News at Home

Me-Too Democrats and the Mid-Term Elections

by Robert S. McElvaine

As Democrats assess the debacle the party suffered in Tuesdays elections, they will necessarily ask themselves two questions: What went wrong? and Who is responsible? The answer to the second question includes several people. Among them are Osama bin Laden, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush. Bin Laden and his terrorists did for George W. Bush what Timothy McVeigh and company did for Bill Clinton. National tragedy leads people to turn to the only president they have at the ti

The National Insecurity State

by Ira Chernus

Fifty years ago this month, American voters chose Dwight D. Eisenhower as their next president. Though few realized it at the time, they also chose a vision of America as a nation permanently in peril. The Eisenhower era created a state of national insecurity that has lasted for half a century. The Bush administration constantly voices the nation's hope for security. Yet its actions plunge us even deeper into insecurity. This administration alienates allies, expands our list

Pipes Vs. Zinn: America and Iraq

Friday Forum LATELINE: Late night news & current affairs Australian Broadcasting Corporation October 4, 2002 TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Now to our Friday Forum on the Iraqi dilemma, with two formidable guests in the US. Joining me now from Seattle is Daniel Pipes. He's one of the few analysts who predicted the threat of militant Islam. Daniel Pipes now serves on the Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology at the US Department of Defense. He's

The Greatest Attack on Labor Since Reagan Walloped Air Traffic Controllers

by Norman Markowitz

As it prepares for war in the Middle East, the Bush administration is using the Taft-Hartley law to launch a mini-war against one of the strongest and historically militant and progressive unions in U.S. history, the International Longeshormans' and Warehousemans' Union (ILWU). Founded by Harry Bridges, a militant Australia-born partisan of socialism allied to the Communist Party, USA, in the 1930s(now that he is dead, the New York Times calls him a Marxist) the ILWU did

Does Jimmy Deserve the Nobel Prize?

by David Frum

Could there be a less deserved Nobel Prize than the one just awarded to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter? In his four years as President, Carter managed through weakness and ineptitude to create crisis after crisis. During the 1976 presidential campaign, he pledged to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea--a pledge that emboldened the North Koreans to position eight additional infantry divisions and 35% more tanks against the South. North Korean bellicosity forc

To Lay Us Down For Freedom's Sake, Our Brother's Bones Beside

by Robert Cook

America was hushed in sober silence as President Bush rose to the dais before a Joint Session of Congress, Thursday evening, 20 September 2001. Nine days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the forty-third President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, addressed the nation and the world to a House chamber filled with America's representatives and leaders. The gallery included President Bush's family, an imam, the Prime Mi

Historians Petition Congress to Take a Vote on War with Iraq

Following is a press release issued by Joyce Appleby on 9-6-02. A delegation of American historians will travel to Washington on September 17 to present a petition urging Congress to assume its Constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on whether or not to declare war on Iraq. Over 1,100 historians from every state in the union have signed the petition. The event, to be held at noon on the Terrace of the Cannon Hous

Why History Is Important

by President George W. Bush

On September 17, Constitution Day, President Bush delivered two speeches concerning history. In the first speech , given in the Rose Garden, he announced three new initiatives: (1)We the People, which will offer grants to improve the teaching of American history and civics, (2) Our Documents, which will place online important American historical documents, and (3)

Tonkin Gulf II?

by Donald R. Shaffer

The Bush administration has increased pressure on Congress for a quick resolution authorizing virtually unrestricted military action against Iraq. Sadly, most members of the House and Senate appear ready to acquiesce, eager to support a popular president before going off to face the voters in November. Only a brave few in Congress seem to remember the last time a president asked for such a carte blanche -- in 1964. The president was Lyndon Johnson. He got what became known a

Remember the Maine!

by Norman Markowitz

Bush's "Splendid Little War" In a class last night, I found myself dealing with the crisis of the 1890s. Economic uncertainty and growing anger against the railroads, the banks, and the Trusts. Widespread beliefs that the Senate and most of politics had become a millionaires club following a bitter and divisive presidential election in 1896. A new mass "yellow" press screaming headlines about colonial wars in Africa and the Near East where Bri

Is the Answer to Lock Up Our Gordon Gekkos?

by Robert Brent Toplin

"Greed . . . is good," said Gordon Gekko when addressing a stockholders' meeting in Oliver Stone's 1987 movie, "Wall Street." Gekko, an arrogant power broker, used insider knowledge to organize corporate buyouts that produced millions for himself while leaving others in ruins. His words resonated strongly in the 1980s, because they reminded audiences of the behavior of Ivan Boesky and other manipulative financiers accused of insider trading.

