Lamar Alexander’s “Howard Baker Moment”

Mr. Lincoln's Legacy

Lamar Alexander’s “Howard Baker Moment”

As the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump proceeds, the public polling numbers in support of calling witnesses tick up daily with more than 75% of Americans now expressing a desire that the Senate call witnesses, John Bolton among them, to testify.  Much of the attention has been focused on the three or four Republican Senators who have acted most independently in the face of Donald Trump’s behavior. Yet there is one Senator, a loyalist of sorts, who has a great deal at stake in the face of the great questions facing the country in this impeachment battle: Lamar Alexander.

Senator Lamar Alexander has had a long and distinguished career in the United States Senate, as Secretary of Education under George H. W. Bush and as Governor of Tennessee. When he retires at the end of this term by all rights he should be able to sit back and collect accolades, with justifiable pride in his service to the United States of America. 

But all that he has achieved, all of the years of service, hang in the balance right now because of one man. Lamar Alexander’s legacy hangs in the balance because of Donald Trump.

You see, Alexander is blessed and cursed with being from the state one of the 20th century’s political icons, Howard Baker, called home. 

Baker, too, had a very distinguished career but few could tell you of the specifics of that career because Baker’s role in the impeachment, or more accurately the resignation, of Richard Nixon completely subsumes the public’s memory. For more than five years, Howard Baker was a loyal supporter of Richard Nixon but when the facts began to emerge regarding Watergate, Baker began to question whether his ultimate loyalty was to the President or the Presidency; to the party or the constitution. It was then that Howard Baker uttered his now-famous phrase “what did the president know, and when did he know it?” 

Today it is almost impossible to find Americans who will admit to voting for Nixon. Hindsight and the secrecy of the ballot box allow them the luxury. 20 years from today, most Americans will deny supporting President Trump. But, unlike those Americans, Lamar Alexander will cast his votes over the next few weeks in the light of day and his choices will not only follow him for the rest of his life but will follow his children and grandchildren as well. 

Years from now Alexander’s family will gather around Thanksgiving tables and Christmas dinners and invariably remember their famous predecessor: father, uncle, grandfather, great grandfather. 

Perhaps, they will talk about his groundbreaking ideas and legislation in public education.

Quite likely, they will talk about how he stood up to climate change deniers and put forth a far-reaching plan to spur needed research into sustainable energy resources and storage capacity. 

Maybe, someone will marvel at the fact that Lamar Alexander was an intern to Senator Howard Baker Who played a pivotal role in saving the country from a prolonged impeachment battle over the presidency of Richard M Nixon.

The question will arise, what did he do when the Republic was threatened by the actions of Donald Trump? If the answer to that is that he was cowed by the same fears that others were. Donald Trump will have destroyed the legacy of a great man.

Only one man can prevent that from happening. Lamar Alexander.

About Wayne D. King: Wayne King is an author, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor,  though he is now a registered Independent; he is also the former publisher of Heart of New Hampshire Magazine and CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., and now host of two Podcasts - The Radical Centrist (www.theradicalcentrist.us) and NH Secrets, Legends and Lore (www.nhsecrets.blogspot.com). His art is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published three books of his images and a novel "Sacred Trust"  a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline all available on Amazon.com. He now lives in Thornton, New Hampshire at the base of Welch Mountain where he proudly flies both the American and Iroquois Flags. His website is: http://bit.ly/WayneDKing . You can help spread the word by following and supporting him at www.Patreon.com/TheRadicalCentrist .  

Pelosi’s Gambit

Pelosi’s Gambit 

Leader McConnell and Speaker Pelosi in a Clash of the Titans

Say what you will about Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell but the successful theft of a Supreme Court judgeship from President Obama, in the case of Merrick Garland, and his more recent bottling of what the media has reported are more than 400 House-passed bills addressing everything from violence against women to election reform and climate change, is proof positive that as a strategist he is the most worthy of adversaries. 

However, he may have met his match in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the greatest legislative strategist in the House of Representatives since LBJ. 

Following the impeachment vote by the House, Senator McConnell expected the House to simply turn the process over to him, despite the fact that he publicly acknowledged the fact that he would falsely swear an oath of impartiality before conducting the trial in the Senate. Furthermore, he had also stipulated that he did not intend to call any witnesses even though the President had circumvented the will of Congress by ordering them not to respond to a lawful subpoena during the House proceedings.

McConnell was surprised by Pelosi’s decision to hold off on transferring the articles of impeachment to the Senate, ostensibly as she waited to see that an agreement on conducting a fair trial would be reached before conveying the articles to the Senate. Not because he was concerned about that rationale but because he was concerned that a delay might allow more evidence to come to light. 

As it turns out, he was right. Even in the week since the vote, new evidence has come to light that makes it even more clear that critical defense aid, authorized by Congress, and in direct circumvention of the law, to pressure the Ukraine to open up an investigation into Trump’s potential opponent in the 2020 election. A series of emails, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act has clearly shown that within 1.5 hours of the now infamous call with Ukrainian President Zelensky President Trump ordered the embargo of the desperately needed defensive aid. Further, the chain of evidence within these emails indicates that the author knew what he was doing was wrong and made it clear that the hold was not for public knowledge.

One additional, and interesting, theory came from a former Bush aid who speculated that Pelosi might be trying to deny the President the opportunity to treat the 2020 State of the Union speech as a sort of victory lap after a McConnell led show trial in the Senate disposes of the articles of impeachment without witnesses. 

Here, in the foothills of the White Mountains, as one might expect, opinions on impeachment are divided, but there is a growing sentiment for a trial that is fair and impartial. National polling reflects the same sentiments, with over 72% favoring a trial with, at the very least, key witnesses. Americans may be divided about many things but a sense of fairness and justice are not among them. A small ray of hope in these difficult times.

With the recent killing of Soleimani in Iraq, a growing sense of alarm over the escalation of tensions and outright violence between the US and Iran further colors the sense among people that fair process and cooler heads are called for in this perilous moment.

It is understandable that many are skeptical of the decision to take out Soleimani, in light of impeachment proceedings, but there is no doubt that the nexus of these two crises demands extraordinary transparency on both to avoid deepening the breach between Americans of goodwill on both sides.