Commentary Update for December 23, 2001: Bird Commencement, Feingold, Lindsay,

Dear Friends of Commentary:

Former President of the Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education LuAnn Bird, a three-time guest on Commentary and frequent target of the Oshkosh Northwestern editorial board, graduated from Milwaukee's Alverno College on December 15 with a degree in Community Leadership and Development. She was chosen to deliver the student commencement speech, and graciously e-mailed me a copy of the manuscript:
http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/labirdcommencement.htm

E-mail congratulations to LuAnn can be sent to: labird@new.rr.com

In other matters, our own Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold has an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post that paints a disturbing picture of the Ashcroft Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 detention policy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15225-2001Dec21.html

One wonders if the Senator is having second thoughts about being the only Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to support Ashcroft's nomination last January. On the other hand, prior Attorney Generals may have had even less respect for the Bill of Rights than Ashcroft, including Bobby Kennedy (JFK's Attorney General).

"Hold on Tony, you can't be serious that Bobby Kennedy, one of the darlings of American liberals, respected the Bill of Rights less than Ashcroft."

Hey, don't take my word for it. Civil Libertarian Nat Hentoff, in a January 2001 Village Voice obituary for the late New York City Mayor John Lindsay, quotes Sid Zion (US Attorney from New Jersey under Kennedy) as saying:
"There never was and hopefully never will be an attorney general who more violated the Bill of Rights than Bobby Kennedy."

Turns out that Lindsay, during his 4 terms in the US House of Representative before becoming NYC Mayor, was a Feingold-esque Civil Libertarian who took Kennedy on in floor speeches. Hentoff's obituary is here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0104/hentoff.php

I might also add that John Lindsay is one of the reasons I got interested in politics and political rhetoric in the first place. I remember being 8 years old in 1969 and following Lindsay's Mayoral re-election campaign. He ran as Independent against a dull Republican and an even duller Democrat (much like Jesse the Body in the Minnesota governor's race a few years back). One day, a group of 8th graders at my Catholic grade school broke into a schoolyard chant that to this day remains fixed in my mind: "Marijuana, Marijuana, LSD, LSD, Rockefeller makes it, Lindsay takes it, why can't we? Why can't we?" (that's Rockefeller as in Nelson, the New York Governor at the time). Just think, if there had been a DARE program around at the time I might have actually understood what the chant was about! (:-).

I found myself intrigued by Lindsay, and I now realize why. Like Robert Redford in "The Candidate," Lindsay had movie star good looks, an overabundance of charisma, and was just smart enough to be dangerous. The archetypal American politician, one might say . . .

Have a great holiday everybody.

-Tony