Blog Archive » 2006 » December

Ok, time for a break from the usual serious commentary for something more pertinent: how to get through the next two weeks! The "Holiday Season" is a delightful time full of landmines set to trigger all manner of small faux pas that can cascade into major catastrophes — including calling this the "Holiday Season" in the earshot of those who insist that only "Christmas Season" will do. (I love Christmas and grew up steeped in the Catholic tradition of the mystery, drama and beauty of the birth of Jesus. "Merry Christmas" is still my greeting to my Catholic and Christian friends. But I also have many friends who are Jewish or from other traditions, and I always wish them "Happy Holidays" — seems to me that the real spirit of Christmas means that we don't start small wars over greetings, Christmas trees in airports, Menorah displays, songs and symbols of the many religious traditions we celebrate at this time of year. Let a thousand poinsettias bloom!)

So, having begun the stirring-up, here are my Top Ten Tips for Happier Holidays:

10) Checkout aisle #1 — If you've never used the self-checkout aisle before, now is NOT the time!

9) Checkout aisle #2 — Don't stake out a place in the checkout line expecting to let your five best friends with full carts jump in behind you.

Checkout aisle #3 — "Ten Items or Less" means just that. (Ok, it should say "Ten Items or Fewer" but our concern here is courtesy, not grammar!)

7) Take the first available parking space — the walk will lower your blood pressure and offset the damage of those tasty Christmas cookies!

6) Definitely enjoy the Christmas cookies.

5) Smile and thank the salespeople, even if they're grumpy — they're working to support their families and to make yours happier for the gifts you are purchasing. Be a generous tipper in this season.

4) Say "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" to everyone often — don't stress about political correctness, people of goodwill will appreciate your kindness. Go to Midnight Mass. Pray for those who find fault.

3) Hang some lights against the darkness.

2) Make a financial gift to charity. Make several! Make a gift to Trinity!

1) Go home and celebrate with your family and friends. Enjoy them, even the weird ones, even those who annoy you, even those you wish would be different — they are all we have in this stressful world. They are the reason we have Christmas.

And I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight
Happy Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!
(Thank you, Clement Clark Moore!)

For some reason, every time I read a news item that starts with "A panel of experts…" my Fog-O-Meter starts clanging. So many words, so much collective talent, so few results at the end of the story. If the lede says that they are "Education experts" the clanging becomes a high decibel alarm. Everyone, it seems, can be an "Education expert" but few actually know what they are talking about.

So, when the New York Times trumpeted a headline "Expert Panel Proposes Far-Reaching Redesign of the American Education System" my fog warning bells rang loud.

Guess what? As I read the story, I found myself intrigued. This panel of experts — The Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce — did not come up with the usual litany of improve-standards-and-impose-testing that seem to be the bottom line of so many of these reports.

No, this group came up with something far more radical: blow-up the education paradigm as it has existed for 150 years in this country!

Among other radical proposals, the Commission proposes eliminating 11th and 12th grade for many students who might be better-off in postsecondary educational programs at community colleges; increasing pay for teachers substantially, but at the same time turning contracts over to private enterprises to run schools and hire teachers; and enrolling children in school by age 3.

Will these proposals have any lasting impact? Library shelves are crammed with the work product of countless other reports on how to fix what's wrong with American education. This report — "Tough Choices or Tough Times" — may have more staying power because the powers behind the report are some of the wealthiest foundations in this nation — the Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Annie Casey Foundation, Hewlett Foundation — and they have already been devoting millions of dollars to studying and restructuring educational systems in states and cities all over the nation.

While various groups will argue about these proposals, the good news is that the arguments are ensuing — and in the loud and lively discussion about school reform, maybe — just maybe — we will find some consensus on this plain truth: K-12 education is not working in too many places for too many children, and the failures of elementary and secondary education have an impact on diminishing returns in higher education. Tinkering at the margins won't fix the problem — nor will testing, recomposing school boards, or swapping superintendents every two or three years.

Blowing up the education paradigm sounds radical, yes — but as a saying hanging on my wall states, "When reform becomes impossible, revolution becomes imperative."

