What possesses a twenty-year old to read five hundred page biography of a president he knows nothing about? Evidently, I was impressed by his speechwriting. In December 2006, President Ford died, and I was honestly grieved. In my ‘memorial’ post for him, I mentioned that I’d come across one of his speeches on AmericanRhetoric (the website responsible for my old party trick of reciting presidential speeches) and was impressed by him enough to read his autobiography. Reading it in 2005 gave me an enormous admiration for President Ford’s character, and I could not help but revisit it as part of my America @ 250 project. My fondness for Ford as a man, my appreciation for his character, has never wavered in the twenty years since though my politics have changed several times in those decades. Revisiting it on the anniversary of President Reagan’s death, I found myself appreciating this memoir of a decent man in an indecent office yet again — despite sometimes thinking the sheer amount of text could have done with some trimming.
Gerald Ford, uniquely among America’s executives, was not elected in: he was appointed as Vice President after Spiro Agnew resigned, and then succeeded within a matter of months into the presidency as Nixon’s administration began sinking beneath the drama of Watergate. Ford incorporated this into his inaugral address:
If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman — my dear wife — as I begin this very difficult job.
That is the spirit this book is written in, and it is what made Ford then and now, even when he was frankly boring me a bit with incredible detail on foreign policy decisions — who will be the new ambassador to India? As accomplished as Nixon was, there’s no doubt he was an incredibly difficult person to be around: in Kennedy and Nixon, he declared himself that his personality was awful. Jerry Ford was…completely different. He came up in Congress; his love was Congress. When he left the White House, he asked Marine One to circle not the White House, where he’d been for scarcely two years, but the Capitol. The Capitol was the same place he insisted on having his oath of office administered in; it was the place he returned to for speeches not as an executive facing off against adversaries, but a colleague who had just found himself elevated in extraordinary circumstances. In this era, Congress still worked: it made decisions that affected foreign policy and complicated domestic policy, making it difficult to be an overweening executive. Ford had an easy spirit, one that could work with others to accomplish common goals — but he’d also dig in his heels, as he did as a young man when he threatened to quit the football team (where he was fairly accomplished) if they agreed to Georgia Tech’s demands that a black player be benched during their match. While my libertarian self harrumphs at some of his policy decisions, one gets a sense from this book that he was principled but willing to be flexible: sometimes too much so, frankly, as when he wanted bans against “Saturday night special” handguns because of an uptick in handgun violence. One never doubts, however, he had the best of intentions.
I cannot honestly say this is a fair review of a presidential memoir; I read it 20 years ago and began to admire the man, and I read it again knowing far more about the background but still not able to put Ford in a box and rip into him like an opposing attorney. There is an earnestness about Gerald Ford that I love; he is clothed not with charm and flair like Kennedy, or cold cunning like Nixon. He is an everyman; he is Mr. Smith, come not just to Washington but to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is, of course, fascinating to see him as a witness to Watergate, to realize that he is not merely filling an office but is being thrown into the center of the action. In one of my recent Nixon books, I was struck by the paralysis of the RNC: Watergate started causing problems when Nixon was riding stag, without Agnew, and they couldn’t begin to start responding without having a stable veep at the helm. And the Democrats controlled Congress, so the man chosen had to be able to not only restore trust, but to work with Congress. The man and the hour had met. While that future veep gets deep into details on policy, it’s still fun to be in the room when history is being made– when he’s trying to figure out how to deal with China, with Russia, with the ailing economy.(I was happy to learn from this that Nixon admitted his wage and price controls were a mistake: it would’ve been better if Nixon or Ford had said that not only did they make things worse, but they were a gross overreach of the executive into matters that a Constitutional government has no place in addressing.) We get a sense of the man thrown into responsibility, and then — given how closely responsibility is linked to meaning — finding he loves the job too much to not fight for it. He was succeeded by Jimmy Carter, another very decent man who — like Ford — was not unfit for the office because of intelligence, but simply because the Oval Office is most effective when someone Machiavellian is wearing its ring. It’s sad, but — I fear — true. I was happy to revisit this, especially for the letter Ford wrote one of his sons who was entering adulthood: one of the quotes from that I often think of. It’s not pithy; it’s not sexy. It’s functional, and sincere. It is Jerry Ford. Would that his spirit lived more fully in DC today.
“You must realize that on the road of life, there will be disappointments, and that the best way to avoid another is to plan better and work harder.”
I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people.
Coming up: I’m practically at the end of Kennedy and Nixon and will post a review this weekend; I’m close to the end of SHELLI: R-Evolution. I’d ordered Vendetta, a look at RFK and Jimmy Hoffa’s relationship, but the supplier cancelled. Possibly for the best. I now have two books written by Nixon.
Send help.
Also, I will read a proper Ford biography before this project is over: while I do trust Jerry to speak for himself, I also want an outside view.
ALSO: this is read 76 for the year. Ford was president during the 1976 Bicentennial. Totally an accident..
