Presidential Leadership, Then and Now

This past week saw the 40th anniversary of the “Silent Majority” speech — a reminder that RN had a couple of advantages that President Obama lacks. The first, as a commenter on an earlier post shrewdly suggested, is that RN had a captive audience...

Arnold’s Acrostic

RN sometimes used bad language in private, but what Governor Schwarzenegger did recently was much worse. To get back at a legislator who had taunted him, he inserted an obscene acrostic into a veto message for one of the legislator’s bills.  This act was not a...

Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, and RN

Forty-seven years after his own run for the office, RN is making a cameo in the race for California governor.  The Sacramento Bee reports: More than a decade before Jerry Brown’s current incarnation as undeclared gubernatorial front-runner, he hit the airwaves...

The Muse of the Obama White House

In their attacks on Fox News and tea-party protesters, White House officials are cribbing from a speech given 40 years ago next month. [W]e should ask what is the end value–to enlighten or to profit? What is the end result–to inform or to confuse? How does...

What Are the Odds That This Story is Fake?

Jonathan Movroydis previously noted a The Los Angeles Times story quoting an Edward Kennedy yarn about the 1960 election: “And, believe me, I knew the odds. I was so certain of Jack’s victory that I placed a Las Vegas bet on it. My winnings could have...