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What If America Had Elected Walter Mondale in 1984?

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

The current Bush-Kerry debate about the realism of the U.S. led effort to remake the Middle East which is the real goal of the Iraq war reminds me of the 1984 Reagan-Mondale one. This is so because then as now the elections came at a pivotal moment when the price of the American rekindling of Cold War as the price of the war on terror was clear to all but the payoff was not. In other words, what if Mondale had won the 1984 election? The short answer seems to be that the Cold War with

Do the Bush Family Pols Play Dirty?

by Edward Olshaker

“At the Republican convention in Houston, they spent two days attacking Hillary. . . . I expect them to come after Mother and Chelsea, but they must be saving that for later.” --Bill Clinton, 9/6/92 In early March, Senator John Kerry made perhaps the most surprising comment any presidential candidate has made this year—a blunt warning that the Bush machine “will attack my character and even my wife’s.” His remark did not receive the kind of coverage

The Event from the Past that Suggests Maybe 9-11 Was a Pretext for Knocking Off Saddam

by James Ottavio Castagnera

The summer of '68 was an exciting time for my hometown of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Paramount Pictures brought Sean Connery, Richard Harris, Samantha Edgar and Anthony Zerby to the hard coal region to film The Molly Maguires. What premiered about a year and a half later in early 1970 was the classic tale of capitalist oppression, reprisals by a secret society of Irish terrorists, betrayal by an undercover agent, and --- inevitably --- the day of the rope. Connery, looking to

Can Bush Out-Hoover Hoover?

by Robert S. McElvaine

A young woman interviewed after the first presidential debate told the BBC that she was voting for Bush despite the fact that she thought he had"showed himself to be a complete idiot."Why?" the perplexed reporter inquired."Because Kerry is inconsistent," the American responded."At least Bush is consistent."   The reelection campaign of George W. Bush has placed almost all its chips on a bet that" consistency" will prove to be this year's trump card. It hopes that a majority of vot

The Third Bush/Kerry Debate: Highlights

by Bonnie Goodman

The Instant Polls CNN-USA Today Gallup poll: John Kerry the winner 53 percent to George Bush's 39 percent.ABC News poll: 42 percent called Kerry the winner, 41 percent said Bush won; 14 per cent called it a tie.Reuters/Zogby Poll: Bush has a one point lead 46-45 percent on Kerry in the campaign poll released Thursday, taken prior to the third debate.Candidate SoundbitesJohn F. Kerry"When th

Revising Hawaiian History for an Unambiguous Age

by Jonathan Dresner

Modern American society does not tolerate ambiguity. So the historically complex and legally ambiguous situation of Hawai`i's native population is crying out for clarification. Legislation to recognize Native Hawaiians as a sovereign indigenous nation -- the"Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act" or"Akaka Bill," which is stalled in the U.S. Senate -- would place a patchwork of special programs facing increasing challenges to their exclusive mandates and memberships in a coherent and l

Why Do Presidents Now Declare War Instead of Congress? ... Case Study ... War of 1812

by Walter R. Borneman

The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is creeping up on us. Big deal. If remembered at all, the War of 1812 is too often incorrectly thought of as a sideshow of military ineptitude squeezed between the earlier

The Second Bush/Kerry Debate: Highlights

by Bonnie Goodman

The Instant PollsABC News: Kerry was the winner 44 to 41 percent, with 13 percent declaring the debate a tie.CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll: Kerry: 47 percent, Bush: 45 percent.Reuters/Zogby poll: Kerry has a slim 46-45 percent lead on Bush in the campaign in the latest poll.Candidate SoundbitesGeorge W. BushAt one point [George W. Bush] interrupted moderator Charles Gibson's follow-up question after Kerry said he was "

After 100 Years of Debate -- And We're Still Executing Juveniles?

by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

On October 13, the Supreme Court begins to hear Roper v. Simmons, a case that could finally mean the abolition of the juvenile death penalty in the United States. Few people realize that we’ve been struggling for more than a century with how to regard and treat our violent youth. Are they men or merely boys? And should it make a difference in the way we think about their punishment? Our national history with the juvenile death penalty confirms that we have consistently

Is the Army Just for the Poor and Lower Class?