“Let us pray here in the Old North Church tonight that those who follow one hundred or two hundred years from now and may look back at us and say: We were a society which combined reason with liberty and hope with freedom. May it be said above all: We kept the faith, freedom flourished, liberty lived. These are the abiding principles of our past and greatest promise of our future.”
– President Gerald R. Ford, Bicentennial address. 1976. Modern America: k Modern America: lol
WHAT have you finished reading recently? To Rescue the American Spirit.
WHAT are you reading now? A surprise SF title and A Time to Heal by Gerald Ford. Also trying to finish Kennedy and Nixon. Oh, and I have a good start on Angle of Repose. I might have a problem.
WHAT are you reading next? Probably one of these three. I’m still in my reading mood and I just watched two D-Day movies.
Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is, “A Story About Your Best Teacher”. I don’t think I can pick a best teacher; I have been blessed with more than a handful of people who were passionate about their students and their subject, and who managed to bring the two together. One man is worth mentioning, though, and I’ll call him “Mr. M” for now. Mr. M was my first college-level history professor; he was approaching retirement when I began taking classes with him, and as such was delightfully candid with his sidebars. His political philosophy was something akin to Bob Heinlein — a mix of libertarianism and militant anti-communism. (The first time I ever heard the name “Ayn Rand” was in his classroom!) When he was thinking, he had a habit of closing one eye and looking up as he pondered. He liked telling funny stories that connected with a point, and had a wonderful voice for it. (He was deep, dry, and sarcastic.) What I remember most about him, though, is that he introduced me to history as a worldview, a pattern of thinking. I remember vividly when he assessed our textbook, saying he felt that the author handled this part fairly well, but that they were weak on this part, and my eighteen year old mind was blown. I was still a kid, really, and the idea that textbooks were not The Authority – that they were written by people, that these people had limitations and biases – was entirely new to me. In another instance, we were discussing one of my incorrect exam answers (he was always concerned if I scored less than a hundred given that I always made hay with the bonus questions), and he told me not that I was wrong, but he explained to me the difference in characters between the king I’d vainly tried to remember and the actual king. As I remember, it was a matter of which English king tried to fight for religious toleration for Catholics. It was a moment of nestling so deep into history that kings became not answers to questions, but real people whose personalities we could grasp. Mr. M was an inspiration and mentor to me, and we remain in contact – he was actually my baptismal sponsor. Unfortunately, after decades of teaching he has evidently decided he is more interested in listening, as he rarely pipes up in Adult Formation unless we deliberately ask him what he thinks! Oh, and how’s this for a coincidence? Mr. M was in my facebook memories today!
I am not entirely sure why I called him Mark Twain incarnate after all these years, though.
“Christ, Jerry, isn’t this a wonderful country? Here we can talk about this and you and I can be friends, and eighteen months from now I’ll be going around the country kicking your ass in.” That, I thought, was a one hell of a way to speak to the next President of the United States. But it was vintage [Tip] O’Neill. A TIME TO HEAL, Gerald Ford
I am reading something other than dead presidents, but it’s a surprise SF novel. This is my Kindle shelf at the moment:
While I hadn’t planned to read Thedore Roosevelt until I’d finished off Garfield, etc, the ladyfriend bought this for me and I found it fairly absorbing – as in hey, why not spend two hours after work each day reading it before I even go inside the house? To Save the American Spirit is a narrative biography of Roosevelt that sees him as a forceful visionary, dashing into the 20th century and inspiring or dragging the American people behind him with a cry of “BULLY!”. It’s a very complimentary biography, then, but carries praise from Doris Kearns Goodwin and Walter Isaacson, both of whom have sterling reputations as biographers. Baier accomplishes what he sets out to do quite readily, I think – introduce readers to a man whose energy, optimism, and cheerful gung-ho drive can fascinate even an anti-government crank like myself.
I would’ve said even before reading this book that Thedore Roosevelt is easily one of the most memorable and interesting men to sit in the Oval Office: granted, he built the West Wing, so he did have a running start. Even as a young man who struggled with health problems and had not yer developed the physicality he was later known for – the pugilistic physique would come in time, especially after his adventures out west – Roosevelt had self-confidence enough that his university teachers would have to force him to shut up so they could properly teach their class. The older Oyster Bay Roosevelts were not interested in politics: they regarded it as beneath good breeding to engage in a field they associated with dubious political machines and the like. Roosevelt, however, was attracted to the fight: he wanted to be in the arena, and he wanted to clean it up. He made early common cause with Democrat president Grover Cleveland, a man who shared his zeal for fighting corruption and creating lasting civil service reforms. This was in a time when entire offices would be emptied out – Democrats replaced with Republicans – once a new man was in office, despite said offices not having any political roles.