Column: 10 Days that Shook the Bush Presidency

by Thomas Spencer

If you ever wondered what it would look like for the wheels to come off the Bush presidency, the last ten days have certainly been it. It has been a disastrous last few days for the Bush administration. Recently, some journalists have argued the current situation resembles the political corruption and crony capitalism of the Gilded Age. While this argument has some merit (and, as a Gilded Age historian, I plan to examine it in a future column), Bush's presiden

Column: Everything I Ever Needed to Know About World Peace, I Learned from the Sloth

by William Thompson

In July 2002, I made a seventeen day tour of Peru. I ventured to ancient Cuzco and the exotic Inca fortress at Machu Picchu. I spent several days on the Amazon visiting Indian villages and hiking through the "selva." My final days were in the capital of Lima. It is always refreshing to escape the day to day life of the United States with its almost claustrophobic feelings brought about by the media's incessant accounts of turmoil and strife. Actually, for almost three wee

Civil Liberties: John Ashcroft Is Rewriting the 6th Amendment

by John Barnhill

Am I losing something here? Or is this federal government of ours inept, deceptive, or flat out determined to get a conviction regardless of the Constitution? I don't know. To steal from Will Rogers, all I know is what I read on the Internet. And what I read on the various news sites is that Zacarias Moussaoui wants to delay his trial. Seems he's having trouble reaching witnesses, being somewhat isolated. He's also having trouble getting access to government evidence becaus

Column: Windbags of War

by P.M. Carpenter

A few days ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued two statements regarding the "Iraq Question." One was deadly accurate and draped in honesty. The other was laughable--though equally lethal--in its dishonest inaccuracy.In response to ever-mounting criticism leveled at White House policy, which has come, principally, from septuagenarian Republican sages and not leftie peaceniks or the slumbering Democratic Party, Rumsfeld began by saying that Scowcrofti

The Immorality of Preventive War

by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

One of the astonishing events of recent months is the presentation of preventive war as a legitimate and moral instrument of U.S. foreign policy.This has not always been the case. Dec. 7, 1941, on which day the Japanese launched a preventive strike against the U.S. Navy, has gone down in history as a date that will live in infamy. During the Cold War, advocates of preventive war were dismissed as a crowd of loonies. When Robert Kennedy called the notion of a preve

9-11: Our Leaders Shouldn't Be Recycling the Speeches of Lincoln and FDR

by Andrew M. Schocket

To mark the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, both Republican and Democratic politicians will read aloud on television Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address and Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 Four Freedoms speech. But rereading old speeches neither pays homage to the fallen of Sept. 11, 2001, nor provides the inspiration the nation needs to give that tragedy meaning. Those tasks require new tributes and new visions. The Gettysburg Address and the Four Freedoms speech ins

Column: The Republicans Hate-Hate Relationship with Amtrak

by P.M. Carpenter

Unlike so many of America's corporate models of stability--WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, Adelphia Communications--Amtrak is a typical government-subsidized mess in urgent need of managerial and accounting reforms, say congressional conservatives. Things must change. But even then the railroad's future is in the hands of a wicked stepmother. House Majority Leader Dick Armey said to no one's surprise last week that he and his fellow Tories have no"heartfelt affection for Amtr

Column: Putting Lipstick on a Pig

by P.M. Carpenter

After experiencing, shall we say, a few setbacks, Vito Corleone asked his associates,"How did things get so far?" Excellent question, rooted as it was in the comprehension that those concerned needed to understand the past before evaluating the present and then moving on to repair unhappy circumstances. With respect to current national policies, some of which are no less socially criminal in intent than Vito's undertakings, a few folks are asking the same question.

Ex-Presidents Who Cashed In

by Mike Mattocks

Recently it was revealed that in his first year out of office ex-President Bill Clinton collected a hefty $9.2 million in fees from nearly 60 speeches. He collected $125,000 for most speeches; 12 brought in $200,000 or more. Clinton's job as President had already earned him $200,000 per year, plus an untaxed expense account. Add the fact that ex-Presidents receive a gene