GOP, look to Eisenhower election for guidance

BY LEROY GOLDMANThe Charlotte Observer

Special to the ObserverDecember 23, 2015

GOP, look to Eisenhower election for guidance

On December 7, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged a dinner for 20-plus GOP power brokers at the posh Source restaurant in Washington. That they gathered on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor is too delicious to overlook. Their purpose, if possible, was to prepare for a contested and possibly brokered national convention in Cleveland next July, in the hope that the delegates nominate a candidate who can win in November.

Their task, while essential, is fraught with danger. It must be accomplished without so angering Donald Trump and his supporters that he and they bolt the party. If Trump is either nominated or bolts, the Republicans lose. Think Charles Bronson and Death Wish.

There is, however, a way to thread the eye of this needle. The mainstream candidate the GOP kingmakers seek must not come from among those Republicans currently running. Any effort to pick one of them to leapfrog Trump will drive Trump and his followers out of the party.

In a recent column in Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende sets forth the odds of winning the nomination for each of the 14 Republicans currently running. Not surprisingly, Trump leads the pack, but at only 20 percent. Trende’s odds for the remaining baker’s dozen are far worse than Trump’s. His odds that no one wins enough delegates tops Trump at 25 percent. Thus, Trende believes we’re headed for a contested or brokered convention.

Looking back to the 1952 election is the way to find the GOP’s exit ramp out of this snarled traffic jam. Then the Republicans believed they could recapture the White House after two decades of Democratic rule. But their leading candidate, Senator Robert A. Taft, held isolationist views that led him to oppose the creation of NATO. The party elders knew that to successfully oppose communist expansion and win the election they needed an internationalist. They needed an alternative to Taft.

Thus, leading Republicans attempted to persuade an outsider, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, to run. Initially Ike was reluctant. He had not even voted until 1948. No one knew whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. And wisely, the Republicans didn’t care.

In January of 1952, Ike announced that he was a Republican and that he would seek the presidency. In a battle over seating disputed delegates at the contested GOP Convention in Chicago, the Eisenhower forces out maneuvered Taft. Ike won the nomination, and in November he cruised to the first of his two overwhelming victories.

Today the Republicans need another outsider in the Eisenhower mold. Remarkably his office is only four blocks from the Source restaurant where the panicked GOP elders dined on December 7.

It’s the office of the director of the FBI. James Comey is a Republican who President Obama nominated to lead the FBI in 2013. The Senate confirmed him 93-1. As acting attorney general in the Bush administration in 2004, Comey successfully stared down those in the Bush White House who were willing to violate the rule of law in order to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

He is a principled man of impeccable character. He’s conservative, but not crazy conservative. He knows how government and politics works, but he does not have a paper trail that can be used to destroy him. He can not only unify the GOP, but can win most independents and some Democrats.

If approached, he will likely say no. But like Ike, he likely will change his mind. James Comey is the GOP’s exit ramp in Cleveland next Summer. Tempis fugit.

Goldman worked on Capitol Hill and at the National Institutes of Health. He has retired to Flat Rock and can be reached at:  EmailMe

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Hillary doesn't control her destiny

By

LeRoy Goldman

BlueRidgeNow.com

December 13, 2015

The calendar will soon say 2016, and that’s when the campaigns for the White House will kick into high gear. The Clinton Campaign has done all that it can to exude a sense of confidence and inevitability about first securing the Democratic nomination and then winning the general election. It appears that her nomination is in the bag.

Her competitors, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, don’t even rise to the nuisance level. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who would have been a formidable opponent, demurred. Vice President Joe Biden teased us for a couple of months but then said no.

But do not let appearances deceive you. All is not as rosy as it might seem. Clinton faces two existential challenges that may well derail either her nomination or her election.

The first is the ongoing FBI investigation into the private email system she created and controlled when she was President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. And the second is the daunting task of trying to separate herself from the problematic policies of the Obama administration in which she served without putting at risk the African-American and Hispanic voters she will need to win.

