Unpublished Articles

Hey, Reince, Lay Off NBC and CNN for the Hillary Movies

by Robert Brent Toplin

Credit: Wiki Commons.Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, recently told NBC and CNN television executives that he would request that his party shut the two networks out of the GOP’s presidential debates during the 2016 primary race. Priebus issued the threat because NBC had a drama in production about Hillary Clinton and CNN planned to release a documentary film about her. The GOP chairman pointed out that Mrs. Clinton was the Democrats’ likely candidate for president in 2016. By depicting her life and activities, these movies might bolster Mrs. Clinton’s fortunes in the next presidential race. Others, including several GOP state party chairmen, warned that the two film productions could influence voters. They stressed that television networks with reputations for objectivity should not sponsor films that masquerade as unbiased productions.

African American Voters Need to Channel Their Power in State Elections

by Rawn James, Jr.

Last month Americans marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s signing Executive Order 9981 to desegregate America’s armed forces. African Americans had fought in every American war, including the Revolutionary War, but had done so in segregated units, often relegated to menial labor tasks. By the time President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, eliminating segregation and racial discrimination in the armed forces had become the single most important national issue to African American voters. Their cause was national in both scope and purpose.

United States ≠ Soviet Union ≠ Nazi Germany

by Jeffrey Herf

Credit: LIFE magazine.Ronald Radosh’s riposte to Diana West fantasies about Soviet control over American foreign and military policy during World War II is most welcome and very well done. It is depressing that West’s nonsense finds some fans. Yet error and Radosh’s convincing criticism draws welcome attention to the complexity of World War II and of the alliance of the Western democracies with the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill, who as much as any one person saved Western civilization in 1940 and 1941, put it best. When asked how he, whose political career was bound up with anticommunism since he advocated armed intervention to overthrow the new Bolshevik regime in 1917-1918, could support an alliance with Stalin he famously replied: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would rise in the House of Commons to make a speech in favor of the devil.” In 1941, Hitler invaded the Hell of Stalin’s Russia and Churchill made a remarkable speech on the BBC to offer an alliance with the previous Soviet foe.

Zinn and Daniels Both Guilty of Sacrificing Nuance to Politics

by Sam Wineburg

Emails recently obtained by the Associated Press have revealed that Indiana's former Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, now president of Purdue University, tried to ban Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States from Indiana schools. His attempt, though perhaps clumsy, wasn't all that surprising.If history tends to be written by the victors, Zinn's alternative take on America's past sought to give voice to the vanquished, telling the story of U.S. history from the perspective of slaves, Indians, laborers and women. The book brought the Boston University historian (who died in 2010) acclaim from many on the American left. But conservatives have had him in their sights for years.

Diana West's "American Betrayal" is McCarthy on Steroids

by Ron Radosh

Originally published on FrontPageMag.

Why (and How) FDR Ran for His Third Term

by Richard Moe

Credit: Flickr.Throughout American history presidents have brought very different decision-making styles to the White House. George W. Bush once said he was not a “textbook player” when it came to decisions but rather a “gut player,” while Barack Obama has said he makes decisions “based on information and not emotion.” One observer has described our current president’s style as “defiantly deliberative, methodical and measured.” But Franklin D. Roosevelt was in another class altogether when it came to decision-making, and never was this more evident than when the famously social but obsessively secretive president considered whether to run for an unprecedented third term in 1940.

On Other Websites: Week of March 19, 2012

Rick Perlstein: Why Democrats Have a Problem with Young Voters Lisa McGirr: The New Suburban PovertySusan J. Matt:The New Globalist Is Homesick Robert Zaretsky: Toulouse Tragedy Shows Rhetoric's Danger Robert D. Kaplan: 1848 ... History's Shadow Over the Middle East Kirsten Swinth: Hillary Clinton, Cookies and the Rise of Working Families #7  Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Red Songs, Black Boxes and the Tale of Bo Xilai #8  DD Guttenplan: How Rick Santorum's 1860 Comparison Might Be Right #9  Terrence M. McCoy: How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism' #10  Radwan Ziadeh: Have We Learned Nothing From the Nineties? Syria is the Balkans All Over Again