The Big Game

There was a big game Saturday.

The anticipation was as palpable as the restlessness of crazed bargain hunters waiting for the doors to open on Black Friday. Excitement, uncertainty, analysis, prognostication hung in the air, permeating every public gathering like the lilting tones of elevator music in a furniture store.

Fans on both sidelines smelled victory, yet suppressed their overconfidence, lest they succumb to an ignominious embarrassment. Each team was on a roll, although one's string of successes had come by perilously close margins, and the other's defensive line had been debilitated by a rash of frustrating injuries.

The waiting begets its own intensity. Unlike baseball and basketball, whose long, leisurely seasons diminish the impact of any single contest, whose wins and losses follow each other so rapidly that one has little opportunity to savor the former, mourn the latter, or contemplate the consequences of either before the next is upon him, football's titans clash only once a week.

During the interval, the suspense builds to a fever pitch, fueled by an incessant spate of partisan posturing and media blather rushing to fill a vacuum, until it abruptly implodes with the opening kickoff, to be reconstituted within hours in the form of pretentious postmortems and specious Sunday morning quarterbacking.

The manufactured drama even got my attention. I made a bet -- a daring twenty dollars -- mainly to silence the cavalierly clatter of a friend of mine. I watched the first half on television with four of my children -- who were more spellbound by their Scrabble game than any rumblings on the field -- and listened to the sobering conclusion on the radio while driving my daughter and her husband to Roanoke to catch a plane.

Having acknowledged my apostasy, would it be disingenuous to proclaim once again on this web site my distaste for this communal combat disguised as sport?

Lift the veil of gladiatorial romanticism and transcendent athleticism, and consider what lies beneath: controlled violence and orchestrated brutality that in any other setting would be deemed assault and battery; interior lines anchored by hooded behemoths of such size and strength as to render ordinary mortals Lilliputian by contrast; a repetitious series of maneuvers in which the belligerents face off in a crouched position, engage their alter egos in bone-jarring collisions, and scatter across the field to pursue and upend a feisty ball carrier; and a sedentary expenditure of three hours to watch all of fifteen minutes of real-time action, net of huddles, unpiling, and replays.

To make full disclosure, I never played the game. Once I reached puberty and looked around at my peers, I realized I was too small, weak, slow, uncoordinated, nearsighted, and averse to physical contact for pads, helmet, and cleats to do me any good.

Perhaps this handicap prevents me from fully appreciating a friend's spirited defense of football in response to my previously documented disparagement. "It is the most team-oriented sport of all," he said. "Everyone works together to achieve a common goal. Of twenty-two players on the field, fifteen have no chance to touch the ball, barring a fumble or interception."

The rewards of football come at a high price, according to Kris Jenkins, former all-pro defensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers and New York Jets.

"Pain in football is consistent over time," he writes in the New York Times, November 20, 2011. "You're still hurting in the off-season. You're hurting when the next season starts . . . You ever been in a car crash? Done bumper cars? You know when that hit catches you off guard and jolts you? Football is like that. But ten times worse. It's bad . . . From the double teams over the years, I wore the left side of my body down. I was past hurt. I was at the point of numb . . . I couldn't feel part of both arms. I couldn't feel part of both legs . . . I'm just starting to get feeling back in my left side."

Of course, he's talking about professional football. Maybe it doesn't hurt so bad, or so long, at the college level, even though recent hits in that arena have been equally devastating.

For the true devotee, there's obviously more to the big game than what meets the eye of the uninitiated, but whatever it is eluded me when I visited Annapolis, Maryland, two years go to watch Navy square off against Wake Forest -- ending a two-decade hiatus for me. It was all downhill after the soul-stirring parade of one thousand midshipmen and an exhilarating flyover by the Blue Angels prior to kickoff.

Seated fifteen rows back on the fifteen-yard line, I strained to penetrate the amorphous confluence of black, gold, and blue brush strokes slithering back and forth across a muddy streaked canvas. So well-hidden was the ball that I doubted its substantiality, until I glimpsed it briefly wobbling through the gloomy mist. A few minutes into the second half, a curtain of water descended on this dreary charade, mercifully dispatching my companions and me to the warmth and dryness of our hotel room to commiserate over the televised swamping of the Deacons with a bottle of wine.

Perhaps I chose the wrong venue.

Friends extol the joys of tailgating -- those lavish outdoor cocktail parties where thousands of enthusiasts feast upon sumptuous home-cooked delicacies or professionally-grilled entrees and consume gallons of free-flowing alcohol (but none shall pass the lips of the underage students hovering in the background, I assume), thus to be well-fortified for a rigorous agenda of shouting, cheering, booing, cursing, and general hell-raising.

On some campuses, I am told, the masses are treated to a grand revue worthy of the British monarchy, where the home team disembarks from its royal coaches and marches past the star-struck revelers in its resplendent armor, en route to a valiant defense of its sacred turf.

What are these festivities all about? Love of the institution, whose raison d'etre is, ostensibly, the higher education of our youth? Adoration of the team, upon whose broad, padded shoulders are borne the hopes, dreams, credibility, and wagers of its disciples? A lust for aggression, which is sublimated, displaced, and resurrected in the bodies of these noble avatars? I suspect it is all of the above, plus semi-calculated theater to inspire the faithful and keep their plentiful dollars flowing.

Why do "schools work so damn hard and often take ethical shortcuts to forge themselves into football powers," to nurture a culture of unconditional team worship? Because, says sports journalist Michael Weintraub, a graduate of Penn State, "if they are successful, then the game serves as as the lifelong bond between alums and townspeople and the university, thereby guaranteeing the institution's self-preservation through donations and season-ticket sales and infusions into the local economy . . . [and] college football [will become] (other than our own families) the purest emotional attachment of our adulthood." (Gitlin, The New Republic, November 14, 2011)

Such fervent loyalty is hardly limited to "alums." Some of the most ardent collegiate sportsmen I know never sniffed their adopted alma maters until well into their post-graduate years.

The seeds of sustainment are planted early, as legions of students are swept up in the frenzy -- painting their faces, baring their chests in sub-zero conditions, standing in solidarity throughout the entire contest, berating their opponents with malicious taunts. Sometimes their enthusiasm overruns the boundaries of juvenile delinquency.

In 2008, after their Nittany Lions defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus for the first time in thirty years, back in State College "thousands of inebriated Penn State students poured into a downtown residential area known as Beaver Canyon and began to riot, breaking windows and toppling street signs." Police officers resorted to pepper spray to subdue the unruly celebrants. (Ben McGrath, The New Yorker, November 28, 2011, p. 21) At the most civilizing of establishments, the outcome of a child's game shattered the restraints on wanton behavior, and society ran amok.

Three years later its emperor would prove to have no clothes.

The most explosive scandal in the history of college sports erupted on November 4 when state authorities released a 23-page grand jury report documenting multiple incidents of sexual abuse against young boys committed by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky between 1994 and 2009. Most occurred either in Penn State's football facilities or at football functions. (Werthem and Epstein, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2011)

Despite his prominence and relatively young age, mid-fifties, Sandusky retired in 1999, but was allowed full access to the facilities and provided with an office and a phone. One year earlier police had investigated a complaint by an eleven-year-old boy that Sandusky had bear-hugged him in the shower, but had closed the case without filing charges. (Werthem and Epstein, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2011)

The most damaging grand jury accusation stemmed from the testimony of receiver coach Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky raping a boy in the shower in 2002, after which he informed head coach Joe Paterno. As the account moved up the chain of command, ultimately reaching university president Graham Spanier, its severity moderated to the point where no one felt it necessary to inform any police agency. The lone reprimand was that Sandusky was prohibited from bringing children onto the campus. (Werthem and Epstein, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2011)

The fallout from these revelations was swift and lethal. The Board of Trustees fired Spanier and Paterno. For the latter, the fatherly figure affectionately known as JoePa, irreparably shattered was a legacy enshrined in 409 wins, two national championships, an 89% graduation rate, the library that bears his name, a health center for which he was the major contributor, the football fortress underwritten by his friends, and the $2 billion endowment he espoused. (Werthem and Epstein, Verducci, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2011)

Sandusky's heinous acts were only half the story; equally despicable was the coverup -- a pattern of deceit and denial designed to preserve and protect the sanctity of a quasi-religion, which, insulated, isolated, and bereft of a moral compass, had assumed a monolithic life of its own. When President Spanier tried to coax his seventy-seven-year-old icon into retirement seven years ago, he was firmly rebuffed -- long before "too big to fail" became a sound bite.

The Penn State football program was hardly a model of purity. Between 2002 and 2008, forty-six players were charged with a total of 163 crimes ranging from public urination to murder. In 2008, McQueary broke up "a player-related knife fight in a campus dining hall." (Werthem and Epstein, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2011)

In 2007, six players were charged by the police with forcing their way into an apartment and beating up several students. The school's chief disciplinarian, Vicky Triponey, subsequently resigned, citing "philosophical differences" over a judicial process by which football players were treated "more favorably than other students accused of violating community standards." In one meeting, Coach Paterno stated that "his players couldn't be expected to cooperate with the school's disciplinary process because, in this case, they would have to testify against each other, making it hard to play football together." (Reed Albergotti, The Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2011)

If the cult of JoePa turned out to mask a culture of corruption, its exposure was only the latest -- if not the most egregious -- confirmation of the endemic rottenness of the whole nasty enterprise. Just since 2010, one shock after another has rattled its glass facade.

