Red Scare Redux- Review of The Plot To Scapegoat Russia

Below is my review of Dan Kovalik's The Plot to Scapegoat Russia as submitted to the Sturbridge Times Magazine (now The Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine) for the September 2017 issue.

It's a bit late, but still timely in light of the hysteria at large these days.

Return of the Red Scare

The Plot To Scapegoat Russia

By Dan Kovalik

Skyhorse Publishing, 2017 

Paperback, 240 Pages

Dan Kovalik probably never thought that he would have writtenThe Plot To Scapegoat Russia the way he did. Not that he believed the Central Intelligence Agency was beyond any skullduggery in promoting foreign adventures.  Indeed, he has spent years observing the agency’s antics in Latin America.

Mr. Kovalik must be surprised by the fact that the only man we can pin our hopes on to stop the march to conflict, if not nuclear war is Donald Trump.  Trump, being a reactionary plutocrat is the type of person Kovalik would normally have nothing but disdain for.  

It can’t be anything he is too happy about.  Dan Kovalik is an old-school lefty.  He cut his teeth protesting U.S. involvement south of the border, traveling to Nicaragua in 1988 to oppose the Contras.  There may a social program he’s against, but that is hard to imagine.  The Trump agenda must gall him.

Except for one aspect.

Donald Trump was suggesting, in his campaign utterances, that it may not be a bad idea to actually try and get along with Russia.  He suggested as well that maybe we did not have the solution to the Syrian imbroglio.

In that one aspect at least, Donald stood head and shoulders above the competition.  

How did we get to a point in history where a progressive activist could see Donald Trump as preferable to the Democrat’s standard bearer?  It’s a long story and in no way travels a straight line.

He spends much of the book discussing his activities in Latin America.  Kovalik identifies with the Sandinistas and opposes United Fruit (i.e. Chiquita Brands International) Company and their pervasive and destructive influence in Guatemala going back to the 1954 coup.  His account takes the side of the poor and indigenous peoples.  At first, I thought his narrative dwelt a little bit too much on the past.  It does become obvious that he sees U.S. policy as continuing from the past into the present and all cut from the same cloth.

In his coverage of the Cold War between NATO and the Soviets he is also somewhat kind to the memory of the Eastern Bloc.  Not that there is not sufficient blame to go around.

When he does get to the subject of the book’s title, the author is on solid ground.  His detail of the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and the role of people from the West in looting the corpse, as well as the continuing demonization of the Putin regime is worth the price of the book for the uninformed.  That would be most Americans. 

On Page 132 he begins the story of how we started on the road to the new cold war and though he does not say it, the origins of 911.  

“Another momentous and arguably disastrous, Cold War maneuver of the US was its support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, which at the time shared a 1000-mile-long border with the Soviet Union.”

Without our support for what turned out to include many fanatical Islamic extremists, including Bin Laden, the Soviet Union would probably still have had a lot on its hands, but would have had been better able to manage any changes necessary. 

Our support for the Mujahideen insured, like for us in Vietnam, that the Soviets could never defeat the enemy.  It would be a slow bleed and would fatally weaken the U.S.S.R.

Things had to change and they did. The Reagan Administration and Mikhail Gorbachev came to a modus vivendi.  On Page 111 the author quotes the LA Times,

“In early February 1990, US leaders made the Soviets an offer.  According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9th then- Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation, US could make ‘iron-clad guarantees’ that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.”  Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.”

Kovalik notes the promise was quickly broken and most of the old Warsaw Pact are now NATO members.  The expansion continues with the U.S. trying to enlist former Soviet Republics.  It is hard to argue that the world is better for NATO enlargement.

Chapter 7 CLINTON MEDDLES IN RUSSIA WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES gives an account of the machinations of Bill Clinton’s presidency as regards the Yeltsin regime.  He did not do us proud.  Yeltsin was essentially our stooge until he knew he could not continue.  This led to Putin whose big sin is not being our patsy. 

