Experts in the News | Miller Center

Remembering a remarkable presidential decision

In November 1992, George H. W. Bush was a lame duck president with only a few weeks left in his administration. Given his waning presidential power, he did something remarkable: He ordered a large-scale military intervention in Somalia for the purpose of protecting the delivery of humanitarian supplies. He did so against the advice of Dick Cheney, his secretary of defense, and Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Bush made his decision in the days just after his mother’s passing and just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Robert Strong

Revisiting the William J. Clinton presidency

Join us for an engaging retrospective on the presidency of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States. The Miller Center brings together Sylvia M. Burwell, John Harris, and James Steinberg to explore major domestic and international developments during the Clinton administration—economic policy, welfare reform, the U.S. involvement in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the evolving role of the United States in a post–Cold War world. Russell Riley, codirector of the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program, moderates the program, featuring excerpts from the William J. Clinton Presidential History Project.

William Antholis and Russell Riley

Central Virginia’s voter turnout tells a bigger story about who showed up for this year’s election

“I think Democrats were enthusiastic because they were excited about [Gov.-elect Abigail] Spanberger, because they wanted to build a margin in the House of Delegates, and because this was the first opportunity after Trump’s win in 2024 to send a signal that this is not the direction that they want the country going in,” said Jennifer Lawless, a politics professor at the University of Virginia who studies voter behavior and political ambition. “Republicans, I think, were not particularly enthusiastic about their candidates.”

Jennifer Lawless

Dick Cheney and the U.S. Supreme Court

Dick Cheney’s impact on American life extends far beyond his role in the War on Terror, a chapter with which he’ll be forever linked. It even transcends his remarkable role in nominating himself as vice presidential running mate for George W. Bush in the 2000 election.

Barbara Perry

I knew Dick Cheney. I worked with Dick Cheney. He was no Darth Vader.

I’ll admit at the outset that I didn’t always share Vice President Dick Cheney’s ideology or policies. And I wish I had a nickel for every person who thought they were making a clever joke about his hunting prowess when they advised me to wear blaze orange when they heard my colleagues and I were going to interview him for the Miller Center’s George W. Bush Presidential Oral History Project. One colleague snarked that he “would rather be dead than be in the same room with Dick Cheney.” Well, he missed the interview of a career in oral history.

Barbara Perry

What America’s divided and tumultuous politics of the late-19th century can teach us

People trying to understand politics in the United States today often turn to history for precedents and perspective. Are our current divisions like the ones that preceded the American Revolution or the Civil War? Did the dramatic events of the 1960s generate the same kind of social and political forces seen today? Are there lessons from the past that show us how eras of intense political turmoil eventually subside?

Robert Strong