Last August, the inspector general for the intelligence community said some of Clinton’s work-related emails from her private server contained top-secret information. And that revelation led to the ongoing FBI investigation by that agency’s counterintelligence section. Details of the investigation are appropriately shrouded in secrecy, though FBI Director James Comey has testified to Congress that he is following the investigation “very closely.”

The centerpiece of the inquiry is whether Clinton’s use of her private email system compromised national security. If Clinton or her aides knew the server contained classified information and it was mishandled, they may be exposed to criminal prosecution.

In addition, Secretary Clinton signed nondisclosure agreements with respect to the handling of classified information. In so doing, she acknowledged that “the unauthorized disclosure, retention, or negligent handling of Sensitive Compartmented Information by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”

Also, it appears the FBI probe is looking into whether Clinton or her aides may have made “materially false statements” to agents conducting the probe. That, too, is a violation of federal law, which can result in a prison term of up to five years.

It’s reasonable to assume that the results of the FBI investigation will be public before the Democratic National Convention next summer. And, while none of us knows now what the investigation will conclude, we do know this: Comey is a man of principle and beyond reproach. Comey has testified to Congress that politics will not be a factor in the investigation. He said, referring to the investigators, “If you know my folks, you know they don’t give a rip about politics.”

An FBI report that does not give Clinton an undiluted clean bill of health could destroy her presidential campaign in a nanosecond and leave the Democratic Party twisting in the wind.

Even if Clinton is exonerated by the FBI, she’s not out of danger. The outcome of most presidential elections is determined by the economy. And, while there is no doubt that the economy will be a central issue in 2016, it is also the case that foreign policy and national security concerns will play a pivotal role, too.

The stalemated Korean War destroyed any hope that Harry Truman might have had for another term in 1952. After the Democrats tried and failed to recruit Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, they nominated Adlai Stevenson, who lost in a landslide.

On March 31,1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek another term as president. He was a casualty of the failed American war policy in Vietnam. And his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost to Richard Nixon.

President Jimmy Carter was denied a second term in office in large measure because of his failed attempt to free American hostages in Iran.

Obama’s election in 2008 was made inevitable by the fact that most Americans had turned against President George W. Bush’s pre-emptive war in Iraq.

The point is that when the American people come to believe that their president can’t handle foreign policy, can’t win wars or can’t keep us safe, he and his party flame out.

The evidence suggests that we may be there again. If so, Clinton will pay the price for the nation’s increased vulnerability to radical Islamic terrorism and, even worse, a president whose arrogance and bubble isolation leads him to believe the American people are stupid enough to not figure out he neither knows what to do nor how to do it.

Clinton is caught in a vice. As Obama’s secretary of state, her fingerprints are all over the Obama administration’s foreign and national security policy. And it has been a policy of failure in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Iran, the Palestinian State and Israel. And now the long arm of ISIS has demonstrated its ability to kill and terrorize innocent people from Paris to San Bernardino.

Look at it this way: If Hillary Clinton is nominated, the American people may do her a favor and save her from having to move out of the White House for a second time complaining that she and Bill are “dead broke.”

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:  EmailMe

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By

LeRoy Goldman

GUEST COLUMNIST

Asheville Citizen-Times

December 4, 2015

The 2016 number 1 draft pick: James Comey

By now everyone’s familiar with America’s latest get rich quick scheme, Draft King and Fan Duel. They offer the gullible the opportunity to combine fantasy football with gambling. They hold out the false promise of free money. Some of their ads close with the line, “Get off the sidelines and get some.”

There are lessons to be learned if we apply the evanescent appeal of Draft King and Fan Duel to the unfolding race for the presidency next year. Maybe we ought to avert the coming disaster by drafting someone for the job instead of sitting back and accepting the inevitable train wreck that’s headed our way.

It’s increasingly clear that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. For the Republicans Donald Trump continues to be the frontrunner by a wide margin.

What’s worse is that the election of either of these two individuals guarantees the continuation of gridlock in Washington. In order to win, Clinton will of necessity be forced to support most of President Obama’s policies. Doing otherwise puts at risk the African-American and Hispanic votes she must have. If elected, she will certainly face a Republican House of Representatives that will thwart her every move. The Republican radicals, who will continue to control the House, will morph from Obama hatred to Hillary hatred.

