Remembering Bill Bradley

Roasting the Easter lamb on Sunday while CNN droned in the background, I heard former Congressman Jim Leach interviewing former Senator Bill Bradley. I admit I have always felt a bit ambivalent about Bradley. I know he’s a serious guy but he was an awful presidential candidate—he seemed to expect the presidency as a bestowal, one of the worst cases of pompous presumption I’d seen since Arthur Goldberg ran for governor of New York.

But like I say, I concede he is a serious guy. And he said three things that stick in my mind.

One: he said—proudly—that his father, the small-town banker, foreclosed on no mortgages during the Great Depression.

Two: Leach questioned him about Lyndon Johnson and Tom Delay. What, exactly did Delay do that he didn’t learn from Johnson? Well, said Bradley, it wasn’t illegal when Johnson did it.

But the third point was perhaps the most interesting. Bradley recalled the palmy days of the 50s and 60s when people got a raise every year. The modern day equivalent, he remarked, is the home equity loan…