Deep Thanks for a Great American Family -- The First One

11/23/2016

The Obama Family at Christmas Tree Lighting, 2015

At this holiday of homecoming and giving thanks, I want to thank the Obamas for giving all people the image of a wholesome and functional American family.

Through all of it, they have been an example for positive, enlightened living. I am always touched that Marian Shields Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, lives with them, is part of so many activities.

I have a friend in the White House press corps who sometimes travels with the President. He once told me there is an Obama rule, when possible: home by suppertime. Excursions to American cities are often planned with a mid-afternoon getaway, so the President can be at the table to ask, "So, how was your day?" That may have changed as the girls grew older, but his priority for family life was a factor for years.

I will miss having a President who can imitate Al Green, sing "Amazing Grace," and preside over his last medal ceremony with such eloquence and knowledge -- about athletes, about scientists, about pioneers.

Michelle Obama has been a passionate advocate for education, for women's rights, for exercise and healthy eating. And she always has her husband's back, as an equal. I look forward to her next acts, and those of their children. I hope they enjoy this Thanksgiving,

Joshua Rubin

11/23/2016 11:23:58 am

Nicely put. A great family and a real class act. I worry it may be a long time before we see this kind of sheer decency in the White House again. He did not warrant the kind and volume of disrespect he received. Now his favorables are near 60%. The Obamas will be sorely missed. As Joni Mitchell put it, "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone."

George Vecsey

11/23/2016 12:39:07 pm

Josh: In one word, Oy.
It was certainly on my mind as I typed the words, but I focused on these nice people and left the future alone. I saw Obama yesterday, introducing the Gehrys and the Tysons and the Abdul-Jabbars and I thought, "We are going to miss this man." But also seeing Obama standing with Merkel, the mutual respect. (Speaking of a female leader.)
Joni Mitchell had it. Happy Thanksgiving. GV

Brian Savin

11/23/2016 09:43:06 pm

There is a story here. In this last medal ceremony our President bestowed the Medal of Freedom on, among many others, Newt Minow, the Sidley and Austin partner who helped set him up to run for President. See, e.g.,

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-10-26/news/0610260146_1_sen-barack-obama-president-new-century

Decency is not the word that comes to me as I watched that ceremony -- and I made a point to do so -- but I look forward to this and more hopeful Thanksgivings, now that political power has shifted at least a bit away from the enablers that created this Presidency.

Gene Palumbo

11/24/2016 12:59:15 pm

Brian Savin:

What a cheap shot. How terribly misleading.

You begin ominously: “There is a story here.” And what might that be? You say – suggesting that the award was payback – that Minow “helped set [Obama] up to run for President.” I said to myself, “I wonder what that’s about,” so I clicked on the link. I urge other readers of this blog to do the same, lest they be left with the false impression – given by you -- that something was up, something nasty, something lacking in – your word – “decency.”

Turns out that the link simply leads to – drum roll – a 2006 op ed in which Minow recommended that Obama run for president. What’s so indecent about that? Does writing a favorable op ed amount to “set[ting Obama] up to run for president”? Please.

And why was that the only thing you told readers about Minow? Was that fair? Might there have been other reasons for giving him the award? Turns out he did a bit more than “set [Obama] up to run for President:”

“After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Minow served as a Supreme Court clerk and counsel to the Governor of Illinois. In 1961, President Kennedy selected Minow, then 34, to serve as Chairman of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC), where he helped shape the future of American television and was a vigorous advocate for broadcasting that promoted the public interest. In the five decades since leaving the FCC, Minow has maintained a prominent private law practice while devoting himself to numerous public and charitable causes.”

Please, Brian: fight fair.

Brian Savin

11/27/2016 09:28:28 pm

Gene, as I said, there is a story here. In my judgment, it is a very, very important story that goes to the very fabric of our current national politics, and then some. The elephant in the room. I never intentionally mislead. In fact, I think I have written quite a bit about my view.

Here is something you may also find of interest...or not. For what it's worth, it caught my attention.

http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2015/07/23/newt-minow-donald-trump-s-candidacy-problems-primary-process

Happy Thanksgiving!
Best
Brian

Gene Palumbo

12/5/2016 06:11:59 pm

Brian –

Again you insist that “there is a story here,” but again you won’t say what it is. I don’t understand why you can’t simply tell us, straight out, what you’re talking about.

