In the ten years I’ve served as Director of the Joseph Martin Institute at Stonehill College, I’ve had plenty of conversations with students and guests where I find myself introducing them to Joe Martin the man and the Speaker of the House.
Donald Trump’s first speech to Congress last night was full of “good optics.” Trump’s effort to make Americans forget that he had, only hours earlier, blamed the military commanders for the death of Navy Seal William “Ryan” Owens was hailed by Liberal commentator Van Jones as the moment when Trump “became President of the United States.” WOW! I say, the moment Van Jones declared Trump has become the P.O.T.U.S. is the moment when optics finally and totally eclipsed substance in American politics.
America may be approaching a collision point with constitutional change that requires an approach not unlike the nation’s first such collision point arrived at in 1787 when the failure of the national government to maintain order, protect property, and provide public goods collided with an insurmountable amendment procedure. Republicans have long fancied themselves the great defenders of the Constitution. They may have succeeded in making that pretention a reality in 2016. Unfortunately, they may have done so in a way that will seriously hamper their capacity to be successful defenders.
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The Office of Campaign and Political Finance has the power to force Great Schools Massachusetts and Families for Excellent Schools to come clean about the true source of $16 million in secret cash spent in the charter schools campaign. Massachusetts citizens deserve that day of reckoning.
Decorum is supposed to matter in the United State Senate. As we learned last night, it is written in the rules.
