The Supreme Court and POW's

I feel this Henry Payne cartoon is a good critique of the Supreme Court's decision on the Guantanamo Bay POW's.

The Ten Ways That Obama Can Win in November

Victor Davis Hanson has laid out ten ways in which he believes that Obama can win the general election in November. Here is the list:

"1. “Maturing” Views. Move to the center on as many problematic issues as possible — whether FISA, NAFTA, talking to dictators, the death penalty, etc. Disguise blatant flip-flops by talking about McCain’s changes of heart — such as his opposition to tax cuts eight years ago. And just as dreams of Obama’s father were once essential in cementing his questionable racial bona fides in Chicago, now the thing to do is drop most mention of the African connection, and instead resurrect his grandparents as proof of his more influential midwestern, working-class Americana credentials. Think “Dreams from My Grandmother.”"

"2. Resort to “Sorta.” Avoid details on any current hot-button issues (so sort of be open to discussion of nuclear and clean coal, and sort of not, sort of getting out pronto from Iraq and sort of not, sort of against gun control and sort of not, etc.). It is always better to “hope and change” an issue, than to get bogged down in details of a topic — such as evoking the banalities “wind, solar and green” than counting barrels of oil saved or produced when talking of the current energy meltdown."

"3. “Hope and Change.” Keep to teleprompted set speeches in front of enthusiastic crowds, avoiding as much as possible press conferences, off-the-cuff venting with donors, interviews with neutral correspondents, town halls, and one-on-ones with McCain. These forums only showcase Obama’s inexperience and hubris, and consistently lead to deer-in-the-headlights-pauses, embarrassing “48-states” bloopers, and the voicing of left-wing nostrums — as well as sudden loss of the mellifluous “hope and change” sound patterns, with their Reverend Wright-lite cadences and studied pauses."

Numbers 4-10.

Gettysburg Address to be Returned to Public Display

This was reported by the AP on June 25:

"Illinois' original manuscript of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address will be back on display next month at the Civil War president's library in Springfield."

"The copy will be displayed on July 1, one year after it was removed from public viewing. It will remain on view until August 20."

"The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum rotates its collection of Lincoln artifacts so several are on display while others are under lock and key."

"Library officials say historical materials such as the Gettysburg Address stay in better condition if they are allowed to rest in a controlled environment rather than remain on constant display."

"There are five original handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address. Illinois obtained a copy in 1943 through the contribution of pennies by children, plus a donation by Marshall Field III."

Further Evidence that Pat Buchanan is a Hitler Apologist

Pat Buchanan recently wrote an editorial in which he attempted to argue that the Holocaust was not inevitable, which is true. Nothing in history was inevitable. Buchanan, however, had other motives in arguing this notion. He argued that Churchill's unnecessary war on Germany, in turn, forced Hitler to systematically murder 6 million Jews. What?!?!

Buchanan wrote: "That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust."

"Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table."

"That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll."

Yes, Pat, there was no Holocaust prior to the outbreak of World War II, but that does not mean that one can absolve Hitler of his actions. The war provided Hitler with a golden opportunity to rid Europe of those "sub-human" Jews. In fact, some real historians have argued that Hitler started the war with the destruction of European Jewry in mind. Pat chooses to ignore the idea of lebensraum, or living space. The German people, according to Hitler, needed plenty of living space and that space would be found in Eastern Europe. How was Hitler going to acquire more living space? He was going to conquer it. Where did Europe's largest population of Jews reside? In the countries of Eastern Europe. Was the "superior" German race going to live side-by-side with millions of Jews? No. So, what else, Pat, was Hitler going to do with Europe's Jews besides exterminate them?

Now, I am an advocate of non-historians writing and arguing about history, but what I can't stand is pseudo-historical nonsense like this crap that Buchanan is dumping on a gullible American reading public. Pat Buchanan is not a historian, but is merely an apologist for Hitler.

Buchanan's editorial can be read here.

Historian R. Don Higginbotham Passes Away

Historian R. Don Higginbotham passed away on June 25. Higginbotham was an excellent historian of the Revolutionary era and is the author of numerous studies on that time period. He was also among America's foremost military historians.

Buchanan Responds to Hitchens

Pat Buchanan has responded to Chirstopher Hitchens's criticism of his book on Winston Churchill's "unnecessary" war against Adolph Hitler. Buchanan's perception of World War II is one of ignorance. He seems to think that Hitler would have been appeased if he was allowed to take control of certain territories. This is, of course, nonsense and it lets Hitler off the hook for his insane actions. Buchanan is, as Hitchens said, and apologist for Hitler.

Here is what Buchanan wrote:

"Did Hitler's crimes justify the Allies' terror-bombing of Germany?"

"Indeed they did, answers Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek response to my new book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: "The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities."

"Atheist, Trotskyite and newborn neocon, Hitchens embraces the morality of lex talionis: an eye for an eye. If Germans murdered women and children, the British were morally justified in killing German women and children."

"According to British historians, however, Churchill ordered the initial bombing of German cities on his first day in office, the very first day of the Battle of France, on May 10, 1940."

At this point Buchanan went on to quote Paul Johnson, who is not an expert on World War II, and A.J.P. Taylor, whose work is from the 1960s and 1970s and was quite controversial and not generally accepted by other historians.

Buchanan continued:

"After the fall of France, Churchill wrote Lord Beaverbrook, minister of air production: "When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path ... an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.""

""Exterminating attack," said Churchill. By late 1940, writes historian Paul Johnson, "British bombers were being used on a great and increasing scale to kill and frighten the German civilian population in their homes.""

""The adoption of terror bombing was a measure of Britain's desperation," writes Johnson. "So far as air strategy was concerned," adds British historian A.J.P. Taylor, "the British outdid German frightfulness first in theory, later in practice, and a nation which claimed to be fighting for a moral cause gloried in the extent of its immoral acts.""

Full article.

Pawlenty Tops McCain's VP List

The Sunday Times of London has reported that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty tops John McCain's list of possible V.P. candidates. Pawlenty is an interesting choice and is a hint at the changes that McCain could bring to the GOP. Though I think that Bobby Jindal is a better choice for McCain, Pawlenty is also a very good choice for V.P.

Sarah Baxter of the Sunday Times wrote:

They [the McCain campaign] believe that Pawlenty, 47, has the youth, working-class credentials and executive experience to attract independent voters and disaffected Democrats who find Barack Obama, 46, the Democratic party nominee, too exotic and untested and McCain, 71, too old and too focused on national security."

"It is a case of “Tim Who?” outside his home state for now, but Pawlenty is the thinking man’s blue-collar conservative, a political moderate and environmentalist who possesses “proletarian chic”, according to The New Republic, a centre-left magazine. "...

"Pawlenty has already pioneered the concept of “Sam’s Club conservatism”, named after the popular discount stores founded by Sam Walton of the giant Wal-Mart retail chain, which holds out the promise of good value, small government catering to working people."...

