Almost 70 years ago, as Germany invaded France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an urgent visit from Vannevar Bush, then chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics and formerly vice president and dean of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ...more

September 21, 2008

I've been watching Jon Stewart skewer coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and it's easy to understand why he has become more popular than any real TV news anchor. ...more

August 29, 2008

Affair Not Newsworthy It is disappointing to learn that John Edwards once had an affair, but I'm not sure it's newsworthy. Edwards has not held public office in years and is no longer even a candidate for anything. Try telling that to the reactionary parrots over at Fox News and other right-wing pundits who are giddy with excitement over what should be a personal matter. ...more

August 18, 2008

To capture the essence of Rapidan Camp, the summer home of President Herbert Hoover in what is now Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, stand on the back deck of his cabin and just listen. ...more

July 27, 2008

Someone forgot to tell the U.S. Supreme Court that we're at war. ...more

June 24, 2008

Meet George W. Bush, time traveler. He's in Poland in 1939 as Nazi tanks advance on Warsaw, then flying with his Navy-pilot father to battle imperial Japan. He's alongside Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, William McKinley on his deathbed and Franklin D. Roosevelt on D-Day. He lingers with Harry S. Truman, another U.S. president deeply unpopular in his time. ...more

June 13, 2008

The only thing we have to fear is "Fear Itself." Forgive me. I couldn't resist using that line to describe the new NBC horror anthology, which has borrowed its title from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 inaugural speech. ...more

June 4, 2008

More than six decades after they were forced to leave college, about 450 Japanese-Americans interned during World War II have been awarded honorary degrees from the University of Washington. ...more

May 20, 2008

The date was Aug. 6, 1944, and the news release was chilling. "Racial disorders, now in progress in Tampa, Florida, between members of the Caucasian and Negro races, with attendant riots and bloodshed, have progressed beyond the control of civil authorities." ...more

February 17, 2008

What if the assassin's bullet had hit its intended victim, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt? Americans would have turned anxious eyes to Vice President-elect John Nance Garner. ...more

February 3, 2008