OPINION
4A
Rating presidents
requires a mirror
‘With malice toward none’
The conclusion of President Abra-
ham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
Address, delivered March 4, 1865.
Fondly do we hope, fervent-
ly do we pray, that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass
away. Yet, if God wills that it
might continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman’s two hundred
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sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn
with the sword, as was said three thousand
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of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none, with charity
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gives us to see the right, let us strive on
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up the nation’s wounds, to care for
him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all
nations.
— Abe Lincoln
W
e take Presidents
Day for granted,
but it is one of those
customs
that
sets
America apart among
Western democracies.
The British, for instance,
do not take a day off to
mark the birthday of its
remarkable prime ministers
such as Melbourne, Disraeli
or Gladstone. Nor do the
French take a holiday
to remember Charles de
Gaulle.
Today’s
holiday
has its roots in George
Washington’s Feb. 22
birthday, which Congress
in 1879 marked with a
holiday. A subsequent
Congress marked Lincoln’s
birthday. When Congress
in 1968 moved all federal
holidays to Mondays, this
became Presidents Day.
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president’s
birthday
was born of an era in
which the memory of
George Washington was
nurtured and venerated.
Washington’s
restraint
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commission
before
becoming president and
leaving the presidency
after two terms — was the
essence of how he built our
nation, says the historian
Garry Wills in the book
Cincinnatus.
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for his heroic labor in
saving the Union. The
late Oregon Sen. Mark
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other individual could have
brought so much good out
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seas of madness and blood
with which he was forced
to deal.”
Americans in 2014 are a
far more cynical population
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Washington’s
memory.
Could
contemporary
Americans
venerate
anything?
With
or
without
emotion, we do reassess
our presidents as the
decades roll past. It’s
a bit like a person who
gains new insight into his
parents, years after their
passing.
In
other
words,
presidential evaluation is
like looking in a mirror.
Americans who are
middle aged and beyond
have seen the assessment
of two presidents —
Harry Truman and Dwight
Eisenhower
—
rise
dramatically.
President
John
F.
Kennedy’s
is
being
reassessed.
JFK
is
an especially elusive
president. In The New York
Review of Books, Frank
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us who lived through the
1960s die off — and as the
passions of those culture
wars, like those of the cold
war, continue to erode in
a post-boomer America
— so too will Camelot’s
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015
Conservative view on
money makes me crazy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News
Service
M
onetary
policy
probably won’t be
a major issue in the 2016
campaign, but it should
be.
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE — The Associated Press
President Barack Obama speaks at the White House in
Washington, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015, before signing the
Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act,
which calls for evaluation of existing Veterans Affairs
mental health and suicide prevention programs and ex-
pands the reach of these programs for veterans. The bill
is named for Clay Hunt of Texas, a Marine Corps combat
veteran who struggled with post-traumatic stress disor-
der after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and who killed
himself in March 2011 at the age of 28.
mythological status as
a brief, shining moment
before all hell broke loose.”
Without the distraction
of the Camelot myth, Rich
concludes, Kennedy will
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human and historical
scale.”
The
second
U.S.
president to be assassinated,
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regarded in his time as
a genuine national hero.
By the end of
this century,
how many
other nonwhite
presidents will
there be? And
how many
women will have
been president?
His death was marked by
worldwide mourning. And
yet polls of historians in
recent years place him no
higher than 25th among the
44 U.S. leaders. Some mark
him as low as 33rd or 34th.
Governing when most
Americans only knew
of presidents through
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shined as a speaker and was
judged as such. His off-
the-cuff condemnation of
fellow Ohio Congressman
Alexander Long in the
U.S. House in 1864 —
comparing Long with
Satan and Benedict Arnold
for proposing peace with
the South — was singled
out in 1899 as one of the
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from the Earliest Period to
the Present Time.”
Now, few citizens
besides contestants on the
Jeopardy quiz show can be
expected to recall his name.
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of presidential glory.
We are living in the
presidency of a man whose
meaning will be reassessed
several times as the 21st
century heads toward
middle age. In 2015 Obama
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no small part because of
his race. Because he is the
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him and his presidency
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In our day, it is
impossible to guess at what
Americans 50 years hence
will make of Obama. Will
they notice the economic
plummet that preceded his
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ending of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars? Or will
the intrusion on Americans’
privacy by the National
Security Agency loom
large decades hence?
By the end of this
century, how many other
nonwhite presidents will
there be? And how many
women will have been
president?
T HE
It is, after all, extremely
important, and the Republican
base and many leading
politicians have strong views
about the Federal Reserve and
its conduct.
And the eventual presiden-
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
tial nominee will surely have Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks in his office on Capitol Hill
in Washington, D.C., Feb. 10.
to endorse the party line.
