Recommended Reading
Going to try a few topical pairings today though I must warn that the bloggers in question may or may not like whom they have been matched.
Heh.
Top Billing!: On Ronald Reagan:
Ralph Brauer of ProgressiveHistorians –The Paradox of Ronald Reagan: His First Inaugural
Dan from Madison at Chicago Boyz –The Man Who Grew Up In Dixon
On The New York Times agitprop series on murderous Iraq War Veterans ( I won’t link to this nominal act of journalism, go find it if you are interested):
Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project – Public Fool #1, NYT’s “War Torn” Giving Me PNYTTSD
Robert Bateman of SWJ Blog – More Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Now for some solo acts:
Matt at MountainRunner – Former SecDef calls for new USIA and Upcoming events on Africa
Dr. Von – Further Decline in US Science Commitment
Valdis Krebs at Network Weaving – Social Networks: 1 Political Machine: 0
Russia Blog –The Institute for Democracy and Cooperation: Less Democracy, More Cooperation Please
Andreas Umland at HNN –Putin’s New Man at Brussels
January 28th, 2008 at 5:38 am
On Ralph’s behalf, thank you for the link to his article, which has also been nominated for the History Carnival this month.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thanks for the mention, much appreciated.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Hi Jeremy,
Ralph did an excellent job capturing a discomforting ( to partisans) aspect of Ronald Reagan that confused many of his supporters and critics alike and explains why Reagan could connect with so many "Reagan Democrats" while Nixon and either Bush could not. Ralph was spot on with the term paradox.
Reagan had been a liberal Democrat, FDR admirer and union man for decades( actually a very shrewd negotiator of labor contracts – Tip O’Neil spent a lot of time in his memoir trying to square how Reagan could be simultaneously so remote and dense and then regularly " kick the whale shit " in the Speaker’s colorful idiom, out of the House Dems at the bargaining table) and some of that idealism stuck despite having become a very conservative Republican. Reagan deeply puzzled both of his major biographers Lou Cameron and Edmund Morris as well as his ghost-writer Robert Lindsey, yet all of these men retained an affection for Reagan despite having political views well to his Left.
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Hey Dan,
Anytime – now I’ll fix the links to your blog and CB :o)