Roosevelt is known for his “man in the arena” speech, – one that treats with disdain those who sit on the side and criticize, and praises instead the man or woman who jumps into the fray. Roosevelt was that kind of man: while serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and working so hard that his superior was annoyed at the constant planning (plainly John Long viewed his Sec. Nav job as a kind of drowsy sinecure), Roosevelt saw what was happening in Cuba and had to throw in. He gave orders in Long’s absence, and then resigned his post to raise a regiment of Rough Riders and take part in the looming conflict between the United States and Spain as the former intervened in Spain’s fight against Cuban rebels. There, he and his men distinguished himself – Roosevelt was particularly impressed by the black and Native American soldiers he fought alongside – and he came back a hero, setting the stage for him to be tapped as Vice President. An assassin’s bullet would usher Roosevelt into the White House, where he championed a more assertive executive.
My status as ‘conservatarian’ means I frequently view with skepticism the sweeping decisions made by men like Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin – however, I can generally step into another frame and see how those with another worldview could view other men as praiseworthy. With Roosevelt, I must admit the frame is fairly large and easy to step into: as I read this, I found myself within it despite not wanting to put myself there. The late 19th century was not known for executives with a lot of personality, but Teddy had it in spades: in The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy accused Roosevelt of being the first celebrity executive. (It was not a compliment.) Roosevelt was perhaps the answer to a question that lingered over the American union after the Civil War: who are we? Baier compares Roosevelt to Washington and Lincoln in terms of his lingering legacy, and after reading this I can understand why. If Washington presided over the Republic’s potentially stormy start, and Lincoln maintained and consolidated the Union, Roosevelt can be seen as having driven it into a new, more confident stage. He saw an America that was destined for greatness, not just sitting under its own fig tree and not being afraid – so he charged ahead with projects like the Panama Canal and urged the rapid expansion of the Navy, while at the same time making America a diplomatic contender by helping end the Russo-Japanese war. Even knowing the course of the 20th century and appreciating that American ‘greatness’ came at the cost of DC becoming a bloated monstrosity that is more responsive to internal lobbyists and external cronies – Roosevelt’s vision is attractive. It made me think of Obama, actually: by the time he was elected, I was already too disappointed in him to vote for him (2008 remains the only presidential election I’ve not voted in), he still made me Believe. His “It was a creed…” speech is a masterstroke of rhetoric, and Roosevelt was flinging out those “Stand up and cheer” speeches constantly. If nothing else, this book really drives home how inspiring he could be.
While I want to find a more even-handed take on Roosevelt in time (something that criticizes his zeal for engaging in action that goes well beyond Constitutional or even traditional mandates), this was fun to read and gave me a general overview with which to start developing a better appreciation of ol’ TR. Whoever much I want to dislike him because of his overreach, I find it impossible not to admire him as a man.
Related: The Old Lion, Jeff Shaara. A very celebratory novel of TR.
The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Exercise in Liberty is a unique work, as it is a history of how the Declaration came to be – not only politically, but philosophically. It begins as formal history, recounting the early 1770s as Parliament’s ‘long train of abuses’ began assembling itself against the American colonies. Birzer takes us through arguments and debates as the Americans speak out against abuses like the Stamp Act, the Quebec Act, and the Coercive Acts. We see them in their own words moving gradually from protesting their rights as Englishmen to protesting their natural rights as men, and then striking for Independency. That independency begins first in fact, rather than rhetoric, as various states adopted new constitutions in early ’76 which were free of England save for common law. We are privileged, via Birzer, to see voices from all sides, as he quotes from pamphleteers and essayists at length.
After studying the Declaration itself, Birzer borrows a page from Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order to examine the long traditions in political philosophy that led to the Declaration being written. Jefferson modestly opined that he had done nothing but capture the common thinking of the people. Through this work we can see a little of the truth in that – Birzer excerpts Dickinson, Adams, and others’ work – but one must push back against Jefferson a bit. It is one thing to summarize a people’s thinking; it is quite another to summarize it well, to capture the spirit and distill it into lightning that will continue inspiring Americans for now two and a half centuries. This is, in short, not merely a history of the document that declared American independence, but an exercise in the studia humanitatis, the classical and medieval tradition of searching for what it means to be human and to live well. This is no doubt intentional, as Birzer sees the Declaration as part of a tradition that began with Plato’s Republic and continued through Cicero’s On the Republic and Augustine’s City of God, each a reflection on how our political life is tied to our human flourishing. This ‘great conversation’ has other examples – notably, Virgil drawing on Homer for his Aeneid, and in turn inspiring The Divine Comedy. This work was both fascinating and deeply satisfying, written by a man who clearly loves his subject, and manages to be both serious and conversational.
WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Letters of JFK, edited by Martin Sandler. Very nearly finished with Brad Birzer’s The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty.
WHAT are you reading next? You know, we’re supposed to have finished our CC spin (for me, Angle of Repose) by June 5. I should really get on that. Also, random coincidence….three years ago I shared a quote from Angle of Repose on facebook!
