I am embarrassed not to have previously known the work of MIT historian Pauline Maier, winner of the 2011 George Washington Book Prize for her gripping account of the state by state drama over ratifying the US Constitution.

I am a history junkie and just served two exciting years as one of a three member team on the Los Angeles Times History Book Prize Committee and would make my way through 80-90 volumes a year that were being considered, but while in the weeds, missed the emergence of Maier's excellent work, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.

Most are familiar with the key roles played by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in taking on the propaganda responsibilities for seducing and/or pommeling those skeptical of or opposed to a new constitutional framework for the barely tethered together states under the Articles of Confederation. But there is so much more to the story.

What Pauline Maier delivers are rich accounts of what the disparate state conventions themselves thought of the enterprise in Philadelphia. Her account gives a much richer, less cliched treatment of the tug and pull that surrounded Constitutional ratification.

Her account also hardens the reality that the Constitution project was a conspiracy of a few who hijacked the machinery of governance then, just as many of the state conventions and political heavyweights of the day feared. Fortunate for the nation, it was a conspiracy that worked.

From my vantage point, American political history is one long line of political machinery hijackings whose roots go back to what happened in Philadelphia -- capped off most recently by the emergence of the Tea Party movement. But there will be many more such political hijackings in the years ahead.

One of the great gems of the Eastern Shore of Maryland is the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, directed by Adam Goodheart and based at the 1782-founded, colonial era liberal arts school Washington College. Goodheart, whose recent book 1861: The Civil War Awakening has been captivating Civil War junkies and more, helped establish the $50,000 award named after America's first President and founding father as a joint project of Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Mount Vernon to highlight the best book each year focused on America's "founding era."

I sit on the Advisory Council of the Starr Center, which is one of the easiest responsibilities I've ever had because the Goodheart-run operation produces some of the best work of any US culture and history I have seen in the country.

For those nearby Washington College and Chestertown, Maryland this evening -- join at 5 pm for a talk by Pauline Maier on her George Washington Book Prize winning historical thriller titled "Making History: A Conversation with Pauline Meier and Adam Goodheart" in the Gibson Center for the Arts. Here's a link to get directions to the college.

As a special additional treat, folks will be able to see Maryland's original 1788 parchment copy of the United States Constitution, which will be on display in a one-night only appearance -- which sadly and oddly has not been publicly exhibited for nearly a quarter century.

And if that wasn't enough this evening in this not-as-sleepy-as-you-thought corner of the Eastern Shore, award-winning playwright Robert Earl Price is doing the world premier of his new Miles Davis-named All Blues before the production moves to Atlanta to be managed by the world renown 7 Stages Theatre Company. That starts at 8:30 pm.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

This article first appeared at The Atlantic.

Senator Jon Kyl made news this week by telegraphing in advance the tantrums he would throw -- including resignation from his responsibilities as a member of the so-called "supercommittee" -  if the Congressional group pushes for more defense cuts. 

It's unclear whether Kyl will tolerate the $350 billion in cuts slated for the next ten years already called for by President Obama -- or whether he is talking about cuts above this amount.

From my experience, it is probably the former -- but my calls to his office yesterday asking clarification have not yet been returned -- so I leave open the option that the Senator and President Obama may be on the same page about the relatively modest cuts Obama has called for.

To be fair to Senator Kyl, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that he doesn't think that the Pentagon can maintain its responsibilities in assuring the nation's security if the cutting goes deeper than that which President Obama has already outlined.  Both Kyl and Panetta have significant concerns about the "sequestration mechanism" that would be triggered by provisions in the Budget Control Act of 2011 as significant cuts would be forced in Medicare, defense spending, and other accounts if the supercommittee fails to reach agreement on at least a $1.2 trillion spending cut.

I hope Senator Kyl was simply posturing.  Kyl is a serious defense intellectual, a tough-minded hawk who has been concerned about America's eroding global position and assaults, as he sees it, on America's sovereignty.  I don't agree with Kyl's take but I respect him as a serious thinker and strategist.  

He has been deeply involved in making sure that America's national weapons laboratories had the resources to responsibly manage the nuclear stockpile -- and to some degree, although he became a serious but overcome impediment during the effort to pass the US-Russia nuclear arms deal START Treaty last year, his wrangling with Vice President Biden behind the scenes to get more resources into the nuclear weapons labs is what allowed other conservatives to support passage of that vital treaty.

Whether Kyl wins or loses in the various positions he stakes out -- some of them fairly out there in a "bomb them now and get it over with" world with former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton -- Kyl typically behaves as a responsible legislator and doesn't make the kind of threats he made about the supercommittee.  He is essentially saying "I want it my way or there will be no deal."  That's irresponsible, toxic and demeaning to others on the supercommittee with whom he agreed to work.

