American Democracy: Reprise

[H2O Man]

{1} "Sean Wilentz is well known as a leading historian of his generation. With this magisterial work, he establishes himself as a major figure in all of American historical scholarship." – Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School; author of "Race, Crime, and the Law"; from his review of Sean Wilentz’s 2005 book "The Rise of American Democracy"

On Wednesday, February 27, Sean Wilentz’s article "Race Man: How Brack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton" was published on The New Republic. In the days since, supporters of Senator Clinton have held the article up as proof that their candidate’s campaign has not engaged in gutter politics. Some of her supporters have pointed to Wilentz’s status as the director of American Studies at Princeton as lending credibility to the position he took in the article.

A number of other people, including supporters of Senator Barack Obama, have disagreed with Wilentz. Among those opposed the Princeton historian is Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson. The two’s heated exchanges have been published on The New Republic.

Other Obama supporters have made snide remarks about Wilentz’s credentials, including comments that "Race Man" is evidence that Wilentz will do anything in his quest to be the Clinton’s version of Kennedy historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Schlesinger is my favorite political historian. I also think very highly of Wilentz’s work. Though I disagree – strongly – with his "Race Man" article, I do not think it takes away from his value as historian. And rather than continue with a debate that should have ended when Senator Clinton apologized for her husband’s offensive comments, I think it might be more interesting to put Wilentz’s position into a historical context.

{2} "But modern study of the subject owes the most to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s Age of Jackson, published in 1945. Before Schlesinger, historians thought of American democracy as the product of an almost mystical frontier or agrarian egalitarianism. The Age of Jackson toppled that interpretation by placing democracy’s origin firmly in the context of the founding generation’s ideas about the few and the many, and by seeing democracy’s expansion as an outcome of struggles between classes, not sections. More than any previous account, Schlesinger’s examined the activities and ideas of obscure Americans, as well as towering political leaders. While he identified most of the key political events and changes of the era, Schlesinger also located the origins of modern liberal politics in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, and in their belief, as he wrote, that future challenges ‘will best be met by a society in which no single group is able to sacrifice democracy and liberty to its interests’." – Sean Wilentz; The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln; 2005; page xix.

In the debate regarding Wilentz’s "Race Man" article, some of his supporters have focused on his being a "professional" historian. I do not think that does justice to his work. "Professional" simply means that he gets paid for what he does; "amatuer" comes from "amatus," meaning "to love." Wilentz’s passion for US history is what makes it outstanding.

While I am acquainted with some of his other works, it is "The Rise of American Democracy" that stands out for me. In it, he documents the shift from the United States being a republic to a democracy. In the book’s preface, he notes that republic comes from "res publica" meaning :public thing"; this implied the public good would be secured through the efforts of "the most worthy, enlightened men."

Democracy, on the other hand, comes from "demos krateo," or "rule of the people." His book traces the struggles between the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of the Civil War. It is far more than a list of the people and events involved in the transformation of American politics. Wilentz is brilliant, and he is able to interpret and explain how these events unfolded, in a manner that is of value to everyone interested in the struggle to restore our Constitutional democracy today.

The best historians are able to channel their passion for their topic, yet remain objective in reporting on it. I think that "objectivity" in this sense can be defined as someone standing outside of a frame describing a picture. "Subjectivity," on the other hand, is defined as a person trying to describe a picture from a position inside the frame.

Wilentz is an outstanding historian. He is objective and passionate. However, in his role as a Clinton campaign supporter, he is by definition subjective, and that, added to his passion for his candidate, is why I view the two roles as distinct. I also recognize that there are difficulties inherent in attempting to fill the "Schlesinger role" with any politician.

{3} "Of course the old rigmarole did not disappear. I was sworn in as Special Consultant behind closed doors and it was hinted that I not follow the usual practice of hanging my commission in my office. When the time came to move from EOB to the White House, President Johnson made one emphatic stipulation: I was not to occupy the part of the suite previously used by Schlesinger." – Eric F. Goldman; The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson; 1969; pages 159-160

There was a front-page story in the January 2, 1964 Washington Post, announcing that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was going to resign from the Lyndon Joghnson administration, and that he was going to be replaced by Princeton historian Eric Goldman. The story angered members of the administration. "You are not the Johnson Arthur Schlesinger," Walter Jenkins told Goldman. "Nobody is going to be the Johnson Schlesinger. Nobody is going to be the Johnson anything of Kennedy. This is a different administration." (Goldman; page 34)

Goldman was aware of the role that his friend Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., had played in the Kennedy administration. He remembered JFK telling a journalist, William White, that, "Arthur has nothing to do with making policy. He works over there (the East Wing) and he is a good writer. Period." (Goldman; page 477) But LBJ was also aware of the role that Schlesinger had played, and after his attempts to secure Arthur’s services failed, he was intent upon replacing him. President Johnson believed that loyalty to his administration was gauged by submission, and Goldman didn’t measure up. When Goldman was unable to meet his needs, and the two split under less than friendly terms, Johnson would hold a grudge. LBJ’s "off the record" attacks on Goldman were likely a major reason that no attempts to re-create a Schlesinger in the White House were made after 1968.