In my mind I write letters to the newspapers, saying Dear Editor. As a modern man and a one-legged man, I can tell you that the conditions are similar. We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. I had a wife who after twenty-five years of marriage took on the coloration of the 1960s. I have a son who, though we are affectionate with one another, is no more my true son than if he breathed through gills. That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind. The present of 1970 is no more an extension of my grandparents’ world, this West is no more a development of the West they helped build, than the sea over the Santorin is an extension of that once island of rock and olives. My wife turns out after a quarter of a century to be someone I never knew, my son starts all fresh from his own premises. My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents’ side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins , or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings.”
Ten Most Recently Liked Vids on Youtube
None of these would embed. Grrr.
(1) A live scene from HARRY V. I’ve never seen this produced on the stage — only the Branagh movie — so this was interesting. Harry’s “Once more into the breach” and “Crispian’s Day” speeches are favorites.
Gaming humor from a great channel that does a lot of it, beginning with Epic NPC Man. They have an RDR2 series I love.
(3) “Doctor vs Firefighter: Never Have I Ever”. I watch a lot of occupational videos on youtube — doctors, lawyers, firemen, etc reacting to footage — and this is a collab between two favorites.
Auto mechanics react to weird/outrageous ‘just rolled into the shop’ videos. Includes footage of a car trying to crank when the door is unlocked.
(6) A cover of LagWagon’s “May 16” from ‘WinningShot’, from a…Korean band. Every year I share the original on facebook on May 16th for some reason. No one has ever commented on it.
I hated having to watch this so much, but sassy Massie stayed funny to the end. “I would have come out sooner, but it took a minute to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.” Massie was primary’d by the Don for refusing to help pass the omnibus bill (that was basically Joe Biden’s budget but with some new stuff) and working with house Democrats to force action on Epstein.
“When you talk to [John F. Kennedy] or see him you always have the impression that his big white teeth are ready to bite off a huge hunk of life. There is determination in his green Irish eyes. He has two backbones: his own and his fathers. Somehow he has hit the bulls-eye in every respect. He can’t fail.” – Inga Petersen, quoted in THE LETTERS OF JFK.
“Believe me, this wasn’t my idea!” Weaver shouted in her customary southern drawl. “But you can’t just say no to the president of the United States!” SHELLI: R-EVOLUTION
Having finished listening to George H.W. Bush’s family read his personal letters and diary entries across fifty years in All the Best, I could not very well refrain from the temptation of reading JFK’s letters. The Letters of JFK, however, is a different kind of collection than All the Best, and does little to reveal the man within the myth. Perhaps that is as he would have wanted it.
Letters is far more oriented toward Kennedy’s public life, and frankly suffers from bloat. Long documents that were technically policy statements delivered as letters are included and quoted at length. We are given, for instance, the entirety of JFK’s letter to Congress submitting proposed civil rights legislation. Readers keenly interested in Kennedy’s policy decisions may find such extensive primary-source material valuable, and I found them interesting to a degree. While Kennedy was committed to Civil Rights, he was also committed to not losing elections – that mean threading the same thin line LBJ would have to thread, advancing the Cause while not infuriating Southern Democrats.
Another major difference between this collection and All the Best, George is that it includes letters written to JFK as well as those written by him. We hear from schoolchildren smitten by the young president, and we are given exchanges with Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Seeing both sides of a correspondence was largely fascinating. One particularly entertaining exchange finds Kennedy trading blows with Eleanor Roosevelt after she casually passed along rumors that Joseph Kennedy was buying the election for his son outright. JFK was obviously angry, but he also knew better than to antagonize the most politically prominent woman in America. He manages to demand an apology while simultaneously charming his way back into her good graces.
A curious omission is the absence of any Kennedy-Nixon correspondence. Nixon, if mentioned at all, appears only as a malignant enemy lurking in the shadows whom young Jack must defeat—the Mordred of Camelot. My recent cross-reading has left me with a far more human picture of their relationship than this volume provides, and the fact that the editor includes condolence letters written to Jackie from every Tom, Dick, and Harry but not Dick Nixon is not only a missed opportunity, but nearly insulting to history.
There are surprises here. Young Jack was initially cautious about American entry into World War II, for instance. Later, after entering military service in the Pacific, he expressed open contempt for commentators who beat their chests and bloviated about the necessity of total war from a comfortable distance. Kennedy had watched men die, nearly died himself when PT-109 was cut in half, and borne responsibility for getting his surviving crew to safety. He had a different perspective, one forged in pain, blood, and despair. One of the most striking letters included in the collection comes from an officer aboard the Japanese ship that struck PT-109 that night. Years later, he wrote Kennedy a gracious note congratulating him on both his survival and his success. Could I have expected this? Absolutely not, and it completely delighted me. It made me think of Poppy, standing in honor of an emperor who he’d fought with zeal as a young man – our humanity bobbing to the surface once nationalism’s fervor has faded.