If Trump is elected, virtually all of his major initiatives will flame out in the Senate. There is no chance that the Republicans will have the 60 votes necessary to prevent the Democrats from using the filibuster to turn the Senate into a Trump graveyard.

Although time is short, it’s not too late for the American people to rise up and draft a candidate who’s qualified, and who can end gridlock. His name is James Comey. As you may know, he is the director of the FBI, was appointed by President Obama, and is a Republican.

Here’s what you probably don’t know. And it’s what sets Comey apart from the two stooges described above.

In March 2004 Comey was acting Attorney General because his boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, lay gravely ill in George Washington Hospital. Comey had temporarily suspended President George W. Bush’s domestic spying program because he and other officials at Justice believed parts of the program were illegal, especially those respecting the enormous data mining operation that ultimately were exposed years later when Edward Snowden released classified information from the National Security Agency.

On his way home on the evening of March 10, 2004 Comey learned that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card were on their way to the hospital with the intention of having Ashcroft overrule Comey and reauthorize the covert program. Comey immediately called FBI Director Robert Mueller and asked him to join him at the hospital. Think of this meeting as a shootout at the O.K. Corral.

At Ashcroft’s bedside Gonzales and Card attempted to do just what Comey anticipated. But Ashcroft would have none of it. Moreover, he pointed out to them what they were requesting was impossible because the powers of the Attorney General had been transferred from him to James Comey.

Shortly thereafter a furious Andrew Card called Comey and demanded that he come to the White House immediately. Comey complied, but he took the Solicitor General of the United States, Ted Olson, with him as a witness. There they met with Card and Gonzales.

The next day the program was reauthorized even though the Justice Department had not attested to its legality. At that point Comey wrote his letter of resignation. It quickly became apparent that FBI Director Mueller and John Ashcroft were also going to resign.

Two days later the firestorm was averted when President Bush met with Comey one-on-one. In that meeting President Bush authorized the Justice Department to put the program on a sound legal basis, which is exactly what Comey then did.

It’s no wonder that when President Obama nominated Comey to head the FBI in 2013 he said Comey was a man of “fierce independence and deep integrity.”

Those are the qualities we need in a president. They are qualities that can’t be faked.

When you vote in your presidential primary, whether it is a Republican Primary or a Democratic Primary, write in Promo Code: Comey, that’s: Comey. Get off the sidelines, and put your country back on track.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:  EmailMe

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America has lost sight of Thanksgiving’s meaning

By:

LeRoy Goldman

The Charlotte Observer

November 26, 2015

Two of the “regulars” who comment on my columns, a bank executive from Wisconsin and a cardiologist from North Carolina, sing the same refrain, “Well done, but too negative. Tell us how to end gridlock.”

Fair enough. But it’s hard, really hard. But maybe, just maybe, the answer hides in plain sight here on Thanksgiving Day.

America has lost sight of Thanksgiving’s meaning.

In many ways Thanksgiving is a uniquely American national holiday. It was first celebrated by the Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621. They thanked God for the blessings of their harvest. They knew that their very existence depended upon it.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation was signed by President Washington on October 3, 1789. It read in part, “I recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being...That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.”

In 1863 President Lincoln’s proclamation made Thanksgiving a national holiday. The Proclamation called for a “national day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

For the Pilgrims and Presidents Washington and Lincoln, there’s no denying that giving thanks to God was the centerpiece of Thanksgiving.

But now Thanksgiving has been dumbed-down into a day of gluttony.

In very different ways we have dumbed-down politics and governance too. Americans have walled themselves off into two separate, warring nations, the Reds and the Blues, who loathe one another. Each of them believes they have a corner on truth. Each believes compromise is surrender. Each elects individuals who will perpetuate paralysis.

Perhaps there’s a way out. Take an hour and a half out of your otherwise barren Thanksgiving Day and watch the classic, Academy Award-winning 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street.

