"There's a Mystical Aura to It"

"'When I was a kid, he was the hero,' said Philbrick. 'Because I had seen "They Died With Their Boots On," heroic portrayal. But then I think I was a freshman in high school and I saw "Little Big Man," in which Custer is the deranged maniac, a caricature almost of a Vietnam-era imperialist.'"

Mo Rocca on CBS Sunday Morning visits Montana to learn about Gen. G. A. Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The Pittsburgh of the West

"Modern Butte is pocked with massive and mysterious landmarks to its past—the 90-foot virgin statue riding the high spine of the Continental Divide, gazing over the city in benediction; the festering Berkley Pit, fed insatiably by an unseen toxic underground; the largely shuttered old town business district—and Pamela Roberts' powerhouse of a documentary brings them all to life in a way that will, if justice serves, change the way this remarkable city is perceived both here in Montana and the world at large."

Nick Davis in the Missoula Independent reviews the documentary Butte, America.

"One Who Helps People Throughout the Land"

"Drums pounded and the crowd cheered as Obama was escorted to the podium by his 'new parents,' Hartford and Mary Black Eagle, in the manner of a groom being walked down the aisle. Obama beamed. His adoptive parents gave Obama hugs as he stepped onto a riser to speak.
"'I want to thank my new parents,' he said. 'The nicest parents you could ever want to know. I like my new name. Barack Black Eagle. That is a good name!'"

Matthew Mosk in The Washington Post reports from Montana as Barack Obama becomes the first ever presidential candidate to visit the Crow Nation reservation.

Homegrown

"Though violent extremist groups have been around in America for decades, they surged in the 1990s, a decade of spectacular domestic mayhem--at a cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho; on a compound outside Waco, Texas; in downtown Oklahoma City. Their heroes were men like Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph.
"Today the groups are shadows of themselves, with many of their leaders dead, imprisoned, disillusioned or just inept.
"Many observers attribute that to Sept. 11, for diverting the rage of disaffected Americans away from the U.S. government and toward foreigners, and for fueling the subsequent Patriot Act-driven crackdown. Others say the movement began to crumble earlier, when the Y2K disaster, a favorite prediction of conspiracy theorists, failed to materialize.
"And part of the collapse may have just been human nature. 'Many of the people had such huge egos that they didn't know how to work together and keep the movement going,' said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the liberal Political Research Associates think tank who specializes in the study of right-wing networks. 'So it basically unraveled.'"

Richard A. Serrano in the Los Angeles Times reports on the state of domestic anti-government terrorism.