The Return of Jay Leno by Gregory Hilton

Tonight ends the first week of Jay Leno’s return on NBC-TV. The critics have not been kind but audience clearly loves him. His comments on ACORN and prostitutes have already become a classic. Leno is averaging 18 million viewers to CBS’ David Letterman’s 4 million. Leno should keep wearing that flag lapel pin, and his political balance is admirable. It is a pleasant change from Letterman who can not stop bashing George W. Bush, and obviously has a loony left agenda. I always look forward to Jay’s monologue, Headlines and Jaywalking.
I used to think Letterman was fun and quirky, but stopped watching him a long time ago when he turned so mean-spirited. CBS’ Craig Ferguson comes on after Letterman. He is also a liberal but he does not have Letterman’s mean-spirited outlook. CBS would be wise to move Ferguson into the 11:30 pm time slot where he would be a tough competitor for The Tonight Show’s Conan O’Brien.
This is not related to his ability as a talk show host but I also admire Leno for being married to the same woman for 30 years. They were married when he was not a big shot. Long term marriages are rare in Hollywood.
Too many times money and prestige have led to divorce. Leno has also done considerable charitable activity such as the free shows earlier this year for the unemployed. Car buff’s really enjoy his many videos at: www.jaylenosgarage.com

Remembering Angelica Singleton Van Buren (1817 – 1859) by Gregory Hilton

A beautiful 21 year old girl from South Carolina arrived at the White House in 1838, and in some respects, she is still there. The White House collection has many priceless paintings but art historians agree that the most valuable portrait is of Angelica Singleton Van Buren, who served as First Lady for her widowed father-in-law, President Martin Van Buren. He was the first President born in the United States. The painting is seen by every tourist because for over a century it has been hung above the mantle in the Red Room. The marble bust of Van Buren seen in the painting is also in the room.
Angelica’s cousin was the grande dame of Washington society, former First Lady Dolley Madison. Dolley lived in a Lafayette Square home across from the White House, which still stands. Mrs. Madison was a well known matchmaker, and finding a suitor for her attractive and intelligent cousin was not difficult. Angelica had attended school in Philadelphia where her favorite subjects were history and “deportment.” Dolley advised her cousin to read newspapers because “men here always talk about politics.”
When Angelica arrived for the 1837 social season, Dolley already had a candidate in mind. Angelica and the President’s youngest son, Smith, were the same age, and the boy was tall, handsome and had a good job. Unfortunately there was no chemistry between them and one reason was Smith’s lack of interest in politics. He gave Angelica good advice in saying his older brother Abram, 31, would be able to talk to her. Angelica and Abram were married 8 months later.
On their honeymoon, Angelica and Abram met Queen Victoria and King Louis Philippe of France. They lived in a room at the White House which is today known as the Queen’s Bedroom. Van Buren is the founder of the modern Democratic Party. His nickname was “Old Kinderhook,” but it was often shortened to “O.K.” a phrase still in common use today.
An episode of Seinfeld was named “The Van Buren Boys.” Kramer tells Jerry about “The Van Buren Boys” street gang. Jerry asks, “There’s a street gang named after President Martin Van Buren.” Kramer replies: “Oh yeah, and they’re just as mean as he was!”
You can read more about the Van Buren’s in, “ A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation.”

How George W. Bush Saved Millions of Africans by Gregory Hilton

In April researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine released an in-depth report on former President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The report credits the former President with saving over 1 million African lives, but it has received almost no press attention. Bush spoke about AIDS on June 17th during his first post-presidential speech, but you did not know that because the media ignored his remarks.
“If a Democratic Party president had done this, he would be feted as both a national hero and international hero on his way to a ceremony with the Nobel Committee.” Bob Geldof asked Bush “Why doesn’t America know about this?” Bush answered: “I tried to tell them. But the press wasn’t interested.”
The Bush Administration did contribute to the deficit. The former President quadrupled foreign aid, he spent $15 billion on AIDS treatment and prevention, and $10 billion on his Millennium Challenge Account. This was not a handout but a partnership restricted to responsible nations. Amid poverty and disease this money has been an investment for growth. In many countries the aid is being replaced by trade pacts, business deals and home-grown income.
According to Paul Kengor the author of God and George W. Bush (HarperCollins, 2004), “Bush understood the financial cost — and said so explicitly. Nonetheless, he judged that only America could carry out this ‘act of compassion’ at that critical juncture. He also judged, apparently, that only he, as a Western leader, had the will to do this. Millions of lives have been spared or bettered due to President Bush’s intervention.”

