Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here.

Riddle me this:

On the Republican side, you see all kinds of leading politicians denouncing Trump for this, that, or the other thing. I don't think I have seen a single one come out four-square in support—not even the VP nominee! At best, they accept all of his faults but say they still can't vote for Hillary.

I never see the same thing on the Democrat side. I never see leading Democrats denounce Clinton for this, that, or the other thing. They don't accept that she has faults, but at least she is better than Trump. They always seem to come out four-square in support—even Obama, who should know better.

Why can't Democrats acknowledge the Clinton scandals the way Republicans acknowledge Trump's weaknesses? Why must they always minimize, deflect, hush-hush, and counter-attack? I'm sure there are exceptions. . . . So I stand to be corrected. But at least the media I see present a starkly curious asymmetry between the way the leading lights in each party respond to the obvious flaws in their own nominee.

Note from KBJ: This letter is from a highly educated Canadian, who happens to be a libertarian. I asked him for permission to post his letter (which he gave) so that y'all could answer his question.

To the Editor:

Re “The End of Political History?,” by Fredrik Logevall and Kenneth Osgood (Op-Ed, Aug. 29):

It is indeed a pity that American political history is disappearing from the course offerings of the history departments of American colleges and universities. It has been replaced and superseded, as the writers suggest, by sometimes exemplary specialized courses in social history, ethnic and race studies, and gender and identity studies, as well as by lowbrow and middlebrow culture studies.

The writers note, parenthetically, that the same fate has been suffered by diplomatic and military history. I would add a third major victim: American intellectual history, a once powerful and popular field. At the mid-20th century, historians like Richard Hofstadter, who combined political and intellectual history with critical sociology, provided our citizens with rich insights into our political culture. Such insights as “status revolt” and “paranoid style” continue to inform our best contemporary journalists and critics.

The end of political, diplomatic, military and intellectual history involves foreboding consequences for our future as a democracy.

GARY MAROTTA

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.

The writer is emeritus professor of history and former provost at SUNY-Buffalo State.

This doesn't surprise me. In fact, I expect more of it. Just as blacks but not whites can use the word "nigger," blacks but not whites can demand racial segregation.

Hillary Clinton is seriously unwell, as anyone with a brain can see. Her allies in the mainstream media don't want you to know it.

I am therefore not impressed by the claim that the Supreme Court's decision on school integration is the law of the land. The Constitution, and the laws "made in pursuance thereof," are the "supreme law of the land." The Constitution is what its authors intended it to be and said it was—not what the Supreme Court says it is. If we condone the practice of substituting our own intentions for those of the Constitution's framers, we reject, in effect, the principle of Constitutional Government: we endorse a rule of men, not of laws.

(Barry M. Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative, ed. CC Goldwater, The James Madison Library in American Politics, ed. Sean Wilentz [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007 (first published in 1960)], 30 [italics in original])

Precious Time (1981).

Here.

Scott Adams isn't afraid of Donald Trump, and neither am I. Are you?