No comments about Character Above All : James Cannon on Gerald Ford, Michael Beschloss on George Bush (Character Above All , Vol 8).

No comments about Martin Van Buren - Old Kinderhook (Biography).

No comments about Horoscopes of the U.S. presidents (PAI approved text).

1 comments about Confessions of a Bumbling Sex Addict.

1. Arthur Elmo Jackson needs to get in touch with me so I can turn this into a movie!!! This has such potential for the big-screen.
   
   Great writing!

2 comments about The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes.

1. This book is told from and unbiased standpoint. The author does an excellent job ofjust giving the facts and not letting his opinion or anyone else's get in the way. The best example of this is in the first two chapters which talks about his campaign and then the disputed election, where to sum it up quickly, Hayes did not have the popular majority and won by 1 electoral vote. The book supplies me quotes and historical references from both Republican and Democrats and then gets into of the details of the election. So before I know all the details I already have evidence from both sides. Once one gets to the details it is simply facts no opinions. Hoogenboom does an extraordinary job giving facts and references from the time period and making and unbiased point of view. That is tolled form all sides and does not just concentrate on Hayes' side. The book remarkably managed to take and unbiased stance and still attack the widely held belief that Hayes was and ineffective leader and an inept politician. The author bring an entire new perspective on how to view Hayes. According to the American Presidency Series this book is supposed to present historians and the general public with interesting, scholarly assessments of Hayes' administration. Yet I found this book to be geared to the historians and the scholarly. The book is obviously being written for someone with good amount of intelligence. After reading this book one gains an entire new respect for the 19th President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. END



2. Rutherford B. Hayes' victory in the presidential election of 1876 was fraught with irregularities. In the end, he received 185 electoral votes to 184 for Samuel Tilden. After the initial election, Tilden had 184, Hayes 165 and the remaining 20 were disputed. To settle the dispute, a commission with fifteen members was appointed. Four were judges, 2 Democratic and 2 Republican, there were five Democratic and five Republican members of Congress and one additional judge that was supposed to be an independent. However, independent judge David Davis, who was slated to be the fifteenth member, could not serve and was replaced by Republican judge Joseph Bradley. By a series of eight-to-seven votes, all twenty disputed votes, and the presidency, were awarded to Hayes. As a consequence of the maneuvering that put him in the White House, Hayes was constantly referred to as "his fraudulency."
   However, as Hoogenboom explains very well, the manipulations that ended with the Hayes victory involved a great deal of compromise. At the time he took office, federal troops still occupied several southern states, maintaining carpetbagger Republican governments that protected the voting rights of the recently freed black population. In exchange for Democratic acquiescence to his assumption of the Presidency, Hayes agreed to end the occupations. Hayes was concerned about black rights and extracted a hollow promise from the Democrats that they would not interfere with the voting rights of blacks. Once the troops were removed, the Democrats took over from the Republican governments and initiated the process of segregation.
   Hayes was an able administrator and had the best of intentions in his attempts to aid the plight of blacks. However, the white leadership of the South was largely unrepentant and everyone wanted the conflict to finally be over. Therefore, while things did not go the way Hayes wanted in the South, what happened was probably inevitable. He was also a transitional figure, as the American economy was emerging from depression and the industrial revolution was about to explode. During his term, labor organizations were forming and the first major strike took place. Unlike other figures in power, Hayes at least had some empathy for the workers and worked only to keep the peace. He was very precise in staying within constitutional bounds and avoided taking sides as much as possible. As the author is careful to point out, Hayes did not break the strike. His role in ending it is limited to the consequences of his actions in maintaining the public order.
   Hayes was also a transitional figure in terms of American foreign involvement. He is the last president to keep their focus within the borders of the United States and less than twenty pages are devoted to foreign affairs. All future presidents were forced by circumstances to pay a great deal of attention to the rest of the world. His involvement in the treatment of Native Americans was similar to what happened with southern blacks. His intentions were good and humane, however the circumstances prevented him from making a significant positive impact.
   Hayes is often portrayed as an aloof and inept president, which is not the case. As Hoogenboom does an excellent job of explaining, Hayes was an honorable man who was pressed by circumstances to make compromises that he found distasteful. In reading this history of those times, I was convinced that Hayes did the best that anyone could have done, given the circumstances.

