Weekend Potpourri

In No Particular Order Crapo Draws "Opponent" Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, occupying (and defending in 2010) what is perhaps the safest seat in the Senate, has an opponent. Sort of. Betsy Russell in the Spokesman-Review has the story of a New York resident - always a part of a winning political resume in Idaho - announcing that he'll take on the two term GOP incumbent. Other than not living in the state, the new challenger may have other issues with Idaho voters. He's never been west of Buffalo, for example. And not Buffalo, Wyoming, either Here is a key paragraph from Betsy's story: "(William) Bryk, for his part, has run for offices including district attorney, state legislature, city council and Congress, but has never been elected. He ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1980; and eight years after his New Hampshire win on the GOP ticket in 2000, ran again for vice president there as a Democrat, and lost." Last time, Crapo gathered in 99% of the vote against various write-ins. I think you can safely keep this one in the "leans overwhelmingly GOP" column. A Udall Comes Out for Nuclear Power Here is a man-bites-dog story from Colorado. Democratic Senator Mark Udall delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week saying it was time for the nation to reconsider nuclear power. Udall said he hoped new nuclear facilities could be constructed over the next decade and then added: "For some, news that a Udall is speaking favorably about nuclear power will come as a stark - and perhaps unpleasant - surprise." Udall's father - Mo - the great Arizona congressman, campaigned for the White House in 1976 in opposition to nuclear power. There was immediate speculation that Udall's stance would draw serious environmental push back, but his positioning on the issue could also have a "Nixon goes to China" quality in that it may prompt other Democrats with environmental credentials to re-examine long held positions on nuclear power. The Times on "The Big Burn" New York Times on-line columnist Tim Egan - his new book is called "The Big Burn" - will be featured in the Sunday Times Book Review. The Times offers a generally strong review, something the book deserves as I've noted here before, but it wouldn't be the Times if the review didn't offer a bit of snark, even for one of its own. Egan was also a great interview this week on NPR's Fresh Air with Terri Gross. Afghanistan Policy Everyone it seems has advice for the president on Afghanistan. Two thoughtful pieces over the last few days are worth a view: Christopher Buckley cites the reasoning of a former Marine-turned-State Department official, Matthew P. Hoh, who resigned recently over the Afghan war and Ted Sorensen, the former JFK speechwriter, offers up what may be the worst possible analogy for Obama - Afghanistan is already his Vietnam. A Great Humanities Event On Thursday, the Idaho Humanities Council's 13th annual Distinguished Lecture was delivered by the superb Lincoln scholar, Harold Holzer. Holzer's talk focused on how every president, since at least Teddy Roosevelt, has appropriated Lincoln - his words and deeds - to fit their own needs and circumstances, often unfairly. Republicans naturally claim the political Lincoln, but Holzer's survey made the case that Democrats, starting with Woodrow Wilson and continuing to Barack Obama, make some legitimate claims on the great president, as well. Lincoln's legacy clearly weaves through the political reality of the two major parties swapping positions and geography over the last century. FDR largely took the African-American vote, that had been solidly GOP since the Civil War, to the Democratic Party during the New Deal and Richard Nixon broke up the "solid south" after Lyndon Johnson picked up the mantle of civil rights in the 1960's. Holzer diplomatically took a pass when asked if Lincoln were alive today would he be a Republican or a Democrat. He did point out that Lincoln was a fan of big public works projects and he did push a civil rights agenda. The interesting thing to consider is that through the evolution of the two major parties since Lincoln's day, the great president's priorities still stay in the mainstream of American political thought. Holzer, author of 34 books, including an award winning book about Lincoln's coming to national prominence by virtue of his speech at Cooper Union in New York in 1860, has also had a major hand in a grand Lincoln exhibit at the New York Historical Society. Harold Holzer is a really nice fellow and a very engaging speaker. If you get a chance to hear him talk on Lincoln and the presidency - do it.

Eighty Years Ago Today

"Black Tuesday" Marked Slide Into Great Depression There is some modestly good economic news this morning in contrast to this day 80 years ago when crowds gathered on Wall Street in New York sensing the economic worst had happened. Third quarter GNP growth was at a healthy 3.5% indicating to some that the recession is definitely over and, according to the Washington Post, the stimulus efforts are having the desired impact. Predicting the economy is, however, somewhat akin to predicting post-season baseball performance. I figured Phillies' lefthander Cliff Lee would pitch a strong World Series opener last night, but hardly expected him to dominate the fearsome Yankee line-up. On a cold, rainy night in the Bronx, Cliff Lee was simply splendid and his one nine inning performance may - no firm prediction - have reset the Series. So, in case you are tempted to assume an attitude of irrational exuberance over the apparently improving economic numbers, consider the following quote from the very smart financier Bernard Baruch. By 1900, at age 30, Baruch had a sterling Wall Street reputation and a million bucks - a lot of money back in the day. Two weeks after "Black Tuesday" in 1929, Baruch consoled his friend Winston Churchill with an encouraging note. The future British Prime Minister had taken a bath in the market meltdown and Baruch, counselor to presidents and prime ministers, wrote in a cablegram to Churchill: "Financial storm definitely passed." That was November 15, 1929. So much for predictions. The Great Depression would last another decade. My fearless prediction: recovery to continue, slow and steady, but don't bet on it.

