Category Archives: United States

Natural Plutonium

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Coming-Soon_RFB2_Front_Cvr_300x450pxAn excerpt from the new book, “U.S. Nuclear Deterrence: The Cold War and Colorado’s Nuclear Weapons Factory” by Farrel Hobbs. (Coming Soon to Amazon.com bookstore by Sept. 15, 2018.)

Let’s start at the beginning, which, in the case of Rocky Flats, is about 4.5 billion years ago. The Rocky Flats Plant was known mostly for its role in producing plutonium components for nuclear weapons. Those of us who worked there knew that the plant did much more than that; many thousands of people who worked at the plant never came close to any plutonium. However, plutonium is what comes to mind for most people when they think of Rocky Flats. Activists who devoted themselves to protesting the place learned that they created more support against the plant when they focused on plutonium, and they began to declare that “plutonium was designed to kill.” That’s a very catchy phrase, but there weren’t many people around to be killed 4.5 billion years ago when plutonium first existed on Earth. I restrict my discussion to Earth and ignore what possibly happened in other galaxies. Continue reading →

The Worst Hard Time

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worst-hard-timeI thought this book by Timothy Egan was difficult to review, and perhaps I should refer you to the 402 reviews on Amazon. Saying that, I am of compelled to write my review. The book provides an incredible history of the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the U.S., but the focus is on the people who endured the “Dust Bowl.” Were they brave and tough or just insane to continue to hang on while dust storms destroyed everything including their health and that of their children? I tried to imagine how we would react today. We whine when we are inconvenienced by road detours or when the price of gasoline increases. The people of the Dust Bowl endured while their children died of dust pneumonia and their crops blew away into to next state or even to the East Coast of the U.S. and left them penniless and in debt.

The book describes how the government and developers lured settlers to take advantage of the Homestead Act, settle on 160 acres of prairie, build a shack or dugout, rip up the sod, and plant wheat. There are several of the tough, brave, stubborn people that are followed throughout the book, which gives a sense of connection with them. The problem for someone looking for a less serious read is that the feelings are despair, fear, sadness, loneliness, and several other negative descriptions of desperate people living in poverty and misery.

Between 1925 and 1930 there were 5.2 million acres of native sod that had fed huge herds of buffalo and later cattle that was turned under to make wheat fields. All went well when above normal rains nurtured their crops and allowed the farmers to make what they thought were incredible profits. The price of wheat began to drop, and more land was plowed to try to retain profits by growing more wheat. Then the Great Depression hit, an eight year drought (called “drout” by the farmers) began, the grassless land dried, and fierce and frequent winds ripped off the top soil by millions of tons. The pictures of the rows of dirt collected around houses, fences, or any other obstruction are startling. The only business that seemed to be prospering was bootleg alcohol.

People and animals caught in the open when a dust storm struck often died or were blinded. Those who made it into their meager homes would hang up wet sheets as a last defense. One woman awakened and noted the only part of her pillow that wasn’t covered in dust was where her head had rested. There is even the sorrow for the animals that were often blind and died from malnutrition because their digestive tracts were filled with dirt.

The government had a direct role creating the conditions for the disaster. The 160 acres of prairie land was too little land to make a decent living with average rainfall. Then the government through the Federal Bureau of Soils proclaimed about replacing native grass with wheat land that the soil “…is the one resource that cannot be exhausted, that cannot be used up.”

The story of the people who were attracted to the plains is interesting and well told. Many were Germans who had immigrated to Russia and then were driven to immigrate to the U. S. during World War I. They brought the hard wheat that still flourishes in Kansas farms. The book called it “turkey red,” although I had always heard it called “Russian red.” The Germans also brought a few seeds of a thistle mixed in with their belongings. These thistles are well known as tumbleweeds in the plains, and they still pile up and obscure fence lines. The tumbleweeds were one of the few plants that survived the drought, and were mixed with salt to provide the last food many farmers could give their emaciated cattle. The farmers even began canning the tumbleweeds in brine to make food for them and their families.

There are interesting facts about politics. Herbert Hoover won the Presidency in a landslide in 1929 and then became one of the most disliked presidents in the history of the country as the Great Depression deepened and he refused to take government action while advocating that the free market would solve problems. One problem was that nature and not the free market was in charge of at least the center of the country. Even Joe Kennedy was scared by the depression. He told a friend, “I’m afraid I’m going to end up with nine kids, three homes, and no dough.”

