Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It took the modern world two days to catch up to President John Adams’ enthusiasm for a national celebration. On July 3, 1776, Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more." Three of the country’s first five presidents died on the Fourth of July. Ideological rivals during their politically formative years and after, owing largely to an election that is still considered one of the most disreputable in the nation’s history, Adams, the second president of the United States, and Jefferson, drew close together after both had put aside active politics. Adams died at 90, Jefferson at 83, hours apart on July 4, 1826. Before he breathed his last, Adams whispered – almost a prayer -- “Jefferson still lives.” Five years after the deaths of...

The much respected New York Daily news , relying on a story in Star Magazine, reports that “Al Gore's surprising split from wife Tipper was prompted by an affair he was having with Larry David's environmental activist wife… “David divorced her husband, the "Seinfeld" creator and star of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in 2007 amid reports that she was cheating with the married caretaker of their Martha's Vineyard summer home…” Speaking through a spokesperson, Gore refuses to comment on the “stream of stories about his separation,” which has opened the door to some wild speculation. Al’s take is that his marriage went flat after four decades. The split with Tipper is amiable and mutually beneficial: Apart from each other, the two can grow; and no one should have to tolerate a flat marriage any more than one should tolerate flat champagne . Unsatisfied with this account, the Globe, a British organ, speculated that Gore has a gay monkey on his back, but y...

In the first few weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has been, true to his word, an active president. He produced a “stimulus package” that represents a massive intrusion of the federal government into the private market place, an extension of a program hastily developed during the last frenetic days of the Bush administration. He has taken steps to keep his campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, though it is still undecided what do with “detainees” such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , the mastermind of the 9/11 attack on New York. The President has sent former diplomatic wunderkind George Mitchell to the Middle East to broker a peace between warring factions in Israel. And he has shown that his Middle East policy prescriptions during the campaign were serious by opening an entente with the Arab World. Iran, very much a part of that world, promises to be his stone of stumbling. The US-based International Institute for Strategic Studies on Wednesday conclud...