Dithering or a Strategy?

A Lesson from History Within the stark building that houses the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa - perhaps the most anti-war war museum I've ever visited - is a relatively small exhibit devoted to one of the greatest blunders of the Second World War - the 6,000 man raid on the French port city of Dieppe in 1942. Canadian bravery on the beaches of Dieppe is celebrated in the exhibit, not so the nearly criminal decision making that brought about the disaster. As the photo nearby gruesomely explains, the Dieppe Raid - poorly conceived, horribly lacking from a strategy and planning perspective, and in no way adequately supported by naval and air forces - cost the lives of more than 1,000 brave Canadian infantrymen and British Marines in the space of a few short hours. Another 2,300 men were captured on the beaches in front of Dieppe and hundreds more of the wounded were evacuated back to England. The then-new British tank, the Churchill, saw action for the first time at Dieppe and most of the armor was left burning and destroyed as the survivors fought desperately to shed their weapons, get back to landing craft and escape across the English Channel. In the annals of historic military disasters, Dieppe ranks high - or, perhaps, low. What didn't go wrong at Dieppe was the bravery of the mostly Canadian troops who went ashore at first light on the 19th of August. What did go wrong was the planning, larded with hubris, that marked virtually every step on the way to the death of so many of those brave men. No historian of the Raid has ever questioned the courage and resolve of the Canadians and to this day Dieppe conjures up a particularly melancholy memory among those who remember the sacrifice. Those who conceived and ordered the Raid have, in the fullness of time, been found wanting at every turn. As historian Robin Neillands has written in his story of the raid: "If common sense had ruled the day rather than hubris,the Raid would either have been cancelled or the plans drastically revised. It was not one of those operations that begin well and then deteriorate. It failed from the very first moment the troops stepped ashore and got worse thereafter." Only later, as Neillands points out, was the Dieppe adventure justified - by Lord Louis Mountbatten, among others - as a trial run for the Normandy invasion in 1944. In none of the pre-Raid discussions had that rationale ever emerged as a reason for landing at Dieppe. Only later did it also become clear that virtually all of the assumptions made by the planners of the Raid were wrong. They underestimated German military strength and capability. They casually rejected what turned out to be the absolute necessity of naval and air support for the landings. And, amazingly, very senior British and Canadian military men and their civilian bosses dismissed the complexity of getting men and equipment both on and off a beach, under intense enemy fire, and all in the space of one high tide. What was fundamentally wrong at Dieppe - and to draw the historical parallel to the current debate about the next steps in Afghanistan - was a sound, achievable objective. The Raid had no real purpose. At a time when British troops had suffered setback after setback, and before American GI's were engaged in combat anywhere, the Raid would apparently prove that offensive action against the German Army was possible. As a result, the effort to put Allied troops on a French beach took on a life - and death - of its own as political and military leaders made the worst possible mistakes. They assumed that in war the best will happened and they planned for the obvious, not the possible. In the end, the planners of the Dieppe Raid failed, at any point, to stop, question, assess and ask the awkward question - including the most basic question - what are we trying to accomplish? It is difficult to tell from the news coverage of the current Afghanistan strategy review - coverage heavily influenced by political calculations from the White House, the Congress and the last administration, particularly Dick Cheney - what is really being considered. Is our Afghan mission to destroy Al-Qaeda (and capture or kill the elusive Bin Laden), are we trying to defeat the Taliban, are we trying to prop up and then reform a corrupt Afghan regime, or are we trying to bring a 21st Century democracy to a tribal nation that, by most accounts, has never had a stable central government? Not unlike the questions that should have confronted those who conceived the Raid on Dieppe in 1942, the questions in Washington today are simple to ask, but very hard to answer: What are we trying to accomplish and what must be done to realistically achieve success? None of this is to question the bravery or commitment of the soldiers, airmen and Marines deployed - and likely deployed in the future - to Afghanistan. The troops will try to do whatever is asked of them without question. Leaders must have the wisdom and cold-eyed clarity to ask them to achieve objectives that really are possible and not based on fuzzy strategy or mere wishful thinking. The great military historian B.H. Liddell Hart once wrote: "Throwing good money after bad is foolish. But to throw away men's lives where there is no reasonable chance of advantage is criminal." With due respect to the former vice president, trying to get a strategy right is hardly dithering. In fact, it is altogether fitting and proper to question, debate and analyze before committing men and women to battle, or continuing battle. If there is any enduring lesson from the last half century of American military deployments it must be that asking and answering the "what are we really trying to do" question is essential. After the Dieppe Raid had come to a disastrous end after just a few hours on the killing ground of that narrow French beach, a German interrogator said to one of the Canadian prisoners: "Too big for a raid, too small for an invasion...what were you trying to do?" That is a very good question - always - when American troops are sent to war. What are we trying to do? A little dithering (or thinking) in the interest of developing a real strategy - a strategy with a chance to realistically succeed - can be a very good thing. Let's hope we get it right.

