The LuLac Edition #2417, May 11th, 2013
EX GOVERNOR LEADER DIES
George Leader was elected Governor the year I was born so I had no idea who he was until I got into the eighth grade at St. John the Baptist Grade School in Pittston. My teacher at the time, (Marian T. Fearick, the first lay teacher SJB ever had) was a wealth of historical and political information. As a 7th grader, I confess I terrorized her but in 8th grade, well I think those hormones were beginning to settle down. Mrs. Fearick taught a segment of Social Studies in which we learned Pennsylvania History. There was a book students shared that had pictures and biographies of the Pennsylvania Governors. I was fascinated with the fact that George Leader was the second youngest Governor elected. My first memories of a Pennsylvania Governor was the older David Lawrence and I was stunned that a person younger than my father at the time could have been elected Governor.
After that classroom encounter, Leader was on my radar screen. I remember meeting him with my late uncle Timmy Pribula at one of those grand County Democrat Dinners in the early 70s. He walked in unattended but within minutes all the party honchos swarmed around the guy like he was Elvis. After the hoopla died down, my intrepid uncle weaved through the crowd that night and got me an introduction. Alas we had no camera with us but it was a pleasant conversation. (I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if Timmy Pribula had an IPhone with a camera in it back then!)
Leader became Governor because of the power of TV. He won an upset race against Governor Fine’s Lt. Governor Lloyd Wood. At the time, Pennsylvania was a heavily Republican state, (a red state if you will) and no Democrat had been elected since 1934. Beating Lloyd by about 200,000 votes, Leader assumed a state that was heavily in debt and needed some reforms.
Just turning 37 when sworn in Leader started a four year administration that made an attempt to reform the patronage system in the state. While not eliminating every political job, Leader professionalized many departments. He also took on a issues like Special Education (at the time there were no places for disabled students that were mandatory in the State Education system) started to reform the Mental Health system and its hospitals in the state and was an early advocate of Civil Rights protection for minorities which as we all realize was the hot button issue of the middle 1950s. Because he could not run for re-election due to term limits, Leader decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Edward Martin.
Leader squared off against then long time Congressman Hugh Scott. It was a competitive close race but Scott prevailed by about three percentage points. Leader never ran for office again instead focusing in on a private nursing home chain.
He was born in York County and to date has been the only person elected Governor from there. He died Thursday at the age of 95 and an AP report stated that he was on the job working until just a week or two before his death.
Even in retirement, Leader was revered by state wide Democrats and has been remembered fondly by the state wide and national press. Leader was always in attendance at every official state event like inaugurations and other ceremonies.
The living former Governors of the state are William W. Scranton now in his mid 90s, Richard Thornburgh, Tom Ridge, Mark Schweiker and Ed Rendell.
posted by David Yonki @ 8:39 AM
15 comments
15 Comments:
A nice tribute to a great and underrated man.
OLd Timer from Moosic
Mr. Leader, may your soul rest in peace.
Good morning students,
Mr. Yonki, I want to thank you for your eloquent paper on Governor Leader. Although I differed with George Leader on many issues, I always had a deep respect for the man and although his tenure in Harrisburg was a brief one, his legacy went far beyond four years.
The work of this classroom moves forward……..
Students, once again we are facing a constitutional crisis in our nation. The Administration in Washington is dogging the public on releasing relevant information on the Benghazi situation. It is hard to believe that it is nearly a year since that awful day (sorry layabouts, but September is right around the corner) and we have not received any specifics from the White House. I applaud the Republicans in Congress for moving forward with an investigation into this fiasco. For if the President invoked foreign policy trickery into the political campaign it is most certainly a cause for impeachment hearings to begin----and I urge the House to do so!!!!!!!!!!!