Robert Novak’s Last Interview by Gregory Hilton

Bob Novak died today. He was against the Iraq war and I obviously did not share his opinions regarding the Middle East, but he was an expert on U.S. politics. His column “Evans and Novak” was well regarded for original reporting, but critics often called it “Errors and No Facts!”
This is from one of his last interviews. “Well, nobody wants to die. I certainly don’t. But all Christian faiths hold that there’s an afterlife, that we are not just dust to dust. And that’s comforting, particularly now that I have an illness and there’s very little chance I will recover. A priest who visited me told me I’ve been given a chance to prepare myself.”
“So I began to think about my life and what I’ve done right and not done right and to prepare myself for the last days. I’ve found that reassuring.” Novak told “Washingtonian” that he was a workaholic but he had a lot of fun in his career. Like many people with power jobs his regret was not spending more time with his children.
Novak was also asked about covering Capitol Hill in the 1950s. “You were a quasi-regular at the after-hours soirees Senator Everett Dirksen used to hold in his office. Can you imagine a reporter being included in a gathering like that today?”
NOVAK “No. The relationship between the press and politicians was far different. When Trent Lott read about Dirksen in my autobiography, he was flabbergasted. I am not even 100 percent sure he believed me, he was so astounded that a Senate Republican leader would invite a reporter to a closed gathering like that.”
The details of the above incident are in his book, “The Prince of Darkness.” Novak was of course correct about the major change in media coverage. For example, reporters had information about JFK’s womanizing in 1960 but no one would print a story like that. Things are far different in this era of intense scrutiny.
The Washington Post made this observation: “Novak wrote in his autobiography that he rarely disliked those with whom he appeared combative — one significant exception was Jimmy Carter, whom the columnist called a populist demagogue and ‘habitual liar.’ On one episode of “Face the Nation,” Novak insisted that Carter reveal which members of the diplomatic corps he objected to as “fat, bloated, ignorant” and unqualified except for being Nixon financiers.
Carter declined to answer, and Novak persisted: “Can you name one, though? You make the accusation all over the place. There are only four ambassadors who made contributions to Nixon. Do any of them that fit that category?

The 2010 Battleground: New Hampshire’s 1st District by Gregory Hilton

One of the major battlegrounds in the 2010 campaign will be New Hampshire’s first congressional district where Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta is the GOP challenger against Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). Despite numerous public demands the incumbent has refused to hold town hall meetings during the August recess. She was a vocal anti-war activist before winning her seat in 2006, and essentially hounded then-Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-NH) at his town halls in the years leading up to their race.
Shea-Porter was once forcibly removed from a Bush speech in Portsmouth for aggressive protesting while wearing a shirt that read, “Turn your back on Bush.” She always said the surge would fail, and once protested in front of the State House in Concord alongside demonstrators who compared Bush to a Nazi. She attended more of her opponents town hall meetings as a candidate that she has held during four years in Congress.
Mayor Guinta is now holding the Health Care Town Hall meeting that the incumbent has refused. Fox News placed her on a milk carton to dramatize the fact that she is not meeting with her constituents at public gatherings during the recess. She did find time this month to visit Pittsburgh, PA for the Daily Kos/Netroots Nation convention of liberal bloggers. She told them her constituents “would love to wait in line for medical care.” Shea-Porter has a 38% favorable, and a 37% unfavorable rating. She is vulnerable. Guinta, 38, has served two terms as Mayor and has won in the most Democratic part of the District.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver Changed the World by Gregory Hilton

