News

Snow And Tull

Few people were better liked in Washington, and for good reason, than former White House press spokesperson Tony Snow, who died last week at age 53, so it's no surprise that this morning President Bush, Karl Rove, and other figures from the political, social, and...

The High-Priced Perlstein Paperback

At Paper Cuts, the blog of the New York Times Book Review, Mick Sussman describes what happened when he went to Amazon.com recently seeking a copy of Rick Perlstein's study of the Goldwater campaign of 1964, Before The Storm. Sussman, who wanted to read that book...

What If Nixon Had Not Gone To China?

Last week, I was the guest on a Chinese language TV show produced by Voice of America and broadcast live in China. Chinese callers are given a toll free number in China they can call to pose questions. The topic of discussion was “non-traditional security threats to...

The Dollar Drops, And Boeing Soars

What do the Chinese do when the dollar drops and the RMB rises? shopping! Air China announced today that it will purchase 45 planes from Boeing with a book value of $6.3 billion. The RMB has risen 6.65 percent against the dollar so far this year, and about 20 percent...

What’s in a Name?

With the Olympics 24 days away, Chinese officials proposed changing the name that the island of Taiwan has used for previous Olympics.  The English, “Chinese Taipei” would remain unchanged, but the Chinese would change from 中華台北(zhonghua taibei) to 中國台北 (zhongguo...

Nixonland Nitpick 4

A few quick takes: On page 155, Nixonland refers to the "Republican Congressional Campaign Committee." For over a century, the name of the organization has been the National Republican Congressional Committee. On page 185, it mentions "Paul A. Fino, the antibusing...

TV(Nixon)Land

Over in the "showbiz" area of CNN's site, Todd Leopold interviews Rick Perlstein about Nixonland, and some of the TV programming of the era is discussed in the context of the historian's America-in-conflict thesis, such as the Smothers Brothers variety show, All In...

Ich Bin Ein…..Halt!

I rather suspect Sen. Barack Obama is welcoming former Gov. Jesse Ventura's reported plans to run against Al Franken and Sen. Norm Coleman for the latter's seat. After all, once "The Mind" starts making the rounds of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, the attention of the...