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The David McCullough Nobody Knows

by Philip Nobile

David McCullough has not yet claimed landing at Omaha Beach or hitting a game-winning grand slam for his high school baseball team. But based on mistakes in his two latest biographies--the current best-selling John Adams and the 1992 blockbuster Truman--McCullough may be on a slippery slope to the minors. Whether the errors were calculated or merely the result of reckless research is explored below. The false step in John Adams is a virtual copycat of the foul-up i

No, the Catholic Church Isn't Being Hypocritical for Going After Liberal Politicians

by Timothy Furnish

The recent decision by some Roman Catholic bishops to deny communion to pro-choice politicians has set off a firestorm of criticism in this country. The brouhaha was magnified following the ban's endorsement by Cardinal Joseph Arinze of Nigeria, head of the Vatican secretariat that oversees sacramental observance and a front-runner to be the next pope. Critics of this policy include: the allegedly-incensed Congressional Catholics in their letter to the highest ranking American prelate,

What Presidential Speechwriters Need to Know

by Martin E. Marty

Some front-rank religious thinkers fed Peter Steinfels (New York Times, July 24) good recommendations for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. I'll add a P.S. by pushing for a little article by Michael E. Bailey and Kristin Lindholm called "Tocqueville and the Rhetoric of Civil Religion in the Presidential Inaugural Addresses" from the Christian Scholar's Review(XXXII, No. 3, Spring 2003), a

Will Edwards Make a Difference in the South?

by Mark J. Rozell

Leading political observers say that having a native son Southerner on the presidential ticket matters to the Democrats, that John Edwards now makes the party ticket competitive in some of the Old South. Yet some recent polling data suggest that this may not be the case. Most telling, Kerry has actually lost some ground in a North Carolina poll since Edwards’s selection. If Edwards cannot improve the party’s prospects in his home state, where else in the South can he boost his tea

The Secrets of Gerald Ford's Success ... 30 Years After he Became President It's Time to Consider What Made Him Tick

by Yanek Mieczkowski

August 9, 2004 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Gerald Ford's inauguration as president. Ford arrived at the White House through unique circumstances, not only by Richard Nixon's resignation, but also because he owed his elevation to the presidency largely to his character. In the atmosphere of moral turpitude surrounding Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation and the Watergate scandal, congressmen wanted a new vice president with unblemished character, speculating that he might someday

Baseball Player Carlos Delgado’s Summer of Discontent: Dissent and the National Pastime

by Ron Briley

Carlos Delgado is one of major league baseball’s best kept secrets. The slugging first baseman of Puerto Rican descent is the career home run leader for the Toronto Blue Jays. But he is less well known south of the Great Lakes. That is until some sportswriters noticed that whenever “God Bless America” is played, Delgado usually stays in the clubhouse until the song, which has replaced “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in some ballparks during the seventh

A Debate: Should Allen Weinstein Be Confirmed as Chief Archivist of the United States?

by Paul Gottfried, Ralph Luker, and Michael Etchison

President Bush has nominated Allen Weinstein, author of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case and The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America- -The Stalin Era, to be the chief archivist of the United States. Some history groups have objected to Weinstein's nomination on the grounds that he has thus far failed to share the notes and documents on which he based his book, The Haunted Wood

We Need a Hot Line Teachers Can Call About Islamic History Textbooks

by Sandra Stotsky

Before September 11, 2001, history and social studies teachers had already been trying to learn more about a religion and a part of the world that most knew little about. After September 11, it is clearly urgent to teach K-12 students about Islamic history and culture. It is also crucial for their teachers to have suitable instructional materials that do not inadvertently promote some person’s or group’s religious or political agenda. What is needed is an independent, funded site, ma

It's too Late to Talk About Postponing the Election in the Event of a Terrorist Attack

by Robert "KC" Johnson

During the last four weeks, the Election Assistance Commission, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have considered asking Congress for authority to delay this year's election if a terrorist attack were to coincide with the November vote. Members of Congress from both parties have said that a delay would represent a concession to the terrorists. They were right in questioning the idea, but they should have recognized that at this point, developing a plan for d

Why the Networks Should Still Be Covering the Conventions

by Rick Shenkman

This is the story about the significance of a man straightening his tie. A few years ago when I was researching the history of television I discovered that briefly one of the talked about events of the exciting 1948 Democratic convention was when the television cameras caught Harry Truman straightening his tie as he approached the dais to deliver his acceptance speech. The significance of the event was that millions watched it. There's a lesson in this for us and the networks today. The netw