See the report at insidehighered.com

In the same year, 1962, that Nancy D'Alesandro (later Pelosi) graduated from Trinity, and several years before Ohio Governor John Gilligan's daughter Kathleen (later Sebelius) enrolled at Trinity, another woman who would have a remarkable political career — albeit quite different from the future Speaker Pelosi and Governor Sebelius — came to Trinity as an assistant professor of Political Science: Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick. Like so many strong intellectual women of that era, she was a graduate of a women's college — Barnard — and had attended Stephens College in Missouri as well. Jeane Kirkpatrick spent five years on Trinity's faculty before moving to Georgetown after earning her doctorate at Columbia. At Trinity, she was part of a highly respected Political Science department led by Dr. Edna Fluegel who had been one of the influential scholars contributing to the creation of the United Nations. Ironically, the United Nations would be the pinnacle of the career of her protege, Dr. Kirkpatrick.

Jeane Kirkpatrick's death last week, on December 7, seems particularly ironic in light of the release of the Iraq Study Group report. She might have predicted the findings in that report, given her earlier scholarship and theories on the difficulty of introducting democracy in totalitarian states.

Dr. Kirkpatrick was a well known Democrat who became an influential voice in the development of the neoconservative movement in the late 1970's. President Ronald Reagan was impressed with her theory on the political necessity of right-wing dictatorships, and he appointed her as Ambassador to the United Nations in 1981. She was the only Democrat in the Reagan Administration — she officially became a Republican later on, after she left public life.

Her support for right-wing totalitarian regimes, including the brutal contras in Nicaragua, earned her intense opposition. At Trinity, this opposition culminated in a campus-wide protest over an invitation to her to speak at the Trinity Commencement ceremony in 1981. At that time, the Reagan Administration was also increasing U.S. support to the military regime in El Salvador, and the U.S. Catholic Bishops and many religious orders, including the Sisters of Notre Dame, protested the Reagan policies in the aftermath of the murders of three American nuns and a lay woman volunteer in El Salvador by members of the military regime. As the protest at Trinity mounted, Dr. Kirkpatrick eventually withdrew from the plan to speak at commencement — instead, she spoke at Georgetown that year. This incident is not mentioned in her many obituaries, but is reported in the Washington Post archives in an article dated May 8, 1981,

In her obituary in today's New York Times, Dr. Kirkpatrick was remembered as one of the first truly influential female policy advisors at the White House: "Ms. Kirkpatrick was the first American woman to serve as United Nations ambassador. She was the only woman, and the only Democrat, in President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council. No woman had ever been so close to the center of presidential power without actually residing in the White House. 'When she put her feet under the desk of the Oval Office, the president listened,' said William P. Clark Jr., Mr. Reagan's national security adviser during 1982 and 1983. 'And he usually agreed with her.' "

Women in public service associated with Trinity over the years — alumnae, faculty, Sisters of Notre Dame, friends — represent a broad spectrum of political beliefs. They have achieved many "firsts" for women leaders. While individually sparking principled disagreements about many different political issues, collectively these women have blazed trails and inspired new generations of women to step up to public leadership roles in legislatures, executive offices, judicial benches, school boards, civic associations and activist interest groups around the world. Many future generations of women leaders will rise on the shoulders of these first generations of women who broke through so many barriers.

See Jeane Kirkpatrick, United Nations

Who will remember the original meaning of "Day of Infamy" when the old men are long gone? That was the question on my mind today as I looked at the photos of elderly veterans, now well into their 80's and 90's, gathered on a pier in Hawaii for the 65th anniversary of the day that once was considered the most grievous attack on the United States, the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that triggered World War II in the Pacific. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared December 7, 1941 "a date which will live in infamy."

The front pages of most major newspapers today were full of headlines about another war, a war that has now officially run on longer than WWII. The report of the Iraq Study Group says that it's time to bring the War in Iraq to a conclusion, and the report sets forth some strategies to achieve that objective. But the question debated throughout this day is whether President Bush will actually accept the recommendations of the report.

