History
February 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
As Paul noted earlier this week, the Senate confirmed John Kerry as Secretary of State Today by a vote of 94-3. Many have noted the record of Kerry’s opinions in American foreign policy is distinguished by its devotion to mischief, error and misjudgment. To take only one small example, Jay Nordlinger documented Kerry’s wayward ways on Latin America in the 2004 National Review article “Back in Sandinista days…,” kindly made
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January 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
One of the themes of my Age of Reagan books is that to a certain extent Reagan’s administration represented a coalition government, as he had a number of prominent Democrats or ex-Democrats (like Minnesota’s Jeane Kirkpatrick) serving in senior posts. One of the most significant was Minnesota’s Max Kampelman, who passed away last Friday at the age of 92. Kampelman had been very close to Hubert Humphrey, and in fact
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January 22, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Brother Mathis has done it again. Not content with provoking me to discourse on the nanny state last week, on Monday Joel produced a column about Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama. Our mutual pal Ben Boychuk suggested on Facebook that our pieces represented a good Right-Left counterpoint about MLK, as Joel’s account mostly follows the conventional liberal narrative, though with caveats that it’s “complicated.” (Isn’t everything “complicated” for liberals?)
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January 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
When Martin Luther King, Jr., brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor’s Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for
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January 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson
At the end of his Impromptus column today, Jay Nordlinger writes: Let’s end with Yale — with the William F. Buckley, Jr., Program at Yale. The Buckley program had a conference on the last day of November….The theme of the conference was Whittaker Chambers’s great book, Witness — which was published 60 years ago. (Anniversaries are irresistible to organizers of all types.) There was a slew of top-notch speakers, including
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January 10, 2013 — John Hinderaker
If you hate America and the West generally, but aren’t crazy enough to long for Nazism or Communism, what’s left? Remarkably, many leftists have recently been expressing affection for the Ottoman Empire. Seriously. If you think about it, the Ottomans fulfilled a liberal fantasy: authoritarian so you get to boss everyone around and always get your way, but usually without actually having to murder your enemies. Plus, with no shortage
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January 3, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Once upon a time over at my old blogging home at the Ashbrook Center’s NoLeftTurns site, I took note of the single most interesting document I came across in my ten years of research for my two Age of Reagan volumes: CIA deputy director Herbert Meyer’s November 1983 memo—in hindsight the key month of the Reagan story—to CIA director Bill Casey (and Reagan) on “Why Is The World So Dangerous?”
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January 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Robert S. Wistrich is the Neuburger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the university’s Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism. He is also probably the leading academic authority on anti-Semitism. Witness his monumental histories A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism From Antiquity to the Global Jihad and, most recently, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, The Jews and Israel,
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December 27, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Reader John Lundstrom writes to add a related note to John Hinderaker’s post “Our history, andi theirs.” He writes: I’ve been a devoted reader of Power line for years and was most interested in your post. I was gratified to see your reference to the glorious First Minnesota and your citing of Wayne Jorgenson’s excellent Every Man Did His Duty. Knowing of your association with Minnesota, I take the liberty
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December 26, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Here in Minnesota, there has been a political skirmish over the Department of Education’s adoption of new K-12 educational standards for social studies, including history. The current revision has been drafted by education professionals and is proceeding through the rulemaking process; the legislature need not adopt or consent to the new standards. A few days ago, Republican leaders in the House wrote to Governor Mark Dayton, asking him to “veto”
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December 19, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The distinguished jurist Robert Bork has died at the age of 85. Roger Kimball recalls him here, noting with understatement that the Left’s scorched-earth opposition to his Supreme Court nomination was “obscene.” I have a long account of it in The Age of Reagan, but the core of the matter is this: “George Will was not alone in calling Bork ‘the most intellectually distinguished nominee since Felix Frankfurter.’ That was
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December 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
In a post about the movie “Lincoln,” I said in passing that Ulysses Grant is probably our most underrated president. John added that Grant was an “excellent” president. The case for Grant’s presidency can be found in President Grant Reconsidered by Frank Scaturro. He shows, as Brooks Simpson also has, that Grant adopted the correct approach to Reconstruction – i.e., the least bad approach. Scaturro also shows that Grant’s economic
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December 16, 2012 — Scott Johnson
A reader comments on my recollection of John Kerry at Dartmouth in 1971. His message revisits some old issues that have new salience in light of Kerry’s prospective nomination as Secretary of State by President Obama: I’m afraid the current administration is unlikely to consider character, judgment, or patriotism as important factors for any political appointment. In an earlier century in Massachusetts, this habitual liar, narcissist, and apologist for the
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December 15, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Today brings word that President Obama has settled on John Kerry as Secretary of State succeeding Hillary Clinton. The record of Kerry’s opinions in American foreign policy is long and deep, distinguished by its devotion to mischief, error and misjudgment. To take only one small example, Jay Nordlinger documented Kerry’s wayward ways on Latin America in the 2004 National Review article “Back in Sandinista days…” We’ll have to talk to
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December 11, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We have commented a number of times on President Obama’s ignorance of American history. Sadly, however, the average American high school student is probably even less knowledgeable about our history than the president. Is the problem of historical amnesia unique to the United States? Apparently not. In the U.K., a new report recommends that “Schools should be free to drop trendy citizenship classes so pupils can learn more about British
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December 11, 2012 — Scott Johnson
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a recurring daydream. In Friedman’s daydream the United States adopts the highly efficient Chinese Communist mode of government under the leadership of “a reasonably enlightened group of people” — such as Friedman finds the Chinese Communists to be. Friedman finds enlightenment among the Chinese Communists in their collective pursuit of “electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.” GE
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December 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The New York Post tells the remarkable story of World War II American bomber pilot Charlie Brown and German Luftwaffe ace Franz Stigler, who instead of shooting down Brown’s crippled plane, flew alongside it and saluted. The story comes from the new book A Higher Call, by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander. In December 1943, in the skies over Germany, Stigler was in pursuit of Brown’s plane, looking to shoot
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