News
The Barack Ballad of Abraham, Franklin, And John
With apologies to Dion and his now 40-year-old song - Abraham, Martin, and John - I see the ghosts of three past presidents standing slightly off stage as the nation watches the approach of inauguration day. The ancient Israelites tended to name-drop a patriarchal hat...
RN Wishes Old Friends A Happy New Year
On 31 December 1971, RN was in the Lincoln Sitting Room working on the text of one of the most important ---and still understudied--- documents of his administration. It was the strategic overview of his vision of foreign policy that would be sent to Congress on 9...
“Ask Not, You Know, What Your Country, You Know…”
The interview conducted by David Halbfinger and Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times with Caroline Kennedy (who seems to have dropped the name Schlossberg permanently), as linked below in today's Featured Articles, did not have the headline "As A Candidate,...
The First Reader
It is hard to determine whether the number of books read by a President during his or her term, and which ones, have any real correlation to ability in leadership and governance. Lyndon Johnson, famously, was reported never to have cracked open a book in his five...
Two Enlightened Dads
In The Politico, Andie Coller suggests that President-elect Obama's rhetoric stems from his enlightened ideas about fatherhood: The “change we can believe in,” it turns out, shares a lot with the revolution in thinking about child-rearing sprung from the work of...
Please Hold For The President, Mr. Langella
An article about Frost/Nixon in yesterday's Norfolk Virginian-Pilot features some lengthy quotes from Frank Langella. Among his ruminations: Langella acknowledges that Peter Morgan's script, adapted from Morgan's own play, is not historically accurate on all counts....
“F/N” Receives The Ultimate Accolade: 5 Checkers
By now enough has been written about the story ---and the backstory--- of Frost/Nixon (and not least here at TNN) that I won’t take your time by telling that tale yet again. Rather, I’ll cut right to the chase and try to answer the question: Is Ron Howard’s version of...
Christmas 1971 With The Nixon Family
Here are some excerpts ---about two minutes--- from Christmas At The White House, a CBS News Christmas Eve Special from 1971. RN and the Nixon family are seen around the tree in the Family Quarters. The reporters are Charles Kuralt and Marya McLaughlin (one of the...
The Forgotten Carol of Christmas
To all of my friends and colleagues at TNN - I want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas with a thought or two about the sounds of the season. What’s your favorite Christmas song? That’s a very subjective question. Some like to hear about “chestnuts roasting...
Pat Buchanan On Mark Felt’s Passing
At MSNBC.com yesterday, Nixon White House advisor and speechwriter, and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan offered his assessment of the career of W. Mark Felt, the self-identified "Deep Throat" who died last week. He observes: Indeed, if what Felt did was...