Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Abraham Lincoln - 2.12.09

Here’s something about Abraham Lincoln you may not have known. He is the only President ever to have been awarded a patent, and he got it because of an idea that came to him while he was on the Detroit River. That’s not to say he visited Detroit; he didn’t.

He probably saw the city skyline, such as it was in 1848. But he also got stuck in the Canadian mud, when the steamship he was on ran aground on the shoals somewhere off Fighting Island, across the river from Wyandotte. This was what you might call a real pain.

Lincoln had been on boats that got stuck before, on the Mississippi River. Eventually, when he was finally on the way back to Illinois, he got an idea. Why not equip ships with inflatable bellows that would sit on each side, just below the waterline.

If the boat accidentally ran aground, why, all you’d have to do is inflate both sets of bellows, and then maneuver the boat back into deep water. Lincoln, always a tinkerer, made a little wooden model, applied for a patent for his invention and was granted it.

Neither he nor anyone else ever showed any interest in manufacturing the bellows boat, but it was the principle of the thing.

When he became a national candidate, Lincoln never came to Michigan for the same reason that John McCain didn’t campaign in Idaho. Michigan was then a small, reliably Republican state, which had a mere six electoral votes in 1860 and eight in 1864.

But he did give us our distinct name, back when he was a Whig congressman in the 1840s. Lincoln was poking fun at Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate for president and who, unfortunately, had a profile that basically resembled a goose.

Lincoln once referred to Cass sarcastically as “the great Michigander,” and the name stuck. In other words, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if Abe Lincoln coined the name, it ought to be more than good enough for me.

We apparently weren’t all that appealing to him; however. Early in the Civil War, Senator Zachariah Chandler, tried to get Lincoln to come to Detroit, to visit the Michigan State Fair.

Old Abe was having none of it. “It is the opinion of friends, backed by my own judgment, that I should not really or apparently be showing myself around the country.” Good advice, that; there were lots of assassination plots going around. On the other hand, there is some evidence that he just didn’t like Chandler, a brash and pugnacious character, very much. Lots of people didn’t.

Lincoln was close to a Republican congressman from our state, Francis Kellogg, who knocked himself out raising troops for the war effort. And when Michigan sent some of the first volunteers to reach Washington after the fall of Ft. Sumter, Lincoln loudly and publicly exclaimed, “Thank God for Michigan.”

Washington, and the rest of the country, might do well to remember that, next time there is an auto bailout bill.

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Interview: Roger Rosentreter - 2.12.09

Today is Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. And while Michigan did not play a major role in his life… he did visit the state. He came to Kalamazoo to make a speech for the 1856 Republican presidential nominee. And, he traveled by steamboat up the Detroit River. Roger Rosentreter is the Editor of Michigan History Magazine. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: John Dingell - 2.11.09

There are going to be a lot of nice things said about John Dingell today, and a lot of honors heaped at his feet.

But here’s something most people won’t mention, something which is possibly the biggest tribute you could pay a man who has served more than half a century in the same high-pressure job.

Last fall, when Congressman Henry Waxman pulled a coup and ousted Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the move had nothing to do with age or competence.

It was all about politics and policy. True, Dingell had just had knee surgery and couldn’t campaign as heavily in person as he might have liked. But there was no question he was mentally up to the job.

In the end, even though Waxman had the tacit support of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, he barely won, and then only because of so many new members who didn’t know John Dingell.

Which is too bad for them. There was never anybody like John Dingell before. Senator Strom Thurmond stayed in the job until he was a hundred years old. But he was scarcely on the job; he lived in Walter Reed Army Hospital. In his last campaign for office, he talked of how the Russians had attacked Texas at the Alamo.

Senator Robert Byrd was pushed out last fall as head of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he was clearly not physically up to the job. But that wasn’t the case with Dingell.

Nor is he a bitter, or nasty man. Last week, in fact, Dingell and his wife Debbie had dinner with the Waxmans. I know nothing about the dinner, except I’d bet that John Dingell was unfailingly courteous and charming throughout. There is also no doubt that he represented the auto industry throughout his career. His critics called him “Tailpipe Johnny,” or “the representative from General Motors.”

Seen with the brilliance of hindsight, it is clear that he was sometimes just as short-sighted as the narrow little men who helped run Detroit’s signature industry into the ground.

But since when did Congressmen not represent the interests of the key economic interests in their state? There is a word for congressmen who didn’t look after cotton in the South or mining in the west or textiles in New England. That word is ex-congressmen.

