Posted on 11/15/2005 9:07:23 PM PST by SmithL
Anti-war protestors twice tried to disrupt Vice President Dick Cheney during a speech today honoring Tennessee statesman Howard H. Baker Jr. at the University of Tennessee.
Cheney didn’t acknowledge the hecklers and never faltered during his 10-minute speech at Thompson-Boling Arena for the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.
At one point during Cheney’s remarks, two women shouted, "War, what is it good for?"
Another pair of protesters answered from different part of the arena. Police hustled both groups outside.
A few moments later, three protesters raised a green and white sign demanding "Peace Now."
"Stop the war!" they shouted.
They, too, were escorted outside. Police took the names of the protesters but did not arrest them.
Speaking on Baker’s 80th birthday, Cheney praised Baker as an exemplary American.
"He is certainly one of the most accomplished citizens of our time," Cheney said of Baker.
Cheney recounted Baker’s long career as a congressman, senator, White House chief of staff and ambassador.
"It’s good to know that far into the future people will come to this place and learn of Howard’s career and his deep belief in the nobility of public service," Cheney said.
About 50 protesters, most of them appearing to be college age, demonstrated outside the arena. Several carried signs, including one that read "Honor Baker, Impeach Cheney."
After the speech, Cheney left to attend a private, invitation-only birthday luncheon for Baker.
About 400 people attended the ceremonial groundbreaking in the arena for the privately financed, $15 million Baker Center.
Other speakers were to include Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Honored elder statesman
At a time when most people who reach their eighth decade begin to slow the pace of life and enjoy the harvests of their labor, Howard Henry Baker said he is just now reaching "the midpoint of my career."
And that, of course, has been some career, stretching across vast landscapes of history and beginning in 1967, when he became the first Republican popularly elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee.
The U.S. Senate, a chamber he not only admires but also greatly cherishes, became a kind of political Jacob’s ladder for the young Tennessean, son of U.S. Rep. Howard H. Baker Sr. and Dora Ladd Baker.
He ascended to the very top of the Senate ladder during his stay in that august body from 1967-85. He shot to the top of newspaper headlines and national prominence during the Watergate hearings of 1973-74 as vice chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee and the highest-ranking Republican on the committee.
Baker held the Senate Majority Leadership from 1981 until he retired from the Senate in 1985. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan brought him in as his chief of staff to help smooth out a White House rocked by the Iran-Contra scandal.
And now his focus, he says, is very much centered on the UT Baker Center for Public Policy. It should be noted that Baker knows something about focus: He is a polished and professional photographer, whose worldwide photos grace the walls of his home in Huntsville, where he lives with his wife, Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker.
She was the first woman who had not entered politics as the widow of a congressman to be elected to the Senate and is the daughter of Alf Landon, Kansas governor from 1933-37 and Republican candidate for president in 1936, running against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The Baker Center for Public Policy
Baker says the $15 million, 53,000-square-foot center bearing his name, when completed in roughly two years, will be a place for the significant study of public policy, government effectiveness, energy, the environment, civility in politics and the ways student government plays a role in academia.
Baker says he is proud of the fact that the only other elective office he ever held was that of student body president (1948-49).
UT created the Baker Center two years ago with congressional approval and some $6 million as endowment to kick off a private fund-raising campaign. Money for the construction has been raised through private sources. Baker says it will be self-sufficient and will be "built without local, state or federal money."
"The center’s focus will be on the science and techniques of public governance and the effectiveness and efficiency of government," Baker says.
He says he is vitally interested in energy policy, "which has become the modern unit of currency in the world. Energy has become tremendously meaningful to the nation and world. It is the measure of national wealth," he says.
Nuclear energy, he says, is the only way for America and the rest of the globe to placate the world’s enormous appetite for energy now and in the future. And with that in mind, East Tennessee should play a major role with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Department of Energy reservation in Oak Ridge.
Energy and the environment will occupy chairs in the center, he says. The search is on now to fill both positions with "fellows" for those respective chairs.
In addition, the center will focus on general foreign policy, which occupied the last portion of his distinguished career when he served as ambassador to Japan, a post that concluded recently.
Another concentration for the center will be the special relationship held between the United States and the United Kingdom. Baker says he is looking for "significant participation" from Great Britain on that score.
"The center will be a full-fledged part of UT," he says, adding that it will have his full attention and participation. He hopes to even have a "small" office in the center.
The center’s initial staff, with Alan Lowe as executive director, is housed in the James D. Hoskins Library. The new building will be on Cumberland Avenue at Melrose Place.
Baker on Cheney and Bush
As for Cheney and the political troubles swirling about the White House, Baker says, "I won’t second-guess Cheney and the staff. What I will say is that it is dangerous for the White House to let negative publicity immobilize the presidency. That is the greatest threat, but I don’t see any evidence that this president has been immobilized."
On the subject of whether or not the president should clean out the staff and perhaps get a new chief of staff or other advisers, Baker says that is up to the president.
"I see this repeatedly compared to Iran-Contra and Watergate. But no one has accused the president of leaking information.
"My advice is to take it easy and not to panic. Everyone should just calm down," Baker says with a smile.
With Cheney set to come to Knoxville, one of the first public appearances he’s made since I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters in the CIA leak investigation, Baker says the two have been friends for 30 years or more, "and he accepted my invitation (to speak) over the phone. I am very grateful for that," he says.
"It is a great honor to have the vice president as a friend," he says.
Good Choice.
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