I was interested in several aspects of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency mentioned in the book. I’ve often wondered why my parents, who were farmers in the early part of their lives, were “Roosevelt Democrats.” Some economists argue that Roosevelt extended the Great Depression with his policies. My parents only knew, as the book portrays, that Roosevelt tried to do things that would make things better for desperate people. All manner of food sources were destroyed in an attempt to stabilize commodity prices while people were hungry in the cities. My mother often lamented, “I don’t know why they would just kill and bury the baby pigs.” No matter whether the actions of the FDR administration were wise; they gave people such as my parents hope. We moved off the farm for my father to take a government job designing the planting of rows of trees as windbreaks around farmsteads. FDR was a big fan of creating what he called “shelterbelts.”

FDR indeed tried just about everything to avert the poverty being created. The government did buy emaciated livestock to slaughter and bury them after people were allowed to try to salvage some of the meat. He paid farmers $498 to not plant their fields. He established the Civilian Conservation Corps to begin implementing ideas by Hugh Bennett on how to begin restoring grasslands. He was a hero to the poor because he provided money and jobs to millions that had nothing else. Late in the book Will Rogers is quoted as saying, “If Roosevelt burned down the Capital we would cheer and say, ‘Well, we at least got a fire started, anyhow’.”

One effect of the massive dust storms was the static electricity they created. Men avoided shaking hands, because the shock would knock them down. Cars were grounded by dragging chains to keep from shorting out electrical systems.

A man named Bam White settles when a horse dies and strands him and his family. He is eventually hired to be filmed with his horse pulling a plow around for the unheard of sum of $25 for two hours of plowing. He is the star of the movie The Plow That Broke the Plains. The movie was even played in the White House for FDR.

A newspaper writer described the dilemma of the plains saying “Three little words…rule life in the dust bowl of the continent—if it rains.” The term “Dust Bowl” stuck, and was even adopted by Hugh Bennett’s conservation project as “Operation Dust Bowl.” One of his ideas was to tap the “endless” Ogallala aquifer with 500 feet deep wells.

There was enough rain in 1937 to allow some crops and grass to begin to grow. Then grasshoppers arrived and ate everything. They ate every plant to the ground and were even chewing on the handles of rakes and hoes. It was estimated there were fourteen million grasshoppers per square mile.

The book ends with the death of the people followed throughout the story, including Bam White. I couldn’t help but think that they were finally released from their misery.

The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790 – 1840

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Reviewed by Kathy London

reshapingI just read on livescience “Almost two-thirds of Americans [surveyed] said the …country is moving away from traditional notions of the ideal life…” We seem to have been moving away for a long time.

Jack Larkin’s book was written about a time period I assumed was stable and uneventful: America after the Revolution and before the Civil War. But Americans at the end of that period “looked back with a sense of profound change in customs, manners and social tone…. already nostalgic for vanishing ways of …life.”

Surviving artifacts at museums and historic sites suggest Americans lived a comfortable life in the late 1700s. This is far from true. Larkin offers a compelling description of the reality, often gritty, dirty, smelly, tedious, and backbreaking; but also based on deeply intertwined economic and social relationships.

An industrial economy was replacing self-sufficient farms, rural artisans, and barter. Even farming became more business-like and less communal. Trends started in the Northern cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, spread to Northern rural areas, then gradually to the South and West. Attitudes changed towards drinking, childrearing, education, the role of wage labor, diet, sexual habits, and slavery. While change was unevenly distributed, many Americans reshaped much of their everyday world.

Larkin includes black Americans in every section of his book with a surprising amount of detail. Almost all were slaves and their llives were as hard as you might guess. Only a few pages are devoted to Native Americans, who had been driven out of the states.

The book covers too wide a swath of life to mention all the topics in this review but I’ll discuss a few.

Americans have always been in motion. A person would live for a while at a neighbor’s to pay barter debts or earn extra resources, or spend months living with married siblings. (“Living” and “working” were synonymous.) Hired help moved frequently. Every year, close to a quarter of all Bostonians changed their residence. In one central Massachusetts community, over a third of households counted in one census moved before the next one. In frontier towns, two-thirds might move. Itinerant peddlers, tinkers, showmen, portrait painters, and various teachers roamed the roads bringing novelty to rural communities.

