Arizona Legislative District 6 Republican Committee

Two coming developments, one dismal and one excellent, pertain to America’s memory of a great man. One of several oversight panels soon will consider a proposed memorial to Dwight Eisenhower. The proposal is an exhibitionistic triumph of theory over function — more a monument to its creator, Frank Gehry, practitioner of architectural flamboyance, than to the most underrated president. Fortunately, on Tuesday comes Jean Edward Smith’s biography “Eisenhower in War and Peace,” which demonstrates why the man’s achievements merit a memorial better than the proposed one.

James and Jeanne Harmon reside in and supposedly own a five-story brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a building that has been in their family since 1949. But they have, so to speak, houseguests who have overstayed their welcome by, in cumulative years, more than a century. They are the tenants — the same tenants — who have been living in the three of the Harmons’ six apartments that are rent controlled.

All elected officials, and those who help finance elections in the expectation that certain promises will be kept — and everyone who cares about the rule of law — should hope the Supreme Court agrees to hear Don Siegelman’s appeal of his conviction. Until the court clarifies what constitutes quid pro quo political corruption, Americans engage in politics at their peril because prosecutors have dangerous discretion to criminalize politics.

Through 11 presidential elections, beginning with the Democrats’ nomination of George McGovern in 1972, Republicans have enjoyed a presumption of superiority regarding national security. This year, however, events and their rhetoric are dissipating their advantage.

LOS ANGELES

The worst day of Sugar Bear’s 55 years was one of the days — there have been many of them — when he got out of prison. In the early 1990s, in a prison where people whose sentences have ended and are being released see those whose sentences are just beginning, he saw one of his sons coming in.

FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz.

Dina Galassini does not seem to pose a threat to Arizona’s civic integrity. But the government of this desert community believes that you cannot be too careful. And state law empowers local governments to be vigilant against the lurking danger that political speech might occur before the speakers notify the government and comply with all the speech rules.

War, said James Madison, is “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” Randolph Bourne, the radical essayist killed by the influenza unleashed by World War I, warned, “War is the health of the state.” Hence Barack Obama’s State of the Union hymn: Onward civilian soldiers, marching as to war.

An Illinois lawyer who had a way with words once characterized a particular argument as weaker than soup made from the shadow of a pigeon that died of starvation. The argument for Mitt Romney benefiting from South Carolina’s voting is almost as weak as Lincoln’s soup, but here it is:

The Supreme Court can pack large portents in small details. When in late March it considers the constitutionality of Obamacare, there will be 51 / 2 hours of oral argument — the most in almost half a century. This is because the individual mandate (Does Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce extend to punishing the inactivity of not buying insurance?) is just one of the law’s constitutionally dubious features.

LOS ANGELES

Shawn Nee, 35, works in television but hopes to publish a book of photographs. Shane Quentin, 31, repairs bicycles but enjoys photographing industrial scenes at night. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department probably wishes that both would find other hobbies. Herewith a story of today’s inevitable friction between people exercising, and others protecting, freedom.

CHARLESTON, S.C.

Thanks to globalization, and to containerized shipping that began in 1956 and makes globalization work, commodities swiftly move vast distances around the planet. Wal-Mart alone imports 400,000 containers a year. Trade flows can, however, be deflected or even defeated by a distance of just five feet. Herewith a story of the high costs of a few feet and of too many years required for our nation’s increasingly sluggish public processes to move.

CHARLESTON, S.C.

Thanks to globalization, and to containerized shipping that began in 1956 and makes globalization work, commodities swiftly move vast distances around the planet. Wal-Mart alone imports 400,000 containers a year. Trade flows can, however, be deflected or even defeated by a distance of just five feet. Herewith a story of the high costs of a few feet and of too many years required for our nation’s increasingly sluggish public processes to move.

CHARLESTON, S.C.

They are nearing 70 now, the 11 men who were 12-year-old boys in 1955 and who are remembered for the baseball games they could not play. They were — actually, with their matching blue blazers and striped ties, they still are — members of the Cannon Street All Stars.

CHARLESTON, S.C.

They are nearing 70 now, the 11 men who were 12-year-old boys in 1955 and who are remembered for the baseball games they could not play. They were — actually, with their matching blue blazers and striped ties, they still are — members of the Cannon Street All Stars.

Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.

Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.

The complaint that Iowa is not a typical American state is true but trivial because there is no such state. Can you name one whose political culture, closely considered, is more like than unlike any other state’s? Anyway, someplace has to go first, and it should be somewhere the natives are receptive and media are not decisive, so marginal candidates have a sporting chance to become central.

The complaint that Iowa is not a typical American state is true but trivial because there is no such state. Can you name one whose political culture, closely considered, is more like than unlike any other state’s? Anyway, someplace has to go first, and it should be somewhere the natives are receptive and media are not decisive, so marginal candidates have a sporting chance to become central.