list — the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Nearly half a century later, that event still seems to call out from the recesses of history — never satisfactorily resolved, drawing renewed attention to unanswered questions.

Last week, I watched the premiere of a new documentary on The History Channel about the 24–hour period immediately following the shooting. It capped a week of Kennedy documentaries on The History Channel. I haven't seen any viewership numbers, but, folks, TV channels simply don't devote a week's worth of primetime programming to anything unless their programming directors have a pretty good idea that it's going to attract a lot of viewers.

As I watched that documentary, I was reminded of how that assassination changed TV broadcasting and the way it covered breaking news events. TV news coverage was still somewhat primitive six years later when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but, if you compare footage of the JFK assassination coverage to footage of Apollo 11, you can see how much things had changed since the Kennedy assassination.

Everything was different after Kennedy was killed. Doesn't that make it one of the crimes of the century?

I'd like to think that it would. I'd certainly like to think that it ranks ahead of Mary Kay Letourneau and her forbidden love — which, by the way, did make the list.

The Paradox of Politics (aka The Civil War)

Ellen Goodman tries, in the Boston Globe, to figure out why the Barack Obama of the campaign trail has not lived up to expectations since moving in to the White House.

Last year, she writes, he was the "Oprah candidate" — he "believed we could talk with anyone, even our enemies," but that reconciliatory approach doesn't seem to be particularly suited for handling global problems.

Heck, it doesn't really seem to work too well domestically. Obama's Republican adversaries have never seemed especially eager to work with Democrats, but lately even Democrats have been reluctant to work with him.

Democrats, Goodman writes, have been "waiting for Obama's inner fighter," but he keeps frustrating them. Even when they want to blame resistance on racism, Obama double–crosses them, saying that racism is "not the overriding issue."

Well, that was his chance to pass the buck, wasn't it? Everyone on the left lately, it seems, has been eager to blame racism for the administration's problems — Maureen Dowd and former President Jimmy Carter have been front and center.

Strange. Even Dowd wrote about her frustrations with Obama's hesitance hours before his congressional address. "Sometimes, when you've got the mojo, you have to keep your foot on your opponent's neck," she wrote.

But then Joe Wilson gave her the excuse to blame racism. Wilson gave it a face. Dowd didn't have to rely on hunches or gut feelings. And Carter piled on. And they've been followed by folks in the press who ought to know better — but economics drives everything, and those folks know that, right now, there is no better way to give sagging circulation figures a temporary boost than by taking sides in the racism debate.

So David Harsanyi of the Denver Post weighed in. And, from overseas, Janet Dailey weighed in in The Telegraph. And so did Toby Harnden in the Daily Telegraph.

Each has tried to put his/her own spin on the issue. But, in fact, the chorus has been predictable. It's like two sides of a football stadium yelling at each other. Even when they're yelling for the same thing, it seems hostile.

In recent days, Joe Klein of TIME has written about the race issue. And so has David Brooks in the New York Times. Eugene Robinson wrote about it in the Washington Post.

With an issue like racism and a president like Obama, it can be hard to get a handle on what it's all about. But I thought Goodman did a pretty good job.

"Can you be a healer and a politician? If you try to mediate an ideological divide, do you just end up in the crossfire?"

Maybe, as Goodman suggests, it's a matter of civility. Or the absence of it.

And maybe, as Harsanyi writes, civility is just plain overrated.

But when the debate is about racism, I think Yale lecturer Jim Sleeper made a good point in the Washington Post. Essentially, writes Sleeper, focusing on race "as the chief source of rage is a trap into which liberals have fallen too often."

I think the race issue was destined to be an ongoing factor for the first black president. When the first woman becomes president, she will have to contend with the gender issue. It will be easier for those who follow.

But right now, all of us must live through the growing pains that are the unavoidable byproduct of the first black presidency.

It was absurd to think we might be able to bypass this part of the growth experience — sort of like thinking one might get through one's adolescence without ever feeling awkward or stupid or ugly.

All That You Can't Leave Behind

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I found this on YouTube today.

