Back to Basics

The right to free speech is protected in the First Amendment to our Constitution, but there are times when what is said taxes the limits of one’s patience. Such is the case with Suffolk University Law Professor Michael Avery, who recently sent an email to his colleagues saying, “It is shameful to send care packages to U.S. troops who have gone overseas to kill other human beings.”

According to FOX affiliate WFXT-TV in Massachusetts, the comments were made after Suffolk University issued a school wide appeal for care packages to be sent to U.S. military deployed overseas. Clearly, Professor Avery had a constitutional right to say it, but the real question is, was it right to say it?

I found out about these remarks in an email sent to me by a disabled Vietnam combat veteran who was shocked and dismayed like most of us. To protect his privacy I will not name the veteran, but he sums it up with three words, “reprehensible, irresponsible and unacceptable.” Paul Spera, a past Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars called the remarks “despicable” adding for emphasis, “that the shameful thing is that Avery is teaching our young people.” He took the words right out of my mouth!

As if those words were not hurtful enough, Avery had to make sure he made his point by adding, “Sympathy for American troops in harm’s way is not particularly rational in today’s world.” Suffolk to its credit does not have a history of being anti-military like many other universities.  They sanctioned the effort to collect and send the packages and they even have a large American flag displayed in the school’s atrium. Professor Avery objected to that too, saying that displaying the flag is “not a politically neutral act” and represents “excessive patriotic zeal.”

It is outrageous that people like Avery get positions teaching our young people in universities around the country. Although Avery made his comments in an email to colleagues, and has every right to express his personal views, publicly or privately, “teaching” is not just what occurs in the classroom.  A professor has a position of authority and respect within the university. His comments and demeanor outside the classroom cannot be isolated from the “education” of his students inside the college class. Don’t believe for one minute that the good professor is not aware of the impact he can have on his students in this manner. Mark Twain realized that there is much to learn outside the formal structure of schools when he joked, “I never let my schoolin’ interfere with my education.”

When are alumni going to have the courage to stop financing this kind of anti-American venom? If endowments and fundraising dropped off the radar screen, people like this would soon be out of work. It is bad enough that parents and students have to pile up huge debt to pay this guy, let alone subject our young people to his views. When are we all going to wise up? Somewhere out there is a patriotic, well qualified teacher who would like to come to Suffolk and teach constitutional law and who understands that the reason we have this Constitution is due to the sacrifice of others. Surely, if Suffolk looked hard enough, it could find that person.

Many of us will remember a childhood game called “leapfrog.” Your classmate would run, stop, lean forward and the person running behind would leap over his playmate. After a few steps, the person who had just made the jump stopped, leaned forward and the process repeated itself. This was a fun game for elementary school children at recess time. It is more sad than ironic that there is a striking similarity between that children’s game and the process by which we nominate our candidates for president of the United States.

Iowa and New Hampshire have claimed the “right” to hold the first caucus and primary in their states, respectively. No one dares move ahead of them. Over the past several election cycles this has contributed to calls of “unfair” from other states which have a much later, and usually lesser, role in the decision making process due to late primaries. New Hampshire and Iowa do not budge. They are determined to go first, no matter what date they have to set. New Hampshire has not yet established its date for the primary because it wants to be the “First in the Nation Primary” as dictated in their state law. Iowa has settled on January 3rd, and its caucuses are always a few days before New Hampshire.

There is no better example of leapfrogging than what has been happening in the past week. Florida moved its primary up to January 31, 2012. Then South Carolina decided to trump Florida by moving its primary up to January 21^st. Under Nevada law, that state must hold its caucuses the “Saturday before the NH primary” and, according to that state’s website, they have set the date for January 14^th, thinking that New Hampshire was planning to set its primary on January 17^th. But now it is more likely that New Hampshire will hold its primary sometime between the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada.

I suppose if we were to carry out this insidious process to the extreme, we could have the primary for the 2016 Presidential election before the 2012 election is over! In an effort to stop the games, the Republican Party has even threatened to penalize any state that changes its primary or caucus at this late date, with a loss of voting delegates at the Republican Convention. This makes the situation worse with even more animosity. The game of leapfrog continues. Unfortunately, this is not a game.

It might be beneficial to ask just how this enhances our nominating process to pick someone who may be the next leader of the free world. The candidates do not know where to campaign or when. States could be denied delegates to the convention, and are pitted against other. The process has now become a political power struggle with no rules. Those states that have caucuses deny the right to vote to our servicemen and women, who are often out of their state, sometimes putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom. They deny the right to vote to the ill or disabled, who cannot be physically present to vote in person.

