There's a key difference between then and now. It's a big difference that no politician ever will admit to, because the Big Lie is dependent on it. That is that no amount of Islamic extremism is an existential threat. John Kerry got crucified in the 2004 election for suggesting that America's goal in the "War on Terror" should be to reduce the level of terrorism to a nuisance. Lesson learned for politicians.

But it doesn't change the fact that the Soviets were very much (and remain so, so long as they have stockpiles of Nukes) an existential threat to the whole West (just as we're an existential threat to the world, should we ever want to take that tack).

Very true. Terror is not a truly existential threat, and nukes are. But the outbreak of nuclear war is different from the spread of "communism" (really, nationalist populism) which America spent so much time and money combating from 1950-1975. The nuclear arsenal was the threat. The ideology was never as intoxicating in the third world as we made it out to be. (In my opinion.) Nor did the latter affect the former, except in rare cases -- Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps.

I think you're right about Walker. I've heard it said that Obama didn't win the election; Romney lost it. The GOP nomination may therefore go to the guy who generates the least "stupidity" press. I don't think Walker has a shot unless something strange happens, but he clearly thinks he does.

I don't know that I want us to have goals in Syria. Even those Washington insiders with a strong grasp of history can't really distinguish between good and bad over there. It's only going to get worse in 2015, though. War Nerd notwithstanding, this seems to be the Year of ISIS so far, at least if you ask the media. We'll see.