News

The recently released C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey is an interesting, if predictable, snapshot of scholarly opinion about past chief executives. Honest Abe towers over the list, his position secured by history and his frequent postmortem...

Edwin Trinka, the doorman at New York's fabled Plaza Hotel 46 years, is about to retire. In his decades there he's met countless folks who were rich, famous, or just looking for a good room for the night. His favorite guest of them all? "Richard Nixon was my favorite...

Since January 16, the New York Times has had on its site a group blog, "100 Days," in which five presidential biographers take turns comparing the initial stages of the Obama Administration to five presidencies.  Jean Edward Smith does the comparing to the first...

There is no escaping Richard M. Nixon. He did so much to shape the politics and policy of the last half-century that every president will end up echoing his words. Take President Obama's address last night. The president spoke of reducing dependence on foreign oil...

Last night Frank Langella lost the Best Actor competition in the Academy Awards to Sean Penn.  But the veteran's sterling performance in Frost/Nixon is still gaining accolades, not least from those who knew and worked with the 37th President.  This weekend the Fort...

The intrepid Detroit News has tracked down the automobile registrations of the eight members of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry appointed last week to save the American automobile industry.  The paper also checked out the auto info of  the ten White...

Socks, who served as the  White House Cat from 1992-2001, died on Friday near his waterfront home in Hollywood, Maryland.  The former First Feline was believed to have been twenty, although there are some discrepancies involving his date and place of birth.  He had...

On today''s Daily Beast, critic Lee Siegel hopes against hope that the Members of the Academy will have the wisdom to reward and encourage real acting ---as opposed to camera-aided impersonation--- by choosing Frank Langella as Best Actor.  Whereas Mickey Rourke's...

An AFP story out of Hollywood takes a look at the odds that bookmakers are offering as to what film or actor or actress will win the "Golden Dude," as Robin Williams tearfully dubbed his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor when he won for Good Will Hunting. Slumdog...

John W. Dean's latest column at findlaw.com concerns Frost/Nixon. That's not especially surprising in itself. But what is downright strange is that Dean has not seen Ron Howard's film or Peter Morgan's play because, he says, "scheduling" conflicts haven't permitted...