By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
No other figure in American history has been subjected to such intense yet incomplete scrutiny as Franklin Delano Roosevelt; certainly none of the Founding Fathers, not even Abraham Lincoln. The closest anyone has come to an all-encompassing complete portrait was Kenneth S. Davis, who won prizes 50 years go for his five-volume biography that covered FDR's life only up until 1943.
Robert Gellately's incisive work could well be titled, "Stalin's Worst Blunder." It is the story of how his rejection of Marshall Plan aid in 1947, both for the Soviet Union and the Eastern European nations falling under its domination, precipitated the Cold War and eventually led to the economic collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Hillary Rodham Clinton got an early valentine from President Obama, leaving Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to celebrate Groundhog Day alone. Perhaps the veep sees a shadow already (you can't blame him for looking over his shoulder), and he'll burrow underground.
Susan Mary Alsop was a saloniste extraordinaire who served more than tea and sympathy in the fashionable drawing rooms of her well-appointed Georgetown and Paris homes.
In a recent Washington Post story about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan with an attack on Camp Bastion in Helmand province, defense analyst Joshua Foust commented that the Taliban are fighting politically while the American generals are fighting tactically. That is one of the main points made by Thomas Ricks in his new book, "The Generals," a scathing critique of modern general officer leadership.
Despite its length this is an extremely readable book especially recommended for anyone who has never read previous biographies of these four important individuals -- or, perhaps, needs an update on their lives and contributions to victory in World War II.
What on Earth has happened to the Nobel Peace Prize, which once was easily the world's most prestigious award? Consider that in 1953, Albert Schweitzer and Gen. George C. Marshall were honored on the same day (with Winston Churchill winning the prize for literature, incidentally).
As we mark the 70th anniversary of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor of Dec. 7, 1941, America is on the verge of committing the same mistakes that helped plunge our nation into its most grievous war.
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the newly minted chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began his tenure this week by setting a tone of defiance and strength.
The line between life and death is always a thin one and never more so - literally and symbolically - than in the tiny state of Israel, which celebrates its 63rd birthday this week. (That's a lot of bar mitzvahs.) No sooner had the sirens sounded across the promised land of milk and honey, marking memorial day for the soldiers who have died fighting for Israel's survival, than fireworks splashed across the heavens, recalling that moment in 1948 when Israel declared its independence. The two commemorations are not unrelated.
President Obama rids himself of a particularly clueless general, but his fundamental problem remains.
With 2008 marking the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, a visit to the places where American soldiers fought and died evokes memories of that war. The names are familiar to an older generation: the Marne, the Meuse, Argonne Forest, Verdun, Champagne, Lorraine.
A week after calling the war on terror a "bumper-sticker slogan," John Edwards proposed a 10,000-strong "Marshall Corps" of young professionals — military or civilian, it's not quite specified — which the United States would send to "weak and failing states," purportedly to fight terrorism's "root causes." How they would do that in places like Somalia or Pakistan and face life-threatening ordeals isn't much specified by Mr. Edwards. But practicality isn't exactly his aim here.
To friends, he said he "deplored the emotional anti-Russian attitude in the country and kept emphasizing the necessity to talk and write about Europe in terms of economics instead of ideologies."
If the problems were not solved, Marshall said, demoralization would surely set in, with a disruption of any recovery.
