Until I saw her on the stump these past few days, I’d never have believed that Hillary Clinton could attract voters by appealing to their sense of yearning for the 1950’s.
It seems, on the face of it, an absurd idea. The only thing that Mrs. Clinton’s most zealous fans and shrillest critics agree upon Read More
The defense of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman of Moroccan origin who allegedly was meant to be the 20th hijacker, got off to a bad start in a Virginia courtroom last week. Mr. Moussaoui assailed “pagans, Jews, Christians and hypocrites,” and said that he prayed for “the destruction of the United States” and of “the Jewish Read More
Sputnik: The Shock of the Century , by Paul Dickson. Walker & Company, 310 pages, $28.
Junior-high history classes and cable-TV retrospectives have long hammered it into the head of anyone under 50 that the Soviet launch of the world’s first satellite on Oct. 4, 1957, was both an epoch-making event and a national trauma Read More
Bill Clinton has followed the tradition of most two-term
Presidents by wishing us farewell. But now that the Celebrity Presidency has
replaced the Imperial Presidency, a Presidential farewell address seems as
anachronistic as a horse-and-buggy ride down Pennsylvania Avenue. John Quincy
Adams said there is nothing so pathetic as an ex-President; Mr. Clinton very
likely Read More
We’ve reached that stage of the national campaign when smarty-pants columnists start asking trick questions-of potential voters.
In keeping with the genial spirit of things, here’s a test: What political figure do you suppose said the following:
“Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies … a theft from those Read More
President John F. Kennedy was on C-Span the other night, delivering that inaugural speech which people of a certain age will never forget. It was a speech of many memorable lines, but on this particular night, one less-remembered phrase struck a chord. He was describing the new generation to whom the torch of power had Read More
In his new book, Name-Dropping , John Kenneth Galbraith suggests that Dwight Eisenhower’s political legacy consisted of accepting, confirming and carrying forward the social welfare programs launched under the New Deal. As we approach the end of Bill Clinton’s tenure, it’s clear that his legacy will be a mirror image of Ike’s. Just as Eisenhower Read More
