Jul 8, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
Describing the 1962 California GOP gubernatorial primary between Richard Nixon and Joe Shell, Rick Perlstein writes (p. 60): Nixon’s primary victory over Shell was humiliatingly close. Shell did hurt Nixon by undermining his conservative support and forcing him...
Jul 7, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
For those of us who grew up memorizing every word —indeed, every inflection— on Tom Lehrer’s LPs, the name and accomplishments of the late doctor Samuel Gall are as familiar (and as funny) today as they were the first time we heard them on An Evening...
Jul 7, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
RN’s “secret plan” to end the Vietnam war is the Dracula of canards. No matter how many wooden stakes are nailed through its nasty heart, it’s up again at first light, brushing off the dirt and walking the land ready to be cited in yet another...
Jul 7, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
Whatever its virtues, Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland contains a number of factual errors. In the weeks ahead, I shall note some of them. The first deals with the 1950 Democratic senatorial primary in Florida (p. 34): George Smathers beat Florida senator Claude...
Jul 6, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
In today’s Washington Post Book World, NPR host Scott Simon writes a glowing review of Stephen L. Carter’s new novel of political and family intrigues in the 1960s, Palace Council. Mr. Carter, a professor at the Yale Law School and a bestselling and...
Jul 5, 2008 | News, The New Nixon
In December 1799, George Washington, the foremost of America’s founding fathers, died of laryngitis and pseumonia at age 67, universally mourned by his countrymen. The next year Mason Locke Weems, popularly known as “Parson” Weems (he was a...