Unsurprisingly, the editorial commentary is almost wholly flattering. No mention is made, for instance, of the longstanding controversy surrounding Profiles in Courage and allegations that it was substantially ghostwritten. More importantly, the editor seems far more interested in preserving the Kennedy legend than revealing the Kennedy man: in fact, he refers to Kennedy himself as projecting the legend through a “triumph of the will” — displaying his strength, his optimism, his vigah, rising above his chronic pain and life-threatening illnesses. I will admit: I find Kennedy’s resilience inspiring, especially since I’ve struggled with one illness after another since 2021, with each medical intervention made bringing successes – but new challenges. However, I still wanted Jack – not JFK.
I wanted the man beneath the martyr’s crown—the real Jack, the man who got spitting mad, down in the dumps, or tickled pink over some inanity. He’s here – occasionally, but it’s hard to spot him between the long exchanges with other dignitaries. Jack is buried beneath speeches and policy letters. I’ll definitely be reading more about him, because I’m starting to hear the siren song of why people liked him so much and remember him so fondly. I’m not particularly impressed by this book, especially given its ending with correspondence that supports a Mossad-conspiracy take on JFK’s assassination. I’m glad I read it, however, because it offered me just enough to make me more curious about the man beneath the cape of martyrdom.
When you talk to [JFK] or see him you always have the impression that his big white teeth are ready to bite off a huge hunk of life. There is determination in his green Irish eyes. He has two backbones: His own and his fathers. Somehow he has hit the bulls-eye in every respect. “He cant fail.”
Oddly enough, the man who, as an adult, received the last rites of the Catholic Church four times—and who, according to historian Richard Reeves, was “something of a medical marvel, kept alive by a complicated daily combination of pills and injections”—never let his physical ailments negatively affect the way he conducted his presidency. “He lived with pain,” William Manchester wrote, “though only those who knew him well could tell when he was suffering. … This image was a triumph of will.”
BUCKLE UP! May 2026’s moviewatch is….eclectic. Or, as President Bush might say, eckalectic. “Oh, God, he’s doing presidents again” you say? Yes. Yes, I’m doing presidents. And other stuff!
Frost/Nixon, 2008. Watching this because I’m fully in the presidential bottle, and by god I might as well finish it off. The film is about a British comedian with aspirations standing who sees interviewing the recently resigned and generally disgraced President Nixon as a step to bigger and better things. Nixon sees it as a way to pay his lawyers off, and for the first hour or so, Nixon wipes the floor with his interlocutor. Nixon’s faced off against Brezhnev and Kissinger, this televised toff is no match. But then, Frost’s desperation to sell his show, and one of his researchers’ crusader fixation on taking Nixon down, result in an ambush where Nixon is on tape talking about dealing with Hunt, one of the principles of the bungling Watergate caper. The result is a reversal of sorts, though – to be blunt – I have literally never heard the name David Frost except in connection to this movie and book, so I still think Nixon got the long-term best of him. I will say, though, as a movie, this is terrific character drama even if they invent things like Nixon calling Frost in the middle of the night while drunk and exposing his soul as a man who had been spit on by the elites all his life, and who by god was going to show those bastards once and for all. I prefer Hopkins’ Nixon to Langella’s, but Langella and Sheen are quite good in this film. At the end, when Nixon is admitting that yes, he failed – he let down the American people – Sheen’s eyes are shining not with the glow of a man who just bagged a trophy, but as a man who appears to be caught up in the intimacy of seeing another man’s soul. And then the crusader barges into the tape again and ruins the moment, sneering that Nixon’s political legacy is that now moron corpowriters like himself affix -gate to every bit of political wrongdoing. Nixon’s political legacy is nuclear arms treaties, the end of Vietnam, the end of the draft, the opening of China. What’s history going to remember you for, you sniggering little weasel? I don’t even know your name. (Which is ironic, because you’re played by the guy in Galaxy Quest who doesn’t have a name and only dies to prove the situation is serious.)
Nixon: Did you have a pleasant evening last night? Frost: Mm, yes. Nixon: Do any fornicating? Frost: O_O ?! Producer: David, we’re going live in 3, 2, 1 – Frost: O_O
Death of a President, 2006. Technically this is a rewatch though I haven’t watched it since it came out in 2006. This is an alt-history documentary about how the world changes after the assassination of George W. Bush. As I remember – and my memories are old enough to get drafted and almost old enough to drink beer – at the time I’d become increasingly concerned with the expansion of the police and surveillance state in the US, and was primed for a movie that attacked it. I was impressed by the integration of real footage and the story – i.e. putting real-world happenings into a fictitious narrative. Now we just call that ‘the news’, but in fact the seemingly mundane ‘sources’ of this movie are what drive its effect. This looks like actual interviews, it looks like actual footage. It’s interesting to have watched this twice in very different political tempers – when I first watched in 2006 I was angry about Bush and the expanding police / surveillance state and was then surprised by the artistry of the movie. Now I was watching it off a Kennedy assassination read and pondering my age. Now when I saw the rioters I could tap in not to the rage of those years – we’ve all given in on data surveillance – but the irritation of someone who works for a living of seeing young people who don’t blocking streets and yelling twitter slogans. I get the anger, but are you doing anything with it other than posting memes and causing trouble for people who have no connection to the issue-makers? Are you doing anything, even something as small as using browsers or extensions that kneecap the Watchers, besides dropping dramatic tweets? Late thirties me / early forties me and mid-twenties me frequently scream in silence at one another in my mind. I take some comfort in knowing I am not alone. Quoting Paul Kingsnorth:
“When I look back on this now, I’m quite touched by my younger self. I would like to be him again, perhaps just for a day; someone to whom all sensations are fiery and all answers are simple.”
