Born in the U.S.A.

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Keystone Press/ Bob Falcetti/Getty Images

Half a century ago, when religion entered the political arena in the U.S., it was as a matter of tensions between denominations, the kind of flare-up in tribal loyalties sparked by Catholic John F. Kennedy’s 1960 run for the presidency. With a full 30 per cent of respondents telling pollsters that they would never vote for any Catholic, Kennedy had to repeatedly assure voters he didn’t take marching orders from the pope.

But religion itself was quiescent—certainly in comparison to other times in American history, including the present—primarily because both religious and secular Americans held the same conservative views on sexual morality. It’s an era that now seem almost as far in the past as the Inquisition: by 2004, when Catholic John Kerry ran against George W. Bush, the religious tribes had almost vanished and Kerry’s denomination was of little interest to Protestant voters. What counted was how devout he was, and how his religiosity, or lack thereof, affected his policies on the hot-button moral issues of American politics.

How American religion lost its interior animosities (mostly, that is—Mormons and Muslims are still largely outside the tent), while becoming a much more militant side of a deep religious-secular divide, is the key question for Robert Putnam and David Campbell in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. To find the answer and to see if current trends seem likely to hold up, the co-authors comb through the two most comprehensive surveys ever done on religion and public life in the U.S., specially commissioned for their book. Campbell and Putnam, the latter a political scientist who rose to fame in 2000 with Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital, get where they’re going all right, and they turn up a lot of fascinating information about America’s ever-evolving religious life along the way.

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Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 7, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

You wouldn’t want to cross either one
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin burnished his credentials as a man of action last week, while also asserting some Arctic sovereignty. He helped scientists track endangered polar bears in Franz Josef Land, an Arctic archipelago. With cameras rolling, he attached a tracking collar to a tranquilized bear. “Be well,” he said, shaking its paw. “The paw is heavy,” said Putin, one force of nature saluting another. “This is a master of the Arctic, you can feel that straight away.”

That’s how it’s done in Wawota, Sask.
Washington Capitals fans Mary Ann Wangemann and her 14-year-old daughter Lorraine were driving home from the Caps’ game-seven loss to the Montreal Canadiens when their tire was flattened by a pothole. An SUV pulled over as they stood by the side of the road in their team colours. To their amazement, out hopped Brooks Laich, the Alberta-born, Saskatchewan-raised Caps centre. He peeled off his suit jacket and spent 40 minutes, on one of the worst nights of his life, installing a spare tire for two strangers. Mary Ann asked Laich, 26, how to repay the favour. “I’m sure you’ll do something nice for someone in the future,” he said.

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The huge secret about FDR’s death

By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 10 Comments

Dwight Eisenhower’s heart attack, LBJ’s gallbladder, Kennedy’s many ailments, even George Bush Sr.’s bout of nausea in Japan: ever since the occupant of the White House became the Most Powerful Man in the World, the health of U.S. presidents has been of consuming interest. Much of that concern is pure finger-on-the-nuclear-button angst, but a significant portion derives from the fate of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When the first leader of superpower America died in office in 1945, it was a shock to most of his countrymen, who were largely unaware of just how sick FDR was. In fact, according to neurologist Steven Lomazow and journalist Eric Fettmann, authors of FDR’s Deadly Secret, they are the first to crack wide open the secrecy that has shrouded Roosevelt’s health until now. FDR, they write, died of cancer, a disease that had deleterious effects on his mental as well as physical health. In concealing the cancer from the American people, the authors argue, Roosevelt was “rolling the dice with history”: he won (mostly), but it was a very close run.

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The last of the Kennedys

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 1 Comment

The three brothers share a Virginia hillside with a view of a city that few would call shining. John F. Kennedy’s gravesite—as befitting a fallen president—is the most elaborate. A large circular stone plaza to accommodate the crowds that still come to Arlington National Cemetery 46 years after his assassination, topped with a simple black granite headstone and an eternal flame. Down a short path like the spoke of a wheel, Robert F. Kennedy, gunned down in 1968, lies beneath a plain white cross. And now, a little further still, Edward M. Kennedy, buried this past weekend in the shadow of two large maples, and his tragic siblings.