This time you up the ante, claiming that the story – or rather, the alleged story -- is “very, very important.” How can we judge its importance if you won’t tell us what it is?

This time you even allude to “the elephant in the room” – but you don’t tell us what that is, either.

Also: you say, “I never intentionally mislead.” I said nothing about your intentions; I simply pointed out – and documented – that what you wrote was, in fact, misleading; and I stand by that.

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving, too.

Gene

Ed Martin

11/24/2016 11:21:05 pm

Happy Thanksgiving, I agree 105 percent, that the Obamas are special. At the time, I admired Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, G.H.W. Bush, Carter and Clinton, although I disagreed on policy. Obama has been the most admirable: humane, honest, intelligent, rational and principled. His family has never created an embarrassing moment for the nation. I look forward to his future contributions to our good.

On a different note my thoughts go to Ralph Branch, who I saw more than once standing with Jackie Robinson, just talking. He was indeed star-crossed, deserving a much better fate. RIP.

George Vecsey

11/25/2016 10:42:28 am

Ed: I always regarded JFK as "my" president because his election came the same fall we were married -- a new decade, a new age, so it seemed. But I have more family loyalty to the Obamas, a few years older than our children, but the same generation, with a positive outlook. They have done us all proud.

Ralph Branca was a complicated guy -- I saw him a lot over the years. He was depicted in the movie"42" as a fiery defender of Jackie Robinson; you're right, he was often close by. Branca told me when I worked on the Musial book "I grew up in Mount Vernon (NY)...I grew up with blacks." George Shuba, out of Youngstown Ohio, was another positive guy. So was Gene Hermanski, a Jersey guy, who once proposed everybody wear No. 42 so a threatened assassin couldn't tell which one was Robinson. JR appreciated the humor of that. GV

John McDermott

11/25/2016 10:44:38 am

I will miss this President and his family. I live abroad and I wish people back in the USA could kniw just how much they are respected and admired in the rest of the world(and how perplexed and fearful many of the same people are now).

Alan Rubin link

11/26/2016 08:59:40 pm

I was undecided between Clinton and Obama during the 2008 Democratic primaries. I knew that she was very capable and had political experience, but there was something appealing about him that was refreshing.

My wife continually referred to Obama"s lack of experience as an unknown and that he would be a risky choice who would lose to McCain.

I was convinced that Obama was a person of principle and character by his Jeremiah Wright speech. Many predicted that excerpts from Reverend Wright’s sermons would do Obama in.

Against the advice of his campaign managers, Obama addressed the issue head on. He disavowed many of the reverend’s comments, but showed respect for the individual. Throughout his eight year presidency, Obama never lost his core decency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy

Conversely, I cannot take Trump at his word. The most telling way to judge president-elect Trump is by the company he keeps and his actions. It is too soon to get a sense of what Trump really believes and wants to accomplish as his signals seem to change almost hourly.

So far, the only tangible indication of a Trump presidency is his cabinet and other appointments. If the ones announced to date are indicative of the coming whole, we could be on a downward spiral as a country that takes care of it people.

Trump’s appointments include racists and those who advocate the following:, pro-school vouchers programs that have not worked, privatization of health insurance and social security, depression of voting rights, severe immigration policies to name a few.

Adding insult to injury, many of his recommended appointees either have no experience for their post or have poor performance histories as determined by their peers.

Many people say that Trump, as most president do, will grow in to the job. I sincerely hope so, but I have never heard of a leopard changing its spots.

bruce

11/27/2016 06:32:37 pm

George,

agree 100% about Obama.

always seems a decent man with a good core.

they tried to do hatchet jobs on him....no American flag on his lapel, 'terrorist' fist bumps et al...

and, mr savin, your irrationality about your president is a sight to behold. I can't imagine anybody who is neutral or cares about decency could prefer trump over Obama....or, actually, most anyone.

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12/1/2016 10:50:30 pm

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QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Deep Thanks for a Great American Family -- The First One

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