In the sweltering heat of Philadelphia from May 25^th to September 17^th, 1787, 53 delegates from 12 of the original 13 colonies (Rhode Island refused to send any representatives) struggled mightily to come to an agreement to adopt a Constitution for the United States of America. When it was over, an exhausted Benjamin Franklin walked down the steps of the Pennsylvania State House and was asked, “What kind of government did you create, Mr. Franklin?” To which he replied, “A republic, if we can keep it.” Are today’s leaders respecting and protecting the Constitution that Franklin and his heroic and patriotic colleagues gave us in 1787?

Can we keep it?

I do not see how we can keep it, if we do not understand what “it” is. I know that sounds uncomfortably close to a Bill Clinton quote that we might all like to forget. However, the history teacher part of me cringes every time I hear the media, columnists and most of our elected leaders refer to America as a democracy. New England town meetings are democracies. The majority determines the issue at hand. The government of the United States is a REPUBLIC. We ELECT representatives who vote in our absence and on our behalf. We trust them to lead us. These representatives take only one oath, when they are elected. That oath is to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution contains an oath of office only for the President. However, in 1789 the first Congress added a requirement to include members of Congress and other government officials, because they knew that adherence to the spirit and intent of our Constitution was critical to the survival of our republic.

As we glide into another election season of debates, press reports, news shows and interviews we must remember that elected officials do not take an oath to any political party. They do not swear allegiance to NAFTA or GATT or monolithic international organizations, like the United Nations or the World Court. They do not solemnly swear allegiance to support and defend large international corporations and certainly not to large special interests, lobbyists and political donors.

The term “political party” cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution. Not in the body and not in the amendments. Yet, political parties write the rules of participation in the ballot process. Party debates sponsored by media outlets that are for the most part hostile, delight in asking confrontational or embarrassing questions. CNN is basking in the glory of the intraparty squabble from the recent Florida Republican Party debate. Presidential candidates must “win” a majority of delegates at party nominating conventions to be the nominee. Certain states, such as Iowa, select delegates by holding caucuses that requires people to attend meetings and publicly state for whom they are voting. This process excludes people, such as the disabled and our military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, from even voting at all!

The primary states, which do conduct secret ballot voting, concentrate on “leapfrogging” one another to see who can be first, rather than working together to make the process fairer for the voters as well as the candidates.

Arguably, one of the most famous debates in American history was between two men who were assumed to be future presidential candidates, but were actually running for the U.S. Senate at the time. In 1858, incumbent Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas was being challenged by a relatively unknown member of the Whig Party, Abraham Lincoln. In late summer of that year Douglas and Lincoln agreed to debates to be held in seven different locations around the state of Illinois from mid-August through the end of October. There was one major topic: slavery. The two men crisscrossed Illinois for nearly 10,000 miles and spoke to large crowds at fairgrounds, town squares, and even a college. The format in each encounter was a 60 minute opening by one candidate followed by a 90 minute response by the other. The first candidate then closed with a 30 minute “rejoinder.” By agreement the candidates alternated from debate to debate on who spoke first. The debates were spirited, sometimes even humorous, but always in great depth over the pros and cons of the morality of slavery. It was very clear, when the last debate was concluded, where each man stood on this highly emotional and controversial issue in America at the time.

The press covered the debates, but did not ask the questions. The candidates truly debated each other, not the media. The press came to report news not to make news. Win, lose or draw, the public was better served with this approach. Although Lincoln lost the election, he was catapulted into national prominence and was elected President two years later under the banner of a new political entity, the Republican Party.

Many high school and college debate teams still essentially follow this format even today. The focus is on the interaction between the participants, not the interaction between a questioner and a debater. Under the Lincoln-Douglas “rules” one side must try to prevail by making a superior argument on the context of the issue. There is great emphasis on truth in statements made by both sides and although emotion, style, humor and even appearance may be critical to persuasion, it is always within the realm of fact. Each candidate has the opportunity to go into great depth and can develop his position on the issue as well. Then the adversary can outline his or her position and contrast the differences, so that the audience can determine who best represents their views or makes the most effective argument.

Presidential debates in recent American history have strayed far away from the Lincoln-Douglas format. In the 1960 presidential debates, Richard Nixon is generally perceived as the loser because of an unshaven look and because he was not as handsome as his opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy. Anyone remember the issues? In the 1980 Republican primary in New Hampshire, Governor Reagan’s famous debate line had nothing to do with the issues when he said, “I paid for this microphone.” However, in 1984 President Reagan scored huge in his debate with Senator Walter Mondale, when he told Mondale that “he would not hold his youth and inexperience against him” after Mondale had made an issue of Reagan’s age. This exchange is remembered because it was a humorous response.