The 77-year-old, who succumbed to brain cancer on Aug. 25, was the youngest of nine children, and never meant to be the family standard-bearer. But the political ambitions that fell to J.F.K. when the eldest brother, Joseph Jr., died in action during the Second World War descended inexorably down the line with each fresh family horror. And in the end, “Teddy,” a man who proved to be far too flawed for the nation’s highest office, improbably may be remembered as the greatest of them all. In his 47-year career as a U.S. senator for his native Massachusetts, Kennedy authored more than 300 pieces of legislation, and steered thousands more through partisan shoals with a unique mix of bluster, bonhomie, and pragmatism (“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” was his oft-repeated credo). Continue…

Welcome to Canada, Mr. President

By Rachel Mendleson - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:27 PM - 1 Comment

Since Barack Obama will be in Ottawa this week, we thought it timely to look back at some previous presidential visits to our nation’s capital.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: August 1943
The city proclaimed a half-day holiday to mark the first-ever U.S. presidential visit to Ottawa. About 27,000 people jammed Parliament Hill to hear FDR’s public address. During his car tour of Ottawa, spectators held up black Scottie dogs as a show of support for his dog Fala.

Harry S. Truman: June 1947
While in Ottawa, Truman met with Mackenzie King and Governor General Alexander. During his parliamentary address, Truman praised Canada for achieving internal unity. When he was finished, politicians thumped their desks in approval. Truman’s trip to the capital included lunch at the Chateau Laurier, a tree-planting and a state dinner at Rideau Hall. He also traveled to Montebello, where he fished for trout. It was his second trip abroad after the Second World War.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: November 1953, July 1958
Both visits to the capital included a parliamentary address. In 1953, more tickets were sold to the House of Commons gallery than there were seats, and some spectators had to be turned away. In 1958, Ike drew fire for his virulent defence of U.S. trade interests in his speech. It was during his second visit that he and PM John Diefenbaker agreed to set up the Canada-United States Committee on Joint Defense. While in Ottawa, Ike played a round of golf at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club and took a trip to Gatineau Park.

John F. Kennedy: May 1961
When JFK and Jackie arrived on Parliament Hill, there were reportedly 50,000 people there to greet them. It was their first post-inauguration trip. Jackie looked on from the visitors’ gallery during the President’s Parliamentary address, during which he famously said: “Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” He even tried to articulate a few sentences in French — albeit poorly. And he hurt his back while planting a tree on Parliament Hill.

Lyndon B. Johnson: May 1967
While in Canada for Expo 67, Johnson spent some time at the prime minister’s official retreat on Harrington Lake, where he met with Lester B. Pearson. As the story goes, a security stopped PM Pearson on his way to the bathroom to ask him who he was and where he was headed. “I’m the Prime Minister of Canada and I’m about to go and have a leak,” he reportedly answered.

Richard Nixon: April 1972
Vietnam War protestors greeted Nixon when he arrived in Canada. Despite his infamously acrimonious relationship with Pierre Trudeau, he opened speech to the House of Commons with a joke about Ottawa’s weather, and cheered Canada for being a fine neighbour. “The Canadian-American example is an example for all the world to see,” he said. The Great Lakes Pollution clean-up agreement was inked during his visit.

Ronald Reagan: March 1981, April 1987
During Reagan’s address to Parliament in 1981, NDP MPs sported black armbands to indicate their opposition of the U.S. involvement in El Salvador. Though his relationship with Brian Mulroney was much warmer than it had been with Trudeau, Reagan only visited Ottawa once while Mulroney was in office. When Reagan spoke in the House of Commons in 1987, he was interrupted by MP Svend Robinson, who implored the president to “Stop Star Wars now.” During their time in Canada, Nancy Reagan urged students at Ottawa’s Brookfield High School to “say no to drugs.”

George H. W. Bush: February 1989, March 1991
George and Barbara traveled to Ottawa less than a month after Bush’s inauguration. While the President met with Mulroney, Barbara read to local students at a nursery school in  Fern Hill. Among the pupils was the PM’s son, Nicholas.

