Books
I have finally read Bush at War, Bob Woodward's application of his patented you-are-there-right-now technique to the workings of the Bush White House after September 11. As with all of Woodward's books, it is a compelling and breezy read. A good sign about it is that
History
In 1999, facing the prospect of Governor Bush as President, I read the definitive biography of Warren G. Harding to begin to understand what a Bush presidency would be like. People forget that Harding was a popular president: A handsome man with an attractive personality; a man who looked like
History
To my regret, this doubt has turned out to be prescient. Living in the wake of Ronald Reagan, we forget that conservatism is not an unwavering optimism in an ideology; rather, it is a regrettable prescience—a sense of tragedy—about what people will and will not do, and about
History
In the last 50 years, several Presidential candidates who had been liberal or Left darlings during their serious runs for the office have been unable to resist going on to make a final vanity run that upsets and divides their erstwhile supporters. Adlai Stevenson sought the Democratic nomination in 1960,
History
The membership of the current Supreme Court has not changed since August 1994. The 9½ years that the current members have served together is the longest such stretch without a change since the Court expanded to nine justices. (The Supreme Court went 12 years without a change from 1811 to
History
Ralph Nader has declared that he is again a candidate for President. As this 1971 article from The New Republic shows, the "Nader for President" movement has a long history (though Nader did not finally run for office until 1996): A funny thing happened to Edmund Muskie in
Education
From the lead article in the February issue of Atlantic Monthly: not The rising generation cannot spell, because it learned to read by the word-method; it is hampered in the use of dictionaries, because it never learned the alphabet; its English is slipshod and commonplace, because it does not know
History
For some reason, the Hilton Milwaukee City Center hotel doesn't mention this 1972 review of its earlier incarnation, the Sheraton Schroeder, on its history page: Eight days in the Sheraton-Schroeder is like three months in the Cook County jail. […] The room radiators are uncontrollable, the tubs won'
History
I had always thought of "The Wizard of Oz" as a fairy tale (or as the video for "Dark Side of the Moon"). In fact, it is an allegory of…bimetallism? Read on… (Warning! Simplifications ahead!) In the 19th century, the United States was on the
History
With his endorsement of Wesley Clark, George McGovern perhaps answers those who compare McGovern to Howard Dean. Still, though, the similiarities between this account of the McGovern campaign in 1971 and what we've seen of the Dean campaign are interesting: To run as an "insurgent," the
History
Future historians may well mark the mid-1980s as the time when Japan surpassed the United States to become the world's dominant economic power. [...] America's GNP may remain larger than Japan's well into the 1990s (depending on exchange rate measurements), but there are many reasons
History
In 1971, The New Republic noted an aspect of George McGovern's personality that I see as the biggest difference between him and Howard Dean: Next to his "radical" image, McGovern's biggest liability is the feeling he doesn't project strength, that he'