Chapter 11 THE US EXPANDS AS RUSSIA CONTRACTS: BROKEN PROMISES AND HUMILIATION explores the project to extend our influence at the expense of Russia.  None of it is anything we can brag about, but the worst bit is our Ambassador Pyatt and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland deciding the fate of the Ukrainian government after we had helped riot out an elected, if corrupt, president.  The pair were recorded doing just that and the heavy-handed discussion is rightly attacked by Kovalik.  He does not mention that the recording went “viral.” *

Mr. Kovalik eventually reaches the reality show of the recent American election.  The desire to blame the Russians for the inept campaign of Hillary Clinton is explored at length as are the commonsense pronouncements of The Donald.  

Suggesting that we not bug the Russkies and maybe overthrowing Syria was not a genius level idea appealed to a population that was tired of wars without result.  The Putin is the devil campaign left something to be desired with many including an old socialist like the author.

Post-election, Trump has not lived up to his better nature.  Kovalik notes on Page 170 that “it is never clear what Trump is truly thinking or intending.”  This is true and whether it is a good strategy or evidence of a scattered mind is a matter for debate.  Trump was quick in throwing some token bombs at a Syrian air base after a supposed chemical attack.  

Since the book has been published, the new president has not bombed North Korea.  He worked out an agreement with Putin for a ceasefire in South West Syria that is holding and cannot make the neocons in or out of his government happy, so we live in hope.

In his short book, Dan Kovalik covers a lot of ground.  The continuing demonization of a nuclear power makes his book an important resource for anyone who wants to understand what is going on.

Some of the author’s views are a bit one sided.  His favoritism of the now Soviet Ancien Regime can seem a bit overboard.  It is at odds with your reviewer’s memory of the brutal repression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, and certainly the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn.  Still, his account of the anti-Russian hysteria is well sourced with ample footnotes.  Unfortunately, with the media’s parroting of the hostile narrative, from NPR to The New York Times, do not expect him to get glowing reviews.

*The recording is still extant and one can hear it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k .  After listening you may be forgiven for wondering if State recruits at clown colleges.

The Most Important Election in History, again

Below is my column from the November 2016 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.  

The Most Important Election in History, again

By Richard Morchoe

On November 8th, America goes to the polls to elect a president.  On Long Hill, we have found the whole exercise depressing.  It is not just the rancor of the campaign that has been disheartening.  Rather, what is daunting has been the hopeless nature of the debates.

In truth, the meetings between the two candidates are not even close to debates.  A debate is two sides expressing views on a question.  In a formal debate, there would be an affirmative and a negative.  Each side makes opening statements that are rebutted in closing remarks.  When I was a debater back in high school, in the Jurassic era, the teams would question each other midway through the contest.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates are American history lore.  Though for a senatorial contest, the meetings could be considered a prelude to the 1860 presidential election.  The two candidates spoke for hours and the audience’s attention never wavered.  Such events could never happen today.  Our attention spans started to decline with the age of television.  In the internet era, it will not be long before we cannot concentrate on anything longer than a few nanoseconds.

The modern era of presidential debates began with the 1960 election.  Having seen it as a ten-year-old, I remember it more for the structure.   Two of the four clashes had eight-minute opening statements by both men.  After that, they were questioned by a panel with two and a half minutes to answer and one and a half for rebuttal.  Thereupon, each man would get a three-minute closing statement.

The videos and transcripts are extant and can be viewed online.  To my generation, it was a golden age.  Back then one had to be able to follow arguments and counter arguments as opposed to the steady stream of sound bites.

The current format seems to be copying one of the lower genres of televised entertainment, reality shows.  It should have served Donald Trump well.  He actually was a reality show host and his business has been as much show biz as anything.  During the primaries, he was able to run rings around his opposition.  Now he seems to be floundering.  A true debate might work better as it could force him to be more disciplined.

His problems have helped Hillary Clinton as she was not going to be the warmth candidate.  Also, she has the difficult task of having both to defend and distance herself from the administration.  The former Secretary of State is not the first politician to have to sort of say, “Things are great, but I’ll fix it.”  The Donald should have been able to blow her out of the water, but he is on the defensive.

