Roundup: Historians' Take

Juan Cole: The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down

The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their stringent morality, since they could always just buy any licentiousness they wanted, regardless of the law. And the New Puritans were so consumed with cultural issues such as homosexuality, abortion, school prayer and (y

Juan Cole: Pakistan on Brink

The new National Intelligence Estimate on Pakistan will apparently depict that country as 'on the edge,' with 'no money, no energy, no government.' The fear is expressed that an unstable Pakistan will become a center for al-Qaeda plotting against the US. The situation in Pakistan for ordinary people is indeed tough. Fuel and wheat prices have skyrocketed. But all along, a third of the population has had to live on less than a dollar a day and the NIE wasn't so worried a

Stanley Kutler: Rethinking Afghanistan

[Stanley Kutler is the author of The Wars of Watergate, among other writings.] What in the world is Barack Obama thinking? Mercifully, he plans to scale down and end the Iraq misadventure, yet he insists he will expand the effort in Afghanistan, and pursue Osama bin Laden to the ends of Tora Bora. In his first debate with John McCain, Obama said: "We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. . . . So I would send two to

Peter Augustine Lawler: The Electoral College: Top 10 Stengths & Weaknesses

[Peter Lawler is Dana Professor of Government at Berry College in Georgia. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Postmodernism Rightly Understood, Stuck With Virtue, Aliens in America, and Homeless and at Home in America.] 1. A big reason third-party candidates don’t fare well in America is that they’re usually not really competitive for winning electors. Perot got 19% of the popular vote in 1992. But he didn’t win any electors because he didn’t win the pluralit

Tom Engelhardt: My Depression -- or Ours?

[Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of Victory Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has just been thoroughly updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq.] Among my somewhat over-the-hill crowd --

Jack Balkin: The Five Worst Supreme Court Decisions of the Past Fifty Years

[Jack Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment and Director, The Information Society Project at Yale Law School.] David Savage of the L.A. Times asked me to list the worst Supreme Court decisions of the past fifty years-- dating back to 1958. It's hard to say what makes a decision bad. It could be an incorrect reading of precedent, a mangling of history, or a failure to exercise judgment and understand the long-term consequences of a decision. In any

Julian Zelizer: Will 'intellectual' label hurt Obama?

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the author of "On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000" and the editor of "The American Congress: The Building of Democracy." He is finishing a book on the history of national-security politics since World War II. He regularly writes for Politico, The Huffington Post and the Washington Independent.] PRINCE

Victor Davis Hanson: Has McCain been mean?

On CNN last evening both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the "old" noble McCain is gone-and a "new" nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops. Recently Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama, likewise lamenting the loss of the old noble McCain. New York Times columnist David Brooks dubbed Palin a "cancer,&q

Julian Zelizer: Reagan's blues

This has been a terrible week for conservatives. Since the financial crisis began, McCain's support has been plummeting in the polls. The most recent data also suggests that the election might result in a Democratic landslide for Obama and also in the congressional races, potentially giving Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate. Perhaps just as bad for the long-term future of the Republican Party the McCain-Palin campaign has adopted a new vicious tone. This harkens back to previous c

Victor Davis Hanson: Reasons for hope on the first Tuesday in November

Of course, this is a Democratic year. The public is tired of George Bush and eight years of an incumbent administration. War, Wall Street, and the absence of a conservative Reagan-like charismatic figure should make it easy for a Democrat to win the presidency. After a nearly miraculous McCain surge in September, following the Republican Convention and Palin nomination, the Republicans are once again floundering — and a sense of utter despair has now set in among conservatives. Wal

Dana D. Nelson: The 'unitary executive' question

[Dana D. Nelson, a professor of American studies at Vanderbilt University, is the author of "Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People."] In answering Gwen Ifill's question about vice presidential powers at last week's debate, Joe Biden redirected attention to the still not very well known concept of the "unitary executive." Biden charged that Dick Cheney had become "the most dangerous vice president we've had prob

Julian Zelizer: The election is far from over, but the historical handicapping has already begun. Will 2008 be the liberals' 1980? Or not?

Liberals are trying to determine whether this election will be more like 1952 or 1980. In '52, Dwight Eisenhower— an immensely popular figure because of his military service in World War II—defeated Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson. But the victory did not put a stake through the heart of liberalism. Though Eisenhower enjoyed two terms and high popularity, Democrats regained control of Congress by 1954 and were back in the White House six years later. The election of 1980 had a more la

Tony Badger: How FDR saved US

[Tony Badger is the author of FDR: The First Hundred Days.] On the morning of Franklin D Roosevelt’s inauguration as US president on March 4, 1933, the governors of New York and Illinois closed their banks. Roosevelt proclaimed a national bank holiday, which closed all the banks in the country until Congress could reconvene to pass banking legislation. The whole system appeared to have ground to a halt. The following Sunday, he addressed the nation on the

Chalmers Johnson: Back to 1932

[Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006). All are available in paperback

Mary Hershberger: Investigating John McCain’s Tragedy at Sea

[Mary Hershberger is a historian and the author of “Jane Fonda’s War” and other books. She is a recipient of the Binkley-Stephenson Award, given annually for the best scholarly article in the Journal of American History.] John McCain’s personal account of his life has shaped a powerful political narrative that accords him deference on the fu

Norman Markowitz: Does Sarah Palin Want to be an American Citizen?

[Mr. Markowitz teaches history at Rutgers.] Sarah Palin is attacking Barack Obama for "palling around with terrorists," twisting media accounts to falsely connect Obama with the Weather Underground figure Bill Ayers. Let me say that I have no sympathy, and never had, for the anarcho-syndicalist craziness and bona fide infantile leftism, that Ayers and his associates represented nearly 40 years ago, when Obama was in the 3rd grade. By contrast, Sarah Palin

Andrew Meyer: Same-Sex Marriage as a Civil Right

[About Meyer: After living in mainland China and Taiwan for four years and in Japan for one year I returned to the U.S. and earned a doctoral degree in Chinese history, which I teach at the City University of New York. This blog reflects my belief that the study of the history and culture of other nations is indispensible to the conduct of modern politics.] The decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage is a welcome step forward in the struggle to advance the

John Steele Gordon: Why our system is prone to panics

[Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004).] We are now in the midst of a major financial panic. This is not a unique occurrence in American history. Indeed, we've had one roughly every 20 years: in 1819, 1836, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929, 1987 and now 2008. Many of these marked the beginning of an extended period of economic depression. How could the richest and most productive econom

Herbert Bix: The Russo-Georgia War and the Challenge to American Global Dominance

[Herbert Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, which won the Pulitzer Prize, teaches at Binghamton University, New York, and writes on issues of war and empire. He is a Japan Focus associate.] The five-day Russo-Georgian War in the Caucasus brought into sharp focus many conflicts rooted in the region’s history and in aggressive US-NATO policies since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Notable among these were the military encirclement of Russia and attempts to cont

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: China’s long march to modernisation

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is the author of Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (Routledge, December 2008), and co-editor (with Kate Merkel-Hess & Kenneth Pomeranz) of China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2009). He is a professor of history at the University of California - Irvine, the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and a regular contributor to The China Beat: Blogging How the East Is Read.] When commentators contrast the current situat