{4} " Sean Wilentz, a bright and lively historian at Princeton, had been talking to me during the week of the 12th about the constitutional implications of lowering the bar to impeachment. We decided that this is a point that might well be made publicly by a group of historians. Sean drafted a statement along these lines; I revised it a bit; we called the group Historians in Defense of the Constitution and added Vann Woodward to the team of sponsors. Then we circulated the statement during the week of the 19th. The response was astonishing, as iff historians had been waiting the chance to express their outrage over Kenneth Starr. In a few days, aided by E-mail and the Internet, over 400 historians were on board." – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; Journals; November 2, 1998; page 834.

When the republicans in Congress were pushing for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Professor Wilentz helped lead a brave stance in exposing their effort as a sham.

In November of 1998, Schlesinger was among those who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution. There were other legal scholars and historians who argued for and against impeaching President Clinton.

In his journals, Schlesinger tells of how a republican from South Carolina viciously attacked him for expressing his opinion on impeachment. Schlesinger also tells of Washington journalists such as Christopher Hitchens attempted to discredit him by stating he "was not known to me before as a historian of any kind." An ugly article in the November 11 National Journal had one "nice quote," Schlesinger writes: "He is the great liberal Democratic intellectual of our time," the article quotes Sean Wilentz as saying.

"I have not enjoyed such a fusillade for a third of a century," Schlesinger wrote. "It makes me feel young again." He knew that he had accomplished his goal. He had presented the members of Congress with a history of impeachment; expressed his opinion on the current events; and got parts of the media to shift the focus of their coverage away from President Clinton.

{5} "So why Hillary?"

"I think Hillary is important because the election really is the culmination of what’s been a 40 year struggle for the Democrats to rediscover who they are. …"

"Why (not Obama)?"

"It’s like Adlai Stevenson. In some ways, Barack reminds me of Stevenson. …There’s always a Stevenson candidate. Bradley was one. Tsongas was one of them. …It’s beautiful loserdom. …" –Sean Wilentz; Making the Case …for Hillary Clinton; Newsweek blog; November 16, 2007

It’s almost ironic that Professor Wilentz chooses the first presidential candidate that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was closely associated with, to compare Obama to. More, he goes back to the LBJ era, in saying that Clinton represents a solution to the democrats’ 40 years of struggle in the republican wilderness.

Even as an Obama campaign supporter, I can appreciate that Professor Wilentz was making a sincere and intelligent choice in backing Hillary Clinton. He enjoyed a close association with President Clinton and Hillary, and was among a core group of party activists who had been planning for Senator Clinton to recapture the presidency in 2008. His motives were because he believed that she offered the best option for leadership for this country, after the severe damage that republicans like Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes have done to our democracy.

If he had thoughts of being a Schlesinger-like figure in the Clinton 2 administration, I think that it was from a passion for providing the public with information about the need to struggle – to reclaim our Constitutional democracy ("rule of the people") rather than the republican elitists’ "res publica."

And, if it were not for Senator Barack Obama, I believe that Hillary Clinton would be our party’s candidate, would win the election, and would be a very good president.

But as Professor Wilentz notes in "The Rise of American Democracy," there are struggles between groups of people within the political parties themselves. The Clinton campaign did not anticipate the strength of the Obama campaign. More, Professor Wilentz wrote about certain individuals who rise up from the soil of America, and play outstanding roles in our nation’s history. The citizens who are in the Obama campaign are convinced that Barack Obama has the potential to be such a historic figure.

Time will tell. And, at some future point, another great historian will record if President Obama is in the ranks of our nation’s great leaders.

[Annces]

1. Rise up from the soil

I think he is somebody that comes from the soil. Even though it is hokey, there is something about the way he smiles. Either it is genuine heart and soul, or a fantastic salesman. I think he does understand the deep race issues of America in a way Clinton does not. He also understands other cultures better than Clinton does. Maybe he could make progress on issue of jobs and poverty. Somebody in the vein of Abraham Lincoln. That kind of responsibility weighs on people.

[H2O Man]

4. He strikes me

as being able to begin the process of recapturing democracy in Washington. He isn't going to perform miracles, but he might encourage people at the grass roots to continue to be active participants in government after the November elections.

[byronius]

2. K & R.

[H2O Man]

5. Thank you n/t

[Me.]

