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Opportunity Knocks, Founders Style
The recession may be over! Openings available in Philadelphia for Founding Father impersonators! (Thanks to fellow blogger at Northwest History, for highlighting this howler): Founding Father Performers, Historic Philadelphia, PA December 10th, 2010 Historic Philadelphia, Inc. seeks historical interpreters to portray Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson: mid-late 20s/early 30s; at least 5’10”; Virginia accent; red hair…
Read MoreRejecting The "Gretna Defense"
I usually root for the defense, especially in an impeachment case, since I lost one of those 21 years ago. (I represented Judge Walter L. Nixon, Jr. of Mississippi.) But there’s no criticizing the Senate’s conviction yesterday of District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans. The case, as detailed in a Senate committee report, presented a…
Read MoreElmore Leonard Did Not Make It Up
The Senate impeachment trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans — which you can watch this week on live webcast — has presented a fabulous cast of characters straight out of an Elmore Leonard novel. The opening day involved testimony by two Louisiana law partners, Jake Amato and Robert Creely. Former colleagues and law…
Read MoreReclaiming King Richard III
So who killed the two little princes in the Tower of London in 1485? Having just reread Josephine Tey’s wonderful The Daughter of Time, first published in 1951, I am newly impressed with the power of an old mystery when subjected to careful reasoning. Tey, whose real name was Elizabeth MacKintosh, chose an enduring legend of…
Read MoreGingrich, Nazis, and the Manhattan Mosque
I got fed up, over on Huffington Post, with Brother Newt’s most recent fallacious adventure in analogy-land: Muslim community center + 2 blocks from ground zero = Nazis + 2 blocks from Holocaust Museum The analogy only works if a Muslim community center is the same as a Nazi party building. That is, the analogy is totally…
Read MoreSay Hello to Matt Stewart's "The French Revolution"!
On Bastille Day (that’s Wednesday, July 14), the newest Stewart literary triumph takes to the bookshelves — Matt Stewart’s debut novel, The French Revolution, will officially launch. OK, I’m only slightly biased, since he is my son, but it’s a terrific read, and I hope you will check it out. I stress, however, that although I…
Read MoreMy New BFF: R. Owen Williams
The current issue of Reviews in American History includes a review by R. Owen Williams of my book about the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, Impeached. I hasten to note that I have no recollection of ever meeting Mr. Williams, a Yale history Ph.D. and the new president of Transylvania University (no, that’s not where…
Read More"Impeached" in Paperback
On Tuesday, May 15, Simon & Schuster will officially release the paperback edition of Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy. Although Amazon has been selling the paperback version for several days, with any luck the new release will be available in stores soonest. At this point in the life…
Read MoreThe Porteous Articles
With the Senate impeachment trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans coming up in August, I took a swing at the impeachment articles against Porteous in an item on Huffington Post. Although Judge Porteous has a lot of conduct to explain, there are some constitutional issues surrounding the articles against him, including: Whether…
Read MoreHow Would You Change the Constitution?
With the anniversary of the beginning of the Constitutional Convention drawing nigh (May 25), I started thinking about ways in which we should be changing the Constitution. I posted a first cut on that today at Huffington Post.
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