Three quick reactions.  First, I hope Senator Kyl reconsiders; his legacy deserves more than to be punctuated near its end by tantrums that are beneath him and the institutional character of the Senate.

Second, the Senator needs to think back to his positions on the Iraq War, the surge, and the various upticks he has demanded -- and often secured -- in defense appropriations.  He has never, to my knowledge, worried about the income part of the equation to balance out the national security spending he was engineering.

Since Osama bin Laden's acolytes changed the world and America with their attack on US targets on September 11, 2001, the United States has spent -- just in appropriated Pentagon dollars and not taking account of large expenditures in other security accounts -- $2.263 trillion ABOVE what it was already spending on national security before 9/11.  This is on a cash basis -- out the door -- and does not account for ongoing obligations to veterans and other delayed costs that Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes often mention in their cost assessments of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. 

Kyl should have been the tenacious, never give up, never surrender Senator who demanded not only more spending on the Pentagon but also more revenue to pay for it.  He has done almost nothing that I know of to commit his core constituents -- many on the wealthier end of America's economic teeter-totter -- to providing more resources for the kind of national security investments Kyl demands.

Third, while I don't share the world view that Jon Kyl has, I agree with him that national security investments and capacity are important.  If he focuses only on dollars -- then Americans -- whether on the political right or left -- will ultimately not feel that they are getting a good return on tax dollars spent.  Dollars do not automatically equate to security deliverables.

We are paying more in many cases for a bloated and often inefficient private defense contractor industry in which we see cases of US Air Force captains and majors retiring from the military only to go into the private sector making three or four times their pay in the military and doing exactly the same jobs.  Where is Senator Kyl on these sorts of abuses and inefficiencies.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had it right when he came into offices as George W. Bush's Pentagon chief.  Rumsfeld started with strategy and became committed to thinking through what kinds of wars and conflicts America needed to prepare for -- and what kind were least likely to be fought in the future and wanted strategy to drive a reorganization of spending and Pentagon structure.

September 11th changed everything -- and created a world in which the Pentagon no longer had to make hard choices because it saw coffers in nearly all of its accounts filled to overflowing.

Jon Kyl and his colleagues would be wise to check in with Secretary Rumsfeld and reinitiate a discussion of strategy and structure that informs spending. 

To talk dollars alone and think that more or less spending is the only measure of whether America is safe or unsafe is unfair to taxpayers, undermines US national security, and would blight Jon Kyl's legacy as a Senator who understood the deeper mechanics of national security decisions and spending.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Bleak views of the US economy abound.  Real unemployment for August -- which according to a monthly newsletter report prepared by Leo Hindery includes discouraged workers (3.9 M), part time of necessity workers (8.8 M), and marginally attached workers (2.6 M) those on the unemployment roles -- is up to 29.3 million workers, or 18.2% - compared to the still bleak official unemployment rate of 9.1%.

EJ Dionne has today penned one of the most depressingly accurate homages to labor I've read, suggesting that we change the name of "Labor Day" to "Capital Day", arguing that we have "given up on honoring workers as the real creators of wealth and their honest toil. . .as worthy of genuine respect."

But I've always had respect for contrarian views -- and I found one in my inbox a few days ago from the insightful research operation of the ISI Group.

The preamble to the report opened: "We are not trying to look at economic releases through 'rose colored' glasses, but the distinctly negative climate in the U.S. three weeks ago has since brightened.

Something to consider on this rather gloomy Labor Day are the ISI Group's observations:

1.     Monster online employment index continues to trend up.
2.     Consumer confidence is generally rebounding
3.     Chain-store sales were solid in August
4.     Motor vehicle sales were solid in August.
5.     Mfg PMI was better than expected (even after adjusting for the quality of the indicators,   most notably inventories)
6.     Household employment jumped.
7.     Temp employment is up two months in a row.
8.     Unemployment claims are trending lower.
9.     Verizon workers returned to work which should add about 45K to September's gain.
10.   Historically, September - November job growth is above the long term average gain

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic.  This post ran originally at The Atlantic. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

(photo credit: Minh Le)

My friend Minh Le who has been doing a lot of work in Mongolia lately took this shot from the air while flying over Japan.

He sent it in response to a note I posted on Facebook noting that Mt. Rainier is like Seattle's Mt. Fuji. Rainier and Fuji are both spectacular -- and yes, I know that one is easier to climb than the other.

Thanks for the shot Minh.

