Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles

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"A CROSS BETWEEN SUSAN Sarandon and Donna from Mind of the Married Man ... Personable, articulate, sits on nonprofit boards." For me, this stood out among a list of personal ads from Harvard Magazine recently compiled by The Washington Post's Peter Carlson. As a septuagenarian who tends toward the short and portly side--one commentator, referring to the title of this column, observed, "He looks more like Sancho Panza"--I long ago abandoned hope of lighting up the eyes of the opposite sex. Now, however, I can say, "My dear, you know I sit on three nonprofit boards."

WATCHING THE RECENT CABLE movie, The Pentagon Papers, I was reminded of the 6-3 Supreme Court vote that allowed The New York Times and The Washington Post to continue printing the now-famous record of how we became mired in Vietnam. It was a great moment in the history of the First Amendment. But stop a moment and consider what would happen if a similar case came before today's Supreme Court involving news the Bush administration didn't like. Do you think that these justices would stand up for freedom of the press, as their predecessors did?

AMONG MILITARY PEOPLE, THE Air Force is widely considered the most coddled branch of the armed forces. Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times recently laid their hands on an Air Force memo that helps explain why. This message to Air Force personnel about to deploy with members of other services reads:

"AF people deploying to a joint environment can make the most of the experience if they learn the cultural differences of other services. For example, units with an Army or Marine Corps officer in charge may require group PT."

Physical training may be avoided by today's Air Force, but I can personally testify that it was diligent in its performance of group calisthenics during World War II. I saw newsreels and photographs in the newspapers of trainees performing their exercises on a field. Of course, as an infantryman, I did notice that the field was next to their Miami Beach hotel.

ONE BENEFIT OF GETTING PAST Bush's obsession with Iraq is that the administration may at long last attend to more important matters. In the realm of foreign affairs, none is more critical than securing a just peace between Israel and Palestine. This seemed to be finally, if grudgingly, acknowledged by Bush last month after considerable prodding from friends like Tony Blair. When Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar visited Crawford, pledging solidarity on Iraq, according to The Wall Street Journal, "he also stressed the great importance to Europe and the Middle East for Mr. Bush to show visible progress soon on the Israel-Palestine dispute." Another leader sympathetic to the United States, Jordan's foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, recently told the Post's David Ignatius that the best way to stem a post-Iraq renewal of Islamic militancy against the United States is for the Bush administration to show that it is serious about reviving the peace process and halting Israeli settlements on the West Bank. "If you don't deal with settlements quickly, we are approaching the time when a viable Palestinian state isn't possible."

Israeli settlements already surround the Arab city of Bethlehem. Bush has done nothing to stop these settlements, although the pace at which they are being established has accelerated under his pal Ariel Sharon. Indeed, Slate's Mickey Kaus writes of the Bush administration, "The Likudniks are really in charge now." The Post's Robert Kaiser reports, "For the first time, a U.S. administration and a Likud government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies."

For Bush and Karl Rove, this means they won't need butterfly ballots to carry Florida next time. But for many of their subordinates, like Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast Affairs for the National Security Council, this is not a matter of cynical political calculation but of passionate conviction. His guru, one he shares with Donald Rumsfeld, is Richard Perle, who has urged Israel to repudiate the Oslo peace accords.

If the settlements continue and Israel's armed forces...