Tag Archives: Albany Times-Union

Well done, Mark Shields

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I want to hail the end of an era in journalism.

It occurred this evening when Mark Shields said “goodbye” to viewers of PBS’s NewsHour, where Shields served for 33 years as half of a Friday evening give-and-take on the political news of the week.

His friend, New York Times columnist David Brooks, served alongside Shields for 19 of those years. The men expressed their mutual admiration and respect for the work they did together on public TV’s premier news broadcast.

I want to share just a brief thought about Shields … and about Brooks.

They reminded me weekly that politics can be a civil and respectful exercise. Shields comes from the liberal/progressive end of the political spectrum; Brooks hails from the center/right end. They would joust on occasion, expressing differences in opinion, context and perspective on issues. However, they did so with grace, class, decorum and mutual respect.

Shields announced earlier this week he would be stepping away from his role as one-half of an indispensable team of thinkers.

I want to share the broadcast he did tonight with Brooks and with NewsHour moderator Judy Woodruff. Shields and Brooks celebrate a lifetime in American politics – YouTube

And while I’m at it, I want to share a column that Brooks penned for the New York Times. Opinion | Mark Shields and the Best of American Liberalism – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Public television is a national resource. It has been depleted just a bit today by the departure of Mark Shields from the PBS NewsHour.

Well done, Mark Shields. Thank you for the wisdom you shared.

Let the election results stand — for better or worse

larger

You’ve heard it said that “elections have consequences.”

Americans, I believe in my bleeding-liberal heart, are about to endure the consequences of the 2016 president election.

With that said, I have concluded that the presidential electors who’ll meet Monday to make their choices for president should proceed with electing Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States.

Man, I don’t say that with an ounce of joy. I say it through tightly gritted teeth. My jaw hurts. I can barely type the words without getting the heebie-jeebies.

The Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union’s editorial is a compelling read. It makes a strong case for the electors to toss aside Trump because, the paper posits, the president-elect is unfit for the job. Here’s the editorial; take a look:

http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Electors-reject-Mr-Trump-10796574.php

That is the editors’ opinion. I respect them for stating it.

However, to toss aside the results of the election is to throw our democratic process under the bus. I understand Alexander Hamilton’s assertion that the Electoral College’s mission is to provide “a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Trump, though, won the requisite number of electoral votes to become president. He needed 270 of them; he received 306. It’s not the “landslide” that Trump has said of it, but it’s enough.

Do the electors, even those who cannot buck their own conscience, rescind the will of the voters? I don’t know see how they can go against the will of their states’ voters. A Texas elector — who took a pledge to support the winner of the state’s electoral votes — has decided that he cannot cast his vote for Trump, who carried Texas by 9 percentage points. A better option for him would have been to do what another elector did: quit his assignment as an elector and hand it over to someone who could cast a vote for the state’s winner.

The so-called “faithless electors” who want to throw aside the result of the election — in effect ignoring its consequences —  ought to reconsider the consequences of their potential decision.

I have virtually zero faith in Donald Trump’s ability to lead the nation. My vote went to someone else. Sure, nearly 3 million more of us voted for the other major candidate than for Trump. The U.S. electoral system, though, doesn’t always work that way. Trump won the votes he needed to win.

If he messes up while serving as president — which I truly believe is a distinct probability — then there are measures that can be pursued to correct the nation’s course.

Yes, elections have consequences. It pains me to say it, but the United States is obligated to face them.