Almost a century ago, in the aftermath of the First World War, the journalist Walter Lippmann, then 32 years old, published an influential and disturbing critique of democracy and its future. The mood in the...

It was Bush who quietly but unmistakably laid the foundations for the 21st century

George Washington understood the stakes. "As the first of everything," Washington wrote, whatever he did, substantially as well as stylistically, would "serve to establish a precedent." In 1790, the first full year of Washington's presidency,...

The Evening ended badly. on Dec. 13, 1950, the Washington columnist Drew Pearson was being feted at a birthday dinner at the Sulgrave Club near Dupont Circle. A vocal opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Pearson...

A chance to reshape American life

No one in the loop--including, almost surely, the man himself--was sure he would really do it. On March 31, 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson was scheduled to address the nation about the Vietnam War at 9...