Full article.

Tim Pawlenty's website.

Michael Barone on GOP and Iraq in '08

I came across this article on RealClearPolitics.com in which Michael Barone he argues that the Democratic campaign strategy and overused narrative of the Iraq war do not match the facts on the ground. He wrote:

"As we enter the second half of the campaign year, facts are undermining the Democratic narrative that has dominated our politics since about the time Hurricane Katrina rolled into the Gulf coast -- most importantly, the facts about Iraq."

"During the Democratic primary season, all the party's candidates veered hardly a jot or tittle from the narrative that helped the Democrats sweep the November 2006 elections. Iraq is spiraling into civil war, we invaded unwisely and have botched things ever since, no good outcome is possible, and it is time to get out of there as fast as we can. "

When a change in strategy was taking place, Democrats, including that foreign policy genius Barack Obama, denounced it and then pronounced it a failure before the surge was even put into effect. Barone continued:

"In January 2007, when George W. Bush ordered the surge strategy, which John McCain had advocated since the summer of 2003, Barack Obama informed us that the surge couldn't work. The only thing to do was to get out as soon as possible."

"That stance proved to be a good move toward winning the presidential nomination -- but it was poor prophecy. It is beyond doubt now that the surge has been hugely successful, beyond even the hopes of its strongest advocates, like Frederick and Kimberly Kagan. Violence is down enormously, Anbar and Basra and Sadr City have been pacified, Prime Minister Maliki has led successful attempts to pacify Shiites as well as Sunnis, and the Iraqi parliament has passed almost all of the "benchmark" legislation demanded by the Democratic Congress -- all of which Barack Obama seems to have barely noticed or noticed not at all. He has not visited Iraq since January 2006 and did not seek a meeting with Gen. David Petraeus when he was in Washington."...

"That's not true of all critics of the Bush administration and its military leaders. The editorial writers of The Washington Post have been paying close and careful attention. And even though they may be temperamentally more inclined to favor Obama's candidacy over John McCain's, they have not been unwilling to take Obama to task for his inattention to American success. Obama, the Post noted tartly on June 7, "has become unreasonably wedded to a year-old proposal to rapidly withdraw all U.S. combat forces from the country -- a plan offered when he wrongly believed that the situation would only worsen as long as American troops remained.""

I guess that the improved situation in Iraq is not 'change we can believe in.' I would hope the a President Obama would not be as reckless pulling out of Iraq and President Bush was in invading Iraq.

When Democratic narratives are countered by facts, those espousing the fairy tales usually try to change the topic or edit the narrative into another negative story about the GOP. Barone continued:

"All of this matters because the rejection of the Republicans in the 2006 elections was a verdict on competence more than ideology. The Republicans seemed incompetent at relieving victims of Katrina, producing success in Iraq and even policing the House page programs. The Democrats could not do worse and might do better. But in the 19 months since November 2006, some important facts have changed."

"If George W. Bush was wrong about the surge from summer 2003 to January 2007, Barack Obama has been wrong about it from January 2007 to today. John McCain seems to have been right on it all along. When asked why he changed his position on an issue, John Maynard Keynes said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" What say you, Sen. Obama?"

Full article.

Diehard Rebels

Here's some excerpts from a review of Jason Phillips's Diehard Rebels that was published on H-CivWar. Phillips asks the question: Why did Confederate soldiers fight so hard for so long? I can't wait to read this book.

"Diehard Rebels has what every good book should have: a compelling problem. Why on earth did Confederate soldiers fight on until the spring of 1865, in the face of mounting evidence that their cause was doomed? It is all too easy to assume that they were either "insane, delusional, or bombastic," but Jason Phillips provides a much more persuasive and richly documented answer (p. 4). Soldiers "submitted to unending carnage and squalor," he says, "because they expected to win" (p. 2). As Phillips observes, we will never properly understand soldiers' motivations if we view them through the lens of hindsight, with the outcome of the war in mind. It is impossible, of course, for historians completely to disregard such a towering and inescapable fact as the Confederacy's defeat, but Phillips succeeds to an admirable degree in his effort to approach the second half of the Civil War through the eyes of the soldiers themselves, who saw things from a "worm's-eye" rather than a "bird's-eye view" (p. 90). Even at ground level there were signs that the Confederacy was in trouble. But committed Confederate soldiers--"diehard rebels"--simply refused to see them. Instead, as Phillips puts it, they "focused on the thinnest silver linings and chased rainbows until the war's end" (p. 34)."...

"Diehard Rebels forces a rethinking of existing interpretations of Confederate soldiers' motivations, making very careful use of an impressive range of soldiers' writings to probe the important but often overlooked question of why Confederates continued their fight. Phillips is to be commended for taking these soldiers seriously and for genuinely trying to understand--not to glorify, not to mock, but to understand--their view of the war and the world. The stakes involved are far from trivial; the intensity of these diehards' commitment extended the war and in so doing sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides who might otherwise have survived. "

Full review.

Civil War Institute Conference 2008

The Civil War Institute's annual conference begins on June 22 and runs through June 28. The theme for this year is Abraham Lincoln. Some of the speakers include James M. McPherson, Allen Guelzo, Harold Holzer, and Gabor Boritt. Here is a calender of the speakers and events.

Sons of Confederate Veterens Strike Again

The Sons of Confederate Veterans have recently re-raised the Confederate Flag on I-75 in Tampa, Florida. To defend this action they made some of the usual claims about the flag like: "the flag is not racist" and "its part of our heritage." (All things that Senator Jim Webb would agree with.) My personal favorite came from Marion Lambert, who claimed the flag will be a part of a memorial honoring both whites and blacks. Lambert said that "a school kid come in here [to the memorial] black or white and he gonna say 'you mean to tell me that blacks had something to do with the Confederacy?' They had a lot to do with the Confederacy!" Yes, Mr. Lambert, blacks did have a lot to do with the Confederacy. The Southern states were so in love with their blacks that they seceded from the Union, formed the Confederacy, and fought a war just to protect their blacks...from being freed. So, Lambert is correct in saying that blacks had a lot to do with the Confederacy. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are disgusting bigots.

More From Hitchens on Buchanan

Here are some video clips that go with Hitchens's review of Buchanan's book.

Clip 1.

Clip 2.