The University of Southern California was stripped of its 2004 National Championship and Reggie Bush of his Heisman Trophy after the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) determined that Bush and his family had received "improper benefits" -- free airfare and limousine rides, a car, and a rent-free home -- from overzealous sports agents. The father of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton allegedly used a recruiter to solicit $180,000 from Mississippi State University in exchange for his son's matriculation. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel resigned after Sports Illustrated reported that twenty-eight players over nine years had traded autographs, jerseys, and other memorabilia in exchange for cash and tattoos. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

These trespasses pale in comparison to the sordid activities of University of Miami sports booster Nevin Shapiro, whose poisonous tentacles ensnared seventy-three athletes, seven former football and basketball coaches, and three staff members, according to Yahoo! Sports. (Alexander Wolff, Sports Illustrated, August 29, 2011)

Dazzled by Shapiro's bulging checkbook, the school's administrators, with the blessing of President Donna Shalala, permitted Shapiro to fly on the team charter, lead the players onto the field, and stamp his name on their lounge in the Hecht Athletic Center. They turned a blind eye to his eight-year spree of lawlessness, which included stocking hotel rooms with prostitutes, paying for an abortion, installing a stripper pole in his luxury box, offering bounties for incapacitating opposing quarterbacks, and drunkenly threatening a compliance director in the Orange Bowl press box. (Alexander Wolff, Sports Illustrated, August 29, 2011)

Inflated egos, overweening ambitions, the unrelenting pressure to win, and above all endless streams of money have inundated and indelibly stained the gridiron. Indeed, protecting its obscene profits -- $50 million generated from $70 million in revenues at Penn State in 2009 -- is the core value of college football. (Joe Nocera, The New York Times, November 11, 2011)

In 2010, the football-crazed Southeastern Conference became the first college league to crack the billion-dollar barrier in athletic receipts.

The bulk of the purse comes from television contracts, in pursuit of which the signers readily cede their weekend destiny and compromise their academic mission. "We do everything for the networks," says William Friday, a former president of North Carolina's university system. "We furnish them the theater, the actors, the lights, the music, and the audience for a drama measured neatly in time slots. They bring the camera and turn it on . . . If they want to broadcast football on a Thursday night, we shut down at three o'clock to accommodate the crowds." (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

Scandals proliferate in darkened corridors; multinational corporations, submissive universities, the voracious NCAA, and media moguls wheel and deal like Wall Street wizards; coaches and their assistants rake in huge salaries; alumni and friends pour buckets of tax-deductible dollars into foundation coffers. And the laborers in the trenches -- many of whom cannot afford movie tickets or bus fare home -- go unpaid.

Is it conceivable that the volunteers upon whose backs this edifice is constructed might decide to protest their exploitation?

Last year CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting paid the NCAA $771 million to televise its 2011 basketball tournament -- its principal source of revenue since a 1984 Supreme Court decision stripped it of exclusive football broadcast rights. Friday recalls a threat to boycott the championship game. "This team was going to dress and go out on the floor but refuse to play" -- jeopardizing millions of television dollars, countless livelihoods, the NCAA budget, and subsidies for sports at more than 1000 schools. Fortunately, it lost before the finals. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

For $29.99 a piece, the NCAA now offers dvd's on demand from its huge vault of college sports. In 2008, Electronic Arts sold 2.5 million copies of a football video game licensed by the NCAA. None of the profits derived from their being depicted in these products goes to the athletes. "Once you leave your university, one would think your likeness belongs to you," says Ed O'Bannon, a former college basketball player of the year who has filed a class action antitrust lawsuit claiming a share of the revenue generated from his image. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

In 2000, after twenty-five years of legal haggling, an appeals court ruled that Kent Waldrep -- a running back for Texas Christian University -- was not an employee when he was paralyzed in a 1974 game against Alabama, and thus ineligible for worker's compensation. School officials testified that they had recruited Waldrep as a student, not an athlete -- a patent absurdity, says Waldrep. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

The NCAA's moral authority -- and indeed its defense in all such cases -- is embedded in the concept of the student-athlete, which it crafted in the 1950's. The logic of the device is that, as students, college players would never have to be compensated for more than the cost of their studies. As athletes, however, whose enrollment was necessary for success on the field, they would not be held to the same academic standards as their peers. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

Ironically, this deliberately ambiguous terminology, and its sanitized corollary, "amateurism," are nothing more than synonyms for the essential hypocrisy that girds this superstructure.

While players' scholarships often don't cover the full cost of attending college, coaches' salaries have escalated dramatically. According to Charles Clotfelter, economist at Duke, "The average compensation for head football coaches at public universities, now more than $2 million, has grown 750 per cent since 1984 (adjusted for inflation), more than twenty times the cumulative 32 per cent rise for college professors." Many coaches pile on assorted bonuses, endorsements, speaking fees, country club memberships, and negotiated percentages of ticket receipts. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

Are athletes granted special treatment in the classroom?

In 1989, Dexter Manley, Washington Redskins defensive end, famously teared up before a Senate subcommittee when admitting he had been functionally illiterate in college. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

In the 1980's, Jan Kemp, an English instructor at the University of Georgia alleged that she had been demoted and then fired because she refused to inflate grades in her remedial English course. Documents showed that administrators had replaced her grades with higher ones; on one notable occasion they awarded unearned passing grades to nine football players who otherwise would have been ineligible to compete in the 1982 Sugar Bowl. Once, said Kemp, as she struggled to maintain her integrity, a supervisor questioned her judgment: "Who do you think is more important to this university, you or Dominique Wilkins [a star basketball player]?" (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

In 2009, following an admission by academic tutor Brenda Monk that she had asked a member of the basketball team to submit electronically another player's test answers, Florida State University conducted an NCAA-mandated "vigorous self-investigation." Interviews with 129 athletes revealed that absentee professors had allowed group consultations and unlimited retaking of open-computer assignments and tests. Sixty-one athletes were suspended, and the football team was required to vacate twelve victories, but the harshest penalty fell upon Monk, who had testified voluntarily. Through a dreaded "show cause" order, the NCAA, in all its perverse wisdom, rendered her effectively unhirable at any college in the United States. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

The logic of the NCAA's inverted moral universe has it chasing intermittent petty violations like a traffic cop swooping down on unwary speeders while a bank robber makes off with thousands one block away.

At the start of the 2010 season, the NCAA suspended Georgia wide receiver A. J. Green for four games for selling his Independence Bowl jersey -- to raise cash for his spring break -- while the Georgia Bulldogs flaunted replicas of the same jersey for $39.95 and up. Five Ohio State players were suspended for five games for selling Big Ten Championship rings and trading autographs and other memorabilia for discounted tattoos -- while commercial insignia from multinational corporations were plastered on their bodies. Last season, while he and his father were under scrutiny for allegedly taking bribes, Cam Newton wore at least fifteen corporate logos -- on his jersey, helmet visor, wristbands, pants, shoes, and headband -- as part of Auburn's $10.6 million deal with Under Armour. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

When players are seriously injured and can no longer play, or when they underperform, coaches often yank their scholarships, forcing them to drop out of school. (Joe Nocera, The New York Times, November 11, 2011) The National College Players Association -- which seeks modest reforms such as safety guidelines and better death benefits for college athletes -- reported that 22% of Division I basketball scholarships were not renewed in 2008-2009. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

Since 1973, an NCAA rule "has prohibited colleges and universities from offering any athletic scholarship longer than one year, to be renewed or not unilaterally by the school -- which in practice means that coaches decide each year" who is in and who is out. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

In 2009, Joseph Agnew was cut from the Rice University football team and his scholarship revoked before his senior year, leaving him with a $35,000 tuition and expense bill if he decided to complete his degree. The coach who had recruited Agnew had moved on to another school, and his replacement switched Agnew's scholarship to a recruit of his own. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011.)

In October 2010, Agnew filed a class-action lawsuit over the cancellation, seeking to remove the NCAA's cap on scholarships. Agnew argued that without the one-year rule, he would have been free to bargain with the eight colleges who had recruited him and could have received a multi-year guarantee. While it has yet to be decided, the case represents a direct challenge to the rationale for the NCAA's tax-exempt status, which is the promotion of education through athletics; restricting the availability of scholarships would seem to deny opportunities rather than foster them. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

College athletics programs have dodged the IRS for years -- and foisted a heavier burden on the tax-paying public -- because of their purported educational mission. Yet when coaches pull down $4 million salaries, the NCAA builds a $50 million complex and purchases a $1 million jet, and two-thirds of the athletic revenue at large universities is derived from ticket sales, television rights, and advertising and merchandising contracts, one is hard-pressed to detect a link between all this rabid commercialism and academics. (Eric Dexheimer, Austin American Statesman, December 26, 2009)

Much of the money is plowed back into a spiraling arms race as "universities spend increasing resources on measures of athletic success that, at most, benefit their own institutions at the expense of others." (Eric Dexheimer, Austin American Statesman, December 26, 2009)

Contributions from individuals and businesses -- including fees to purchase prime seats and luxury boxes and facility naming rights -- continue to be tax-deductible, often against the recommendations of the IRS, which are repeatedly rejected by Congressmen feeding at the trough of powerful lobbyists. (Eric Dexheimer, Austin American Statesman, December 26, 2009)

"College football and men's basketball have drifted so far away from the educational purpose of the university," says James Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan. "They exploit young people and prevent them from getting a legitimate college education. They place the athlete's health at enormous risk, which becomes apparent later in life. We are supposed to be developing human potential, not making money on their backs. Football strikes at the core values of a university." (Todd Gitlin, The New Republic, November 14, 2011)

"Ninety per cent of the NCAA's revenue is produced by one per cent of the athletes," says Sonny Vaccaro, a former executive at Nike, Reebok, and Adidas. "Go to the skill positions, the stars -- ninety per cent African-Americans . . . The least educated are the most exploited." (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

NCAA rules require college athletes to sign a "Student-Athlete Statement" attesting to their amateur status. Implied in the document is a waiving of their rights to profits from any sales based on their performance. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

"But the NCAA has no recourse to any principle in law that can justify amateurism. There is no such thing . . . No legal definition of amateurism exists, and any attempt to create one in enforceable law would expose its repugnant and unconstitutional nature -- a bill of attainder, stripping from college athletes the rights of American citizenship," and the right to be compensated fairly for their labor. (Taylor Branch, The Atlantic, October 2011)

For one brief, terrible moment a few weeks ago, as the Penn State scandal burst into the public consciousness, one dared to imagine that a tipping point had been reached, that some influential individuals might take an objective look at a cancer that was not merely localized but indeed systemic, and broach the subject of fundamental reform. Such hopes were illusory.