Starring Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, the cast also includes Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood, who plays a girl who like her mother, played by O’Hara, does not believe in Santa Claus. O’Hara, a Macy’s executive, is in charge of orchestrating the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and she recruits Kringle to be Macy’s Santa.

But she ends up with far more than she bargained for. Kringle not only believes he’s Santa Claus, but he also believes that he’s the one and only Santa Claus. If that’s not enough, he has the temerity to send Macy’s customers to its corporate rival, Gimbels, if Macy doesn’t have the toy a child wants.

Messrs. Macy and Gimbel loathe each other. Think of them as modern day Red and Blue generalissimos. They each share the same objective, the destruction of the other.

Kris Kringle throws a monkey wrench into all these destructive relationships. His unjust dessert includes being fired and being deemed dangerously mentally ill. He’s imprisoned, and put on trial.

But then it happens. Macy’s sales surge due to the publicity of Kringle’s advice to children. Gimbels is forced to follow suit. Messrs. Macy and Gimbel discover that they can prosper by cooperating with one another.

Kringle’s enterprising lawyer, played by John Payne, finds an ingenious way to prove in court that Kringle is the one and only Santa Claus. His legal tour de force not only delights New Yorkers of all ages, it melts the hearts of both female leads.

So, an old man with a bit of divine inspiration changes everything. Are you such an individual? What counts is what’s in your heart, not your wallet.

Goldman worked on Capitol Hill and at the National Institutes of Health. He has retired to Flat Rock.

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Election outlook 2016: Here comes Hillary

By 

LeRoy Goldman

BlueRidgeNow

Our Guest columnist

Published: Sunday, November 15, 2015 at 4:30 a.m.

Looks to me like Hillary has the inside track to the White House. Whether such an outcome engenders ecstasy or revulsion is not the point. What is worth examining is how and why she may be the nation's next president. It's not a pretty picture.

There is no doubt that the nation has been in decline for a very long time. Poll after poll tells the same story. Americans in large numbers believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction. Large majorities also have contempt for the president and the Congress, regardless of their party affiliation. Voter anger is palpable.

Barack Obama waltzed into the White House in 2009. His campaign of Hope and Change was music to the ears of most Americans. His victory came with large majorities in both the House and the Senate. But by the 2010 election the honeymoon was over. Think Obamacare.

Since then it's been all downhill for the Democratic Party in Congress and at the state level. President Obama's inexperience coupled with the bitter polarity engendered by Obamacare have severely harmed the Democrats. Since 2010, the Democrats have lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 12 governors, 30 state legislative chambers, and 919 state legislative seats. Republican legislative dominance is now stronger than at any time since 1928!

This carnage at the state level for the Democrats is what has enabled the Republicans to solidify their control of the House of Representatives through gerrymandering. Their dominance of the House is likely to last until at least 2022. President Obama's unforced errors destroyed his ability to work with Congress in a bipartisan manner, and they will cast a long shadow over Hillary Clinton if she is elected.

Here's a useful way to understand better how America has cornered itself politically. On Nov. 3, 2010, the day after the huge GOP victory at the polls, the president held a news conference during which he said, "It makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us. And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth — that used to be us."

A year later, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman and Johns Hopkins professor Michael Mandelbaum borrowed the president's phrase, "That Used To Be Us," for the title of their insightful book that powerfully chronicles America's decline. In the chapter of the book dealing with energy policy, they state, "The Democrats were cowardly, and the Republicans were crazy."

With an additional four years of hindsight, it is now clear that their acid condemnation of both political parties applies far more broadly than just to energy policy. The Democrats, for example, have shown cowardice on the urgent need for entitlement and tax reform. President Obama created the Simpson-Bowles Commission, and when its report was issued, he and the Democrats ran from it like a scalded dog. Similarly, once the House Freedom Caucus began to flex its muscle by putting a choke collar around John Boehner's neck, crazy things began to happen like voting to repeal Obamacare 50-60 times or voting to shut down the federal government.