Pat Buchanan: Hitler Apologist

Pat Buchanan has written a 'revisionist' account of Winston Churchill and World War II in which he claims that the war was completely unnecessary. When I read that Buchanan had written on this subject I immediately decided that I wanted to read the book. I am no fan of Buchanan, but I do enjoy reading books that offer controversial arguments. What I am looking forward to doing is reviewing (ripping it apart would be a better way of putting it). Christopher Hitchens, however, has beaten me to it. Hitchens has written about the book for Newsweek. He wrote:

"Is there any one shared principle or assumption on which our political consensus rests, any value judgment on which we are all essentially agreed? Apart from abstractions such as a general belief in democracy, one would probably get the widest measure of agreement for the proposition that the second world war was a "good war" and one well worth fighting. And if we possess one indelible image of political immorality and cowardice, it is surely the dismal tap-tap-tap of Neville Chamberlain's umbrella as he turned from signing the Czechs away to Adolf Hitler at Munich. He hoped by this humiliation to avert war, but he was fated to bring his countrymen war on top of humiliation. To the conventional wisdom add the titanic figure of Winston Churchill as the emblem of oratorical defiance and the Horatius who, until American power could be mobilized and deployed, alone barred the bridge to the forces of unalloyed evil. When those forces lay finally defeated, their ghastly handiwork was uncovered to a world that mistakenly thought it had already "supped full of horrors." The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities."

"Historical scholarship has nevertheless offered various sorts of revisionist interpretation of all this. Niall Ferguson, for one, has proposed looking at the two world wars as a single conflict, punctuated only by a long and ominous armistice. British conservative historians like Alan Clark and John Charmley have criticized Churchill for building his career on war, for ignoring openings to peace and for eventually allowing the British Empire to be squandered and broken up. But Pat Buchanan, twice a candidate for the Republican nomination and in 2000 the standard-bearer for the Reform Party who ignited a memorable "chad" row in Florida, has now condensed all the antiwar arguments into one. His case, made in his recently released "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War," is as follows:"

"-That Germany was faced with encirclement and injustice in both 1914 and 1939."

"-Britain in both years ought to have stayed out of quarrels on the European mainland."

"-That Winston Churchill was the principal British warmonger on both occasions."

"-The United States was needlessly dragged into war on both occasions."

"-That the principal beneficiaries of this were Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong."

"-That the Holocaust of European Jewry was as much the consequence of an avoidable war as it was of Nazi racism."

Full review.

More on Lincoln Dispellers: The Gay Lincoln

The following excerpts are from a debate about C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln that was publish in The Claremont Review of Books in 2005.

Allen C. Guelzo wrote:

"When C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln was published (by Free Press last December posthumously, since Tripp died of AIDS in 2003), anyone with a good set of cultural ears might have heard a faint moan coming from the special historical workshop housing the students, scholars, and biographers of Abraham Lincoln. It was not the conspiratorial moan Tripp had predicted, as if he had liberated some great secret which was striding across the land, committing truth. It was more like the moan of the weary, who have seen this kind of thing before, time and again. The moan is not even about Tripp or his book, so much as it is about how much time they'll have to waste, fielding questions from those, whether lovers or haters of Abraham Lincoln, who believe this is the one simple explanation of everything about him. As Edward Steers says (in the first of the thumbnail critiques of Tripp's book which follow), this kind of noisy announcement of the one, true key to the "secret" of Abraham Lincoln—succeeding Lincoln-and-Marfan's-Syndrome, Lincoln-and-Freemasonry, Lincoln-and-Swedenborgianism—has happened before, and will doubtless happen again as long as someone has an agenda he feels the need to hitch to Abraham Lincoln."

"The argument of the book is plain enough to capture in a few sentences. Recollections by and of the young Lincoln point to homoerotic attractions and attractiveness, leading him to beds shared with several young men, including (in later years) one of the officers charged with protecting his life. Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd was a misery, not because Mary was a "hellcat," but because Lincoln was violating his own homosexual nature. Lincoln's marvelous resiliency, humility, and charity were lessons he learned from experiencing the intolerance of a homophobic culture. But the experience exacted a toll, a toll paid in guilt and a sense of alienation from others, both of which show up in his reticence about his private life and in his religious ideas. Lincoln was not only "predominantly homosexual," but his homosexuality is (in the words of Jean Baker, who wrote an afterword to The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln) the key to "his independence and his ability to take anti-Establishment positions like the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.""

"If this is not preposterous, then the word should be declared extinct. The whole proposition ought to collapse under the weight of one question: if Lincoln was a homosexual, why haven't we heard of this before? Surely Lincoln was so public a figure, and homosexuality so leprous an accusation in Victorian America, that not even P.T. Barnum, the Cardiff Giant, and the Feejee Mermaid could have distracted attention from a president who committed sodomy with the captain of his guard."...

Edward Steers, Jr. wrote:

"Abraham Lincoln has been a favorite subject from every side of history. By turns, he has been both hero and villain. As hero, Lincoln has been sanctified as the Savior of the Union, the Great Emancipator, the Man of the People. And in the role of villain (especially for neo-Confederates who despise him for preserving the Union), he has been dismissed as illegitimate by birth, boorish in behavior, a despot who savaged the Constitution while waging a brutal war of destruction, a closet racist who was forced into issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Americans of almost every persuasion have wanted to pin their tail to Abraham Lincoln's donkey."

"So instead of offering something entirely unique, C.A. Tripp has really only joined a long line of tail-pinners, the only novelty being that his argument centers on Lincoln's recorded behavior with other men—behavior that today might raise suspicions of homosexuality, or bisexuality—that included sleeping with various men in the same bed, showing a special affection for certain "young" men, and ending his letters to certain men with "yours forever.""...

Michael Burlingame wrote:

"Insofar as Tripp's book helps disabuse the reading public of the "legend of Lincoln's happy marriage," it serves a valuable function. But insofar as it leads people to think that Lincoln was gay it does a disservice to history, for the evidence adduced fails to support the argument. The cases of Joshua Speed and David Derickson, which Tripp dwells on at greatest length and that provide the strongest evidence for his thesis that Lincoln was "primarily homosexual," are far from conclusive. Lincoln's letters to Speed in the 1840s, which Tripp cites as strong evidence, in fact lack a homoerotic tone. Lincoln's use of "yours forever" in letters to Speed, a phrase that Tripp finds significant, also appears in his letters to many others. In 1864, Lincoln told Titian J. Coffey that "I slept with Joshua [Speed] for four years." If Lincoln and Speed were (to use 19th-century parlance) sodomites, it seems unlikely that Lincoln would have spoken so openly to Coffey. He also acknowledged that he had slept with Charles Maltby over a long period, telling a journalist in 1863: "I know Maltby, for I slept with him six months.""...

"If anything, all the real evidence we have points in precisely the opposite direction. Lincoln's law partner William Herndon alleged that from 1837 to 1842, Lincoln and Joshua Speed, "a lady's man," were "quite familiar—to go no further[—]with the women." On at least one occasion Lincoln shared Speed's taste in fancy women—in fact, the very same woman. Speed recollected that around 1839 or 1840, he "was keeping a pretty woman" in Springfield, and Lincoln, "desirous to have a little," asked his bunkmate, "do you know where I can get some." Speed replied, "Yes I do, & if you will wait a moment or so I'll send you to the place with a note. You cant get it without a note or by my appearance." If Speed was homosexual and impotent with women, as Tripp argues, why did he keep this "pretty woman" in Springfield? If Lincoln was having sex with Speed, why would he ask him where he could "get some"?"...

