Latest Articles

A Brief History of Presidents Firing People

July 3, 2017  •  Washingtonian

Before he was the President, Donald Trump was most famous for booting people on TV—a habit that has proved hard to quit. So far, acting attorney general Sally Yates, national-security adviser Michael Flynn, and FBI director James Comey (above) have all found themselves on the receiving end of the onetime TV host's catchphrase, "You're fired."

But while Trump might be the first reality star to become President, he's hardly the first President to do high-profile firing. We combed through the history of executive dismissals to see who really stood out.

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review of His Fathers Son: The Life of General Ted Roosevelt, Jr.

July 3, 2017  •  The Weekly Standard

In the 1962 D-Day ensemble The Longest Day, an aging Henry Fonda plays the small but important role of General Ted Roosevelt Jr. General Roosevelt, three decades older than the troops he is leading, hides his cane in order to persuade his superiors to allow his participation in the invasion, then uses the cane as he exhorts troops forward under withering fire on Utah Beach.

Roosevelt died a month after D-Day, age 56, not of any injuries but of a heart attack. And unless you have seen the movie, it's unlikely you know much about him. He seems to be a somewhat forgotten figure in American history, an oversight Tim Brady is trying to correct in this new biography.

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Is Gotham Ready for Bioterror?

June 2017  •  City Journal

Savage terror attacks in recent years have killed thousands of people in the United States, Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The increasingly brazen acts, while violent and tragic, have been limited in scope because of the terrorists' dependence on conventional weapons—firearms, vehicles, and homemade bombs. After each incident, a familiar sequence of responses ensues: politicians call for resolve; civil authorities and residents work to clean up the damaged area; medical personnel give aid to the victims; shopkeepers and merchants reopen. And almost everyone outside those directly affected moves on, hoping that terror won't call their number in the future. Getting on with life makes sense, of course, but complacency about terrorism looms as a serious problem in free societies—especially since future terrorist threats hold the potential to shake the foundations of our society. The overwhelming evidence—from Osama bin Laden's hard drive to incessant ISIS tweets—is that our jihadist enemies are determined to break through conventional limitations on death-dealing and do us even more grievous harm.

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Opioid Abuse Is a Public Health Crisis - Here's How Trump Can Beat It

May 30, 2017  •  Observer

The Trump administration has created a commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, to address the opioid crisis, which killed over 30,000 Americans in 2015. In crafting its recommendations, the commission should look to lessons from previous presidents. During the 20th century, three presidents faced major public-health crises: Franklin Roosevelt and polio, John F. Kennedy and smoking, and Ronald Reagan and HIV/AIDS.

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review of The Ideas Industry

May 16, 2017  •  Commentary

The term "public intellectual" took off in the 1980s with the publication of Russell Jacoby's book The Last Intellectuals. Jacoby's argument was that the intellectual ferment of the 1950s and 1960s in the pages of magazines such as Commentary had departed from the American scene, and people who might once have labored in these vineyards were instead opting for academic specialization rather than providing their general wisdom on a freelance basis.

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Books by Tevi Troy