| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 05:21 PM
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Former Senator From New York, Dies at 76
"Mr. Moynihan was always more a man of ideas than of legislation or partisan combat. Yet he was enough of a politician to win re-election easily and enough of a maverick with close Republican friends to be an occasional irritant to his Democratic party leaders.
"Before the Senate, his political home from 1977 to 2001, he served two Democratic presidents and two Republicans, finishing his career in the executive branch as President Richard M. Nixon's ambassador to India and President Gerald R. Ford's ambassador to the United Nations.
"For more than 40 years, in and out of government, he became known for being among the first to identify new problems and propose novel, if not easy, solutions, most famously in auto safety and mass transportation; urban decay and the corrosive effects of racism; and the preservation and development of architecturally distinctive federal buildings.
"He was a man known for the grand gesture as well as the bon mot, and his style sometimes got more attention than his prescience, displayed notably in 1980 when he labeled the Soviet Union "in decline." Among his last great causes were strengthening Social Security and attacking government secrecy.
*****
"Mr. Moynihan marked that grim assassination weekend with a widely remembered remark about the death of [President Kennedy] he barely knew but idolized and eagerly followed.
"On Sunday Nov. 24 [1963], he said in a television interview: "I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought we had a little more time." He added softly, "So did he."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/obituaries/27MOYN.html?pagewanted=print&position=bottom
****
May Senator Moynihan's soul rest in peace.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| DWI |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 06:02 PM
Indeed.
Wasn't he the shoeshine boy who studied in the City College of New York? There were few Nepalese in that college.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 06:52 PM
hmm, sad that a good man died. May his soul rest in peace.
DWI: MY ex-boss attended that college before moving to Columbia for his Master's and after almost 30 yers now, he's one of the most sought after IR Professors in the South Asia region.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 07:36 PM
Since I am, in general, a non-fiction freak [and this is why I often don't say what to say poems posted here:-) ], I tend to read a lot of biographies and autobiographies (selections of which, alas, are not all that great in Kathmandu's book-stores!).
And so, some of the most fascinating biograhies, memoirs and autobiographies and so on I have read are of those of Irish-American politicians and writers (usually from the US northeast) who seem to have a way of overcoming adversities with humor, compasssion and a lot of feistiness.
If contemporary Democratic (US political party) politics and US history is your cup of chiya too, then, I recommend his book to all sajha readers:
"The Gentleman From New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- A Biography by Godfrey Hodgson." Published in 2000.
Here's a little blurb from Amazon.com
"Amazon.com
History will probably remember Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, as one of the great American senators and rank his name alongside Stephen Douglas and Daniel Webster. He isn't known as a topnotch legislator--his name is attached to no ground-shaking bill--but he is respected by colleagues in both parties and by the media as one of the brightest men to work in Washington in recent years.
He's also had a fascinating political journey, which took him from liberalism in the 1950s to flirtations with neoconservatism in the '60s and '70s to old-style Democratic loyalties in the '80s and '90s. "In contact with both liberalism and conservatism, he belongs to neither," writes Moynihan biographer Godfrey Hodgson, an English journalist who previously penned a history of American conservatism, The World Turned Right Side Up.
"Supported by both, he seems to link them, and to transcend them."
Hodgson covers Moynihan's whole life--from growing up (it wasn't in Hell's Kitchen, by the way) to his time in the navy, his controversial role in the Johnson administration (where he wrote the so-called Moynihan Report on the black family), his Nixon-Ford days as ambassador to India and the United Nations, and finally his career as an elected pol. He moved about constantly, writes Hodgson: "It is a record that suggests impatience, dissatisfaction, persistent difficulty in getting on with superiors, and the troubled emotions that afflict a man of immense ability and energy who cannot quite find the right task and is afraid that his time will run out before he does."
Following four full terms in the Senate, he has finally found "increasing serenity." (Moynihan announced he would not seek reelection in 2000, which opened the door for Hillary Clinton's candidacy.) Hodgson himself has known Moynihan for several decades; the senator even attended the author's wedding in 1970. This relationship allows the biographer to include firsthand reflections at appropriate moments ("When Pat announced that he was going to work for Nixon in the White House, I almost fell off my chair").