Full debate.

A Review of the Iraq War

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson has recently taken on some of the major criticisms of the war in Iraq. I feel that Hanson has demolished many of these criticisms. Hanson wrote:

"Many commentators on Iraq had no strong ideas about the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein, but often predicated their evolving views on the basis of whether we were perceived as winning or losing — and later made the necessary and often fluid adjustments. So in light of the changing pulse of the battlefield, it is time once again to examine carefully a few of the now commonplace critiques of the Iraq war."

"1. We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan by going into Iraq, thereby allowing the Taliban to regain the advantage."

" Any two-theater war can result in less resources allotted to one of the two fronts. But such multiple-front wars, whether in World War II or the Cold War, have never stymied the United States military. More importantly, if we are truly in a global war against Islamic extremists — as al-Qaeda itself reminded us when it announced that Iraq was the key front in their jihad against infidel crusaders — then the problem is not necessarily fighting the insurgents in Iraq, but whether it is a theater conducive to our aims and resources — and can be won."

"In other words, Iraq simply upped the ante of a larger war, promising disaster if we lost, and enormous advantages if we won. Progress in Iraq is already having positive effects in Afghanistan, where an experienced American counterinsurgency force is fighting extremists who know that their kindred are on the verge of losing militarily and politically in Iraq, and are afraid that the same bitter calculus now applies to them."

"In the first years, the odds were with the terrorists — given indigenous Muslim local populations, the hostile neighborhood of a Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and anti-war fervor at home and abroad. But once the U.S. military defeated al-Qaeda in Anbar, the population turned on Islamic terrorists, and the elected Iraqi government gained stature, then Islamists in and out of Iraq suffered a terrible defeat."

"We learned to fight a war of counterinsurgency and win hearts and minds far from home; they lost an insurgency — and with it the support of the local and once naturally sympathetic Muslim population. Note that suddenly journalists, intelligence analysts, and politicians are struck by al-Qaeda’s implosion, as the Muslim street turns on radical Islamists, who themselves are torn apart by internal ideological schisms."

"While many critics remain too heavily invested in antiwar positions staked out between 2003–7 to cite the war as a contributory cause, the obvious catalyst for al-Qaeda’s fiasco is its terrible performance in Iraq. Remember, if Americans adjusted their own support for the war on their perceptions of the success or failure of the U.S. military, why wouldn’t millions in the Middle East do the same with radical Islamists like al-Qaeda, whose fortunes on the battlefield have only gone from bad to worse?"

Points 2-7 can be read here.

Edward Said's Orientalism at Thirty

This year makes the thirtieth anniversary of Edawrd Said's Orientalism. What better occasion than to express some criticism I have about this book?

Orientalism was an attempt to explain how the European powers ‘created’ the Orient, by which Said means the Middle East. Said has focused solely on the writings of Europeans and has developed an insightful, but flawed, analysis of the European image of the East.

“The Orient was,” argued Said, “almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.”[1] To Said, the Orient was an actual, physical place, but, more importantly, it was a construction of the European mind. The Orient was of great importance to Europeans because it provided a vivid image of the “other,” which helped to solidify the Occidental self image. “The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of the deepest and most recurring images of the Other.”[2] European ideas about the Orient led to the development of a diverse field of study with a plethora of scholars creating a body of knowledge by studying everything from Sanskrit to the mannerisms of nineteenth century Egyptians. Orientalism also had a colonizing arm because these images of the Orient offered rationalization for European conquest of the Orient.

Said, betraying a prominent Foucaultian influence, made the argument that the idea of the Orient was a result of European power and domination. “The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be ‘Oriental’ in all those ways considered commonplace by an average nineteenth-century European, but also because it could be—that is, submitted to being—made Oriental.”[3] He claimed that since Europeans, primarily Great Britain and France, could exert such physical power over the Orient, then they also could dominate it mentally. He also argued that since the Orient was a consequence of the power relations between East and West, then the Orient could not be separated from Europe. The European idea of ‘us’ is one predicated on their own superiority. It was this superiority, argued Said, which led to Europeans to exerting hegemonic power over non-Europeans, namely Orientals. Not only did Europeans exercise hegemony over Oriental people, but they also dominated ‘knowledge’ of the Orient. Orientals were not able to be the keepers of the knowledge of their own societies due to their backwardness. “Orientalism depends for its strategy on this flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing the relative upper hand.”[4] Said continued, “The scientist, the scholar, the missionary, the trader, or the soldier was in, or thought about, the Orient because he could be there, or could think about it, with very little resistance on the Orient’s part.”[5]

According to Said, Orientalism was not a simple rationalization of colonial rule, but colonialism was justified by Orientalism.[6] He wrote that since the middle of the eighteenth century the relationship between East and West was guided by two distinct elements. One was the increasing body of knowledge, propped up by imperialism, devoted to the exotic, which was exploited by new social sciences. This growth in knowledge led to a proliferation of literature about the Orient.[7] The other element was that Europe always held a position of strength in the East-West relationship. Said wrote that “the essential relationship [between East and West], on political, cultural, and even religious grounds, was seen—in the West… to be one between a strong and a weak partner.”[8] Said concluded that since the West’s knowledge of the Orient comes from a dominate position, then the West has merely invented the Oriental and his world.

Said also put forth the concept of imaginative geography and its relationship to the development of Orientalism. Imaginative geography was a way in which Europeans dramatize, exaggerate, and at times fabricate facts about the ‘other.’ Europeans created an Orient that was mysterious, sensual, sexual, devious and exotic. Said wrote:

"The Orient seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe. An Orientalist is but the particular specialist in knowledge for which Europe at large is responsible, in the way that an audience is historically and culturally responsible for (and responsive to) dramas technically by the dramatists. In the depths of this Oriental stage stands a prodigious cultural repertoire whose individual items evoke a fabulously rich world… of monsters, devils, heroes; terrors, pleasures, desires."[9]

The most illustrative example of this is the topic of Islam. Orientalists have misrepresented and misunderstood Islam and especially the position of Mohammed. Orientalists presented Mohammed as an impostor of and rival to Jesus. They placed him at the center of Islam, or as Islam’s version of Jesus, but in actuality Mohammed, according Islam, was the last in a long line of prophets, which included Jesus.