Instead, the season has marched inexorably toward its routine controversial denoument, in which millions bemoan the absence of a true playoff, but for which I am forever grateful, because it exposes for once the ultimate futility of taking sports seriously. The outrage has subsided, and been superseded by conference championships, BCS computations, Bowl matchups, and the next Big Game. Resisting the initial pleas that it shut down its program, Penn State will justify its participation in the TicketCity (formerly Cotton) Bowl as an obligation to its guiltless players and devoted fans and by donating the proceeds to sexual abuse prevention groups.

In other words, it's business -- I mean football -- as usual.

By the way, Virginia Tech beat Virginia 38-0.

Talking Heads

Faithful readers familiar with my predilection for the written -- as opposed to the spoken -- word should not be surprised to learn that the only two televisions in my home are of the 32" variety: an early-edition flat-screen in my basement on which I sporadically watch Mad Men dvd's while walking on a treadmill, and a prehistoric gray box featuring built-in videotape and dvd players, the focal point of the small converted bedroom adjacent to my own.

Even the mesmerizing displays of high-definition technology flashing at me every day in my stores -- and available at wholesale prices -- haven't enticed me to join the "bigger is better" arms race.

What's the point?

Although a conspicuous sporting event occasionally grabs my attention -- like last month's season-ending baseball drama, a Patriots' playoff game, VCU's improbable run to the Final Four, championship golf before Tiger Woods's perplexing self-immolation -- to watch one of these broadcasts from start to finish is for me an excruciating and frivolous exercise.

As for the nightly menu of network nirvana -- contrived song, dance, and dating competitions; fantastical reality documentaries; mini-series of epic proportions; preposterous police procedurals; dysfunctional and dismal situation comedies; insipid melodrama -- except for a few pungent entrees, it might as well be printed in a foreign language. Perusing a list of Tuesday and Wednesday night prime time favorites, which included The Middle, Up All Night, Suburgatory, The X Factor, Criminal Minds, and Happy Endings, I recognized only two: Glee, never-to-be-missed by a thirteen-year-old friend of mine, and Survivor, which has apparently outlasted rumors of its demise.

Maybe if I had the proper -- by today's standards -- equipment, I might be persuaded to settle comfortably into a front-row seat for an enhanced viewing of some blockbuster Hollywood production I missed in the theater but deemed worthy of the requisite two-hour plus investment, having encountered a seductive trailer or rave review; yet none seems intriguing enough to be indispensable, especially when a veritable library of unread books beckons me.

But there are some evenings when even this bibliophile is too brain-dead to tackle the current bookmarked volume -- whether it be a mindless popular thriller, pretentious literary fiction, or instructive narrative history -- and must resort to some less-taxing diversion.

I should go to bed, so I can awaken refreshed and invigorated, and early enough to get to the YMCA and then to my office at a respectable hour. But I don't. Instead, indulging in an innocuous guilty pleasure, around 8:00 PM, I sneak into the aforementioned studio, click the remote, and immerse myself in Cable News.

Consider this fascinating conundrum. Even when there is nothing new or noteworthy to report, these networks -- FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC -- manage to fill twenty-four hours of airtime with ingenious iterations of the same story, employing a rapid-fire repertoire of seasoned tactics and techniques: one, two, or multiple person hosted formats; straight news regurgitated from teleprompters; in-depth (five to ten minutes) analyses of timely topics; commentary from politicians, government officials, journalists, and so-called experts (some of whom are on the company payroll), who frequently materialize on split screens and try to outshout each other. It's a raucous merry-go-round of bobbleheads, all gushing oily blather like gallons of gasoline thrust into thirsty carburetors and expelled as noxious exhaust and vacuous hot air.

Often on leisurely morning or afternoon drives to and from the far reaches of the Schewel mini-empire, as I surf from one satellite radio station to another, it's anchors away as Fox and Friends, Morning Joe Scarborough (and friends), Wolf Blitzer, The Five (at five), Bret Baier, Shephard Smith, and Chris Matthews dazzle me with their kaleidoscopic renderings of the day's news.

The creme de la creme is of course reserved for the prime time hours -- 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM on week nights, when a few million political masochists like me tune into the genre's headliners.

The top-rated cable news show during this time period is The O'Reilly Factor on FOX at 8:00 PM; it draws around three million viewers compared to one million for The Ed (Schultz) Show on MSNBC and five hundred thousand for Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. The second highest rated is Hannity on FOX at 9:00 PM, which draws an average of two million viewers, doubling Rachael Maddow's numbers on MSNBC and tripling Piers Morgan's on CNN. Close behind Hannity is FOX's On The Record with Greta VanSusteren at 10:00 PM, which outdistances MSNBC (The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell) and CNN (reruns of Anderson Cooper 360) by similar proportions.

Since two hours of this stuff is about all I can take -- even if I could get past Greta's affected innocence, slanted grin, and slurred speech -- this self-styled media critique will confine itself to the 8:00 to 10:00 time slot.

If O'Reilly and Hannity consistently trample their competition, with a blush of embarrassment I must confess myself one of the enthralled. While subscribing to a liberal tradition nested in a congenital sympathy for the underdog, a prickly suspicion of unfettered capitalism, and a rational advocacy of a public safety net -- which has been severely tested by the non-stimulative excesses of the current Administration and a compliant Democratic Congress -- I cannot deny a contrarian preference for the boob tube's most prominent conservative mouthpieces.

To what can be attributed this perverse love-hate relationship? In simple terms, it resides in the very nature of the beast: slick entertainment and unadulterated propaganda conjoined in unholy matrimony to beget a precocious offspring -- biased news reporting, one-sided, hardly fair, definitely unbalanced.

O'Reilly, Hannity, and their cross-channel rivals are accomplished performers whose practiced body language, facial expressions, and vocal modulations equal those of any dramatic or comedic personality. They are superb interviewers, adept at evoking controversy, deflecting or denigrating (sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly) opposing views, and patronizing the zealots who preach the party line. And they are smart, well-versed on a wide variety of subjects -- unless that fluent omniscience is just scrawling in front of them.

On FOX, it's all neatly packaged to burnish the purity of the Conservative agenda -- less government, lower taxes, defending individual liberty from the evils of Democratic socialism -- to convert the heretics, to reassure the vacillating, to fortify the acolytes. Anyone harboring a dose of objectivity recognizes the theatrics for what they are, yet watches anyway, luxuriating in his own discomfort, impelled to shout back at the screen and challenge the pious pontificators of the gospel, futile protests that will fall on deaf ears.

To be fair (and balanced), the liberal talking heads on MSNBC, Ed Schultz and Rachael Maddow, are no less infuriating.

I got interested in Ed a few months ago when I ran across his martial presence at the ten o'clock hour opposite Greta VanSusteren. His booming voice never falters as he wages a desperate holding action against nefarious banks, heartless corporations, and their relentless usurpation of the American Dream.

Most of the time his broad visage saturates the screen, suggesting to me that it is perched atop a grotesque corpulence, an illusion clarified when I witness a svelte stand-up soliloquy with suit jacket unbuttoned and luminous purple tie in full bloom. In fact he's a former Minnesota State University Moorhead quarterback who once led the nation in passing, a passionate outdoorsman and pilot, and the father of six children, one of whom, Dave, is a professional golfer.

In an industry dominated by the right, he rode his success as a liberal radio talk show host to MSNBC in 2009, first at 6:00 PM and then at 10:00 PM. Just last week he moved to the 8:00 PM time slot formerly occupied by Keith Olberman, whose vitriolic verbosity finally went "a little too far over the top" (his own words) for even this combative network.

The big news Monday night -- Halloween -- is the sexual harassment charge against Herman Cain. Ed can't wait to compare "the pizza man" to the disgraced New York congressman, Anthony Weiner, hardly fair considering the evidence against Weiner was more solid, and then review Cain's day-long inquisition, during which he twists, squirms, and parses words like a slippery Bill Clinton.

Within hours Cain's emphatic denials, lapses of memory, and absences of awareness morph into settlements, agreements, and his bizarre comparison of a female employee's height to his wife's. "It's a credibility killer for this dude," says Ed, as he stares down his audience, daring anyone to contradict him. "Do you want this man to be president?" He convenes the ritualistic panel, which collectively condemns the Cain campaign for being totally unprepared, poorly managing its response, and compounding the damage by this pathetic "rolling disclosure."

The absurdity of MSNBC's "gotcha" games with Bill O'Reilly is laid bare in a "much ado about muffins" montage. A clip of O'Reilly telling a guest "Don't make claims you can't back up" is countered by a series of outtakes in which he berates the Department of Justice for serving $16 muffins -- muffins which he, O'Reilly, paid for with his hard-earned tax dollars -- at a 2009 conference. Well, says Ed smugly, the Department of Justice has issued a correction, and now says the muffins did not cost $16. Who cares? It's obvious O'Reilly was only using the information previously reported; Ed doesn't tell us what the muffins actually cost; and I've paid comparable exorbitant prices for meager continental breakfasts at similar luxury resorts.

Next, Ed airs more dirty laundry "Circling the Drain," the clever title of his ongoing investigation of the Whirlpool Corporation. He's just returned from Newton, Iowa, former headquarters of the Maytag Corporation, which Whirlpool bought in 2006. "Maytag," says Ed, "was once the gold standard of the appliance industry," consistently providing the residents of Newton high-paying jobs and comprehensive benefits. "But today, in this town of 15,000, there are 700 homes for sale, 70 foreclosures in the past twenty-four months, and 4000 jobs lost." It's a sad tale -- but only part of the story. This is when I feel like throwing a shoe at Ed.

