Category: obituary

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government transparency ideological culture insider corruption obituary

One Cheer for an IRS Man?

I’m hesitating. But given the way many IRS honchos have too often behaved throughout the agency’s history, including today — yes, I’ll applaud Randolph Thrower for saying no to a President.

Thrower died in March at the age of 100 as the “IRS Chief Who Resisted Nixon.” He had headed the agency from 1969 to 1971, before getting fired for challenging the administration’s political hardball. Nixon henchman John Ehrlichman delivered the pink slip.

White House staffers were pressuring the IRS to audit various activists, journalists and congressmen. These were persons that Nixon felt deserved government harassment.

Too often, IRS officers have been all too eager to politicize tax procedures at the behest of those in power. Not Thrower. He may have been guilty of naïveté. When asking to meet with the President, he said he felt sure that Nixon knew nothing of the pressure coming from underlings and would repudiate “any suggestion of the introduction of political influence into the IRS.”

Thrower’s request for a meeting was denied. The record shows that Nixon soon demanded his removal and also that the next IRS commissioner be a “ruthless [s.o.b.].”

My problem with Randolph Thrower is his failure to say anything publicly about why he was fired. By speaking out, he might have prevented some of the evildoing the White House would perpetrate over the next several years.

He owed that much to his employer: us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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obituary political challengers

Remembering a Pioneer

Who was the first woman to receive an Electoral College vote?

Not the one you are probably thinking of — Geraldine Anne Ferraro (1935-2011).

The answer is: Theodora Nathan, listed on the ballots of Colorado and Washington State in 1972 as Tonie Nathan. She ran as the first Vice Presidential candidate for the fledgling Libertarian Party. She didn’t receive many votes — the party had barely been formed. But she got that one Electoral College vote because a Virginia state elector, Roger MacBride, was so disgusted by President Nixon and his wage and price controls (everybody has a tipping point) that he went renegade.

I bring this up because of sad news: Tonie Nathan died yesterday, age 91.

I knew her, having served with her on the Libertarian National Committee back in the 1980s. (See a recent picture of her, with former party chair Alicia Clark and me, at the 2012 Libertarian National Convention.) Tonie was a dynamo: sharp, kind, hard-working, organized, a people person committed to making a difference.

Her run to unseat Senator Bob Packwood (R-Oregon) in 1980 was memorable for the three televised debates with her major party opponents. In the first of them, all the major papers dubbed her the winner, one of which headlined her as having “skewered” her opponents.

Odd fact: She received eleven times more votes in her senatorial race than in her “nationwide” campaign.

I’ve noticed fewer debates with Libertarian candidates in them, since. I think it might be the result of fear of a Nathanesque “skewering.”

Her place in history should be more widely acknowledged.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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obituary

Barbara Branden (1929–2013)

Barbara Branden died last week in her 85th year.

A writer with a devoted following, Ms. Branden published many articles over the years — on politics, economics, literature, film, methods of clear thinking, smoking and other subjects — and was a popular public speaker, impressing audiences with what Stephen Cox calls her “charm and personal persuasiveness.” But she was best known for her acclaimed 1986 biography The Passion of Ayn Rand. The book was recently published in a Kindle ebook edition, and Barbara emailed an enthusiastic announcement to friends and colleagues.

Passion tells the story of the famous novelist and philosopher (1905–1982) whose novel Atlas Shrugged has been getting even more attention in recent years — thanks to cinematic adaptations and, not least, parallels between Rand’s dystopian tale and political horrors of the present era.

Ms. Branden (then Weidman) approached the Russian émigré as an enthusiastic admirer of the elder author’s second novel, The Fountainhead. She quickly became Rand’s close friend, an integral part of a tumultuous inner circle. She co-wrote an early biographical treatment, Who Is Ayn Rand?, in 1962, and maintained close business and personal ties until a traumatic parting of the ways six years later over a love triangle — or, more properly, rectangle.

No wonder, then, that Barbara said that for many years she had been unsure that she could tackle such a project objectively. Only when she felt that she had come to terms with her tumultuous years with Rand (she met her mentor only once after their break) did she write the book that only she could write.

An admirable thing, to rise above bitterness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.