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Obamarama: The Absurd Arguments Being Used Against Him

by James Livingston

This time I waited until the returns were in. Barack beat Billary badly in South Carolina Saturday, much to my surprise. I thought it would be closer. The most promising figures to come out of the contest indicate that Obama’s appeal to young white voters is not something that shows up only in opinion polls—it reaches into the voting booth as well. He got 40% of white voters under 40 and 50% of white voters under 30. Pretty amazing.But I’m still cranky because the pol

Don't Get Tough, Barack

by James Grossman

Don’t do it, Barack. The pundits have weighed in, and they’ve reached a consensus: it is time to take off the gloves. “Time to get mean,” as one Chicago columnist puts it. “Democratic War!” screams the headline in New York. The media have concluded that the Clintons have gotten serious, and it’s time to show how tough you are. Time to demonstrate that you aren’t as “soft” as you have seemed. Well, this is not the National Basketb

Can Washington DC Legally Stop Residents from Owning a Handgun? (Supreme Court Brief)

by Jack N. Rakove, Saul Cornell, David T. Konig, William J. Novak, Lois G. Schwoerer, Fred Anderson, Carol Berkin, Paul Finkelman, R. Don Higginbotham, Stanley N. Katz, Pauline R. Maier, Peter S. Onuf, Robert E. Shalhope, John Shy, and Alan Taylor

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT The central question is whether the Second Amendment protects a private right to keep handguns and other firearms, independent of an individual’s membership in a state-regulated militia. As a problem for constitutional historians, the question can be elaborated and restated in this way: Did the framers and ratifiers of the Amendment believe they were constitutionally entrenching an individual right to keep arms for personal protection? Or did t

Who Owns the Noose?

by Jim Downs

It happened, again. Beginning in Jena, Louisiana in 2006 and then followed by incidents at the University of Maryland, the Coast Guard Academy, and Columbia University, the noose, which powerfully symbolizes the rampant lynching that occurred throughout the U.S. South in late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has been discovered hung now in a police station in South Florida.  Leaving aside the nature of this “hate crime,” this is certainly not the first time that the tar

The Two Albu[r]querques

by David Holtby and Tobías Durán

Albuquerque closed its Tricentennial celebration last October. While the attempt to entertain by lighting the Sandia Mountains met with mixed reviews, the final event shouldn’t diminish appreciation of an eighteenth-month long festival that saw many reminders of Spain’s pivotal role 300 years ago. But it’s not simply by looking back to 1706 that we glean meaning from the Tricentennial. Contemporary Spain should be part of what we know about, too. Doing so gives us perspec

A Lesson from Recent U.S. History: We Need a Program for Good Jobs

by Frank Stricker

In the business press the question of the day is whether we are entering a recession. But even if we do not slip into recession, there is an old problem that we ought to address, and that is the shortage of good jobs. Only one of the presidentia

Can Today's Candidates Revive Martin Luther King's "Shattered Dreams"?

by Thomas F. Jackson

Democratic candidates have recently been cherry-picking lessons from the civil rights and voting rights campaigns of the mid-1960s. President Lyndon Johnson's achievement in building a bipartisan congressional coalition to secure passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was indeed monumental. But Martin Luther King Jr. was no mere dreamer. As the civil rights revolution's most famous strategist and self-proclaimed "symbol," King stood at the forefront of a mass political movement

Obamarama: Why Some Liberal Academics and Journalists Are Suspicious of Obama

by James Livingston

You bet I’m pleased by the results in Iowa and the impending victory in New Hampshire.  Oops.  Mine was one the original signatures on the “Historians for Obama” manifesto, sponsored by Michael Kazin and Ralph Luker, then published at HNN (11/26/07)  But the grief I’ve since taken from my fellow “progressives”—a.k.a. the academic left—makes his presence and momentum all the more

Academics for Ron Paul

Americans have lost faith in politicians, and for good reasons. Taxes, spending, and the national debt continue to rise, special interest bribes riddle the Congress, courts, and executive branch, and our schools are in shambles. Yet our government continues to wage a ceaseless assault on the American people’s rights to make their own choices. It has done so through the USA Patriot Act, the REAL ID Act, the War on Drugs, McCain-Feingold, and countless other initiatives. The endless and inep