Establishing a Vision

Arizona Seeks Better Jobs, Environmental Protection A fascinating series of stories in the venerable Arizona Daily Star, the Tucson paper, reporting on a massive statewide public opinion survey conducted by the Gallup organization and commissioned by the Center for the Future of Arizona. The survey effort is designed to build upon a statewide visioning exercise and has resulted in an impressive action report - The Arizona We Want. As the Star reported: "'Most states don't tend to have a vision,' said Lattie Coor, chairman and CEO of The Center for the Future of Arizona and Arizona State University president emeritus. 'The Arizona We Want' report was released this month." Perhaps it is no big surprise that quality, 21st Century jobs topped the list of Arizona priorities, followed by protecting the state's natural wonders and improving opportunities for young people. Like most of the rest of the West, Arizona's political leadership is locked in a prolonged battle over budget cutting and fiscal priorities. The state has a huge deficit to address and a legislature not often on the same page with the governor. So, it is also not surprising that the Gallup survey finds that folks in Arizona have lost confidence in their political leadership. A remarkable finding: only 10% of those surveyed, and it was a huge sample of 3,600 interviews, expressed confidence that the state's political leadership would look out for their interests. An old saying comes to mind: If you don't know where you're going any road will get you there. Some in Arizona are trying to determine where the state is going. At least that much is encouraging.

A Long, Slow Recovery

Idaho Struggles to Regain Economic Footing Years ago when Idaho's economy was built around timber, mining and agriculture, the state tended to come late to a recession and leave early. No more apparently. At the annual Idaho housing conference, organized by the Idaho Housing and Finance Association, the state's top economist, Mike Ferguson, predicted an agonizingly slow recovery in Idaho. Ferguson opining that it could be a year from now before the Idaho economy really starts to feel like it is growing even modestly. Other participants in a panel on issues and trends in Idaho - Bob Uhlenkott and Randy Schroll of the Idaho departments of Labor and Commerce, respectively, and health insurance industry watcher Elwood Cleaver - generally agreed. Slow recovery is the expectation and unemployment could go higher. Idaho's current unemployment rates slumps at 8.9%. Brad Carlson at the Idaho Business Review has another estimate of the not exactly gloomy, but still very measured outlook. Ferguson, the long-time state economist, made a telling point when he said that Idaho's economy has suffered more than might once have been the case during the current downturn thanks to Micron downsizing in the high tech sector, Albertson's (now Supervalu) headquarters departure from Boise and the demise of the much touted, but now bankrupt resort at Tamarack. The increased diversification of the Idaho economy since the 1970's has been a good thing, but at the cost perhaps of having the state's economy behave more like the rest of the nation when a slide begins. Always looking for a silver lining, I would note one minor growth area in the Idaho economy. The No. 1 Idaho wolf tag has sold to a North Carolina bidder for $8,000. I wonder, does that qualify as foreign investment?