This next statement does not make me happy, regardless of what you ingrates may think. I predict that not only will this scandal drive the President from office but additionally the Vice President, leaving Speaker John Boehner as the next in line to succession---in other words for you slow students, the next President of the United States. As painful as it may be for this country to endure another impeachment trial (will these Democrats ever learn?????) we will all be the better for it. For if we cannot expect our President to obey the laws and tell truth, how can we expect our own children to??? Give me your answer!!!!!!!! Regardless, I feel that one year from now we will be under the tutelage of a Boehner Administration which will lead to solid, common sense economic policies and a strong/pragmatic foreign policy (perhaps under a Bolton Department of State?). Mr. Obama will go down as an asterisk in history, all because he let his political vanity get in the way of telling the truth about a terror attack.
Sometimes, the lie becomes bigger than the offense……………]
Something to think about this morning…….
Class Dismissed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW Dave.
I never knew we had a Nostradamus in the valley. Lucky us!!!!!
Dave: Great article on the late Governor. I met him many times and thought he was a true credit to this state.
And your uncle Timmy was a gem of a guy as were his brothers "Lefty" and Lenny.
I think it is a damn shame the numbskulls in the County did not rehire your cousin Tom in another capacity. Without him as the first interim director, things would have fallen apart. But Mr. California has all the answers I guess.
The Prof who has never yet been right makes another prediction.
One of the Confirmed Ingrates
Hey Phony Professor, under George Bush we suffered 58 attacks on our country's outp;osts and there were a total of 3 hearings. There has been one attack under Obama and the Republicans have had 9 hearings......... count them, NINE! and a total of 245 days and NOTHING! Give it up already..... Hilary will be the next president if she wants to be and there is nothing that your do noting Republicans can do about it. Speaker Boehner and his leaders, Erik Cantor and Paul Ryan in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate can only continue to stand in the way of progress in Washington. The one thing they know how to do is break records with their fillerbustering. ow about keep;ing our promise and simply going away?
Maybe the Professor's prediction won't come true but at least he is paying attention, thinking and connecting the dots in a manner most of us can follow.
Jeez was anybody counting hearings back when Bush was president?
Really "you's guys" I am not satisfied with the quality of answers from our administration. Is that so wrong?
Do we roll over because we believe the previous administration got a pass and therefore accept an unacceptable precedent?
Why isn't the mother of the slain American getting the same "courtesies" as Cindy Shehan? Seems to me there is little difference in either woman's plight.
Is it not our prerogative to get satisfactory, truthful answers to any question we ask our government?
Journalism is dead and we must fill in the blank.
Professor -
Let me be clear. NOBODY CARES ABOUT BENGHAZI. I'm sorry to sound callous about the deaths of four Americans, but there have been over 60 US diplomats killed in embassy and consulate attacks over the past decade and not one peep from the Republicans.
In the weeks leading up to the attack, Hillary Clinton's request for more money for security funding was denied and voted down by the GOP House in the name of budget austerity.
Suddenly, a political opportunity arises, when they think they can smear President Obama and make him lose to Mitt Romney by turning a rather (I hate to use this term, but it is tragically true) "routine" attack that has happened numerous times before into some sort of made-up scandal.
That didn't work. So, now, since they can read polls like the rest of us can, they're trying to stop Hillary Clinton from an almost assured presidential nomination and likely victory in 2016.
They're not holding hearings on Benghazi. They're holding hearings on Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. It's shameful, because the Republicans (and locally, the Professor) are disgracing the memory of four American diplomats for political expediency; expediency that is doomed to failure..
Oh, and the Boehner Administration? SecState Bolton? HA! Quit while you're ahead Milly Cleaver. Remember to take your meds and not bash your head too hard off of your padded walls.
Anon, 8:10:
Young man,
Until you can learn proper punctuation, and more importantly, proper spelling, do NOT return to this classroom.
I am tired of dealing with ingrates who are the product of a broken liberal educational system.
Young man,
YOU ARE DISMISSED!!!!!!!
5:43
So you don't CARE HOW FOUR AMERICANS DIED?! You are satisfied with the explanation?
I guess you never lost a friend or relative under questionable circumstances and I hope you never do because you don't have the guts to stand up for them.