The Final Days, 1989. Based on the Woodward book about the end of the Nixon administration. Lane Smith plays RN: I love Smith, being introduced to him as the villain coach in The Mighty Ducks and then The Villan Lawyer in My Cousin Vinnie. Lane was the main reason I kept watching this movie, because after the high-octane experiences of NIXON and FROST/NIXON it was …dull. There was only one scene that grabbed me, when Nixon breaks down in tears praying while Kissinger looks on awkwardly.
9/11: Inside Air Force One. Documentary.President George W. Bush is in Sarasota, Florida when the Twin Towers are hit; he jumps in Air Force One but learns that Washington is targeted, and then a plane is regarded as a threat to AF1 so it spends part of the day doing circles above of the Gulf and frustratedly trying to find out what’s going on.
Mars Attacks, 1996. A space invaders….spoof? I watched this several times in the late 1990s and was dimly aware that a lot of people in it were’ famous’, but – boy howdy, how did I not remember Natalie Portman in this? I’ve had a thing for her since seeing her in Attack of the Clones! And kid-me missed the fact that Jack Nicholson played two different roles: now, having watched so much of him, I clocked him immediately as the sleazy casino-hotel owner. Another “Whoa, is that –” moment was seeing Jack Black as a gung-ho infantryman; the first time I ever noticed him as an actor was in Airborne. If you haven’t seen this, it’s a comical SF-action movie in which Earth is invaded by goop-heads from Mars, who over-run North America until the music of Slim Whitman stops them.
Invaders from Mars, 1986. This remake of a 1950s movie starts off as a very suspenseful, creepy story about a boy who sees the adults in his life becoming zombified by a mysterious crash site. At first, I was thinking that this is probably not a movie to be watching right before bed – but as the dialogue grew clunkier and the alien invaders were sighted (they’re walking boogers), such fears diminished and I continued watching in a spirit of ‘what in the hell is this?”
Independence Day, 1996. A rewatch, but it’s been a very long time. The endgame is a bit silly (humans uploading a virus to an alien ship to stop its invasion of Earth), but the build-up and character drama is good. I’d suspect Mars Attacks was a parody of this if they hadn’t been released in the same year. (Do you really need me to precis the plot?It’s Independence Day.)
Starship Troopers, 1997. SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP! Would you like to know more?
Nuremberg, 2025. Immediately after World War 2, the United States proposes to put Hermann Goering and other surviving members of the Nazi High Command on trial. A psychiatrist is tapped to ensure that the men are mentally fit to stand trial and will not commit suicide. The shrink finds himself distracted, even seduced, by Goering’s humanity rather than his monstrosity – at least, until footage of the death camps is aired publicly for the first time. Excellent character drama, and it was nice to see Colin Hanks: I’ve enjoyed his work since Roswell in the early 2000s. Russell Crowe delivered “der Dicke” well.
“You are NOT Alexander the Great! You’re a fat man in a cell.”
“Just because a man is your ally does not mean he is on your side.”
Babette’s Feast, 1987. A Danish film about a small Protestant community in Jutland whose spiritual leaders, two beautiful sisters, receive a French maid. On the occasion of the sister’s father’s 100th birthday, the French maid Babette – who, we find, used to be a chef – asks to hold a French feast. The Puritans are very nervous about the whole ‘eating for pleasure’ thing, but once they enjoy a five-course meal that involves different wines, they all prove very chatty. My summation is as accurate as someone drinking a century-old wine and going “Mm, tastes very good. Rich flavor.” It’s a deep movie that will improve with re-watches, no doubt.
Kung Fu Hustle, 2004. A boy with a kung fu gift is humiliated while trying to protect an innocent girl as a youth; he resolves to join the Evil League of Evil, the “Axe Gang”. The Axe Gang are really the Hatchet Gang, but Axe probably sounds cooler. While on a mission for the Hatchet Gang, the boy runs across the girl – now grown up – and is inspired to repent of his evil ways and fight the Axe Gang’s Kung Fu secret weapon, Old Man Who Fights for Pride and Resolves to Kill or Be Killed.
These last two movies were at the home of my godfather; my godmother vowed that next time we’d watch a rom-com that did not involve subtitles. Speaking of!
There’s Something About Mary, 1998. Continuing my quest to watch the movies other people my age were watching when we were young. This was evidently sponsored by Dunkin Donuts, since everyone is drinking it. It’s a fairly stupid movie; Ben Stiller hires Matt Dillon to find an almost-girlfriend of his; Dillon, a skeevy guy, falls for the girl. Actually, a lot of guys fall for the girl. I’m not sure why people were talking about it in high school. I guess there were some…’shock value’ scenes in this, but we’ve degenerated so far in – holy hell, 28 years – that almost nothing registered. I’ve watched John Waters at this point: a dog on cocaine is nothing.
