US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 24, 9/11 (Con't)

More than any of us can bear

—NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliana, September 11, 2001, estimating the number of casualties from the attacks

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 24, 9/11 (Con't)

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

—W. S. Merwin, "For the Anniversary of My Death" (1993)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 24, 9/11

The [World Trade Center] towers didn't seem permanent. They remained concepts, no less transient for all their bulk than some routine distortion of light.

—Don Delillo, Players (1977)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000) (Con't)

There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: complete lack of a policy apparatus. Besides the tax cut, which was cut and dried during the campaign, and the education bill, which was really a Ted Kennedy bill, the administration has not done much, either in absolute terms or in comparison to previous administrations at this stage, on domestic policy. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis. [They] consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible.

— John DiIulio, Director of the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives through August, 2001

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000) (Con't)

On taxes, on education, it was the same. On Social Security, Bush's position was exactly what Reagan always wanted and talked about in the 1970s. I just cant think of any major policy issue on which Bush was different.

— Martin Anderson (aid to Reagan)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000) (Con't)

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

—Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting opinion in Bush v Gore

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000) (Con't)

Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.

—Unsigned per curiam majority decision in Bush v. Gore

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000)

Somewhere along the line the dominant political reporters for the most dominant news organizations decided that they didn't like [Gore], and they thought the story line on any given day was bout his being a phony or a liar or a waffler.

—Mark Halperin, Political Director of NBC News

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

Public perception of a biased news media, particularly media biased in a liberal direction, has increased over the past 3 presidential elections. To examine what might be influencing this public opinion, the authors look at shifts in public perception of media bias, press coverage of the topic of media bias, and the balance in valence coverage of presidential candidates—all during the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections. Their results suggest that the rise in public perception that news media are liberally biased is not the result of bias in valence news coverage of the candidates, but, rather, due to increasing news self-coverage that focuses on the general topic of bias in news content. Furthermore, the increased claims of media bias come primarily from conservative elites who have proclaimed a liberal bias that is viewed as including the entire media industry.

— Abstract for Mark D. Watts, et. al., "Elite Cues and Media Bias in Presidential Campaigns: Explaining Public Perceptions of a Liberal Press", Communication Research, April 1999 (vol. 26 no. 2 144-175)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

The conservative press is self-consciously conservative and self-consciously part of the team. The liberal press is much larger, but at the same time it sees itself as the establishment press. So it's conflicted. Sometimes it thinks it needs to be critical of both sides.

—Grover Norquist

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

I've gotten balanced coverage, and broad coverage--all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the 'liberal media,' but every Republican on earth does that.

—Pat Buchanan (1996)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media]. ... if you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one.

—Republican Party Chairman Rich Bond (1992)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

Our own country is undergoing the greatest invasion in its history, a migration of millions of illegal aliens yearly from Mexico... A nation that cannot control its own borders can scarcely call itself a state any longer.

—Pat Buchanan (1992)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives, or really add importantly to either our wealth or our power. Yet it is still one of the most important acts of this Congress and of this administration. For it does repair a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice. It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American Nation.

—Lyndon Johnson, Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill, Liberty Island, New York, October 3, 1965

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Quote of the Day

Is that really that, then? he thought, looking down into the brown slow river. Was he really now disburdened of history as an occupation?

Maybe the old bookstore would take him back. He really had a lot longer to live. What was he to do?

— John Crowley, The Solitudes (1987)

_____________________
(Incidentally, The Solitudes was originally published under the title Aegypt. The latter is the title of the four-volume novel of which The Solitudes is the first part. After the completion of the whole, The Solitudes was republished under its current title.)

US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions (Con't)

I don't think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the Unites States.

—Secretary of State Dean Rusk, testifying about likely impact of proposed immigration reforms

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 22, Two Big Trends: Immigration & Demographic Change & The Rise of the Conservative Counter-Instiutions

Nothing that happened in the United States over the last third of the twentieth century—not terrorism, the explosion of new technology, or the transformation of politics or the end of the Cold War. nor even the profound changes in the status and expectations and role of American women—will have more long-term consequences for the future of the United States than the new immigration.... [I]n the long run the consequences would be comparable with those of, say, the Louisiana Purchase or even the Civil War.... [A] United States where more than half the population is not of European descent will be, in very many significant ways, a different nation from the country led by Franklin Roosevelt or even by Ronald Reagan.

—Godfrey Hodgson, More Equal Than Others (2004)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

What the fuck were we doing paying attention to this shit for a year?

—The American people, 1999

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

I wonder if, after this culture war is over that we are engaged in, an America will survive that will be worth fighting to defend.

—Rep. Henry Hyde (R - Il), speaking in favor of impeachment before Senate

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

In most districts in the country, a majority was against impeachment, maybe a majority of Republicans. But a majority who voted in the Republican primaries was for impeachment. When you put individual members under the gun, a lot of them could get killed in a primary.... I heard of Christian radio stations going after the Republicans.