The Big Burn

Positive Notices Roll in for Egan's Latest As I noted in this space a while back, Tim Egan's new book - The Big Burn - is a winner both as western (especially Idaho) history and as a cautionary tale about natural resource policy. Publisher's Weekly gave the book a starred review and Kirkus said it is a must for any "green bookshelf." Egan's work deserves a wide audience and appears to be getting one based upon accolades so far. The Seattle Times said: "The Big Burn shows off Egan's writerly skills and will bring attention to both how the Northwest was won — with big timber at the front — as well as the current debate over fire prevention in the wilderness." The Washington Times, a newspaper not likely to embrace much of what Egan writes in his New York Times column, nonetheless loved his book: "Not since David McCullough's 1968 The Johnstown Flood grabbed readers and hurled them down the narrow Conemaugh Valley to certain doom can I remember a natural-disaster yarn that yanks one by the back of the neck face to face with horror the way Timothy Egan's The Big Burn brings the great Western fire of 1910 over the mountain to destroy the town of Wallace, Idaho." The Oregonian's review focused on the heroes of Egan's story: "Timothy Egan loves the story of Ed Pulaski and tells it with relish, gesturing with his arms and lowering his voice to imitate Pulaski. He also loves the story of Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the future president and the first chief of the Forest Service, stripping to their underwear and wrestling to seal their friendship in 1899." The Idaho Statesman's Rocky Barker has a good piece on the book and, like me, loves the story of forester Pulaski who left his family during the worst of the great fire to march back into the woods to help his trapped firefighters. In a long essay on the first chief of the Forest Service, Pennsylvanian Gifford Pinchot, who plays a center role in The Big Burn, the Philadelphia Inquirer said: "Central to Egan's story are the nation's forests themselves. And Pinchot's efforts to conserve them." And, the Christian Science Monitor says: "What makes The Big Burn particularly impressive is Egan’s skill as an equal-opportunity storyteller. By this I mean that he recounts the stories of men and women completely unknown to most of us with the same fervor he uses to report the stories of historic figures." For Idaho history buffs, Egan's book also resurrects one of the state's true political characters, Senator Weldon Heyburn, who has mostly been forgotten. The Twin Falls Times-News notes that the mean-spirited Heyburn was a "hard man to like" and that, "In his hometown of Wallace, the U.S. senator from Idaho once stopped a visiting band in mid-performance and ran it out of town because he didn't like a tune it was playing." Heyburn State Park near Plummer, Idaho - the oldest park in the Northwest - is named after the Senator. After you read Tim Egan's book, you may well conclude that renaming the park to honor Ed Pulaski would make some sense. The Big Burn is as good a piece of northwest political, cultural and public policy history - all in the wrappings of an adventure story - as we've seen in a long time.

Go read it.

Playing the Fatso Card

New Jersey Governor's Race - Off the Scales The Republican candidate for governor in New Jersey is a big guy. Some might even say he's, well, chunky. His opponent is alleging that he "throws his weight around." Subtle. In the never ending quest to push the envelope on political advertising, Chris Christie's waist size (girth, fat, fitness) has become an issue in his race against incumbent Democrat John Corzine, a 62 year old jogger. The race, in a state with real problems, has become so nasty that the unfavorable poll numbers of both of the major candidates have sunk into the toilet. You wonder how either of these guys can win. The Associated Press has referred to Christie's "Henry VIII-like girth" and noted that one of Corzine's recent ads seemed to delight in featuring a "a clip of a rotund Christie, his extra pounds rolling beneath his shirt, lumbering out of the back seat of an SUV." For his part, Corzine, saddled with an awful economy and some of the highest property taxes in the nation, seems just fine with changing the subject to his opponent's need for Sansabelt slacks. When asked by a reporter if he agreed that the opponent was fat, the governor touched his head and asked, "am I bald?" He is. Nasty stuff? Probably. Effective? We'll know next month. Does every New Jersey voter know that candidate Christie is also a candidate for a seat belt extender? Of course. Given the 30 second nature of politics, and the power of a picture, it is a safe bet that the image many voters will take to the ballot box on election day is that Christie is chunky and Corzine is a chrome dome. The late 19th Century political humorist Finley Peter Dunne is credited with saying, "politics ain't beanbag." He was right it is tough, nasty, unfair and always has been. After this race, politics might be feedbag. My favorite political analyst has a theory that most elections come down to a decision about which candidate an individual voter will feel most comfortable seeing night after night on the tube. In this race, you got your choice - fatso or the bald guy. TMI: Nate Silver took a look at all the nation's governors on the skinny to not so scale, for example - Otter (ID) "skinny", Schweitzer (MT) "full bodied", Gregorie (WA) "attenuated." Find all his rankings under the headline: "Honey, Does This Governor Make Me Look Fat?" Gotta love politics.

Save Balloon Boy!

Someday, Someday... The cartoon from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch kinda says it all. Someday , I just know (if I live long enough), I'll be able to say I was impressed by the journalistic judgment shown by cable news. Someday. Yesterday, on the other hand, fell just a little short. My favorite part of the "balloon boy" story was watching the once-credible CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. It was quite the situation in "The Situation Room." This is the same guy who used to report with some authority on the Middle East peace process and interview presidential candidates. But, hey, what's that compared to a live balloon chase over the eastern front of Rockies. There is news, after all, and then there is news. Linda Holmes, a writer on popular culture, has some thoughts. As she points out - listening Wolf - "It's not always easy to know what you're looking at, even when you're staring at it with your own eyes." After Wolf, and a close second as a favorite part of the "balloon boy" story, comes the merchandise. At www.SaveBalloonBoy.org you can own the tee-shirt commerating the "most disappointing conclusion to helium-filled balloon journalism ever." Retail $20, unless you buy at least 25 shirts and qualify for the 10% discount. The only quick lesson to draw from "balloon boy" is that the 24-hour news cycle needs lotsa material. After all, Michael Jackson can only die once - presumably.

Rooting for Microsoft

The Splendid Splinter...