Said drew his conclusions from the false notion that European images of the Orient have remained static and were based on broad Enlightenment ideals. Europeans, Said argued, believed these ideals to be universal. This line of thought is quite flawed. “Much recent research has shown,” argued D.A. Washbrook, a critic of postcolonialism and Subaltern Studies, “substantially greater ‘difference’ in European perception than colonial discourse theory would allow—including many views favourable to non-Europe and hostile to colonialism.”[10] Washbrook correctly argued that Said and other scholars ignored European intellectual movements that followed the Enlightenment such as Romanticism. The proponents of Romanticism rejected many of the ‘truths’ that Enlightenment thinkers held to be universal. Many of the Romantics were rather sympathetic to non-Europeans including Orientals. By portraying European about the Orient as one-sided and unchanging, Said has done nothing more than to expose his willful ignorance. Historians of the Middle East has written that “Said has read widely (if selectively) and writes imaginatively and perceptively, and he might have brought off a real tour de force if only he had satisfied himself with more limited conclusions.”[11] In his review of Orientalism Kerr has leveled an important and valid criticism of Said’s ‘scholarship’:

"This book reminds me of the television program "Athletes in Action," in which professional football players compete in swimming, and so forth. Edward Said, literary critic loaded with talent, has certainly made a splash, but with this sort of effort he is not going to win any major races. This is a great pity, for it is a book that in principle needed to be written, and for which the author possessed rich material. In the end, however, the effort misfired. The book contains many excellent sections and scores many telling points, but it is spoiled by overzealous prosecutorial argument in which Professor Said, in his eagerness to spin too large a web, leaps at conclusions and tries to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a preconceived frame of analysis. In charging the entire tradition of European and American Oriental studies with the sins of reductionism and caricature, he commits precisely the same error."[12]

Said’s scope was also fairly limited. Besides focusing solely on European sources, he only examined sources that were written about a small section of the Orient; the Middle East. Not only did Said focus Middle East, but he wrote solely about Arabs and mostly those in Egypt. He ignored Turkey and modern day Iran. He also ignored China, Japan, and India and so on, which he admitted. Bernard Lewis, who Said unjustly portrayed as one of the villain Orientalists, has written that “The limitations of time, space, and content which Mr. Said forcibly imposes on his subject, though they constitute a serious distortion, are no doubt convenient and indeed necessary to his purpose. They are not, however, sufficient to accomplish it.”[13] Said was also fairly selective about the authors and works which he dissected. Lewis continued, “Among the British and French Arabists and Islamicists who are the ostensible subject of his study, many leading figures are either not mentioned at all or mentioned briefly in passing. Even for those whom he does cite, Mr. Said makes a remarkably arbitrary choice of works. His common practice indeed is to omit their major contributions to scholarship and instead fasten on minor or occasional writings.”[14] Lewis has offered the example of Edward Lane to illustrate his point. Lane emerges as one of the chief culprits among Orientalists in general. According to Lewis, Said chose to dissect a fairly minor work written by Lane after a visit to Egypt and completely ignored all of Lane’s major works.[15] Lewis went on to state:

"All of this—the arbitrary rearrangement of the historical background, and the capricious choice of countries, persons, and writings—still does not suffice for Mr. Said to prove his case, and he is obliged to resort to additional devices. One is the reinterpretation of the passages he cites to an extent out of all reasonable accord with their authors' manifest intentions. Another is to bring into the category of "Orientalist" a whole series of writers—litterateurs like Chateaubriand and Nerval, imperial administrators like Lord Cromer, and others—whose works were no doubt relevant to the formation of Western cultural attitudes, but who had nothing to do with the academic tradition of Orientalism which is Mr. Said's main target."[16]

Said’s selectiveness has done damage to the overall validity of his arguments.


Yet, despite these major flaws, Orientalism is still widely read throughout the West. It is a classic among left-leaning college and university professors who generally suffer from white guilt. I'm not saying that this book should not be read, but, the opposite, it should be thoroughly read and dissected so that its fallacies will be completely revealed.


[1]Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 1.

[2] Ibid., 1.

[3] Ibid., 5-6.

[4] Ibid., 7.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 39.

[7] Ibid., 39-40.

[8] Ibid., 40.

[9] Ibid., 63.

[10] D.A. Washbrook, “Orients and Occidents: Colonial Discourse Theory and the Historiography of the British Empire,” in Robin W. Winks, The Oxford History of the British Empire; Volume V: Historiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.596-510, 603.

[11] Malcolm Kerr, “Edward Said, Orientalism,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 12 (December 1980), pp. 544-547, 544.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Bernard Lewis, “The Question of Orientalism,” New York Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 11 (June 24, 1982), para. 34.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., para. 35.

[16] Ibid., para. 36.

Tim Russert, 1950-2008

9/11 Truthers

I had planed to post a multi-part examination of the 9/11 Truth movement, but I just don't feel like expending both my time and energy writing about those morons. However, if I come across something that catches my attention then I'll write something about it. Here's a clip of Bill Maher (not a person I admire) taking on 9/11 Truthers.

Editors of the National Review Online: Free Mark Steyn

This was posted on National Review Online earlier this week:

"Most of the media in Canada and the United States ignored the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal that took place last week in a windowless basement in Vancouver. Now, a group of provincial human-rights commissars will decide whether or not National Review’s incomparable Mark Steyn and the largest-circulating magazine in Canada, Maclean’s, will be fined or otherwise censured for printing an excerpt from Steyn’s book, America Alone. The piece argued that demographic trends indicate that Western Civilization will sooner or later be forced to confront problems associated with radical Islam. We believe that the right to free speech must be defended almost without exception, but it’s worth noting that Steyn’s article was perfectly within the bounds of reasonable opinion journalism."

"While only an administrative hearing, the human-rights travesty had the air and authority of an actual trial — except with few of the legal protections usually afforded the accused. Andrew Coyne, a journalist with Maclean’s, live-blogged the farce; his dispatches were as amusing as they were harrowing. The proceedings had no evidentiary rules — new evidence was routinely introduced without warning. Commissioners routinely recessed to determine the eligibility of evidence; legal representation would dash off mid-hearing to print Internet material to introduce as evidence; an “expert” witness was called whose chief credentials were academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and still other witnesses were called under the prejudicial direction that “we anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.”"...

"Silence only serves the cause of this miscarriage of justice. Speak up — and free Steyn, Maclean’s, and Canada."

Full editoral.

Rich Lowry on the Mark Steyn Show Trial

This article was posted on Townhall.com:

"At its best, Western civilization has fostered freedom of speech and of thought. But Canada has a better idea. "

"Last week, a Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia considered a complaint brought against journalist Mark Steyn for a piece in the Canadian newsweekly Maclean's. The excerpt from Steyn's best-selling book "America Alone" argued that high Muslim birthrates mean Europeans will feel pressure to reach "an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots.""

"The piece was obviously within respectable journalistic bounds. In fact, combining hilarity and profound social analysis, the article could be considered a sparkling model of the polemical art -- not surprisingly, given that Steyn is one of North America's journalistic gems."

"The Canadian Islamic Congress took offense. In the normal course of things, that would mean speaking or writing to counter Steyn. Not in 21st-century Canada, where the old liberal rallying cry "I hate what you say, but will fight for your right to say it" no longer applies."

