A Little Commentary:

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• I Bought Another Book...

• Eleanor C. Parker Defends 'To Kill a Mockingbird,'

• Tribute to U.S. Ambassador Robert C. Hill from the NH Mayflower Society

• Concord Patriot, Laconia Evening Citizen; the Rags to Riches Story of  Gentleman Edward J. Gallagher

• Renaming the Whittemore School at UNH is an Outrage

• New Hampshire Political Dynasties (in New Hampshire Magazine)

• Mystery Portrait at NH State House Not of Governor/US Senator Henry W Keyes

• A Lady from India

• Madame Chiang Kai-shek's Ties to Meredith and the New Hampshire Lakes Region

• Meredith Center (NH) Mystery Cemetery

• An Old Timer and a Memorable Shave

• The Old Man is Gone, Get Over It!

• John Gilbert Winant Finally Gets his Due

• Of Christmas Carols, O. Henry, and Prison Reform

• Newspapers Can Make it without Taxpayer Bailouts

• Sununu Says Souter Was Not His First Pick; Speaking of the Man...

• About Memorial Day

• Not the Father's Son -- Sergei Khrushchev Becomes an American

• The Day Khrushchev Buried Stalin -- Nina Khrushcheva

• Another Generation, Another War -- Op Ed by Dean Dexter in the Concord Monitor

• About Lake Wicwas, Meredith Center, New Hampshire

• Save the Islands of Lake Wicwas! -- Op Ed by Dean Dexter

• Logging on Lake Wicwas Ended in the 1950s

• Styles Bridges, Yankee Senator --Book Review by Dean Dexter

• Why Helen Dexter Likes the Frank Sinatra U. S. Postage Stamp

• Wicwas Lake House - Wicwas Lodge - Lakeland School

Access Dean Dexter's blog here.

 With the "Big Guy," Bob Schieffer, CBS News. Office of the Secretary of State, Week of the NH First in the Nation Presidential Primary 2016

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See Additional Columns Below

• Kennedy: "What did Daniel Webster Do?".... Seriously?

• Bob Novak RIP

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Ted Kennedy: "What did Daniel Webster Do?"... Seriously?

By DEAN DEXTER

In President Obama's eulogy to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, he recounted an incident when still a senator wherein Kennedy asked him for a vote on a measure scheduled for St. Patrick's Day. Senator Obama thought the bill had little chance of passage, but promised to vote for it. When the vote was over, the measure passed to Obama's surprise. "Luck of the Irish," Kennedy quipped to the junior senator from Illinois.

Said the President: "Of course, luck had little to do with Ted Kennedy's legislative success, and he knew that. A few years ago, his father-in-law told him that he and Daniel Webster just might be the two greatest senators of all time. Without missing a beat, Teddy replied, "What did Webster do?"

We know Kennedy was joking (a statue of Webster graces the grounds of both the state houses of Massachusetts and New Hampshire), but we cannot let this statement, brought to our attention by a friend, pass without comment. For instance, New Hampshire-born Daniel Webster wrote all his own speeches and managed his senatorial duties without an Ivy League educated staff to prop him up. In fact, senators in Webster's day had no staff support at all, even responding to constituents in their own hand at their small desks on the senate floor. No saint (who is?), Webster incredibly pleaded (and won) landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court throughout his adult life, even as a sitting senator, cases that set a young nation on a steady legal course.

Two things Daniel Webster (born of a poor farmer) and Ted Kennedy (born to privilege and wealth) had in common, they both represented the Bay State in the nation's upper house for many years, and they both liked the booze. Otherwise, Kennedy and Webster had nothing in common. For more on Webster, click here, here, and here. Oh, and P.S. Daniel Webster did not write that dictionary. -- Dean Dexter.

-- Posted August 31, 2009

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Bob Novak RIP

The late syndicated columnist Bob Novak and Dean Dexter discuss the publication of a biography of the late New Hampshire governor and long-time U.S. Senator Styles Bridges, who Novak knew well. Novak was in New Hampshire attending a  reception for the publication of the book by Dr. James J. Kiepper April 27, 2001. Novak, who wrote the foreword for the book, announced his retirement as a syndicated columnist on August 4, 2008 after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. He succumbed to the illness on August 18, 2009. Click here. -- Roland Young Photo. -- Posted August 18, 2009

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Gunstock Mountain Resort, formerly the Belknap County Ski Area, Gilford, New Hampshire. US Senator Styles Bridges presents President Dwight D. Eisenhower with a New Hampshire Red during Ike's visit to New Hampshire in June, 1955. Several thousand participated in a chicken barbeque at the county-owned facility in Ike's honor, dining on what else? New Hampshire Reds supplied by local farmers. New Hampshire Reds were derived from Rhode Island Reds beginning around 1910, and have since developed into a breed in their own right, known for producing  more meat, than other standard breeds.

June 25, 1955: President Eisenhower stands in his Cadillac limousine entering what is now Gunstock Mountain Resort, Gilford, NH, for a chicken barbeque for a crowd that grew to several thousand. New Hampshire Governor Lane Dwinell is seated in the rear seat as Secret Service agents follow standing on the running boards of a somewhat vintage vehicle, even for that time. Governor Dwinell would later serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Administration in Ike's administration.

Contact: DD@NH Commentary.Com

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