It's not all the diabolic corporation's fault. By 2005, before its sellout, Maytag's market share had declined to an all-time low, as had its customer satisfaction rating. Today appliance makers like Whirlpool -- and retailers like me -- are being whipsawed, caught in a vise between weak demand and higher raw material and regulatory (government-imposed efficiency) costs. Downsizing measures are a desperate attempt to remain in the black. Ed implies that $177 million in profits the last quarter is unconscionable, yet fails to mention that it's only 3.8% of revenues and that the company has lost 50% of its capitalization in the past year.

Emboldened by his revelations, Ed smoothly transitions from Newton, Iowa, to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, which is planning a general strike in Oakland, California. Like these courageous crusaders, Ed is standing up for justice, every night at 8:00 PM. Or as someone else on another network might phrase it, "He's looking out for you."

Of course, Bill O'Reilly's take on these disturbing events is very different. In his Talking Points memo, his opening monologue, he addresses the violence that erupted when Oakland police tried to remove demonstrators from a plaza outside City Hall. With no verification, he proclaims, "The Occupy Wall Street Movement is not -- is not -- a spontaneous protest against economic inequality. It is a well-thought-out campaign to bring down the infrastructure of this country, to turn it into a Western European entitlement state . . . These people are being exploited by powerful radical organizations [like Moveon.org] . . . who want to rein in the 1%, and punish them."

O'Reilly projects an authority, glibness, and confidence no mere mortal would presume to question -- never mind that even the most obtuse citizen would have to acknowledge some deepening cracks in the system.

Back in 1996 when O'Reilly joined the fledgling FOX News, capping a long career in broadcast journalism that included six years anchoring CBS's Inside Edition, his posturings of political independence might have been semi-credible. Today his "no-spin zone" is a dizzy vortex of partisanship and "fair and balanced" a late-night punchline. Belying his professed "humble beginnings," he grew up in the middle-class suburb of Westbury, Long Island, attended a private school, and was put through college by his father, an oil executive.

When confronted with a factual statement he's unable to refute, O'Reilly's favorite debating tactic is to accuse his guest of stating an opinion, a variation of the tried-and-true "attack the messenger" routine. When Greenpeace's John Passacantando asserted that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Region would yield only six to nine months of oil, O'Reilly retorted, "That's your opinion." When a drug policy advocate said marijuana impairs driving less than alcohol does, O'Reilly's answer was, "Well, that's your opinion." (FAIR web site, July-August, 2001)

A typical O'Reilly opinion is front-and-center Monday night when he expostulates on America in Decline -- citing a poll which registered 69% espousing that view. The pollsters don't offer a reason for this lamentable state of affairs, so O'Reilly invents his own: the decline in self-reliance. In a two-minute history lesson, he lectures that "the foundation of America's power . . . was a code of conduct based on honest labor and neighborly charity [with] no tolerance for cowardice or narcissism" -- never mind that "honest labor and neighborly charity" are poor substitutes for inherited opportunity, innate intelligence, and environmental influences.

In one facile paragraph, he indicts liberalism and the federal government for undermining the nation's superstructure -- "for sustaining those who can't or won't compete in the workplace, for massive entitlement spending on single mothers and children, for spending profligately to provide for the have-nots." It's the party bill of fare condensed into a tasty hors d'oeuvre for mass consumption by the lowest common denominator. It makes so much sense, yet the inaccuracies and omissions are egregious.

O'Reilly plays his own brand of hardball with Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, firing this rocket at his 20% flat tax: "So how much would the feds lose under your plan, Governor?" Which Perry doesn't (or can't) answer, instead resorting to the tired, stale, problematic supply-side arguments we've heard ad nauseum. "I don't really worry about what the feds are going to lose," he says. "We know what happens when job creators keep more of their money; they have the confidence to go out and spend that money to create jobs that in turn create wealth . . . I truly believe you've got to grow your way out of this." Does anyone still take this voodoo economics seriously or his promises "to balance the budget by 2020 and . . . [to] make sure you get the . . . modeling so you can see how it works."

O'Reilly induces Perry to admit to a number of mistakes -- like participating in campaigns (he misspeaks; he means debates) "when all they are interested in is stirring it up between the candidates," and using the word "heartless" to characterize critics of college tuition assistance to the children of illegal immigrants. (O'Reilly cynically interjects that what's really heartless is to use his tax money for that purpose.) The outrage of this whole matter escapes me, particularly if the grant recipients are natural-born citizens, and since at least twelve other states have adopted the same policy.

O'Reilly goads Perry into flaunting his animosity toward Mitt Romney. "You guys look like you don't like [each other] too much . . . So you think he's a weasel . . . You don't think he has any principles," he charges, shoveling the dirt right into Perry's mouth. Perry doesn't flinch. "I think in his own words he says, listen, I need to say whatever I need to say for whatever office I'm running for . . . How do you change at fifty or sixty positions on life, positions on guns, positions on traditional marriage . . . To change those at fifty or sixty tells you all you need to know about that." And listening to Perry tells you all you need to know about him.

In tonight's Culture Warrior segment, O'Reilly lambastes the "far left wing" New York City teachers' union for implementing mandatory sex-education for sixth graders -- a "very graphic course" which includes "everything imaginable." When guest Margaret Hoover defends the program, claiming it will reduce the fifty per cent rates of intercourse and out-of-wedlock births, O'Reilly primly dismisses her opinion. For him, there's "skullduggery" afoot in the New York City public school system, his very appropriate closing "word of the day."

Over on MSNBC at 9:00 PM, Rachael Maddow is perfecting her own hatchet job on candidates Perry and Cain.

Rachael's popularity eludes me. As one who "leans forward" and to the left, shouldn't I be expected to embrace her ebullient liberalism? But there's something about her that leaves me cold -- and it's not just her cropped brunette coiffure or minimalist accoutrements. Although she proudly spurns the blond bouffants and shimmering sheaths that are de rigueur for other female "auto-cutie" (her own term) reporters, I find her gangling posture, sly demeanor, arch humor, and confrontational shrillness "phony-cutie."

For millions of others, however, this "youthful, easy-tempered, thirty-eight-year-old gay woman" exudes sincerity and charm. (Hadley Freeman, The Guardian, April 11, 2011) From her first radio hosting job in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 2000 to her television debut as a news panelist in 2005, her rise to prime time cable anchor has been meteoric. Several pinch-hit appearances for Keith Olberman -- during which she drew the highest rating in the 25 to 54 age group -- earned her the 9:00 PM time slot in August 2008. Within a month, she doubled the audience for that hour.

Rachael salivates over a speech Perry gives in New Hampshire on October 28th; it has its farcical moments, but is hardly the death knell to his campaign she is so eager to trumpet. Only her million viewers tonight are going to see the sequence of clips that highlights the worst aspects of Perry's performance -- and only a sliver of them will even remember it, as this political circus rolls on. It's just wishful thinking when Rachael "argues Rick Perry can no longer be considered a serious contender for president after this . . . After you see this tape, you'll never see this guy in the same way again."

Through Rachael's filter, the pitiless camera lens does convey a portraiture of buffoonery and semi-inebriation. Grinning like a hollow pumpkin head, Perry plants one rotten gourd after another: "This is such a cool state. I mean 'Live Free or Die.' You gotta love that [like the Alamo] where they declared 'Victory or Death' . . . Bring it . . . Gold is good . . . If they print any more over there in Washington [shaking his fists], the gold's gonna be good."

His tax plan elicits more unabashed glee. "You can stay in the old system, pay the lawyers, pay the accountants, or that," he almost shouts, as he reaches into his coat pocket and triumphantly extracts a postcard. "Twenty per cent flat tax; put it on there, take your deductions, send it in." It's hard to decide which is more otherworldly: the proposal itself or the look of rapture in his eyes.

Rachael delivers her coup de grace when a local official thanks Mr. Perry with a gift of liquid gold, a bottle of New Hampshire maple syrup; he clasps it to his breast like a precious child, a gesture that so titillates her that she produces her own bottle and imitates him. The scene doesn't work; the mockery is of her own sappy, sticky, syrupy personality. "Sorry," she says, offering a feigned apology for being unprofessional. "I won't do it again." But the "phony-cutie" can't resist a gratuitous reprise before signing off.

Rachael piles on when she says "it's possible Perry was having a medical problem or bad drug reaction." Even a physical explanation for his behavior could raise concerns "of whether he is cut out to handle the presidency." Whatever one's opinion of Mr. Perry, such vulgar insinuations are inexcusable.

Night after night, these telegenic oracles massage the most benign facts and figures to conform to their political ideologies and to stir the sympathies of the most skeptical. Rachael's recent analysis of "the three traditional pillars of a secure retirement -- pension, savings, and social security" -- is merely the launching pad for her to incinerate the straw man of the season: Wall Street. As those three pillars have crumbled, she says, taking with them everyman's nest egg, the financiers and stock traders have risen from the debris.

It's no secret that company-funded defined benefit plans have in recent years been almost universally replaced by 401k's -- as Rachael's chart illustrates. But it's not true that pensions were "separate from the whole Wall Street banking apparatus," which in fact always managed these funds, nor that 401k's have become a sudden "windfall for Wall Street," which now towers "between you and your retirement." What is true -- and left unsaid -- is what precipitated the demise of the defined benefit plan: government mandated funding requirements, which imposed costly burdens on employers.