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Tonight, mourners have gathered in Boston to pay homage to Ted Kennedy.

It is closed to the public, but it is still being televised on CNN and C–Span. It has been alternately moving and amusing to listen to the eulogies from both Democrats and Republicans. As vilified as Kennedy was in life for his liberal leanings, it has been enlightening to listen to people like Orrin Hatch and John McCain speak with genuine affection for a friend.

But, as I have been reading the articles on the internet — and viewing videos like the one I have posted — it has occurred to me that Ted Kennedy, like Richard Nixon, has one Achilles' heel that will be with him as long as there is an American history that is chronicled in the history books.

For Nixon, it was Watergate. For Kennedy, it was Chappaquiddick.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that Kennedy's death would bring another round of discussions about that incident.

The Week reported that "Kennedy's name was Google's top search term the day after his death, but Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick were Nos. 2 and 3."

And some writers, like Michael Scherer in TIME, mentioned it only in passing. Scherer referred to it as one of Kennedy's "darkest moments."

Howie Carr of the Boston Herald briefly brought up Chappaquiddick in a general article that recites all of Kennedy's shortcomings.

There has been much talk in tonight's memorial for Kennedy of the late senator's love of humor. Tom Blumer writes, for NewsBusters, that Chappaquiddick was one of his favorite topics.

To be sure, some people defended Kennedy. Melissa Lafsky speculated at The Huffington Post that Kopechne, "a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future," might have "felt it was worth it" to trade her life for Kennedy's career.

Boy, that sparked a debate.

Rick Moran responded, in American Thinker, that it was "maybe the most amazingly shallow, myopic, and ultimately self–centered sentence ever written."

Perhaps that is unduly harsh. Personally, I believe that, unless one possesses the selflessness of a soldier, who knows he might at any moment have to sacrifice his life for others, no one is ever prepared to die at the age of 28.

So I thought Lafsky's article was interesting but a little preposterous.

Especially when I consider Eliott C. McLaughlin's survey of media experts for CNN.com, asking if Kennedy's political career could survive a Chappaquiddick in the 21st century — "in the era of blogs, talk radio and 24–hour news cycles."

It's a fair question. The media has changed considerably in 40 years.

I remember, at the time, that Chappaquiddick was overshadowed, to a great extent, by Apollo 11 and its historic trip to the moon. If we could return to July 1969 and everything else was the same — but talk radio, blogs and 24–hour news were part of the media mix — I agree that Chappaquiddick would be a source of continuing discussion — even as the lunar module was descending to the moon's surface.

Heck, with split–screen technology, both stories could be covered simultaneously.

And I think Kennedy's career might well have been over. But I'm thinking from the perspective of one who has just been through an election year in which reverence for political dynasties was brought into question. In 1969, Kennedy, I believe, benefited from a reservoir of affection that Massachusetts had for John and Robert Kennedy and the Kennedy family.

We may find out in the months to come whether that reservoir still exits as Massachusetts chooses a replacement.

Jobs Stimulus? Hello? McFly?

Kevin O'Leary suggests, in TIME, that America should "resurrect something like the Works Progress Administration" — the Depression–era program that "put millions of unemployed Americans to work building schools, roads, parks, libraries and other needed infrastructure projects."

That's a good idea. Why didn't I think of that?

Wait a minute. I did suggest that. Well, perhaps not in those words. But I've been saying that job creation needed to be a priority since before George W. Bush started packing up to move back to Texas.

When the Democrats pushed through their pork–laden economic stimulus package, I was saying that we needed to focus on job creation. Well, job creation got a lot of lip service but not much else.

And now, all of a sudden, O'Leary reports that "the current situation is stark." Gee. Ya think?

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"When people say there are no jobs out there, it's true. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the start of the recession in December 2007, the ratio of job seekers to job openings was 1.5 to 1. Now six unemployed workers chase every available job. It's a brutal game of musical chairs in which a great many people lose and spiral downward economically with disastrous consequences, not only for themselves and their families, but also for communities that were once productive and prosperous."

