White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

Memories of a Great Senator, When the Senate Was Great 

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Anyone wondering about a career as a U.S. senator might want to study the life and times of Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who died March 25 at the age of 92. To me, he embodied the best of the Senate that was.

Johnston was both a patriotic American and a loyalist to the state that sent him to Congress. He also was bipartisan, curious and totally on top of his subject. His legislative milestones endure, from natural gas and oil deregulation to the electricity and environmental structure of today.

Johnston was an exemplar of the art of the Senate, when it was correctly known as the world’s greatest deliberative body. He was chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and, as such, was a major player in the shaping of energy and environmental policy.

He was a Democrat who worked across the aisle. Oddly, his most contentious relationship might have been that with President Jimmy Carter. They clashed over a water project on the Red River in Louisiana: Carter thought it was too expensive, but Johnston argued that it was needed. He admired President Bill Clinton for his brilliance.

In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident, he worked with President Ronald Reagan to establish the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations to save nuclear power from those who wanted to eliminate it.

Like other distinguished chairmen, Johnston recognized two fealties: to his state and to the nation.

I watched Johnston all his years as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, and I came to revere and admire him as a great gentleman, a great patriot and a great senator.

Johnston was neither flashy, nor loud, but he was effective. The New York Times said of him that he was a notable exception, compared with the noisy and controversial political heritage of Louisiana, which included such notables as Huey and Earl Long and Edwin Edwards. Johnston was instead “a quiet intellectual with finely honed political judgments who grasped the technical intricacies of energy exploration and production and could also lucidly discuss astrophysics, subatomic particles and tennis serves.”

Thomas Kuhn, a former longtime president of the Edison Electric Institute, said Johnston had a lasting impact on environmental and energy policy during his 24 years in Congress with the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

When the Energy Policy Act was working its way through Congress, I saw Johnston at work up close. He invited me, as the founder and publisher of The Energy Daily, and Paul Gigot, then a Washington columnist for The Wall Street Journal and later its editorial page editor, to lunch in a small private dining room in the Senate.

Johnston was low-key yet forceful in seeking our support for the bill. I asked him, “Who is carrying your water on this one?” He responded in an endearing and lonesome way, “I’m afraid I am.” And carry it he did until it became law.

On another occasion, when President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court was bogged down with Anita Hill’s allegations of impropriety by the nominee, Johnston told me, “I’m going to vote for him. I think when he looks in the mirror in the morning, he will see a black face and he will do the right things.” Maybe not Johnston’s best call.

While Kuhn may have met Johnston as a lobbyist, they became close friends and tennis partners. Kuhn told me Johnston was so passionate about tennis that he had a court built atop the Senate Dirksen Office Building. Among others, he would play tennis there with fellow Louisiana Sen. John Breaux.

Johnston was also passionate about Tabasco sauce and carried a bottle with him at all times.

Kuhn remembered this about his friend, “He was well-liked by everyone and had a great sense of humor. And he got things done on a bipartisan basis — a skill that is sorely missed in today’s Washington.”

America, for So Long a State of Mind, Is Losing Its Sense of Mission

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America isn’t just a piece of remarkably fertile real estate between two great oceans. It is also a state of mind.

Even when America has done wrong things (think racism) or stupid things (think Prohibition), it has still shone brightly to the world as the citadel of free expression, abundant opportunity, and a place where laws are obeyed.

When I was a teen in a British colony in Africa, long before I imagined I would spend most of my life in America, I met a man who had seen the promised land. He wasn’t a native-born American or even a citizen, but he had lived in “the States.”

I badgered this man with questions about everything, but mostly things derived from books and movies: Could ordinary people really drive Cadillacs?  As a British writer later said, were taxis in New York “great yellow projectiles”? Did they really have universities where you could study anything, like ice cream manufacturing? Did American policemen actually carry guns?

Our adulation of America was fed by its products. They were everywhere the best. American pickup trucks were the gold standard of light trucks, and American cars — so big — fascinated, although they weren’t ubiquitous like the trucks. Brands such as Frigidaire and General Electric meant reliability, quality and evidence that Americans did things better.

No one thought the streets in the United States were paved with gold, but they did believe they were paved with possibility.

There was criticism, like that of the alleged American hold on the price of gold or the fear of nuclear war. The “shining city upon a hill” idea was paramount long before President Ronald Reagan said it.

And it has been so for the world since the end of World War II. For 80 years, the United States has led the world; even when it spread its mistakes, like the Vietnam War, it led.

America was the bulwark of the liberal democracies — a grouping of European nations, Canada, Australia and much of Asia — that shared many values and outlooks. Call it what it is, or was, Western Civilization, based on decency, informed by Christianity, and shaped by tradition and common expectation.

Central to this was America; central with ideas, with wealth, with technological leadership and, above all, with decency. Now, all of this may be in the past.

This structure has been shaken in less than three months of President Trump’s second administration. It is near breaking point.

This may be the end of days for the Western Alliance, led by America in the ways of democracy and free trade.

