By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 29, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Is my son simply growing up or am I being “downsized” and “strategically redeployed” in my own home?
Or both?
My son turned 19 yesterday.
I remember as a teenager my best friend and his father would wrestle with each other in their home. It was a way of interacting in a fun and friendly way but could also get intense at times.
My friend told me later that the intensity was caused by his father being challenged that he was being displaced as the “man of the house” or the “stronger man between the two” and that all fathers had ego challenges when this natural turning point occurred with a son. (His father was a psychologist so he got deeper explanations for things than I did)
I thought it made sense but assured myself I wouldn’t display such insecurities when I experienced this phenomenon with my son.
As I hugged my son good night last night, I noticed he was taller than me. Finally. I mentioned this to him and he said matter-of-factly, “Yeah, I know.” And didn’t show the slightest bit of remorse or need to reassure me of my dominant male role in the family.
I felt like asking him if he wanted to wrestle me. But just didn’t have the energy at that moment.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 26, 2013 at 4:06 PM ET
Terrific piece about politics and celebrity by POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush — and not just because he calls me “affable.”
I must also clarify: While, contrary to much of the political establishment, I believed that Ashley Judd would have been the stronger candidate against Mitch McConnell, I do believe that Alison Lundergan Grimes can beat him, and I hope that she ultimately decides to run:
Jonathan Miller, an affable Harvard law graduate, former Kentucky state treasurer and onetime Democratic gubernatorial candidate, is one of Ashley Judd’s biggest fans. But he has a little trouble recalling any of her movies.
“Kiss the Girls”? Not so much. “Norma Jean and Marilyn”? No. “A Dolphin’s Tale”? Doesn’t ring a bell.
“‘Sisters’!” he says, conjuring Judd’s NBC series, “I remember that from the ’90s. … That was good.”
It wasn’t star worship that impelled Miller to become a driving force behind the unsuccessful push to draft the Kentucky-bred actress and liberal activist to challenge the powerful incumbent Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, for reelection in 2014. It was about money and power. In that respect, Louisville isn’t much different from Hollywood or Washington.
Democrats and Republicans dismissed the candidacy as a distraction and a joke, but Judd’s celebrity, Miller knew, translated to instant cash and cachet. Kentucky Democrats, he reckoned, could save millions they would otherwise have to spend on get-to-know-you advertising to increase their candidate’s name recognition by having someone famous, like Judd, on the ticket. The local and national media would be all over the race, drawn to the irresistible storyline of the lissome, earnest liberal facing down a five-term Machiavelli in wire rims demonized by Democrats as an arch-obstructionist.
“Celebrity was a large part of why I thought Ashley would have been great,” said Miller, who thought the choice of local Democrats, Kentucky’s low-key, 34-year-old Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, would almost certainly fall to McConnell.
“It’s a constant struggle for an ambitious candidate to make news or raise money. Name recognition would have been the most obvious advantage for Ashley, but the more important benefit is the free media attention,” he added. “Sure, they’d go after her as a member of the Hollywood elite. But the esteem for politicians around here is so low, people are less likely to hold that kind of thing against her. I mean no one could accuse her of being a regular politician. …
“She was a celebrity, but she was also an outsider. Nowadays, being an insider is worse.”
Judd’s flirtation reflects Hollywood’s through-the-looking-glass relationship with politics — no longer merely fodder for story lines but a forum for their own aspirations. A new generation of celebrities is more attracted to policy than publicity — a younger, unapologetically liberal group of activist-stars inspired by the examples of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 campaign.
Eight years ago, the Aspen Institute initiated a new fellowship program designed to counter the nasty partisanship that had seeped into the political system. It was not our goal to create some form of magical political “center”; democracy depends on vigorous debate and we expected conservatives and liberals to hold firm to their principles, as they should.But we did want to bring together those political leaders, left, right, and center, who were willing to listen to the other side and see whether there were areas where they could find common ground in the national interest. That first class of Fellows included a great mix of the best young political leaders we could find, beginning with Gabby Giffords, who was then a Democratic state legislator in Arizona; Jon Bruning, the conservative Republican attorney general of Nebraska; Michael Steele, who became the national chairman of the Republican Party; two who have since become Republican members of Congress (Erik Paulsen and Lynn Jenkins) … and Tom Perez, then the president of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland.
It’s understandable that Senate conservatives would prefer a secretary of Labor whose views are more closely in line with their own. But a Democrat won the presidency and his Cabinet will naturally reflect views similar to his. Presidents are not automatically entitled to have their nominees confirmed but it is an abuse of the Senate’s constitutional prerogatives to reject a nominee simply because he shares the president’s views rather than those of the minority party.
What one ought to look for in any department head is character, intelligence, integrity, fair-dealing, an openness to competing viewpoints – in other words, somebody who will serve not just the president but the nation. I have known and worked with Tom Perez for nearly a decade now. I have watched him in countless interactions with men and women whose political views are very different from his own. And I have seen the tremendous respect he has engendered from highly-regarded public officials representing the entire range of political philosophies.
If Perez had been a member of Congress during my years as a member of the House Republican leadership, it’s almost certain that we would have disagreed on a number of important issues. But I would have had confidence that Tom and I could sit down together, talk about our differences, and work to find ways to move forward together in the best interests of the country we both love. It wouldn’t always be a successful effort but it would always be an honest one.