I confess. I was pulling for the Red Sox to advance in the American League playoffs. Alas, as usual for me, baseball in October is about disappointment. The Yankees - big surprise - appear to be on a roll and why not. Money buys happiness in Yankeeland - new stadium, a pitching staff that is an embarrassment of riches, a team leader (and MVP?) in the too perfect Jeter and, thank God, a quiet George Steinbrenner. Beyond Alex Rodriquez's little steroid problem, the Yankees have almost become the no drama Bombers. Still, while granting the remarkable history of Yankee success - Joe Girardi wearing No. 27 as the millionaires in pinstripes seek their 27th World Series - how can you not like the Sox?

The famous line about what it's like being a fan of the Bronx Bombers is credited to a number of people and it may have been the great sportswriter Jim Murray who said it first, "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel." Perhaps that line needs updating considering the state of basic manufacturing in America. Rooting for the Yankees these days is, what, a little like rooting for Microsoft. Pulling for the Red Sox, by contrast, is like rooting for your favorite uncle or for the kid's soccer team.

Being for the Sox is blue collar. Being for the Yankees is, well, pinstripes.

During the playoffs the camera frequently catches the big city swells at new Yankee Stadium, lounging in the thousand dollar seats, still decked out in ties and jackets after a hectic day of trading. They sip $12 Bud Lights, while yakking on their cell phones, no doubt checking on the Tokyo market opening. At Fenway you see guys in sweatshirts, hanging on every pitch, holding their daughters in one arm and tugging on a real beer. Every baseball fans knows the Great DiMaggio, but brother Dom (who patrolled the outfield in Boston, made seven All-Star rosters and had a career .298 average) is mostly forgotten outside of Boston. Pesky, Yastrzemski, Cronin, Rice, all were greats and played in the best ballpark ever. Now, those are guys you could root for. Another reason to like the Red Sox is that really good writers like them. David Halberstam's Teammates is a wonderful little book about friendship. It begins with a 1,300 mile trip by DiMaggio and Pesky to visit the great Ted Williams. John Updike wrote a wonderful piece - Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu - about Williams last game at Fenway in 1960. Williams, of course, in epic style, hit a home run in his last at bat at the band box and, typical Williams, refused to acknowledge the adulation of the fans. Updike described the moment: "Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters." No cheers for me in the American League this year. Red Sox out. Tigers done. Twins foiled. The Angels of Los Angeles or West Covina, or whatever they are, will be next. That's the other thing about the Yankees - they are ubiquitous and, I'm afraid, inevitable. It comes down to their operating system, like it or not.

Put me down as not. I can't bring myself to root for Microsoft.

Curtis Stigers

New Album, Big Tour, Great Press Boise's musical gift to the world, jazz singer and songwriter Curtis Stigers, continues to rack up accolades as his lengthy tour in Europe continues. Stigers' new album - Lost in Dreams - is out and being well reviewed. Here's a quick sample of some of the press in Britain: "Curtis Stigers is now regarded as being at the forefront of a new generation of jazz singers." - Surrey Today "With one of the most distinctive voices in music, Curtis Stigers continues to blaze a path as one of his generation’s finest and most original interpreters of modern songs." - Burton Mail "Lost in Dreams is the latest chapter in a career that can only be described as a musical odyssey." - The Daily Post And check out the video of Curtis and Seth MacFarlane performing together at the BBC Proms late this summer at Royal Albert Hall in London. Good stuff. The really big Stigers tour continues through most of November. A big talent and a good guy puts us on the international music map in a big way.

More Lincoln...at Cole and Ustick

Lincoln As War Leader Mark this post down as "shameless self promotion." On October 15th at 7 pm, I'll be at the marvelous new Boise neighborhood library at Cole and Ustick for a talk on the Abraham Lincoln as a war leader. A big and happy crowd (above) gathered at the new library a few weeks back when it opened. The Library has been nice enough to host both of my Idaho Humanities Council Speaker's Bureau lectures on the great Lincoln. The upcoming talk explores how Lincoln, with virtually no military experience, invented the role of "Commander in Chief" and became a better military strategist than most of his Civil War generals. Here is a link to more on the event. Hope you will consider attending.

Did Obama Get the Wrong Nobel?

