The Trouble with Benghazi

The Republicans finally got their chance to call Hillary in on the mat, and what does she say, "I screwed up." If only we heard confessions like these from Bush cabinet secretaries. Instead, all we heard for eight years was more lies and attempts at obfuscation to cover up one of the most heinous foreign policy records ever compiled by a standing president of any country. But, the Republicans weren't going to let Hillary off that easy. Paul Rand (channeling Donald Trump) said he would have fired her if he had been President (god forbid)!

The big show was a big let down, as Hillary pretty much took the blame for the Benghazi debacle, returning questions back at her adversaries by saying "what difference, at this point, does it make," when it was called an act of terror. I'm sure that won't stop the Republicans from further questioning the White House response, despite McCain, Johnson and other Republican Senators missing briefings that were held specifically on the matter, and pretty much cleared up the situation beyond any reasonable doubts. The Republicans successfully managed to undermine Susan Rice's presumed bid for Secretary of State, and have pointed questions at John Kerry on Benghazi during his confirmation hearings.

So, why all the fuss? It seems Republicans desperately want an issue, any issue, to deflect attention away from more important matters at hand. Benghazi is a thorn they want left in Obama's foot, despite the fact that most Americans have moved on from this issue. One hopes with Hillary stepping down as Secretary of State, we can start once again thinking of broader foreign policy issues.

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Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

The People Debate the Constitution

As Pauline Maier describes in Ratification , there was no easy road in getting the Constitution ratified. After 10 years of living together as a loosely knit confederation, a few forward thinking men decided that the Articles of Confederation no longer worked and it was time to forge a Constitution. Washington would not go until he could be assured something would come of the convention and that there would be an august body of gentlemen to carry the changes through. But, ultimately Maier describes it was the people who would determine the fate of the new Constitution. This is a reading group for Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788 . The book has been well received by fellow historians like Jack Rakove , among others. Maier has drawn from a wealth of research piecing together a story that tells the arduous battle in getting the Constitution ratified. A battle no less significant than that Americans fought for independence.

Dispatches from Vilnius

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