Sidewalks
by Tom DeignanRSS 
Recent Posts
- 'The Great Gatsby' author F Scott Fitzgerald’s death and burial another Catholic lesson
- Anthony Weiner running for New York mayor and the Italian mob and Irish Americans strong ties
- Victor Navasky lauds Thomas Nast - American cartoonist known for his racist Irish ape-like drawings
- Immigration is not the problem - history of anti-Irish behavior reflecting on the Chechnyan bombs in Boston
- The good old anti-British days - Margaret Thatcher haters and spats in New York during World War II
Archives
Drogheda, Co. Louth native Patrick Carr has encountered good fortune and bad on a road which has taken him from Ireland to some of the smallest towns in the U.S.
John Brennan grew up in New Jersey, the son of an Irish immigrant named Owen.
Brennan, who this week was dubbed President Obama’s “public face for counter terrorism policy,” was educated by the Jesuits, in high school as well as at Fordham University. Brennan has said a sense of public service was instilled in him, at home and at school, and thus he traveled widely and, after college, began a 30-year career at the CIA, working closely with Obama, as well as Presidents Bush and Clinton.
Despite this impressive resume -- Obama seriously considered naming Brennan CIA director following the presidential election -- it was not until the so-called underwear bombing of Christmas Day that the spotlight turned to Brennan.
He is a president with a father born in another country. Whispers, and occasionally shouts, arise that he is not a fit candidate for the White House.
He overcomes those obstacles, but for a core group of critics the charge that he is an unconstitutional president never goes away. They spend time trying to convince their fellow Americans that a man with no legal ties to the nation he governs is serving as commander in chief.