Although both parties have worked hard and successfully to earn the distrust and enmity of the American people, there is no denying the enormous advantage the Democrats have when it comes to the presidential election. That advantage exists where it counts the most — in the Electoral College. The Democrats basically have a lock on states with 247 of the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. That means victory is only a couple of swing states away. That's Hillary's ace in the hole.

Alternatively, Matthew Continetti, writing recently in the Washington Free Beacon, believes Clinton can be beaten. He states, "Clinton can't be trusted. Trade, same-sex marriage, crime, foreign policy — she'll betray you whenever it suits her political needs. She lied about the Benghazi video; she lied about her email; she lied about Sidney Blumenthal. That what she does. She lies." And Continetti argues that Clinton will have to defend both of Obama's unpopular and significant achievements, Obamacare and the Iran deal. He concludes, "A race to the bottom is a race we can win."

It's not clear to me that the GOP wins a race to the bottom. That's so because the Republicans have problems of their own that, left unattended, will hamstring their nominee, regardless of Hillary Clinton's character flaws.

In a recent Politico Magazine article, Michael Lind argues the GOP has lost its intellectual moorings. It no longer has a coherent set of beliefs that resonate with the American electorate. Lind suggests that the Republican Party's greatest obstacle to governing is that its ideology is "not only disconnected from the values of the larger society but from the values and interests of Republicans themselves."

Lind suggests that what used to be accepted pillars of Republican thought, tax cuts, a more robust military coupled with military intervention around the world, and the social policies of the Religious Right are no longer fully embraced by most Republicans. Lind believes the GOP must "abandon the old orthodoxy altogether and start afresh." He's right.

Unfortunately, soul searching of that magnitude is not in the cards for the GOP. That's why Hillary has the inside track. If so, the nation ends up where we started — cowards at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue and crazies at the other.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. 

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Stuffing the gerrymandering geenie back in the bottle

Stuffing the gerrymandering geenie back in the bottle

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

November 2, 2015

The stars were aligned for the GOP in the 2010 election when opposition to Obamacare enabled the Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives and also win control of many state legislatures and Governor's Mansions. All of this occurred as new census data mandated the redrawing of congressional district boundaries. Predictably the Republicans seized the opportunity to indulge themselves in a gerrymandering orgy.

But gerrymandering dates back to the dawn of the 19th century. It has become as American as apple pie, and has been practiced with increasing vengeance by both political parties. Carried to its current extreme, it is a bipartisan evil that has contributed significantly to the stalemate in the House of Representatives. While it will never be possible to expect politicians to relinquish the opportunity to draw district lines in ways that advantage themselves, gerrymandering has now turned democracy upside down. Instead of voters choosing a Congressman to represent them, gerrymandering has enabled incumbent Congressmen to choose the voters who will assure their reelection. At the heart of this undemocratic abuse lies the Majority-Minority district.

These districts are ones in which a majority of its residents are racial or ethnic minorities. Most all of them are represented by African-Americans or Hispanics. The vast majority are Democrats. In 1982 there were 35 such districts. By 2014 the number had skyrocketed to 118.

But the explosive growth of these utterly safe Democratic districts has had a counter intuitive, boomerang effect. Remarkably they have advantaged the Republicans and helped them maintain control of the House. The GOP figured out that packing districts with minorities who vote overwhelmingly Democratic made it possible for them to win in many more neighboring districts. Thus the GOP took control of the House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years and has steadily strengthened it grip ever since.

The Democrats suffer in silence for fear that challenging the necessity for such districts will subject them to cries of racism by the minority groups who benefit from these sinecures. The GOP is similarly silent, gleefully knowing they have become the unintended beneficiaries of reverse racism.

And there you have it. Political correctness, reverse racism, and both political party's obsession with maintaining partisan advantage and exacting retribution have combined to emasculate the House of Representatives. Any realistic hope of reform must be external to those who have been responsible for and who perpetuate this mess.

The courts, ultimately the Supreme Court, could put this matter right. In fact the Supreme Court came within a single vote of doing just that in 2001. Let's look at how breathtakingly close it came to rectifying this problem.