In recent years, Dingell, who has always been an environmentalist at heart, increasingly got the bigger picture, and prodded the automakers to realize the world had changed.

He is no longer chairman, but is still a force. Years ago, when I asked him how long he planned to stay in Congress, Dingell referred to former President John Quincy Adams, who returned to the House and served till he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on the floor.

I would hate to see that happen, but there are worse ways to go. Let’s hope the nation’s longest serving congressman holds office as long as he is happy and effective doing so. For when he does leave, he will be deeply missed.

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Interview: John Dingell - 2.11.09

Today marks a milestone is the life of Michigan Congressman John Dingell. Today, the Dearborn Democrat becomes the longest serving member of the House of Representatives. He took over his father’s Congressional seat in 1955. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about this historic day.

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Essay: Wetlands - 2.10.09

Most people probably don’t think a lot about wetlands preservation. When it comes to those who do, I have found very few in what you might call the sensible center. The average developer probably thinks of a wetlands preservationist as someone who would deny a community the right to build a needed hospital on abandoned swampland, on the theory that a frog might be there someplace.

On the other hand, I‘ve met environmental activists who were convinced that any developer would happily bulldoze the last nesting site of the last Kirtland Warblers for another putt-putt golf island.

My own environmental theory is based on the fundamental ethical command of the profession of medicine: First, Do No Harm. Or as we say in journalism, When In Doubt, Leave it Out. In other words, err on the side of protecting first, bulldozing later.

What’s really most important is that we should take responsibility for our actions.

That’s what was so disappointing to me about the governor’s state of the state speech in general, and her policy on wetlands in particular. She said that she would turn over enforcement of wetlands protection to the federal government, where, she said, quote “more staff exists to effectively safeguard our natural resources.” When she said that, I suddenly pictured thousands of voters jumping out of their arm chairs at home.

What! You mean to tell us we‘ve been spending millions, all these years, protecting our wetlands. Meanwhile, there was this vast army of federal employees just waiting, hoping that some day we’d turn it over to them to manage for us, absolutely free??

Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Actually, it isn’t at all clear what the governor meant by her statement that the federal government has more staff. It certainly does; it’s bigger. Do they have adequate staff to administer all Michigan’s wetland areas?

Of course not. What would be nice is if the governor would treat us like adults. That’s actually what she needs to do with the whole budget. We are headed over the cliff, and soon.

By September, Jennifer Granholm is going to have to face the impossible task of balancing a budget close to two billion dollars out of whack. None of the smoke and mirrors and two-bit savings in her state-of-the state get us anywhere close.

What she should do is level with us. Buy or beg half an hour of TV time. Come on with pie charts and candor.

Say - look: We legally have to balance this budget. We can cut aid to education at all levels to the bone, lay off state police and severely downsize the prisons … or we can raise revenue by asking those of you who are employed to pay more state income tax.

She should tell the voters: If you want these services, we‘re going to have to pay for them. I frankly don’t know how the people would decide. But I have a sneaking hunch they’d be grateful to have been treated like grownups for once.

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Interview: John Flesher - 2.10.09

Should Michigan give up safeguarding the state’s millions of acres of wetlands? In her state of the state address last week, Governor Granholm proposed returning that responsibility to the federal government. She said the move would save the state money. John Flesher covers Michigan’s environment for the Associated Press. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about whether the Governor’s proposal makes sense.

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Essay: Auto Update - 2.9.09

I mentioned something about the automotive crisis to somebody the other night, somebody who clearly didn’t work in the industry. “Well, they bailed them out, though, didn’t they?” he said.

Well, no, they didn’t. “They,” or rather, the outgoing President Bush, did give Chrysler and General Motors enough money to stave off bankruptcy in December. But since then the patient has continued to hemorrhage money at a shocking rate.

Chrysler sales were down an unheard of 55 percent last month, compared to a year ago. General Motors sales were down about 50 percent, Ford, the imaginary bright spot in all of this, was down 42 percent, when you factor in its slumping Volvo subsidiary.

Not only is there no sign of a recovery, there is no end to the slump, which seems to be accelerating. These companies need to sell cars, and they need cash if they are to survive.

The cars aren’t selling. That’s partly because people can’t get loans because of the credit crunch. It’s partly because people can’t get credit. It’s partly because nearly four million Americans have lost their jobs since this recession started.

