The Crosswinds of Freedom
Burns, James MacGregor
THE CROSSWINDS OF FREEDOM: THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT, VOL. III James MacGregor Burns/Alfred A. Knopf/864 pp. $35 Victor Gold 0 f the mandarin historians of the American left, few suffer the...
...On one hand, given the right-wing spirit of the times, he fears the prospect of another constitutional convention...
...It is Burns's sixteenth book in all...
...Victor Gold is The American Spectator's national correspondent...
...The leadership gap that afflicts us today," he writes, "could be rather simply explained: our leaders were shot down...
...and might have had, but for the elaborate contrivance called popular election, under President Ted Kennedy...
...Sixteen years later, in 1976—by odd coincidence, another campaign year—Burns published Edward Kennedy and the Camelot Legacy, a book that might have served a Ted Kennedy campaign had there been one...
...Victor Gold is The American Spectator's national correspondent...
...the centre cannot hold . . ."), fairly depicts the author's distraught condition as a liberal polemicist writing in a post-liberal environment...
...That passage, preceding a ritual incantation of Yeats ("Things fall apart...
...It is Burns's sixteenth book in all...
...Looking back over the liberal and Democratic dominance of the past five decades, they asked what had gonewrong—what had really gone wrong...
...and might have had, but for the elaborate contrivance called popular election, under President Ted Kennedy...
...Published in the early stages of that campaign, the book provided a crucial service to the Kennedy camp, coming as it did when other liberal doyens (notably, Schlesinger) were still carrying the torch for Adlai Stevenson...
...On one hand, given the right-wing spirit of the times, he fears the prospect of another constitutional convention...
...the centre cannot hold . . ."), fairly depicts the author's distraught condition as a liberal polemicist writing in a post-liberal environment...
...Or what others would call democracy...
...or, at least, the torment visited upon him during this past decade of the Reagan terror...
...or, at least, the torment visited upon him during this past decade of the Reagan terror...
...Hard to tell...
...Or what others would call democracy...
...Not that Burns the Democrat isn't for democracy...
...That includes John Kennedy: A Political Profile, the semi-official biography used by the Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960 to persuade Democratic liberals that JFK, though Joe Kennedy's son, was one of their own...
...specifically, the sort of Leadership the country had during the reigns of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy...
...But Burns takes the cake...
...But Burns takes the cake...
...True, there is Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., with his hangdog nostalgia for Camelot and his embarrassing insistence that no m...
...On the other, he is persuaded, as he once told his soulmate-in-angst Bill Moyers, that the existing Constitution props up "an anti-leadership system, making it difficult to govern . . . terribly difficult for men to rise to their stature by rising above brokerage, rising above what I call transactional leadership...
...or, at least, the torment visited upon him during this past decade of the Reagan terror...
...The man—despite all the honors heaped upon him in over four decades of pedagogic flackery on behalf of liberal candidates and causes—simply doesn't know whether he's coming or going...
...How long, 0 Lord, how long, until young Joe is ready?0 38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 THE CROSSWINDS OF FREEDOM: THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT, VOL...
...Published in the early stages of that campaign, the book provided a crucial service to the Kennedy camp, coming as it did when other liberal doyens (notably, Schlesinger) were still carrying the torch for Adlai Stevenson...
...Only that he fantasizes a lot about Leadership...
...which he, of course, perceives as the nation's, indeed the planet's dilemma...
...True, there is Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., with his hangdog nostalgia for Camelot and his embarrassing insistence that no matter how bad things look, there's a liberal cycle just around the corner...
...True, there is Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., with his hangdog nostalgia for Camelot and his embarrassing insistence that no matter how bad things look, there's a liberal cycle just around the corner...
...Does he approve or disapprove of the work of the Framers...
...Not that Burns the Democrat isn't for democracy...
...Looking back over the liberal and Democratic dominance of the past five decades, they asked what had gonewrong—what had really gone wrong...
...The leadership gap that afflicts us today," he writes, "could be rather simply explained: our leaders were shot down...
...T his is the third and final volume 1 of Burns's mislabeled "history" of America...
...which he, of course, perceives as the nation's, indeed the planet's dilemma...
...actually, an overextended ruminative essay that ought to be titled The World According to James MacGregor Burns...
