Recently Published

The Phony Document that Almost Cost a President His Election (No, Not the CBS Bush Guard Memo)

by Andrew Gyory

With just weeks to go before election day, a disputed document surfaces on a hot-button campaign issue. Critics charge forgery, experts examine signatures and punctuation, politicians trade charges—and the press eagerly reports every sordid detail. The recent fracas over the CBS “60 Minutes” account of George W. Bush’s national guard service? Or an incident from more than 120 years ago in the presidential race between Republican James A. Garfield and Democrat Winfield

The Warren Commission Report: 40 Years Later It Still Stands Up

by Mel Ayton

Forty years ago this month President Lyndon B. Johnson’s commission to investigate his predecessor’s assassination published the results of its ten-month inquiry. The Warren Commission, named after its chairman ,Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that President Kennedy had been killed by a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald and there was no evidence of conspiracy. The findings were accepted by a majority of the American public. However, a significant minority gree

If Bush Is Such a Strong Leader, How Come He Hasn't Cast a Single Veto?

by Peter B. Levy

Not since James Garfield resided in the White House in 1881 has a President failed to exercise his veto power. Since Garfield's residency was shortened to mere months by an assassin's bullet, we have to go back to 1825, when John Quincy Adams served out his full term without vetoing a single bill. Ironically, Bush casts himself as a man of principles who, unlike his opponent, is ready, willing and able to stand up to political pressure. His record of having signed every single measure t

The Eerie Similarities Between the Elections of 1900 and 2004

by William Marina

Separated by one hundred and four years, the presidential elections of 1900 and 2004 offer some starling and almost eerie similarities. In 1900 the Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan, opposed incumbent Republican William McKinley, ostensibly over the issue of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines, and years later (1937), the Stanford historian, Thomas A. Bailey asked, "Was the Election of 1900 a Mandate for Imperialism?"After the breakup of the Soviet Union more tha

The Reason Lynne Cheney Had 300,000 History Booklets Destroyed

by Jonathan Rees

"Imagine that you wake up one morning to find out you have no memory!" Coming from an administration that wants Americans to forget its original rationale for going to war in Iraq or that President Bush ever met former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, you might think that this is more a wish than a suggestion. In fact, it's the beginning of a newly revised pamphlet from the Department of Education entitled "Helping Your Child Learn History." Like other aspects of rec

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

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

How an Idea of Ike's Could Help Settle India/Pakistan Nuclear Tensions--And Help Us Win the War on Terrorism

by William Lambers

There's encouraging news about ending the decades-old conflict between India and Pakistan. At the United Nations, the leaders of both nations recently expressed their desire for peaceful coexistence, and called for confidence-building measures. How crucial is this development for the United States? Extremely. The war against terrorism cannot be won without stability in South Asia. Now is the time for the United States to intensify its efforts to help establish peace between the two r

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

Iraq's Jewish Pogrom and World War II

by Edwin Black

At about 3 PM, June 1, 1941 everything changed for Iraq's Jews. No American Holocaust museum pays homage to their tragedy. Holocaust studies have virtually overlooked the incident and its profound consequences. But the Jews of Baghdad foun

Why America Needs Someone Like Gorbachev

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The term statesman, in its positive sense, can be applied to only a few current and former heads of state. One of them is Mikhail Gorbachev. The former Soviet president spoke out forcefully in London recently at the kickoff of a new campaign called Come Clean.

Did Harry Truman Use Scare Tactics to Get the Marshall Plan Approved?

by Alex Bosworth

On the campaign trail, Vice President Dick Cheney has ominously alluded to the possibility that America would "get hit again" during a Kerry presidency. In return Democrats have accused the Bush administration of engaging in scare tactics when it comes to the War on Terror. But if scare tactics truly are the Bush strategy, he will not be the first American president to use them in order

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

Lynne Cheney: Book Burner?

by Steven J. Ross

One of the marks of authoritarian regimes is their effort to stop the spread of knowledge and free speech. In May 1933, Nazi sympathizers in Berlin burned 20,000 "degenerate" books, many of them written by Jews and anti-fascists such as Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka. Here at home, slaveholders were so frightened by the power of the word that throughout the antebellum South legislatures made it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Now, Lynne Cheney

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

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

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 "

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

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