Free Republic

Just finished watching a replay of Sam Waterston reading Abraham Lincoln's speech at the Cooper Union. The link is to the BookTV page about this event and includes a Real Audio link to watch the presentation. What causes me to post this is just how timely this speech still is. There are many times in this speech where I wanted to stand up and shout YES! What President Lincoln said is still relevant and the arguments he puts forward about our political opponents and their tactics ring so true that it is stunning. Here is the text of the speech:

It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is a gripping account of a true turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation...

In Reagan and Gorbachev, Jack F. Matlock, Jr., gives an eyewitness account of how the Cold War ended, with humankind declared the winner. As Reagan’s principal adviser on Soviet and European affairs, and later as the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Matlock lived history: He was the point person for Reagan’s evolving policy of conciliation toward the Soviet Union. Working from his own papers, recent interviews with major figures, and archival sources both here and abroad, Matlock offers an insider’s perspective on a diplomatic campaign far more sophisticated than previously thought, led by two men of surpassing vision. Matlock...

FOR YOUR WEEKEND VIEWING PLEASUREOn Sunday, CSPAN 2 Book TV will air my speech at UC Berkely as its featured program.You can catch it at 1:15 Eastern or 9:00 PM Eastern time. I can safely say that it was the most memorable experience I've had so far in my career.Update: Great photo essay on the UC Berkely event here. (photos of the protestors posters)

On C-SPAN's Booknotes tonight at 8:00pm. Liberal media activists beware! Richard A. Viguerie, venture capitalist of the conservative movement (described as the “funding father of the right”) and David Franke, a founder of the conservative movement, detail how conservatives—shut out by the liberal mass media of the 1950s and ’60s—came to power by utilizing new and alternative media, and then created their own mass media. Viguerie and Franke give a first-hand account of how the right took power by using direct mail, talk radio, cable news TV, and later the Internet. Can liberals do the same? This is the first...

Take a break from Kerry and the SwiftVets on Saturday, August 21 at 4:00 pm and Monday, August 23 at 12:00 am In Depth: Victor Davis Hanson for three hours. (I think this is a rerun from the March 7 program) He is usually quite interesting and worth watching. Victor Davis Hanson is the guest on Book TV's March 7 In Depth program. Mr. Hanson is the author of numerous books, including "Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece" (1983), "The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece" (1989), "Hoplites: The Ancient Greek Battle Experience" (1991), "The Other Greeks:...

Denny Hastert is one of the most powerful men in America—and yet chances are you know little or nothing about him. And Denny Hastert likes it that way. Not because he has anything to hide, but because he doesn’t care about who gets the credit, he just wants to get the job done for the American people. In Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years of Coaching and Politics, Denny Hastert breaks his silence to tell a remarkable American story: of how he grew up among the fields of Northern Illinois, made a name for himself as a high school and collegiate...

After 15 years and interviews with nearly 800 authors, C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb has decided to close the covers on Booknotes, the Sunday-evening program devoted to authors and their books on history and politics. C-SPAN spokeswoman Robin Scullin said Lamb wanted to reclaim some personal time, noting that each one-hour program required 20 hours of preparation. "When you add it all up, I've committed about 1.8 years of my life to reading books for the series. It's time to use all those hours in other ways,” Lamb said in a prepared statement. C-SPAN is a public-affairs cable network...

August 8, 2004 Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk by Maureen Dowd ? ?from the publisher's websiteFrom Washington to Kennebunkport to Texas to old Europe and new Europe, during the past two decades Maureen Dowd has trained her binoculars on the Bush dynasty, putting them, as both 41 and 43 have complained to her, "on the couch." Here she wittily dissects the Oedipal loop-de-loop between father and son and the Orwellian logic of the rush to war in Iraq. It's a turbulent odyssey charting how a Shakespearean cast of regents, courtiers, and neo-con Cabalists-all with their own subterranean agendas-hijack...

C-SPAN SPECIAL Nixon's Booknotes Appearance Marking Monday's 30th anniversary of the resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon, Book TV is reairing a Booknotes from February, 1992, with Richard Nixon on his book, "Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World." Watch early Sunday morning at 12:30am ET or Sunday evening at 5pm ET.