No comments about The Life and Times of Thabo Mbeki.

4 comments about Hubert Humphrey.

1. We know that Carl Solberg took this subject upon his own knowledge of this subject as a expert Time-Life staffer and Minnesota insider to undertake this project. It is a well written and well researched. There are not too many like this account. It fills in a dearth of Humphrey biographies



2. We know that Carl Solberg took this subject upon his own knowledge of this subject as a expert Time-Life staffer and Minnesota insider to undertake this project. It is a well written and well researched. There are not too many like this account. It fills in a dearth of Humphrey biographies



3. Solberg offers a well-researched and fair biography of one of America's greatest Senators this century and a former Vice President. From his pharmacy days till his death we get the full view of Humphrey's life. Maybe of more interest to history buffs than the average person, this is still well worth a read if you can track down a copy.



4. Hubert Humphrey, who served in the US Senate for 24 years and dominated that body as few men ever have, has long been a greatly underrated figure by political biographers and historians. Far more than the Kennedy brothers or Lyndon Johnson, Humphrey was a crusader for liberal causes even when they were unpopular, and his leadership in the cause of civil rights puts virtually every other major politician to shame. Yet today Humphrey is almost forgotten by most Americans, and other, less worthy men have gained the credit for the social and economic change that should have been his. Carl Solberg, in this solidly-researched, if somewhat pedestrian biography, shows why Humphrey came to be a rather tragic figure in the history of American liberalism. Humphrey was born in 1911 in the tiny town of Doland (population, about 700) on the isolated South Dakota prairie. The dominant figure in his early life was his father, the town pharmacist and "token" Democrat, whom he adored. Humphrey's childhood was generally happy, but it came to an abrupt end when the Great Depression struck. All of Doland's banks closed and many other businesses failed as the local farmers and townsfolk couldn't afford to pay their bills. The Humphrey drugstore also suffered, and the family had to sell their handsome house and move into a much smaller one. Eventually, Humphrey's father gave up on the dying town and moved to the larger town of Huron, where the local townspeople at first gave his family the cold shoulder and the already-established pharmacists tried to run him out of business. The Humphreys had to fight to survive and young Hubert, who had dreamed of getting a college degree and leaving South Dakota behind, was forced to get a pharmacy degree and help his father run the drugstore. He hated it and after seven years finally told his father that he couldn't do it anymore. He went to college at the University of Minnesota, earned a master's degree in political science, and quickly moved into Democratic politics in the city of Minneapolis. At the age of 34 he was elected Mayor, where he rooted out crooks and helped the labor unions. In 1948 he first achieved the national spotlight with a dramatic speech to the Democratic National Convention in which he forcefully pushed the cause of civil rights for blacks, earning him friends among liberal Democrats but enraging the Southern segregationists, who vowed revenge. Elected to the US Senate in 1948, Humphrey was at first scorned by the angry Southern segregationists who ran the Senate and regarded Humphrey as a wild-eyed fanatic who wanted to give blacks the right to vote (which he did). Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground, eventually winning friends among liberal Northern Democrats and the respect and affection of even the Southerners. Yet time and again Humphrey, always a poor man in a rich man's political game, found himself passed over for Senate leadership posts and the Presidency by wealthier or less-liberal candidates. In 1960 Humphrey's underfunded presidential campaign was crushed by the Kennedys, who bought huge numbers of votes in the West Virginia primary to finish him off. In 1964 he was picked as Lyndon Johnson's running mate, but his four years as Vice-President were miserable. Johnson was consistently bullying and even backstabbing to Humphrey, despite his loyal service, and Humphrey's support of the Vietnam War (he felt obliged to support the President no matter what his own private feelings about the war) caused many of his liberal supporters to turn against him. In 1968 Humphrey finally won the Democrats' nomination for President, but the bloody riots outside the Convention between Chicago police and antiwar protestors, combined with a bitter split in the party over the Vietnam War, led to his narrow defeat by Republican Richard Nixon. Humphrey eventually made it back to the US Senate, but he was defeated in 1972 and 1976 by lesser-known (and lesser-qualified) Democrats for the presidential nomination. He died from cancer in 1978. Solberg's great insight in this biography is that Humphrey failed to become President because he was both ahead of, and then behind, his times. In the late 1940's and 1950's his fiery speeches on behalf of civil rights and other liberal causes led Democrats to complain that he was too "radical" and "extreme" to be elected President - he was too "liberal" for the country's mood. Yet by the late sixties his support of the Vietnam War led younger liberals to claim he was too "conservative" and "behind the times" to be President. Given Humphrey's achievements - Medicare, the Voting Rights Act, and the Peace Corps were just a few of his ideas which other Presidents put into place - many older liberals may regret that they didn't support him for President in 1968, and many younger liberals may wish they currently had a crusader like Humphrey to lead them. Although Solberg's writing style is rather pedestrian, overall he does a fine job of describing the life of a man who should be rated among the most creative political leaders of the last fifty years.