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Actually, I am glad to see someone treating this as the dire situation it is.

That's why I'm somewhat baffled by the emphasis on health care reform. I know it is important. I really do. But I've seen reports of people killing themselves and their families because they don't have jobs. I haven't seen any reports like that connected with health care.

Doesn't that suggest that job creation is more pressing right now?

Economists now are saying that employment won't even start to get better until well into next year. Unless the affected families have a medical crisis to deal with, health care occupies a rather low spot on the totem pole. Food, clothing and shelter are more immediate concerns.

I heard a lot of encouraging talk about job creation during last fall's campaign. Notably, Barack Obama pledged a tax credit for businesses for each American they hired in 2009 or 2010, but no such tax credit was included in the stimulus package.

Here's a thought for all those politicians who have fretted about how we're going to pay for that $1 trillion stimulus package — put Americans back to work and start collecting taxes from them again.

Here's another revenue idea that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Legalize and regulate the sales of marijuana. State and federal governments could collect taxes on the sales, virtually eliminating the black market (and the violent crime that goes along with it) and freeing law enforcement to devote its time and resources to violent criminals. It has been estimated that marijuana sales could generate $1 billion annually in tax revenue in California alone.

Could your state use $1 billion a year? Well, revenue would be somewhat lower in the other states because California's population is, far and away, greater than any of the others. But we're still talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in most states.

It could also create jobs, just as the end of Prohibition created jobs. But Obama refuses to discuss it.

I hate to sound like a broken record (which I'm sure is an alien concept to many young people today), but job creation is the key. Put people back to work and you'll have a more receptive audience for talk of health care reform. Even make–work that only lasts a little while will help.

But whatever you're going to do, you're going to have to do it quickly. Time is running out for millions of Americans. Obama has been president for seven months, and job losses have been in six figures in each of those months.

Blame it on Bush if you want. But he isn't sitting in the Oval Office anymore.

The FDR Example

One thing that I seldom do with this blog is tell my readers whether they should read something.

I will often refer to articles that I read online, but I almost never tell the reader to read anything. I will provide the link and, if the reader wants to read it, that is his/her choice.

But today, I want to recommend one — Bill Clinton's essay on FDR, "Getting It Right," in TIME.

I've been reading it, and I have found it to be very interesting.

It shouldn't be necessary, at this time, to remind anyone that Roosevelt was president during the Great Depression. And Clinton, in case you have forgotten, took office during the economic downturn that occurred under the first President Bush.

Only three other Democrats (besides Roosevelt and Clinton) have been elected president twice. And one of them was not victorious in two consecutive elections. Democrats who have won two consecutive national elections have been rare.

So, if Barack Obama thinks he'd like to be re–elected in 2012, it wouldn't hurt to read this article. Roosevelt actually was elected president four times, and it seems to me that the insights of the only other Democrat to win the presidency twice in more than 60 years since FDR's death would be particularly valuable (Republicans have elected and re–elected four presidents — Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and G.W. Bush — in the six decades since FDR's death).

Especially since Clinton concludes that Roosevelt "got the big things right."

In fact, Clinton observes that Roosevelt sought the presidency running as a "fiscal conservative" but realized, upon entering office, that "aggressive involvement by the government" was needed "with prices collapsing and unemployment exploding."

And that required an ambitious, expansive agenda.

This is something about which I have expressed my concerns before, but I'm probably guilty of not looking at the whole picture. I'm unemployed, and there are times when I feel fearful about the future. I worry that my unemployment benefits will be taken from me, and I worry about a federal debt that can never be repaid so a sense of urgency tends to engulf me. I get anxious to see some improvement in unemployment. If we can start putting people to work, my mind tells me, more people will be earning incomes and paying income taxes to help pay this bill.

It ain't much, but it's something.

And it's not that simple, of course. But, while it's probably selfish to say this, if we can't make a dent in the national unemployment rate, at the very least, I want to see some improvement in my unemployment situation.