Settlers on the frontier might go months without seeing anyone outside their household, but in well-established communities, men and women visited neighbors daily. There were “frolics” to husk corn or raise barns, Sunday meetings, sewing circles, nursing help, and afternoon tea. Visitors would often “tarry” overnight. Socializing moved in time with agricultural work. Visits were shorter during planting and harvesting. To bring in the Northern hay crop, other activities stopped and even shops closed as everyone went to the hay fields.

Health care was one of the most egalitarian aspects of American life. The most expensive care was as (in)effective as home remedies. “Humors” were believed to be out of balance in patients and had to be corrected by inducing bleeding, blistering, purging, or puking. No wonder homeopathy became popular – at least it didn’t hurt the patient. Despite the sorry state of medicine, there was one major success: the discovery that infecting people with the mild disease cowpox protected them from smallpox.

Casual violence was part of daily life. Social ways were painfully coarse, sometimes cruel and violent, even bizarre. Drunkenness was astonishingly common. “Blood sports” showed people’s indifference to the suffering of animals. Duels were fought between gentlemen, and fights between common men could end with an eye gouged out. White Southerners lived in fear of their slaves, but “in daily reality, slaves has far more to fear from them.” The Temperance Movement, the “Second Great Awakening” of religion, and efforts by the well-off to “advance civilization” make a lot more sense given this context.

Early American homes were dingy, unadorned, and surrounded with trash. But people must have yearned for decoration. I was struck by the image of a woman, after a long day of hard labor, taking the time to sweep a pattern into the sand floor of her kitchen before going to bed.

Larkin draws on a vast array of primary sources, including diaries and journals, letters of foreign travelers, probate inventories, federal censuses, and contemporary books. I was intrigued by the unique 1798 Direct Tax records: created to support the first Federal property tax, assessors recorded every free family’s possessions and dwelling in detail.

Larkin presents a thorough picture of life across America into the 1800s, enlivened with quotes from primary sources and full of evocative details. It provides an excellent context to any other histories you may read about this era.

Common Sense in 2012: Prosperity and Charity for America

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This book was written by Art Robinson, and in his words, “…for the voters of Congressional District 4 in Oregon. It explains, to the best of my ability, the issues facing us all in the 2012 elections.” A copy of the book was mailed to all subscribers of Dr. Robinson’s newsletter “Access to Energy” along with a request for donation. I donated despite the fact that I am a resident of Colorado. I believe it is important to support someone offering to serve as a citizen volunteer in Congress who promises to use common sense. His son Matthew is running against the incumbent Peter DeFazio in the Democratic primary. Dr. Robinson judges that Oregon’s District 4 will have a significantly better representative regardless of the general election outcome should Matthew win the primary.

I’ve followed developments in Oregon District 4 since Dr. Robinson and his family began his campaign for the 2010 election. I donated to that campaign in hopes of helping an honorable and ethical scientist who was willing to take the slings and arrows of a long time politician. The back cover of the book provides endorsements of Dr. Robinson from several renowned scientists. However, to illustrate my point about what he faces, the back cover ends with a quote from opponent Peter DeFazio, “Robinson is a ‘pathological nut job’.” I suggest readers consider donating to the campaign to replace DeFazio and request a copy of Dr. Robinson’s book.

The book is provides details of the Constitutional. Countless quotes by the Founders and other great thinkers explain Dr. Robinson’s positions. The erosion of liberty created by growth in government is documented with several examples. There is a graph that shows the percentage of U.S. population with jobs. Jobs began to be lost by the year 2000 “…in an economy that was gradually being strangled by Big Government.” Government has expanded relentlessly since taxing of income began in 1913. Manufacturing jobs have been hit especially hard. Reference is given to the astonishing mass of regulations that have been created that has made the U.S. increasingly unfriendly to all businesses. The federal debt “…has grown so large that service of this debt is draining away huge amounts of resources that are needed for the production of goods and services by American industry and workers.”

Chapter 1 is titled “Who is Art Robinson,” and introduces him as “…a successful scientist, businessman, and father. He lives with his family on their family farm…and works at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.” He introduces his wife Laurelee and their six children. The children were all home schooled and developed a home schooling curriculum that has been used by 60,000 American children for grades 1 through 12. The family business, which also publishes children’s books, has allowed the children to put each other through college and graduate school.

