Knit Hats and Other Things

James H. Johnston,"The Man in the Knit Cap," Washington Post, 5 February, is a fascinating story of the author's three years of research on the life of Yarrow Mamout. Born in Guinea in about 1736, he was enslaved as a teenager, and sold in Maryland. In 1796, he was freed by his owner and bought property in Georgetown, DC, in 1800. There are two surviving portraits of Yarrow Mamout in his old age, including one by Charles Wilson Peale. He was still a Muslim when he died in 1823.

Jim Hodges,"The ‘Freedom Fort'," Hampton Roads Daily Press, 5 February, reports on the" contraband" community that grew to 10,000 people at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, after 1861. I was surprised to learn that General Benjamin F. Butler had voted to nominate Jefferson Davis for president in 1860; and, in 1864, had said he would accept the Republican nomination for vice president only if Lincoln promised to die within three months of his inauguration. Thanks to Hiram Hover for the tips.

Alan Wolfe's"The Common Touch," Washington Post, 3 February, is a good review of Michael Kazin's new biography of William Jennings Bryan, A Godly Hero.

Greg Mitchell's"Sliming a Famous Muckraker: The Untold Story," Editor and Publisher, 30 January, has more about the Sinclair Lewis letter in re Saccho and Venzetti. Thanks to HNN's Roundup for the tip.

Anthony Lewis,"The Whirlwinds of Revolt," New York Times, 5 February, is a review worthy of Taylor Branch's At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968. I've been fairly critical of Branch's first volume ("Put your finger on any page, give me time, and I'll find the mistake."), but the trilogy is a monument of extraordinary narrative prose.

Walter Isaacson,"Spies and Spymasters," New York Times, 5 February, is another splendid review. Isaacson conjures with how much of what James Risen tells us in State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration is true. President Bush has already admitted that its major revelation is correct. Arlen Specter, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, argues that the administration is in open violation of the law; Scott Shane's"For Some, Spying Controversy Recalls a Past Drama," New York Times, 6 February, sees repetition of Nixon administration over-reach; and, apparently, the Justice Department now takes the position that the President can order a killing on American soil. Do executive war powers have any limits? And how will one know when a"war on terror" has ended?

Christopher Hitchens,"Cartoon Debate," Slate, 4 February, makes a characteristically vigorous argument for the moral obligation to mock all religion. There'll be no virgins in paradise for Hitchens, I'll tell you that.

Finally, abandoning plans to destroy UCLA alum Andrew Jones with dirt bombs, Sergeant Chris Bray has struck up an unlikely alliance with Michelle Malkin to save western civilization by dropping crocheted hats on al Qaeda. That and Sergeant Bray's recovery of a recent conversation among top al Qaeda leaders should move him quickly up the chain of command.