Feb 28, 2009 | News, The New Nixon
Somehow, I should have known that a movie with a nuanced and more or less sensitive portrayal of the 37th President, Frost/Nixon, would soon be counterbalanced by one trading on the Evil Nixon archetype favored by so many of popular culture’s tastemakers. Such a...
Feb 28, 2009 | News, The New Nixon
The recently released C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey is an interesting, if predictable, snapshot of scholarly opinion about past chief executives. Honest Abe towers over the list, his position secured by history and his frequent postmortem...
Feb 26, 2009 | News, The New Nixon
Edwin Trinka, the doorman at New York’s fabled Plaza Hotel 46 years, is about to retire. In his decades there he’s met countless folks who were rich, famous, or just looking for a good room for the night. His favorite guest of them all? “Richard...
Feb 26, 2009 | News, The New Nixon
Since January 16, the New York Times has had on its site a group blog, “100 Days,” in which five presidential biographers take turns comparing the initial stages of the Obama Administration to five presidencies. Jean Edward Smith does the comparing to the...
Feb 24, 2009 | News, The New Nixon
There is no escaping Richard M. Nixon. He did so much to shape the politics and policy of the last half-century that every president will end up echoing his words. Take President Obama’s address last night. The president spoke of reducing dependence on foreign...
