We Edited That

Hendrik Hertzberg is obviously right that the Republicans' Tuesday convention theme, "We Built That," was based on a grossly deceptive edit of Barack Obama's July speech at a firehouse in Virginia. Say what you will about the president, but the idea that he would tell entrepreneurs that they didn't build their businesses is ridiculous. It would be evidence of dementia, like standing in the rain and saying it's not raining. Obama was making a point about how society trains, encourages, and often subsidizes job creators. That "unbelievable American system," he said, in a rousing tribute to American exceptionalism, "you didn't build that."

You could say the comment resonates because people have a gut feeling, thanks to lackluster job and GDP growth, that Obama doesn't understand how the economy works -- but the comment doesn't resonate unless you change it.

You could say, as Andrew Sullivan has, that Obama deserves the drubbing because he spoke carelessly -- but if it was really that bad, then the mendacious edits wouldn't be necessary. Real gaffes, such as Richard Nixon saying he wasn't a crook or Gerald Ford that Poland wasn't under Soviet domination, don't require deliberate erasures.

You could say that Obama was giving too much weight to communitarianism. Free education, tax breaks, and infrastructure won't create a job unless an individual or group of individuals adds vision and energy and risks capital. It did sound like Obama was scolding entrepreneurs for thinking they're all that, which seems churlish when we've got 20 million out of work. Give us 5% growth, and keep your discourses on political philosophy to yourself.

But that's not what Republicans said all day yesterday. They said, falsely, that Obama told business builders they didn't build anything. Their visceral, uncontainable contempt for Obama simmered behind the sentimental faux documentaries. Besides, they know that their base constituency will believe anything -- he was born in Kenya, he's a socialist, he wants to tear down and diminish the United States, he believes only government can create jobs. I'll leave out of the equation whether it's harmful to the country to alter a president's public policy comments and pummel him for what he didn't say as a means of seizing power. I imagine it's been done before, though an example doesn't spring to mind. I'll even leave aside that the U.S. would probably be better off if many Republicans hadn't given in to these passions in the first months of his presidency and dedicated themselves to defeating rather than working with him. I just keep remembering Karl Rove telling Republicans to treat Obama with respect since they can't win without millions of his 2008 voters. I wonder how these tactics are playing with them?

Three Great Lincolns

On display at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the "bubble top" limousine used by FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower and briefly by Kennedy

The car in which President Kennedy lost his life; also used by Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter

President Reagan was about to step into this car at the moment of the 1981 attempt on his life, when a bullet struck him after ricocheting off the armor plating on the side; previously used by Ford and Carter

"A Man's Man"

Rep. Dan Lungren describes a rare moment of sheer grace in politics. Already on the defensive for pardoning former President Nixon in September 1974, Gerald Ford visited his stricken predecessor at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in November, four days before a midterm election in which the GOP would suffer historic losses. Why did Ford do it? Because Pat Nixon and Nixon's doctors told Ford that a visit would be good for 37's spirits.

Nixon Props

In "West Wing" 2:17 -- an episode in which a silver-maned senator who looks a lot like former Sen. John Warner, an ex-Nixon advance man, conducts an epic filibuster -- Bartlett aides Josh, Toby, and Sam caucus in Josh's office. On the wall behind his head, you can see a photo of Presidents Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon that was taken in the White House in 1981 before the three formers departed for Anwar Sadat's funeral.

Who's Boss?

A view from London of the gracious Lee Annenberg, who died last week. That's she, as chief of protocol, a post for which she was immensely well suited, with Presidents Carter, Nixon, and Ford on the way to Alexandria in 1981 for Anwar Sadat's funeral. I love the expression on RN's face.

Obama Is The New Ford

Nixon Library director Tim Naftali:

The previous administration leaves under a cloud and is very unpopular. And when there are unpopular presidencies, the country is desperate for a healer. Gerald Ford was a healer and moved the country forward. And I have a great deal of hope and a great deal of expectation that Barack Obama will be another healer who will also move us forward.

Put Not All Your China In Cabinets

Ben Stein, who wrote speeches for Presidents Nixon and Ford, reflects on the Cabinet meetings he attended early in 38's term:

The Ford cabinet experience was educational. The men and women in the room, high-ranking White House officials and secretaries of cabinet departments, were pleasant and well briefed. But they struck me as similar to small-town Rotary Club members or Junior Chamber of Commerce officials — polite and cordial, but far from rocket scientists. They were just high-average to B+ status, with the exception of some supersmart types like Henry Kissinger....

The Obama people could be wonderful, smart people, an order of magnitude above what I saw at the Ford cabinet meetings. Obviously, many people believe that they are.

But they are just human beings, albeit in some cases human beings with glowing résumés. I do not see the supermen and superwomen. They do not have the gift of foresight. They have never been in a situation like this, at least not exactly. There is simply no good reason to believe they will get it right except by trial and error, turning the tumblers until the safe eventually opens. The problems we face now are so large that they humble the average and the above average and even the very much above average.

High-level bureaucrats, like high-level professors or doctors or investment bankers or baseball pitchers, are just people, whether serving with Bush 43 or Barack Obama or anyone else. I can vividly recall leaving those long-ago cabinet meetings and saying to myself as I walked across West Executive Avenue, “Put not your trust in princes.” It’s a proverb for a good reason — then, now, and always.