The New Republic

Great times call for great men. The cold war era provided Henry Kissinger. We have Robert Kaplan. Where Kissinger was content to oversee the bombing of Cambodia, the pointless extension of the Vietnam War, and the undermining of elected governments, Kaplan has set his sets higher: he wants to justify all these actions, and even celebrate them. READ MORE >>

Perhaps it’s the lackluster quality of recent Republican presidential nominees that is responsible for the current upsurge of interest in Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Esteem for Ike has risen along with nostalgia for the peace and prosperity of the 1950s. Nixon has remained an intriguing figure for his dramatic highs and lows, his obvious psychological torment, and the poignant contrast between his comparative progressivism and the die-hard conservatism of the modern Republican Party. READ MORE >>

 Throughout the Bush years, Orange County, FL, Franklin County, OH, and Bucks County, PA ascended to national preeminence as the closest counties in the closest states in the 2000 election. In 2008, the diverse and well-educated new coalition counties, like Arapahoe, CO, Fairfax, VA, Wake, NC stole the show. In 2012, Obama could easily win every county listed above and lose the election. READ MORE >>

Presidential politics can get very ugly, but in the current contest I don't think we've heard any slogans as vicious as the one leveled in 1972 against George McGovern, who died this past weekend at age 90. The South Dakota senator was, his opponents sneered, the candidate of "Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion." READ MORE >>

Will Romney win the debates with an array of zingers, as Boston intends? It’s certainly possible, but history suggests that the debates aren’t likely to turn on whether Romney remembers his zingers. For the most part, debates are won or lost on appearance and circumstances, not substance or great sound bites. READ MORE >>

Savages is trashy, vulgar, preposterous, cruel—and maybe the most interesting and entertaining film Oliver Stone has made since Nixon. What more do you want when the country is burning, gridlocked, and practicing ballet on the brink? Don’t say the movies lack instincts about where we’re headed. If you were in any doubt about this, Oliver lets the voiceover tell us that in our lower depths savagery has been legitimized, adding that movies have characters best rated as “beautiful savages.” READ MORE >>

Editor’s Note: We'll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy! The 1950s are long gone, but the appeal of the drive-in movie theater is perennial. Smithsonian Magazine | 3 min (799 words) READ MORE >>

If the Supreme Court overturns key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, it will precipitate the largest confrontation between the Court and a president since the mid-1930s. Yes, the Court prevented Truman from seizing the steel mills and forced Nixon to give up the tapes. But in those instances the decision ended the controversy because the President chose not to prolong it. READ MORE >>

Devotee though I am of Mad Men, I haven't had a chance to catch up with the first two episodes of its new season, so I'm hearing second-hand that Henry Francis, the aide to New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller who earlier rescued Betty from her marriage to Don (and now kind of regrets it because Betty's such a head case) last night--which is to say, in 1966, when this new season is set--called Michigan Gov. George Romney "a clown." Francis is shown saying into a telephone, "Well, tell Jim his honor's not going to Michigan. READ MORE >>

[Guest post by Simon van Zuylen-Wood] READ MORE >>