At a luncheon downtown today, I actually heard Tony Snow, President Bush's press secretary, repeat the well-worn rhetoric about staying to achieve "victory" in Iraq, language that almost no one — from lawmakers to generals to the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates — is using today. I found myself wondering if he really had heard James Baker and Lee Hamilton speak yesterday, if he had really listened to the testimony of Secretary Gates before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In what seems to be a standard script for this White House, to make the case for this war Mr. Snow invoked images from another day that some have also called a "day of infamy" — September 11, 2001.

September 11 was a terrible day, a horrible tragedy for this nation. But unlike World War II, where the U.S. reacted with full military might against Japan after the clear provocation of the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. launched the War in Iraq as a pre-emptive strike, not defensive reaction, against an enemy that's not really a nation at all, but a shadowy band of international murderers aka terrorists aka Al Qaeda. The theory was that Iraq (or at least Saddam Hussein) was somehow, possibly connected to the terrorism of September 11. No proof of this link has emerged even after four long years of war and thousands of lives lost, a culture ruined and on the brink of even worse catastrophe.

Like the days after Pearl Harbor, the American people after 9/11 were united and willing to accept war as a necessary means to defend our nation. But unlike World War II, the wars that evolved in response to 9/11 — the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq — have become increasingly lost in their own distinctive fog of violence, chaos and deception on many fronts.

I can think of no better way to honor this "Day of Infamy" and the veterans of World War II and all wars than by embracing the possibility of a peaceful future for Iraq. With the strategy of war so clearly refuted by so many knowledgeable people in both political parties and in nations around the world, isn't it time to give peace a chance?

See Day of Infamy, Iraq Study Group

We can only imagine the debates that occurred in the meetings of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan 10-member panel that has just released its recommendations for new directions in the U.S. engagement with Iraq. Much in the report assesses the situation on-the-ground in Iraq and predicts catastropic consequences if the U.S. does not quickly adopt new strategies to restore civic order and eventually achieve peace.

While digesting those details, on which I will reflect in the days to come, tonight I was particularly struck by what this report said about the people of the United States. "Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance of rhetoric," wrote co-chairs James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. "Our leaders must be candid and forthright with the American people to win their support…" Baker, a Republican, was Secretary of State in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, father of the current president. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a highly regarded Democratic Congressman. They and their colleagues achieved consensus on a broad range of recommendations to begin to try to fix the very broken policy failure that is the Iraq war.

Can this spirit of consensus prevail with the White House, Congress and the American public?

Baker and Hamilton continued, "What we recommend in this report demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government…success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yet U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure — as is any course of action in Iraq — if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus."

Since the presidential election of the Year 2000 that required Supreme Court intervention to resolve the outcome, and well before the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001 that triggered the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War, this nation has been bitterly polarized. In the early years of this war, debate was suppressed, opposition was considered unpatriotic if not grounds for accusations of treason. Yet, had the kind of "robust debate" that Baker and Hamilton acknowledge now been forthcoming at a much earlier time, perhaps thousands of American and Iraqi lives would have been saved, perhaps the people of Iraq would have been spared their current nightmare.

The Founders of this nation recognized Freedom of Speech not simply as a courtesy, but as a bedrock principle to sustain a true democracy. Freedom of Speech does not defeat the goal of broad, sustained consensus — rather, robust debate ensures that the consensus can last. It's when speech is repressed that mistakes are made and resentments fester, impeding the consensus necessary to move ahead.

Note that Baker and Hamilton say that political leaders must "win the support" of the American people — not dictate support, not demand consensus, but "win" support. Leaders of both parties need to remember that point. The recent election underscores the power of the American people — and neither party should feel so affirmed that they quit working to "win" the people's support again and again. "We the People" govern the nation. That's why "robust debate" is so important.

Let's hope this bitter experience will make Americans more soundly committed to the robust debate over national policy that should never have gone quite so silent.

See United States Institute of Peace, Iraq Study Group, Baker Institute,