As for the second pillar, it got swept away as the personal savings rate in this country collapsed from 10% a generation ago to near zero today -- a function, says Rachael, and rightfully so, of the stagnation in the wages of the bottom 90% of Americans compared to a 300% spike for the top 1%. She wades into murky waters, however, when she blames banking policies for a parallel decline in interest rates from 15% in 1981 to 0.5% today -- a vast oversimplification which ignores economic conditions and the role of the Federal Reserve. Disgruntled savers looking for better returns have turned to -- you guessed it -- "gambling" in the stock market. Of course, no one complains when stock prices are on the rise, only when they they are tanking.

Wobbling precariously is the third pillar, Social Security, now under attack "from the right as a Ponzi scheme." Since 2004, when the Bush Administration floated semi-privatization as an option, it has been the goal of the Republican Party "to allow individuals to invest a portion of their Social Security in -- the stock market," according to Rachael. But surely she realizes that this "secure retirement fund" is merely an invisible cache of iou's, that it's already been filched by cowardly legislators and greedy bureaucrats, and that only future taxes on our children and grandchildren will assure its solvency.

Such pseudo-intellectual digressions are rarely sighted at 9:00 PM on Fox, where the irrepressible Sean Hannity regularly holds court, although who knows which incarnation will manifest itself: the tawdry televangelist trawling for cash, or the backstreet bully looking for a brawl.

I find his shows more straight-news oriented than those of his prime time peers and his persona less abrasive when seen as well as heard; when I used to listen to his afternoon drivel on AM-FM stations before I discovered satellite radio, I often imagined writing a blog: "If I could talk (back) to Sean Hannity."

I surely could have outpointed his erstwhile "fair and balanced" punching bag, the mild-mannered Alan Colmes, whom he pummeled mercilessly until finally driving him from the ring in 2009. Hannity is a college dropout and ex-bartender who was fired from his first radio hosting job for unleashing a virulent anti-homosexual diatribe on the air; he was plucked from relative obscurity in 1996 by FOX co-founder Roger Ailes to headline the 9:00 PM hour along with a LTBD (liberal to be determined), and has been a fixture there ever since.

Hannity ascribes his popularity to his "principled consistency" (Brian Stelter, New York Times, October 20, 2011) -- and certainly he is well-known by a legion of signature catch-phrases, like "You're a great American," "I never got a job from a poor person," "How much income taxes do the bottom 50% pay (zer0)," "Give me an example," (his favorite debating ploy, when challenged by a generalization), "We need to live within our means," and "That's the liberal mainstream media for you." Last night he managed to dredge up the all-but-forgotten "unrepentant terrorist" William Ayers at least five times in comparing the media's unsparing coverage of Herman Cain's indiscretions to the relative "blind eye" it turned to Barack Obama's flirtation with a traitor.

One of Hannity's frequent guests -- and to me one of the most repulsive -- is Pillsbury doughboy Karl Rove, the so-called architect of W. Bush's two elections and the undisputed master of nasty innuendo and devious character assassination. Tonight, after exchanging mutual admiration pleasantries, Hannity asks the seer to dissect the most recent presidential poll numbers.

Like a cagey poker player, Rove holds his cards close to his vest, although he enjoys brandishing his infamous whiteboard. Even before Mr. Cain's current problems surfaced, Rove is intent on pricking his bubble. "I'm not sure he's necessarily sustaining [his recent] surge any longer," he says. Rove exhibits his remarkable talent for talking out of both sides of his shrunken mouth when he denies wanting to diminish Cain's rise and then proceeds to skewer him for his gaffes on negotiating with terrorists, abortion rights, and the Palestinians' right of return.

No one escapes his devilish pitchfork. Newt Gingrich "has no chance." "Mitt Romney's debate performance has been surprising . . . he's everyone's second choice." "Ron Paul's been talking to himself." "Bachmann and Santorum need to show some real strength in Iowa." Rove's just waiting for the front runner to emerge so he can grab onto the coattails.

Hannity puts his own "Culture Warrior" nose to the ground as he sniffs out a rancid lawsuit filed on behalf of Muslim students at Catholic University; they are requesting the removal of crucifixes in classrooms where they gather to pray. Hannity can't contain his wrath at this insidious assault on Christianity -- and takes out his frustrations on Ibrahim Ramey; valiantly trying to defend the plaintiffs, Ramey wilts under the harangue like a helpless Alan Colmes. "Let them close their eyes and pray, or attend a Muslim University [there are none] and put up a Star of David for the Jewish students . . . This University has been accommodating enough just by admitting them."

When Jay Sekulow, president of the American Center for Law and Justice (obviously a conservative think tank) chimes in with "There's no legal basis for such a case in the Constitution," I'm convinced, although I find the squabble overwrought; surely these folks can settle this in a civilized manner without going to court, even if it means depriving Hannity of his self-righteous soapbox.

For some inexplicable reason, Hannity's producers have decided to showcase his quarterback skills. Fortunately, he only has to toss his red-white-and-blue football across the studio to his "great, great, great American panel," which, in toto, is about as lame as his arm. Two journalists, one conservative and one liberal, and one aspiring (or expiring) celebrity with a right-wing but mostly inarticulate opinion engage in a trivial free-for-all in which the best one can hope for is to expectorate a sound bite or two.

Last night's token liberal, Steve Murphy, scores twice in a scrimmage over media coverage of Herman Cain. When Hannity recycles his William Ayers rubbish, Murphy calls a foul on him for comparing apples to oranges; later he crackbacks with the most penetrating spear of many a night: "this [show] is not media; it's conservative propaganda." To which FOX resident expert, Angela McGowan, adds the exclamation point: "Herman Cain is a threat to the liberal establishment."

Fair and Balanced. Lean Forward. Take your pick. As one talking head said about Herman Cain's steadfast incoherence, "Somewhere in there is the truth." Maybe not.

Mr. Polk's War

Upon his inauguration as eleventh President of the United States on March 2, 1845, James K. Polk set four goals for his administration: replace the protectionist Tariff of 1842 with one based on a revenue rationale; establish an independent Treasury or depository for federal monies; settle the Oregon question with Great Britain, extending America to the Pacific Ocean; and acquire California from Mexico, and along with it, "a large district on the coast." (Borneman, p. 150)

The first three would be accomplished through political dexterity and diplomatic brinkmanship; the fourth would prove to be both costly and bloody.

Polk inherited a tripartite legacy of conflict with his obstreperous neighbor to the south.

The first bone of contention was the annexation of Texas, which Mexico regarded as an act of aggression.

Second was a $2 million indebtedness to U.S. citizens -- reparations accumulated over a period of ten years for such crimes as the seizure of U.S. ships, the abduction of U.S. businessmen, and the theft of U.S. cargo -- which the Mexican government acknowledged but did not have the resources to pay.

Third was the ongoing dispute between Mexico and Texas as to whether their boundary was the Nueces River or the Rio Grande further to the west.

On June 15, 1845, with the annexation of Texas imminent, Polk ordered four thousand soldiers under Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to march from Fort Jessup, Louisiana, to the Texas frontier -- approaching "as near the boundary line, the Rio Grande, as prudence will dictate." Although Taylor halted at Corpus Christi at the mouth of the Nueces River, he was advised that "any crossing of the Rio Grande by a Mexican army in force was to be deemed an act of war." (Borneman, p. 191)

Mexico was now under the military regime of General Mariano Paredes and his civilian puppet Jose Joaquin Herrera; a year earlier they had managed to oust and exile the despotic Santa Anna, who had ridden his fighting prowess to the presidency twice since 1833. The more moderate Herrera was inclined to reach an accommodation over Texas. When he indicated he would receive an emissary to discuss the matter, Polk invested Congressman James Slidell with the authority to collect the debt owed to U.S. citizens and to purchase, if possible, California and New Mexico for an amount up to $20 million. (Borneman, p. 194)

While "surviving evidence indicates Polk and and his advisers entertained some hope of success," (Howe, p. 735) it was a mission facing inherent obstacles. Its appointed secretary, William Parrott, had already been declared "personally offensive and unacceptable" by the Mexicans for exaggerated claims made against it and had been exposed as a spy. Slidell himself was designated a full-fledged ambassador -- "an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary" (Borneman, p. 195) -- and for the government to receive him, it would have to resume full diplomatic relations with the United States, not likely when the latter was occupying what it considered a substantial portion of its territory.

By the time Slidell arrived in Veracruz on November 29, 1845, Hererra was under attack for his conciliatory policy by revolutionary elements which would depose him in thirty days. He refused to meet with Slidell, as did his successor, the bellicose General Paredes. Slidell vented his own anger in his report to Polk ("A war would probably be the best mode of settling our affair with Mexico," he wrote), packed his bag, and sailed home. (Howe, p. 737)

Having learned of Slidell's failure, on January 13, 1846, Polk ordered Taylor to advance to the Rio Grande -- "the proper remedy," he had written two months earlier, "for the wrongs and injuries we have suffered," (Merry, p. 240) but a boundary claim which historians have labeled "pretentious, unsound, and indefensible." (Howe, p. 735)

Taylor set up a supply base on the coast and ensconced his army in Fort Texas across the river from the town of Matamoros. Wrote U.S. Lieutenant Ethan Hitchcock: "We have not one particle of right to be here. It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses." (Howe, p. 739)

When the Mexican general, Pedro de Ampudia demanded that the Americans withdraw from the disputed territory, Taylor responded by blockading the mouth of the Rio Grande, legally an act of war. On April 23, Paredes, blaming the U.S. for provoking conflict, directed his new commander, the brash and boastful Mariano Arista, to pursue "defensive" operations. Two days later Arista sent 1600 cavalrymen across the river where they ambushed two companies of U.S. dragoons on reconnaissance, killing eleven and capturing twenty-six, including Captain Seth Thornton.