Instead we have had only charges and countercharges of corruption and skullduggery.  We yield to no one in wanting to believe all of them, but we can’t keep up.  

The partisans of each nominee love to speak of them as near deities.  Having been around the block, the thought that the new duet of demi-gods is even better than the previous set is difficult to swallow.  Somehow, it is hard to picture Donald as Zeus or Hillary as Athena.

At this point in the history of the Republic, one should hesitate to say that the format is not an insult to the intelligence of the viewing public.  If there were truly an outcry, the defects would have long ago been corrected.

The founders feared direct election of the president for reasons that should be evident during the current round.  They foresaw the demagogic agitation.  Their answer was the electoral college.  Each state would get a certain number of electors based on congressional representation.  The state legislatures were to appoint the electors who would then meet and decide on a president and vice president.

Sadly, the system quickly broke down.  The Constitutional Convention did not see the rise of parties.  In the third election, Jefferson and Burr, presidential and vice presidential nominees of the same Party, both received an equal number of votes.  It took 36 ballots in the House of Representatives to decide the issue with much bad blood resulting.

Over time, “reforms” made the system what it is today.  The Electoral College still exists, but it is, however, the popular ballot that decides how the state electors vote.  

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the authors of the Federalist Papers who convinced many that a federal government was a good idea would be disappointed in our seedy carnival of an election.

As the November Sturbridge Times Magazine comes out before the election, we could be brave and make a prediction.  That is not going to happen.  Instead, we want to extend the same solace we take in the event to everyone.  The good news will be that one of them lost.  The bad news is the other won.

Review-Burning Up the Air, Jerry Williams, Talk Radio and the Life In Between

Below is my review of Burning Up the Air, Jerry Williams, Talk Radio and the Life In Between by Steve Elman and Alan Tolz as it appeared in the April, 2008 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

Talk show icon Jerry Williams wasn’t a bad guy

The year was either 1957 or 1958. The volume on my radio was low enough so that my parents could not hear it downstairs. I was listening to early rock and roll when I should have been sleeping. Usually, I tired quickly, turned off the red motorola set and fell asleep. One night, not being sleepy after the 10:00 p.m. news, I heard the promo for the next show. Thinking it might be more music, I kept listening.

It wasn’t song, it was a force of nature. It was Jerry Williams, the man who was pioneering talk radio in the Boston area. He can claim as much as anyone to have invented the genre. From the mid-fifties to the new millennium he was on Boston Radio with a few breaks for a mid-life crisis here and there. For much of the time,Williams was the dominant radio personality in the market.

Two of his many producers have collected everything that could be found about the man and have talked to everyone they could to put together a biography that is a page turner. Burning Up the Air, Jerry Williams, Talk Radio and the Life In Between reads as if it were a labor of love. Not that the authors, Steve Elman and Alan Tolz, were likely to be above wanting to throttle the man on occasion. From their tales, it is obvious Williams could try the patience of a saint.

It’s all in the book. How he probed callers to get a story or an answer. Occasionally, when he found himself battling with a particularly, unreasonable caller, he would shoot out a familiar line:“They’re out there tonight!” Later, as he aged, and even though you knew he would do nothing else but radio, he would vent his frustration by shouting, “I’m getting out of the business.”

A high school drop-out, actually, a high school flunk-out, Jerry still had an expert knowledge of many issues. But it was not only mere knowledge, it was what he knew how to position that information that set him apart. The authors make the point about how he “knew how to select the hottest topics for discussion, how to set things up in an hour, how to strike sparks in an interview, how to smoke out and shape good calls, how to keep the momentum going.” Today’s crop of talkers don’t really seem to be as skillful as Williams.

There is another aspect of his popularity that I had never thought about before reading this book. While one may not call his voice operatic, it was pleasant and in no way grating as are many on the radio today. Elman and Tolz discussed his training under a mentor. Jerry had a voice described as a “high baritone.” His acting coach, Bob Breyer, told him how to use the voice and through training in radio plays,Williams must have learned something.