I guess I'm too anxious at times to see some proof that we're going in the right direction. But just because there are mountains between us and our destination doesn't mean the destination isn't there — or that we can't get to it.

Some of my friends have told me (in their own words and their own ways) that so many things demand immediate attention that it must be done this way. I, grudgingly, agree with them, but I admit I feel more inclined to believe it when I read what Clinton says.

The fact that the Clinton administration turned the economy around in the 1990s and actually built a sizable surplus before he handed presidential power to George W. Bush tells me that Clinton knows something about this subject.

It also makes me wonder how things might have been right now if Hillary Clinton had won the nomination, and then the election, instead of Obama. The problems wouldn't be resolved — but would we be doing better or worse than we're doing?

With the benefit of a First Spouse who was president for eight years providing unique advice, how would Hillary be doing? Would she have managed to push through a bigger stimulus package? How would she have handled the revolution in Iran? Would she have enjoyed the kind of approval ratings Obama has received?

Those are questions for another analysis at another time. For now, though, the president could do worse than to follow President Clinton's urging to be "inspired by FDR's concern for all Americans, his relentless optimism, his penchant for experimentation, his relish for spirited debate among brilliant advisers and his unshakable faith in the promise of America."

From the Front Lines of the 'War on Drugs'

While perhaps written partly tongue in cheek, Joe Klein makes some good points about legalizing marijuana in his article in TIME, "Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense."

"[T]here are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice," writes Klein. "[T]he U.S. is, by far, the most 'criminal' country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one–third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana–related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public."

Or how about this? The money that is currently being squandered could be used to track down the dangerous elements of society — the murderers, the rapists, the identity thieves. Putting those people behind bars might make life livable for the rest of us.

On the economic side of the ledger, Klein observes, "there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone."

And California, with its budget woes and double–digit unemployment rate, could certainly use an annual infusion of more than $1 billion.

Not to mention that the black market would be eliminated — along with the violence that accompanies illegal trade.

At the other end of this discussion is the proposal that was made recently in West Virginia to give drug tests to applicants for public assistance.

Republican Craig Blair suggested "randomly testing people receiving state and federal assistance through unemployment, food stamps or welfare programs." The proposal died in the legislature on Tuesday.

I don't know if such legislation would be on solid legal ground when it comes to testing applicants for welfare or food stamps. But unemployment benefits are insurance that people pay for when they are employed. Seems like giving drug tests to people who are applying for unemployment benefits would be opening a big can of worms — one I'm not sure Blair or anyone else really wants to get into these days.

More than 660,000 jobs were lost in March, bringing unemployment to 8.5%, and drug testing can be costly. It doesn't seem like the wisest expenditure for cash–strapped governments, state or federal, although officials in several states are exploring Blair's proposal.

But, for the sake of argument, how would this random testing be accomplished? Would this be a matter of age or racial profiling? If young, black men were targeted more often than any other group, in much the same way they are disproportionately represented in the populations of state and federal prisons, wouldn't that leave the governing entities wide open for lawsuits? How much would the taxpayers have to pay to defend the government against those?

Or against charges of false positives? Not all labs are meticulous about their procedures.

And how likely would those lawsuits be to succeed? I guess that depends on the individual circumstances.

For that matter, giving drug tests to applicants for welfare and food stamps seems illogical as well. Even if someone tests positive, how does that prove that the public assistance funds would be used to buy marijuana?

If the concern is substance abuse, how would government prevent public assistance monies from being used for alcohol?

Drug tests don't even measure impairment. They only confirm the presence of molecules in the system, molecules that may be days or weeks old.

And that would only confirm that someone had taken the substance within the last several days or weeks, not how frequently it was taken or whether the person who tested positive was the one who purchased it.

The War on Drugs is being fought against our own people, most of whom are law–abiding citizens. Most people who have to apply for assistance don't want to do so. If someone has lost a job, do we want to make the situation worse by requiring that person to pass a drug test to receive assistance?

"[T]he costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable," Klein writes. "Would legalization be any worse?"

It's a question that deserves better than the blithe dismissal it received from the president last month.