Richard Nixon
The Romance of Realism
Eisenhower in War and Peace By Jean Edward Smith (Random House, 950 pp., $40) READ MORE >>
A Brief Audit of Politicians’ Tax Problems
If you’re still filling out your tax forms, it may be tempting to cut some corners and tell a few white lies. But as the ethics-deficient politicians listed below can tell you, tax evasion doesn’t end well. Here’s a guide on “what-not-to-do,” courtesy of political figures, past and present. READ MORE >>
Will Mitt’s Budget Ax Have An Oedipus Complex?
It’s been hard to pin down how Mitt Romney proposes to balance the federal budget even as he slashes tax rates across the board, as he now proposes to do after coming under conservative fire early in primary season for tax-cutting timidity. Like House Republican budget guru Paul Ryan, Romney has refused to spell out how he would apportion the proposed deep spending cuts, the better to avoid Democratic attacks over said cuts. READ MORE >>
Defending (George) Romney And "Mad Men"
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 >>
The Sad End of the Gingrich Campaign
“At an age when most young men are focused on playing sports and meeting girls, Newt was fantasizing about saving the world.” —Steven M. Gillon, The Pact, 2008 READ MORE >>
America's First Multiplatform Gaffe
Erich Fehrnstrom's fatally candid comparison of his boss Mitt Romney's planned general-election campaign to a shaked Etch-A-Sketch may be the political world's first multi-platform gaffe. What makes it new and different is its extreme ripeness for visual exploitation at the virtual dawn of a new era of social networking on proliferating varieties of gadget. READ MORE >>
The Complicated Links Between Mormonism and Judaism
I commented long ago in The Spine about the courtship between fundamentalist Christianity and Israel. READ MORE >>
Why Does the Media Keep Underestimating Newt?
Supreme Anxiety
Rocky's Ghost
A specter is haunting the GOP--the specter of Nelson Rockefeller. It's a curious paradox. The Republican party is more captive to its wingnuts than at any time since 1964. Yet three of the party's four most important figures right now--Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell--began life as Rockefeller Republicans. (The fourth, House Speaker John Boehner, was always a wingnut.) READ MORE >>