"Hostilities may now be considered commenced," reported Taylor to Washington. (Borneman, p. 201)

But Polk had anticipated the attack. After talking to Slidell in person on May 9, he persuaded his cabinet to support an immediate message to Congress. The purported grounds for declaring war were Mexico's refusal to receive Slidell and its default on its reparations payments, hardly a strong case; the unmentioned real reason was Mexico's refusal to sell territory. Four hours after the cabinet adjourned, the adjutant general delivered to the White House Taylor's smoking gun. (Howe, pp. 740-741)

"The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before the recent information from the frontier," Polk told Congress on May 11. "But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory, and shed blood upon American soil . . . War exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself." (Howe, p. 741)

Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives allotted just two hours of debate to the bill; it authorized the call-up of fifty thousand volunteers and a $10 million appropriation, and included a preamble asserting that "by the act of the republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between the United States and that republic." The combined measure passed 174 to 14 with 35 abstentions. (Merry, p. 245-246)

Whig Garrett Davis of Kentucky joined the majority, even though he protested, "The River Nueces is the true western boundary of Texas . . . It is our own president who has begun this war. He has been carrying it on for months." (Howe, pp. 741-742)

In the Senate opponents included not only Whigs but also Democrat John C. Calhoun. He thought the acquisition of California and New Mexico would incite sectional conflict and offer little opportunity for the extension of slavery, nor could he stomach Polk's executive warmongering. (Howe, p. 742) "I will not agree to make war upon Mexico by making war upon the Constitution," he railed. It is Congress's "sacred duty to make war, and it is for [Congress] to determine whether war shall be declared or not." (Merry, p. 246)

When Thomas Hart Benton, the Democratic chairman of the Military Affairs Committee expressed similar reservations, Polk lobbied him personally; he promised that "no more men would be called out and no more money expended than would be absolutely necessary to bring the present state of hostilities to an end," and warned that a negative vote might harm him irreparably. In the end Benton sided with the majority, 40-2. (Borneman, pp. 206-207)

On May 13, 1846, the president issued a proclamation of war. The ever nettlesome Secretary of State, James Buchanan, who feared British or French intervention, astonished Polk when he proposed informing foreign governments that the acquisition of territory had not been the motive for U.S. actions. Polk retorted that he would wage war with "all the Powers of Christendom" and "stand and fight until the last man among us fell in the conflict" before he would make such a statement. (Merry, p. 256)

In the spring of 1812, James Madison had agonized over sending a war message to Congress that ultimately took twenty days to pass. Thirty-four years later, James Polk deliberately placed American forces in harm's way, practically invited an attack by a foreign country, and then, insisting that a state of war already existed, presented Congress with a fait accompli to further his policy aims. In doing so, he set a precedent that would forever empower future Chief Executives. (Borneman, p. 209)

By the time of the proclamation, Zachary Taylor had already achieved two minor victories. Following the Thornton debacle, he withdrew to Port Isabel to reinforce his supply base, leaving behind a contingent of 500 men to hold Fort Texas. Upon his return, he found his way barred by Arista's troops. Outnumbered three to two, he defeated the Mexicans on two successive days, May 8 and 9 -- driving them back across the Rio Grande, occupying Matamoros, capturing a hundred prisoners and a large quantity of guns and ammunition, and relieving Fort Texas (which was renamed Fort Brown, and later Brownsville, in honor of its fallen commander, Jacob Brown).

Given Polk's objectives, it didn't take long for a simple war strategy to crystallize. Taylor would occupy enough of Mexico to coerce it to the negotiating table, and other detachments would seize California and New Mexico, retaining them permanently in the subsequent treaty.

Thus, on June 5, 1846, "the largest military force ever seen in that part of the world," (Howe, p. 758) the 2000-man Army of the West under Brigadier General Stephen Kearny departed Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with orders to "conquer Santa Fe," provide for the "safe possession of it," and then "press forward to California." (Borneman, p. 235)

Hearing footsteps, the Spanish governor of New Mexico, Manuel Armijo, lost his courage (or received a bribe), disbanded his militia, and fled south. On August 18, Kearny marched into Santa Fe without firing a shot and raised the Stars and Stripes in the town square. Probably overstepping his bounds, he proceeded to establish a civil government, institute a code of law, and appoint Charles Bent of Taos territorial governor before setting off for California. Following an aborted rebellion of resentful Pueblo Indians and Mexicans -- which resulted in the murder of Bent and the conviction and hanging of sixteen insurgents -- New Mexico would remain under military rule until 1852.

In California, Kearny ran into a buzzsaw.

A year earlier, in June 1845, a presumed topographical expedition had made its way west from St. Louis under the command of Captain John C. Fremont, the vainglorious, ambitious, and flamboyant son-in-law of Senator Thomas Hart Benton. When Benton casually informed Polk that Fremont might be veering into California, he seemed untroubled by the prospect of sixty armed civilians trespassing upon the sovereign soil of a neighboring nation with whom the United states had a precarious relationship. (Merry, p. 293)

Fremont explored California's coastal region before settling in the capital, Monterey, whereupon the provincial military governor, Commandante General Jose Maria Castro, ordered him to leave. On March 8, 1846, he broke camp and marched north across the Oregon border.

Two months later Washington envoy Marine Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie caught up with the Fremont. Gillespie had already delivered a message to the U.S. consul in Monterey, Thomas Larkin, advising him that any potential secessionists "would be received as brethren" should they wish to follow the Texan example and seek annexation by the United States. Convinced by Gillespie that war was impending, and that, as he recorded in his Memoirs, "possession of California was the chief object of the president," Fremont headed south to raise a rebellion among the eight hundred inhabitants of U.S. origin. (Howe, pp. 753-754)

Emboldened by Fremont's presence and probably encouraged by him, a group of these expatriates seized the town of Sonoma, raised a flag embroidered with a crude grizzly, and on June 15 proclaimed the Bear Flag Republic. Three days later the U.S. Pacific Squadron, under the command of Commodore John D. Sloat, occupied Monterey and, the next day, Yerba Buena (renamed San Francisco). Assuming the existence of war, Sloat supplanted the Bear Flaggers by declaring California to be U.S. territory.

Upon arriving in Monterey, Fremont revealed that his incitements had not been sanctioned by Washington and provided no cover for Sloat's own aggression; pleading illness, the latter promptly relinquished his command to Commodore Robert Stockton, an adventurer in the Fremont mold, and sailed home.

The two filibusterers, Fremont and Stockton, quickly went about subduing the rest of California, seizing San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles, but exhibiting such tactlessness and brutality that they completely alienated the local californios, who had long enjoyed considerable autonomy. Informed officially on August 17 that the U.S. and Mexico were indeed at war, Stockton announced his own annexation. (Howe, 756.)

Within a month an insurrection erupted in Los Angeles, where anti-American sentiment was fueled by Gillespie's abusive rule. The resolute californios reclaimed their three southern towns and immobilized Stockton, who now awaited reinforcements in the person of Stephen Kearny, en route from Sante Fe. On December 6, however, Kearny was badly mauled by the rebels just outside San Diego, losing thirty per cent of his men, and on the verge of annihilation before being rescued by a contingent of Stockton's marines.

The californios were no match for the combined forces of Stockton and Kearny, who managed to recapture Los Angeles on January 8, 1847. Meanwhile, Fremont, moving down from Monterey with his California Brigade, a mixture of U.S. soldiers, settler volunteers and Native American allies, expunged any lingering pockets of resistance to the north. Ignoring his two senior officers, the conquering hero proceeded to sign a regional peace treaty with the californios at Cahuenga that promised them the rights of American citizens and ended the fighting. (Howe, pp. 756-757)

But another war then commenced -- a bureaucratic war involving Kearny, Stockton, and Fremont. (Merry, p. 305) Kearny actually possessed the specific mandate from Washington to organize a territorial government. But Stockton refused to acknowledge his authority, and, upon departing California on January 22, appointed Fremont "governor and commander-in-chief." When Kearny demanded that Fremont yield to his superior rank, Fremont said no, emphatically no, a blatant act of insubordination. (Borneman, p. 277)

After a month long standoff, Kearny prevailed, brandishing orders from General Winfield Scott designating him the senior officer and instructing him to perform the duties of civil governor. Recalled to Washington, Kearny brought Fremont in tow. At Fort Leavenworth, on August 22, 1847, Kearny arrested Fremont and charged him with insubordination.

The subsequent court-martial attracted nationwide attention and convicted Fremont, but his sentence of dismissal from the service was remitted by Polk, in a vain attempt to appease and retain as a friend and ally the influential father-in-law. Fremont resigned from the army anyway and became a popular celebrity and anti-slavery candidate for the White House, while Thomas Hart Benton forswore all accommodation, both social and political, with the president. (Howe, p. 757)

Far to the south, on the Rio Grande, Zachary Taylor was intent on completing his mission, in the face of growing contempt from his commander-in-chief. In a three-day battle, September 21-24, 1846, he managed to drive General Ampudia, now back in command of the Mexican Army, into the confines of Monterrey, 180 miles west of Matamoros, and cut off his supplies. Then, under the mistaken impression that the administration was close to a settlement, he enraged Polk and his cabinet by accepting an eight-week armistice and allowing Ampudia's army to evacuate the city.

But Polk and his advisers had also been duped. An intermediary had led them to believe that, if permitted to re-enter Mexico, the notorious Santa Anna, for the right price, would effect an end to the hostilities. "But the consummate opportunist, once across the border, decided to betray the gringos rather than his countrymen . . . His return sparked Mexican resistance and prolonged the war." (Howe, p. 766) He deposed President Paredes, took control of the government, and assembled a force of 20,000 troops at San Luis Potosi, two hundred miles south of Taylor.

Driving his men across the desert -- and losing 5000 along the way -- on February 27, 1847, Santa Anna unleashed a two-day assault on the Americans, who had fallen back into a natural defensive position in a restricted valley just south of the hacienda of Buena Vista. Outnumbered three to one, informed by one of his generals, when his left flank was turned, that they were whipped (to which he replied: "That is for me to determine") Taylor, drawing on his superior artillery, stood his ground and repulsed the enemy. (Borneman, p. 250)

It was a brilliant tactical victory which would earn him appreciation, adulation, and the presidency in 1848, but one which, according to Polk, had little strategic significance. Santa Anna's army vacated the field still intact, and would live to fight another day.

