Doris Kearns Goodwin

[spiderpig]

She was all over the place on MSNBC, but I haven't seen her for awhile.

Is she off writing her presidential magnum opus in real time?

(She may be on CNN or -gag- Faux News. Just asking.)

[Hortensis]

1. Curious and looked. Apparently inspired to write a book about "presidential leadership."

And stunning presidential failure of leadershihp?

And she's doing a number of those extremely well paid speaking engagements. Looks like the thrill of being in front of the camera isn't. We'll see her again when the book comes out, no doubt.

[spiderpig]

2. Thanks for the update!

I constantly find myself wondering how historians are going to view this armed madhouse (nod to Greg Palast).

If they're still analyzing Nixon to such a degree 40 years later, can you imagine what hay they can make with this insane "administration"?

[Hortensis]

4. Yes. I think the most valuable books, though, will be on the electorate and

those who twisted public attitudes so badly people actually elected a depraved buffoon. After all, a large number of those who voted for him knew well enough what he was and did it anyway.

[spiderpig]

6. A number of talking heads say that a block of voters

just didn't like Hillary, and 45 was a protest vote since they thought there was no possibility he'd win. (Well, he didn't really, but...)

I hope I live long enough to see some clear-sighted perspective on what went wrong.

(Based on today's saber-rattling, I have my doubts - West Coaster here)

[Hortensis]

8. People didn't "just" not like Hillary. She's a devout white church woman

who could have posed a real threat to control of conservative church women by presenting a different model for themselves. She's liberal, but where she's most conservative is in supporting progressive church activities through tax breaks and so on.

There are other reasons for the astonishing virility that was created. Richard Mellon Scaife decided from his northeast estate that he didn't like Gov. Bill and funded full-scale attempts to destroy him, funding that continued every since and continues now after he's dead.

As a new first lady, Hillary made a bad mistake by declining a dinner invitation from a DC social queen and columnist, Sally Quinn. It was understandable as she and her friends (including for instance Andrea Mitchell) had already been spreading truly nasty lies about Hillary, but the rebuttal launched a truly vicious vendetta against her by Sally Quinn, and by DC society that also continues to this day. What difference accepting might have made? Perhaps almost none. In any case, those in the press who were DC insiders chose "their" side, the personal craving to remain in DC's inner social circle an intensely corrupting factor.

And much else. Hillary is of course a woman, and this was twisted and used against her at great, unrelenting expense. Some of those billionaires out there, like the Kochs, really do care about that.

Many books will be written by those who were there when it's safe and by political scientists, but absolutely none of it was "just." It was manufactured over a quarter century.

And America still voted for her to be our 45th, and first woman, president. In spite of all of it.

[malaise]

3. I know she lost some close friends in a crash

and she's been scarce since then.

[spiderpig]

5. Sorry to hear that malaise.

Real life priorities.

We must be witnessing the White House fiasco to end all fiascoes, and I wondered where she was.

[malaise]

7. You know that was three years ago - time flies

Here's the story - they crashed after her party
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/07/historian-doris-kearns-goodwin-recalls-her-longtime-friend-lewis-katz-who-died-plane-crash-last-weekend/BsMuDwitwX3zUjou9knaFM/story.html
<snip>
When Doris Kearns Goodwin glances out the window of her study, she still sees Lewis Katz laughing with other guests on the sun-splashed lawn. When she walks down the hall, she envisions her good friend standing there, chatting with students and pulling a book from his pocket: “On the Shortness of Life.”

The slim paperback Katz had just started carrying was an appeal against wasted days by the Roman philosopher Seneca, arguing that a man who learns to live with purpose and meaning “will not hesitate . . . to meet death with steady step.”

Three hours after the party ended, Katz was dead. The philanthropist and Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner was killed, along with three friends and three crew members, when his private jet crashed during an attempted take-off at Hanscom Field last Saturday night.

“The hardest thing,” Goodwin said, discussing the sudden loss of her friend of 20 years, “is you just keep asking, ‘what if?’ ” What if she hadn’t invited him? What if he hadn’t said yes?