Laurelee tragically died after a 24 hour illness in 1988, but the strength of the family’s belief in each other and God led to “A silent, almost eerie calm…” I challenge anyone to read about the family and their successes and not be both touched and impressed.

It also is not difficult to be the opposite of impressed with the Congressional opponent. There was a billboard prominently displayed that showed Art Robinson and the words “Energy company CEO’s shouldn’t pay taxes.” The only very thin thread that connects this statement to the truth is that Dr. Robinson had suggested solving a national energy crisis by “…forgoing taxes on the industries and workers required to solve this problem…” It is true that CEOs are energy company employees. DeFazio, in the same vein as saying “Robinson is a ‘pathological nut job’,” also said that he lived in a “survivalist compound” and his campaign was supported by “money launderers.” In fact 99.3% of Robinson’s campaign contributions came from individuals. DeFazio also said that Robinson wanted to allow drinking water to be contaminated with nuclear waste.

There are some personal stories in the book that are quite interesting. Some are sad stories. One of those is about the Robinson’s research on “metabolic profiling,” which could have had significant impact on diagnosis of disease. They learned years later that a competing scientist entered the laboratory and scrambled the labels on the samples, which of course destroyed the experiment. You can almost feel the pain as Dr. Robinson wrote that the research “…could have saved Laurelee’s life in 1988, by getting her to surgery in time, and the lives of countless other people.”

There are also some fun stories. I particularly enjoyed one about Dr. Robinson being stopped by an officer who asked to see the permit for the wide load he was hauling. The officer inquired why the map for the route wasn’t attached to the permit. He was told it had been taken apart to allow the map to be unfolded and read. When asked where the staple was that had been removed to separate the map, he was told that the staple hadn’t been saved. Dr. Robinson was allowed to proceed if he promised he would get a staple at the next station. He was stopped again, and informed, “We know all about you. We heard about you on the radio. You’re the guy without the staple.”

Another quite sad story is the targeting of the Robinson children at Oregon State University. The remarkable academic achievements are listed for each of the Robinson children. Three of the children are in graduate studies at Oregon State University, and after Dr. Robinson began his campaign against DeFazio, “…DeFazio supporters at OSU seriously interfered with their graduate work. The actions against them were, in my experience, unprecedented in American academia.”  It was difficult to misrepresent Dr. Robinson’s academic achievements when “Everywhere DeFazio looked there were Robinson young adults with doctorates…or earning doctorates at Oregon State University.” An OSU professor stepped in to assist the three students, and was blackballed. “An outpouring of public support for the students and Professor Higginbotham made the rescue of the students possible.” Dr. Robinson writes that he did not want to make this public, but was forced to do so when he learned that one of his children and the professor were in immediate danger of permanent dismissal without cause from OSU.

There are always two sides in a dispute, and I’ll be open to considering the other side when Mr. DeFazio publishes his book. In the interim, I suggest you donate to Art Robinson’s campaign and request a copy of his book.

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon

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This book by Mark Steyn is not for politically correct Liberals. There is humor mixed in with the dire predictions, but a friend said he didn’t finish the book because he tired of the “cutesy humor.”

On the dark side, the author writes, “America has caught up with Europe in the great rush to self destruction.” Financial collapse is predicted to be facilitated by “…hapless, indulgent people who think government has the answer for every problem…” An example of wit amidst the doomsday prophesies is that “Nobody writes a doomsday tome because they want it to come true. From an author’s point of view, the apocalypse is not helpful because the bookstores get looted and the collapse of the banking system makes it harder to cash the royalty check.”

To emphasize the insanity of our government and election process there is an insightful reference to Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, my home state. Bennett voted for all the “…trillion dollar binges…” He then said “We have managed to acquire $13 billion of debt on our balance sheet. In my view, we have nothing to show for it.” Colorado voters then reelected Bennet. The source of the debt is at least as troubling as the magnitude. “If the People’s Republic (of China) carries on buying American debt at the rate it has in recent times, then within a few years U.S. interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese armed forces.”

What did stimulus accomplish? Quite a bit if you were a government employee. At the start of the economic crisis there was one Department of Transportation employee earning more than $170,000 per year. Eighteen months later there were 1,690. “In the year after “stimulus” was passed the private sector had lost 2.5 million jobs and the federal bureaucracy had gained 416,000. In 2009 the average U.S. government employee was earning about $123,000 in salary and benefits while the average American in the private sector was earning a total of about $61,000.

