News
Obama’s Cabinet of “Rivals”?
The Associated Press today has an article by Calvin Woodward discussing the current speculation that President-elect Obama, known to have read Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling study of Lincoln's Cabinet Team Of Rivals, may follow the Great Emancipator's example and...
An Unexpected “Nixonland” Review
It has now been about a half-year since Rick Perlstein's Nixonland was published, and some time back I noticed that no review had appeared in The American Spectator, a magazine avidly read by the 37th President and usually not a place where major books about him go...
The Republican Wilderness: Four Years – or Forty?
The Grand Old Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, & Ronald Reagan, has entered the proverbial wilderness. It moves from the box seats to the cheap seats, or better - to mix the metaphor a bit – the backbenches. How Republicans handle this exile, and just how long...
George Shultz’s Advice to the President-elect
In the days since Barack Obama's election there has been quite a bit of talk about his reaching across party lines to seek the advice of elder statesmen. Today in the Washington Times (in a column by the deputy editor of the paper's op-ed section, Benjamin Tyree), a...
Radicals And Redhots
Today, as he does every day, Jonathan Movroydis has found and linked many of the most interesting journalism of the last 24 hours. Among them is Camile Paglia's monthly column in Salon. As usual, this is an omnibus affair covering a variety of topics and a multitude...
Armistice Day Plus 90
Orange High School Concert Choir at Veteran's Day ceremonies at the Nixon Library Today, Veterans Day, was originally established as a holiday to mark the day that World War I ended and, until 1954, went by the name Armistice Day. Ninety years have passed since...
Art Imitates Life
In honor of Veterans Day, New York Times film critic A. O. Scott devotes this week's "Critic's Choice" to Franklin N. Schaffner's 1970 masterpiece Patton. The film won seven Academy Awards --- including the Best Actor Oscar for George C. Scott. The canard widespread...
11 November 2008
A POTUS And FLOTUS By Any Other Name
In the days before communications could be encrypted, code names were required to provide at least a minimal mask for the identity of the POTUS and FLOTUS and members of the first families. Now they're mostly an anachronistic habit with no serious security function...