"The country is dotted with human-rights commissions. At first, they typically heard discrimination suits against businesses. But since that didn't create much work, the commissions branched out into policing "hate" speech. Initially, they targeted neo-Nazis; then religious figures for their condemnations of homosexuality; and now Maclean's and Steyn."

"The new rallying cry is, "If I hate what you say, I'll accuse you of hate." The Canadian Islamic Council got the Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia and the national Canadian Human Rights Commission (where proceedings are still pending) to agree to hear its complaint. It had to like its odds."

"The national commission has never found anyone innocent in 31 years. It is set up for classic Alice-in-Wonderland "verdict first, trial later" justice. Canada's Human Rights Act defines hate speech as speech "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt." The language is so capacious and vague that to be accused is tantamount to being found guilty."

Full article.

Another Lincoln Dispeller

In a previous post I made an effort to dispel some of the Lincoln dispellers, but I have just come across this video featuring Thomas DiLorenzo. DiLorenzo is the author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked and is one of the major Lincoln dispellers. He makes repeated references to the "Church of Lincoln" and claims that Lincoln scholars have deified Lincoln and don't criticize him at all. This is just plain wrong and it shows that DiLorenzo has little knowledge of the historiography of Lincoln. He is nothing more than a pseudo-historian who writes history for his own present, political purposes.

Jim Webb: A Neo-Confederate

Virginia's Democrat Senator, and possible Obama V.P. candidate, Jim Webb is Neo-Confederate, which means that he sympathizes with the "Lost Cause." Just read this article from Politico:

"Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy."

"Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sensitive topics in American history."

"He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride. In a June 1990 speech in front of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery...he lauded the rebels’ “gallantry,” which he said “is still misunderstood by most Americans.”"

"Webb, a descendant of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s, and seemed to suggest that states were justified in trying to secede."

"“Most Southern soldiers viewed the driving issue to be sovereignty rather than slavery,” he said. “Love of the Union was palpably stronger in the South than in the North before the war — just as overt patriotism is today — but it was tempered by a strong belief that state sovereignty existed prior to the Constitution and that it had never been surrendered.”"
"Webb expanded on his sentiments in his well-received 2004 book, “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America,” which portrays the Southern cause as at least understandable, if not wholly laudable."

"“The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday’s America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today,” he wrote. “The greatest disservice on this count has been the attempt by these revisionist politicians and academics to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy.” As in the Confederate Memorial speech, Webb suggests in his book that relatively few Southerners were slaveholders and that the war was fought over state sovereignty, which in the eyes of many at the time included the right to secede from the national government."

Full article.

Webb offered a rebuttal claiming that he is and historian and then went on to recite some Neo-Confedrate talking points like: "5% of Southerners owned slaves" and that "most Confederates were fighting for their homes and communities."

FREE MARK STEYN!!!!!!

See previous post.

(image taken from http://www.redplanet.com/)

New Books on Goldwater

Here's two books on Barry Goldwater that I'm dying to read. The first, entitled Pure Goldwater, was co-authored by Barry Goldwater Jr. and John W. Dean (of Watergate fame), but was also relied heavily on Goldwater's private journals. Michael J. New, reviewing the book for National Review Online, wrote:

"Of all the books on “Mr. Conservative,” Pure Goldwater might provide the most realistic insights into his character and thinking. After the birth of Barry Jr., Goldwater started a private journal, which he maintained off and on throughout his career, to record for the benefit of his children his thoughts on a range of topics — including running his business, his military service during World War II, the natural beauty of Arizona, and his long career as a U.S. Senator. That journal is the basis of Pure Goldwater — so, in effect, it is a book written by the senator himself, capturing his most intimate thoughts for those closest to him."

According to New, the book barely touches upon Goldwater's 1964 campaign for President, his various successful Senatorial campaigns, or his relationship with Ronald Reagan. New wrote that "the book offers invaluable insights into Goldwater’s dealings with Richard Nixon — as a Presidential candidate, as President, and in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal — which together comprise roughly a third of the book."

The book also includes personal letters and speeches of as well as tributes to Goldwater.

The other book is William F. Buckley's Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater. This book is as much about Buckley as it is about Goldwater. Reviewing the book for City Journal, Michael Knox Beran wrote:

"The generosity with which old adversaries treated William F. Buckley, Jr., after his death in February was double-edged. They praised the man and deplored his ideas. “He was a cultivated man,” Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker. “He could not have been happy with the vulgarity of the movement he did so much to spawn.” Hertzberg justified his eulogy by arguing that Buckley had changed: after Ronald Reagan became president, he “began to drift away from the militant conservative movement and its orthodoxies—not as spectacularly as his friend Barry Goldwater, but perceptibly. His political writings became perfunctory; he preferred to write thrillers (and pieces about sailing for The New Yorker).” If Hertzberg were right, Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater—the last book Buckley saw through the press—would presumably give some indication of his estrangement from the movement to which he and Goldwater devoted the energies of their prime."

"It doesn’t. Flying High is not a recantation. In it, Buckley describes the “grand time” that he and Goldwater had leading the conservative counterrevolution against the orthodoxies of the Left and against those Republicans—like Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay—who accommodated them. This aboriginal right-wing conspiracy succeeded when Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 and campaigned on the principles of his 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative. Buckley’s brother-in-law, National Review editor L. Brent Bozell, ghostwrote the book, which lamented America’s betrayal of the idea of limited government and drew attention to some of the consequences of that betrayal: “an immense tax burden, high consumer prices, vexatious controls.” Buckley admits that he and his fellow conspirators made mistakes. They had not yet found a way to sell conservatism to the nation as a whole. Goldwater’s rhetoric was at times too strident; Buckley shows Ronald Reagan, about to launch his own political career, carefully taking note."

" Goldwater is remembered today mainly as Reagan’s unsuccessful forerunner, but Buckley, a master of the éloge, shows that there was much more to the man. In Flying High he evokes not only the politician but also the pilot, the naturalist (“a child of the Grand Canyon”), the eccentric (Goldwater arrived in Palm Beach in 1962 wearing denim jeans, a cowboy hat, and cowboy boots), and the loyal—but always honest—friend. (Asked how Buckley had acquitted himself performing a harpsichord concerto in Phoenix, Goldwater said: “Wonderfully. Absolutely first rate. Of course, this is the first time I ever went to a concert.”) Goldwater’s decency, too, is manifest. Advised to make political hay of LBJ’s disgraced aide Walter Jenkins, who had resigned in a sex scandal, Goldwater shook his head. “Jenkins has a wife and six children,” he said. “Leave him alone.”"

"Flying High is not the work of a disenchanted conservative. It is, however, the work of a man who recoiled from repetition, a restless writer continually working out new literary forms. While he might not have indulged in what J. S. Mill called “experiments of living,” Buckley had no patience with the notion that a conservative must conform to the established aesthetic modes."