My Date with the President’s Daughter, 1998. A rewatch. A loving rewatch. The president’s daughter, Hallie, is desperate for a social life and escapes her detail while they’re distracted by the president wandering around in a crowd to run into a mall. There she meets Will Friedel, aka ERIC FROM BOY MEETS WORLD. He’s been bet by his friends he can’t score a date to the dance, and after he has a happy meeting with Hallie in a clothing store, he asks her if she wants to go. Pick you up at seven? “Big white house, you can’t miss it.” Will is evidently not tuned into C-SPAN, as he has no idea what 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue means until he’s in. He also has no idea who Hallie is, as the demur president’s daughter promptly forces him to help her ditch her detail so they can have a lovely night together. The kids’ fathers resolve to find them – together! Meanwhile, after the kids get in trouble, they figure – what the hell? This is their last night of freedom so they might as well play it to the hilt. This movie, like Airborne, is cocaine nostalgia for me. I think Friedel was my entrepot for this, but it became a VHS classic I watched to death. The amount of dialogue that came to mind while watching this is insane. My high school brain had very poor prioritization skills. Also: OH. MY. GOD, Nicole de Boer (Ezri Dax) has a minor part in this.
Original Disney movies, man, those were the days. I’m still trying to find a way to rewatch PRINCIPAL TAKES A HOLIDAY, another favorite from that period.
W. 2008. Oliver Stone. Again, a rewatch, but I watched this when it first hit DVD back in the day, and back when I was in Anakin Skywalker to Ben Kenobi “I HATE YOUUUUUUU” mode in re: Bush. I decided to rewatch this because (1) I’m still working on the presidential bottle, (2) I’ve been binging on Bushkies and (3) It offered connections to both my other Oliver Stone films this spring and arguing with my past self. Josh Brolin plays W, a wastrel who wants desperately to please his father James Cromwell, paterfamilias of the esteemed Bush clan; Richard Dreyfuss skillfully uses Bush’s desire to please HW to manipulate him into doing the will of the Beast. The film is a back and forth between George W growing out of his youthful indolence into a measured politician, but one who still carries insecurities and the desire to be taken seriously. One of the best scenes to me is still when Dick Cheney stands up and gives a geopolitical lecture to the Cabinet, one that points to controlling the middle east as key to controlling oil: I’m relatively sure I’d already run into Jim Kunstler preaching peak oil at this time, so I was unexpectedly riveted. I will say that a son worrying about his father’s health hits a lot differently after ~28 years: a young college kid doesn’t absorb near as much of that scene as a man entering his middle ages does. One aspect of this film – the rivalry between George W. and Jeb – was completely lost on me in 2008, because until the 2016 elections I had no idea who Jeb Bush even was. (Please clap.) This film didn’t take me back the way I thought it would; the only actors I really liked were James Cromwell and Dreyfuss. Brolin’s Bush seemed a lot more reactive and childish than feels appropriate: granted, I’ve just come off listening to a very serious Bush read his memoirs of this point so the see-saw is not exactly balanced.
Also, Ioan Gruffudd played Tony Blair! I hadn’t encountered Hornblower yet, where he plays good ol’ Horry.
George HW Bush: What kind of life are you cut out for, exactly? Partying? Chasing tail? Driving drunk? Who do you think you are, a Kennedy? George W: …. Me: XD
George W: Laura, politics ain’t a library. It’s a kick-ass skull-crushing war, an’ I lost.
Dick Cheney: 80% of the world’s future energy reserves are right here in Eurasia where the prize ultimately lies. Oil. Gas. Water. Me: The middle east isfamous for its ample freshwater reserves.
Dick Cheney: 40% of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Control Iran, control Eurasia, control the world. Empire. Me: Well, hey, at least we’ve reduced that to 20% now.
(Actually, I paused the movie and looked this up: the only way Cheney’s claim even approaches reality is if maritime oil shipping is the only oil shipping counted. )
Karl Rove: What about that swagger of yours? Bush: In Texas we call that walkin’
The Devil Wears Prada 2, 2026. A rare in-theaters watch for me, with the ladyfriend of course, I’d forgotten most of the story of Devil Wears Prada, except “Anne Hathaway is abused by her boss Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci is also present”. Anne Hathaway is enough to get me to watch any movie. This movie is more about the state of journalism than fashion: Anne’s character is a journalist whose publication is closed down, but the dramatic speech she gives at an awards ceremony lands her a job invite at the same fashion magazine she worked at twenty years ago as a personal assistant. I won’t give any spoilers, but it turned out to be a sweet story. The ladyfriend approved of the soundtrack. I probably should have re-watched the original film, because I’d forgotten one character entirely.
