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The Book of the Week is “The Taft Story” by William S. White, published in 1954. This volume was a chronologically disorganized hodgepodge that described the various facets of conservative Republican Robert A. Taft’s ideology and candidacies for U.S. senator from Ohio and for U.S. president from the 1940’s into the 1950’s.
Born in September 1880 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft was a son of the late William Howard Taft, a U.S. president and then chief U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Senator Robert Taft, who had earned an Ivy-League law degree, believed that the following order should prevail in terms of federal power: Congress (pursuant to the Constitution), the courts, and then the president (of course, he was a member of Congress). He believed that only Congress could pass a Constitutional amendment, but he also interpreted the Constitution literally.
Yet Taft was a political hack– would say or do anything to get elected or reelected. After WII, he made bold statements (which would be viewed as sociopathic and politically incorrect nowadays) reasoning that since America was biased (as a winner of the war), individuals accused of war-crimes (such as Nazis) wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial in the international tribunal at Nuremberg, and that punishment wouldn’t be a deterrent to future war crimes, anyway. He opined that the trials were held simply for the purpose of political revenge.
Taft and some of his fellow American Republican politicians were resistant to change, but valued liberty, fiscal restraint and patriotism. For his staff, he hired loyalty over competence, and surrounded himself with intellectual inferiors. He was, in short, an isolationist, hyper-partisan, hater. Democrats, on the other hand, thought free trade would help achieve liberty and peace.
Taft and his ilk (Republicans from the Midwest) had “…bitter and undying hostility toward those Eastern, internationalist Republicans typified by Henry L. Stimson– FDR’s secretary of war– who were not only interventionist, but unforgivingly pro-British.” Taft’s Republican counterparts were flexible and willing to identify aspects of the New Deal and Fair Deal that could benefit their own party. In addition to Stimson, they included Wendell Willkie, Dwight Eisenhower and Thomas E. Dewey.
When Taft ran for president in 1948, in the primaries, Dewey’s people kept repeating the slogan, “Taft can’t win” in order to demoralize him. It worked. Read the book to learn of additional “deja vu all over again” kinds of goings-on in Taft’s political arena.
Speaking of history’s repeating itself, it appears that Trump shares some political ideology with Taft, but here’s a little ditty that states Trump’s ultimate goal– what he’s telling his claques, flacks and sycophants.
Immortalize Me
sung to the tune of “Let It Be” with apologies to the Beatles, their estates, and to whomever else the rights may concern.
I rescue America in times of trouble.
My expert team comes to me, finding all the ways, to immortalize me.
All the Democrats brought darkness.
My saintliness is surrounding me.
I’m making America great again. Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Using all my wisdom.
Immortalize me.
And all the suffering American people, living in the world agree,
I’m the perfect answer.
Immortalize me.
The process I have started.
I’m better than past statesmen, YOU will see.
I’m the perfect answer. Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
I’m the perfect answer.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Using all my wisdom.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Using all my wisdom.
Immortalize me.
When the fight gets bloody,
I’m the light that shines on thee.
Shines forever and ever. Immortalize me.
I’m shaking up the ground-of-the Democrats.
My saintliness surrounding me.
Using all my wisdom. Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Using all my wisdom.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
I’m the perfect answer.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Immortalize me.
Using all my wisdom.
Immortalize me.