Bill Clinton: February 1995, October 1999
Jean Chrétien, with whom Clinton had a close relationship, took the President on a tour of the Centre Block while Hillary skated on the Rideau Canal. During his first address, Clinton touted Canada as an example “of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity and respect,” and spoke of the “ties that bind the United States and Canada.” In 1999, he came to Ottawa to dedicate a new Embassy building.

George W. Bush: November 2004
Though George W. was scheduled to address Parliament in May 2003, he cancelled the trip, citing the war in Iraq. Others suggested that the President’s relationship with Chrétien, which had become strained, was to blame for the change in plans. When he did arrive in Ottawa in November 2004, some 5,000 protestors demonstrated against the Iraq war. The first couple visited a Gatineau archival presentation centre, where they reportedly set eyes on Shania Twain’s songbook, and one of the earliest baseball rule books.

To infinity and beyond

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 3:49 PM - 5 Comments

In addition to a Twitter feed, this blog now has a YouTube hub—including (so far) 60 videos and links to the YouTube channels of Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and this magazine’s own collection of clips.

Vintage Harper hair, Stephane Dion tries to tell a golf joke, Michael Ignatieff hanging out with Charlie Rose, Pat Martin’s puppets, and some gems from the CBC archives. Enjoy. The page will be regularly updated.

The best find so far might be the following footage of John F. Kennedy addressing the House of Commons in 1961. If Barack Obama makes a similar appearance later this year, he could do worse than to borrow liberally from both JFK’s words and attire. Continue…

Black and white

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 10:27 PM - 0 Comments

Life magazine and Google have cooperated to put several centuries of photos online, many of them previously unpublished.

For our purposes, there is an impressive collection of prime ministers, at least of a certain vintage—namely Trudeau, Diefenbaker, Pearson and St. Laurent. The Mackenzie King file would seem to mostly include pictures from his funeral. Elsewhere, there are photos of presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower addressing Parliament.

Then there are the random finds like this shot of former air minister Charles G. Power, grandfather of Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

Best find so far: The Queen square-dancing at Rideau. Nice poodle-skirt, your majesty.

Megapundit: He "changed the subject"

By selley - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 3:28 PM - 3 Comments

Must-reads: Robert Fulford, John Ibbitson, David Frum, Doug Saunders, Dan Gardner and John Ivison on the only thing that matters today.

Oh yes he did
What the 44th President means to the United States, Canada and the world.

The Ottawa Citizen’s Dan Gardner traces a brief history of racist American legislation and public opinion for the purposes of highlighting just how far the nation has come, and how quickly. He recounts the story of Jacqueline Henley, a Louisiana toddler whose aunt found it impossible to raise her amidst rumours the child’s father was black, and whose adoption by a black couple was rejected by the courts on grounds she was officially white, and they wouldn’t inflict official blackness on her unless there was irrefutable evidence. That madness was in 1952; today, says Gardner, everybody knows Barack Obama’s mother was white and nobody cares. Heck, it was only 41 years ago the Supreme Court nixed anti-miscegenation laws, and in that time public approval of intermarriage has gone from 80 per cent against to 80 per cent in favour. In short, don’t you tell Dan Gardner that “moral progress” is impossible.

Can this “new Democratic coalition of New Southerners, liberal northerners, wary blue-collars, African Americans, Latinos and suddenly mobilized” youth be sustained, John Ibbitson asks in The Globe and Mail, or will it “dissolve as [Obama] struggles to reverse economic decline and financial panic”? It remains, naturally, to be seen. But Americans made a historic decision yesterday, he contends, that “the last eight years were a waste” and that “we need to start again”—and the world will take note. More fundamentally, however, Ibbitson says Obama’s victory is a reaffirmation of what’s possible in the political world. “Peace can come to Ireland. The Cold War can end. America’s racial wounds can start to heal.”

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BTC: Again with the Diefenbaker (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 1, 2008 at 2:35 AM - 0 Comments

The CBC likes the Diefenbaker v. Pearson precedents too, only they’re going with 1965. And reversing the comparison entirely.

Fair enough.

While we’re here though, consider this description of Diefenbaker circa 1960, taken from Christina McCall’s essay The Unlikely Gladiators: Pearson and Diefenbaker Remembered. Continue…