September 21, 2003
The Sacramento Bee is starting a series of articles on the state of our freedoms in post 9-11 America. Executive summary: we’re in trouble. The long version goes into more detail, with pictures and conversations.
Vietnam vetaran and former Senator Max Cleland pens an incandescent op-ed about developments in Iraq: “Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn’t go when you had the chance.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson (author of the one-volume Civil War history you should read if you’re going to read only one) takes a distinctly dim view of George W. Bush’s use of the term “revisionist history.” (Via Thomas Spencer.) [07:02 PM]
"Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson (author of the one-volume Civil War history you should read if you92re going to read only one)"
I endorse this. Not too long, not too short, not too detailed, not too summarized, but just right. And well-written, too.
The Oxford History of the United States is a project that has published four excellent books covering periods of U.S. history. I hope to someday read them all.
It shouldn't surprise anybody that Shrub is getting us into his very own Vietnam; his father spoke repeatedly of the first Gulf war helping to "shake the Vietnam syndrome" -- by which they meant, as far as I could tell, the notion that foreign interventions were always chancy enterprises to be undertaken only in the most desperate circumstances, rather than an opportunity to make clear that nobody should mess with the U.S.
But I'm glad that Cleland is still being heard; the smearing he got in 2002 was a good demonstration of how quickly Shrub and his friends will abandon truth when it's inconvenient.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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