Eisenhower's Ability to "Sneer" a Powerful Motivator

By the time Dwight David Eisenhower was first elected president in 1952, he was already 62 years old. Despite this, he had had a relatively unremarkable health history. A 1923 appendectomy left him with a predilection to develop lesions between the lining of the abdominal cavity and the scar. In 1949, his doctor told him to cut down on his four-pack-a-day smoking habit. Eisenhower, after just a few days of limiting his cigarettes, quit cold turkey and never smoked again. He attributed his suc...

 Presidents Have Less Impact On Our Lives Than Those Aroun...

Presidents are royalty and we measure our lives by their reigns, but their effect on the country in general is greatly exaggerated. Take me, for example. Mr. Lyndon Johnson’s Selective Service System more or less governed my 20s, and now that I’m old and shaky, his Medicare is very helpful, but for most of us, presidents are part of the scenery, like the great stone heads on Easter Island. Millions of words have been written about Richard Nixon but his effect on my life was minuscule comp...

 Donald Trump's Candidacy is the Natural Outcome of Cognit...

Let’s be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party’s creation, its Frankenstein monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party’s wild obstructionism — the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements; the persistent call for nullification of Supreme Court decisi...