Slim's actions when he became British chief of staff were to shake up the system. He took over from Bernard Montgomery, who, true to form, used the occasion of the change of command to whine about things. Slim's response: "What have YOU done?!" A succinct but scathing indictment of the British system of leadership.

This is the season of generational twaddle. At graduation ceremonies across the country, politicians, authors, actors, and businessmen take to the stage to tell young people they are fantastic simply because they are young. This year, the ritual is more pathetic than usual because there’s a presidential election in the offing.

Discussion of auftragstaktik--which was constantly open and lively during the years from Vietnam to Desert Storm--has largely been set aside in the post-9/11 era.

Whether the Obama administration is willing to give all assistance to Tokyo or Seoul in shooting down this missile might turn out to be the crucial element.

Not all professors are radicals and not all students are timewasters.Many still seek knowledge, if not wisdom, but gap between the ideal and the reality has seemingly never been greater.

The president’s decision to veto the XL Pipeline is no surprise. The fact that he was compelled to talk about it, is.

It might be passé to mock the ever-obliging humanities departments in our universities and colleges, but there’s so much . . . richness in the soil underneath Faber College’s motto that one can’t help taking les clercs to task at least once a quarter.

Everyone knows who the Democratic nominee will be. This gives Barack Obama all sorts of advantages. But unity and enthusiasm are not the same thing. Everyone in the family can agree to eat Aunt Sally’s leftover casserole, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be excited about it.