Outside Counsel

 I'm presently reading Birch Bayh's One Heartbeat Away, a meticulous account of how the 25th Amendment was drafted and enacted. Bayh had in mind fixing several Constitutional gaps: the problem of Presidential disability, Presidential succession, and Vice-Presidential vacancies. All three problems were fresh in his mind: of course the Kennedy assassination was still raw, but Eisenhower's heart attacks were as well. Unmentioned is Johnson's cardiac health. One of the chief items that was debated was how specific the language of the amendment should be, and there was also some concern that it tried to do too much all at once. Bayh is good on the strategic issues, and I am struck by how the process and procedure he used informed his later efforts at abolishing the Electoral College. I got to see some of the later process, and in hindsight the cultural war that we are living in now was already becoming entrenched. 

So what can we say about whether the 25th Amendment works as intended? Naturally Nixon figures prominently in Bayh's book: he and Ike had a letter agreement that outlined how Nixon would conduct business during Ike's illness - an obviously slapdash approach. The 25th got its first workout with Agnew's resignation and Ford's appointment, and then with Ford's ascension and Rockefeller's appointment. And then? And then a key assumption of Bayh's proved optimistic- and possibly fatally so. 

In my Structure and Function of US Government course I emphasize to my students that the drafters of the Constitution assumed that the (rich old white) men who would occupy the government they were creating would mostly be acting in good faith, but that mechanisms to keep the government operating needed to be in place because of their recognition of the fallibility of even the most well-intentioned actors. It seems to me that Nixon's final days, Reagan's second term, and Trump's entire tenure are arguments that the Presidential disability question has not been solved, although I suppose in the latter instance it was arguably the impeachment process that failed. On the other hand, the process has worked out adequately when Reagan was shot (Al Haig not withstanding), and routine medical processes. The whole thing deserves a deeper dive, which I want to get to when I've finished my Sonny Rollins project. 

A couple of assorted points that probably won't make it into anything I may write on this for publication. First, some of the  worst Americans of the second half of the 20th Century are featured prominently here, and Bayh, who was in his first term in the Senate and had larger aspirations (what Senator hasn't?) doesn't have a critical word to say about any of them. James O. Eastland is a kindly grandfather type, Nixon is skilled and intelligent  (actually true, but beside the point). Second, I'm pretty sure the only woman that appears is Bayh's wife, Marvella. Third, if there is a single person of color in this narrative I must have missed him. (It goes without saying that if there is it would be a man.) And, this may be a cheap shot, but my word Birch Bayh is a clumsy writer. This book is a really valuable piece of history, but the story deserves an artist. Robert Cairo has demonstrated that writing about the legislative process can be exciting and wonderful to read. I yield to no-one in my respect and admiration for Birch Bayh, but I now know that he wasn't any kind of prose stylist.

// posted by Bill @ 11:20 AM 0 comments

 I have been listening to a lot of Sonny Rollins' work and posting about it on Facebook rather than here, in part because I wanted some feedback. There is, I am advised, a comprehensive scholarly biography of Rollins on its way, and that's a good thing because the only stab at it that's out there now is a work called "Open Sky" by Eric Nisenson that is pretty useless. It swerves from cut-and-paste to highly technical while employing a worshipful tone that belies any sort of critical acuity whatsoever. It doesn't have a discography, and it is so thinly sourced that it seems almost hermetically sealed. On the other hand Mr. Nisenson had Rollins' cooperation and spent considerable time interviewing Rollins, so it counts as an important text. Rollins seems like a pretty opaque character, even when he seems to be opening up, and I suppose it is possible that he says what he means the most clearly in his music, but that is really at the heart of the Sonny Rollins mystery. He is sort of the Schrödinger's cat of great jazz musicians: at some point his recordings leave off being brilliant and become oddly directionless. His reputation in the second half of his career was as "the greatest living improvisor", but the recorded evidence isn't really there. In order to understand his brilliance, we are told, it was necessary to have seen him live, when he was not being recorded. 

The blurbs I've been posting on FB are placeholders- I'll be going into greater depth here going forward.

// posted by Bill @ 8:01 AM 0 comments

 To Rosanne Cash Sunday, an event that required proof of vaccination and masks. In all a minor inconvenience, particularly to see such a terrific performance. Ms. Cash is a strong writer, her band is crackerjack, and the venue- Babeville- is one of the very best in Buffalo.

// posted by Bill @ 11:30 AM 0 comments

 We had a student flake on out moot court team- they didn't show up for a competition, then didn't come to a practice, then was missing for a second competition. Last week they showed up at practice and promised to be available going forward. I'm disappointed- they were improving, and I don't know what happened, but the fact that they came back impressed me as a brave act, and I compared that act to Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. I guess Lord Jim is zeitgeist-y, because Elizabeth Nelson brings it up in this conversation with Joshua Clover about Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner".

// posted by Bill @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

 Number 34 at my polling place at 8:41AM. And then I got my COVID booster, so it’s already a pretty good day

// posted by Bill @ 9:31 AM 0 comments