'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
After leaving the White House in 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower fretted about what future generations would think of his legacy, stating that the peace and prosperity that marked his two terms "didn't just happen, by God." But as Evan Thomas writes in his study of the Eisenhower presidency, "[Ike] had trouble articulating just how that had happened. He never could admit that he had kept the peace by threatening all-out war. His all-or-nothing strategy worked brilliantly."
Perhaps Mitt Romney played it right when he was meek and contrite in response to The Washington Post's front-page allegations that he bullied a kid half-a-century ago in high school.
In the five months since his biography of Cold War diplomat George Kennan came out, John Lewis Gaddis has been toasted as a master historian, and roasted as a conservative who minimized Kennan's liberal tendencies.
The administration is downplaying the revelation that the State Department blew $70,000 in taxpayer cash buying copies of President Obama's books. As first reported in The Washington Times, the purchase was meant to "engage key audiences in discussions of foreign policy." It's another uncomfortable reminder of the degree to which those who surround Mr. Obama feel it necessary to bathe him in adulation.
Dick Cheney is already ruling the popular book sale lists, just days before the release of his 576-page book "In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir." The former vice president's attentive reception among American readers is bound to frustrate those journalists who have long been at war with Mr. Cheney.
Two congressmen from New York City say that up to $50 million in Osama bin Laden bounty money should go to first responders, survivors and families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
A copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln and bought by Robert F. Kennedy, who drew inspiration from the document as he enforced civil rights legislation in the 1960s, is going up for auction and could fetch as much as $1.5 million.
But as Evan Thomas writes in his study of the Eisenhower presidency, "[Ike] had trouble articulating just how that had happened.
But, as Mr. Thomas writes, "Vietnam was precisely the sort of brushfire war Eisenhower managed to dodge during his presidency."