...On the other, he is persuaded, as he once told his soulmate-in-angst Bill Moyers, that the existing Constitution props up "an anti-leadership system, making it difficult to govern . . . terribly difficult for men to rise to their stature by rising above brokerage, rising above what I call transactional leadership...
...But that was the year, alas, when Ted Kennedy decided THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 37 that family obligations precluded his rising to the call of Leadership...
...Sixteen years later, in 1976—by odd coincidence, another campaign year—Burns published Edward Kennedy and the Camelot Legacy, a book that might have served a Ted Kennedy campaign had there been one...
...Burns asks this question, or rather, puts it into the mouths of his fellow liberals, on page 629 of this sprawling jeremiad, then spends some 235 pages navel-picking the liberal dilemma...
...As a Democratic party activist in Massachusetts, he fears for the future of the Republic, having long since concluded that "the system" is so rigged that even if an ideologically pure liberal were to move into the White House, he would be "thwarted by political forces acting through the marvelous contrivances devised by the Framers and elaborated by their successors to balk comprehensive and forthright government action . . ." Re-examine that last quote to comprehend the "marvelous" extent of Professor Burns's dolor...
...That passage, preceding a ritual incantation of Yeats ("Things fall apart...
...a horrendous lapse which, in Burns's world, led directly to the Carter malaise and the awful advent of Reagan-Bushism...
...Burns asks this question, or rather, puts it into the mouths of his fellow liberals, on page 629 of this sprawling jeremiad, then spends some 235 pages navel-picking the liberal dilemma...
...35 Victor Gold 0 f the mandarin historians of the American left, few suffer the ongoing angst of James MacGregor Burns...
...Hard to tell...
...The man—despite all the honors heaped upon him in over four decades of pedagogic flackery on behalf of liberal candidates and causes—simply doesn't know whether he's coming or going...
...During the final forlorn weeks of the Carter Administration, as they watched conservatives move into the new presidency, into a newly Republican Senate, and into the cultural and economic decision-making centers of Washington, liberals could reflect once again that nothing fails like success...
...Liberals were in no mood to celebrate as they came to the end of their worst decade, the 1970s," writes Burns...
...As a Democratic party activist in Massachusetts, he fears for the future of the Republic, having long since concluded that "the system" is so rigged that even if an ideologically pure liberal were to move into the White House, he would be "thwarted by political forces acting through the marvelous contrivances devised by the Framers and elaborated by their successors to balk comprehensive and forthright government action . . ." Re-examine that last quote to comprehend the "marvelous" extent of Professor Burns's dolor...
...Of that sixteen, four have been dutifully, at times slavishly, devoted to FDR and the Kennedys...
...That includes John Kennedy: A Political Profile, the semi-official biography used by the Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960 to persuade Democratic liberals that JFK, though Joe Kennedy's son, was one of their own...
...T his is the third and final volume 1 of Burns's mislabeled "history" of America...
...Liberals were in no mood to celebrate as they came to the end of their worst decade, the 1970s," writes Burns...
...But that was the year, alas, when Ted Kennedy decided THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 37 that family obligations precluded his rising to the call of Leadership...
...35 Victor Gold 0 f the mandarin historians of the American left, few suffer the ongoing angst of James MacGregor Burns...
...Of that sixteen, four have been dutifully, at times slavishly, devoted to FDR and the Kennedys...
...a horrendous lapse which, in Burns's world, led directly to the Carter malaise and the awful advent of Reagan-Bushism...
...Does he approve or disapprove of the work of the Framers...
...35 Victor Gold 0 f the mandarin historians of the American left, few suffer the ongoing angst of James MacGregor Burns...
...During the final forlorn weeks of the Carter Administration, as they watched conservatives move into the new presidency, into a newly Republican Senate, and into the cultural and economic decision-making centers of Washington, liberals could reflect once again that nothing fails like success...
...specifically, the sort of Leadership the country had during the reigns of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy...
...actually, an overextended ruminative essay that ought to be titled The World According to James MacGregor Burns...
...Only that he fantasizes a lot about Leadership...
...How long, 0 Lord, how long, until young Joe is ready?0 38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 THE CROSSWINDS OF FREEDOM: THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT, VOL...
Vol. 22 • September 1989 • No. 9