In two landmark cases, Baker v. Carr in 1962 and Reynolds v. Sims in 1964 the Supreme Court thrust the judiciary into a determination of the constitutionality of a state's voting districts. In his opinion in Baker v. Carr Justice William O. Douglas said, “if a voter no longer has the constitutional value of his right to vote and the legislative branch fails to take appropriate restorative action, the doors of the court must be open to him”.

Throughout the 1990s Duke Law Professor Robinson Everett, a Liberal Democrat, was the driving force behind three law suits that were decided by the Supreme Court that challenged North Carolina's two Majority-Minority congressional districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. Everett believed these districts violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court in 5-4 decisions agreed with Everett in the first two cases, Shaw v. Reno in 1993 and Shaw v. Hunt in 1996. But Everett lost the third and decisive case, Easley v. Cromartie, in 2001 when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor switched her vote.

Justice O'Connor's volte-face was especially disappointing given the fact that in writing for the majority in one of the two earlier cases she had said, “a reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographic and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid”.

Robinson Everett passed away in 2009. But his legacy lives, and, more importantly, a Supreme Court decision overturning racial gerrymanders is all the more urgent. A new case brought by a lawyer intent upon completing what Judge Everett began is the way to put the evil gerrymandering genie back in the bottle.

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Ryan lacks strength to unify House GOP

The Charlotte Observer

BY LEroy GOLDMAN

Special to the Observer

October 28, 2015

John Boehner’s Zip-a-dee-doo-dah exit as Speaker of the House of Representatives has triggered a remarkable and chaotic process among House Republicans. It quickly became apparent that there was no obvious successor who was capable of leading, and who could command the overwhelming support of the entire GOP Caucus.

Out of that chaos, attention began to focus on Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, and a man who had never aspired to a House leadership position and who said he did not want to be Speaker.

Ryan is a man of substance, a policy wonk, a Republican who, unlike virtually all of the rest of the 246 Republicans in the House, understands that in order to govern, the GOP must demonstrate to the American people that it has workable alternatives to the programs and policies put forth by President Obama and the Democrats. Just voting to repeal Obamacare 50+ times doesn’t cut it.

As the former Chair of the House Budget Committee and the current Chair of Ways and Means, Ryan has been perfectly positioned to offer legislation to address big issues like the debt and the deficit, health care, immigration reform and comprehensive tax reform.

But the pressure on Ryan to fill the Speaker void quickly became irresistible. It was at that point Ryan set forth his conditions. But Ryan blundered badly, sold himself short, and has set the stage for his own demise as Speaker.

He did not take full advantage of the position of strength he occupied as the one person virtually all House members were willing to rally around as the new Speaker. As such, he should have insisted upon a set of conditions that would have brought order out of the chaos among House Republicans. He could have turned the tables on the House Freedom Caucus by saying to them from now on it will be my way or the highway, not yours.

Here’s how Ryan blew it. He first insisted on the support of all three of the caucuses that make up the House Republicans. But then he backtracked when some members of the hysterical Freedom Caucus would not support him. The message his backtracking sent will be lethal going forward. It tells the Freedom Caucus that they will be able to jerk him around just as they jerked John Boehner’s chain whenever they wished.

Then Ryan said he would support the continued use of the Hastert Rule, the mechanism that the radicals in the Freedom Caucus have used to stymie the House legislatively and prevent legislative accommodation with House Democrats, the Senate and the president. Ryan should have reserved the right to abandon the slavish use of the Hastert Rule.

Ryan should have insisted that both Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise be replaced with fresh blood of Ryan’s choosing. He didn’t, and he will regret it.

Finally, Ryan agreed to give up the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He should have retained that post so that he could continue to shape vital legislation, and so that he had an avenue of retreat if being Speaker went south.

Had Ryan insisted on these conditions, a new and better day would have dawned in the House or, failing that, Ryan could have walked away from a rendezvous with oblivion.

Instead Ryan has trapped himself. Unwittingly, he has become Don Quixote, The Man Of La Mancha. He dreams the impossible dream; he fights the unbeatable foe; he reaches for the unreachable star; and he cannot right the unrightable wrong.

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