Back home, the war of words echoed the clash of arms.

Placing his trust in the treacherous Santa Anna, Polk requested Congressional passage of a compensatory stipend -- a $2 million appropriation "to pay for any expenditures which it may be necessary to make for the purpose of settling our differences with the Mexican republic." (Borneman , p. 230) The measure passed the House -- after it appended the controversial Wilmot Proviso, which would exclude slavery from any territory acquired from Mexico. Polk finally got his slush fund, increased to $3 million, seven months later, in March 1847, when southern senators managed to override a filibuster and excise the objectionable language.

"While Polk's desire for California and New Mexico seems to have been animated more by a geopolitical vision of national power, to make the United States dominant in North America, than by a desire to strengthen slavery," (Howe, p. 765) the debate over his war policies had awakened the sleeping giant and exposed a Congressional chasm along sectional and institutional fault lines.

Despite initial enthusiasm for the war and success on the battlefield, dissension in Congress and the general public was caustic and vociferous. Libertarian Henry David Thoreau protested by refusing to pay his Massachusetts state taxes and spent a night in jail. The Boston Daily Atlas minced no words in calling the conflict "Mr. Polk's War." (Borneman, p. 254)

The Whigs accused Polk of committing an act of war without authority of law, of annexing enemy lands illegally under the pretense of military occupation, and of usurpation of power. (Merry, p. 327) Noted Daniel Webster: "No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?" (Howe, p. 763)

Even Democrats "who had nursed a romantic vision of peaceful expansion found themselves embarrassed by Polk's militancy," including John O'Sullivan, the editor who had coined the phrase "manifest destiny," and John Calhoun, who feared the divisive consequences of territorial aggrandizement. (Howe, p. 764)

Polk further electrified the tempestuous atmosphere in his December 1846 Annual Massage to Congress. After recounting in intricate detail the events leading up to the war and arguing that the United States had sufficient grounds for its actions, he essentially charged his critics with treason in this naked reference to the constitutional definition: "A more effectual means could not have been devised to encourage the enemy and protract the war than to advocate and adhere to their cause, and thus give them 'aid and comfort.' " (Merry, pp. 322-323)

By this time -- still two months prior to Taylor's staunch defense of Buena Vista -- Polk's impatience with the war's progress led him to consider that a bolder strategy might be required. Retreating to the solitude of his writing table, he devised a new plan: disembark troops at Veracruz, Mexico's main port, and march them inland to the capital, Mexico City. Disenchanted with Taylor, in consultation with his cabinet and Thomas Hart Benton, to command the expedition he named Winfield Scott -- "the quintessential professional soldier," a lifelong Whig, ambitious, corpulent, and pompous. (Howe, p. 779)

Scott's experience and logistical expertise served him well. "In the largest amphibious operation yet attempted in history," employing flat-bottomed landing craft Scott himself helped design, Commodore David Connor's 100-ship armada delivered 10,000 men to a beach head three miles south of Veracruz. After a merciless three-day bombardment, the town surrendered on March 27, 1847. (Borneman, p. 258)

Moving west along the National Road, Scott found his path blocked by the resurgent Santa Anna. Staggering back to San Luis Potosi after his Buena Vista whipping, he had reconstituted an army of 12,000 and spread it across a high narrow pass just south of the town of Cerro Gordo. On April 18, the Americans dislodged the enemy from its stronghold in a three-pronged attack -- one of which involved a flanking movement along a trail reconnoitered by Captain Robert E. Lee -- capturing 4000 prisoners and a vast amount of equipment.

Polk's friend and front man at the 1844 convention, Gideon Pillow -- now commanding a brigade, a Democratic insider among a host of Whigs -- proved himself unsuited for battle and a continuing source of tension between the president and his general. Pillow complained bitterly of his orders from Scott, predicted disaster, quarreled with underlings, demonstrated indecisiveness, and left the field following a minor wound. (Merry, pp. 362-363)

Scott's advance ground to a halt at Puebla, where he waited six weeks for reinforcements to replace the volunteers whose one-year enlistments had expired; only ten per cent chose to reenlist. Guerrilla activity along the army's exposed supply line impelled him to sever himself from his base and live off the countryside -- an example that stuck in the mind of Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, who would do the same in his campaign against Vicksburg in 1863. (Howe, p. 784)

By the middle of August Scott had reached the mountain passes surrounding Mexico City. Relying again upon the recommendation of Captain Lee, he turned south, circled two lakes and a large lava flow, and, in two separate encounters on August 20 routed Santa Anna's numerically superior force, inflicting four thousand casualties and taking three thousand prisoners. At this point, Scott could have entered the city; instead he halted at the gates, offered a cease-fire, and allowed peace negotiations to unfold.

Thus ensued some of the most bizarre diplomacy in American history.

On April 16, 1847, Polk dispatched Nicholas P. Trist -- chief clerk in the State Department and the grandson-in-law of Thomas Jefferson -- to Winfield Scott's headquarters with full power to conclude a treaty in exchange for territorial concessions. Purportedly a secret mission, it was quickly leaked to Democratic expansionist newspapers, most likely by Secretary of State Buchanan himself.

Trist's failure to call on Scott personally and deliver a packet of official documents ignited a two-month feud between the two. Distrustful of his Democratic superiors, Scott resented instructions from Secretary of War Marcy that he was to defer to Trist "the question of continuing or discontinuing hostilities" and to pass on to the Mexican foreign minister sealed correspondence without knowledge of its contents. (Merry, p. 367)

Improbably, Scott and Trist healed their rift and forged an emotional bond that blossomed into a lifelong friendship. Initially prompted by the realization that they both despised their meddlesome commander-in-chief, James Polk, their reconciliation was nurtured by a common dedication to effectuating an "honorable peace" and by Scott's sending a jar of Trist's favorite guava marmalade to his ailing compatriot. The two even conspired to commit bribery -- to pay Santa Anna $100,000 to lay down his arms -- and made a $10,000 down payment before the duplicitous general reported that his hands were tied by the Mexican Congress.

Trist's commission was to purchase New Mexico and as much of California (both Upper and Lower, that is, Baja) as he could for up to $30 million. The Rio Grande boundary of Texas was, of course, sacrosanct; it had been the basic tenet of Polk's foreign policy since he had announced in the spring of 1844 that he favored the annexation of Texas.

Trist's Mexican counterparts were under considerable pressure from traditionalist factions not to surrender too much territory. In exchange for New Mexico and Upper California, Trist yielded on Lower California, but then committed a grievous mistake; he agreed to submit the Rio Grande matter to Washington for further consideration.

Frustrated by the impasse, on September 7, Scott terminated the truce, which Santa Anna had already compromised by strengthening his defenses. The next day Scott sent 3500 men to destroy a flour mill where the Mexicans were reportedly recasting church bells into cannon -- a false rumor, as it turned out -- at a cost of 800 casualties.

After a brutal fourteen-hour artillery bombardment, on September 13, spurning the advice of his subordinates, including Captain Lee, Scott ordered a direct assault on the castle of Chapultepec, which guarded the southwest approach to the city. "The battle was costly to both sides, but within three hours it was over . . . By evening, Santa Anna had evacuated, and on noon the following day General Winfield Scott rode into the city square," resplendent in his full-dress uniform. (Borneman, p. 293)

"He had achieved one of the monumental military victories of the nineteenth century. He had successfully carried out a major amphibious operation, reduced the formidable fortress of Veracruz, and, overcoming shortages of heavy artillery and transportation, fought his way through difficult terrain to capture one of the world's great capitals." (Howe, p. 790)

Cut off from his supply bases and with fewer than eleven thousand troops, he had defeated an army almost three times his size, killing, wounding, or capturing over 10,000. (Merry, p. 389)

Two persons were not impressed: James Polk and Gideon Pillow. Pillow initiated a letter-writing campaign poisoning the president's mind against Scott and inflaming his fear of the Whig hero's ascendancy. Without Scott's approval he sponsored the publication of correspondence acclaiming himself the "instrument of victory," a violation of regulations. When a court of inquiry implicated him in the theft of two howitzer trophies and he circumvented the chain of command by appealing directly to the president, Scott had had enough. On November 22, he ordered Pillow, Brigadier General William Worth, who had also engaged in spurious self-promotion, and Chief of Artillery James Duncan, who had authored the incriminating material, court-martialed.

Polk never questioned Pillow's veracity, especially after he disclosed Scott's and Trist's attempt to bribe Santa Anna, hardly grounds for condemnation, considering Polk's own machinations. He placed the blame for the imbroglio on Scott's "vanity and tyrannical temper." (Merry, p. 408)

On January 3, 1848, the cabinet unanimously agreed to recall Scott and replace him with a Democrat, Major General William O. Butler. The army overwhelmingly sympathized with Scott. "To suspend a successful general in command of an army in the heart of an enemy's country, [and] to try the judge in place of the accused, is to upset all discipline," declared the astounded Robert E. Lee. (Howe, p. 791)

The charges against Worth and Duncan were dropped, and Pillow eventually exonerated, in part due to his relentless and theatrical courtroom barrage against the less polished Scott. Polk's blind faith in Pillow never wavered; the man whom Scott described as "the only person I have ever known who was wholly indifferent in the choice between truth and falsehood, honesty and dishonesty" remained for Polk "a gallant and highly meritorious officer, greatly persecuted by General Scott for no other reason than that he is a Democrat . . . and my personal and political friend." (Borneman, p. 299)

By this time the president had issued another recall, with startling results.

