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Letters - Letter to the Editor
Washington Monthly, July, 2000
The Not So Great Generation
Tom Brokaw claims that the greatest generation was the World War II generation. Paul Begala, in the April 2000 issue of Esquire says that the worst generation is the Baby Boomers. ("Tilting at Windmills," June 2000).
In other words, the greatest generation was also the worst generation of parents.
MAUREEN J. EHNSTROM Winchendon, Mass.
Presidential Scope
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Allan Lichtman, in his review of The Presidential Difference in the May issue, takes author Fred Greenstein to task for not writing the book that Lichtman preferred had been written. He criticizes Greenstein for examining only presidents since 1932 and argues that many other presidents did important things in our history. This is obviously true, but an examination of the modern presidency is more relevant to contemporary experience and is a widely accepted approach to analyzing the contemporary presidency. Lichtman misinterprets Greenstein's purpose as attempting to "test a typology of presidential leadership." But that was not Greenstein's purpose; he wants to gain insights into how presidents can be effective by examining six categories of relevant presidential performance. That other dimensions of presidential performance might be examined, as Lichtman argues, is true but beside the point.
Another criticism is that Greenstein attempts "to deconstruct presidents as the sum of separate parts." But that is not at all what Greenstein is trying to do; his aim is much more limited. His book is an analysis of some of the important skills and attributes that are essential in the modern presidency. Greenstein explicitly chose not to deal with the political values of the presidents but rather with the means they had at their disposal to achieve whatever ends they sought.
It would be unfortunate if your readers missed this excellent and insightful analysis of the modern presidents because of this review--even if it does not cover all of the dimensions of all presidents in our history.
JAMES P. PFIFFNER PROFESSOR, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY Fairfax, Va.
Final Insult
Your note ("Tilting at Windmills," June 2000) about the insurance industry's abuse of black customers reminds me of why burial insurance was so vital in black communities in the past. Too often the mummified body that wound up on the medical student's anatomy table was African-American, and black people had an understandable horror of suffering this final insult from the white world. A dear (white) friend of mine once explained this to me while displaying his own partially dismembered (black) cadaver on a lab table at the University of Maryland Medical School. I had it confirmed while covering the mostly black precincts of West Baltimore in the late 1940s.
RUSSELL BAKER Leesburg, Va.
Missing Kovach
I read with particular interest Tracy Thompson's worthy tribute to Bill Kovach ("A Newsroom Hero," May 2000). As an avid newspaper reader who did a comparative look at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "then" (during Kovach's short-lived tenure as editor) and "now," I dissected a week's coverage from each era to verify the stark contrast. To say such a freelance exercise found today's AJC marked by less copy (more ad space), less investigative zeal, less substance, and less surprise is to trifle with understatement. In too many monopoly-owned-newspaper towns such findings are the norm rather than the exception.
Lack of meaningful "context" in mass-media coverage cannot help but affect how we grapple to resolve problems that do not lend themselves to simplistic quick-fix answers. Full access to the day's intelligence is part of the role of a responsible and vital press and is too often overlooked in a picture-driven, soundbite news culture. Rather than being one among a nearly extinct breed of old-guard press critics, Mr. Kovach is one of those true believers in the role of newspapers in a functioning democracy who shows the way to their very survival.
BARBARA ALLEN KENNEY Atlanta, Ga.
Paying for Blackboards
In "You Still Need a Blackboard," (June 2000), Jonathan Schorr fairly points out that charter schools need more than a dash of reformist zeal to survive and thrive. They need, for starters, a decent place to hold classes. Politicians of varied stripe revel in the rapid growth of charters over the past decade, but issues of quality must be paramount.
Organizers of charter schools almost invariably cite facilities as their biggest challenge. There are ways government might help without smothering the charter movement with excessive regulation.
One possibility is New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson's proposal that the federal government set aside $600 million to guarantee loans to incipient charter schools by local banks. She figures that would release about $9 billion in charter-school financing. Another possibility would be a policy giving charters first claim on second-hand facilities, such as post offices, military bases, or other public schools. Charter organizers frequently have been resourceful in converting abandoned property to good educational use.