5 comments about Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.

1. Kerry released his service records in April. If you have an IQ above that of a post, figure it out.



2. I read the book in one day and at the end of it was absolutely astonished at how much we ignored the horrible lies of George W. Bush, who successfully managed to pursuade Americans that he is a war hero.
   
   It is no secret that George W. Bush wanted a war. He wanted to be a war president. He wanted to be a commander-in-chief. But in fact he is a deserter. While himself dodging the war which he supported, he sent thousands of Americans to fight in Iraq. He has no respect for those who are unfortunate to be serving under his command.
   
   This is not a mere hatchet job, it is a well documented analysis. Ian Williams has put the facts together to draw the real face of the "commander-in-chief".



3. This book is excellent. My husband, who's recently retired from the military, and I bought this because of Dubya's flip-flopping on his record. Although a lot seems to be missing (like the DD-214 all of us get when we get out--I have mine), it's still revealing. We're an Air Force family and have known many, many pilots over the years and they take great pride in their flying status and would not miss their annual, required flight physicals for anything.
   
   Too bad the media can't give the same coverage of this like they did the Monica thing. Young men and women are dying while I type this, but hey, let's keep our priorities straight. Since when was it moral to send people to their deaths with lies? Especially when the same people perpetrating these horrible sins were hiding and ensuring they saved their worthless hides while shirking their duty during Viet Nam.
   
   An excellent book for anyone who really cares for our military personnel and their families.



4. Ian Williams has been all over the media lately after it was revealed by Accuracy in Media -- and Williams doesn't deny it-- that he had been taking money from the UN while covering the UN for The Nation and other media. Williams went on the O'Reilly
   Factor and said he saw no ethical issue with that blatant violation of journalism ethics.
   
   Then came revelations in Accuracy in Media and Front Page Magazine that his wife, who can't even work in the U.S. legally, got a job at a journalism organization where Williams has clout.
   
   Given his shamelessness, this tired rehash of previously published allegations against Bush is even more disgusting. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.



5. My only problem with William's book is he fails to discuss that Bush was the most decorated pilot in the Alabama National Guard. Junior was awarded the Yellow Strips four times for going AWOL beyond the call of duty. But seriously, Bush does not even posses the courage to last one mere day of service in the Girl Scouts. The book is a must for any Nam Vet.

2 comments about The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China.

1. Keith Laidler's "The Last Empress" is not as bad as all that, even if his background as a writer of popular fiction does shine through here and there.
   Mr Laidler writes in a nice, fluid prose style, and there are numerous footnotes and many generally well-chosen quotes. But there are certainly drawbacks, too, although I think two stars is a little too harsh.
   