The left-wing media and conservatives generally agree that the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects freedom of the press, must be preserved. They part company on the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The right to keep and bear arms is as clear and concise as any amendment to the Constitution, yet the liberal media attacks it constantly. It is wrong to restrict the press, but right to restrict the right to bear arms. There is no logic to this argument and it is totally unconstitutional, yet the media assault is relentless. Not only does the media hypocrisy aggressively promote gun restrictions on law abiding American citizens, it gives sensationalistic coverage to every crime committed with a gun. High school and office shootings, armed attacks on police and all gun crimes are treated as if every American citizen who owns a gun is likely to commit one of these horrific acts. The truth is that all of us have the right to own a gun to protect ourselves from these “crazies” who commit these crimes. What is frequently ignored in the press is when private citizens save their own lives, or the lives of others, because they WERE armed and were able to kill or repel the attacker. A recent story comes to mind about a Walmart employee who thwarted serious injury or death to himself and his colleagues by confronting his attackers with his personal weapon, which he happened to be carrying at the time of the incident. The media did promote this story because, after all, the employee was suspended from his job because it was against Walmart regulations to carry a firearm on the job!

However, there is a much more subtle and dangerous methodology abused by our liberal media friends. When the anti-gun enthusiasts engineer a plan to weaken the Second Amendment, the media give it limited coverage. If a “gun story” is embarrassing to those who support limits on the right to bear arms, the press downplays the event. Pro-gun rights groups have to bring these stories to the attention of the general populace. George Washington warned us over two centuries ago that “liberty will require eternal vigilance.” While the clutter of other major news stories is out there, will the people of America be able to peer through it all and protect our Second Amendment rights? Some recent examples should be cause for concern by defenders of the right to bear arms.

Recently, under the direction of the Obama administration, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms implemented a program called “Project Gunrunner.” Under this ill-advised program, a variant of AK-47 assault weapons were provided to Mexican drug cartels so that they could be “tracked” and thus lead authorities to the kingpins. The stated goal was ultimately to “deny these weapons to the drug cartels.” ATF agents and gun dealers, who sold these firearms to criminals, warned their superiors that these weapons would get into the hands of the wrong people and could cost the lives of American law enforcement officers. Their pleadings fell upon deaf ears. As warned, the unthinkable happened.

The battles were epic in nature. It seemed at times as if the Capitol building itself rocked on its very foundation. It was President Ronald Reagan vs. Speaker Tip O’Neill. It was tax and spending cuts versus the big spenders.

I was proud in the mid-1980s to be “in the trenches” with Reagan in those fights to control taxes and spending. I joined Congressman Bob Walker of Pennsylvania, Bill Dannemeyer of California, and other conservatives, as we fought the taxers and spenders. The liberals spent with reckless abandon. Their left-wing media cohorts never even whimpered an objection. Those of us who tried to cut spending were called right-wing extremists. TV commercials by our opponents and editorials from the left labeled us as heartless and irresponsible people, who wanted to cut social security, throw the sick and needy out on the street and deny an education to every poor kid in America. We the people lost the fight again.

President George H.W. Bush took up the torch in the late 80s with his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge, which he promptly broke and we lost again. There was a brief respite under President Clinton with the so-called “peace dividend.” But spending and debt continued to rise steadily under the leadership of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and big spenders in Congress of both political parties. The ways of Washington would not change. Spend, spend, spend was the law of the land. Leaders and parties did not matter and the debt continued to climb. Despite repeated warnings from the likes of Reagan, conservative commentators and responsible business leaders and economists, the storm clouds of economic  Armageddon were ignored. The people lost again.

Then in 2010 something interesting and unique happened. A bunch of Tea Party candidates won House and Senate seats across the country. They refused to play the “Washington game” and were willing to put their re-elections on hold for the good of the country. Once seated, they challenged the establishment and insisted on real cuts in spending. They believed that a 14 trillion dollar (and climbing) debt was going to bankrupt our nation and challenged the big spending liberals and the leaders of the Republican Party to get serious in getting a handle on the deficit and the debt. They refused to allow the debt ceiling extension until they got “real cuts” in spending. They were called ignorant, amateurs and children. They were even reportedly called terrorists by the Vice-President of the United States. They were accused by the mainstream media of bringing the United States to the “brink of disaster” by holding up the debt extension.

