Term Limits Aren’t the Answer
I have never understood the clamor for term limits. I think people confuse cause and effect.
I have never understood the clamor for term limits. I think people confuse cause and effect. They seem to think that by merely spending too much time in Washington, D.C., Sacramento, Albany, Springfield, Trenton, Austin, Phoenix or Madison, honest people are corrupted. That’s not the problem. Unfortunately, it’s the people who tend to be attracted to politics in the first place. They’re people who actually think they should be deciding how other people should live.
Plus they’re people who don’t have a passion, be it for medicine, the law, engineering, business, architecture, dentistry, farming or the arts. As a rule, they take up the law but get bored with it and decide to get into something where they don’t have to work too hard, put in long hours and still figure to get rich and possibly famous. And suddenly there’s politics beckoning to them like a cheap hooker at the end of the bar.
We seem to think that if we only had term limits, people like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t accrue so much power. But whoever becomes the House Speaker or the Senate Majority or Minority leader will have that power. Does anyone really think Chuck Schumer is an improvement over Harry Reid? They’re different individuals, of course; Reid was a Mormon from Nevada, Schumer is a Jew from New York. But, for all intents and purposes, they’re the same slimebucket.
It is always that way. Henry Waxman retired and the folks on the westside of L.A. naturally replaced him with Ted Lieu. Lieu is younger, Waxman was smarter. But, otherwise, nothing has changed.
Here in California, we have term limits for state offices. Big deal. So when some clodhopper gets termed out of the State Assembly, he or she simply runs for the State Senate or Congress or maybe for Lieutenant Governor.
Perhaps the most annoying voter is the nincompoop for insists he doesn’t vote for the party, but, instead, votes for the man or woman. Send a Democrat to Washington and that person will be taking his or her marching orders from Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi.
The good (but not too bright) people of West Virginia keep electing Joe Manchin because they know he supports the Second Amendment and can be counted on to vote against additional gun control laws. And because Chuck Schumer knows that Manchin has to be allowed to differ from the party if he’s going to have any chance of winning his next election, he allows Joe to go off the reservation. On every other issue, Manchin toes the line and votes exactly like Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.
I contend that Donald Trump is not only the best of our 45 presidents, but also the funniest.
Ronald Reagan, a former actor, certainly knew how to deliver a line, but he had professional writers coming up with those memorable lines. That’s not to say he never changed a word or two, as actors are wont to do, but I can assure you that Reagan wasn’t the guy who came up with “The most terrifying words in the English language: I’m from the government and I’m here to help” or “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can write a book.”
But Donald Trump actually makes me laugh, sometimes with a line, a word or even a physical action.
For instance, when, at his rallies, he turns himself into a robotic version of a proper and solemn president, playing off the complaint that he lacks presidential decorum, the man’s hilarious.
It was pure Trump when at his Scranton, PA, rally, he conjured up the perfect Michael Bloomberg image by slowly lowering himself until only his eyes could be seen peering over the lectern.
I even got a belly laugh when, referring to commonsense safeguards against the Chinese virus, he said he hadn’t touched his face in weeks, adding with perfect timing, “And I’ve missed it.”
The man has earned the title “The Comedian-in-Chief.”
Most athletes, no matter how talented, are boring. All an insomniac has to do is listen to post-game interviews with the players, coaches and managers, and he’ll be sawing logs within a few minutes.
Sometimes, though, there are exceptions that make you want to know more. For instance, Floyd Patterson, who, between 1956 and 1962 was twice boxing’s Heavyweight Champion of the World, was not the greatest fighter who ever lived. That distinction might have gone to Mohammad Ali, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano or Sugar Ray Robinson, but he was the most intriguing.
So far as I know, he’s the only boxer who ever brought a phony beard and sunglasses to his fights. They were a disguise in case he lost the bout. That’s a person I’d want to know more about.
Sandy Koufax was another memorable athlete of that era. He began his major league baseball career pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955 and ended it in 1966 with the L.A. Dodgers. Over the first seven years of his 12 year career — a career cut short because by the age of 31, he had developed arthritis in his pitching arm — he had a mediocre record of 54 wins, 53 losses, with an earned run average that fluctuated between 3.02 and 4.91.
Then, against all odds, he had five seasons in which he won 111 games and lost only 34. During that span, his ERA was as low as 1.73 and never higher than 2.54, capping it off by tossing four no-hitters, one of them a perfect game.
The change was so extraordinary that there’s really no way of explaining it. Those five seasons were so otherworldly, not to mention unexpected, they were enough to ensure him a place in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
Koufax always reminded me of Faust, the man who traded his soul for a few years of glory. In Sandy’s case, it wasn’t his soul, of course, but the tradeoff may have been longevity.
Kent Boom, ever the bearer of glad tidings, suggests that the good news about the coronavirus is that it was made in China and, therefore, won’t last long.
Sometimes, my late wife would accompany me to my infrequent speaking engagements. If Yvonne was asked, she would tell the attendees that I didn’t spend a lot of time rewriting. She would explain that I tended to think in paragraphs. Frankly, that had never occurred to me, but I recognized it as the truth as soon as she said it.
The truth is writing has never been a chore for me. I would hear others talk about suffering writers block and it was as if they were speaking a foreign language. I would find myself wondering if they had forgotten how to think.
If the ladies – it was almost always ladies who were the most curious – would ask Yvonne what it was like living with me, she would tell them I was delightful, funny and extremely sexy. Okay, maybe she didn’t say “sexy.” But the way she’d say “lazy” left little doubt what she meant.