The news that Trist had waffled on the Rio Grande and that Scott had stopped short of Mexico City infuriated Polk. He informed his cabinet that he would make no further proposals and would wait for Mexico to sue for peace, vowed that he would not withdraw the army under any circumstances, and contemplated demanding Lower California and a portion of Northern Mexico as an indemnity. Convinced that Trist had bungled his mission, he ordered him to return to Washington "at the first safe opportunity." (Merry, p. 386)

On December 6, 1847, in his Third Annual Message to Congress, the beleaguered president once again offered a lengthy justification for his policies. He asserted that the Mexicans had "commenced the war . . . [by] shedding the blood of our citizens upon our soil," (Howe, p. 796) and that the cession of territory was the only way that country could satisfy "the just and long-deferred claims of our citizens against her and the only means by which she can reimburse the United States for the expenses of war." (Borneman, p. 306)

Among those Whigs rising to answer the president was freshman Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who challenged him to "establish whether the particular spot on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was or was not at that time on our soil." (Borneman, p. 287) That spot, said Lincoln, had been an acknowledged part of New Spain and Mexico since the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. (Howe, p. 797) Lincoln's insistence that war powers were consigned to the legislative branch by the Constitution was, of course, suffused with irony; a few years later, when faced with preserving the union, he would exercise far greater executive power than James K. Polk.

By the time Trist received his recall notice on November 16, a moderate government had replaced Santa Anna; its representatives were inclined to negotiate, even after learning he no longer held a diplomatic portfolio. The British legation and General Scott urged him to stay and complete a treaty which would not be rejected, they maintained, provided it complied with the president's original prescriptions.

Bolstered by an ego no less inflated than that of the other self-indulgent players in this surreal drama, Trist perceived that if he did not seize the opportunity before him, power would pass to intransigents, and "all chance for making a treaty at all would be lost." (Borneman, p. 306) On December 6, he fired off a sixty-five page missive to Secretary of State Buchanan damning the president for sabotaging the peace process and desiring a further war of conquest, lambasting Pillow as an "intriguer" with "an incomprehensible baseness of character," and announcing his intention to defy his recall. (Merry, p. 410)

Polk called the letter "arrogant, impudent, and very insulting to his Government, and even personally offensive to the President." He sent "a short, but stern and decided rebuke," and directed General Butler to expel Trist and officially take charge of the negotiations. (Borneman, pp. 307-308)

By the time these orders reached Mexico City, it was too late. Cleverly employing his discharge to intimate that his successor would be the bearer of even more harsh conditions, Trist pressured the Mexican commissioners to come to terms, and even gave them a deadline -- February 1, 1848. Wending his way through a thicket of conflicting claims and interests, adhering strictly to the Polk ultimatum of the previous spring, knowing only success could protect him from the wrath of his government (Merry, p. 424), laboring without clerical, legal, or archival assistance (Howe, p. 803), Trist produced a signed document -- the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo -- on February 2.

The Rio Grande was recognized as the boundary of Texas, from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso. New Mexico and Upper California -- including the harbor of San Diego, but not the railroad route south of the Gila River (it was acquired in 1853 in the Gadsden Purchase) -- were ceded to the United States for $15 million, half of what Trist had in his piggy bank. The U.S. assumed liability for the claims of its citizens against the Mexican government up to $3.25 million.

Trist had always viewed the war as "a shameful display of naked American power." He sought to render an outcome that would avoid either Mexico's complete dismemberment or the indefinite prolongation of anarchy and fighting. "His recognition of a moral standard higher than the unbridled pursuit of national interest was no doubt unusual in the history of diplomacy." (Howe, p. 805)

Newspaper man James Freaner of the New Orleans Delta arrived in Washington with the treaty on February 19. "Mr. Trist acted very badly," wrote Polk in his diary, "but notwithstanding this, if on further examination the treaty is one that can be accepted, it should not be rejected on account of his bad conduct." (Borneman, p. 309)

National sentiment leaned strongly in favor of ratification, which would end the bloodshed, silence a divisive domestic debate, and bring into the union highly valuable lands. A few voices were raised in opposition.

The erratic Secretary of State James Buchanan reversed his long-standing opposition to the acquisition of Mexican territory by suddenly demanding more -- a blatant grab for southern votes for his presidential campaign. Thomas Hart Benton still resented Polk's treatment of his son-in-law, John Fremont. Senators from both parties questioned Trist's illegitimate status.

On March 10,1848, with Polk's political fate and historical reputation hanging in the balance, the Senate voted its approval 38 to 14, with four abstentions. Among the "Ayes" were fourteen Whigs, "whose desire for peace, in the final analysis, trumped their preference for No Territory." (Howe, p. 807) Two months later, the Mexican Congress followed suit.

"With war's end came the culmination of Polk's presidential goals." To Texas, Oregon, the tariff bill, and the independent treasury, he now added "600,000 square miles of continental expanse and the dominance of a vast Pacific coastline with some of the best harbors in the world." (Merry, p. 449) In urging the Senate to ratify the treaty, Polk described it as adding to the United States "an immense empire, the value of which twenty years hence would be difficult to calculate."

But even he could not have foreseen that within two years upwards of one hundred thousand immigrants would stream across the nation's heartland in search of the riches portended by the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848.

It had not been achieved without a heavy toll -- both national and personal. The conquest of Mexico turned into a longer, more expensive struggle than President Polk had expected. One combatant in ten died in two years of service (over 80 per cent from disease) and an equal number were incapacitated and sent home -- making the war proportionately the deadliest in American history, costing 12,518 lives and $100 million. Mexico lost more than 15,000 lives and suffered extensive economic and social disruption. (Howe, p. 752)

Along with the spoils of victory came the intractable slavery issue. Throughout the summer of 1848, Congress hotly debated territorial government bills for California, New Mexico, and Oregon. On the last day of the session, August 14, it organized the Territory of Oregon as antislavery but deferred a decision on California and New Mexico.

Polk's viewpoint was that since Oregon lay well north of the Missouri Compromise 36*30' line, he could sign the bill -- over the objections of southerners who argued Congress had no constitutional prerogative to regulate slavery in any territory. Polk elucidated his strong proslavery position in a statement transmitted with the bill and in his December 5 Annual Message: he firmly denied the right of Congress to interfere with any slavery controversy that might arise south of the 36*30' line. (Merry, p. 464)

Polk had pledged to serve only one term, but even without that pledge he was mentally and physically exhausted by his four-year ordeal. Frail by nature, he had followed a feverish and oppressive schedule that would have sapped the strength of a more robust man. In a letter to his party's convention, he was adamant that he would not be a candidate for reelection.

"Polk could leave office having achieved his original goals more completely than most presidents, but the aftermath also realized his worst nightmare. The war he waged created a Whig military hero who succeeded him in the White House." (Howe, p. 833) On November 7, 1848, the first time all states voted on the same day, a battle-fatigued electorate chose Zachary Taylor over Democrat Lewis Cass and Free Soiler Martin Van Buren. According to Polk, his former general was "a well-meaning old man . . . [but] uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and . . . of very ordinary capacity." (Merry, p. 469)

On March 6, 1849, Citizen James Polk and his wife Sarah left Washington on a month-long roundabout tour of the Deep South that would take them by rail and steamboat to New Orleans and up the Mississippi toward their new home in Nashville. Polk suffered from chronic fatigue and diarrhea along the journey, and was likely exposed to cholera. Weakened by the stress and strain of the presidency, he never regained his health, and died on June 15, 1849, 103 days after leaving office.

Hampton Sides describes Polk as sly, misanthropic, insufferable, joyless, colorless, and plodding. John Quincy Adams said he had "no wit, no literature, no gracefulness of delivery, no elegance of language, no philosophy, no pathos, no felicitous impromptus." (Sides, pp. 54-55)

Page Smith calls him "a petty, conniving, irascible, small-spirited man whose able Cabinet . . . should be given credit for protecting him from his own destructive impulses," and the luckiest man ever to occupy the White House -- "saved by the generals he distrusted and tried to supersede," and the heir of an army and a fate much better than he deserved. (Smith, p. 238)

To some extent Polk has been unable to escape the reputation that has shadowed him for 150 years: that of an imperialist manipulator who "usurped illegitimate power to manufacture an unnecessary war" and who "stole territory from a weaker nation lacking the resources to fight back." (Merry, p. 474)

"But history doesn't turn on moral pivots but on differentials of power, will, organization, and population." In 1844, "Mexico was an unstable, weak nation which couldn't control all the lands in its domain." By contrast, the United States was a vibrant, exuberant democracy engaged in something momentous: a political compulsion toward expansion into largely unpopulated lands, which, with the advent of the Texas revolution, was transformed into a powerful vision. (Merry, p. 474)

When the country's two most influential politicians, Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren, repudiated that vision, the people turned to Polk, with all his limitations of temperament and leadership, to bring it to reality. By embracing the notion of acquiring not only Texas and Oregon but also California and New Mexico, Polk demonstrated a boldness, persistence, force of will, and guile that exceeded what anyone had seen in him before. (Merry, p. 477)

"He discovered the latent constitutional powers of the commander in chief to provoke a war, secure congressional approval for it, shape the strategy for fighting it, appoint generals, and define the terms of peace. He probably did as much as anyone to expand the powers of his office," blazing a trail that Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson all would follow. (Howe, p. 808) "Despite his perverse personality, he was possibly the most effective president in American history," certainly the hardest working -- "and likely the least corrupt." (Sides, p. 56)

James K. Polk extended the domain of the United States more than any other president, increasing its land mass by 38 per cent. One has only to look at the continental map to see the magnitude of his accomplishments. By fulfilling the vision and dream of his constituency -- and his own objectives -- he well deserves the title: "our least-known consequential president."

REFERENCES

Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency. New York: Random House, 2008.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.

Sides, Hampton. Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West. New York: Random House, 2006.

Smith, Page. The Nation Comes of Age: A People's History of the Ante-Bellum Years. New York: McGraw Hill, 1981.