Sen. John McCain, whose life is a continuing exemplar of the American heroic ideal, regretfully has got it quite wrong when he says that growing GOP opposition to the Libyan and Afghan wars is evidence of isolationism.
According to a University of Miami study, those historical rankings of American presidents that pop up every year or so are significantly weighted in favor of Democrats, thanks to the liberal leanings of academia.
Harmon Killebrew slept here. Sorry, but those words keep popping into my head as I ponder Washington's attachment to the Hall of Fame slugger, who died Tuesday at 74. Killebrew, after all, is in the D.C. Hall of Stars, along with Sammy Baugh, Red Auerbach and the rest. His passing, moreover, was much noted in the local media.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George S. Patton were the three standout American generals in the war against Nazi Germany, and they have been the subject of an infinite number of histories over the past 65 years.
I have two clarifications to John R. Coyne Jr.'s interesting and timely book review ("How Ike eased Middle East strife," March 29).
"Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean" (Henry Holt), by Alex von Tunzelmann: "George W. Bush's War on Terror was not the first time the United States declared war on an idea," writes Alex von Tunzelmann in her latest historical narrative, "Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean." In the 1950s, it was the perceived threat posed by communism that obsessed many U.S. officials and empowered the Soviet Union, she writes.
In 1956, Britain's Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, saw Egypt's new president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, as a fascist riding a dangerous new wave of Arab nationalism. When Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal from its British and French owners, Eden was sure Nasser was an Arab Hitler and rejected any alternative to direct military action as "appeasement." Guy Mollet, the French premier at the time, shared Eden's opinion and joined with Britain and Israel in the attack on Egypt to remove Nasser.
"The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground during my administration. We kept the peace. People ask how it happened - by God, it didn't just happen."
