George W. Bush
Afghan morass
In two books on Afghanistan, Anand Gopal and Carlotta Gall each point to the absurdity of America's longest war.
Days of Fire, by Peter Baker
Few Americans today could identify any of FDR’s vice presidents. Yet little surprise is occasioned by Peter Baker’s treatment of Dick Cheney as a costar with George W. Bush.
reviewed by Robert Westbrook
The Age of Evangelicalism, by Steven P. Miller
Steven Miller positions evangelicalism as the foil for other thinkers, movers, and shakers: it seemed so powerful and ubiquitous that those outside of the tent felt compelled to address it.
reviewed by Edward J. Blum
Years of the evangelicals
Long before Sarah Palin met CPAC and the Duck Dynasty clan discovered A&E, George Gallup Jr. famously declared 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” Subsequent commentators often pluralized “evangelical.” They might have done the same for “year,” too. In many years hence—1980, say, or 2004—it was 1976 all over again, to judge from the headlines. Those election years highlighted the Christian Right, a force that was not on Gallup’s radar screen back when Jimmy Carter was the prototypical evangelical in public life.
The years of the evangelicals were not only about campaign politics, however.
Presidents and the moral accounting of war
Holidays evoke moments of reflection. Americans just celebrated Memorial Day, a time to honor those who have fought and died in wars for the nation. Traditionally, people hold parades, gather in cemeteries and rally around monuments to fallen soldiers.
Perhaps it was fitting, then, both that President Barack Obama delivered a signal speech on the war on terror last week and that Google bestowed the honor of “Google doodle of 2013” to Sabrina Brady, a Wisconsin teenager who depicted her father’s return from a tour of duty in Iraq.
'Allah is my Lord and yours' Talking with Ahmadinejad: Talking with Ahmadinejad
Yes, the letter written by President Ahmadinejad of Iran to President Bush last spring is a political document, and is no doubt duplicitous, multilayered and deliberately deceptive. Yet the letter, framed as an address by one believer in God to another, received little sensible comment in the American media. Suppose the appeal to Bush to take his Christianity seriously is at least in part genuine. Can we American Christians hear this appeal?