Roundup: Historians' Take

Thomas Frank: It's time for Obama to channel Harry Truman on health-care reform

[Thomas Frank is a historian and founder of The Baffler magazine.] What is at stake in the debate over health care is more than the mere crafting of policy. The issue is now the identity of the Democratic Party. By now we know that Democrats can bail out traditional Republican constituencies like Wall Street, but it remains to be seen whether they can enact a convincing version of their own signature issue, health-care reform. At this point, it's fair to a

Julian E. Zelizer: Ted Kennedy was a true believer

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book, "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," will be published this fall by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.] In one of the funniest scenes in the film "The Big Lebowski," the hot-headed Vietnam veteran Walter Sobchak, played by John Goodman, explains to t

Julian E. Zelizer: Liberals' passion for public option

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book, "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," will be published this fall by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.] President Obama was caught off guard by the frustration that liberals expressed at the suggestion he might drop the public option from health care reform.

Richard Pipes: Pride and Power, Russia caught between continents and haunted by its past

[Richard Pipes is Frank B. Baird Jr. professor of history, emeritus, at Harvard University. In 1981 and 1982 he served as Director of East European and Soviet Affairs in President Reagan's National Security Council.] Russia is obsessed with being recognized as a "Great Power." She has felt as one since the 17th century, after having conquered Siberia, but especially since her victory in World War II over Germany and the success in sending the first human into space. It cos

Tom Palaima: On Cable News, "Truth" Sometimes Resembles "1984"

[Mr. Palaima teaches classics at the University of Texas at Austin. He may be reached at tpalaima@sbcglobal.net.] In George Orwell's "1984," the central character, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting news items from the past so they support what the all-controlling inner Party asserts as present and past reality. The slogan that sums up this process is, "He who controls the past controls the future." Past government reports, economic plans and proj

Bethany Moreton: Culture War on Aisle 5? Wal-Mart, Evangelicals, and "Extreme Capitalism"

[Bethany Moreton is Assistant Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of Georgia.] "If you want to reach the Christian population on Sunday, you do it from the church pulpit. If you want to reach them on Saturday, you do it in Wal-Mart." <p align="right">—Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition, 1995</p> "Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul." <p align="righ

Juan Cole: Bush Admin. worse than our Nightmares

It was worse. Back in the bad old days of Bush's corrupt gang, we on the left were pilloried for suggesting that the administration was manipulating terrorism-related news in order to win the 2004 elections. But when Tom Ridge says it . . . In fact, I argued in summer, 2004, that when Ridge did raise the terrorism alert, it had the unfortunate effect of outing an al-Qaeda double agent who had been turned by the Pakistani government and was helping set a trap for al-Qaed

Neve Gordon: Boycott Israel

[Neve Gordon is the author of "Israel's Occupation" and teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.] Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosm

Moshe Dann: The International Red Cross' War Against Israel

[Moshe Dann is a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.] For nearly four decades, many in the international community have insisted that Jews are forbidden to live in Judea, Samaria, Gaza (Yesha), “eastern Jerusalem,” and the Golan — areas conquered by Israel in 1967. Leading this fight was and is a private Swiss organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC was the first international organiz

Martin Kramer: Some day, Yale's prince will come

[Martin Kramer is the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Adelson Institute Senior Fellow at the Shalom Center in Jerusalem, and Olin Institute Senior Fellow at Harvard University.] One of the most disturbing aspects of the Danish cartoons scandal at Yale University Press is the role of the university administration. When author Jytte Klausen was summoned by John Donatich, director of the press, to hear that it wouldn't publish the cartoons in her

Josef Joffe: The Default Power (the USA)

[Josef Joffe is co-editor of Die Zeit and a fellow in international relations at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A longer version of this essay will appear in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.] Every 10 years, it is decline time in the United States. In the late 1950s, it was the Sputnik shock, followed by the “missile gap” trumpeted by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign. A decade later, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger predicted a world

Andrew McMichael: The Danger of Fox News

[McMichael is an Associate Professor of History at Western Kentucky University.] The other day I happened to be sitting in the dentist’s office. Naturally Fox News was on the television in the waiting room, and there was no way to get it changed. The staff prefers it, as do most of the customers. So, I played a bit on the iPhone and kind of watched the circus out of one eye. Their “news” reminds me of a clown car at a circus: it’s like an endless stream of stupid piling out of the mouths

Tom Engelhardt: Biking Out of Iraq

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing.] The Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003 with a force of approximately 130,000 troops. Top White House and Pentagon officials like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were convinced that, by August, those troops, welcomed with

Martin Kramer: Fear-mongering at Yale

[Martin Kramer is the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Adelson Institute Senior Fellow at the Shalom Center in Jerusalem, and Olin Institute Senior Fellow at Harvard University.] Flash back to 2006. Professor Marcia Inhorn, a medical anthropologist and director of the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan, is invited to lecture in Tehran on her field of expertise, infertility and assisted reproductive

Juan Cole: Obama Defends Afghanistan War

President Barack Obama gave a major speech on the Afghanistan War to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday. Ironically,the American Taliban was milling around outside the hall with guns as Obama spoke. Others have pointed out that Bush's handlers would never have allowed any such thing. Hell, they unconstitutionally designated 'protest zones.' Anyway, about Afghanistan 1. Obama reiterated his pledge to get the US out of Iraq:"And we will remove all our troops f

Orlando Patterson: Race and Diversity in the Age of Obama

[Orlando Patterson is a professor of sociology at Harvard and the author of “The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in America’s ‘Racial’ Crisis.”] Barack Obama’s historic victory was made possible by two great converging forces that began near the middle of the last century: the civil rights revolution and the changes engendered by the Immigration Act of 1965. The civil rights movement led to the rapid dismantling of Jim Crow and the inclusion of black Americans in poli

Stanley I. Kutler: Lesson of Vietnam Lost in Afghanistan

[Stanley Kutler is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and other writings.] On Aug. 17, President Barack Obama made the obligatory presidential pilgrimage to the conclave of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, this time on Sen. John McCain’s home turf. The Phoenix speech, carried live on cable networks, captured a VFW audience often surly and seemingly uninterested in the president’s remarks. But at one point, he predictably brought even his recalcitrant audience to its feet when he mad

Daniel Pipes: Counterterrorism in Obama's Washington

[Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.] Barack Obama's assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, "A New Approach for Safeguarding Americans." To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Wash

Arthur Milnes: Harper and Ignatieff flub their medicare moment

[Arthur Milnes, a fellow of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University, served as research assistant to Brian Mulroney on the latter's 2007 Memoirs.] The question came during a news conference featuring Canada's prime minister and the sitting American president 20 years ago this year. The president standing next to our guy was relatively new to office. And after our PM answered the question at the White House itself, no one even suggested that Canadians were interfe

Rick Perlstein: Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage

[Mr. Perlstein's latest book is Nixonland.] In Pennsylvania last week, a citizen, burly, crew-cut and trembling with rage, went nose to nose with his baffled senator: "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." He was accusing Arlen Specter of being too kind to President Obama's proposals to make it easier for people to get health insurance.