I'm just wild about Harry.
Two weeks down...207 to go/only 1,449 days left...
I admire Harry Truman. I think he’s the only president in the 20th century, who didn’t have a college degree. It didn’t matter. Truman was an incredibly humble and principled man with tremendous common sense, who acquired a lot of knowledge by reading prolifically, through hard work and varied life experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about his life in David McCullough’s book, Truman.
My grandfather actually knew Truman. They were both Missouri doughboys in WWI. While Truman was associated with Kansas City’s Tom Pendergast machine, Granddaddy was more aligned with the St. Louis’s Lloyd Stark political group. Regardless of their affiliations, both Truman and my grandfather were engaged in government work. In 1945, they caught up with each other in San Francisco, when Truman attended the United Nations Conference, where he addressed the delegates and signed the United Nations Charter. Granddaddy was head of security for the event and was responsible for transporting the actual Charter back to the east coast.
I was thinking about Harry Truman, after I read how #FOTUS responded at his press conference in answer to questions about Wednesday’s tragic plane crash in Washington DC. (Combative Trump blames diversity policies after air tragedy) Asked by a reporter how he could blame diversity programs for the crash, when the investigation had only just begun, the president responded: "Because I have common sense."
No comment.
Harry Truman famously had a plaque on his desk that read, The Buck Stops Here.
Someone needs to make a plaque for our Felon-In-Chief that would read:
The Buck Never Stops Here.
Well…no. Wait a minute. Actually, that would be highly inaccurate, since so many of the bucks not only briefly stop there, but keep right on going into the Trump family coffers.
I change my mind… the sign should read, It’s Not My Fault.
When I was growing up, “It’s not my fault,” was the perennial explanation my aggrieved brother and I would both blurt out, when my mother was separating us after some petty squabble. Outrage, grievance and making excuses is usually the modus operandi of young children.
As I got older, I learned, particularly when I was leading a project team or managing an organizational unit, that good leaders never say those words. They say things like, “How can I help you solve this problem;” or “Let me see, what I can learn about this;” or “These people report to me, so obviously, I take responsibility for what happened.”
You know; good leaders say common sense leadership-type statements.
Thursday, I finished Frank Bruni’s book, The Age of Grievance, which is one of the best books I’ve read in long time. Not only is his writing style gorgeous, his ideas and thoughts, about where we are today, were spot on. Since the book was released last April, it doesn’t reference more recent current events.
Though I checked the book out of the library, I like it so much that I’m planning on buying the paperback, when it comes out in May. I want to read the updated version and have a copy in my library. It’s a brilliant piece of writing that I can’t recommend highly enough.
I’m still thinking about many of Bruni’s words and ideas. And as I reflect on the polar opposite leadership behaviors of #33 versus #47, one of Bruni’s messages strikes a chord with me:
The anecdote to grievance is humility.
Good thought.
So with that in mind, I’m spending my day being humbled. I’m off to play bridge in Flat Rock.
"Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” ~Proverbs 11:2
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“I hate a liar…to find someone has told an out and out lie puts him on the other side of the fence from me for all time.”
~ Clark Gable
#TruthMatters
What I read every day…
I read Letters from an American and The Bulwark. You can go directly to their Substack accounts to read, what I read every day. I very much encourage you to subscribe to both. The links to their sites are below.
Quote of the day:
“Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
~ Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transportation
What I’m reading today…
Trump's blame game returns after deadly plane crash
There's no evidence that Obama or Biden's hiring policies at the FAA led to any kind of decline in aviation safety… The FAA administrator under Biden resigned when Trump took office, and the agency had been leaderless until Trump tapped Chris Rochealeau on Thursday, after the crash.
The Six Principles of Stupidity
I define stupidity as behaving in a way that ignores the question: What would happen next? … Stupidity is the tendency to take actions that hurt you and the people around you….Trump policy was like trying to cure acne with decapitation.
If there was any doubt about what this was about, the email laid it out plainly. The goal is to remake the career professional civil service into a troop of Trump loyalists.
