No class Thursday:
Papers due tomorrow night at 11:59 pm.
Stylistic reminders
Review of the Dualities:
Two chambers: House v. Senate
Two Congresses: Policy priorities v. constituent priorities
Two parties: GOP v. Dems
Two political branches: Congress v. President
Life Lessons
Simulation?
In all bodies, those who will lead must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition of those whom they wish to conduct; therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects! If, what is the more likely event, instead of that unusual degree of virtue, they should be actuated by sinister ambition and a lust of meretricious glory, then the feeble part of the assembly, to whom at first they conform, becomes in its turn the dupe and instrument of their designs. In this political traffic, the leaders will be obliged to bow to the ignorance of their followers, and the followers to become subservient to the worst designs of their leaders.
Mickey Edwards: "People think what they think, not what we want them to think."
About “problems of political courage in the face of constituent pressures, and the light shed on those problems by the lives of past statesmen.’’ Three types of pressure:
- pressure to be liked
- pressure to be re-elected, and
- pressure of the constituency and interest groups.
The problem is that all three considerations have a legitimate place.
In addition to the courage of your convictions, you should also have the courage of your doubts.
Sometimes, compromise takes courage.
Taft
- Prewar isolationism
- And why JFK downplayed that side of the story
- Nuremberg (start video at 11:00)
- Taft against NATO
- The story that led to the LBJ-RFK feud
On October 29, 1940, Congressman Lyndon Johnson happened to be in President Franklin Roosevelt’s office when FDR’s isolationist ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy—at whom Roosevelt was furious for his freelancing and his insufficient outrage against Adolf Hitler—returned to the United States. LBJ omits the detail that as FDR invited Kennedy by telephone for dinner, he drew his finger across his throat, razor fashion. Johnson twits Roosevelt for his indifference to civil rights, contrasting that unfavorably with LBJ’s own record.
I was with President Roosevelt the day he fired Joe Kennedy. He picked up the phone and said, “Hello, Joe, are you in New York? Why don’t you come down and have a little family dinner with us tonight?” Then he hung up and said, “That son of a bitch is a traitor. He wants to sell us out.” Well, Kennedy did say Hitler was right.
Anyway, Roosevelt didn’t have any Southern molasses compassion. He didn’t get wrapped up in going to anyone’s funeral. Roosevelt never submitted one civil rights bill in twelve years. He sent Mrs. Roosevelt to their meetings in their parks, and she’d do it up good. But President Roosevelt never faced up to the problem.
Inherent limitations of Congress:
- Except in simulation, legislation is slow. (And swift action is not necessarily smart action.)
- In a body resting on geographic representation, parochialism is inevitable. (And it is often legitimate.)
- A multi-member, bicameral institution will have a hard time planning. (And planning is overrated.)
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