Horizon

I don't know why it seemed weird to see the photo in the paper of Mr. Felt looking so extremely happy. He really has a right to be happy. He did something brave that saved the country from Richard Nixon and CREEP and he's finally being recognized for his deed. But, I dunno, it's mildly weird anyway. I guess because a decision to break confidence at such a high level would have been a solemn last-resort choice that a conscientious official would have made only with great regret.

Yes, I know, Richard Nixon no longer seems like the worst of fates. But Nixon was as bad as those times allowed him to be. A younger man of Richard Nixon's character, tempted by the nature of present-day politics, would be much, much worse.

I'm not sure how conscientious he was. From what I'm reading I'm not convinced he was working from entirely noble motives. On the other hand, White House inside access to the investigation was wrong. Sometimes you can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. It's still the right thing. And either way, he was still pretty brave.

Yes, I know, Richard Nixon no longer seems like the worst of fates. But Nixon was as bad as those times allowed him to be. A younger man of Richard Nixon's character, tempted by the nature of present-day politics, would be much, much worse.

I do think you have the oddest ideas sometimes about how peculiarly awful the modern world supposedly is. Nearly 70 years ago a US President was seriously proposing to pack extra justices into the Supreme Court when he didn't get the results he wanted. I doubt that Mr. Bush, for all his vices, could air a proposal like that without effectively destroying his administration (the fellow in question did of course abandon his proposal because of public criticism, but was returned to office twice more - also a hair-raising departure from convention at the time).

Ah, but I was talking about Nixon, not Roosevelt. I'm well aware that Richard Nixon, with his ingrown, mother-fearing little soul, was a much less hair-raising creature than Roosevelt. I can root for the institutions of the New Deal and still see that. For one thing I'm going to a conference on the Internment tomorrow. For another, a reliable witness once told me that black people in Kentucky remember the WPA as very nearly a return to slavery.

But, Alan, don't you think that it is only that there is the Roosevelt precident as forewarning that prevents a subsequent president from making a similar proposal? In other words, the failure of the Constitution to fix a specific number of U. S. Supreme Court justices and the notorious hostility of the pre-packing plan SC did tempt FDR to go that route, so in a sense the Roosevelt precident safeguards the Court in lieu of an amendment to the Constitution.

About Nixon, on second thought there's a case to be made that the Great Prevaricator's petty mean-mindedness was fully frightening enough.

But, Alan, don't you think that it is only that there is the Roosevelt precident as forewarning that prevents a subsequent president from making a similar proposal?

Well sure, if all we're talking about is court packing. But the point I was really trying to make is that the recent past provides us with examples of constitutional jiggery-pokery that make the sins of the moment look mild in comparison. I am arguing against the suggestion that "the nature of present-day politics" has a uniquely awful character to it, a familiar refrain to regular Horizon readers.