Opinion | 80 years later, a World War II gunner remembers

Jenner, as photojournalist David Burnett recounts, is not thinking about the war in the abstract. He is thinking about his best friend, Oscar McClure, then a young gunner as well, and watching as his friend waved his last goodbye from a neighboring plane. Far away from the speeches this week, that’s what D-Day still means to those who were there.

Spring-chicken President Biden, of course, was a mere toddler on D-Day, but he will join French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders in commemorating the anniversary on Thursday. As Lee Hockstader notes, the occasion could give Macron the opportunity to announce a risky new provocation in the current war at Europe’s edge: sending French military trainers to Ukraine to help repel the Russian invasion. Biden, so far, has avoided putting any American boots on the ground, even as his red lines, Lee writes, have become more like “faded pink dots” — but French boots would be the greatest test yet of Vladimir Putin’s restraint.

In France’s decision, and other decisions by Western countries about just how much to extend our assistance to Ukraine, a lot is on the line, Max Boot notes. Like, not just World War III, but, uh, the eternal battle between good and evil?

Americans like to think the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, but in the real world, the bad guys sometimes win, Max writes. And in our own election this fall, he sees something as big as liberal democracy itself on the line. “[Donald] Trump, who instigated an insurrection and vows vengeance on his foes, is leading Biden in most swing states. Like many Americans, I would never have imagined that a disgraced president who has been impeached twice and is now a felon could possibly return to office. But there is a good chance that he will,” Max writes.

Don’t like it? Well, no need (yet!) to gird yourselves for war. If you’re a voter, you get to decide what happens at the ballot box — at least for now.

Sure, the high court is deeply divided on many issues, but the Editorial Board wants you not to miss its unanimous decision that a state official can’t legally pressure financial firms to stop doing business with the NRA based on the organization’s political speech. “The obvious problem is the precedent this could set not only for other unpopular organizations in New York but also for organizations that are as unpopular in red states as the NRA is in blue ones. Think of, say, how Planned Parenthood could face similar tactics in Louisiana,” the Board writes.

Karen Tumulty shares some exciting highlights from the 50-page platform of the Texas Republican Party: Public schools should teach the Bible! The names of Confederate leaders should be put back on military bases! Only Republicans should be allowed in state office! Okay, technically, it just says that state officeholders have to win more than half of the state’s mostly rural and Republican counties in addition to the popular vote, but, as Karen explains, that amounts to the same thing.

“The document, approved at the party’s biennial convention in late May, is not a serious policy road map. But it does reveal the id of a political party that has gone off the deep end,” Karen writes. And, in her analysis, this extremism actually threatens to turn Texas bluer, not redder, in the near future.

• Why is everyone giving Sam Alito such a hard time about his “free-spirited,” flag-loving wife? Kathleen Parker wonders.
• Jen Rubin takes a look at Trump’s immediate move to trash the judge and jurors in the wake of his 34 felony convictions.
• E.J. Dionne delves into the rising far right in Europe and how all the parties left of that are handling it.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

But a better way to choose

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/concerns. See you tomorrow!