‘Remarkably poor judgment': Wall Street Journal takes a critical eye to start of Trump’s 2nd term
The Journal has editorialized against Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters, called presidential appointee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “dangerous to public health,” suggested Trump give up the effort to end birthright citizenship and twice said he was wrong to strip protection of former officials under threat from Iran. The newspaper also said that Trump showed “remarkably poor judgment” in selling $Trump brand crypto coins.
You can tell what kind of conservative a person is by discovering what year he wants to go back to. For Trump, it seems to be sometime between 1830 and 1899… “Whatever promised to increase wealth was automatically regarded as good, and the American was tolerant, therefore, of speculation, advertising, deforestation and the exploitation of natural resources.” So Trumpian.
North Carolina Gov. Stein's first test: Balancing three hurricane relief efforts
One of Stein's most pressing challenges will be balancing recovery from those three storms. He's vowed to move swiftly to tackle Helene recovery in the western part of the state and, at the same time, finish rebuilding homes in the east.
Deadly mid-air collision renews urgent questions about near-misses, air safety
In August of 2023, FAA data showed that the rate of runway incursions had increased almost 25% from a decade earlier. The trend had shown improvement since 2018, however.
‘Go Find Another Sucker Nation’: Trump Fires Off Fresh Threat to Ten More Countries
President Donald Trump took to social media on Thursday night to threaten 10 more countries with tariffs if they replace the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency.
Take Trump's Threats Against Greenland Seriously
Trump's threats towards Greenland echo Putin's threats towards Crimea, an autonomous province of Ukraine which Putin invaded and annexed in 2014.
Greenland Isn’t For Sale, But America Is
But, the bigger concern is that America is for sale as evidenced by who was sitting behind Trump at the Inauguration last week: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai, and Tik Tok’s Shou Chew. As someone who believes in the market economy, I appreciate that some of the smartest capitalists will be advising our new President, but this is more like “courtesan capitalism” in which you show allegiance to the emperor by currying favor, or especially shoving money in his coffers. How else do you explain Amazon paying Melania $40 million for the rights to make a fawning documentary about her? Or, Trump postponing the TikTok ban after one of its largest shareholders gave $100 million to Trump-friendly groups last year?
Chestnut Restaurant in Asheville, launched a Pay It Forward program to help Swannanoa rebuild after Hurricane Helene.
The book I just finished reading — EXCELLENT — a must read! (Although you might want to wait for the updated, paperback edition coming out May 13, 2025.)
The Age of Grievance by Frank Bruni
“In this feverish era for America and the world, Frank Bruni is the doctor we need. His diagnoses of our fractured politics are clear and compelling. His prescriptions are designed to heal. And his bedside manner—the wise, charming voice that has made him one of America’s most admired commentators—helps the medicine taste like sugar.” — David Von Drehle
“An astonishing, alarming catalogue of the grievances that we nurture. I kept wanting to skip to the section on solutions (which are smart and hopeful, don't worry) but I couldn't do it. The writing was so sharp and good that I didn't want to miss anything!” — Amanda Ripley
What I’m Watching:
“He loves chaos.”
“So, this is just an episode of The Apprentice?”
Things I read everyday….
I read Letters from An American everyday, so I am no longer going to reference it in my Substack posts. Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletters are fabulous, so I encourage you to subscribe on your own.
I’m also a big fan of The Bulwark. I started subscribing to it shortly after I discovered it in 2019. The Bulwark was founded to provide analysis and reporting in defense of America’s liberal democracy. That’s it. That’s the mission. I find their podcasts and articles thoughtful and helpful in making sense of what is going on with the US.
I'm reading the book right now. Boy do we need people like HST and GHWB right now!
Ann, I enjoyed this piece very much. Your handle caught my eye, because I just finished reading a book about George H.W. Bush, by his post-presidency chief of staff, Jean Becker, entitled, you guessed it, "Character Matters" - Jean was on a panel recently conducted by the newspaper publisher for whom I work - interesting read. Truman was not a highly-regarded president at the time, but his stock has risen somewhat since, I think.