Through the book, one can recognize the political changes in Massachusetts and the nation such that Jerry, uber liberal through the first part of his career, was by the end considered a conservative by many. He never thought he went through a metamorphosis from one political view to another. The authors describe his outlook,“Jerry had always presented himself on and of the air as his own man. Since the late sixties, he’d been uncomfortable with labels of all sorts. When forced to choose from conventional terms, he might opt for “liberal,” even when he felt that what had come to be known as “liberalism” had moved toward something completely alien to his feeling about the role of government.” He was uncomfortable with Dukakis in power as he had been with Nixon. He probably gagged at the description by a Boston Globe writer, Clea Simon, that he had purveyed “conservative chat.”

The structure of the book is chronological except for the last chapter. The authors intersperse a timeline of the major national and world events that are happening contemporaneously so one is never lost for the era. Event follows event in sequence and the reader will be through it in no time. He was not a perfect man and the authors present him, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, “warts and all.” I’m not sure how it will resonate with anyone who has never heard of him. After all, his show, no matter the issue and the impact, was personal. The authors have a website (http://www.jerrywilliams.org/) with a lot of audio clips that might give a small flavor for the man.

Many folks in this area got to experience Jerry during the campaign to stop the New Braintree prison. There was a big Saturday on the New Braintree Common. Williams was there as more or less MC. Next to him was a mock up of Michael Dukakis. During a lull, Jerry all of a sudden, with perfect delivery, said,“and now a word from Kitty (Dukakis). Pause. MEOW.” The crowd convulsed in laughter. It should have been in the book.

One other item that should have been in the book was that he was the only supporter of busing who ever admitted that it had all been a mistake. He always seemed to be full of himself, but I’ve never heard anyone else admit it. As Jerry used to say of people he felt okay about, he was “not a bad guy.”

Of course, Elman and Tolz couldn’t include every minute of his life. No matter, there is a lot covering an interesting man and his times. He did not engender neutrality in people.You either loved or hated him. I don’t know what was written as the cause of death on his certificate, but I’m sure it was not a dearth of personality.

Please note, the website appears to have disappeared.

Say it ain't so, Mike!

Below is my column as submitted from the March, 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 18. It's something odd from moi, showing love to a politician I never voted for.

There is only one thing worse in life than to have one’s heroes exposed as less than noble.  It is a personal disaster to hear that someone you never felt warm and fuzzy about does something that forces a reappraisal.

Sadly, Michael Stanley Dukakis has done that to me.  I could never warm to the man.    It’s part of my class warrior persona.  You always got the feeling that the Duke was talking down to you and telling you that you had to take the bad tasting medicine because it was good for you.

The Duke, on his rise seemed over promoted.  There was the No Fault Auto Insurance that he successfully steered through the General Court.  Was that the panacea as promised?  For all one knows, it might be the best of all possible worlds.  We do still pay a lot for car insurance here.

In his successful run for governor, the bumper stickers read, “Mike Dukakis Should Be Governor.”  The tone of the campaign was that the messiah would relieve us from the scourge of the usual hacks.  The man was almost too good for us.

In his first term, he was celebrated for taking the MBTA to the Corner Office.  If it was an attempt to connect with the common man by an uncommon man, it did not work.  An electorate that had not forgot his broken “lead pipe guarantee” of no tax increase put him on hiatus for a term.

Back in office, he would tout the short-lived improvement in the state economy as the “Massachusetts Miracle.”  He hoped it would get him across the Potomac, but his presidential candidacy in a literal sense “tanked.”

There would be another call for new taxes as he entered the lame duck zone.  The governor would promote the still controversial Big Dig and would leave a bad taste in our region for supporting a prison in New Braintree that smelled of a sweetheart deal.

His ambition was immense, but so was his desire to make a difference.  A controversial English politician who experienced it said, “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” True enough, Mike left office unloved and unlamented.

His post-electoral life is sweet.  Few remember that he could not get elected dogcatcher after his last term.  The Duke has his academic sinecure and enjoys the plaudits of his class.

