Our Republic is on the Ballot
The most important player in a republic—including ours—is the citizen. From our consent, leaders derive the authority to govern: to raise taxes, to declare war, to enforce laws and treaties, and to do all the things we expect of government. From the ranks of citizens, our government draws its judges, its soldiers, its officials at every level—including our representatives in the House and Senate as well as the White House. … Read More
Our North Star
In May of 1952, John Foster Dulles, the man who would become Secretary of State to President Dwight Eisenhower, published an article in Life magazine titled “A Policy of Boldness.” It was both a critique of the Truman administration’s conduct of foreign policy and a description of the establishment views of the Republican party as it sought to regain the White House for the first time in two decades. I … Read More
Life’s Brevity, Uncertainty, and Legacy
On Monday, the Senate Chaplain Rear Admiral Barry Black, USN (Ret.) opened the Senate impeachment trial with a moment of remembrance for Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the other souls lost in the helicopter crash last weekend in Los Angeles. He said, “As millions mourn the deaths of Kobe and Gianna Bryant, and those who died with them, we think about life’s brevity, uncertainty, and legacy. Remind us that we … Read More
We’re All on Trial
At some point in my misspent youth, I discovered the magic of films from Hollywood’s golden era. Somewhere between Academy Award winners like “Casablanca” and “The Best Years of our Lives,” I found a wartime musical with a thin story about a young soldier who met starlet Joan Leslie at the famed Hollywood Canteen. For people who might not know it, the Hollywood Canteen was an actual nightclub for service … Read More
The Enlightenment is at Stake, Too
Earlier this week, a friend of mine sent me an article from Inc. magazine predicting that in 2020 liberal arts degrees would be popular among hiring managers. The basic argument is that technology-heavy industries will need fewer and fewer coders as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning take those jobs first. The expectation is that AI may be able to write computer programs, but it will have a hard time … Read More
Heroes
Growing up, I watched more than my fair share of television. One of my favorite diversions was a show I caught in syndicated re-runs long after it was out of production. “Baa Baa Black Sheep” was a fictional account of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, the Marine Corps’ ace of aces in the Second World War, and his squadron, VMF-214—The Black Sheep. The show got virtually everything wrong in the history of … Read More
Individuals of Honor and Good Intent
When I was in high school, I kept a light-blue three ring binder full of quotes that inspired me. It went to college with me, and grad school. It’s moved every time I’ve moved since 1980-something. At some point, I stopped adding quotes to it—the most recent entry being President George W. Bush’s address to the national prayer breakfast in 2001, not long after 9/11. I don’t look at the … Read More
The Responsibility of Citizenship
We have heard a lot in the last couple of years—and even more in the last couple of days—about the challenge to the Constitution and our free institutions. With momentum building for impeachment proceedings in the aftermath of the whistleblower complaint against the president, those concerns are rising, again. The op-ed pages and the cable news channels are going to be full of breathless accounts of malfeasance, corruption, and violations … Read More
The Question of Impeachment with Frank O. Bowman III
Air Dates: August 19-25, 2019 Whether to impeach President Donald Trump is an open question in American politics. Those who favor impeachment point no further than volume II of the Mueller report and its accounts of apparent obstruction of justice by the President. Others caution that absent the ability to win a conviction in the Senate, impeachment would boomerang and only boost the president’s popularity and likelihood of winning reelection … Read More
It’s Exam Time: Impeachment is the Subject
I love being a professor. I teach one class every fall and it is the highlight of my year. I get 18 to 25 students who I can introduce to my passion for history, energize their critical thinking, stretch their minds and their imaginations, and hopefully inspire them to keep asking questions and looking to history for examples that are relevant to them—no matter what they do in the rest … Read More