-- Steve Clemons

Most Americans know former First Lady Laura Bush as a strong supporter of education -- and she puts her time and travel into this cause.  What is less known about Bush is how committed she was to international bridge-building and encouraging Americans to connect abroad.

I want to tip my hat to former First Lady Laura Bush. 

She is an internationalist -- and young folks, in fear of burying the lead, you should know that there is a "Laura W. Bush Traveling Fellowship" administered by the Department of State (Deadline extended to September 26, 2011) that is a great opportunity for young people to work abroad in line with the goals of UNESCO.

Most Americans know Laura Bush as a strong supporter of youth education -- and she puts her time and travel into this cause.  Just today, The Education Alliance -- a support group of business and community for "public" schools in Charleston, West Virginia -- announced that Mrs. Bush would be the keynote speaker of the Alliance's annual fundraiser on November 9th.

On October 7th, Laura Bush will visit the Lubbock-Cooper
Independent School District in Texas to attend a ribbon cutting at a middle school named in her honor.  This really impresses me as Charleston while a fine city (and the same goes for Lubbock) doesn't tend to rank among America's most acclaimed metropolises.  She is pushing education in a retail way, out in places that too often get overlooked.  Impressive.

What is less known about our former First Lady is how committed she was to international bridge-building and encouraging Americans to connect abroad.

The fact that the GOP is now experiencing the kind of outrageous character assaults against Muslims that many Dems, like US House Representative Keith Ellison, have endured only means that the push back has come much later than it should have. 


Reuters/Rebecca Cook

Are you or are you not a card-carrying member of the pro-Shariah, Muslim Brotherhood network trying to force the citizens of the United States of America to submit to the hateful will of Allah?

This morning, I hope to reflect a bit about this interesting report that the Center for American Progress just released, titled "Fear, Inc.:  The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America", but will be doing so from taxis, buses, and cars trying to make my way back from upper New York.

I had hoped to live blog what was shifting from a Hurricane category 1 to a tropical storm from the beaches of Southampton, New York which took a very bad hit from a category 3 hurricane in 1938.  But we were compelled by local authorities to evacuate to higher ground and ended up in Bedford, NY -- where the storm hit only lightly but where trees and power lines nonetheless were snapped apart all over the area.

I should add that what I had hoped to do was not smart.  I took to heart the tongue-lashing that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave two kayakers who thought they could handle the mess and nonetheless had to be rescued from a violently churning New York Harbor.  It would have been stupid of me to try and live blog the storm from the beach -- but maybe less so, a couple of hundred yards away from the beach.  Next time perhaps.

Now all Amtrak trains to DC are cancelled today (Monday) so need to make my way home in buses -- and maybe by hitch-hiking.

Will be back soon with reactions to the CAP report.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

. . .A clip from an exchange I had yesterday morning on C-Span's Washington Journal with host Greta Brawner.

We got into quite a bit about the currents that come next in Libyan governance and also discussed the different model of intervention President Obama has hatched.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Some thoughts on how Obama may have constructed a new approach to foreign intervention on last night's Rachel Maddow Show.

For those following events in Libya, I'll be sharing further thoughts on Obama's "tipping point" strategy on C-Span's Washington Journal this morning at 7:45 am and will be on BBC shortly after 9:00 am EST.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Like Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein was also a horrendous thug whose arbitrary and brutal
rule resulted in the deaths of vast numbers of his own citizens -- but
there is no doubt that taking Saddam out removed one of the effective
constraints on Iran.

CNN finally fed in CNN Int'l on Libya. But guys, enough with the
negativity! Why can't Westerners be happy about Arab revolutions? #Libya

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

A new bar is opening in DC, called "Hemingway's Bar", in the invite only Cuban Interests Section.  This is vastly better public diplomacy than the US-Cuba tit-for-tat shenanigans of the past.

Small scoop, but on October 6th, the Cuban Interests Section (aka, the Cuban Embassy if we ever get back to normalizing relations) will launch a clever bit of public diplomacy by opening "Hemingway's Bar." 

Of course, one has to be invited as the bar is on Cuba's side of the line inside its sort-of-embassy, and my hunch is that some will make the list and others won't. Sorry Ileana (and Mario).

And as commerce can't change hands between Americans and Cubans -- the drinks will be free.  I plan to go and will want a "Hemingway Daiquiri" -- double the rum, and no sugar.

Speaking at Offutt Air Base, Nebraska -- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has disconcertingly started his tenure fear-mongering about al Qaeda as a justification not to go beyond the President's proposed $400 billion cuts to the Defense Department over ten years. 

