From The Personal Archives; November 11, 2002:
–––
Last week I listened to George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy speak at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. These are the types of people who can bring liberalism back from the wasteland of pejoratives: Brilliant former teachers, who allow intelligence and reason to dictate their political beliefs. McGovern - whose hand I shook twice - was the better speaker, and the only one who spoke wholly extemporaneously, but they both struck common themes of leftism, intellectualism, reason, fairness, equality, and logic. Both seemed to oppose the impending war [W's war in Iraq] by taking a 'show me something' stand (instead of the flat-out dog-wagging, oil-grabbing stand I'd have taken); and both compared the current Congress's laying at the feet of the President, to the Congress of the Viet Nam-era, which did the same thing for so long at so great a cost. Both called for a government which cares more for people than for businesses. And for congress to do its job re: the Advice and Consent Clause of The US Constitution (which was the focus of the Senate Lecture Series; and which McCarthy thought was too often taken to mean advice, then consent). Here are some notes; McGovern's first:
-He's right around 6 feet tall, but thin, so that he seems almost small. Good looking guy, relaxed, casual speaker, seemingly comfortable. Stood behind a podium and spoke without notes.
-A questioner asked him if he was 'pissed off' about Nixon's dirty tricks in the 1972 campaign (which probably cost McGovern the election) and he said "You could put it that way {huge laugh}. I wish the election were held a year later. {big laugh}"
-His comments were often remarkably well considered and reasonable. He said that the saddest part of the resolution Congress recently passed in favor of Bush was passed by Senators who would give eloquent speeches about how dangerous an invasion of Iraq would be, but then, in the last couple minutes of their speeches, would say "but I feel its important to support the President". "Part of patriotism," McGovern said "is speaking out against things you feel will bring harm to the nation." (History after all will not record that you voted for the measure reluctantly! And if you make that point it will regard you as craven.)
-He then went on to say that most of the Congresses most aggressive members had never fought a war - didn't know what it felt like to watch a bomberful of friends explode on the runway, or to see another plane in your formation get destroyed by anti-aircraft fire, both of which McGovern did firsthand - and said, he'd like to say to some of these irrational hawks, that if they feel it's so important to invade Iraq, that perhaps they'd want, finally, to be among the first sent in to battle. "Some of them aren't in the best shape, but at least they could draw sniper-fire away from our troops. {more huge applause}"
McCarthy:
-Sat behind a small, white-trimmed table and spoke with the help of notes. He's old and frail, had trouble even standing up, but his mind seems as alert as ever. He was surprisingly funny - speaking for example of President's projects to get rid of, what's called, the "Federal Flock" of pidgins in DC. Carter's administration bred peregrine falcons to feed on the pidgins but each of them died. Reagan also had a plan: "He was not going to use science or mechanical devices. They actually installed stuffed snakes in the magnolia trees on the White House lawn. I don't know whether that was successful or not, but it was one of his commitments to Creationism."
-He looks like an older David McCullough.
-He spoke at length about two Amendments he feels should be repealed: 20th & 22nd. The 20th Amendment moved Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20, thereby shortening a President-elect's time to carefully set up his Cabinet; and - he noted jokingly - forcing his (and maybe one day, her) first month in office to be February - the month in which more people die and less gets done (Clinton nominated three would-be attorneys general in February, for example; if he was inaugurated in March, he would have nominated one in April and gotten off on a better, speedier start, he said), than any other. The reasoning behind moving the election to January was, he said, that having an Inauguration Day in March left too much time for a lame-duck President to screw up the country. If that's so, he continued, the 22nd Amendment, made a President a lame-duck for four years! And, really in some cases for eight years, because there's a known limit to the holder's time in office. He may also have mentioned that the Amendment is unconstitutional - contrary to the Founder's intent - since the Legislative Branch forced a limit on the Executive that it did not also take, and force on the Judicial - but I can't quite remember his wording on this point.
-He said Congress does silly things because it is made up of so many former state legislators - who bring a disrespect for the Congress and the President and ridiculous policies like balanced budgets.
-He said that at during Democratic convention of 1968, the Secret Service told him his hotel room was not bugged, but not to talk on the telephone because it was bugged by the federal government. The Secret Service told him this! It shot up in my estimation!
-He spoke about how the striving for "security" knows no bounds, because "You can never have enough security. It's waiting to happen all the time. And the trouble is there's no one to protect us against it unless it's a Senate committee with constitutional responsibility. You can't count on the press," because, it will always be complicit in the taking of civil rights - as it was during the "anti-communist movement of the 1950s - what became the McCarthyism. Everyone in the country was suspect." Only a handful of newspapers in the country, maybe four "could be said to have raised a real challenge - out of all the papers in the country. Two in Wisconsin, one in Florida, one newspaper chain in California. In the whole country the press surrendered. They did the same thing in Viet Nam."
–––
Update: Looking thru a folder of old and random shit, I found a Word.doc I made for my dad (he understood Word.docs and had folders filled with them; some with similarly labled photos – we like what we like) of photos taken of each of the speakers on these nights: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy, mentioned above, and former Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR), unmentioned above, who hosted both men (and perhaps others in the series). I've screengrabbed and posted it as a picture here.
終