The Chinese might be building a military to challenge America, but they have problems too. The one-child policy means that“…unless it’s planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, the millions of surplus young men…deprived of female companionship is a recipe either for wrenching social convulsions at home—or for war abroad, the traditional surplus inventory clearance method of great powers.”

I found one nugget of hope for America early in the book. Reports about protests of people who want the government to do more for them have dominated the European news. By comparison, millions of Americans have taken to the streets to tell the government they can do just fine if the government will “…just stay the hell out of my life and my pocket.” (Of course much of the media and some politicians have at a minimum made fun of those protestors, and in some circumstances called them racists.)

The book is filled with disturbing examples of how bureaucracy trumps common sense. It now takes so long for the FDA to approve new drugs that people are dying while they wait for the approval to take the drugs. Cynics are calling the new approval process “…the valley of death.”  FEMA sent volunteer firefighters who wanted to help out in the Katrina disaster to Atlanta for diversity training. An inspector prevented a Catholic church from selling homemade pies for a fund raiser unless the volunteer bakers paid $35 dollars apiece to be cleared by a health inspection. On the other side was a woman attending a “federal aid” gathering said she was there to get some money. When asked where the money would come from, she said “Obama money.” When asked the source of the money, she said, “I don’t know. His stash.”

Other disturbing signs of bureaucracy are the examples of emergency workers refusing to rescue people. Police wouldn’t rescue a drowning woman because that was the responsibility of the Fire and Rescue service. Three college students did save her. Police stood watching while a 5 year old girl was trapped in a submerged car, because they were prevented from diving in by safety regulations. A fireman did rescue a drowning girl and was sent to disciplinary investigation. A rescue crew stood by after a person fell into a mine shaft because a recent memo had banned the use of rope equipment. There has also been a loss of chivalry. The rule “women and children first” was mostly followed on the Titanic. When a German ferry sank recently only five percent of the women passengers lived. Forty-three percent of the young men 20 to 24 made it. (Apparently women objecting to doors being held for them has had a negative effect.)

Part of our problem is that high schools are graduating young people who aren’t equipped to do a job. We then send them to years of college to that is costly and ineffective. Testing shows that many college students do not improve their critical thinking skills after two years or even by the time they graduate. The students do accumulate tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

The author is quite critical of the manner in which the world has dealt with the issue of Muslim extremism. He points out that there was a time when the Muslim world seemed to be becoming “Westernized,” but the radical Muslims have put an end to that. There was a photo of the Cairo University class of 1978 with every woman bare-headed. The 2004 class photo shows “…every woman hijabed to the hilt.”

The author makes his point about the comparison of private enterprise to the government with a story about a bridge in New Hampshire. The government studied the project for six years and estimated the total cost at $655,000. They estimated the bridge could be completed in another several years and admitted the cost would probably more than double. The town contracted with a private firm to build a bridge that complied with safety requirements for $30,000.

The book often refers to the H.G. Wells book “The Time Machine.” There are references to the elegant and oblivious Eloi who are living happy lives while the Morlocks also happily prey on the Eloi. Time travel is used to emphasize how much changed in the world from 1890 to 1950, and how relatively little technology has been developed since. However, the U.S. government has had massive growth.

The book ends with the observation that people still have a chance to change the path of the country if they would only stop voting for politicians who want more money to increase the size and reach of government. “This is the battle for the “American idea…to reprise the lamest of lame-o-lines—you can do anything you want to do. So do it.”

Common Ground, How to Stop the Partisan War That Is Destroying America

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I was attracted to this book because I liked the concept of staunch Conservative Cal Thomas coauthoring a book with staunch Liberal Bob Beckel. However, the book misses the mark. There book predicts a less partisan election campaign in 2008 because Barrack Obama was a likely Democratic candidate, and he was viewed by the authors as a moderate. One passage is that “Senator Barrack Obama has already embraced the call for common ground (and an end to polarization) in his campaign for president…”.

I found it difficult to believe that two such astute political observers could misinterpret by such a wide margin. Mr. Obama was the most liberal Senator when he began his campaign. He followed the standard game plan of campaigning to gain votes from the hard left liberals in the primaries and then portrayed himself as moving to the middle in the Presidential campaign. I believe it is safe to say President Obama has not been the moderate unifier predicted by the authors

I believe the book has value for the analysis of recent political history that has led to radical polarization of the two political parties. The far right and left have both been encouraged by the news media’s thirst for stories of conflict. The book criticizes recent leaders of both parties for contributing to the polarization.