Many of my friends are associated with fundraising activities for Special Olympics or Best Buddies. Mrs. Shriver has left us but we will never forget her. Hero’s such as Mrs. Shriver are rare not because any single deed was so amazing, but because the culmination of her work changed the world forever. To the Shriver family, thank you for sharing her with us for so many years. She obviously loved her work but she loved you the most.
Jacqueline Kennedy said “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” By her yardstick, Eunice Shriver’s life was a tremendous success. Mrs. Shriver’s stories were wonderful and she was kind to share memories with us. She was a participant in events I could only read about.
In charitable organizations it is common to work closely with people who have a different political outlook. That was obviously true of Mrs. Shriver, and while we did not agree, her observations were always insightful. Our first conversation was in early June of 1992 when Bill Clinton was running third in the polls behind George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot. I thought Clinton was a certain loser, but Mrs. Shriver had far more wisdom.
I watched her funeral on C-Span and they re-played some of Mrs. Shriver’s outstanding speeches from the past. Maria Shriver’s eulogy was well done and all four of her son’s head up non-profit organizations.
Mrs. Shriver’s work lives on through Save The Children, Special Olympics, Best Buddies, and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“When the full judgment on the Kennedy legacy is made — including JFK’s Peace Corps, Robert Kennedy’s passion for civil rights and Ted Kennedy’s efforts on health care — the changes wrought by Eunice Shriver may well be seen as the most consequential,” Harrison Rainie, author of “Growing Up Kennedy,” U.S. News & World Report.
“She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more. She taught us by example and with passion what it means to live a faith-driven life of love and service to others.” – The Washington Post
Michael Barone of AEI: “The Shriver’s took the advantages they had in life, and their disappointments as well, and created two great institutions which will live on and serve people and enrich America for many years to come. The Peace Corps and Special Olympics share an important characteristic: they encourage and enable people to do things that they and those around them might have thought impossible.
“Peace Corps volunteers are empowered to spend two years living and working in a foreign country. Special Olympics participants are empowered to achieve measurable goals. Both teach the lesson that we can exceed limits that seem imposed on us.
“All of us should shed a tear for Eunice Shriver, and for Sargent Shriver too, a tear of happiness and gratitude for what they have given their country and the world.”
“She used her influence not to advance her own interests but to help others, to open a world of new possibilities to a population that had been confined to silence and darkness. Her legacy lives on in the millions of people she empowered to strive on the field of competition and beyond — and to be brave in the attempt.” – The Washington Post

Michael Moore’s Revisionist History by Gregory Hilton

Left wing film maker Michael Moore continues to lie and the media lets him get away with it. In an interview today he now claims his 1989 movie “Roger & Me” was about the pending collapse of GM. It was the complete opposite. Moore said GM was the “richest company in the world” and the only reason they wanted to reduce their 845,000 work force was “greed.” Moore says he agrees with liberal pundit Bill Maher that “America is stupid” and “too dumb to be governed.”
Moore says “Eight years ago I wrote a book called “Stupid White Men.” In that book, I wrote a chapter entitled “Idiot Nation.” I think that says it all. Sad, sad, sad. . . I’m still in a stupor of stunned ecstasy that Obama won. And I approve of most everything he’s done, from apologizing to the Iranians for America overthrowing their … democratically elected president in 1953 to appointing the actor from “Harold and Kumar” to a White House position. . .
“As for the congressional Democrats, what a bunch of losers — weak, scared, stupid.” My guess is that he is referring to the Senate Democrats who are stopping union card check, single payer and cap and trade.”
P.S. The United States never overthrew the government of Iran in 1953.

