Today marks the 34th anniversary of Richard Milhous Nixon’s infamous helicopter departure from the White House lawn following his resignation speech the night before.  Barring some unforeseen cataclysmic revelation – or Cheney, Rove et al developing a conscience and actually testifying before Congress – it’s an event we will not likely witness again in our lifetimes.

Sorry to interrupt the puritanical Ken Starr-like scolding going on, but something more important than John Edwards’ sex life happened today.

Or to be exact, 34 years ago today: Richard Nixon resigned the presidency over the threat of certain impeachment for violating the 4th Amendment, among other crimes.

I originally began this diary with the notion of praising the Daily Kos community generally for the many insightful comments I have read here in the two-plus months since I arrived.

But a funny thing happened on my way to that diary. Many of the really interesting comments and exchanges kept occurring in diaries written by the same person.

And that person, the man I consider to be "DK's Socrates," happens to be celebrating his 62nd birthday today. You all know him as teacherken.

Much more below the fold.

When Dean Max Sherman called to tell me that Barbara Jordan was dying and that she had asked me to speak at this service, I had been reading a story in that morning's New York Times about the discovery of forty billion new galaxies to go with the ten billion we already knew about.  As I put the phone down, I thought: It will take an infinite cosmic vista to accommodate so great a soul.  The universe has been getting ready for her.

So begins the eulogy Bill Moyers spoke for Barbara Jordan, entitled as is this diary.  It is yet one more chapter in his new book, Moyers on Democracy, about which both Inky99 and yours truly wrote yesterday.  Please indulge me with one more diary as I urge you to read this fantastic book.

My loves, my sweeties, my precious beings:  This is not a candidate diary.  One of my favorite artists died today, & another one, even more special to me, nearly died.  They are saying that James Garner is gonna be okay.  & even that okay I just typed is special.  He was born on April 7, just like me, in Norman, a town I grew up in, & even though he's from OK, he's a liberal, just like me.  

Robert Rauschenberg is wrongly considered a pop artist- a distinction that bothers me to no end, right or wrong- & more often these days gets lumped in w/ Roy Lichtenstein.  

First, there is no popular art.  There is art, & art alone.  That comic book you are reading, that is art.  That baseball game you attended, that is art.  That awful Vegas Diaz/Kutchner vehicle thingy you might have attended this past weekend, that is art.

Second, I am not denigrating Lichtenstein.  That is most definetely art.  Not the kind of art I care about, but art just the same.

In 2004, Barack Obama gave an absolutely stunning keynote speech at the Democratic Convention, one that many people believed would carry him into greater success in the future, in other words, the presidency. However, as a history major, I tend to try and look back and see how the past has worked, because as we all know, history has that darn trend of repeating itself.

After looking back recently into all of the keynote speakers from the 1900 Democratic National Convention to Barack Obama, I noticed a few things. The most important of which is the completely failure of keynote speakers when it comes to winning the presidency. Before I go on, let me mention under full disclosure that I am an Edwards supporter, who plans on voting for Obama now, but with recent events, I am back into the undecided field. However, as I am about to prove, the past seems to want Clinton to win.

So below, let us review the curse, and then lets see how exactly Barack Obama fits into this.

Also, a note to Edwards supports who want him to get the Attorney General Spot, and then become President later. NO Attorney General has ever gone onto the presidency.

From the keynote address Presidential National Convention, 1992

One overdue change, which you have already heard a lot about, is already underway. And that is reflected in the number of women now challenging the councils of political power. These women are challenging those councils of political power because they have been dominated by white, male policy makers and that is wrong. That horizon of gender equity is limitless for us. And what we see today is simply a dress rehearsal for the day and time we meet in convention to nominate Madame President. This country can ill afford to continue to function using less than half of its human resources, less than half its kinetic energy, less than half its brain power.

A thousand thanks to rustydude for his beautifully researched History: Dem Conventions Keynote Addresses.  He provides links to significant Keynote Addresses, including Barbara C. Jordan's 1976 Democratic Convention Keynote Address.  This link provides both the audio and transcript.

We've watched Barack Obama go from Illinois Legislator to Democratic Convention Keynote Speaker to US Senator to viable challenger for President in 2008.  For anyone who watched it, the importance of Senator Obama's Keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention is difficult to overstate.

Ask yourself this: Would Obama even be running for President this election cycle had he not delivered that address?

In this diary I want to give some of the highlights of Keynote addresses over the years and demonstrate that this important speech is not the stepping stone to the Presidency that some might believe.

First the list...

I was born in 1960, so I’m barely a boomer.  I can remember watching my parents cry when Jack and Bobby and MLK were assassinated.  I remember the Women’s Movement and being just astonished that the Equal Right’s Amendment couldn’t be ratified.  I remember watching the Watergate hearing’s with my Dad, and how that sparked my interest even more about politics and the Constitution and more importantly a woman named Barbara Jordan.  

My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

 We could use her even today, couldn't we?

I was raised to believe "There is nobody any better than you, but always remember that you are no better than anyone else."  (My Dad’s favorite quote)  So even though I was a girl that was raised in a little town, in the middle of Kansas, I believed that not only were all doors open for me, it would only be a matter of time before I would see The First Woman President, and I really hoped that woman would be Barbara Jordan.

"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." -- E. M. Forster

The quote is an example of a kind of loyalty I would rather not see in those who would be our political leaders.  I neither want personal loyalty up to the leader by his or her subordinates, nor by the leader down to protect them.  I think we have experienced the deleterious affects of this far too much during the current administration.  And in a sense some of the bad choices we see made by some Congressional Democrats seem derived from the same "principle" of loyalty.

We have a real opportunity to have a national discussion of this, thanks in part to Bernie Kerik and Rudy Giuliani.   When the editorial page of the New York Times has both an official editorial and a major op ed piece to address the subject, perhaps it is also legitimate for a blogger to also opine, hence I have written this diary.

'And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.'

'If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder.'

These words were spoken on the Floor of the House of Representatives.

For those not familiar with these quotes, you might get the subtle indication this a voice from history.

Today is the thirty-third anniversary of Barbara Charline Jordan's (D-TX) stirring speech on the House floor demanding that her fellow Representatives get a spine and uphold their oath to the Constitution.

On July 25, 1974, this African American woman stood up to the naysayers and clearly laid out the grounds for impeachment of Richard M. Nixon.

This is a response to Senator Feingold. I will state very directly: I respect Senator Feingold as much as I respect any member of either House of Congress. I could not disagree more strongly with his reasons for opposing impeachment.

If Congresspersons have questions on whether impeachment proceedings against members of this administration who are known to or are highly suspected of having committed crimes should be brought up on impeachment charges, perhaps  some of those questions can be aired here.  For members of Congress who need reminding about their duties and responsibilities, let us call to mind Barbara Jordan on impeachment, speaking to the Nation on the Nixon impeachment.

"And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."

So spoke Barbara Jordan, a true hero, nearly 37 years ago, on July 25, 1974, during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee debating the merits of the Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon -- for crimes that pale in severity and audacity compared to those that the current inhabitants of the White House have perpetrated. The rest of her speech constituted nothing short of a tour-de-force of persuasive, scholarly, emotional, and stirring rhetoric that steeled a nation to stand up and fight for the Constitution.

First of all, why impeach? Aren't you just letting your anger get ahold of you?

Has the President committed offenses, and planned, and directed, and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That's the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

There have been a lot of great diaries on impeachment and the constitution.  I can't equal them.  But I know some people who can.

Barbara Jordan