January 2021

Nearly six decades ago, as a student at the University of Mississippi, I was an eyewitness to an insurrection somewhat similar to what we saw on January 6 at the US Capitol. In 1962, hundreds of racists and segregationists in the Deep South were incited by Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett – aided by the incendiary exhortations of a cashiered right-wing Army general, Edwin Walker – to come to our campus and defend the institution against integration by one black man, James Meredith. 

The riot was started by a handful of students taunting and throwing rocks at a force of US marshals, but the disorder was quickly taken over by several thousand adult outsiders, a devil’s brew of Ku Klux Klansmen, political extremists and “good ole boys” seeking a bit of excitement. They never penetrated their goal – the Lyceum, the school’s antebellum administration building – but they had it under siege for hours.

It is probably lost to mind who first said that “in the American presidency, character is destiny.” But whoever coined the adage must have been thinking of Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, in whom the salience of personal qualities was so great as to be historically determinative – Washington’s war-tried experience and authority, Lincoln’s spirituality, FDR’s recovery from a paralyzing disease – in the latter case so huge as to vanquish his early reputation as a lightweight. 

In what ways has Trump’s four years departed from the rule of character? The search is not hard. Here is a presidency so lived in the realm of fantasy, fiction and fibs that those who bothered to keep count of the falsehoods tallied them it in the thousands. 

Nineteen members of the National Press Club got together recently to create a Zoom-based radio play version of the classic story "It's a Wonderful Life." The program was co-sponsored by the Press Club and American Heritage magazine, and is now available for listening on YouTube.

The original 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life" starring James Stewart and Donna Reed tells the story of George Bailey, who, exasperated by life's challenges, wishes he'd never been born. Granted his wish by his guardian angel, he learns the positive impact of an individual's life on so many others.