Thomas Jefferson

In Victory Speech, Rand Paul Misquotes Thomas Jefferson

Maybe there is something in the tea–this habit that Tea Party candidates have, on election night, of misquoting the nation’s founding fathers. Just now, in a rousing victory speech, Kentucky’s newest senator, Rand Paul, announced, “Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘That government is best that governs least.’”

Except, no. He didn’t. Henry …

In the Arena In the Arena

Obama as Jeffersonian Carterite? Hmmm.

Walter Russell Mead, usually a very fine foreign policy thinker, has a piece in the new issue of Foreign Policy that sort of compares Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter…and to Thomas Jefferson in his attitudes about America’s place in the world. I don’t find it very convincing. Here’s Mead’s definition of a Jeffersonian foreign