My favorite conservative columnist, Daniel Larison, is hitting it on the head and out of the ballpark this morning about the mindless OMG’ing in the Beltway press and elsewhere about political dishonesty on national security issues.

He brings up two main directions on this:

1. if Group A is out of office, then Group B (who is in) are feebly trying to ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

While I’m notorious in AH circles as someone who insists that a AH story be (1) A GOOD STORY and (2) have some historical basis, not to mention (3) be one simple Point Of Divergence, not a whole mess of them (I can deal with some cascade effects, but not simultaneous stuff) - I give a lot of latitude to someone who gets those points clearly covered ( Read more... )

No, I’m talking about Robert McNamara, one of my particular historical nemeses, considering the number of important things that he messed up, destroyed or ruined. Not to mention the uncountable dead.

( Read more... )

In early December on the LJ side, I did a ‘rate the Presidents’ competition to see what my readers thought of the US Presidents.  The raw results and comments are still there  - and these are the results, sorted by Mean (statistical results under the cut; the spreadsheet itself is here).

Sets: One (Washington -> Harrison), Two (Tyler->McKinley), ( Read more... )

Being a student of American History and Political Science, I’ve noticed something since - oh, 1930.  When some Republicans, the more wingnut sorts, are behind the eight-ball and trying to stir things up, they call the Democrats commies, socialists or commie sympathizers.  And traitors to the realm.

Go back and check out the commentary about FDR, ( Read more... )

I’m starting to get concerned for Obama’s safety on the campaign trail.  Here’s Joe Klein of TIME on the tenor of the McCain rallies:

But seriously, folks, I’m beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, the over-the-top, stampede-the-crowd statements by everyone from McCain on down, the vehemence of the crowds that ( Read more... )

At various times, I get into research projects; some simmer on for decades in various forms, and some break off and pick up speed because I happen to run into something that really fuels the fire, so to speak.

My library here is largely one that I use for reference. I have a huge amount of material that isn’t in book form, and I’m going through ( Read more... )

And yes, I used to own this one - REELECT JFK. You’re JFK, you’ve managed to miss getting killed in Dallas, and now you have to get re-elected AND find out who was behind the plot to shoot you (being your own historical detective). As this reviewer says: “Yes, you, the leader of the free world, sit in front of a UNIVAC in the ( Read more... )