Contrast Dukakis with another Massachusetts pol, the late Congressman John Joseph Moakley.  You remember him.  Well, you probably don't.  He was not flashy and though he had a long career, his congressional accomplishments escape my mind.  His constituents probably don't remember them either.

His big claim to fame was that he defeated Louise Day Hicks.  If you remember her, you are either a politics nerd or you are giving away your age.  She had opposed forced busing when chairwoman of the Boston School Committee.  Louise was crazy enough to think that the idea of putting kids on buses and shipping them off to neighborhoods not their own in an ethnically fractious city was absurd.  She was delusional enough to believe that her opposition could lead to a successful political career.

All the great and good got behind Joe to defeat Hicks' congressional re-election bid.  Joe said nothing.  It was better for him not to.  He won and went on to an extended tenure as a mediocrity in the nation's capital.

I was reminded that he was still alive shortly before his death.  A new federal courthouse was to be named after him.  On WBZ news one morning, I heard it mentioned and one of the solon's flacks was asked about it.  I can never forget his comment, “Joe, in his own humble way, this was the only building he wanted named after him.” 

The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse is an ornate architectural monstrosity.  Maybe it's not on the scale of the pyramids, but Joe was no Amenhotep.  When looking at it, one would not say this is the memorial to a humble man.

On January 31 The Boston Globe reported that it was proposed that South Station be named The Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center at South Station.  No news there.  As noted above, structures are named after public figures.  Usually a man who, in the words of Macbeth,  “struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”  There may be a couple of geezers left who remember Maurice Tobin of Tobin Bridge fame, but who the heck is Leonard Zakim of the Zakim Bridge?*

It was Michael Stanley's reaction that shocked me.  He said No.  Had I a pacemaker, the battery would have shorted.  This may not be unprecedented, but who has years to research it?  One should not cavil at the act.  Even if his reasoning might not be mine, it's still a noble sentiment and it pains me to say, a humble gesture.

So Governor Duke, you have my admiration, but I will never forgive you for making me give up my resentment.

*I looked him up once and completely forgot who he was a minute later.  All I remember is that he was, in the words of the late Jerry Williams, “not a bad guy.”

Book with ridiculously long name unveils very uncomplicated truth about D.C.’s bad influence

Below is my review of This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America’s Gilded Capitol that appeared on Page 6 in the February 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine.

This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America’s Gilded Capitol

By Mark Leibovich

Public Affairs, 2013

Blue Rider Press, 400 pages

List: $27.95 Amazon: $18.58

Book review by Richard Morchoe

This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America's Gilded Capital is a brutal look at the nomenklatura who rule us.  The author, Mark Leibovich catches the denizens in the act of schmoozing, peddling influence, securing sinecures and book deals and getting on TV or mentioned in the press.  All too often, it is done at the expense of the rest of us.

Mr. Leibovich should know.  He’s done time in D.C., first at the Washington Post and then for the New York Times.  He is currently chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine.

The author sets the tone on Page 1, “Tim Russert is dead, but the room was alive.”  It was the memorial service to celebrate the deceased, and, not coincidentally, a networking opportunity.  You might remember Tim; he was the long-time moderator of Meet The Press.  In 2008, he was on Time Magazine’s 100 most influential list.  He was big, and then he was gone.

 The author quoted a friend, ““We’re all obituaries waiting to happen,” Henry Allen, my former Post colleague, once wrote.  “At the same time, the city of Washington feels like a conspiracy we’re all in together, and nobody else in America quite understands, even though they pay for it.”” 

It should be a bit of surprise to some that this is such a good read.  After all, it’s about the class of people who were student government nerds in high school.  Leibovich writes well and enjoys the subject.  Also, love or hate these people, they influence our lives out of all proportion to their intellects and abilities.

There are many stories and tidbits about those who bless or infest (as you wish) the D.C. ether.  For personal reasons, I enjoyed his quotes about Chris Matthews, that apply to a whole class as well,

“In his book about the media’s conduct during the Monica saga, Bill Kovach, the founding chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, anointed Matthews as part of a “new class of chatterers who emerged in this scandal…a group of loosely credentialed, self interested performers whose primary job is remaining on TV.””