So it matters that
the emerging Re-
GHFODUHG ³ORRNV DQ logical problem with mod-
publican consensus
awful lot like an at- ern monetary systems.
on money is crazy
WHPSWWREDLORXW¿V-
You see, in the conserva-
— full-on conspira-
cal policy, and such tive worldview, markets ar-
cy-theory crazy.
attempts call the en’t just a useful way to or-
Right now, the
Fed’s independence JDQL]HWKHHFRQRP\WKH\¶UH
most obvious man-
into question.” That D PRUDO VWUXFWXUH 3HRSOH
ifestation of money
statement
looks get paid what they deserve,
madness is Sen.
an awful lot like a and what goods cost is what
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claim that Bernan- they are truly worth to so-
the Fed” campaign.
ke and colleagues ciety. You could say that to
Paul
Paul likes to warn
were betraying their the free-market true believ-
Krugman
that the Fed’s ef-
trust in order to help er, to know the price of ev-
forts to bolster the
out the Obama ad- erything is also to know the
economy may lead to hy- ministration — a claim for value of everything.
Modern money — con-
SHULQÀDWLRQKHORYHVWDONLQJ which there is no evidence
sisting of pieces of paper
about the wheelbarrows whatsoever.
of cash that people carted
Oh, and suppose you be- or their digital equivalent
around in Weimar Germany. lieve that the Fed’s actions did that are issued by the Fed,
But he’s been saying that help avert what would other- not created by the heroic ef-
since 2009, and it keeps not ZLVHKDYHEHHQD¿VFDOFULVLV forts of entrepreneurs — is
happening. So now he has a This is supposed to be a bad an affront to that worldview.
Ryan is on record declaring
QHZOLQH7KH)HGLVDQRYHU- thing?
that his views on monetary
leveraged bank, just as Leh-
policy come from a speech
man Brothers was, and could
This story is
given by one of Ayn Rand’s
experience a disastrous col-
fictional characters. And
ODSVH RI FRQ¿GHQFH DQ\ GD\ wrong on so
what the speaker declares is
now.
This story is wrong on so
many levels that WKDWPRQH\LV³WKHEDVHRID
moral existence. Destroyers
many levels that reporters are
reporters are
seize gold and leave to its
having a hard time keeping
owners a counterfeit pile of
up, but let’s simply note that
paper. ... Paper is a check
WKH )HG¶V ³OLDELOLWLHV´ FRQVLVW having a hard
by legal looters.”
of cash, and those who hold
time keeping up. drawn
Once you understand
that cash have the option of
that this is how many con-
converting it into, well, cash.
No, the Fed can’t fall victim
You may think that at servatives really think, it all
to a bank run. But is Paul be- least some of the current falls into place. Of course
ing ostracized for his views? presidential aspirants are they predict disaster from
Not at all.
staying well clear of the fe- monetary expansion, no
Moreover, while Paul may ver swamps, but don’t be so matter the circumstances.
currently be the poster child sure. Jeb Bush appears to be Of course they are undaunt-
for off-the-wall monetary getting his economic agen- ed in their views no matter
views, he’s far from alone. A da, such as it is, from the how wrong their predic-
lot has been written about the George W. Bush Institute’s tions have been in the past.
2010 open letter from leading 4 Percent Growth Project. Of course they are quick to
Republicans to Ben Bernan- And the head of that project, accuse the Fed of vile mo-
ke, then the Fed chairman, Amity Shlaes, is a prom- tives. From their point of
demanding that he cease ef- LQHQW ³LQIODWLRQ WUXWKHU´ view, monetary policy isn’t
forts to support the econo- someone who claims that really a technical issue, a
my, warning that such efforts the government is greatly TXHVWLRQRIZKDWZRUNVLW¶V
ZRXOG OHDG WR LQÀDWLRQ DQG understating the true rate of DPDWWHURIWKHRORJ\3ULQW-
ing money is evil.
³FXUUHQF\ GHEDVHPHQW´ /HVV inflation.
So as I said, monetary
has been written about the si-
So monetary crazy is
multaneous turn of seemingly pervasive in today’s Repub- policy should be an issue
UHVSHFWDEOH¿JXUHVWRFRQVSLU- lican Party. But why? Class in 2016. Because there’s
acy theories.
interests no doubt play a a pretty good chance that
There was, for example, role — the wealthy tend to someone who either gets
the 2010 op-ed article by Rep. be lenders rather than bor- his monetary economics
Paul Ryan, who remains the rowers, and they benefit at from Ayn Rand, or at any
Republicans’ de facto intellec- least in relative terms from rate feels the need to defer
tual leader, and John Taylor, deflationary policies. But I to such views, will get to
the party’s favorite monetary also suspect that conserva- appoint the next head of the
economist. Fed policy, they tives have a deep psycho- Federal Reserve.
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