This Just In: the Nobel Prizes are...Gee, Political The great American writer John Updike never won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He should have. When Updike came to Idaho a few years back, I spent a marvelous day with him and asked if, considering his enormous body of work, it was a disappointment never to have won the biggest prize in literature. After all, Faulkner won. So did Hemingway and Steinbeck. He got that marvelous twinkle in his eye and just smiled and said something about not writing for awards. Nonetheless, I got the sense that the snub was a disappointment, but one he had become resigned to. Personal opinion - Updike should have won the Nobel, but did not because of the Nobel Committee's alleged (more recent) bias against American writers. Some of the rap has been that Updike, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Cheever, just to name a few, are too commercial and not sufficiently literary by Nobel standards. Bunk. Decisions about awarding Nobel Prizes are political whether we're talking peace, prose or poetry. I'll leave the dissection of the Obama Peace Prize to all those who have already had their say, but I did take note of two particular reactions. Senator John McCain, as the LA Times noted, has once again proven" that he is still out of touch with his party." McCain told CNN, "I think all of us were surprised at the decision. But I think Americans are always pleased when their president is recognized by something on this order." The old McCain. A second reaction - Louisa Thomas - at Newsweek suggests the president should have won the literature prize on the strength of his two excellent books. Who knows, Obama may get a second chance for a Nobel. Winston Churchill won the literature prize in part, no doubt, because he was a great political leader, but also because he was one hell of a good writer and had accumulated a substantial body of great work. I was thinking this morning of the intensity of the 2008 political campaign just a year ago. The daily drama and intensity of that unforgettable campaign has faded, but amidst all Palin, Bill Ayres, fist bumps and Joe the Plumber, not to mention the financial meltdown, who would have thought we'd be talking about the Nobel Peace Prize and an American president 12 months later? Like him or not, Barack Obama has been a transforming figure on the world stage. His challenge may ultimately be to live up to all the world's out sized expectations.

- - - -

As for the great Updike, just because it is so good, here is one of his last short poems. Appropriate, I think.

Requiem

It came to me the other day:

Were I to die, no one would say,

"Oh, what a shame! so young, so full

Of promise - depths unplumbable!"

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes

Will greet my overdue demise;

The wide response will be, I know,

"I thought he died a while ago."

For life's a shabby subterfuge,

And death is real, and dark, and huge.

The shock of it will register

Nowhere but where it will occur.

Who We Choose To Honor

Statuary Hall: A Curious, All-American Mix of Politics, Art and Political Correctness

At the very heart of American government, inside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, stand 100 statues of famous and not-so-famous Americans. The statues - two from each state - depict the individuals each state has chosen to represent its story to the rest of the nation.

The collection - a fascinating national cross section of great, near-great, and some mostly forgotten Americans - recently added a new honoree from Alabama - Helen Keller. The Los Angeles Times blog has that scoop.

The Statuary Hall collection from the Northwest states is fascinating.

Montana's Jeanette Rankin (left), the first woman elected to the Congress and the only member to vote against U.S. participation in both World Wars, is in the Hall. Montana's other statue is a great likeness of the wonderful cowboy artist and sculptor Charlie Russell. George Shoup, Idaho's last territorial governor and first state governor and also a Senator, is in the Hall. Idaho's great progressive Republican William E. Borah is Idaho's other pick and a natural. Oregon is represented by Jason Lee and Dr. John McLoughlin, two early day Oregonians who played key roles in establishing the state. Not exactly household names, but interesting choices. Washington's picks are the pioneering missionary Marcus Whitman and Mother Joseph, a Catholic nun, who raised money and built early hospitals, schools and orphanages.

As with all things political, you know that there must be a back story (read political deal) regarding how each of these folks were chosen for this special attention in such a special place.

Earlier this year California, acting at the behest of the legislature, replaced its statue of Civil War-era preacher Thomas Starr King - he had been in the Hall since 1931 - with a likeness of Ronald Reagan. Minister King was credited by Abraham Lincoln with helping prevent California from becoming an independent republic during the great rebellion. Quite an accomplishment, but King was clearly not the Gipper.

Alabama's new Helen Keller statue displaced a guy named Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a Confederate Army Lt. Colonel and pre-and post-war politician. Southern states tend to honor Confederate generals and politicians. Bobby Lee, for example, stands erect for the Old Dominion and Jefferson Davis represents Mississippi.

Some of the picks are no brainers. Utah - big surprise - honors Brigham Young and the Kingfish, Huey P. Long, in full oratorical flourish, stands in the Hall for Louisiana.

Statuary Hall seems to me a particularly American idea - each state honoring its own in the nation's capitol and every pick saying something interesting about each state.

I have not read the new Dan Brown best seller - The Lost Symbol - but I'm told Statuary Hall plays a role in the novel. Considering that the book sold more than two million copies in its first week, perhaps Dan Brown will help a whole new group of Americans discover this unique piece of American real estate.

Once readers have solved the mystery of The Lost Symbol, they can turn their attention to discovering Jacob Collamar, the extremely forgotten Vermonter who was President Zachery Taylor's postmaster general. He, too, is in the Hall.

The Livability of Rocky Mountain Cities

Dan Kemmis - Sustaining the West's Urban Economy Means A Focus on "Livability."