Was Reagan Wrong When He Visited Bitburg? by Gregory Hilton

President Ronald Reagan visited Germany in 1985 for the 40th anniversary of V-E Day and an economic summit. At the invitation of Chancellor Helmut Kohl he visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the closest military cemetery at Bitburg. All German military cemeteries contain at least a few SS graves.
When the press revealed the existence of the SS graves there was considerable pressure to cancel the visit. Chancellor Kohl said, “I will not give up this idea. If we don’t go to Bitburg, if we don’t do what we jointly planned, we will deeply offend the feelings of my people.” A poll demonstrated that 72% of West Germans thought the visit should go forward as planned.
Kohl said rarely had German-American relations been so strained. Reagan’s National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane, wrote: “Once Reagan learned that Kohl would really be badly damaged by a withdrawal, he said ‘We can’t do that; I owe him for the deployment of the Pershing II missile.’” Reagan told his deputy chief of staff, Michael Deaver: “I know you and Nancy don’t want me to go through with this, but we have to reconcile.”
I do not believe Reagan was insensitive toward Jews. In “The Reagan Diaries” edited by Douglas Brinkley, the late President demonstrates impressive compassion for Jewish causes.
In his first personal communication with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, for example, Reagan requests that Jewish dissident Natan Sharansky be released from the gulag and permitted to join his wife in Israel. In another episode, after addressing an audience of Holocaust survivors and their children, Reagan remarks: “It was an emotional experience for them & for us. I know I choked up a couple of times.” And even when confronting Jewish groups opposing the sale of the AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia, Reagan strongly affirms his support for Israel: “… it must be plain to them, they’ve never had a better friend of Israel in the W.H. than they have now.”
Elie Wiesel was among the many people who urged Reagan to skip the Bitburg visit. It was Reagan who presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Wiesel that year and they both made long speeches in the East Room of the White House. Wiesel did not want Reagan to go to Bitburg, but he would never accuse the former President of anti-Semitism.
Reagan was not insensitive to Jews and said: “We pledge that he will never forget that in many places of the world, the cancer of anti-Semitism still exists. We must not forget our duty to those who perished, our duty to bring justice to those who perpetrated unspeakable deeds. And we must take action to root out the vestiges of anti-Semitism in America, to quash the violence-prone or hate groups even before they can spread their venom and destruction. And let all of us, Jew and non-Jew alike, pledge ourselves today to the life of the Jewish dream: to a time when war is no more, when all nations live in peace, when each man, woman, and child lives in the dignity that God intended.”

America’s Last Queen by Gregory Hilton

America’s last Queen (1761 – 1776) has advice for us. Queen Charlotte was married at 17, and had 15 children with her husband King George III. She arrived in England from Germany on September 8, 1761 and met 22 year old George for the first time at 3 pm. They were married at 9 pm the same day, and she became Queen of England despite the fact that she could not speak the language.
Charlotte’s advice is the opposite of today. She believed in marriage first and finding romantic love later. She said her marriage was successful because the King and Queen were determined to make it work. Unusual for royalty, they were not self centered, and gave priority attention to their partners happiness.
George relied on the advice of his emissaries in selecting a wife. He rejected women who were far more attractive and his major criteria was princess with “a pleasant disposition.” A list of eligible royal princesses was compiled for George. Charlotte was such a minor royal she was omitted from the first list and placed at the bottom of the second. His grandfather wanted him to marry a beautiful princess from Brunswick, and he did consider the stunning Lady Sarah Lennox. In the end he omitted physical beautify from his list of desirable characteristics. George felt many members of the royal family were selfish, and Charlotte’s modest upbringing appealed to him.
An emissary from the English court visited Charlotte and her family in Neu Strelitz. This very positive report concentrated on Charlotte’s personality, and it sealed George’s decision. Immediately after receiving a positive response from Charlotte, George announced to the Privy Council his intention to wed. Everything was set despite the fact that the bride and groom had not met. Their marriage took place on September 8, and a coronation ceremony for both of them was held on September 22nd.
King George was the target of our Declaration of Independence and he lost the Revolutionary War, but by all accounts he had a successful marriage.
Queen Charlotte knew Bach and Mozart, and was especially close to Marie Antoinette. Immediately after the execution of the French royal family, taxes were lowered significantly in England. King George did not want to give his subjects any reason to organize a revolution.
Charlotte, North Carolina is known as the “Queen City.” It is in Mecklenburg County. Charlotte was a princess of Mecklenburg in Germany prior to becoming Queen of England.

Jacqueline Kennedy Left us 15 Years Ago Today by Gregory Hilton

Jacqueline Kennedy During the White House Years

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Jacqueline Kennedy. Her major legacy as First Lady was the restoration project and many items of historical significance were missing from the White House when she arrived.
She was never frugal with her own money, but the taxpayers can thank her. She was criticized for extravagance and the wall paper in the family dining room did cost $12,000. However, Mrs. Kennedy solicited private donations and she did not rely on government funding.
We can also thank her for creating the first White House Guide Book which funds the White House Historical Association. Her decision to avoid government funding was wise, and she is also responsible for the creation of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.
Mrs. Kennedy was only 31 when she became First Lady and she was a definite asset to United States foreign policy. She was very highly regarded in France, where she had studied and learned the language. Tours of India and Pakistan would follow, much documented at the time, where Jackie and her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, meet the leaders of both nations. She did enhance America’s image and she fostered our foreign policy goals.