Roundup: Historians' Take

Jonathan Zimmerman: Purging Larry Craig

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century" (Harvard University Press, 2006).] Is Larry Craig gay? I don't know the answer to that question, and I don't much care, either. But here's what I do know: Shaming Craig out of office because of his alleged homosexuality echoes some of the worst chapters of American history. And we should all be ashamed abou

Juan Cole: So who really dissolved the Iraqi army? We know.

[Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, e

Stuart Taylor & KC Johnson: Guilty in the Duke Case

[Stuart Taylor is a National Journal columnist and Newsweek contributor. KC Johnson is a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center. They are co-authors of "Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case."] One night in jail: So concludes the Duke lacrosse rape case -- rape fraud, as it turned out. The legacy of this incident should include hard thinking about the deep pathologies underlying the m

Eric Rauchway: Why John Edwards is the man to lead us out of the mortgage crisis

[Eric Rauchway is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, and the author, most recently, of Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America and Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America. ] crisis like the current credit crunch presents a political leader with a range of options. One can say that the banks, backstopped by the Federal Reserve, will sort things out--which with minor modifications remains the president's position. One can go

Fred Siegel: Stalled at Ground Zero

[Mr. Siegel, a professor of history at The Cooper Union for Science & Art, is the author of "The Prince of the City, Giuliani, New York & the Genius of American Life" (Encounter Books, 2006).] The recent preventable deaths of two firemen in the toxic hulk of the Deutsche Bank building adjacent to Ground Zero casts a shadow on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's hands-off managerial style. It also casts a light on Rudy Giuliani's handling of the 9/11 cleanup, and by

Frederick Kagan: What the Jones Report really says

[Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.] SOME IN THE MEDIA have been remarkably quick to report on leaked copies of reports about Iraq before the average person has a chance to read them. There is a reason, apart from the usual journalistic desire to be first with a story. The reports often don't say what the reporters want them to. First leaks about the National Intelligence Estimate and the re

Mackubin Thomas Owens: U.S. military doctrine in Iraq is returning to some tried and true ideas

[Mr. Owens is professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is writing a history of American civil-military relations.] ... Some years ago, the late Carl Builder of Rand wrote a book called "The Masks of War," in which he demonstrated the importance of the organizational cultures of the various military services. His point was that each service possesses a preferred way of fighting that is not easily changed. Since the 1930s,

Abigail Thernstrom: A stunning new book shows how elite culture made the Duke rape hoax possible

[Ms. Thernstrom is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the recipient of a 2007 Bradley Award.] Privileged, rowdy white jocks at an elite, Southern college, a poor, young black stripper, and an alleged rape: It was a juicy, made-for-the-media story of race, class and sex, and it was told and retold for months with a ferocious, moralistic intensity. Reporters and pundits ripped into Duke University, the white race and the young lacrosse players at the center of the episode,

Gary Leupp: Filipino Revolutionary, Cleared of EU “Terrorist” Charge, Arrested in Holland

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.] On the morning of August 28, Dutch plainclothes police raided the home of exiled Filipino revolutionary leader Jose Maria Sison in Utrecht, the Netherlands, arrested him and charged him with ordering the murder of two persons in the Ph

Todd Gitlin: The New Liberal Agenda

[Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.] It is a pleasure to respond to E.J. Dionne Jr.'s essay now that it can truly be said that liberals and the left face the greatest political opening since the 1960s. We ought to be in for a time when civil discussion about our nature and principles can proceed without being mistaken for self-flagellation or for the giddy presumption that liberalism is bound to prevail. The world is in too much jeopardy f

Daniel Pipes: Teach Arabic or Recruit Extremists?

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] New York City's Arabic-language public school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, opens its doors this week, with special security, for 11- and 12-year-old

Kimberly Kagan: The tide is turning in Iraq

[Kimberly Kagan, the president of the ISW, is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale University, Georgetown University, and American University. She is currently an affiliate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Kagan previously held an Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship in Military History at Yale International Security Studies in 2004-2005 and was a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for S

Frederick Kagan: Al Qaeda In Iraq

[Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).] Al Qaeda In Iraq is part of the global al Qaeda movement. AQI, as the U.S. military calls it, is around 90 percent Iraqi. Foreign fighters, however, predominate in the leadership and among the suicide bombers, of whom they comprise up to 90 percent, U.S. commanders say. The leader of AQI is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an E

Juan Cole: How safe is al-Anbar?

Bush made a surprise visit to Al-Anbar Province on Monday, as part of his propaganda drive to get Americans to think we should stay in Iraq because"progress" is being made.The debate over al-Anbar province is driven by the Bushies' desire to find any 'good news' to grasp at. Indeed, from 2003 forward, their criterion for objective reporting on Iraq was that it gave the 'go

Harvey J. Kaye: Democrats should recall what made Roosevelt truly great.

[Harvey Kaye is professor of social change and development at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.] As we look ahead this Labour Day to the elections of 2008, those of us who call ourselves progressives should hope not only that the Democrats recapture the White House and additional congressional seats, but that those Democrats advance the memory and legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Why Roosevelt? While it

Aaron Belkin: A Sting He Didn't Deserve (Re: Larry Craig)

[Aaron Belkin is an associate professor of political science at the University of California-Santa Barbara and director of UCSB's Palm Center, which has done studies of military policy toward gay men, lesbians and other sexual minorities.] ... Craig's case apparently was handled according to the book. But the use of everyday gestures that fall short of sex to mete out punishment for sexual misconduct illustrates a revealing departure from methods that investigators used to carry out

Stanley I. Kutler: Civics for Cheney

[Stanley I. Kutler is the author of Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes.] Has the field of constitutional law and history been so infiltrated by the Federalist Society and its brigades of Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas law clerks that Vice President Dick Cheney's remarks about belonging to the executive and legislative branches continue to stand unchallenged and unanswered? Anyone with an elementary knowledge of political science, or even eighth-grade civics, must know the most basic

Gary Leupp: Sen. Larry Craig in the Toilet

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.] The Jeff Gannon Affair drew our attention to the fact that a male prostitute can sleep over at the White House on multiple occasions. The Mark Foley Affair alerted us to the phenomenon of conservative Republican lawmakers’ passion for

Juan Cole: The war against Iraq's prime minister

[Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edi

Jonathan Zimmerman: Why is it a more serious crime to kill a dog than hit a woman?

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of"Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century" (Harvard University Press). ] I am a carnivore. I eat chickens, cows, and sometimes even pigs. For food.    Michael Vick is a dogfighter. He teaches dogs to kill each other, and sometimes he even kills them himself. For fun.    What's the difference?    We've just concluded a month-long media gang-tackle against Vick, who