Don't worry, there are those of us that will because its the right thing to do.
BTW: 9:04 - I forgot about Shehan. Good point!
What happened to the bulldogs in the media? When it came to covering the Benghazi terrorist attack, the media sounded like a pack of Chihuahuas. The media is the last guardian of free speech in America. If the media becomes a megaphone for politicians, then there is no point to the media at all.
Could this be a driving force to quality, well-balanced blogs?
We can’t expect politicians to behave themselves if reporters don’t hold politicians accountable. If the Benghazi coverage taught us anything, it’s that journalists need to be more aggressive, more inquisitive and more driven to get to the facts in stories.
A February 2013 Rasmussen poll shows that 54 percent of Americans distrust the news media and just six percent of all Americans think the news media is “very trustworthy.”
After the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, very few American journalists have been willing to be bullish on Benghazi and get to the truth of the story. There is ample evidence pointing to a massive Benghazigate cover up orchestrated by President Obama as well as potential perjury by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Last week, Esquire Magazine published a long piece ridiculing one of the few journalists who has prioritized truth over politics while covering the Benghazi story, namely CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson.
Attkisson is one of the last-standing heroes in media; she is driven by the truth and nothing else.
I'm sure our blog editor will agree: Truth is not political. Sharyl Attkisson is not “betraying liberals” by joining FOX News in devoting extensive coverage to the Benghazi story. She is simply speaking the truth and helping others see the truth. She is honoring the four Americans who died in a terrorist attack that our President irresponsibly blamed on a YouTube video.
During last Wednesday’s Congressional hearing with three Benghazi whistleblowers—and for the past several months leading up to the hearing—Attkisson has been blowing her own whistle on Benghazi. Via her Twitter feed she has continually updated the public with facts about Benghazi.
(continued)
For example, after House Republicans released an interim report on Benghazi on April 23, Attkisson tweeted the report’s findings. She told Americans that while Clinton knew of requests for aid from Americans in Libya prior to the attack, the report indicated that she: “ordered the withdrawal of elements to proceed as planned.”
While other reporters were keeping mum, Attkisson was telling Americans that the report indicates that both Obama’s White House and State Department literally changed their talking points in order to cover for Clinton. She tweeted that the Obama administration scrubbed their Benghazi talking points: “…. to remove references to likely participation of Islamic extremists in attacks, references to threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda…,” according to the report.
Last Wednesday, Attkisson also live-tweeted during the testimony from the three whistleblowers who testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Those whistleblowers were senior government officials who simply shared their first-hand accounts of what occurred on the ground in Libya during the attack.
Attkisson covered the hearing in a fair manner because she understands what should be obvious to all journalists: These men did not put their careers on the line and testify under oath because they were Republican cheerleaders. They testified because they witnessed and lived through the attack and because they deeply care about the truth.
In the Sunday, May 5 edition of the New York Times, story after story appeared about Syria and Afghanistan but virtually nothing about Benghazi. Everyone knew that three eyewitnesses would be testifying on Wednesday, May 10, 2013. So, it would seem appropriate to dedicate substantial space in the Sunday edition to Benghazi and the whistleblowers.
Other than FOX News and C-SPAN, CBS News Host Bob Schieffer held an interview on Sunday, May 5 with Rep. Issa and Rep. Ruppersberger (sp?) where Issa had a chance to voice many of the facts surrounding the Benghazi terrorist attack and apparent cover up by the Obama administration.
The only reason Obama is strolling through the Rose Garden, golfing with Tiger Woods and cracking jokes about Jay-Z is because the media is not holding him accountable. Obama and Clinton were behind a gun-running program that backfired and likely armed the Libyan rebels who stormed the consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. Meanwhile, the maker of the You Tube film “Innocence of Muslims” that Obama initially blamed for the Benghazi attacks (even though everyone knew it was terror) is serving prison time for a parole violation. Unless American journalists decide to hold Obama accountable and act more like bulldogs and less like Chihuahuas, free speech will go to hell in a hand basket.