 “After leaving Tip O’Neill’s office, for example, Chris Matthews got himself a column for the San Francisco Examiner.  He was even named the Examiner’s Washington Bureau Chief, though he was the only one in Washington for the Examiner and it had no footprint beyond being the Bay Area’s sleepy afternoon newspaper.  But the affiliation and title helped Matthews get on TV.”

Matthews will stick like a barnacle and be on TV even after his memorial service.

There are also profiles of relative unknowns.  Chapter 8 is given over to Kurt Bardella.  Bardella is refreshing if only because he was not guilty of any “I’m here for the kids” schmaltz that most people in politics give as the reason for their “service.”  Kurt was a hard charging press aide to Representative Darrell Issa.  So hard charging that he got into trouble for his zeal.  His errors got him fired and would have been career ending in a real environment.  Bardella worked the TV and publicity circuits and was back on staff with the Congressman.  It’s not easy to be a complete failure in D.C.

Mr. Leibovich has a way with a euphemism and if you don’t chortle often, you are probably in the care of an undertaker.  On page 139 he calls David Gergen a “politically versatile talking head.”  If you have at all followed politics from the Reagan administration on, you realize he essentially tabbed Gergen as a practitioner of the world’s oldest profession.

On the BP spill debacle, “Washington becomes a determinedly bipartisan team when there is money to be made.-sorry I mean a hopeful exemplar of Americans pulling together in a time of crisis. “

Are there any problems with the book?  Almost none of us have any real experience with Washington, so it is near impossible to raise objections.  Fortunately, on Page 35, Mr. Leibovich serves up a high hanging slow ball of a blunder that is easy to blast out of the park.  In discussing the Mitchell-Greenspan power couple he wrote,

“Andrea was in the midst of a rough moment because a lot of people were blaming her husband, Alan Greenspan, for the financial collapse.  His free-market, Ayn Rand-influenced policies while running the Federal Reserve were not looking good now.”

Anyone remotely familiar with Rand’s writings knows she was a sound money gal and Greenspan’s pumping moolah out of the Fed would have been anathema to her. On page 38 he observes,  “Washingtonians love the “So-and-so is spinning in his grave” cliché.”  Mark made Ayn revolve at warp speed.

His snarky and continuing reference to Romney as Mittens, with the Greenspan comment might indicate his boat has a slight list to port.  Still, he had no problem skewering Team Obama over their holier than thou attitude as all too many of them had no problem monetizing their service when they had the chance.

Leibovich’s work makes plain that Planet D.C. will always stand apart and be alien to the nation.  As soon as the rep, senator or staffer arrives, they go native and are forever separate from what they nominally represent.

In the November 2012 issue of this magazine, your reviewer proposed the nation’s capital should be moved to the cold, desolate hills of Wyoming.  This Town has convinced me that that is not only correct, but also desperately urgent.  A new beginning is called for.  If not in a remote, inhospitable terrestrial region, another galaxy.

Now more than ever.

The Gift of Insecurity

The column below appeared in the December, 2010 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

November saw much discussion in the media about the vast resources allocated to insure the president’s safe trip to India.  There was some disagreement about the number of naval vessels that would accompany him.  Even the lesser number than originally quoted would have been enough to destroy all but the world’s largest navies.  To insure a peaceful sleep, it sounded as if every hotel room in Mumbai was to be reserved, just in case.

The security mania did not start with the incumbent and Mumbai does have an image problem around safety after the 2008 siege.  Still, the recent foreign tour highlights what to some, namely me, might seem a problem.

An article, Lunch With George, written by the publisher and editor of this publication has been on my mind since it appeared in the August of 2008 issue.  Paul Carr wrote about an afternoon spent in the near company of George Bush the elder.   I did not think his portrayal of the ex president to be unsympathetic, but neither was it fawning.  It was a day in the life of a man who had had his day in the sun.  The 41st president was just enjoying post celebrity mode.

