You might be interested in my weekly column over at Civil Beat (“Hawaii Monitor: Time to Question Dan’s ‘Last Wish'”). It takes a closer look at the letter from Senator Dan Inouye to Governor Abercrombie, delivered on the day the senator died.
It was prompted by a call from Manfred Henningsen, a professor of political science at UH Manoa who I took classes from in the dark ages when I was a Ph.D. student in that department.
Henningsen, an old friend of the governor, had been traveling late last year when Inouye died and learned about the letter on his return. It raised questions in his mind, and prompted him to write a short commentary. Although he submitted it to the Star-Advertiser, he complained to me that he had never even received an acknowledgement from the newspaper.
I read his commentary and thought he had raised legitimate questions about the letter, and my column was born.
But I also would like to share Henningsen’s original unedited article, because it adds political context and commentary that goes beyond my column.
Comments welcome, as always.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thanks for printing the original. It is appropriate that the Inouye era end in Hawaii, but I am not reassured about Hawaii’s future with the over development under Abercrombie. It appears that Hawaii politics control has shifted from former CEO Bank of Hawaii, Dodd, to former First Hawaiian Bank, Horner. Is this who reaps financially? It is all tied together, isn’t it?
Actually, Walter Dods headed up FHB not BANKOH.
a rant is a rant, even when i agree with it.
It is time to end the “I better check with the boss first” politics in Hawaii.
As a Hannemann supporter, it is news to me that the late senator supported Mufi in his last two campaigns.
Why didn’t you just ask Sabas to take a lie detector when you questioned her, if you feel that something was not true? Sometimes you just have to believe what people tell you are true, unless you have a reason not to believe them. Speculation that Sabas was lying is out right yellow journalism at its worse, if there wasn’t a basis for essentially calling her a liar.
This reminds me of a story that was suppose to be attributed to Lyndon Johnson. When running against a strong opponent, it was alleged that his campaign spread a rumor that the opponent was having carnal knowledge of certain farm animals. Supposedly, some of the LBJ campaigners met this with a certain amount of consternation on spreading such an outright lie, but LBJ simply said, “Let him deny it!” since the raising of the issue would be damaging in its self. Seems like Henningsen may be from the LBJ school of politics and innuendo.
As for Henningsen, I have never heard of him and I don’t believe any reporter or news organization has used him as an “expert” to quote or comment on local politics. I have never seen him on any election coverage by any local television station, as far as I can remember. So what level of credibility does he have from my perspective?
But Russel, practice what you preach.
You are accusing LBJ of slander; calling Ian and/or Henningsen “yellow journalists” (Ian questioned Sabas about something, he didn’t “essentially call her a liar”); and you are basing Henningsen’s worth on whether you have seen him as either a talking head on local tv or an ‘expert’ chosen by local reporters. He is an academic and I suspect he has a German accent, so he may not do good sound bites.
The local press and the UH administration both essentially ignore faculty, so you can be excused for not having heard of him. Henningsen is a pretty heavy hitter as a political scientist. Look at his cv at the UH site.
Obviously what Henningsen wrote was partisan and favored the governor. It was intended as an op ed piece in the local paper. Just as obviously Ian is stirring the pot and in Hawaii the pot can use a little stirring.
And I believe that Jennifer did what she thought was honorable and loyal and we should admire her for that, even if we don’t agree with the immediate or ultimate result.
One would think that a truly “honorable and loyal” staffer would have shown a bit more concern about how the contents of letter written by her boss marked “private” was quickly leaked and disseminated. Unless, of course, the source of that leak came from someone in the office that prepared the letter.
so you are accusing Jennifer or someone in the Senator’s office of leaking?
And if you think anything in Hawaii is secret, you should ask NSA how secrecy has worked out for them..
Sabas may have played the whole thing like a violin. If there is evidence, burn her at the stake but if not, maybe give her and others the benefit of the doubt.
In any event, I am a fan of Schatz.
Burn her at the stake? I’ve see you’ve gone from portraying Jennifer Sabas as the admirable, honorable and loyal asst. to the late senator, to being a persecuted martyr the moment anyone writes anything about her that isn’t 100% positively glowing.
In the dog-eat-dog world of DC politics, one doesn’t get into the position that Ms. Sabas occupied with just a heart of gold. One would have to be hopelessly naive to think that personal ambition doesn’t play a prominent part in her personality makeup.
Looking through the lens of someone who has an idealized vision of politics in the Beltway, my comments about Ms. Sabas might be interpreted as damning criticism of her. But to anyone who is all too familiar with the murky reality, using whatever legal (if not totally ethical) means of jockeying for position whenever there’s a shakeup of power at Capitol Hill is merely par for the course. Doesn’t make make anyone on Inouye’s staff as the devil incarnate. But then again, such behavior doesn’t put them on a moral pedestal in my book.
Perhaps Manfred’s thinking is too influenced by his sense of parallels between power in Hawaii and in WIlliam Shakespeare’s dramas? Those who look at Inouye and see an “emperor” or a “Mafia boss” simply demonstrated how crude their understanding of political power actually is.
