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Ever since joining the podcast, I’ve grown more sympathetic towards people who flub their history a little in public statements. As a writer, I try to diligently fact-check everything before it gets published, but in conversation that gets recorded, it’s easier to slip up and say something inaccurate. Luckily, our fans are quick to help us out and let us know whenever this happens. Unfortunately for the president, he’s held up to a higher bar and gets scrutinized by every expert historian. And, he’s made some significant errors that they won’t let him forget.
Back in February, when a podcast listener brought it to my attention, I posted on Obama’s mistake about who invented the car. Recently, Obama has come under fire for a comment about Winston Churchill’s opinion on torture. An article from the Times Online discusses how Obama doesn’t have a great record when it comes to World War II history.
Before Jack Johnson the mellow, surfer-musician, there was Jack Johnson the African-American boxer who broke as many barriers as necks. In 1908, he became the first black fighter to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world and was an instant sensation. “The Great White Hope” (a play and film) tells a fictionalized account of his life. As a black celebrity in an age wrought with discrimination and segregation, he had to deal with the contempt of racist media and crowds. He wasn’t easily discouraged, however, as he married, not one, but two white women, which fanned the flames of his racist critics.
His enemies got the best of him in 1912, when courts convicted Johnson of violating the Mann Act, which banned bringing women across state lines for “immoral purposes.” He was traveling with a white woman who would eventually become his wife.
Obama and FDR: History repeating itself?
by Jane McGrath | March 18, 2009
I wrote last month about the idea of a president’s “first 100 days” in office and how it all originated with FDR. Although I touched on the comparisons between FDR and Obama, I think this is worth another look considering all the buzz it’s been generating lately.
Two news stories from this week have brought the comparisons up again. On Monday, Slate had a piece on Obama’s plans to possibly hold a series of short, televised speeches addressing the nation about the state of the economy. Writer John Dickerson draws comparisons between this and FDR’s fireside chats and even finds an FDR quote from these chats that exactly reflects Obama’s rhetoric about the economy.
The other story has to do with Obama’s VP, Joe Biden, who gave a speech at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser on Monday in which he said the problems we face today are more complicated than the Great Depression.
Smell that stank in the air? That porky smell means it’s appropriation bill season, fiscal year ’09! Yeah! The season came late this year. It didn’t seem like it would come at all. Congress waited until George Bush went back to Texas to begin the task of figuring out how to fund the vast bureaucracy that is the United States government. The bill was supposed to have been passed last September, making the bill a full six months late.
Why would Congress wait for Bush to leave Washington? Earmarks. George Bush became one of the first chief executives Congress believed might actually veto any spending bills with earmarks attached. And as a lame duck president when the 110th was deliberating the FY09 spending bill last September, he very well may have, as he had absolutely nothing to lose.
So Congress left it for the next guy to deal with, and…
With all this talk about stem cells and whether it’s, in President Obama’s words, “dangerous and profoundly wrong” to research human cloning, I can’t help but think of the HeLa cell line that has played such a vital role in everything from eradicating polio to to early space shuttle missions.
And talk about profoundly wrong — the cells’ owner was never told that her tissue was going to a medical center at Johns Hopkins for special analysis, much less the role she would unwittingly play in the future of medicine.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old black mother of five in 1950s Baltimore, Md. When she went in for a routine biopsy, the doctors discovered a tumor with most unusual cell activity: they were essentially immortal. Normally, cellular samples have a limited shelf life in a laboratory. They’ll only divide a certain number of times before the chromosomes reach their Hayflick limit.
In what some perceive as a step toward lifting the long-standing embargo against Cuba, the Obama administration is moving to loosen restrictions for trade and travel between the United States and Cuba, according to yesterday’s Guardian story. A spending bill coming up for vote this week includes a provision that would allow those with relatives in Cuba to visit every year rather than every three years as well as ease certain trade requirements.
The embargo dates back to the rise of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War. This timeline from NPR lays out a helpful chronology of how 10 different presidents have dealt with Cuba since the rise of Castro. The United States imposed an economic embargo on Cuba when Castro took over some American-owned properties in 1960. After the Bay of Pigs disaster and the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy strengthened the embargo and banned Americans from traveling to Cuba.
It’s official: U.S. President Barack Obama has named Vivek Kundra federal government chief information officer (CIO). As CIO, Kundra’s main job responsibility is overseeing the government’s information technology (IT) strategy.
Before accepting the job of CIO, Kundra held the title of chief technology officer (CTO) for the District of Columbia. Obama has said that he expects to appoint someone to the post of U.S. CTO in the near future. Together, the CIO and CTO will help shape the U.S. government’s policies regarding technology and innovation.
Kundra has some big plans. According to Computer World, Kundra wants to use technology to make government processes transparent to the American public. He would like to see the United States move away from awarding large IT contracts to giant companies. Instead, Kundra wants to leverage the community of application developers to address some of the nation’s IT needs.
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