9 articles — entities the show returned to in three or more episodes. Everything seen once or twice is listed in brief mentions.
- John Adams — John Adams is named in 27 episodes, and Zadek states on air that Adams is his favorite founder, an interest he traces to Joseph Ellis’s Passionate Sage. Adams a
- Benjamin Franklin — Benjamin Franklin is named in 19 episodes. He supplies the show’s title phrase by way of his warning about giving up essential liberty for temporary safety, and
- Alexander Hamilton — Alexander Hamilton is named in 27 episodes. On The Bob Zadek Show he is the founder of American public credit — the Bank of the United States and repayment of R
- Patrick Henry — Patrick Henry is named in 6 episodes, always as the Anti-Federalist who fought ratification in the Virginia convention and lost. Carol Berkin reports that he op
- Thomas Jefferson — Thomas Jefferson is named in 66 episodes, more than any other founder, though rarely as the subject. He appears as the author of the Declaration’s natural-right
- James Madison — James Madison is named in 60 episodes, more than any founder other than Jefferson, and functions on The Bob Zadek Show as the theorist of the structure: the Vir
- George Mason — George Mason is named in 9 episodes and is repeatedly identified by Zadek as one of his favorite founders and \
- Thomas Paine — Thomas Paine is named in 6 episodes and is the subject of one, an interview with historian Harlow Unger. The argument there is that independence was an elite pr
- George Washington — George Washington is named in 33 episodes of The Bob Zadek Show and is the subject of three. The recurring argument, made with Harlow Giles Unger, is that the C