   "The Last Empress" is the story of Wang Xiaoqian, a young girl born in 1834 or 1835 in a village called Xipo. She joined the harem of the Xianfeng emperor at the age of 16 or 17, and bore him a son who became the Tongzhi emperor. During the boy's minority (he was only five when his father died), his mother reigned with a firm hand, and she continued to do so more or less until her death in 1908. You may have seen her portrayed with eerie charisma by actress Lisa Lu in a brief but memorable scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's classic "The Last Emperor".
   
   Now, this sounds like an exciting story, right? Well, it is, and Keith Laidler tells it well, but he does rely an awful lot on anecdotal "evidence", and, in some cases, pure speculation.
   And he constantly refers to the empress dowager as "Yehonala", as though this was her first name, when it was in fact the name of the clan into which she was adopted as a young girl. "Yeho-Nala", usually romanized as "Yehe-Nara", is not a given name, but rather like a surname (her actual name, post-adoption, was Yehe-Nara Yulan, that is "Yulan of the Yehe-Nara clan").
   That annoyed me a first, until I got used to it. Especially because everybody in the Western world who has ever heard of "the western empress dowager", as she was called, probably know her as Cixi, or, in Wade-Giles' more pronouncement-friendly romanization, Tzu Hsi. That is "motherly auspicious" or "august mother".
   
   But I'm losing my train of thought here. Again, as I said, the book is well-written and quite exciting, but unfortunately it is of doubtful historical value. Nobody really knows how the young Yulan became the emperor's favorite lover, but Keith Laidler makes up a fanciful story about her astounding abilities in bed, which is one of the low points of the book.
   And there are few surprising mistakes as well, such as Mr Laidler's claim that "she (Tzu Hsi) came as close as any woman in Chinese history to ascending the Dragon Throne".
   Honestly! If you're interested in Chinese history, you must read up on the fascinating story of the empress Wu Zhao (623 or 625 - 705), who took over the government when her husband, the Gaozong emperor, fell ill in late 660. She ruled "from behind the curtain" (quite literally, since regents traditionally sat behind a yellow curtain right behind the imperial throne and whispered their advise to the emperor) for 23 years until the death of the emperor. Then her son Zhongzong became emperor, but after a short reign his mother swapped him for her younger, and presumably more manageable, son Li Dan, the Ruizong emperor. And finally, in late 690, the old empress dowager deposed him as well, but not, like Tzu Hsi, in favour of a hapless child during whose minority she could continue to rule unopposed. Instead she took the title "Shensheng Huangdi", that is "holy spirit emperor", and ascended the Dragon Throne herself.
   
   Anyway. You should borrow Mr Laidler's book at your local library and give it a try. It's a pretty good read.
   Just don't consider it pure, unadulterated historical fact.



2. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is visiting China in the near future and wants to learn more about the decline and fall of the last imperial dynasty. I recently visited, and I wish I would have read this book before seeing the Winter Palace and the Forbidden City.
   
   The author is not a historian. This is a good thing. My bookshelf is full of accurate and comprehensive history books, but I wouldn't recommend too many of them to anyone other than historians. Laidler writes in a style that allows the general reader to follow along and actually want to turn the pages to learn more.
   
   I would recommend the book to students of leadership as well as folks who want to learn more about Chinese history. It is a case study in power for the sake of survival and power itself. I wonder how Chinese history of the 1900s might have been different with a different power behind the throne. The ol' "do people make history or does history make people' debate ...
   
   I can't give it five stars. In spots, it reads more like historical fiction than fact. That is okay with me, but I would relegate those speculations to sidebars if this was a magazine rather than a book. Also, the author should use the more commonly accepted name of the main character - my Chinese friends were a bit mystified by my earnest description of the book until I used the commonly used name Cixi. Also, a few maps would help the general reader.
   
   All in all, a very satisfying read. If you are confused by recent Chinese history, then this will fill in a lot of gaps.

No comments about Gandhi. Su vida y su mensaje a la humanidad.