The Return of the Imperial Presidency: An Interview with Charlie Savage

by Robin Lindley

In May 1977, Former President Richard M. Nixon told British interviewer David Frost, “When the President does it that means that it is not illegal.”  Vice President Dick Cheney apparently has embraced

Is Bush Inventing Another Constitutional Power?

by Robert J. Spitzer

Mostly lost in the wrangling between President Bush and Congress over his recent veto of a massive defense spending bill is the way Bush claimed to use the veto. Instead of issuing a regular or return veto, which returns the bill to the house of origin, and therefore provides for the opportunity of congressional override, Bush stated that he needed to pocket veto the bill, arguing that "the adjournment of the Congress has prevented my return" of the bill to it. Unlike a regular veto, p

Is the Theory of Evolution Really a Matter of Faith?

by Leonard Steinhorn and Charles Steinhorn

There are moments in history when wrongheadedness leads to interesting insights. Perhaps this is one of them.Consider the Republican presidential candidates who said they didn’t “believe in evolution” at a debate earlier this year. They may have been onto something – but for all the wrong reasons.The truth is, we don’t believe in evolution either. But we don’t have to, because we know it to be factually true. And that’s the nugget of ins

Righteous Indignation and the Mitchell Report: A Tempest in a Teapot?

by Ron Briley

            Righteous indignation is sweeping the nation.  Of course, this hue and outcry has nothing to do with a Presidential administration which ignores the findings of its own intelligence community.  Instead, our attention is drawn to the cultural obsession with celebrity and sport:  the bread and circuses of our time.  We are shocked, shocked to discover that professional baseball players are injecting themselve

Foiled Again: The Defeat of the Latest Bush Administration Plan for New Nuclear Weapons

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Advocates of a U.S. nuclear weapons buildup received a significant setback on December 16, when Congressional negotiators agreed on an omnibus spending bill that omitted funding for development of a new nuclear weapon championed by th

What Does Mormonism Mean to Mitt?

by Matthew Bowman

In College Station, Texas, last week Mitt Romney finally admitted that he is a Mormon. Throughout his campaign the candidate has not been reticent, exactly, with this information, but he has been insistent that it be discussed only on the terms and in the language that he himself deems appropriate. There was understandably great anticipation, then, for the College Station speech, which Romney’s aides promised would be a discussion of the candidate’s views on faith in public life,

The Heirs of Puritanism: That's Us!

by George McKenna

In 1630, as the Arbella lay at anchor off Southampton, England in preparation for its journey to the New World, John Winthrop proclaimed to his fellow passengers that “we shall be as a city upon a hill.” By mid- century the notion of an exemplary New England, a light for nations of the world, had seized the imagination of New England’s cultural establishment. “And thou New England,” wrote Peter Bulkeley, one of its chief ministers, “which are exalted

The "Wall of Separation" Has Preserved Religion -- Including Mormonism

by Steven Conn

You'd think that of all people, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, would know better.In his recent, quasi-confessional speech about his religion and the role of religion in the town square, Romney said: "Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong." In fact, it is Romney who has it wrong, and in that remark he perpetuates one of the cen

Think Religion Plays a Bigger Role in Politics Today? You're Right. Statistics Prove It.

by Kevin Coe and David Domke

The 2008 presidential campaign is striking in that it seems to be nearly as much about religion as politics. Mitt Romney’s much-discussed speech on faith and politics is just one recent example of a trend that has stretched throughout the campaign and across bo

Do Consumers Make Bad Voters?

by Rick Shenkman (Channeling John Dewey)

Before long we shall be past Christmas and it will be politics all the time: First Iowa, then New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina (or does South Carolina come before Nevada? Whatever). But before the Christmas lights are taken down and the metal trees are put away until next year, it is worthwhile pausing to consider what the season tells us about our politics. Contrast for a moment the lines that form outside Wal-Mart on the day of a big sale with the short lines we ar

It Ain’t No Social Crisis: Barry Bonds in Historical Perspective

by Ron Briley

Never mind the national intelligence estimates that terrorists are massing for another strike against the United States, for a far greater threat to our way of life and the homeland is posed by an angry black man. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants is posed to become baseball all-time home run champion. There is considerable gnashing of teeth and jeremiads from the media regarding what it means to the youth of America to have perhaps the nation’s most esteemed sporting re