It’s time for members of the Senate, Republican and Democrat alike, to stop engaging in knee-jerk hostility to anybody who carries the other party’s label: if a nominee for a Cabinet position is lacking in the ability to do the job or unwilling to consider divergent views, he or she might well merit a vote against confirmation. But that most assuredly is not the case with Tom Perez. He will enforce the nation’s labor laws with fairness and integrity and that’s exactly what we should want in the head of any government department. He understands what it takes to be an effective Labor Secretary, because he has done the job successfully at a state level.
The support he has received from business leaders, educators, unions, and grassroots leaders is an impressive but not surprising illustration of the Tom Perez I have seen in action. He’s not a conservative but he deserves confirmation and the country deserves to have him sitting in the president’s Cabinet and bringing his judgment and intellect to the collective management of the nation’s business.
Mickey Edwards is director of the Aspen Institute and was a Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years (1977-92).blockquote>
In No Labels‘ inaugural Google+ Hangout, The RP led a discussion with Congressmen Ami Bera, David Cicilline, Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger, talking about their involvement with the Problem Solvers group in Congress — the only place in Washington where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are coming together to talk solutions.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Apr 24, 2013 at 4:00 PM ET
Check it out — Problem Solver Reps. Ami Bera, David Cicilline, Adam Kinzinger and Rodney Davis want you to join them in a video town hall with No Labels today at 5 p.m., eastern time! Click here to view the livestream.
Don’t miss it — this is your chance to hear what happens when two Republicans and two Democrats sit down to discuss real solutions instead of relying on party politics.
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Apr 24, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
For what may be the first time ever, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are sitting down together for a video town hall with No Labels.
I’m honored to moderate a conversation with Reps. Ami Bera, David Cicilline, Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger in a Google+ Hangout as they discuss how they’re working together in the No Labels Problem Solvers group. This video discussion is the only place where you can hear the facts on what is happening in Washington, not just the party talking points.
Will you join us TODAY at 5 p.m., eastern time, to watch the Problem Solvers talk No Labels?
These lawmakers are just four of the 61 Problem Solvers in Congress — but they can give you an inside look at what goes on in these meetings. This has never happened before — you won’t want to miss it. And they’d love to hear from you.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Apr 23, 2013 at 11:00 AM ET
For what may be the first time ever, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are sitting down together for a video town hall with No Labels.
I’m honored to moderate a conversation with Reps. Ami Bera, David Cicilline, Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger in a Google+ Hangout as they discuss how they’re working together in the No Labels Problem Solvers group. This video discussion is the only place where you can hear the facts on what is happening in Washington, not just the party talking points.
Will you join us on Wednesday at 5 p.m., eastern time, to watch the Problem Solvers talk No Labels?
These lawmakers are just four of the 61 Problem Solvers in Congress — but they can give you an inside look at what goes on in these meetings. This has never happened before — you won’t want to miss it. And they’d love to hear from you.
The Lexington Herald-Leader political columnist Larry Dale Keeling, who once wrote under the moniker, “Kentucky Curmudgeon,” writes this morning of finding a kindred spirit in The RP. Read on:
For someone who claims to be “The Recovering Politician,” Jonathan Miller sure has been active on the political scene lately. The former state treasurer and cabinet official in Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration publically talked up the industrial hemp bill in the recent General Assembly session (Miller is a member of the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission). He touted actress Ashley Judd as a worthy Democratic candidate to take on McConnell in the 2014 U.S. Senate race.
And in a couple of recent pieces written for The Daily Beast, Miller got a bit in-your-face with some of his fellow Kentucky Democrats, accusing them (mostly without naming names) of elbowing Judd out of the Senate race and of botching their response to the leaked tape by focusing on the mistakes of the leakers instead of responding to what Miller termed a “vicious smear,” the tape’s revelations about the McConnell camp’s plan to exploit Judd’s past mental health issues.
In the latter piece, Miller wrote, “The circular firing squad Democrats have assembled comes as no surprise to observers of the state, who have watched for decades as McConnell’s national rise has been aided by his utterly inept opposition” before going on to chronicle the infighting within the Democratic Party that at times has resulted in McConnell facing weakened challengers.
Miller is right. Kentucky Democrats have been their own worst enemies for decades. It’s a “me first” party, a party still living in the era when winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to winning office and, consequently, a party more interested in settling internal grudges than it is in choosing the best candidate for the fall. Also, consequently, a party destined to future irrelevancy if it doesn’t wake up.
But according to its mission statement on its Web site, “The Recovering Politician provides a civilized forum as an antidote to our nation’s toxic addiction to vitriol and demonization. Here is a place for debating and discussing the issues of the day … without the finger-pointing and blame-assigning that’s all too typical on the Web and among our more crass media.”
With all due respect, I would suggest to Miller that some of his recent writings might border on the “finger-pointing and blame-assigning” The Recovering Politician’s mission statement deplores. To put it bluntly (and with more than a dollop of good fun), he’s getting close to invading my space as a vitriolic and demonizing member of the “crass media.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 19, 2013 at 1:06 PM ET
This week’s awful events provide a somber reminder about the critical role volunteers can play in aiding law enforcement and medical practitioners in the wake of a horrible human tragedy.
Your thoughts and prayers for the victims are important, but each of us can and should do a whole lot more when disaster calamity — we can all play a constructive role in protecting our friends and neighbors against an act of terrorism or a natural disaster.
The Red Cross offers some amazing programs that help train average citizens in first aid and emergency preparedness.
Is my son simply growing up or am I being “downsized” and “strategically redeployed” in my own home?
I thought it made sense but assured myself I wouldn’t display such insecurities when I experienced this phenomenon with my son.