Just for giggles, I checked my moviewatch logs for the original, and:
“The Devil Wears Prada, 2006. Anne Hathaway plays an aspiring journalist who lands a job at a fashion magazine with a psycho boss. Stanley Tucci also appears. “
Glad to know my memory is “dead on balls accurate”, as Marisa Tomei put it so eloquently in My Cousin Vinnie.
Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, 1991. CHERNOBYL AND THE FALL OF THE USSR….IN Spaaaaace! For whatever reason, this remains High School Me’s favorite Star Trek film. Maybe it’s the eternal wisdom: “There is an old Vulcan proverb; only Nixon could go to China.” The plot: a Klingon moon goes kablooey, limiting the Klingon Empire to fifty years of life. Spock reaches out to the emperor, Gorkon, and says – hey, how’s about you and me do a little perestroika? Then it turns out – whoopsasdasie – Starfleet has people of its own who don’t much like this idea of namby-pampying the Klingons. An action-spy thriller ensue, with a bonus prison escape. The amount of hamming it up while quoting Shakespeare by Christopher Plummer is still delightful. I did not expect to take this as seriously as I did; I mean, aside from a Star Trek action movie. I’ll be honest: my Star Trek bona fides aside, it’s been a long time since I really did a re-watch of the original Trek movies, though I did start one on this blog a couple of years ago. (I think I stopped at Search for Spock in March ‘25. Whoopsie.) Anyway, I…got unexpectedly into it, both the Klingon’s dread of extinction and the criminal mystery despite knowing perfectly well that at some point Odo and Joseph Sisko are going to be indicted as co-conspirators.
Kirk: Don’t believe them. Don’t trust them. Spock: They are dying. Kirk: Let them die.
Comms: Report back on the double, do you read? Uhura: We’re to report back at once. Chekov: But we cannot abandon Captain Kirk! Valeris: Four hundred years ago, workers who found their livelihood threw their wooden shoes called sabot into the machines to stop them. Chekov & Uhurua: (blank stares ) Valeris: ….hence the word, sabotage. Uhura: We are experiencing technical difficulties; all backup systems are inoperable. Chekov: Excellent! I mean…too bad.
Chekov: Course heading, captain? Kirk: Second star to the right….and straight on ’til morning.
I had planned to watch Pressure, the new Brendan Frasier movie where he plays Ike, but I had conflicting plans on Sunday (historical society meeting) and my local AMCs were evidently doing a one-week only run and aren’t showing it next weekend. Bizaare.
So ends the merrie month o’ May; the green buds are no longer swelling, but bursting into full flower. Summer is here, what I….lovingly….call the Great Sticky Siege. The outside world is quickly becoming not a place of warmth and flowers and gentle breezes, but oppressive heat, despairing humidity, and enough mosquitos to supply a blood drive. May was shaping up to be a very busy month at first, but adverse reactions to a new medicine took me out of the running for a few days. In book-adjacent news, one of my favorite authors has just moved to Birmingham and has mentioned his interest in hanging out with readers, so I’m looking forward to that. He and I have met and talked several times in person (…in Birmingham, when he was doing events at Samford), but I’d much rather hang out at Miss Myra’s and have real fellowship. The month featured three five-star bolded titles, one of which I’ve not yet reviewed, and the other of which marked the end of the Harry Potter Full Cast Audio Editions. Sure, I started listening to them again, and I’ve talked two friends into trying them, but the first time is always the most special. The bolded titles were: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Being Nixon, and Maverick, the latter a biography of Thomas Sowell. It’s hard to summarize an intellectual biography, but I really don’t want to short-round him. While I haven’t read a lot of Sowell, the two titles I have read (Black Rednecks and White Liberals; Basic Economics) played a huge role in my own intellectual development.
America @ 250
I’m not going to list titles because almost all of my reading this month was America @ 250 adjacent, aside from Harry Potter. The project is not developing as I’d intended — with multiple tracks — but has been mostly fixated on biographies, particularly of presidents with some outliers like Thomas Sowell. The Midwest Survival Guide could technically count as a celebration of American ‘places’, I suppose. One highlight was beginning to read Gore Vidal’s “Narratives of Empire” series where he tells the story of the American Republic from Burr to the mid-20th century via character-centered novels.
Science Survey
Finally, blood in the water! I read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s work on alien encounters.
Coming up in June
For those who are weary of biographies, Doug Brode is releasing Shelli: R-Evolution in mid-June, so I’ll definitely be reading that. (I haven’t read any SF this year.) It’s third in a series following a human and synthetic detective team. I’ll also be reading more biography and history, though probably more oriented toward the Revolutionary period. Part of me wants to jump back into my formal Hail to the Chief trek, though, picking up with Garfield, but I haven’t read ANY of the niche topics I wanted to cover — like the role of Indians in the Civil War, that sort of thing. I also need to get to my copy of GIRLS by Freya India, finish my Birzer history of the Declaration of Independence, and check out End of the Road, which is very intriguing to me because my family is full of truckers.
Reading Freely 
