My core conviction is that the American people are less divided than they seem. That the American people are hungry for something more authentic in the national arena. That people are more reasonable and open-minded than they seem.
Guns and Madness
And So Once More to the River
Drifting down the river in the afternoon, gazing up at the blue blue sky, slipping past golden eagles as if they were sparrows or wrens, examining the famous White Cliffs that Lewis said had the feeling of “scenes of visionary enchantment,” and at times just pulling the paddles into the canoe to feel the gentle but inexorable tug of the continent, this too is paradise on earth.
Enough Already
Where does it end? I call this the de-Stalinization of America. If we are going to topple the statues of everyone who was complicit in slavery, that’s all the Founding Fathers, but especially Patrick Henry, George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, John Marshall, and of course the individual who wrote “all men are created equal.”
July 21, 1969: One Brief Shining Moment
In Search of America
On the Road Again
Farewell to Edmund Morris
Jefferson: Genius and Eccentric
The Zen Master at Table
A Return to Nuance
The Courage to Face the Truth
The US Senate: The Backbone of a Chocolate Eclair
Putting Jefferson Under the Knife
The psychological fallout came screaming out in Query XIV—a kind of dark racist diatribe against African-Americans, a subterranean fantasy projection of Jefferson’s guilt, anger (including self-anger), eroticism, self-protection, and what is known as casuistry—making the case for something you know is wrong.
What If Jefferson Had Not Gone to France?
What if he had never left the United States? How would things have been different? Jefferson had turned down two previous high-level government invitations to take up a diplomatic post in Paris. He finally made the journey in July 1784 because his wife Martha was dead, because he was still reeling from his frustrating and unsuccessful tenure as the wartime Governor of Virginia, and of course he wanted to see the Old World, especially France.