by Jules Tygiel

The debate over George W. Bush’s military career has largely run its course. Ample evidence now exists for Americans to decide whether the President’s youthful flirtation with the Texas Air National Guard has any bearing on his ability to lead the nation. Another aspect of the controversy, however, has gone unexplored. Tracing the history of the Bush family and its relationship to the military across the generations reveals a great deal about how American ideals of service and respon

The House's Scary Decision to Stop the Courts from Considering the Case of the Pledge of Allegiance

by Richard Labunski

By a lopsided margin, the U.S. House has approved a bill to prevent the Supreme Court from deciding whether the words "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. It's extremely rare for Congress to tamper with the Court's appellate jurisdiction. In fact, never before has such a drastic action been considered for so trivial a matter. The case involving the Pledge attracted much attention two years ago when a federal appeals court ruled that the phrase &q

Why this Election Is All About Vietnam

by Jerry Lembcke

News about the news surged to new heights recently with the admission by CBS anchor Dan Rather that he and the network had made an error in judgment in broadcasting a story about President George Bush’s National Guard record. The controversial September 8 “60 Minutes” segment had relied on documents received from former Texas National Guard officer, Bill Burkett. Those documents appeared to support a claim by Bush critics that he had received preferential treatment by his co

The First Bush/Kerry Debate: Highlights

by Bonnie Goodman

The Instant Polls CBS: Kerry the winner by 44-26 percent. ABC: Kerry the winner by 45-36 percent. CNN/Gallup: Kerry the winner by 53-37 percent.Candidate SoundbitesJohn F. Kerry"This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the president of the United States of America." "Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mis

The Vioxx Wake-Up Call

by Bob Batchelor

A turning point in medical history occurred on September 30, when Merck voluntarily withdrew pain reliever Vioxx from the marketplace due to further research that revealed potential long-term dangers. The Vioxx debacle delivers a crushing financial and reputational blow to Merck, and also calls into question the role of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its regulatory procedures for allowing new drugs to be released.Already, the mother of a woman in Missouri who died of a hear

If Clarence Darrow Were Alive Today

by James Ottavio Castagnera

Clarence Darrow, arguably the most famous American lawyer of all time, is best remembered for the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1926, immortalized in the Broadway play and two film versions of "Inherit the Wind." But one hundred years ago, during the first decade of the twentieth century, Darrow was the nation's leading labor lawyer, fighting for union causes across the country. His most colorful labor cases included: The 1904 Anthracite Coal Arbitration in Scr

The Story Behind the Debate

by Ira Chernus

The first Bush-Kerry debate made the Democrat's dilemma all too clear. Kerry wants to focus on pocketbook issues, promising every American a chance to achieve or retain a comfortable middle class standard of living. In a debate restricted to foreign policy, he could only criticize the president and say,"Somehow, I'll do better."Bush was content to focus on foreign affairs, as long as he could stick to the big picture and avoid talking about realities on the Iraqi ground. With the econo

Why the Bush/Kerry Debate Should Quiet America-Bashers

by Gil Troy

It is easy to mock the American presidential campaign. It is easy to snicker about the candidates squabbling about the wrong war – Vietnam, which ended decades ago – while ignoring the more relevant conflict of today – Iraq. It is easy to caricature the two candidates, with Senator John Kerry’s poofy hairdo and monumentally long chin that only a cartoonist could love, with President George W. Bush’s beady-eyes, and thin-lipped schoolboy grin. It is easy to dismis

What Works (And Doesn't) at the Presidential Debates

by Gil Troy

Toward the end of the leaden first 1976 presidential debate between President Gerald R. Ford and the Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter, a 25-cent capacitator short-circuited, silencing both the television and the radio relays. For twenty-seven minutes, while engineers tried to restore the sound, the two men vying for the presidency of the United States stood silent before 85 million viewers – except when the cameras momentarily panned away and the two wiped their brows. Two weeks la

What Can Happen When Bush Meets Kerry

by Ian C. Friedman

The incumbent president, besieged by a lagging economy and a major Middle East crisis, holds onto a small but sustained lead in the latest presidential election polls. The challenger, portrayed by his opposition as potentially dangerous to American security, seeks to prove to the nation that he has the leadership and vision to serve as president. Finally, the candidates prepare for their first debate. A description of the 2004 presidential campaign? Yes, but also a description of the

Is John Kerry Taking the Black Vote for Granted? (Of Course, He Is)

by Mike Davis

The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Ivan looked sinisterly like Strom Thurmond's version of the Rapture. Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath. New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials conce