An interesting, favorable, and admiring book, The Gentleman from New York serves as a fitting tribute to the man. Of Moynihan's legacy, Hodgson writes: "After the dazzling speeches and elegant essays, the wit and the prophetic utterances are largely forgotten, he will be remembered as the man who ... had the lucidity and courage to restate the enduring propositions of the American political creed ... [and] above all a faith in the redemptive power of republican government." --John J. Miller
******
There are people you never meet, but from what you have heard about them of know of them, you respect/admire them anyway . . . even from a distance.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| DWI |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 08:14 PM
So, Isolated, you're in education field too? Your ex-boss must be a highly respected scholar in his field.
The name of that college keeps popping up in NY newspapers. The last time I heard about it was when it secured one of the highest grant in Bio-technology, I believe bigger chunk than Columbia. I studied in NJ, so don't know too much.
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| Paschim |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 08:38 PM
Senator Moynihan has been called in the US "the best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and the best politician among thinkers since Jefferson." Probably a minor exaggeration for a man who has been excessively praised and admired, but he never complained, underscoring a partial, tacit self-approval.
Eight years ago, when my college announced that Moynihan was coming to Europe to deliver a major lecture at his alma mater, I thought, who is this man? That was the first time I heard of Senator Moynihan. I have since followed his career with respect and interest, together with other public intellectuals of integrity.
It is sad to learn he has passed away. I would like to write a piece on Moynihan soon, sort of a tribute on record from a young Nepali admirer of not only his career, but also his passion for ideas from history and politics, and a quaint sartorial taste in Tweed jackets.
------
He has written some 20 books, and the following Commencement Address that he delivered at Harvard college last year will be one of his last timely inputs to this troubled world :
http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/moynihan.html
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 08:44 PM
DWI: No, I am not in Education field, actually I am not even in rice field these days :=).
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| DWI |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 09:43 PM
I had heard about Senator Moynihan as a strong supporter of Bush's economic plan (specifically social security) who had voiced his support when Al Gore was in mood of a constant criticism. For a senator, he was relatively a known figure in NY politics. I couldn't help but visualize him as the same old boy who once used to polish shoes in Grand Central Terminal.
But, honestly, I didn't know he was this much popular even to people outside of the NY state. I thought people were more interested in the artist Daniel Moynihan (a contemporary artist whose subject is renaissance) than the senator. Frankly, I couldn't have read those big biographies or to top it, write one.
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| DWI |
Posted
on 27-Mar-03 09:45 PM
Isolated_Freak, sorry, I drew a wrong que.
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| FaithHealer |
Posted
on 28-Mar-03 07:42 AM
In the book 'Gentleman from New York', there's a section that covers his career as a the US Ambassador to India. Among other things, Moynihan family often visited Nepal during his tenure in India. His daughter got quite attached to Nepal and especially to the issue of Tibetan refugees and their rehabilitation. (She wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on the current crisis in Nepal during the Deuba visit last year- a well-meaning but rather ill-informed piece.) Moynihan himself was interested in recent developments in Nepal. When Deuba gave a talk at the Widrow Wilson Center for Scholars during his American visit, he chose to be present too. In his passing, we Nepalis have also lost a friend.
I was walking past the Reagan building just the other day and noticed this square named -Daniel Patrick Moynihan Place. A little ironical- I thought- that this wiser, finer gentleman from New York should be named (almost as a footnote) in the shadows of an actor-politician.
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| bewakoof |
Posted
on 28-Mar-03 02:45 PM
Indeed a great man of intellect and wit. In the present circumstance I am reminded of how he once described the U.N. as a 'theater of the absurd'.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 30-Mar-03 05:32 PM
Here's a rather unflattering assessment of Senator Moynihan, published in 2000 in The New York Times magazine.
Like I said in "Prahlad KC" thread, most human beings are complex creatures who do not fall in tidily in either "good" or "bad" category.
There is much middle ground between good and bad. And that it's possible to like a person for some of his/her qualities while being aware of other not-so-great qualities..
"Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a great minder of Senate traditions and a stirring elected intellectual, perhaps Washington's last. But he sponsored no major legislation, was not the prophet he thinks he was -- and never learned the difference between being right and being effective.
By JACOB WEISBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001105mag-moynihan.html
Enjoy,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 31-Mar-03 06:05 AM
The bill has been introduced, not yet ratified. So, there's no reason to cheer up. Instead, like ashu wrote, its time to persuade the other senate members.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 31-Mar-03 06:07 AM
sorry, posted on the wrong thread. :-(
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