The 5th column appears rotting in Denmark.
5:40 -
I lost someone on 9/11/01. Someone very close to me who worked in the restaurant in the World Trade Center. It took me years to come to peace with.
So don't go off too hard on 5:43. I didn't get angry at Condolezza Rice and George Bush even after the former said at the 9/11 Commission hearing that "she believed the Title [of the security memo] was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'". Why? Because she didn't do it, and neither did he - and a LOT more people (INNOCENT AMERICANS) died than did in Benghazi, Libya. They didn't attack us. Attacks are inevitable, and you just hope that you can stop as many as you possibly can to keep people safe.
It's a hard thing to deal with. Losing someone to something that seems so unreal that you've only ever heard of on the news that happens in far away places and in the scripts of action movies. At first, you try to put it in the same category as a force of nature, because you end up blaming yourself and asking yourself countless and infinite times if you could have possibly done something to prevent it. I did. It took me years to realize that I couldn't have done anything. So I tried to rationalize it like he was more of a hurricane victim. But as my grief began to get easier to carry every day, that would no longer do, because people - truly evil and hateful people - coordinated and executed this attack that killed thousands of people. Each with a face, a life, and people that loved them. I know that all too well.
Benghazi was not the fault of the Republican's budget cutting or the State Department's reaction or the White House's calling it terrorism or not. It was the fault of people that, for whatever reason, decided to incite a riot that ended in tragedy. It's nothing more. And I really wish the GOP especially but also the news media and the general public (that are usually lock-step conservatives for some reason) would shut the f*** up about things they don't understand, feigning their outrage so that they can justify their partisan witch hunt.
I'm with 5:43 on one thing: The one group of people that I truly despised after 9/11/01 were the ones that kept saying that 9/11 was an "inside job" and wanted to tear the government apart for political gain and because they hated the president. I don't blame Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or our Diplomats or our Government for Benghazi, but I DO blame people like you, 5:40, for using the deaths of Americans to attack people you politically dislike.
You flippantly use your words asking 5:43 if she or he ever lost someone over questionable circumstances. I assume you mean terrorist attack. I have.
If you have NOT, sir or madam, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and not speak of things that you clearly know nothing about. Because 5:43 is right - the Republicans' motives are political, as is your hyping of this, and you are all playing partisan games with four corpses.
It repulses me. It repulsed me back in 2001, and it repulses me now.
Good evening.
but I DO blame people like you, 5:40, for using the deaths of Americans to attack people you politically dislike.
PLEASE ID WHERE ANYTHING EVEN APPROACHES POLITICAL DISLIKE. I SEEK TRUTH. TRUTH IS NOT POLITICAL. YOUR INTERPRETATION.
You flippantly use your words asking 5:43 if she or he ever lost someone over questionable circumstances. I assume you mean terrorist attack. I have.
AGAIN AN ASSUMPTION. NO! ANY QUESTIONABLE CIRCUMSTANCE OF DEATH BY UNNATURAL CAUSE IN REASON FOR INQUIRY.
If you have NOT, sir or madam, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and not speak of things that you clearly know nothing about.
AGAIN YOUR ASSUMPTION: I HAVE NO RIGHT TO AN OPINION BECAUSE I HAVEN'T SUFFERED ADEQUATELY OR IN LIKE KIND. EMPATHY FOR A BURN DOES NOT REQUIRE SMOLDERING SKIN.
Because 5:43 is right - the Republicans' motives are political, as is your hyping of this, and you are all playing partisan games with four corpses.
YOU REALLY MANUFACTURED SOME RIGHTEOUS OUTRAGE. MAY I SUGGEST YOUR DOWNPLAYING THE 4 DEATHS IS AN INDICATION OF THREE THINGS:
FALLACIOUS PREMISE.
HIDDEN AGENDA.
BLIND ANGER.
SEEK HELP.
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