From a report in the Omaha World-Herald:

The military can handle this week's debt ceiling deal that slices nearly $400 billion from projected defense spending over the next decade, Panetta told the crowd.

What the military can't handle, he said, is $600 billion in additional defense cuts that would be spread out over the next decade. Those cuts could be automatically triggered as
part of the debt ceiling deal if a congressional "super committee" deadlocks on the way to further cut spending or raise revenues.

Those cuts would "seriously weaken the defense of this country," Panetta said. "That's the last thing we need to do."

The report went on to say about Panetta's comments:

He ticked off a list of potential dangers to the United States, beginning with al-Qaida. The terrorist network is weakened, Panetta told the crowd, and lacks its longtime leader after the Central Intelligence Agency -- then led by Panetta -- helped locate and kill Osama bin Laden in May.

Panetta called the joint military operation that killed bin Laden, "one of the proudest moments I've had" but warned that the group bin Laden founded is still bent on harming Americans.

This is irresponsible hyping of a threat to justify massive defense spending during a period of real fiscal stress. 

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Image credit: Reuters

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard has numerous advocates close to President Obama advocating his release from a life sentence.  Pollard betrayed his fellow US citizens and should only be released if he can be used as bargaining chip to move US interests forward -- meaning a real deal on an Israel-Palestine two state arrangement.


Ammar Awad / Reuters

Former Florida Congressman Robert Wexler, a confidant to President Barack Obama, on Middle East matters has written to the President asking that convicted Israel spy Jonathan Pollard be released. Wexler, whom I respect, joins some other progressives like former Reagan administration defense official and Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb in calling for a pardon of Pollard.

As I've written before, I think Pollard is a first class traitor to the United States -- someone whose betrayal is worse because he worked for an ally.  That's a worse breach of trust than if Pollard had been working for Cuba or China or Iran.

Wexler, who serves as President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, should know that the only way to get Pollard released is to treat him as pawn in the chess match over Israel's future relations with Palestine and the Arab region. 

In my book, Pollard should die in prison for his deeds that betrayed his fellow citizens and only be released if he became a bargaining chip in a scheme moving forward America's strategic interests.  That means if folks want Pollard out of prison, then Prime Minister Netanyahu and his associates like Bob Wexler can 'do much more' to engineer a close to the ulcerous, toxic mess of the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations standoff. 

Israel sets the temperature in the region -- and continues to engage in settlement expansion undermining any trust in its long term intentions to negotiate a two state deal.  The Palestinian territories are occupied and divided; the region is fragile -- and Israel is doing little other than aggravating a very bad situation.  In this circumstance, the release of Pollard for 'nothing in return' from the Israelis in improving the climate in their neighborhood would be a further betrayal of US national interests.

Leave Pollard in prison until the Israel government comes to understand that its passive aggressive behavior on settlements and peace negotiations is undermining its long term national security interests and undermining the health of its long term relations with the United States and Europe. 

If Israel genuinely changes course, then Obama should take a page out of Cold War spy exchanges.  Obama would, if Netanyahu brought along his government, have more latitude to trade the traitor for a systemic shift by Israel towards a genuine two state deal ending the Palestinian conflict.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Kenneth Cole nails it. 

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

In August 2005, because of growing US political resistance on national security grounds, the China National Oil Company (CNOC) withdrew its bid to purchase the US oil company, UNOCAL. In 2006, Dubai Port World dropped plans to acquire the Port of Miami because of similar fears in the Congress about national security vulnerabilities if the agents of an Arab state operated a major US transport hub.

But the walls that have protected US and European national security prizes, particularly some strategic assets and sensitive technologies, may be eroding given the desperate hunger for cash that so many deficit-plagued nations have today.  The US has the "2007 Foreign Investment and National Security Act" in place as a tool to help drive Chinese investment into financing US debt rather than acquiring high-priced but national security-sensitive assets.
But Europe is another case -- and may be the back door through which China gets the opportunity to exploit the fragility of the Euro zone and buy things that would have been kept out of China's reach just a few years ago.

A number of correspondents checked in with America's biggest financier, the People's Republic of China, after President Obama signed the debt ceiling deal passed by the Senate and House of Representatives.

Xinhua reports that China was generally satisfied that a deal went through -- but China Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan also promised that China would diversify further its foreign exchange reserves.

From the Xinhua report:

"China hopes the U.S. administration and Congress
would take responsible policy measures to handle its debt issue in light
with the interests of the whole world including those of the United
States," Zhou added.

"China would continue to seek diversification in the management of
reserve assets, strengthen risk management, and minimize the negative
impacts of the fluctuations in the international financial market on the
Chinese economy," Zhou said.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons