Starring Jimmy Carter, in War and Peace

Now they've given Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize. Looking at the present, wretched incumbent, Democrats feel smug about their paladin of peace.

But there's continuity in Empire. Presidents come and Presidents go. There are differences, but over much vital terrain the line of march adopted by the Commander in Chief doesn't deviate down the years. Is George Bush "worse" than, say, Jack Kennedy, who multiplied America's military arsenal, nuclear and nonnuclear, and dragged the world to the edge of obliteration forty years ago?

Sure, Carter wasn't as bad as Reagan. By the low standards of his office, he did his best in the Middle East. But how bad is bad? Carter's projected military budgets for the early 1980s were higher than the ones Reagan presided over. Remember his plan to run MX missiles by rail around the American West?

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