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…

Remembering President Tsongas

A British columnist (fresh from predicting a Republican victory last November, as he admits) is not impressed by Obama:

The surreal idea of President Obama (2008) follows in the dubious footsteps of President Howard Dean (2004), President Bill Bradley (2000), President Steve Forbes (1996) and President Paul Tsongas (1992). In fairness to Mr Bradley, who may have made a decent occupant of the Oval Office, he was not a risible figure to aspire to inherit George Washington’s mantle. All of the rest were.

Afterthought: Bradley? Bradley? Oh get real. He may be the weakest of the lot. A fully-inflated media helium balloon who expected the presidency to be conferred upon him as an entitlement. Thanks, Joel, whose good offices as a source need not be taken as an endorsement. Of anything.