Tag Archives: legacy

Fifty Years After Kennedy

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

Five decades after the brutal murder of President Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, who had promised to keep America out of war in the election of 1912, became the first president to show a movie at the White House.

That movie, “Birth of a Nation,” directed by D.W. Griffith, was a wonder of technical achievement. It also portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in heroic terms, employed white actors in black face (presumably because the director refused to hire actual black actors) and generally denigrated the historic legacy of America’s 16th president.

Continue reading →

President Obama and the People of Galesburg

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

In the early 19th Century, as the country was expanding into its midsection, Chicago played second fiddle to a town 175 miles to the West. There, the Rev. George Washington Gale had founded an institution dedicated to his missionary zeal and political enlightenment called Knox College.

Galesburg, located halfway between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers on some of the richest farmland in the world, became an early social and economic center in Illinois.

Galesburg served as the crossroads of two giant railroads, the Santa Fe and the Burlington Northern.

The railroads brought wealth and prestige to the burg, with stately homes with rich architecture and richer occupants, along wide streets paved with bricks from the local ovens. Galesburg became a hub for another railroad, the Underground Railroad that served as an escape route for slaves from the South.   Continue reading →

Thanks Frank

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Frank Lautenberg died today. He was 86.

Most political pundits will immediately turn their attention to Chris Christie and whom he will appoint to the Senate to replace Senator Lautenberg.

There’s not a lot of sentimentality in Washington, so that’s not that unusual. You die in Washington, and the first thing people think about is who will take your place. Continue reading →

Bush Revisited

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Thousands of Republicans are on their way to Dallas, Texas to commemorate and celebrate 8 consequential years at the turn of the 21st century.

President Bush is opening his Presidential library, which runs counter to his self-image as a simple, country bumpkin.

Bush was always smarter than he let on in his public image, which I have always thought was a big mistake on his part. People don’t want a simple, country bumpkin as their President. Well, I should rephrase that. Many people don’t want a simple, country bumpkin as their President, me included. Continue reading →

W.

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I am heading to Dallas for the opening of the Presidential library of George W. Bush on Thursday.

I know that there will be many who, echoing the outpouring of venom in Great Britain upon the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, will elbow their way in front of TV cameras to be as ugly as necessary to get on the air.

I can’t fix that, and I won’t try.

I have known George W. Bush since I was hired to be the spokesman of his dad’s Continue reading →

Ideology of an Inauguration Address

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Newly inaugurated President Barack H. Obama left the balcony of the west front of the Capitol and paused before going inside. He turned around and looked back down the mall at the throng that had just witnessed him taking the oath of office for his second term. It was a poignant moment. There was this triumphant, historic figure prolonging the experience, taking just one last look at a scene he will never see again, a scene that framed one of the greatest achievements of his lifetime. Continue reading →