And many, many millions more today live in fear of losing their jobs. So for all those reasons, few of us are buying cars. Right now, the only potential source the car companies seem to have for large amounts of cash is getting more from Washington.

Incidentally, the bailout money we are doling out to them isn’t stored in a vault somewhere in Fort Knox. We don’t have it.

What’s happening is that your government is going out and borrowing this money, some of it from China, and then lending it to the auto companies, which hopefully will someday pay us back.

Someday. But as bleak as this all sounds, it’s possible that the worst thing we could do right now is to stop supporting them.

If Chrysler or General Motors or both should fail, it would set off a ripple effect that could involve more than a million jobs, among auto workers, suppliers, and others with jobs connected to the industry.

Worse, it could cause great worry, or worse, among the hundreds of thousands of Americans who depend on pensions from one of the formerly Big Three. The stock market crash may mean these plans are all underfunded. Last week, we learned that Ford may have to kick in an extra $3 billion or more to its pension plan .

What the answers are may not be clear. However, it is clear that the domestic auto industry as we've known it, with three major stand-alone automakers, is no longer supportable.

Possibly some recombination of our domestic auto industry into a single major corporation, or maybe two, could enable it to survive.

What is clear is that we need intelligent and bold decisions on the part of both the industry and the Obama administration, and we need them soon. We are very close to the edge of the cliff. And if everyone goes over it, I don’t know how we‘ll ever get back up.

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Interview: Sean McAlinden - 2.9.09

Detroit’s automakers are approaching another significant deadline… Next week, both Chrysler and General Motors have to present restructuring plans to the US Treasury Department. Meanwhile, dismal auto sales continue. Sean McAlinden is a Senior Economist at the Center for Automotive Research. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Recalling Flint - 2.6.09

If you’ve been listening to my commentaries for awhile, you may have noticed that I am not shy about sharing my opinions.

So here’s what I think about the situation in Flint. I don’t know whether the mayor should be recalled or not. I don’t live there, I don’t know enough about what’s happening, and I don’t know if removing him would be a better thing for the city and its struggling people.

Most of the time, I oppose recalls. We have an automatic recall mechanism for every elected job in this country.

It is called the next election. The voters of Flint had a chance to recall Don Williamson fifteen months ago, when he ran for re-election. A bare 51 percent of them voted to keep him.

Or rather, they said they’d rather have Williamson than the guy he defeated. Two years from now, Flint voters get an automatic new chance again. The fact is, in our system there really is only one issue in most elections: Which of the candidates is most acceptable, or in any event, less unacceptable than the others. Our system is not set up to ask you: Do you want to kick Smith out of office? The American way is to ask, Do you want Smith, or do you want Jones?

Polls in 2004 showed most people wanted somebody other than President Bush. But the choice was whether they wanted Bush or John Kerry, and a narrow majority preferred the incumbent.

In most cases recalls are not only not justified, they present a real threat to the democratic process. Our politicians already find it hard to make politically unpopular decisions.

If they think they are likely to be hauled up for a recall vote any time they displease a few thousand know-nothings, you can forget seeing any profiles in courage ever again.

Yet there are always exceptions to any rule, and Flint may be one of these. Here’s what bothers me most about the Don Williamson situation. During his last re-election campaign, he claimed the city had a $8.9 million dollar surplus.

That wasn’t true. There was actually a $4 million dollar deficit, and the city had to lay off sixty employees. There are also ethical questions raised by Williamson’s handing out of cash and campaign literature at his wife’s Buick dealership.

Whether he is recalled or not, however, here’s what bothers me. We have a national financial emergency on top of a long-standing, ever-worsening, Michigan economic crisis.

Add to that the fact that Flint and Detroit have been in the equivalent of a depression for years. Yet these cities keep falling prey to grasping, selfish leaders who have no sense of civic duty. Detroit has to do better than Kwame Kilpatrick.

And I have to believe that Flint can do better than Don Williamson. There is a long and noble tradition in this country in which some of our best people in the private sector make financial sacrifices to seek high office in times of crisis.

Detroit and Flint could use a couple of those, very soon

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Interview: Terry Bankert - 2.6.09

Detroit’s special election for mayor on February 24th has received a lot of attention… but that date could be even more significant for the city of Flint. That’s because Donald Williamson, who has been mayor for more than five years, faces a recall election. Terry Bankert is an attorney and former Flint ombudsman. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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