—Rep. Peter King (R - NY)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

You can almost read it as a novel in the classic tradition... Not since Richardson's "Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded," one of the first novels, has so much ink been spilled on a pas de deux between a guy who owns a big manor house and the girl who works there, with the difference that this girl, unlike that one, succumbs. (So, "Monica; or, Sin Punished.")...

—Adam Gopnik, reading the Starr Report as a work of literature (1998)

People seem to be trying to parse "The Report" from scratch, as though its subject were entirely new. But there is a whole literature devoted to the question of adultery, transgression, and the law, and that literature is called "literature." It has what are called "points" and "morals," and first among them is to be extremely suspicious of anyone who tries to compress the erotic life into overly pointed morals.

—Ibid.

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

On the day Congress received the Starr report, MSNBC alone began continuous coverage at 9am that only ended at 10pm when its regularly scheduled two-hour show "White House in Crisis" aired.

—William O'Neil

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

He couldn't stop thinking about the thong underwear. He couldn't believe Monica had pulled up her jacket to show it off. It so inflamed his imagination. At meetings, at briefings, at the most unlikely times, his mind suddenly reverted to the image of those straps, quickening his pulse, making him catch his breath. But it was the cigar that undid him. He was driven by the thought of what had been done with it. Suddenly the capital became a city of cigars. He saw them wherever he went. They ignited his desire. When he was alone or talking to other people, he took secret pleasure in letting smoke rings drift through his mind.... And, of all those naughty words he loved to hear, none filled him with more pleasure than ''impeachment.'' After all, nobody could impeach him. He was Ken Starr.

—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, "Legacy of Lust" (September 23, 1998)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

We have to wait now for the farce to run its course.... But the damage is done. The nation handed its highest office to a man who embodies the narcissistic extremes of the baby-boomer generation. It's all about Bill. And like everyone else who has had a relationship with this irresponsible and self-absorbed individual -- his wife, his friends, his loyal aides, his party -- the nation is paying the price.

—Bob Herbert, The New York Times, "The Damage is Done", August 6, 1998

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

Clinton hadn't performed the groveling mea culpa the pundits demanded. We wanted Clinton on his knees to justify seven months of pursuit.

—Dana Milbank, Washington Post reporter, on Clinton's August 17, 1998 public statement

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

— Federalist 65 (Alexander Hamilton)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

We were terrified that [Paula] Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the president.

—Ann Coulter, one of several unofficial advisor's to Jones's legal team

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

As a novelist, I never think of Monica Lewinsky, that once-everyday young woman, without a sense of dread at the freakish, occult fate that overtook her. Imagine what it must be like, to wake up being her, to face the inevitability of being That Woman. Monica, too, transgressed in apparent safety and then she had the utter foolishness to brag to a lethal enemy, a trusted confidante who ran a tape machine and who brought her a mediated circus of hells. The titillation of that massive, shattering scandal has faded now. But think of the quotidian daily horror of being Monica Lewinsky, and that should take a bite from the soul.

—Bruce Sterling (2010)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica (Con't)

Bill Clinton's secret emerged in every last mortifying detail—every last lifelike detail, the livingness, like the mortification, exuded by the pungency of the specific data.... Ninety-eight... [was] the summer of an enormous piety binge, a purity binge, when terrorism—which had replaced communism as the prevailing threat to the country's security—was succeeded by cocksucking, and a virile, youthful middle-aged president and a brash, smitten twenty-one year-old employee carrying on in the Oval Office like two teenage kids in a parking lot revived America's oldest communal passion, historically perhaps its most treacherous and subversive pleasure: the ecstasy of sanctimony. In the Congress, in the press, and on the networks, the righteous grandstanding creeps, crazy to blame, deplore and punish, were everywhere out moralizing to beat the band... all of them eager to enact the astringent rituals of purification that would excise the erection from the executive branch, thereby making things cozy and safe enough for Senator Lieberman's ten-year-old daughter to watch TV with her embarrassed daddy again. No, if you haven't lived through 1998, you don't know what sanctimony is.... It was the summer when a president's penis was on everyone's mind, and life, in all its shameless impurity, once again confounded America.

—Philip Roth, The Human Stain (2001)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 21, Tabloid Nation II: Monica

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

—Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonapatr

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 20, Tabloid Nation I: OJ (Con't)

Black America applauded the acquittal. It was not about you, brother O.J.; it was about Johnnie Cochran.

- Al Sharpton, speaking at Johnnie Cochran's funeral (2005)

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US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 20, Tabloid Nation I: OJ (Con't)

I saw white rage, even in the faces of my liberal colleagues, even in the faces of people who had donated money to [defense attorneys Peter] Neufeld and [Barry] Scheck's Innocence Project. I saw rage in their faces when they said that they were never going to send those guys another dime again, even though the work that these guys do is absolutely critical to fixing precisely the problems in the criminal justice system that we saw in the O.J. Simpson trial. And they said, "Well, you all should have thought about that before you cheered." Group punishment.

— Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (2005 interview)

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