I started out as a Cold Warrior, even my last years in grade school.

As I look back at the span of the Cold War in those early days, in the '50s, for example, there was a great deal of Soviet propaganda here in the United States, but it was clumsy, and it was anchored to a lot of ideological support in certain circles in America itself.

I'm the only American alive or dead who presided unhappily over the removal of a vice president and a president.

That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude.

We didn't do anything wrong, but among the lessons learned, given the magnitude of the problems we now face in Afghanistan, a major U.S. force on the ground would convince the world we were in for the long-haul recovery of a country devastated by 21 years of warfare.

Syria is a terrorist state by any definition and is so classified by the State Department. I happen to think Iran is too. Iraq, Iran, Syria, they're all involved.

Sooner or later something had to give. But President Bush, faced with the unprecedented affront of 9-11, could not wait to take action. So he had to do what we were capable of doing, and he did it brilliantly.