The parallels between Russia more than 20 years ago and the United States today are deeply disturbing
When the horrible first reports of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., began hitting my smartphone feed, I somehow involuntarily reconnected with feelings that I associate with the societal chaos I experienced working in Russia more than 20 years ago. It was the post-Mikhail Gorbachev era, when communism had…
Without her surname, there’s no way Caroline Mulroney would be considered a serious Ontario PC leadership candidate at this point in her career
Political dynasties make me uneasy. Oh, I know reasonable arguments can be made for them. And I’m not saying this unease would determine my vote. Still, the reservation lingers. The subject came to mind when Caroline Mulroney announced her candidacy for leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. A political neophyte who’s never held elected office,…
The inauspicious heir to the White House had planned to play poker the night Roosevelt died. Instead, he became president
Vice-President Harry Truman’s life changed on Thursday, April 12, 1945. That was the day Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Truman became the 33rd president of the United States. To virtually everyone, including himself, Truman was an inauspicious heir. Journalist A.J. Baime’s The Accidental President nicely captures the general bemusement. Born in small-town Missouri in 1884, there…
The new British prime minister is apparently an admirer of the Victorian-era urban reforming Radical Joe
Think of the name Chamberlain and the person who springs to mind is the hapless Neville Chamberlain, the man who is – perhaps unfairly – remembered as the appeaser of Adolf Hitler. But he wasn’t the first Chamberlain to make his mark on British politics. A generation earlier, Neville’s father cast a long shadow. Joseph…
Russian hacking of DNC emails? Sounds like business as usual in the modern history of political interference by other countries
The chatter over Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee emails seems overblown. Moscow’s role is interesting, but the huffing and puffing about the iniquity of one country trying to influence another’s election is silly. It happens all the time – Americans included. John F. Kennedy subtly targeted John Diefenbaker in Canada’s 1963 federal election. The idea was to…
Forget Donald Trump – Wendell Willkie was the man if you're seeking a presidential candidate who defied convention
This year’s Republican convention is a keen disappointment for political junkies. History offers at least one such gathering that was more compelling. Just a few months ago, we hoped to experience that rare animal in American politics – a contested, multi-ballot convention with all the drama we’ve only read about in books. But Donald Trump has…
With one key difference: Barring a miracle, Trump will become the 2016 Republican nominee; Connally was up against Ronald Reagan
Someone recently described Donald Trump as a modern version of Ronald Reagan, which is nonsense. However, there is another 20th century American politician with whom Trump has a significant number of things in common. Now largely forgotten, that man is John Connally. Connally (1917-1993) was perhaps most famous for being in the car with John…
To their dismay, some vice presidents came to realize how irrelevant the role really is
John Nance Garner was a crusty Texan who served two terms (1933-1941) as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice president. And he was blunt, declaring that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Indeed, biographer O.C. Fisher maintained that this formulation was a euphemism. Garner actually said that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a…
Initially a simple power grab by the aristocracy, the “Great Charter” inadvertently led to parliamentary government
Historians and historical memory have a habit of anointing certain events as seminal, and Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter) is one of those. Or at least it is in the Anglosphere, loosely defined as those English-speaking democracies that initially evolved out of the great diaspora from the British Isles. So, as it celebrates its…
A little humility would have served Roosevelt, Kennedy and Obama well when dealing with Russia
A recent column about Franklin Roosevelt and the advent of the Cold War prompted a question. How might the Roosevelt/Stalin relationship compare to the current one between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin? In turn, that got me thinking about how American presidents, particularly Democrats, dealt with Russia. Why focus on Democrats? Well, they’re supposed to…
When the horrible first reports of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., began hitting my smartphone feed, I somehow involuntarily reconnected with feelings that I associate with the societal chaos I experienced working in Russia more than 20 years ago. It was the post-Mikhail Gorbachev era, when communism had…
