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RedditAlexander Hamilton, the greatest Secretary of the Treasury before Andrew V. Mellon--or so he will doubtless come to be known--was a brilliant man of affairs as well as a highly gifted officer of his country. Yet once he fell into as difficult a position as a public man has ever known, and extricated himself by means which show how much the conventional standards of morals have changed in America since his time. A serious charge--that of speculating in government claims--was brought against him during Washington's second term. He completely and finally exonerated himself of any peculation or dishonorable conduct against his country, but he did so by explaining, as he said, that his real crime was "an amorous connection" with the wife of his principal accuser, one James Reynolds, "with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me."
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Noted.
Jeff Madrick on Clintonomics; John Nichols on the Ron Paul revolt; Ari Berman on superdelegate fence-sitters
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Burma's Desperate Hour
The crisis in Burma justifies humanitarian intervention--but it should be carried out by the UN and limited to emergency relief.
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Noted.
Longshoremen protest the war, Ken Livingstone loses London, Zephyr Teachout blogs The Nation.
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Trust the Voters
Finally, the Democratic campaign can begin to focus on what really matters--healthcare, the economy and leaving Iraq.
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Noted.
Nasty political advertising in Mississippi and your bloated grocery bill.
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Our Lapdog Media
What should we do when Big Media fails democracy? First, don't let it get any bigger.
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Noted.
A fractured death penalty ruling, the Pentagon's pimping pundits, campus antisweatshop campaigns and Guggenheims for Nation poets.
This confession [he says] is not made without a blush. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang which it may inflict in a bosom eminently entitled to all my gratitude fidelity, and love. But that bosom will approve [and] the public, too, will, I trust, excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defense against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum.
Yet the curious thing, in our day, is that, having made his explanation, he really was exonerated. What man in public life today could explain away a charge of dishonesty by relating a vulgar intrigue? We have proceeded from the hearty probity of the frontier to the age of censorship. Our Sinclairs, our Daughertys, our Stewarts, our Blackmers are comfortably at large, although some of them at least have been called dishonest by no less an authority than the Supreme Court of the United States. Yet on their private lives there is no stain. They may live safely through charges of financial corruption, but a public sex scandal would be sufficient to blow them out of any further possibility of popular tolerance or support.
