Tevi Troy

The strategic savvy of an underestimated leader.

As the technology empowering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchains have been in the news a lot lately. Bitcoin, of course, has both roiled markets and is making world governments nervous about the possible creation of an alternative currency while simultaneously thrilling investors in…

In the 1962 D-Day ensemble The Longest Day, an aging Henry Fonda plays the small but important role of General Ted Roosevelt Jr. General Roosevelt, three decades older than the troops he is leading, hides his cane in order to persuade his superiors to allow his participation in the invasion, then…

In the 1962 D-Day ensemble The Longest Day, an aging Henry Fonda plays the small but important role of General Ted Roosevelt Jr. General Roosevelt, three decades older than the troops he is leading, hides his cane in order to persuade his superiors to allow his participation in the invasion, then…

Vice President Henry Wallace once observed of his boss, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “He doesn't know any man and no man knows him. Even his own family doesn't know anything about him." It's not surprising that Wallace would think ill of a man who dumped him from the ticket while seeking a fourth…

For over half a century, Harry Truman has been put forth as the paragon of presidential support for Israel. Presidents are routinely measured against the Truman standard, and under the right circumstances, they can gain the moniker “the most pro-Israel since Truman.” This informal list of honorees…

That the president is an important media figure is an indisputable fact in the modern political landscape. In my own book on presidents and popular culture, I argued that the ways in which presidents interact with the content and various modes of popular culture can provide a valuable insight into…

Those who follow politics know that Dick Cheney’s biography is an extraordinary one. His rapid ascension from Capitol Hill intern (and Yale dropout) in 1969 to White House chief of staff by 1974 is one of the fastest rises in American political annals. It was so fast, and he rose so high, that it…

Hollywood’s hostility to conservatives is so unrelenting that at times it reaches comic levels. In the recent remake of The Three Stooges, the film’s producers tried to communicate the depth of scurrility of Sofía Vergara’s villainess by showing her reading this estimable magazine in bed.  

There is no doubt that the American presidency is an imperfect institution and that it has been inhabited by imperfect people. Given these incontrovertible facts, political scientists have long sought ways to improve the presidency. Some want to make it more powerful, others less. Some want us to…

The relative lack of interest in drinking among those of the Jewish persuasion is familiar enough that it is the subject of numerous jokes of various degrees of wit. It is well known, for example, that caterers think it is in their own commercial interests to tend an open bar for Jewish events and…

There is a venerable tradition of conservative books on Hollywood’s pervasive liberalism. 

It is always a bad sign when the only way to explain a government program or rule is with a joke.  Ronald Reagan was famous for collecting the jokes told by the Russian people about the infamous bureaucracy and inefficiency of the Soviet state. Now, in the critical area of health care, similar…

Deadly Choices

As citizens across the nation debate and dissect President Obama’s State of the Union address, we should not miss the opportunity to make good on one of his promises. President Obama devoted one line of his 70-minute speech to announcing a new plan to address the potential for bioterror attacks.

The Heart of Power

The House of Representatives has already approved, and the Senate is pontificating on -- er "taking up," -- the first major legislative package of the Obama administration. When considering the $900 billion monster, leave aside for the moment the two obvious questions of whether we can afford this…

A pundit who switches sides late in life risks losing the affection of one group without ever entering the good graces of the other. And that, in a nutshell, was the fate of newspaper columnist Max Lerner: His evolution from liberalism to something close to conservatism made him a heretic among…