David Pietrusza

Weiner versus Breitbart: Believe It Or Not, We’ve Been There Before

It was simply without precedent. The case of a prominent politician sending embarrassing messages, combined with the hijacking of a press conference by a combative, high-profile conservative journalist. Except that the bizarre Anthony Weiner-Andrew Breitbart dust-up at Manhattan’s Sheraton Hotel isn’t without precedent at all. In fact, six decades ago, history witnessed an eerily similar altercation at a Philadelphia hotel news conference about a politician’s inappropriate communications—and his own confrontation with the Andrew Breitbart of his day.

No Right to Strike: Calvin Coolidge and the Boston Police Strike of 1919

The vexatious wave of de facto strikes by absentee Wisconsin public school teachers and Illinois-bound state legislators that has greeted newly-elected Badger State Governor Scott Walker’s vigorous attempts to rein in unsustainable public spending inevitably summons to mind the case of a once-obscure, first-term Massachusetts governor and a more overt public employee strike of nine decades ago.

Mitch Daniels: Coolidge-Like at CPAC

The question on the Right for a distressingly long time has been: “Who is the new Reagan?”

“Lombardi:” Broadway dares to present an “American” play

It is an unlikely piece of modern stagecraft. Contemporary drama strives to be not so much dramatic as to be shocking, not to present the truth but to wallow in clichéd, politically-correct truisms. “Lombardi: A New American Play,” at New York’s Circle in the Square Theater, breaks the mold of permanently adolescent modernity to narrate a tale of mature sensibilities superficially disguised in a story that might conceivably lack any sensibilities whatsoever: a narrative of a long-dead middle-aged football coach in a nondescript Midwestern city a time zone removed from Broadway.

Midterm Repudiations: What History Reveals About Obama’s Chances in 2012

So now what? That’s what Republicans—and their vanquished opponents—are asking in the wake of 2010’s midterm Democratic debacle. Does 2010 foretell similar results in 2012? Can Democrats right themselves? Will an ascendant GOP stumble?

Roiling the Mid-Term Waters: Recalling Woodrow Wilson’s Disastrous 1918 Gaffe

Barack Obama's controversial comments to the Latino community on Univision radio urging them towards a policy of "we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us" certainly ranked among the less savvy political remarks in the run-up to the 2010 mid-term elections.

Bread Shortages: Coming to a Country near You

We all know what’s coming. If an incoming Republican Congress does not quickly de-fund and then repeal substantial portions of the Obama health care nationalization, the nation will ultimately confront chronic shortages of doctors, nursing home and hospital care, and prescription drugs.