What I took away from Paul’s article was not about the man being out and noticed by the public.  What caught my eye were the security arrangements.  The man had been out of office over a decade and a half.  The only person known to have it in for him lethally went to the gallows.  Yet, he will be accompanied by men described in the article as “behemoths” as long as he lives.  Every president will have this protection for life.

Contrast this with the current state of travel for an American citizen.  He or she may have to go through a machine that will leave nothing about their anatomy to speculation.  If they opt out of the electronic pat down, the physical one is more demeaning.

So are we being paranoid?  Let’s do the math. It has been reported that we have passed the million mark on our national No Fly List. Breaking down the numbers, on 911 it was a team of 19 men who executed the plan. Assume that there were six liaison, handlers and other staff. That makes up a crew of 25. That means a possible 40,000 terror teams whose potential members we know about, but just won’t let fly. I may never come out from under my bed.

It seems we are going to the National Security State with us all on lockdown. A few years ago a car veered off our street. An officer responded and did a normal investigation. It was a little strange that he was wearing a SWAT uniform. At our town meeting, the department requested and was voted the police version of the M-16. There is almost never an arrest here. It is that boring aspect of the town that we love. Yet, our town dads and moms can be easily stampeded into paranoia.

Never mind that statistics show that we are pretty safe. We are still told that without a constant effort we will be at the mercy of the terrorists. With what we are paying for our Department of Homeland Security, we should not have a care in the world.

There is reason for a climate of fear. We are in danger.  It’s just not the danger being sold. When we screw our courage to the sticking point and finally get in the car to get a slurpie down at a convenience store, we have a good chance of becoming a casualty. Not from Abdul the Jihadi, but from another driver crashing into us. Go and poll undertakers in your region about how many kids they’ve buried due to a drowning in the family pool.  Ask them how many local terrorists have caused any funerals.

So we are heading toward more and more control. We need “Real Id” to make us feel better. In a scene from the movie The Hunt for Red October, Sam Neill's character is talking with Sean Connery's.  Neill talks about how he is going to travel from state to state in his recreational vehicle when he becomes an American. At one point he says, "No papers?" and Connery affirms, "No Papers." It is the difference between a free and unfree country. What will we say when we have to hear, “Your papers, please.”

I expect to be accused  of Lèse majesté for the suggestion I intend to make, but so be it.  It is time to take away the Secret Service protection of presidents and candidates and other officials and people of importance. Now, before giving vent to paroxysms of rage, think about it. A vast sum of money is spent to protect him and a fortune is spent to watch you in your own name. There is no incentive to change the system.

I have no desire to see anyone in government be the victim of any violence. Let me not mince words. I wish it to happen to my lumpen countrymen far less. We should all have the same level of protection or the same risk.

The desire to protect the president is understandable. There have been a number of assassination attempts since JFK. Like all my contemporaries, I remember my circumstances that day. The funeral was spectacle, but it was heart wrenching no less for that.

Since then we’ve had the King shooting, the attempt on Reagan’s life. The multiple bizarre attempts on Ford didn’t help. Remember Arthur Lee Bremer?  We started getting paranoid even about fringe candidates.

That all is true, but the thing about the presidency is there is never a dearth of ambitious men (and some women) who seek it. It is a pinnacle of success. It is also a position of leadership and therefore should not be without risk. Serious risk. Though not a betting man, I would be happy to wager that even without the coterie of guards we now provide, there would still be a surfeit of aspirants.

So how would this reform help anything? If the president cannot have a protecting force for himself, he may be cognizant of a shared risk. Our protection should be his protection and his should be ours. It is theory we should be willing to test.

Who knows, we could get back to a real human presidency. Harry Truman used to walk down to the drugstore by himself in the morning to get the paper. That may never happen, but if the president doesn’t want to go out without a helicopter hovering overhead, he can subscribe.

Oh well, things won’t change.  I should just seek a sinecure that leads to the need for protection. I want three security personnel and a driver on the federal dime. Would be willing to trade one of the agents for a masseuse.