Roundup: Media's Take

Peter Carlson: For the 2010 Census, Knocking on America's Doors

[Peter Carlson, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is a columnist for American History magazine. He is also the author of "K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist." He served as a temporary census worker this year.] ...I'm a retired newspaperman, and I enlisted as a temporary $18.50-an-hour census worker because I figured it would be interesting. As every reporter knows, it's always entertaining to meet t

David Frum: Who Killed Detroit?

[David Frum is the editor of FrumForum.com. Frum is the author of six books, including two New York Times bestsellers: The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush (2003), and co-author with Richard Perle of An End to Evil: How To Win the War on Terror (2004). His newest book is, Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again, published by Doubleday on December 31, 2007 and released in paperback in January 2009.] Who killed Detroit? Why did this once-mighty city fall so much

Ian Williams: The Cold War is so over

[Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.] It's not quite James Bond. The Murphy couple in their New Jersey Home with cans of coke, Bud Lite, and bottles of ketchup in front of them definitely made to be shaken not stirred. As for deep undercover, a Russian accent from someone with an archetypal Irish name like Murphy had even the friendly neighbors wondering what the deal was. Now with the

Henry D. Fetter: The Fight of the Century -- Really

[Henry D. Fetter is the author of Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball and has written widely about the business and politics of sports.] Very few sports events (certainly far fewer than sports fans imagine) merit a place in the history of a society but one that does took place 100 years ago this Sunday. It was on Independence Day 1910, in Reno, Nevada, that heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson defended his title against former champion James J.

Frank Rich: Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010

[Frank Rich is a columnist for the NYT.] ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America’s original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today. Of all the countless attempts to dispel that shadow over the nation’s birth, few were more ambitious than the hard-fought bill Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law just in time for another Fourth of July, 46 summers ago. With the holiday weekend approaching, Johnson summ

Dahlia Lithwick: Kagan v. Marshall

[Dahlia Lithwick is a contributing editor at Newsweek.] When Senate Republicans decided to turn the first day of Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing into a referendum on her mentor, Justice Thurgood Marshall, they made two mistakes. The first was tactical: most Americans don’t care much about Marshall’s jurisprudential style. They think of him as a lion of the civil-rights movement, and deriding him as a “judicial activist” and “results oriented” served only to insu

William Bradley: The Afghan War and the Spirit of Jefferson

[William Bradley is an award-winning columnist and investigative reporter and a former political advisor. His NewWestNotes.com is the California leader in real-time political analysis.]"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."Today he is best known as the principal author of the Declaration of Indep

Nathan Ward: Take Me to the River in New York, Finally

[Nathan Ward is the author of “Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront.”] ...In the Colonial era, the waterfront was the province of those who wanted to go to sea, or at least to unload ships. Cargo-laden clipper ships entering the harbor produced a call for “Men Along the Shore!” — longshoremen. Back then, those men with the patience to keep alert for the flare or flag of an approaching vessel and the physical strength to “bull” cargo were really the only people allowed ne

Jonah Goldberg: Byrd Tributes Go Overboard

[Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.] It is a good rule of thumb not to speak ill of the dead. But what to do when a man is celebrated beyond the limits of decorum or common sense? Must we stay silent as others celebrate the beauty and splendor of the emperor’s invisible clothes? You probably know why I ask the question. Robert Byrd, the longest-serving member of the Senate in American h

Michelle Malkin: Assimilation and the Founding Fathers

[Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.] ...Even if we were a “nation of immigrants,” this would not explain why we should be against sensible immigration control. The Founding Fathers were emphatically insistent on protecting the country against indiscriminate mass immigration. They insisted on assimilation as a precondition, not an afterthought. Historian John Fonte assembled their wisdom, and it bears repeat

Danny Heitman: Fourth of July and Thoreau Remind Us That U.S. Progress is Linked with its Ecology

[Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Baton Rouge Advocate, is the author of “A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.”] The Fourth of July is not only America’s birthday, but also the anniversary of one of the boldest experiments in American letters. On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts and began writing “Walden,” the autobiographical book that would define his legacy. Thoreau was many

Walter Rodgers: July 4 is Important -- But So is July 3

[Walter Rodgers, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, writes a biweekly column.] Perhaps only in small Yankee towns like this one in Connecticut are we reminded that the Fourth of July is about two other anniversaries at least as important as 13 English Colonies thumbing their noses at a British king. The fate of our beloved country hung in the balance those first few days of July 1863 because of the mortal threat posed by the Confederate States’ insurre

Eric O’Keefe: The Founders Didn't Create America; America Created the Founders

[Eric O’Keefe is Chairman of Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based non-profit that supports citizen activism and responsible government.] When the Swedish botanist Pehr Kalm visited the American colonies in 1748 to find seeds useful for agriculture, he called it a place where “a newly married man can, without difficulty, get a spot of ground where he may comfortably subsist with his wife and children,” and “the liberties he enjoys are so great that he considers himself a prince of his

Jeffrey Rosen: Brandeis’s Seat, Kagan’s Responsibility

[Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, is writing a book about Louis D. Brandeis.] IN her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week, Elena Kagan cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. as her model of judicial restraint in response to questions from Republican senators who want the court to overturn health care, campaign finance and economic regulations. Ms. Kagan picked the wrong justice. H

Sue Fishkoff: Red, White, and Kosher

[Sue Fishkoff is the author of the forthcoming “Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority.”] IN 1972, a TV commercial changed the way Americans looked at kosher food. It showed Uncle Sam munching on a Hebrew National beef hot dog as a heavenly voice assures him it is free of the additives and byproducts present in lesser processed meats. “We answer to a higher authority,” the voice proclaims. Trust us — we’re kosher....

Stephen Marche: Byrd and the Bard

[Stephen Marche, a columnist for Esquire, is writing a book about Shakespeare’s effect on world history.] SHAKESPEARE scholars, and the literary community generally, have selfish motives for missing Robert Byrd, the West Virginia senator who died last week at 92. Historians will long debate his complicated legacy, but scholars will no doubt agree that he was the greatest Shakespeare-quoter in American political history. His death marks the passing of an entire style of literate poli

Steve Clemons: Lindsey Graham: In Today's Republican Party, Reagan Wouldn't Make It as a Republican

[Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons] The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz profiles reactions to Tea-Partyism today and notes that Senator Lindsey Graham, who once told me that his favorite film was Seven Days in May and that one of his biggest fears for the country was national security and military demagoguery, doesn't have much time for the Tea Party. From Kurtz's good piece:

Chris Weigant: The Forgotten Battle Which Won The American Revolution

[Chris Weigant is a political commentator. He has been a regular contributor to Arianna Huffington’s The Huffington Post since June of 2006, and also writes on his own website, ChrisWeigant.com.]>p>The Revolutionary War lasted a lot longer than most of us realize. Begun in 1775, the war didn't end for six long years, and wasn't fully resolved for another two. During this time, American forces had some notable victories, and also more than a few ignoble defeats at the hands of the Briti

Eugene Goodheart: Obama On and Off Base

[Eugene Goodheart is Edytha Macy Gross Professor of Humanities, Emeritus at Brandeis University. He is the author of many books of literary and cultural criticism as well as a memoir, Confessions of a Secular Jew.] My object is to defend Barack Obama against attacks on him by what has been his liberal constituency. Again and again he is accused of timidity and excessive caution for not fighting for their agenda. The assumption is that his agenda and theirs coincide, and that he lack

Todd Gitlin: Confessions of an Epistemological Skeptic

[Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia. His next book, The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election(written with Liel Leibovitz), will be out in September.] I’m struck by how quickly some of my fellow Entanglers have brought up the mother of all epistemological quandaries: How can we, the not very well informed, know what is the case in a far-off land of which we know, well, not