"A political movement cannot, of course, inspire in maturity the same excitement it did in its earliest and most revolutionary phases. Bill Buckley, in the sunset of life, had a degree of nostalgia for the “joys and sorrows” of the early days of the conservative revival. But he did not drift away from the movement he founded. Flying High, his last book, is not a work of disillusion. It is the work of a man faithful to his earliest inspirations, and highly original in his literary representation of them."

James McPherson on Lincoln's Invention of War Powers

I came across this James McPherson lecture in which he argues that Abraham Lincoln's invention and use of Presidential war powers.

Indiana Jones = Americanism

Does Indiana Jones embody Americanism? Historian Eric Rauchway seems to think so. Writing for The New Republic's website, he argued:

"Indiana Jones balances two of the essential American archetypes as defined by Constance Rourke in her 1931 essay "American Humor." With the broad-brimmed fedora, the bullwhip, and the six-shooter, he evokes the cowboy as frontier hero, the backwoodsman who stands casually ready to kill, if need be. Tall tales of frontiersmen erupted naturally from the American experience with the West. They were legendary figures like Davy Crockett, who boasted that he kept the sun in its path and rode the lightning. Jones's adventures feature a cascading top-this quality sufficient to rival any Crockett brag."

"At the same time, Dr. Jones evokes another of Rourke's archetypes, the savvy Yankee. The lean, shrewd bargainer, scholar of human affairs, he gets by because he knows more than you. Indiana Jones's hat and jacket may have become icons, but Dr. Jones spends as much time wearing spectacles and tweeds, stalking libraries and classrooms, as he does dodging the living dead." "When Rourke defined her types of American, she believed they had failed to merge into a single national character. The frontiersman's bravado remained distinct from the Yankee's shrewdness, and the sections of the nation from which they sprang remained at odds. But Indiana Jones gives us the pleasure of both American types in one character. He has his reckless, casually violent side, which gets him both into and out of minor scrapes: but he avoids catastrophe only because he values scholarly wisdom."

Full article.

"Guantanamo Baywatch"

This was on The Daily Show last night.

Union Soldiers Destroyed Historic Murfreesboro Church

In the decades prior to the Civil War Murfreesboro's First Presbyterian Church was a thriving church with a large congregation, but things would change during the war. This article details the church's history:

"Capt. William Lytle donated the land for First Presbyterian in 1818 and by 1820 the congregation had completed what was the first church building in Murfreesboro. Previously, the church met in a log schoolhouse near Murfree Springs"

"Prolific diarist John Spence wrote the church was “A brick building forty by sixty ft, two storys, windows, painted shutters, three doors in front, two leading to the gallery, finishing off with a cupaloe, about seventy feet high, neatly finished with painted shutters, a large golden ball on the top, a hundred and twenty five pounds bell. The inside work, a gallery on two sides and end, pannel work all round, also three rows seats round the gallery. The whole supported above and below with turned pillars, standing at proper distance apart. The lower story, all pewed, closed with doors. An elevated pulpit, about three feet from the floor, stair way either side for entrance with doors, seating three men. All well finished and neatly painted. Pews all numbered on the doors. This, the general appearance. The work of the whole building was undertaken by Benj. Goldson, at a cost of about four thousand dollars.”"

"It was an appropriately designed church for what was then Tennessee’s state capital, a distinction Murfreesboro held from 1818 to 1826. At the time, it was the largest building in Murfreesboro with the exception of the courthouse, where the Tennessee General Assembly met."

"The 1822 session was an important one historically. It marked the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s rise to the presidency with the Tennessee legislature, meeting in Murfreesboro, nominating Jackson for the post. Future President James K. Polk was clerk of the Senate. Sam Houston was adjutant-general and frontiersman David Crockett was a member of the House"

"In 1837, Murfreesboro officials purchased the land adjacent to First Presbyterian with the idea of expanding the church’s burial ground into a community cemetery. Many of the town’s prominent leaders would be buried there."

"That would all change with the Civil War."

"The last church service held there was in October 1862 with the Confederate Army of Tennessee establishing a hospital in the building. Confederate surgeons would care for wounded from both sides during and after the Battle of Stones River, using, in some cases, supplies provided by the U.S. Commissariat."

"C. Lewis Diehl, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, wrote on Jan. 7, 1863:"

"“The hospital in which we are is an old Presbyterian Church and might be made very comfortable, but as it is we have nothing except straw ticks to lay on and a thin blanket for cover, with corn fodder for a pillow. The surgeons - rebel - treat us very kindly and are doing as much for us as they do for their own men. The ladies - rebel - who visit this hospital generally slight us. Some few will attend to our wants. There was a general apprehension by the rebels that our men would not treat them kindly; but since they have received our stores, with permission to help themselves to whatever they need, they think differently.”"

"With the Confederate wounded moved to Chattanooga and other points, the hospital became a Federal operation. More than 500 Union and Confederate dead were temporarily buried at the cemetery and were later relocated to Stones River National Cemetery or Evergreen Cemetery."

"No longer needed for a field hospital, the church was converted into a stable and supply warehouse for Union cavalry."

"The following winter (1863-1864) Union troops completely demolished the church. Wooden fixtures were used for firewood and the brick was converted into ovens and fireplaces for campgrounds. There was nothing left of the structure by March 1864."

Full article.

Courage Under Fire, Review

I wish I could say that Wiley J. Sword's latest book, Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery From the Battlefields of the Civil War, is a welcome addition to the vast field of books on the Civil War, but I just cannot do so. Sword's objective is to provide numerous examples of the different types of courage displayed by both soldiers and civilians during the war, but, however, he falls short of this goal.

One of the themes that seems to be at the center of this book is that there were no real differences between Northern and Southern soldiers. They all shared, according to Sword, a common sense of duty and displayed similar courage. OK, but what does this add to our understanding of the war? Nothing at all. This book is a drums and bugle, highly romanticized view of the war.

Sword also has quite a romantic view of Robert E. Lee. Lee is portrayed as this man of great courage. How was he courageous? Well, he implemented a rather foolish battle plan on day 3 at Gettysburg and then accepted the blame for its failure. I guess its courageous to nearly destroy your army and seal the fate of your country as along as you say "my bad" once you've done so.
I have other problems with the book. For the first 150 or so pages, he centered each chapter around a certain theme and illustrated each theme through long block quotes from soldiers' letters. The excerpts from letters and diaries are extremely interesting, but Sword's analysis of these letters was fairly light. Though these excerpts were absorbing, Sword may have relied on them too much. There is an urge among historians to let documents do all the talking, but a good historian must step in help us make sense of the documents. Also, Sword abruptly stops relying on these excerpts about half way through the book. It is as though he realized that he was bogging down the text with these long block quotes. The second half of the book reads much better because the flow of the text is not constantly being interrupted.