Inouye supported Clinton and her defeat by Obama is taken as evidence Inouye is “out of touch”? How does that logic work? Clinton was his colleague and her husband had been president. He had a strong relationship with her and believed she was more qualified than the junior, half-term senator from Illinois. So he supported her, know ing full well Obama was going to sweep Hawaii. How does this become the basis for a criticism of Inouye. I don’t get it. And, for the record, I voted for Obama, not Clinton.
Manfred says Inouye supported Mufi over Tulsi Gabbard “a rising Democratic Party star at 31. Inouye was out of touch with the new era she signifies, because he held stubbornly on to an understanding of politics that had served him well for many decades.”
Sorry, Manfred. You are flat out wrong here. Inouye supported Gabbard in her run for the City Council seat exactly because they saw her as a future star. And Inouye supported both Mufi and Tulsi for the House seat, refusing to support one over the other. Inouye helped Tulsi’s campaign from the very beginning, allowing her to use his campaign strategy team.
So contrary to your oversimplified attempt to portray Inouye as a prisoner of “20th century” paradigms, he was flexible enough to see the need to nurture, and co-opt, new talent.
There is much that is troubling about the “dying wish” letter from Inouye. But mostly how it was publicized by his associates and how it continues to be used as a core argument for electing Hanabusa.
I saw a movie once. It wasn’t Shakespeare. The king had just died and an unscrupulous advisor used the King’s signet ring to affirm a new will. Maybe Walter Dods saw the same movie?
Or maybe, Senator Inouye was a willing participant in drafting the letter and asking it be delivered to Abercrombie. Not as much fun as the sinister story of intrigue. But more plausible to me, absent any evidence to the contrary.
I usually am dubious about death-bed utterances, especially when not signed or witnessed by a neutral third party. Just as we were here when Mayor Akana died at Hilo Medical Center and allegedly anointed a cabinet appointee as his successor, contrary to charter’s line of succession.
Most courts will deny a major change to a will by a dying person unless it is recorded and witnessed by two persons who sign the codicil.
As we had the “birthers” so, too, do we now have the “deathers.” The same batsh!t crazies on opposite sides of the same ersatz coin.
Wait … wait … Damn! I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say. I’m still getting over the idea that Henningsen has to be interviewed on local TV newscast before we can consider him an “expert”.
To be honest, as much as anything else, I think the demise of Mufi (2x) and Hilary (1x) in Hawaii had a lot more to do with the rise of social media and technology as a key part of the political campaigns. Tulsi was totally on top of social media and was seemingly everywhere. Barry in Hawaii was the same. Yes, Hilary was not a local boy / girl. But I think ultimately it had more to do with which campaign was better organized – not as much to do with which candidate symbolized a New Day.
I could never at all see how an individual like the Howard Roark carácter, ficticious but based on a very real carácter, in Ayn Rand´s 1943 book ¨The Fountainhead¨ (film versión starring Gary Cooper) could ever strive as ferociously as an aspiring profesional would need to do, steeped in studies to enounter the challenges of architecture at that time in mid-century – while himself being subject to military conscription, ¨the draft¨! The draft, which was discontinued in 1973, was driving some of the most important people of the time functionally nuts. Why, look at (google)the architecturally somnolent downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s! But the draft kept everybody starting out at that time feeling like the medical doctor Richard Kimbell in the 1960s TV series ¨The Fugitive¨.
Brian Schatz, ¨similarly steeped in study, is in the same position with this ïnane controversy¨, as Manfred Henningsen calls these things, like this Shakespearean succession letter from Dan Inouye, which if it had remained ¨personal¨ all along would allow the senator to focus precisely on good governing all the more.
In Egypt, as well as in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa there is mighty consideration toward abolishing Political Islam. That could be done as adroitly as President Gorbachev discontinued the USSR in 1989. The STASI in East Germany is history. I traveled to every one of the formerly Ëast European countries a few years ago – and I can attest they are all of them now just European, free of Shakespearean nonsense. Except Belarus.
We the living have an unpredictable future to govern – and we have the power to: abolish the draft, be done with the USSR, call to account Richard Kimbell´s wife´s killer on TV, revitalize the formerly hopeles condition of downtown LA, move sharply away from Political Islam and from the overall confusión between and church and modern law, and as well find merit in Manfred Henningsen´s thinking.
“I didn’t kill my wife.”
“I don’t care.”
The Fugitive was a great movie.
I believe Henningsen was in error when he wrote of Abercrombie appointing Tsutsui as LG.
Yes, people hereabouts were morally outraged when the Star Advertiser made that error. But I suppose it’s different when a noted political scientist, using his political science credentials to make a post-mortem attack on Inouye, makes the error. Not as much of a concern when it’s in furtherance of your own political views. Interesting that Abercrombie is still throwing out justifications and defenses about his disregarding St. Dan’s final request – like this one – “Boy that letter was sure delivered right before Inouye died, so I’m going to sort of speculate without really coming out and saying it, and without any evidence, that maybe the request wasn’t from Dan at all!” Shabby stuff.