Now Peter, "don't go wobbly on us," so name those names.

Come, on. If he had to put the accomplishment of a man in parentheses after his name, it's fairly obvious that Peter thinks this man is underrated. It should also be obvious that a man known (mostly) for not capitalizing his name is similarly overrated.

It's certainly not Nock who's overrated. Most Americans, even reasonably educated ones, have never heard of him. But anyone who hasn't read his Memoirs of a Superfluous Man has been missing a rare treat.

My favorite Nock quote: "Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you."

I'm with Julie on this one, Peter, that's too easy. Although if you read the NYTimes piece on him you'd walk away with the impression that his talent was underappreciated.

The NYT aside, cummings has generally fallen on hard times. It's too fashionable to diss him now. I don't think his work will endure the test of time, but he's talented and often fun. So he used to be overrated, but maybe not so much now. The NYT might even be right. Many authors have written over the last 20 years or so that Eisenhower was underrated; his stealth genius that hid behind rhetorical banality has been exposed time and again. So Eisenhower hasn't been underrated for a while. Is he now overrated? Is there too much credit given to his competence and avoidance of ground wars? Is he really the "role model" for today's president, as some of our "realists" are saying? Nock is not overrated or even rated at all. You can buy his SUPERFLUOUS book from ISI and judge for yourself. Is Yeager overrated (by Tom Wolfe and so by us)? Sorry, out of time...

Peter, are you referring to Ike in office, or at SHAEF?

in office...as a general, he's rated highly, as he should be.

i liked archy and mehitabel