Live Q&As

Very interesting.  

My view was the same, but from the other side.  He never seems as engaged and animated as when he is discussing markets, the power of industry, companies as people, money and speech, etc.  That's when the glow is in his eyes.  

If you are pro-choice, you are not anti-abortion. 

I daresay virtually everyone who is pro-choice prefers that there be fewer abortions.   We just happen to believe strongly that it is obnoxious and sanctimonious to tell women what they may do with their bodies, particularly where the leaders of that movement tend to be men, and tend to be driven by both puritanicalism and / or religious fervor.

Andy Rooney, many years ago, looked into the camera and asked "Why is it that I am pro-life but all my friends are pro-choice?"  

Well, there was a reason, Andy.  Think about it.  

Okay, you're dead.  But you know what I mean.   

Probably not.   Give him this and see how he reacts.   If it's anything but slap-to-the-forehead acknowledgement that he has been a selfish ass... dump him. 

I tell people that it is the sort of farmer's tan you see on certain penises.    It's the result of the Monument's circumcision.  

A woman as hot as you does not need to fish for compliments.  LOOK at you. 

Embrace it.  It makes you more interesting, and honors your grandpappy.    

Your thesis is flawed.   There is a perfect joke: The fart. 

Now, you can attribute that to God, if you wish.  I call it an artifact of natural selection. 

Not with you.  Seems a perfectly acceptable shortening.  In fact, it is so efficient, and so clear, I wonder why we even bother with the "plays."

The best part is that the author is a woman.  

In my case, The Rib never mentioned looks, and I would from time to time comment about how weird it is that I landed her.  That took care of the problem.  Tacit acceptance of the situation all around. 

Sigh.   Sigh.  

Okay, we'll end with this today.    I began by consulting my personal God of American history, David Von Drehle, who confirmed my feelings here.   "Andrew Jackson" Von Drehle said, "was undoubtedly a great president, the dominant political figure between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln." 

David knows a bit on this general subject.   In December you will probably want to  get this book, which I have read much of in galleys, and which is masterful.

The problem we have here is that it is possible to be a very bad person and a very good president.    And, as I have said, it is folly to analyze a presidency against modern standards of integrity, sensitivity, decency and whatnot; history, in retrospect, tends to be about ends, not means.   Abraham Lincoln was very opposed to the Mexican War, prosecuted by Polk.   Linc felt it was a bad war of opportunism and bullying.  He was probably right, morally and ethically.  But it got us Texas, and it is generally considered the signal  achievement in the best one-term presidency in American history.  

Lincoln was our greatest president.   He saved the nation.  He was a great humanitarian.   He also said some things about black people that would chill you to the bone, hearing them today 

You ask:  Think back on Jackson's presidency: what is remembered?

Only this: Jackson created the modern American presidency, the office no one is born to, that you have to earn, and that anyone can aspire to, even a talented backwoodsman with gumption and ambition and, for better or worse, ruthlessness.    He created the swaggering American executive presidency that is  first among supposedly co-equal branches.   He amplified the power of the presidency enormously, for the good of the country.

In the nullification crisis, Jackson ably presided over the first real test of the strength of the federal government over state governments, and, as Lincoln would thirty years later, got it right.   It was a  very big deal -- secession was possible -- and it defined the federal nature of the country.   This was not a slam dunk at the time. Many important people, notably John Calhoun, thought Jackson was wrong. 

Mostly, he was huge.  A huge presence, a gigantic historical figure, swaggering, un-ignorable.    Here's a great quote from his first biographer, James Parton:

"Andrew Jackson was a patriot and a traitor. He was the greatest of generals, and wholly ignorant of the art of war. He was the most candid of men, and capable of the profoundest dissimulation. He was a democratic autocrat, an urbane savage, an atrocious saint."

So, c'mon.   Jackson's historical greatness is not a reasonable area of discussion.   Yes, he did terrible things to the American Indians and dealt with them treacherously, though it is wise to remember that others in power wanted more of a Final Solution.  Jackson felt he was striking a more humane middle ground. 

Yeah, I know.  But this was 1835.  People owned other people.