On Sunday, June 27 at 12:30 am and at 9:30 am and at 7:00 pm Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism P.J. O'Rourke Description: Olsson's Books and Records in Arlington, Virginia, welcomes author P.J. O'Rourke to talk about his new book "Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism." In his eleventh book, a collection of essays, Mr. O'Rourke takes a look at American foreign policy. He includes an account of his trips to Israel and Egypt and looks at the attacks of September 11 and the effect they had on airport security. After the discussion, Mr. O'Rourke answers questions from the...

BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Samuel P. Huntington, author of "Who Are We?," what`s the book about? SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON, AUTHOR, "WHO ARE WE?: THE CHALLENGES TO AMERICA`S NATIONAL IDENTITY: The book is about America. And you`ll notice that it is a question, and it`s a question which I grapple with in the book as to what American national identity means, how it has changed over the years. (snip) LAMB: The book called "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order"... HUNTINGTON: Right. LAMB: What year did it come out? HUNTINGTON: In 1996. LAMB: And what was it about? HUNTINGTON:...

Shortly after America’s entry into World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered an extensive sabotage campaign against the United States to disrupt the production of tanks and airplanes and blow up bridges and railroads. Eight German saboteurs were dispatched across the Atlantic by U-boat, one team landing in Amagansett, Long Island, the other near Jacksonville, Florida. They brought with them enough money and explosives for a two-year operation and traveled inland to explore potential targets. The full story of this audacious endeavor is a remarkable account of a terrorist threat against America. Michael Dobbs describes the saboteurs’ training in Nazi Germany,...

An End to Evil Perle, Richard, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Mr. Perle talks about the book he co-authored with David Frum, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, published by Random House. Mr. Perle says the book provides a blueprint for winning the war on terror. The recommendations are divided into four major sections: what must be done domestically to improve safety and security; what must be done abroad, in order to take the war to America’s enemies; what must change in the realm of thought and ideas; and how U.S. institutions must be reformed...

Long known as "the world's only private citizen with a foreign policy," George Soros combines his razor-sharp sense of economic trends with his passionate advocacy for open societies and decency in world politics to come up with a workable, and severely critical, analysis of the Bush administration's overreaching, militaristic foreign policy. Soros believes that this administration's plans abroad come from the same sort of "bubble" psychology that afflicted our markets in the late 1990s. They have used a real fact, our overwhelming military supremacy, to create a deluded worldview, that might makes right and that "you're either with us...

Lincoln and his family fled the gloom that hung over the White House, moving into a small cottage in Washington, D.C., on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, a residence for disabled military veterans. In Lincoln's Sanctuary, historian Matthew Pinsker offers a fascinating portrait of Lincoln's stay in this cottage and tells the story of the president's remarkable growth as a national leader and a private man. Lincoln lived at the Soldiers' Home for a quarter of his presidency, and for nearly half of the critical year of 1862, but most Americans (including many scholars) have not heard of the...

Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years by Rich Lowry • —from the publisher's websiteBill and Hillary Clinton don't want you to read this book. Bill has spent his days since the presidency aggressively defending his legacy, and Hillary plans to run for president on it, and now, unfortunately for them, Rich Lowry uses sound fact and shocking detail to dispel the myth of the Clinton legacy once and for all. Showing how a politician with grandiose ambitions became a cautious, poll-driven placeholder and how a president who yearned to confront a great international crisis cringed and still...

An interview with scholar James Bovard will be broadcast tonight on C-SPAN's Booknotes program at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. EST.Mr. Bovard will be speaking about his new book, Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil.The publisher's blurb for the book posted on C-SPAN's Website will surely provide fodder for a lively, hopefully thoughtful discussion here on FR:""The war on terrorism is the first political growth industry of the new Millennium." So begins Jim Bovard's newest and, in some ways, most provocative book as he casts yet another jaundiced eye on Washington and...

BooknotesMexifornia: A State of Becoming C-SPAN Washington, District of Columbia (United States) ID: 177866 - 08/19/2003 - 0:59 - $24.95Hanson, Victor Davis, Professor, U.S. Naval Academy, Military HistoryMr. Hanson talked about his book Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, published by Encounter Books. The book looks at the hybrid culture emerging in California and which citizens benefit from different political stances.

The show will be aired Sunday on C-SPAN at 8pm/11pm ET He will be talking about his latestt book " Mexifornia: A State of Becoming"