Roundup: Media's Take

Matthew Continetti: Avoiding the Austerity Trap

[Matthew Continetti is an associate editor at the Weekly Standard.] Republicans better sign up for yoga class between now and the start of the 112th Congress. They have a difficult balancing act ahead of them, and the performance will require incredible dexterity.... In the austerity trap, you lose tactical battles over spending while passing up strategic opportunities to promote economic growth. You mistake thrift for an end in itself, rather than a means to a prospero

Robert Rector: Liberals Reexamining the Culture of Poverty? Guess Again

[Robert Rector is senior research fellow in domestic-policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.] An article in the October 17 New York Times lauds liberal academics who are reexamining the “culture of poverty,” noting a recent symposium on the topic in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Beware, though: Those looking for bold departures from liberal orthodoxy should search elsewhere.... ...[E]ditors of The Annals firmly declare that the

Thomas Sowell: The Cult of Multiculturalism

[Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.] Somebody eventually had to say it — and German chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one who had the courage to say it out loud. Multiculturalism has “utterly failed.”... The absorption of millions of immigrants from Europe into American society may be cited as an example of the success of multiculturalism. But, in fact, they were absorbed in ways that were the direct opposite of what the mul

Robert Lipsyte: Leave ‘Em in the Locker Room

[Robert Lipsyte is a former New York Times sports columnist and Jock Culture correspondent for TomDispatch.com. His memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter, will be published next year.]Old sportswriters are always being asked for tips on big games. Here’s one for the biggest game on the schedule: never vote for a jock.This is particularly good advice in a political season whose starting line-up includes Chris Dudley, a former NBA back-up center running for governor of Oregon; Li

Greg Mitchell: Upton Sinclair's EPIC Campaign

[Greg Mitchell writes the Media Fix blog for TheNation.com] Nearly two years after a Democrat promising hope and change entered the White House, amid an economic crisis left behind by an unpopular Republican, unemployment remained at century-high levels. Despite new stimulus programs, recovery seemed far off. Opponents in the GOP (and even some in the president's own party) called for cutting spending to reduce the budget deficit. Democrats were split: Was the president acting as b

Garrett Epps: Universal Health Care: Is It Constitutional?

[Garrett Epps, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is a novelist and legal scholar. He teaches courses in constitutional law and creative writing for law students at the University of Baltimore. He lives in Washington, D.C.] The heart of the challenge to the new federal health-care program is this image: an individual is doing nothing at all, bothering no one, when suddenly a federal bureaucrat appears and requires him or her to buy a commercial product or pay a tax. The pro

Marc Ambinder: Will Obama's Recovery Resemble Reagan's Recovery?

[Marc Ambinder is the politics editor of The Atlantic. He has covered Washington for ABC News and the Hotline, and he is chief political consultant to CBS News.] As everyone in politics struggles to discover the historical analogy that fits their preconception of what's going on, many Democrats have latched on to Ronald Reagan's first two years as a way of holding on to the hope that political equilibrium will restore itself naturally and President Obama will emerge after November i

Clyde V. Prestowitz: Lie of the Tiger

[Clyde V. Prestowitz is author of The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America’s Decline, and How We Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era.] When I arrived in Washington in the fall of 1981 to serve as counselor to President Ronald Reagan's commerce secretary, the United States was more afraid of Japan than it had been since Pearl Harbor. The Japanese auto industry was preparing to have Detroit for lunch. Imports of gas-sipping Hondas and Toyotas were forcing Am

Sherrilyn A. Ifill: Standing Up for the Extraordinary, Ordinary Civil Rights Protesters Who Didn't Fight Back

[Sherrilyn A. Ifill, who teaches at the University of Maryland, writes about the law for The Root.] I haven't yet read Condoleezza Rice's memoir about her parents, Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. But already I'm annoyed. I'll admit that I'm discomfited by all of the figures from the Bush administration who have managed to emerge unrepentant, their records unexamined by independent prosecutors, some hawking books and all displaying a kind of smug sense of their ow

Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell: Walking Away from Church

[Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, and David E. Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, are the authors of "American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us."] The most rapidly growing religious category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. While middle-aged and older Americans continue to embrace organized religion, rapidly increasing numbers of young peop

Jonah Goldberg: Shovel-Ready White Elephants

[Jonah Goldberg writes a column for the LA Times and is editor at large for the National Review.] It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building; four years to erect the Golden Gate Bridge. The Pentagon took two years; the Alaska Highway just nine months. These days it takes longer to build an overpass. For instance, planning for Boston's "Big Dig" officially began in the early 1980s with a budget of $2.6 billion, but ground wasn't broken until 1991 and t

Michael Gerson: Obama the Snob

[Michael Gerson is a columnist for the WaPo.] ...Obama clearly believes that his brand of politics represents "facts and science and argument." His opponents, in disturbing contrast, are using the more fearful, primitive portion of their brains. Obama views himself as the neocortical leader -- the defender, not just of the stimulus package and health-care reform but also of cognitive reasoning. His critics rely on their lizard brains -- the location of reptilian ritual and

Robert A. Pape: It's the Occupation, Stupid

[Robert A. Pape teaches at the University of Chicago and is co-author, with James K. Feldman, of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It.] Although no one wants to talk about it, 9/11 is still hurting America. That terrible day inflicted a wound of public fear that easily reopens with the smallest provocation, and it continues to bleed the United States of money, lives, and goodwill around the world. Indeed, America's response to its fear has,

Andrew C. McCarthy: Who Says Islam Is Totalitarian?

[Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.] Who says Islam is a totalitarian doctrine? Well, Geert Wilders does, of course. As the editors point out in Monday’s superb National Review Online editorial, the Dutch parliamentarian has even had the temerity to compare Islam with Nazism. Strong stuff indeed, and for speaking it, Wilders has earned the disdain not just of

Bret Stephens: The Trouble With Talking to the Taliban

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] So the U.S. has now given safe passage to senior Taliban commanders for parleys with the Afghan government in Kabul. That's good for Hamid Karzai, who must look to his own post-American world, good for the Obama administration, which wants a politically graceful exit from Afghanistan, and excellent for the Taliban, which seeks to return to power. Too bad it also risks turning Afghanistan into anot

Peter Clarke: Religion and science do not always disagree

[Peter G H Clarke is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Département de Biologie cellulaire et de Morphologie at the Université de Lausanne.] ...Our attitude to the free will question is intimately linked to the dualism-monism debate. Dualists believe that there are two separate entities, soul (or mind) and brain, and most maintain that they somehow interact, following Descartes. Monists deny a separate soul, saying that everything is matter. This links in with the questio

Gregory Rodriguez: The Enemies We Create

[Gregory Rodriguez is an Irvine Senior Fellow and Director of the California Fellows Program at New America Foundation.] Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, suggested recently to a group of tea partyers that the U.S. was being taken over by Muslims. Seriously.... In the past, our politics and rhetoric demonized Catholics and the Irish, the "yellow" hordes, "dirty" Italians and "stupid" Poles. Why does such a s

Fred Hiatt: We've Seen These Political Debates Before

[Fred Hiatt is the editorial page editor of the Washington Post.] Politicians always like to assure us that our future lies before us. But in this midterm election they seem increasingly pointed toward the past. On the Republican side, the reigning model remains Ronald Reagan, who was elected president three decades ago. Reagan blithely showed that government can't cut taxes without increasing deficits, but that hasn't discouraged GOP candidates from recycling his discr

Henry A. Giroux: Lessons From Paulo Freire

[Henry A. Giroux is a professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario.] Paulo Freire was one of the most important educators of the 20th century. He occupies a hallowed position among the founders of "critical pedagogy"—the educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive acti

Marvin Lazerson: The Making of Corporate U.

[Marvin Lazerson is a professor of public policy at Central European University in Budapest and an emeritus professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. His latest book is Higher Education and the American Dream: Success and Its Discontents (Central European University Press, 2010).] In the half-century after World War II, Americans built their dream on three pillars: a new house, new car, and higher education. Over time, higher education