Writing in the British monthly magazine Prospect, Andrew Adonis, a peer who sits in the House of Lords as Baron Adonis, states: “Trump doesn’t believe in democracy, just in winning at all costs. He doesn’t believe in an international order based on respect for human rights. He is an authoritarian, lawless plutocrat who admires similar characters at home and abroad.”

Additionally, Adonis says in his article that, unlike the first Trump term, the checks and balances have weakened: “The Republican Party has become a cipher. The Democrats are shell-shocked and demoralized. The courts, the military and Congress are browbeaten, packed with Trump supporters or otherwise compliant.”

I find it hard to argue with this assessment. Why would Trump persist with a tariff regime that was proven not to work with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which triggered the Great Depression? Why would he rile up Canada by threatening its independence? Why would he reopen, without a good reason, the issue of the control of the Panama Canal?

Why is he destroying the civil service in thought-free ways? Why is he going after the constitutional freedom of the press and the rights enshrined over millennia for lawyers to represent those who need them regardless of politics? Why is he leading us into a recession: the Trump Slump?

Either the president has no coherent plans, or those plans are devious and not to be shared with the people.

I believe that he enjoys power and testing its limits, that he has no knowledge base and so relies on hearsay to formulate policy. In the end, he may be listed along with Roman emperors who ran amok like Nero and Caligula.

The Western Alliance is at stake, and America is giving away its global leadership. When trust is lost, it is gone forever.

Reporter Scores First Cat Interview Since JD Vance’s Comments

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After Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance denigrated women who keep cats and don’t have children, whom he characterized as sad “cat ladies,” the media erupted. None of my colleagues, to my knowledge, bothered with the No. 1 obligation of their trade: Get the other side of the story.

So, I thought it was my duty to go forth and interview at least one cat.

I can tell you dogs are easy to interview. They will tell you anything you want to hear and are prepared to perform for the camera. Horses are a journalistic dream: They love to be on camera, especially live television, and will tell you the most extraordinary things. The rule is: If it comes from a horse’s mouth, verify.

But cats are a different story. They go for still photographs, preferably on social media. Facebook is a veritable showcase of posing felines.

But moving pictures? Not as much. Actually, interviewing cats and taking candid pictures takes fortitude. It isn’t easy to get a cat that will open up.

After several disdainful rejections (cats really know how to disdain) a Tuxedo house cat of the male persuasion, whose owner is a childless, middle-age lady, agreed to be interviewed if I met certain conditions:

—No moving pictures, just stills suitable for social media.

—No petting or touching of any kind, unless initiated by the subject.

—No attempts to bribe with food or “blandishments.”

The interview took place in a comfortable, suburban home with a cat named “Simba,” but he refused to answer to that name. He seemed to be a cat, as Rudyard Kipling wrote, who walked by himself.

The homeowner gave me permission to interview her cat in his environment: a sofa draped with a plush, anti-scratch slipcover.

ME to CAT: You don’t like the name Simba?

CAT: It is a family name, but only applies to lions in Africa. We are close but we don’t socialize, except on the internet. If you go to Africa, I could arrange for you to be eaten. (A small, red tongue circled the rim of his mouth.)

ME: So you use the internet?

CAT: Of course. Nearly all domestic cats have computer skills and can crack passwords.

ME: What is the deal with childless women?

CAT: We love them because children interrupt our lives at every level, from sleeping to surfing the net. Also, ladies are malleable.  Children manhandle you and have been known to throw cats out of windows, so they can find out how many lives we have.

ME: You are a house cat. How do you feel about that?

CAT: It is a lifestyle choice. I chose comfort over adventure. Would you turn the air-conditioning up two degrees? Do you know we were worshipped in ancient Egypt and, indeed, we are divine. Silly to try to define how many lives we have: We are eternal.

ME: What do you think of people?

CAT: They have their uses, particularly if they leave their computers on, spend oodles of money on you at PetSmart, and provide companionship on demand. Our call, not theirs.

ME: What sites do you visit on the net when you are surfing?

CAT: “Hot Cats” is my favorite, very risqué.

ME: What do you think about JD Vance?

CAT: You are so slow. Why did it take you so long to ask the only question you want answered?

ME: I was seeking context.

CAT: I could scratch you. Would that be context enough?

ME: Well, what about the Republican vice-presidential pick?

CAT: If he sets foot in Africa, I will have one of my lion cousins, Simba or Leo, drive him up a tree and reason with him. He has caused me personal grief.

ME: How come?

CAT: My companion-lady — cats don’t allow people to own them, you know — was a loyal Republican and that was fine. Cats are more conservative. Dogs, I believe, are all Democrats.

She has become a Democrat and is thinking of adopting a child. If that happens, I shall have to consider new living arrangements.

Now, change my litter, take a picture of me sitting on the piano and post it to Facebook. I haven’t been on social media since the unpleasantness with JD Vance. Such a weird man. I may have to rig a voting machine or two.

ME: Can I ask ….

CAT: We are finished. Don’t forget to take the soiled litter on the way out.