I had the pleasure of introducing Dan Kemmis, the former mayor of Missoula, Montana and speaker of that state's House of Representatives, at this week's City Club of Boise luncheon. The Kemmis speech and Q-A airs Saturday at 8:00 pm on KBSX (91.5) or you can catch he program on the City Club website. Kemmis is the rare political leader who has successfully combined people and political skills with the ability to create new policy approaches - he's a champion of civic engagement and collaboration - and then write about them with clarity and intelligence. He is now a senior fellow at the University of Montana's Center for Natural Resources and the Environment. As the Idaho Business Review noted, Kemmis made the case that the "real driver … of the new western economy has been the livability of our communities." Kemmis maintains that “livability is bigger, deeper and stronger as a driver than growth itself.” He makes a pretty compelling case that cities like Salt Lake, Missoula, Boise and Denver have thrived, and will again, because they are essentially really decent places to live. (I could add a few more cities to the list - Portland, Bozeman, Coeur d'Alene, for instance.) Think about Salt Lake's good and getting better transit system, Missoula's great parks and open space, Boise's foothills and marvelous parks and greenbelt, and Denver's revitalized downtown (and the Colorado Rockies). As our region struggles to climb out of a deep recession, Dan Kemmis would remind us to focus on the basics of what makes cities great - intellectual infrastructue (libraries, for instance), open space, parks and outstanding recreational opportunities, ease of movement, and a culture of civic engagement. I spent some time with a friend from the east coast recently. His business will allow him to live anywhere he likes and he and his bride spent a few days in Boise assessing the city as a potential new home. Searching for an alternative to the old rat race of long commutes and no sense of community, smart folks look West and have for ever. Like all young parents, they want good schools and a good environmental for the kids. I wasn't selling paradise and I didn't need to. Boise - and other good cities in the West - tends to sell themselves on the basis of "livability." Dan Kemmis is right. Livability, quality of life, whatever you call it, is an economic driver. The real challenge is not to screw it up or undervalue what we have and, perhaps too often, take for granted.

Idaho's Kim Barnes Scores PEN Award

A Country Called Home Kim Barnes, the supremely gifted writer who teaches at the University of Idaho in Moscow, has joined rare company indeed - and she deserves to be there. Barnes' novel - A Country Called Home - has been awarded the 2009 PEN USA Literary Award for fiction. As the University noted in a release: "The PEN USA award places Barnes in good company: 2009 recipients includes Creative Nonfiction winner Steve Lopez, who won for 'The Soloist,' published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, now a movie distributed by Dreamworks and Universal Pictures; and Dustin Lance Black, who won in the screenplay category for 'Milk,' which also earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay." Barnes was a Pulitzer finalist in 1997 for her memoir In the Wilderness. She is working on novel number three, which Knopf will publish. For more insight into the talented Ms. Barnes, check out New West's interview with her late last year. Good writer, good books.

A Montanan at the Gates of Reform - Again

Max Baucus and B.K. Wheeler

Max Baucus (right), the current chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, is on the verge of making history by writing (and perhaps passing) a sweeping reform of the nation's health care system.

The Montana Senator - he was elected to the Senate in 1978 - is walking a path that one of his progressive Montana political forefathers - Burton K. Wheeler (on the left, above) -blazed nearly 75 years ago.

Baucus has been catching some grief in Montana - the Great Falls Tribune rounded up some of the opposition - and from those farther to the left on the political spectrum for not pushing harder for the so called "public option" provision in his health care bill. Baucus says, with some political logic, that he is trying to produce a bill that will actually pass the Senate.

Reforming Utility Law in 1935

Wheeler, a New Deal-era Senator, faced some of the same criticism in 1935 when he was attempting to push a sweeping piece of regulatory reform legislation - the Public Utilities Holding Company Act - through the Senate. The legislation was designed to address a variety of abuses by the handful of major utility holding companies that dominated the industry at the time.

Wheeler's major decision was whether to include in the bill - also know as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act (future House Speaker Sam Rayburn was the House sponsor) - a so called "death sentence" provision that would mandate the dissolution of most of the nation's powerful utility holding companies. Wheeler chaired what was then called the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee.

No doubt, like Max Baucus dealing with health care, Wheeler received thousands of letters, hundreds from Montana, opposed to his utility legislation. Montana Power Co. organized a letter writing campaign among its shareholders to press the case that Wheeler's proposed legislation would "destroy" utility company investors.

At the height of the debate, Wheeler went on nationwide radio to defend the legislation and attack the lobbying effort. He began his half hour talk by saying that as the Senate sponsor of the holding company legislation he had received more mail from Philadelphia in the last month than he had received from Montana in the last two years.

“Nice chummy letters, too,” Wheeler said. “They call me everything from such high-class terms as ‘rogue’ and ‘rascal’ on down the scale. Most of them show the fine hand of the United Gas Improvement Company. The best of them must have come from Gertrude Stein. It consists of this: ‘It makes me sick to think how sick I get when I think about you.'"

