Okay, so what's behind the battle over the Hagel nomination? With all the talk we have heard and all that has been written in recent years about uncompromising partisanship, the Republicans have fought to, in effect, make sure Democrat John Kerry would be the choice for secretary of state and now balk at the choice of a fellow Republican and former U.S. senator from Nebraska to head up the Department of Defense. In fact, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called this ostensibly bipartisan choice by the president an "in your face" insult to the Grand Old Party. Are Republicans really that easily insulted?

I e-mail back to an old schoolmate who has said she's a Unitarian atheist, explaining why her Godless doctrines are potentially cruel, tyrannical, and dangerous.

Elvis Presley, who was born on January 8, 1935, burst into a musical world where Saturday nights had been dominated by champagne music and created the loudest cork-popping the world had ever heard. His music was more Coke and Pepsi than champagne, but it was a dropped bottle of Pepsi Cola that inspired songwriter Otis Blackwell to find in all that riot of foam the perfect metaphor for a teenager's amorous emotions. They were "All Shook Up." And so was the nation once Elvis brought that energy and turbulence onto the American stage. America and the world would never be the same again.

The recent passing of singing great Patti Page puts a lot of things in better perspective. For one thing, it ought to give us pause whenever we hear the familiar throwaway line, "What's in a name?"

One thing that should be noted about General Norman Schwarzkopf's role in the 1991 war with Iraq that has generally been overlooked: He was against the war, called Operation Desert Storm, before he was for it.

President Obama intends to put the "full weight" of his efforts and his office behind attempts to pass new restrictions on firearms in the new year, he told host David Gregory in an interview aired on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.

The news on Christmas Eve that a U.S. Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African nations indicates a still-expanding role for an all-volunteer Army that has been stretched nearly to the breaking point in recent years by a nearly nine-year war in Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan now in its 11th year.

On Tuesday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder vetoed a bill that would have allowed gun owners with extra training to carry concealed weapons in schools, day care centers, churches, and stadiums. The measure was passed by the state legislature last Thursday, one day before the fatal shooting of 20 first-grade students and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut on Friday, but the bill did not go to the governor until Tuesday afternoon, the Free Press reported.

Gun-free zones are invitations to mass murder, gun-rights advocates argued after a lone gunman's shooting rampage at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, Friday left 20 children and six adults dead.

The United States will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to undisclosed locations in Turkey to defend against potential Syrian missile attacks, a Department of Defense spokesman announced Friday.