3. So Many Have Lost Credibility Over The Last 8 Years For The Best Of Reasons

Loyalty, truly wanting to do right by this country even if their thinking was misguided and for reasons we may never know or understand. Then there are those who are guided by ambition to a greater (Cheney/*) or lesser degree. Down on that scale are those who have unknowingly allowed their ambition to reveal the least of themselves. For my part I will never be able to look at a book or article of his without thinking of that Obama piece. It takes some of the shine off his brilliance and leaves his credibility subject to question.

[H2O Man]

6. His goal in writing

the "Race Man" was, in part, like Schlesinger's role in the events in '98. His task included getting some of the attention off of Senator Clinton, who was -- rightly or wrongly -- being shown in the clips where she made some dramatic claims about events in Bosnia, and then the film of her in Bosnia. This took place shortly after Barack Obama's speech on race relations in our country.

While I think that Professor Wilentz's essay is flawed (and that he and others in the Clinton campaign err in continuing to present anything that compares her to LBJ), I recognize that it is in part an effort to try to convince people to continue to donate to the Clinton campaign. There are some financial issues that are compounded by the slowing rate of contributions.

When a normally objective historian dabbles in current events in a subjective manner, they risk coming across in a very different way to those who are familiar with their writings. However, Professor Wilentz has the same rights as anyone/everyone else in this land, to advocate for his candidate to the best of his abilities. It has to be hard for him to see Hillary Clinton falling behind, and the years of hard work her campaign has invested being outdone by a candidate they did not view as serious competition for the nomination.

[Me.]

7. Where The Clintons Lost Me For Good

1. Their continued praise for McSame

2. Her 60 minutes interview

Now I believe #1 is rather historic, a candidate stepping over one of their party in favor of someone in the opposing party. I had to ask myself, did they really thin k McSame would be good for this country> If yes, it made me question their judgment. If not, I considered it a despicable act of ambition. Now if it was Schlesinger, he would, in later years be able to recount this objectively. Will Wilentz?

[H2O Man]

8. Some people have

knocked Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s two Kennedy books ("A Thousand Days" and "Robert Kennedy & his times"). But every other good biography since his have used Schlesinger's work in their research.

I think that he was as objective as possible in both of those books. They each reflect his personal relationship with the subject, and thus are going to be different than, say, "The Age of Jackson."

One of his strengths, I believe, is that he not only was passionate about politics and history, but he thought highly of people. In reading his books, there are very few people that he simply cannot stand. Richard Nixon was, in many ways, the only person he consistently attacked. (In his private journals, he also expressed contempt for Joe Lieberman.)

Professor Wilentz's article "Race Man" is clearly something different than what one came to expect out of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. If anyone questions that, they could read his (brief) book "Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference?" This was published during the contest between Kennedy and the republican opposition, and lacks the bitter personal attacks found in "Race Man."

[grantcart]

9. You should offer it as an OP-Ed piece for wider distribution

I found this very interesting as I was puzzled how a Princeton professor could have written what he had written.

It is in fact a very poorly written article that has virtually no support for the premise that Obama played the race card first.

His argument is based on very and I mean very tangetial arguments that have nothing to do with the Obama campaign for example

Quote
1)The Obama campaign and its supporters pressed this strategy after Clinton's unexpected win in New Hampshire. Pundits partial to Obama, including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and John Nichols of the Nation, instantly mused that their candidate lost because of supposedly bigoted New Hampshire whites who had lied to pre-primary pollsters - an easily disproven falsehood that nevertheless gained currency in the media.

Comment
Pundits partial to Obama - Eugene Robinson - come on now. First pundits are not part of the campaign and the campaigns have no direction to them. Secondly Robinson likes Obama but he also likes Clinton he is not a partisan pundit. Thirdly I find it very hard to believe that Robinson was saying that bigotry was a key to the NH primary.

Quote
2)Next morning, Obama's national co-chair, Jesse Jackson Jr., cast false and vicious aspersions about Hillary Clinton's famous emotional moment in New Hampshire as a measure of her deep racial insensitivity. "Her appearance brought her to tears," said Jackson, "not Hurricane Katrina."

Comment: Has nothing to do with 'playing the race card'


Quote
3)Obama's backers, including members of his official campaign staff, then played what might be called "the race-baiter card." Hillary Clinton, in crediting both Lyndon Johnson as well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, had supposedly denigrated King, and by extension Obama. Allegedly, Bill Clinton had dismissed Obama's victory in South Carolina by comparing it to those of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. (In fact, their electoral totals were comparable - and in the interview at issue, Clinton complimented Obama on his performance "everywhere" - a line the media usually omitted.)

Comment
The quote undermines the author's point - that Obama reacted first. The larger issue is that what ever card the Clintons were trying to play it looked like the race card and everyone thought that it was. Obama played the 'are you crazy card' and played it very well. On second thought the Clinton's were not playing the race card they were playing the 'If We Alienate Every Single African American You Must Be A Racially Based Candidate Card'.