Like Barack Obama's support for health care reform, Wheeler knew that Franklin Roosevelt supported the broad sweep of utility reform, but on the core issue of the "death sentence" (or in Baucus' case, the "public option") no one knew for sure how far the president would go to fight for the provision.

Wheeler eventually succeeding a getting a letter from FDR voicing his support for the "death sentence" provision and the Montanan waited for exactly the right moment to make the letter public.

The president wrote that "while clarifying or minor amendments to section 11 [the death sentence] cannot be objected to nevertheless any amendment which goes to the heart of major objective of section 11 would strike at the bill itself and is wholly contrary" to what he would support.

To wavering Senate Democrats, the President’s message was blunt: Burt Wheeler is doing the White House’s bidding in pushing hard for the "death sentence." A vote against the provision would be vote against Roosevelt. Wheeler added his own reminder that the real advocates of deleting the death sentence from the holding company legislation where the holding companies themselves, who had fought so hard from the beginning to weaken his bill.

“When they vote for this amendment [to eliminate the 'death sentence'] they vote to kill the bill,” Wheeler said. “When they vote for this amendment they are voting as the lobbyist up in the galleries; representing the Power Trust, want them to vote, because the lobbyists want them to vote to kill the bill.”

The amendment to strike the "death sentence" from the Public Utilities Holding Company Act failed – by a single vote. For a moment it looked as though the vote would end in a 44-44 tie, but then Senator Peter Norbeck, a once-in-a-while progressive Republican from South Dakota, broke the tie and voted with Wheeler to keep the "death sentence" in the bill.

Wheeler had won, but the bitter fight highlighted the deep fractures among Senate Democrats. The holding company legislation passed the House - "death sentence" in place - and was signed into law by Roosevelt. In different times and under different circumstances, the Congress in 2005 repealed the remaining elements of the law that Wheeler (and FDR) fought to put in place nearly 75 years ago, but in the 1940's and beyond the Public Utilities Holding Company Act remade an American industry.

Legislative Parallels - and Now

The historic parallels in these two reform efforts are numerous. Beyond the fact that Baucus and Wheeler share some obvious political history - Montanans, self styled independent Democrats, not infrequently at odds with their national party leadership - the two pieces of legislation have interesting similarities.

In 1935, Wheeler, like Baucus today, was dealing with a president who wanted legislation passed, but until pretty late in the game declined to be completely engaged or say exactly what he would settle for. Democrats in both cases were divided with conservative to moderate Democrats being slow to embrace reform. In 1935, presidential action pushed enough of the wavering Democrats to get a sweeping bill passed.

The charges and counter-charges flew then as now. Proponents were accused - you guessed it - of wanting to usher in socialism. The utilities were labeled as greedy, with no regard for the little guy. The lobbying - then as now - was fierce. (The 1935 lobbying practices actually prompted a congressional inquiry chaired by Alabama Senator - later Supreme Court Justice - Hugo Black.)

One thing that was very different in Wheeler's day. Several progressive Senate Republicans - Norbeck, George Norris of Nebraska and William Borah of Idaho, among others - supported the utility reforms. Baucus, by contrast, appears to have a chance to get Maine Senator Olympia Snowe's support for a Senate bill, but additional GOP votes appear mighty hard to come by.

Reforming utility practices in the 1930's was a huge undertaking that reshaped a major piece of the American economy. A tough Montanan pulled it off. Another Senator from Big Sky County, three-quarters of a century later, is knocking at the gate of health care reform.

Stay tuned. If the utility regulation battle of 1935 is any historic guide, we will see many more twists and turns before any health care legislation is on the president's desk. Then as now, a Montana Senator is calling many of the plays.

Speaking of Lincoln

Acclaimed Lincoln Scholar Will Speak in Boise October 29th Harold Holzer has been in high demand this year. The bicentennial of the birth of the 16th President of the United States has found Holzer lecturing, often several times a week, from coast to coast. The outstanding Lincoln scholar will be hosted by the Idaho Humanities Council on October 29th. If you have not made plans to attend - you should. It will be a great event. Holzer - his day job is Senior Vice President for External Affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City - is the co-chair of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and has received the National Humanities Medal. His latest of many Lincoln books is focused on Lincoln President-elect and deals with his struggles with succession even before reaching the White House. The four months between Lincoln's election and his taking office were among the most important days in the nation's history. Holzer's book - Lincoln at Cooper Union - is a fine piece of work that explains Lincoln's rise as a national political figure following his famous speech early in 1860 in New York City. Once again, the Idaho Humanities Council has hit a home run with a great speaker on a great topic. What a run the Council has had: Doris Kearns Godwin, David McCullough, John Updike, Frank McCourt, David Halberstam, Stephen Ambrose to name just a few of the incredible writers and scholars who have graced the annual Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities. If you love history, literature and the American story - this event is a must. See you there.