Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander is the antithesis of the grandstanding blowhard that so commonly shows up in the Senate. He made his mark in his first governor's race by donning a red and black plaid work shirt, and walking across Tennessee, visiting every one of the ninety-three county seats. He had to clean up a terrible corruption mess left by Democrat Ray Blanton(exposed by Fred Thompson), and worked conscientiously (if not always successfully) to improve the schools and economic health of the state. From there he moved on to head the University of Tennessee, and eventually to the Senate, while starting a business, serving in the Reagan administration, and teaching a bit at Harvard enroute.
His biggest 'gimmick' for the crowds is that he plays the piano passably well.
He is, in other words, a nerd.
This gives him a real advantage: When he stands up to say something serious, we'd better take him seriously.
Today he stood up in the well of the Senate and issued the warning to the Obama White House: If you create an enemies list, a la Nixon and company, you are on the path to self-destruction. I know, I was there when it happened.
His remarks in part here:
In 1969 and during the first half of 1970, I was a wet-behind-the-ears, 29-year-old staff aide in the West Wing of the Nixon White House. I was working for the wisest man in that White House, Bryce Harlow, who was a friend of President Johnson, as well as the favorite staff member of President Eisenhower, and President Nixon's first appointee.
Based upon that experience and my forty years since then in and out of public life, I want to make what I hope will be taken as a friendly suggestion to President Obama and his White House: don't create an enemies list.
[...]
In 1971 Chuck Colson, who was then a member of President Nixon's staff and today is admired for his decades of selfless work in prison reform, presented a list of what he called "persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration." He said he thought the administration should "maximize our incumbency...[or] to put it more bluntly...use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." On that list of 20 people were CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr, Washington Star columnist Mary McGrory, Leonard Woodcock, the head of the United Auto Workers, John Conyers, the Democratic Congressman from Michigan, Edwin Guthman, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, and several prominent businessmen such as Howard Stein, of the Dreyfus Corporation and Arnold Picker, vice president of United Artists. The New York Times and the Washington Post were made out to be enemies of the Republic.
Now make no mistake, politics was not such a gentlemanly affair in those days either. After Barry Goldwater had won the Presidential nomination in 1964, Daniel Schorr had told CBS viewers that Goldwater had "travel[led] to Germany to join-up with the right wing there" and - "visit[ed] Hitler's old stomping ground." Schorr later corrected that on the air.
What was different about Colson's effort, though, was the open declaration of war upon anyone who seemed to disagree with administration policies. Colson later expanded his list to include hundreds of people, including Joe Namath, John Lennon, Carol Channing, Gregory Peck, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Congressional Black Caucus, Alabama Governor George Wallace. All this came out during the Watergate hearings. You could see an administration spiraling downwards. And, of course, we all know where that led.
There is much more, and you can find his full remarks here.
When the nerd starts to crowing, it's best we pay attention.
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