[Me.]

12. Agree About Op-Ed Potential

[H2O Man]

27. I might do that.

Thanks.

[H2O Man]

13. I think that he

was looking to distract the attention on the Bosnia error. The on-going arguments about playing the race card seems unlikely to benefit the democratic party right now. A serious discussion, such as what Senator Obama presented in his historic speech, actually does benefit our party -- and indeed our nation.

I have never met Professor Wilentz, and am admittedly basing my opinion on my readings of his previous works. But I do not think that he is a racist, nor that he would purposely misrepresent the truth and risk offending people. I think he is too emotionally invested in the Clinton campaign, and that he views the situation through an unfortunately subjective and inaccurate lens.

In my own region, there are many good and decent people, who have worked hard for the past seven years, organizing within the democratic party with the clear and identified objective of getting Hillary Clinton elected president. Some of them are people that my wife and I have worked with for many years (though I'm now retired). We went door-to-door campaigning and registering voters for Bill Clinton in '92 and '96, and campaigned for Hillary for the Senate. These are people who I respect, similar to some of the old-time DUers who are Clinton supporters.

Right now, everything that they have worked for is slipping away, and some are reacting as Professor Wilentz has reacted. Those are the people that I believe Obama supporters share values with, and so I am not offended by a harsh response now and then. By late summer, they will be able to view the Clinton campaign as one of life's great "what might have been" situations, and they will be solidly in the Obama camp. Why, I may even buy a few of the Obama T-shirts!

[Garbo 2004]

10. K & R n/t

[H2O Man]

15. Thank you. n/t

[bleever]

11. K&R.

Very interesting. Thank you.

[Me.]

14. Late Day

:kick:

[H2O Man]

16. Possibly "wrong day"

for me to have posted this. Oh, well.

[DerekJ]

17. We need more of you H2O Man...

It's damn hard to stay level - headed with what's going on. How do you do it?

[H2O Man]

18. The one book

by Professor Wilentz that I quoted from is one of my favorite books. I disagree with him on his "Race Man" article, just as I disagree with Clinton supporters on a number of issues. But at some point, we have to put those issues to the side -- at least temporarily -- and deal with the most serious issues that require our immediate attention. Winning the presidency and making gains in congress and state offices should be our immediate goal.

[DerekJ]

20. But give me your advice ...

How can I keep calm and cool, When I see a supposed progressive defending fox news as "fair and balanced", touting Hillary as hero for pandering to Scaife, or attacking pro-choice for saying that teenage pregnancy is a punishment, and the list goes on.

Tell me how can I answer them?

[H2O Man]

22. In my opinion,

no progressive democrat would say that Fox or Scaife are "fair and balanced" news sources, or take other positions that are clearly conservative. While there are many issues that progressive and liberal people will have a wide range of opinions on, there are others that are "flashing red lights" that catch our eye. But, if we are on the sidewalk (or highway) of life and we see flashing red lights, we recognize that as a warning signal.

I don't think that progressives have any need to answer people who say that Fox -- which has Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly -- is a good source for news.

[NanceGreggs]

19. As always, H2O Man ...

... a thoughtful, level-headed piece that relies on fact, rather than perception based on a fleeting glance.

:kick: & REC'D!

[H2O Man]

25. Thank you.

I was curious what you would think of this, in light of a contribution to a different thread last night. I appreciate it.

[myrna minx]

21. K&R. n/t

[H2O Man]

26. Thanks! n/t

[mmonk]

23. Very good.

I enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the snippets about his "Rise of American Democracy" as well as you noticing his filling or wanting the Scheslinger "position" and what I view as his mistaken linkage of Obama as a Stevenson figure. Democratization of America in my opinion, is more adept to Obama as democratization is an interwoven fabric of recognition, participation, and upheld protection of every citizen into something more deeply integral than merely representational politics.

[H2O Man]

24. Right.

His description of leadership and group action applies to Senator Obama and his campaign. Being within the frame of the Clinton campaign does not allow him to see that.

[Scurrilous]

28. Great post.

K & R :thumbsup:

[H2O Man]

29. Thank you.

I think that the OP raises valid points, and that the discussion that followed was interesting. I do wish that there had been a greater response. But I am satisfied with having the opportunity to address some of the issues I saw being raised on other GD-P threads.

[grantcart]

30. The frentic pace in here often over rides the more thoughtful pieces which this was

Also unless you had done the work of actually reading the original article and taking it apart it would be difficult to understand.

As someone who has spent some time studying at Princeton (albeit the Seminary) I was stunned at how weak the author, a 'chaired' tenured professor, supported his thesis.

I am sure that he got whacked big time on campus and is glad that it will not be part of any tenure review process.

[H2O Man]

31. Right.

I think that some people "supported" the Wilentz article without having read it.