Daily · Dreamtime

From left, Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate”; “In the Heat of the Night,” with Sidney Poitier and a uniformed Rod Steiger; Faye Dunaway in “Bonnie and Clyde”; Rex Harrison in “Dr. Doolittle”; Mr. Poitier in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” 

galvanizing admiration for the French New Wave.

February 11, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Hate Springs Eternal
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent's vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming "a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland."

The quote comes from "Nixonland," a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of "Before the Storm." As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party's grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.

A Reminder .... Please join us

for an

Empire Salon

featuring a rare opportunity to discuss with

William R. Polk

his book

Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism & Guerrilla War
from the American Revolution to Iraq

(Please see attached outstanding book review)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

6:30 p.m.

1785 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 100 (one block off Dupont Circle)

Cocktails and Hors D'ouevres served

If you have not already done so, please RSVP to Lisa Nitze at
lisa@committeefortherepublic.org
<mailto:lisa@committeefortherepublic.org>

William R. Polk studied at Harvard (BA 1951, PhD 1958) and Oxford (BA
1955, MA 1959). At Harvard he helped establish the Middle Eastern
Studies Center and taught history, government and Arabic literature. He
was appointed a Member of the Policy Planning Council by President
Kennedy. In that capacity, he was in charge of planning American policy
in most of the Islamic world and also served as director of the
interdepartmental task force that helped end the Algerian war,
negotiated a ceasefire between Egypt and Israel and was a member of the
Crisis Management Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1965, he resigned from government service to become Professor of
History at the University of Chicago. There he also established the
Center for Middle Eastern Studies and was a founding director of the
Middle Eastern Studies Association. In 1967, he also became President of
the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs.

Among his books on history, world affairs and the Middle East are The
United States and the Arab World (Harvard 1965, 1969, 1975, 1980, 1991);
Neighbors and Strangers: The Fundamentals of Foreign Affairs (University
of Chicago Press, 1997); The Elusive Peace: The Middle East in the
Twentieth Century (Croom Helm and St. Martins, 1979); Polk's Folly
(Doubleday, 1999, 2000); Understanding Iraq (HarperCollins 2005, 2006);
The Birth of America (HarperCollins, 2006); Out of Iraq: A Practical
Plan for Withdrawal Now (with former Senator George McGovern, Simon and
Schuster, 2006) and Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism
& Guerrilla War from the American Revolution to Iraq (HarperCollins,
2007).

He has lectured at many universities and at the U.S. National War
College, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal Institute of
International Affairs, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,
the American Foreign Policy Association, and the Soviet Academy of
Sciences as well as many civic groups and universities. William Polk
currently lives in France.

Exposed
    January 21, 2008
    In this issue of the magazine, Judith Thurman writes about Lee Miller, the playgirl, model, photographer, muse, and war correspondent whose work is featured in a retrospective, “The Art of Lee Miller,” which opens on January 26th at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “She had the gift of finding beauty in a wasteland, and her eye tends to petrify what it looks at,” Thurman writes. “Organic forms and living creatures become abstract in her pictures, but movingly so—the way a nymph fleeing an aggressor is transformed into a star.” Here is a portfolio of Miller’s work in front of and behind the camera.