For a better study of civil war courage I recommend Gerald Linderman's Embattled Courage.

"If At First You Don't Secede"

Last night on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert's topic for "The Word" was the Confedrate Flag. This was hilarious.

My Other Blog Has Been Moved

I moved Student of the Civil War from Word Press to Blogger. It can be seen here.

New Book on Wade Hampton

I can’t wait to read this new book on Wade Hampton. Over the past few years there has been a renaissance in writing about this Confederate general after a drought of several decades. Here are some excerpts from a review printed over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal:

“Rod Andrew Jr.’s “Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer” is, amazingly, the fourth full-scale biography of the man in five years, but no less welcome for that. Hampton is one of those larger-than-life figures whose actions repay close attention and whose careers match pivotal moments in America’s history.”

"Before the Civil War, Hampton was a gentleman-planter who, with other members of his family, owned vast, slave-labor plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina and lived most of the time at Millwood, a resplendent property near Columbia, S.C. True to his exalted status, he was keen on his ancestors, his horses and his hunting. In 1857, after some English aristocrats visited him in Mississippi, Hampton wrote to his sister: “Today I took them bear-hunting & we killed four. They are not accustomed to the sport. Lord Althorp . . . was with me & he literally had his clothes torn off. I had to furnish him with my drawers, as to enable him to come home decently.”"

“Mr. Andrew brings this antebellum South to life, but he describes Hampton’s wartime experience with special vividness. (Mr. Andrews is himself a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, as well as a history professor at Clemson University.) Hampton was a bold, competent commanding officer — whether supporting infantry with his daring charges or conducting long raids into enemy territory — though not a brilliant one. In 1864, he succeeded Jeb Stuart as cavalry commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Hampton notably took pains to see that his men were well cared for, receiving adequate rations, shelter and home leave.”

“This concern for the well- being of others fits Mr. Andrew’s thesis — that Southern concepts of paternalism, honor and chivalry formed Hampton’s character. So, it may be said, did grim experience. Hampton buried two wives and five children. Both a brother and a son were killed in the War Between the States. Of the son’s death, near Petersburg, Va., in 1864, one eyewitness wrote: Hampton “dismounted and kissed his [fallen] boy, wiped a tear from his eye, remounted and went on giving orders as though nothing happened.”"

Full review.

New Book on Gingrich and Clinton

I am looking forward to reading this book by Steve M. Gillon, which analyzes the relationship between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. The book centers around a meeting that was held between the two in 1997. Here are some excerpts from a review printed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal:

"In "The Pact," Steven M. Gillon focuses on the two current Washington figures whose political reputations are most in need of rehabilitation. The first is Bill Clinton, the only president in modern times to have been impeached and, more recently, the gaffe-prone spouse of a presidential contender. The second is Newt Gingrich. Having become speaker of the House in 1995 – for a while, one of the most powerful speakers in history – Mr. Gingrich left Congress only four years later a defeated figure, distrusted by his caucus and trailed by the news that he, too, had carried on an affair with a member of his staff.'

"Messrs. Clinton and Gingrich were seemingly mortal political enemies, too. But were they really? Mr. Gillon discloses a 1997 meeting between the two whose purpose was to plot the unthinkable: compromise and collaboration. The surreptitious summit took place in an atmosphere of rank partisanship for which Mr. Gingrich could (perhaps proudly) take a great deal of credit."

"The great irony, Mr. Gillon notes, is that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gingrich discovered that they actually liked each other. They were both exhaustingly loquacious politicians and "big idea" men. And both felt at odds with the populist core of their parties. By the summer of 1995, they started meeting regularly and talking on the phone, sometimes several times a day. When word of such amity leaked out, the staff of each side comically scrambled to prevent the two men from spending time alone, fearful that each would sell out his side. Party leaders dispatched Vice President Al Gore and Republican stalwart Dick Armey to act as "minders," charged with keeping the president and the speaker from finding too much common ground."

Full review.

Free Speech on Trial in Canada

Author and columnist Mark Steyn is currently being tried by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for inciting racial hatred. Steyn and the newsweekly Macleans are being tried for the publication of this excerpt from Steyn's book, America Alone. The excerpt and Steyn's book make the argument that the population of ethnic Europeans is diminishing while at the same time Europe's Muslim population is increasing. Since Europe has been a place where many jihadist groups have recruited young disillusioned Muslim men, then there should be some cause for worry in American and other Western states. It is not a rant against Islam, but an argument about Europe's potential future as a jihadist recruiting ground.

The book is a well argued and thoughtful treatise and its conclusions are open to debate. However, this is not the case in liberal, progressive and forward thinking Canada. Arguments such as this, which do not fit the liberal feel good demeanor of the Canadian people and government, are unfairly labeled as racist and are shut down to debate. This trial is nothing more than a Stalinist show trial and will be a black spot on Canada's national reputation as a progressive nation. The Canadian government should be completely ashamed of its indefensible actions.

Terry From Reno 911!

This has nothing to do with anything that I usually write about, but I love this character from Reno 911!.

Obama Clinches, McCain Unleashes, and Hillary Concedes Nothing

Last night was an interesting night in the presidential campaign. Obama won the primaries in South Dakota and Montana making him the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Hillary Clinton, who lost in both of those primaries making it nearly impossible to capture the nomination, conceded nothing at all and gave what can be viewed as a campaign speech. John McCain gave a major speech in Louisiana in which he turned his sights completely on Obama and level many damaging criticisms of the Democratice nominee. McCain also did much to distance himself from President Bush.

Obama's speech.

Hillary's speech

McCain's speech

Jefferson Davis's birthday as an Official Holiday

Today is the 200th birthday of Jefferson Davis, which is being celebrated in areas of the South; Alabama in particular. The state government in Mongomery has declared Davis’s birthday an official state holiday. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are planing to hold various ceremonies celebrating the event on June 14.

Uncontacted Tribe Found in the Amazon

On Friday CNN reported the discovery of an uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. This tribe is just one of possibly hundreds of uncontacted tribes in this area of the world. The tribe was found by researchers working for Brazil's National Indian Foundation (NIF). CNN reported:

"Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest."


"More than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, and about half live in the remote reaches of the Amazonian rainforest in Peru or Brazil, near the recently photographed tribe, according to Survival International, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people."
""All are in grave danger of being forced off their land, killed or decimated by new diseases," the organization (NIF) said Thursday."

"Its director, Stephen Cory, said the new photographs highlight the need to protect uncontacted people from intrusion by the outside world."

"Illegal logging in Peru is threatening several uncontacted groups, pushing them over the border with Brazil and toward potential conflicts with about 500 uncontacted Indians living on the Brazilian side, Survival International said."


""These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," Cory said in a statement. "The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.""


Full article.

Photos that you can zoom in on:

Photo 1

Photo 2

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