Why New Yorkers Will Feel Under Siege When the Republicans Invade

by Nicholas Turse

The tagline for John Carpenter's 1981 cult sci-fi classic Escape From New York went"New York City is now a maximum security prison. Breaking out is impossible. Breaking in is insane." In that movie set in a then-unimaginable, futuristic"1997" Gotham, criminal Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) was charged with rescuing the President of the United States, whose plane had been downed in the walled-in, armed and angry prison island that Manhattan had become. With his life and freedom riding on

Could Terrorists Disrupt Our Election?

by John Dean

If the Bush Administration's intelligence can be believed, the 2004 presidential election, or the related democratic processes associated with the election, have been targeted by terrorists. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge has repeatedly said,"Al Qeada is moving forward with plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States aimed to disrupt our democratic process."This raises the question of what the Bush Administration is (or isn't) doing about it. B

Review of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?

by Jonathan Rees

What is it with liberal journalists and doctorates in American history? The pioneering blogger Josh Marshall has one. The Nation columnist and MSNBC blogger Eric Alterman has one too. If you like the work of these two writers, you should also enjoy Thomas Frank. Frank turned his University of Chicago Ph.D. into the 1997 book, The Conquest of Cool. This study of advertising during the sixties focuses on the efforts of companies to instill their products with what were the

Why the World Court Decision on the Israeli Fence Is too Important to be Forgotten

by Howard N. Meyer

An important lesson for Israel, America and the world will be seen in a comparative examination of two separate votes of the United Nations General Assembly, addressed to a single problem. The first was on December 8, 2003; the second was July 9, 2004, half a year later. First question voted on was whether to ask the International Court of Justice (commonly called the World Court) to render an Advisory Opinion on whether it was legal for Israel to construct a barrier (a wall or fence) outs

The Price of Passionless Conventions

by Ron Briley

Young people today often complain that politics are boring and do not matter. The age group between eighteen and twenty-four has the lowest participation rate for any voting age bloc. It is easy to blame this sad state of affairs upon the youth for a lack of interest in the democratic process. But on the eve of the national Democratic and Republican conventions, the blame for political apathy should be placed upon the professional politicians where it belongs. There was a

How the History of the American Revolution Has Changed

by Pauline Maier

In the past few decades, historical research has shifted by and large from political to social and then cultural history. Some of the most dramatic additions to historical knowledge have come in the history of slavery, including the slave trade, in African American history; in women's history; and in the study of Native Americans. Three significant disjunctions characterize the intellectual landscape with reference to early American histor

Bush Has Threatened to Use the Veto 40 Times, but Never Has--What's Up?

by Nicolas Heidorn

In a matter of months, George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States, could go down in history as the first full-term president in 175 years not to have exercised his constitutional veto power.That’s quite a feat considering his father, Bush Sr., vetoed 44 bills in his one term in office. His successor, Bill Clinton, vetoed 37 bills in his eight years—a little under par for recent presidents: Reagan vetoed 78, Carter 31, Ford 66, and Nixon vetoed 43 bills before b

Why Americans Believe Only American Deaths Count in Iraq

by Robert R. Goldberg

Nationalism can be a vicious disease, and an infectious one, too. It can take all sorts of forms, and its most destructive strains can surely sneak up on any country. Just think of the tens of thousands of German Jews--German nationals--who refused to believe what was happening, even after Kristallnacht and the ghettos, until the trains arrived at Dachau. We know well from this past century what sentiments intense nationalist fervor can ignite among a country's people, but we

Are Political Conventions Obsolete?

by Robert "KC" Johnson

A few weeks ago, John Kerry considered delaying acceptance of the presidential nomination until after the Democratic convention. The Massachusetts senator ultimately rejected the idea, but his even considering it raised yet again the question of what role political conventions serve. Conventions once were the high point of drama in the political world. The Democratic convention of 1960 opened with the nominee's identity uncertain; at previous conventions, delegates, voting the

Report on the Hearing on Allen Weinstein's Nomination as Archivist of the United States

by Bruce Craig and Bryan Heyward (contributor)

On July 22, 2004, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held a confirmation hearing on the pending nomination of historian Allen Weinstein to become Archivist of the United States. Weinstein is the Bush administration's choice to succeed the present archivist, John Carlin. During questioning Weinstein put to rest issues that had arisen regarding the disposition of his own research notes relating to two controversial books. The nominee generally impressed committee members with