It is interesting that in the shallow minds of the liberal media, liberals who stick to their positions are labeled principled leaders, but those in the Tea Party who “gave it their all” to change the mindset in Washington are “radical right-wingers.” President Obama constantly singled them out as irresponsible and unwilling to negotiate. The new members tried mightily. Their intentions were honorable and heroic, but they did not have the numbers to succeed. The Tea Party members made the debate interesting and lively, they kept the focus on the debt and deficit. They were not outclassed, but they were outgunned.

In a recent AIM Report entitled, “A Brief History of the Modern Media,” Roger Aronoff, Editor of Accuracy in Media, coherently outlined the dramatic changes in the media over the past 70 years. My parents and grandparents could check on local, state, national and international events via the newspapers, radio and even the movie newsreels, if they were lucky enough or had the time to go to the movies!

However, that all changed quickly and dramatically. Aronoff describes how TV news burst on the scene with 15 minute (and later 30 minute) nightly broadcasts during the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. With one click of the dial you could pick the network you trusted most to give you the news of the day. You only had three choices: ABC, CBS or NBC. Then as the decades progressed the flood gates opened. Aronoff describes the advent of PBS, Ted Turner and CNN, C-SPAN, conservative talk radio, Fox News, MSNBC and the Internet. The news was everywhere. You could see it, read it, hear it and you could access it any time of the day or night. You could get all sides, all views and you had a plethora of choices, depending on whom you believed would give you the truth.

In fact there was so much opportunity out there that it led to concern about balance in reporting and editing. Did everyone have an equal amount of time to present their views? Was one side of an issue overexposed to the detriment of another? We had already lived under the “Fairness Doctrine” from 1949 to 1987, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation which required media outlets to present both sides of an issue in an equal amount of time because it was the “fair” thing to do. Aronoff pointed out that even “Accuracy in Media” founder, Reed Irvine, actually supported the Fairness Doctrine, because at the time it seemed like the only way conservative voices could be heard on the airwaves. When it became apparent that with the Fairness Doctrine’s repeal, conservative voices began to emerge on talk radio and other platforms, Mr. Irvine soon recognized that we were better off without it. As Aronoff pointed out, “It is more important that the press remain free than being forced to be fair, according to the standards of politicians or bureaucrats.” Mercifully, the Fairness Doctrine has been laid aside, but watch your backside, the liberals have not given up!

There is, however, a very troubling development regarding the controversy about a free versus a fair press. The issue of polling causes one to wonder if manipulation would pass the smell test of a free media. In the name of a free press, should information gathered from early exit polling be leaked early causing some late voters to not feel the need to vote? Should elections be called before all polls are closed? Most media outlets, to their credit, have voluntarily shown restraint on this in recent years. However, is it a legitimate function of a “free” press? In my U.S. Senate re-election effort in 1996 all media outlets called the election for my opponent, Dick Swett, based upon pre-election polling and exit polling on election day. The next-day newspapers even had him winning based upon that information.

If one really wants to understand the meaning of Memorial Day, then a visit to Washington, D.C and the sites that commemorate the sacrifices of our military will make it very clear.

The story that follows is personal, but represents just one tiny thread in the fabric of freedom in America. I dedicate it to each and every service man and woman, who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country and I honor those family members who endured the loss.

It was just a routine morning for another military mom. She kissed her handsome Naval officer husband goodbye, as he left for his duty station, and then, went about planning her day’s household duties and errands, and caring for her two young boys, ages one and three.

It was just a normal day, that is, until late afternoon, when the Navy Chaplain and two officers in full dress uniform appeared at the door. It was March 28^th, 1945. My mother, brother and I would learn the meaning of Memorial Day first hand.

Just ten days earlier Lt. Commander Donald E. Smith, USN, had reported for duty as a Squadron Commander at Oceana Naval Air Station, Virginia, after having served four years at war, as a naval aviator in the North Atlantic and South Pacific. The war was winding down and my dad was excited about this well deserved “shore duty” with his wife, Marge, and two young boys. While flying over the Chesapeake Bay, his aircraft malfunctioned and he and three Navy colleagues lost their lives when his plane dove straight into the waters of the Bay.

My brother and I would know the pain of not having a dad at our ballgames and graduations. We would endure the decades of alcoholism and loneliness of our grieving mom, who never recovered from her loss. However, we would also learn to appreciate and respect the unselfish sacrifice and patriotism of both of our parents. We would grow up to understand that our family was one small piece of fabric in the cloth of freedom that cloaks America. Like thousands of military families before us, and thousands after us, we would learn that there is a high price to be paid for freedom. We were not alone in our suffering and loss.

On Memorial Day we pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform and their families, who paid for our freedom with their blood and tears for 235 years, from 1776 to Iraq and Afghanistan. If it ever gets to the point that we do not revere, honor and recognize those patriots, America will not survive. On this Memorial Day I hope we can all tune out the picnics, cell phones, computers and mundane activities of the day for just a few minutes, then pause and say, “thank you,” for all they have done for their posterity and their country.