It is also pointed out that JFK was given a free ride on his sexual escapades while other politicians have been forced out for less. There is no holding back on what the book calls “bottom feeders,” and Ann Coulter and Michael Moore are named in that category. They are described as “…polarizers who make money by keeping politics inflamed …” MoveOn.org and Focus on the Family are named as organizations that thrive on polarization. “Polarizers could care less about unity. Indeed, finding common ground and consensus is their worst nightmare, especially for the bottom feeders.”

The authors lay a large portion of blame for the evolution of polarization on voters. Middle American stays home for the primaries while political activists select the candidates for the general election. Politicians are clever enough to try to appeal to their base to gain the nomination. It also doesn’t help that moderate voters are showing up in declining numbers in general elections. For some reason not well explained, the authors predict that polarization is coming to an end. That prediction is, for the present, widely off the mark.

The quotes that lead off the individual chapters are the part of the book I enjoyed the most, and the quote leading off Chapter 3 about the impact of voters is a good example. “Bad officials are elected by good citizens, who do not vote.”

Mr. Beckel and Mr. Thomas give arguments for their Liberal/Conservative positions in the preface to the book. One would think that my Libertarian leanings would make me more sympathetic to the Conservative argument. Not so. I agreed with many of Mr. Thomas’s statements, but give Mr. Beckel credit for what I thought was a better presentation.

One of my favorite descriptions of how partisan polarization is destructive is the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill that attempted to “thread the needle” and begin to solve a very difficult problem. The bill was gathering strong support from both parties, and the Bush White House announced support, “…but Harry Reid was not about to let it pass.” Reid could not allow Bush to get credit for a legislative victory. He used a parliamentary maneuver to delay the bill and talk radio eventually destroyed any hope of the legislation being passed.

The book declares that the designation of Red and Blue states is a myth, because Middle America is in basic agreement on most issues regardless of the section of the country. “To characterize an entire state as Republican or Democrat base on the popular vote to one candidate is absurd.” Ohio was given a red state designation because 50.5 percent voted for George Bush over John Kerry. The red state label has stuck despite the fact Ohio has several Democrats in their congressional delegation. In the quest to “color” states, Ohio should be called a blue state.

The book does give at least a partial answer to the puzzling question as to why blacks are dominantly Democrats despite years of “Jim Crow” laws advocated by that party in the past. “The dramatic shift occurred in 1960 when an overwhelming number of black voters—many loyal to the Republicans since Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation a century earlier—moved their allegiance to the Democrats…President Lyndon Johnson sealed that allegiance by signing the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the 1965 Civil Rights Act.” (Legislation opposed by many Southern Democrats.)

Another interesting cultural observation is that blue-collar workers who voted dominantly Democrat saw their sons go to Vietnam while sons of white-collar workers went to college under draft deferments. Growing opposition to that war has led to the Democrats being the party considered to be soft on commitment to national defense.

President Carter advocated reorganizing and streamlining the government, but the large Democratic margins in the House and Senate resisted along with increased lobbying by Liberal special interest groups. All Carter accomplished was flooding Washington D.C. with lobbyists, and the flood hasn’t diminished. Challenges to Carter and then to Ford by their own parties resulted in the political extremists becoming more dominant and moderates becoming more irrelevant. Winston Churchill said, “Some men change their parties for the sake of principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.” An unknown author offered the opinion, “Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.”

There is an interesting reminder of the Clinton’s taking up health care as their first priority. The famous “Harry and Louise” commercials showing a couple talking about how the proposed bill would hurt them was instrumental in killing it.

The book was worth reading to find the passage about George McGovern opening an inn after he lost the 1980 election. He said in a Wall Street Journal interview, “…if he had known how difficult it was to run a business, he might have voted differently while in Congress.”

However, the book reminds me in the closing pages how wrong the authors viewed Obama. “Senator Barrack Obama’s message in his presidential campaign is closer, so far, to a common ground message than that of any other candidate in either party.” Cal Thomas does give a warning. “I like Obama’s language, but I want to make sure it isn’t a cover for liberal policies…”