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Former Illinois Sen. Adlai Stevenson III (D) has died at the age of 90. Stevenson's son, Adlai Stevenson IV, confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that his father died on Monday in Chicago, adding he had dementia. “He just faded away,” the younger Stevenson told the newspaper. llinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) praised the elder Stevenson's "passion for democracy" in a statement following news of his death while offering condolences to Stevenson's loved ones "on behalf of the Land of Lincoln."

Walt & Lillian Disney with Richard Nixon and his family at Disneyland, 1959 We tend to think of Hollywood as a bastion of leftism, and rightly so. Books like Ron Radosh’s Red Star Over Hollywood demonstrate the deep-seated left-wing dominance of the entertainment industry. Even with the leftism prevalent in Hollywood’s Golden Age, many unabashed conservatives found success without compromising their principles, including one of the most creative minds in the business — Walt Disney.Several biographers and writers that I’ve read have tried to declare that Walt Disney was apolitical, but I find this conclusion not to be true....

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending "the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life." He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics. Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are "interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity," people who "read the classics." It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Adlai Stevenson was...

Why we should still like Ike and back Mac From Chicago Magazine: "He was a Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois, a celebrated orator and an intellectual running against a military hero at the time of an unpopular war. His political resumé was relatively short, and his appeal formed in part around his call for a change in the practice of politics in this country. Critics claimed he was an elitist, and Republicans accused him of being weak and naïve about America's enemies. He got crushed in the general election." Coincidence? I think not! Read the rest of the article here and...

"Too close to call." "Within the margin of error." "A statistical dead heat." If you've been following news coverage of the 2008 presidential election, you're probably familiar with these phrases. Media commentary on the presidential horserace, reflecting the results of a series of new national polls, has strained to make a case for a hotly contested election that is essentially up for grabs. Signs of Barack Obama's weaknesses allegedly abound. The huge generic Democratic Party advantage is not reflected in the McCain-Obama pairings in national polls. Why, according to the constant refrain, hasn't Obama put this election away? A large...

Nothing has been quite as exciting and as disappointing or even disgusting as the grand drama of this Democratic contest for the nomination. We have seen Barack Obama rise and, with a new tone, make biracial identity a public fact of American life. We have also seen Americans reinvigorated, surging with a refreshing patriotism that is fully aware of the country's shortcomings. We have seen America's history of struggling toward fairness become, perhaps for the first time, a common heritage that crossed lines of color, class, religion, region and sexual identity. In Obama's world, every American can lay claim to...

Last August, Edvard Munch’s famous masterpiece, “The Scream,” was stolen again. Armed gunmen took the painting from the Oslo Munch Museum in Norway. Saturday, the Democratic National Committee will elect former Governor Howard Dean as the Chairman of the DNC. Are these events connected? Sometimes, reality is its own parody. As the satirical website ScrappleFace.com reported this week, “Faced with the fact that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is the only person still seeking the chairmanship of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), the nine-member panel of elected officers announced today that it had posted the job on CareerBuilder.com, and would...

Nominee Says Administration Misled People On U.S. Policy:Deception is Charged By Adlai Against GOP By Robert C. Albright Staff Reporter. The Washington Post and Times Herald (1954-1959). Washington, D.C.: Oct 12, 1956. pg. 1, 2 pgs Article types: front_page Dateline: OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 11 Text Word Count 1294 Abstract (Article Summary) OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 11 Adlai Stevenson tonight bluntly accused the Eisenhower Administration of "irresponsibility" and "deception" in foreign affairs.

Watching presidential politics lately, I've been thinking back to when I was 13 years old and had my heart broken for the first time. It was 1972, and I was antiwar and infatuated with Senator George McGovern. But as I handed out McGovern leaflets in Yamhill County, Ore., I was greeted as if I were the Antichrist. Soon afterward, Mr. McGovern was defeated in a landslide. As Howard Dean will probably be, if the Democrats nominate him. It is, of course, the Democrats' privilege to stand on principle, embrace the man they admire most and leap off a cliff together....