In June of 1995 I had the privilege of attending the 50^th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. I went as a United States Senator and member of the U.S.

What appears to be happening now is the shameful exploitation of the incident by extracting the maximum public relations value from its success.

The tracking down and recent killing of Osama bin Laden were major accomplishments of the U.S. Intelligence Community, the elite Navy SEAL team, which took out this terrorist murderer, and those in the Obama administration who authorized the successful raid. Ten years, and two Presidents later, justice was done. Whether seeking revenge is right or wrong, it sure felt good to see bin Laden go down. Payback is a “son of a gun” as the expression goes!

The persistence of those in our Intelligence Community and all of our special operations personnel are a real source of pride. I remember personally witnessing the murders in front of the CIA Headquarters in 1993. I watched in horror while trapped in traffic, waiting for a light to change, while terrorist Mir Aimal Kasi murdered two innocent people in their cars. It took several years, but again another terrorist was apprehended in Pakistan and later tried and executed for his crime. It defines who we are as Americans that we would never give up until these terrorists met justice at our hands. But as Paul Harvey used to say, “now for the rest of the story.”

Clearly, President Obama had to “sign off” on the raid and he deserves full credit for doing so. However, what appears to be happening now is the shameful exploitation of the incident by extracting the maximum public relations value from its success. We have seen photo after photo of the Obama “team” watching the raid unfold in “real time.” Press briefings have reminded us that “candidate Obama” had pledged to continue to pursue and eventually bring bin Laden to justice (Shouldn’t that go without saying?).

The President went to New York City at the site of the World Trade Center attacks and spoke there to again remind us that he had gotten bin Laden after he had already told us this on national TV. There have been countless interviews by administration “officials” detailing how the administration was involved in the event. The unsophisticated would assume from all of this that the mission success was due to keen strategic insight or extraordinary expertise in tactical operational planning by the President and his team.

The truth is that this was a well prepared, highly skilled and professional military SEAL team doing their job in an extraordinary manner. They put their lives on the line because they are the best America has to offer. They are patriots. They volunteered to do the job. They reacted to incredibly accurate, fortunate and specific intelligence information. The administration’s role was to authorize this elite force to go in and execute. With all due respect to President Obama and his team, if he is told by the Intelligence Community that bin Laden is located and the team is ready to go get him, it is his job to give the order. Not to do so, would be unconscionable.

What the American people must understand is that this is not a game that we are playing. This is about the survival of America as a great nation.

Eureka! A government shutdown was avoided with a last minute “deal” that worked out the details of an agreement cutting around $38 billion from the budget over the remainder of the Fiscal Year. It is true that implementing these cuts will produce further reductions in spending over the next few years, but is it enough to really make a difference? Do not be fooled by the rhetoric and the euphoria.

With the national debt fast approaching 15 trillion dollars the President and Congress had to go to the mat with a government shutdown hanging over their head to finally agree to cut a measly $38 billion in discretionary spending from the budget. This sum is not a small amount for mortals like us. However, when compared to the national debt, it is merely a drop in the proverbial bucket.

This pathetic scenario has played out before, either with the threat of a shutdown of the government, or an extension of the national debt by increasing the debt ceiling. The battle between Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton in 1995 is a notable reminder of another government shutdown clash. However, the lack of entitlement reform, trimming around the edges of discretionary spending and raising the debt ceiling are all, as Yogi Berra once said, “Déjà vu all over again.”

I witnessed it all for 18 years as a U.S. Senator and Congressman. Month after month, year after year, budget battle after budget battle, the debt and the deficit grew. I was proud to join with a very few of my conservative colleagues in those classic budget battles against moderate Republicans and big spending liberals on the Democrat side of the aisle. We fought hard to make “real” cuts and reduce the deficit and the debt and bring fiscal sanity back to our government by entitlement reform, cutting waste, fraud and mismanagement and eliminating unconstitutional and unnecessary federal programs. Unfortunately, we never had the votes to succeed.

If you really want to understand how bad things are, then consider the fact that we had to threaten to shut down the government just to achieve small successes in limiting spending. Thank God the true conservatives in Congress like Paul Ryan (R-WI), Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rand Paul (R-KY) held their ground, or we would not even have gotten that! Elections do matter and we did make a start. But this is the beginning and not the end of the race. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reminded us that “we have saved billions with this deal, but now we have to save trillions with future reductions.”

What the American people must understand is that this is not a game that we are playing. This is about the survival of America as a great nation.