Baker, once chief of staff to President Reagan, recalled this year that "the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 seemed to signal a new era of peace and prosperity."
"Unfortunately," he says, today's terrorism threat "is in many ways more serious than the threats we faced during the Cold War."
ARE WE READY
Six-term Florida Rep. Corrine Brown doesn't like what she doesn't see along U.S. coastlines.
A former ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Coast Guard and maritime transportation subcommittee, the Democrat notes that since Sept. 11 Uncle Sam's coast-guarding "Sting Ray" helicopters have been pressed into the anti-terrorist mission, defending waterways from waterborne terrorist attack and providing protection for presidential visits.
But two years and running after Sept. 11, she reveals, "there are only eight armed Homeland Security helicopters authorized for airborne use of force over our tens of thousands of miles of ports and waterways, which are dotted with strategic facilities, such as nuclear plants."
She warns that the United States any day now could be confronted by suicide terrorists heading full bore into a critical bridge or container ship.
STAY HOME
The U.S. national security strategy implemented by President Bush in 2002 - in part, creating a safer "world" - is undermining U.S. security and breeding vehement anti-American sentiment that could spark more terrorist attacks.
So argues Cato Institute defense expert Charles V. Pena, who says that rather than meddling in other countries, the United States would do better focusing on protecting the homeland against future terrorist attacks.
"U.S. national security strategy should not aim to make the world a better place," he says. "Instead, it should be focused more narrowly on protecting the United States itself - the country, the population and the liberties that underlie the American way of life."
EXPOSE THE GOOD
We're intrigued by the "Affirmative Action: End It - Don't Mend It" chapter of Star Parker's new WND book, "Uncle Sam's Plantation."
Harry Belafonte called the Colin Powells of the world "house slaves" because they do not believe advancements in life result from ethnicity, writes the black president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education.
"This is typical liberal arrogance," she says, "disparaging people for the unpardonable sin of disagreeing with them. No, the Powells, Clarence Thomases, Alan Keyeses and Condi Rices of the world understand that some people, both black and white, simply strive to be good people and morally sensitive to all."
The author argues that the abolishment of affirmative-action programs would help reveal whether any "good people" work in the admissions departments of America's colleges and in the hiring departments of major corporations and businesses.
DELAYING THE REAPER
Stuart Roy is lucky to be alive.
The communications director for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was driving to work Sunday over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge when a pitchfork came unfastened from a passing truck and sliced through his windshield.
"It was flying through the air in a straight line - coming straight at my head - fork first," Roy tells this column. "I slammed on my brakes and shut my eyes, and then it smashed through the windshield. There was glass everywhere. I must have had my mouth open because I was spitting out glass."
When he opened his eyes, Roy was shocked to find the pitchfork had come to a stop just above the steering wheel - its razor sharp forks barely missing his face. Police estimate that when the tool impaled the windshield it was traveling at 100 mph.
"If it wasn't for one tong going through one piece of metal it would have come all the way through my head," says the Hill aide, who is keeping the pitchfork as a good-luck charm.
Counting his blessings Monday, Roy says his wife had the best line of all: "You know, if you die by way of a pitchfork, it's not a very good sign of which way you're going."
EARLY SANDALS
The Eisenhower Institute's next author series Dec. 8 will feature Walter Isaacson and his newly released "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" (Simon and Schuster).
It should be an intriguing discussion, for besides exploring how one of America's founders helped define society, the book chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris.
A former chairman and CEO of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine, Isaacson is president of the Aspen Institute. He previously penned "Kissinger: A Biography."