Roundup: Media's Take

Michael Lind: America is Losing the Trade War

[Michael Lind is policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation.] Is a U.S.-Chinese trade war brewing? Congress seems likely to vote on a bill condemning China’s practice of manipulating its currency to subsidize Chinese exports to America while imposing a virtual tariff on American exports to China. Meanwhile, in retaliation for the Obama administration’s decision to punish Chinese market manipulation by imposing tariffs on Chinese tires, the Chinese g

Steve Kornacki: Jimmy Carter's Tea Party

[Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor.] Jimmy Carter has an Op-Ed in the USA Today that makes an excellent point: The 1970s saw the development of a political movement very similar to the Tea Party of today. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to quite understand the nature of that movement. In Carter's telling, his dark horse 1976 presidential campaign became a vehicle for Tea Party-ish sentiments. "We capitalized on deep dissatisfaction with the policies and practice

Jimmy Carter: The 1970s Saw a Tea Party-Like Wave

[Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter (1977-81) is the author of the new book White House Diary.] A number of readers of my new book have noted parallels between today's frustrated and even angry mood and a similar mood in the mid-1970s. Indeed, in some ways my successful campaign for the presidency in 1976 resembled the Tea Party movement of today. We capitalized on deep dissatisfaction with the policies and practices of government officials, especially those who served in Washington

Ronald Sokol: Can the U.S. Assassinate an American Citizen Living in Yemen?

[Ronald Sokol is a lawyer in Aix-en-Provence who practices across France. He taught at the University of Virginia Law School and is the author of “Justice after Darwin” and other books and articles.] Last month, civil liberties groups and the family of Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki filed suit to stop the US government from killing Mr. Awlaki – an American citizen living abroad in Yemen. The government, which is trying to have the case dismissed, labels Mr. Awlaki a threat for alleg

Daniel Gordis: The Other Existential Threat to Israel

[Daniel Gordis is senior vice president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author, most recently, of Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War that May Never End.] In August, two pieces of news about Iran’s nuclear ambitions were revealed almost simultaneously. The first was that Iran had fired up its first nuclear reactor. The second, delivered in an ostentatious leak to the New York Times, was that the Obama administration had determined that Iran was at least a ye

Ben Adler: Why Is Bill Clinton So Much More Popular Than Barack Obama?

[Ben Adler is a journalist in Washington, DC.] Here's a fun fact from the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: Bill Clinton is the most popular political figure in the country. The former president, who never won an outright majority of the popular vote and was impeached by Congress, enjoys a 55–23 favorable/unfavorable rating. Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent according to the CBS poll at the time, so his continuing popularity is not surprising.

Henry Olsen: The Fifty Years’ War

[Henry Olsen is vice president of the American Enterprise Institute.] With primary season over, the stage is now set for an epic fall election. The massive electoral repudiation that increasingly looks likely for Democrats is not, however, why this vote will be historic. It will be historic because it is the most intense battle yet in the Fifty Years’ War between conservatives and liberals for possession of America’s political soul. This war has been fought over what de

Rupert Darwall: The End of the 'Blair Aberration'

[Mr. Darwall's book, "Global Warming: A Short History," is being published by Quartet Books next year.] "David, what have I done to David?" Ed Miliband asked his campaign manager after he had learned that he had just beaten his brother to win the Labour Party leadership election on Saturday. Profuse expressions of fraternal love from both brothers followed. Then in his main speech on Tuesday, the new Labour leader gave his real answer by denouncing

William Saletan: The Ground Zero Synagogue

[William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.] Imagine a place where Muslims were the victims, not the perpetrators, of the worst terrorist massacre in recent memory. Imagine, for example, that the killer was Jewish and that in the wake of his attack, on the very ground from which he had plotted it, they built a synagogue. How would today's opponents of the "Ground Zero mosque" react? Would they cond

Michael Tanner: Democrats: The Constitution Is ‘Weird’

[Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.] When Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell told Delaware voters that the Constitution, rather than her personal views, would guide her votes in the Senate, one might have expected a variety of responses from the Left — perhaps a huge sigh of relief that we’ve all been saved from a federal law banning masturbation.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Hoover + McGovern = Obama

[Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are the authors of 2010: Take Back America: A Battle Plan.] Comparisons of Barack Obama’s presidency to Jimmy Carter’s miss the point. Carter’s presidency did little to change the basic party construct of the nation or to influence its ideology. Reagan’s presidency accomplished both. But Barack Obama is destroying the Democratic party. It may not recover for a long time. In this, he most closely resembles a synthesis of the failed candidac

Chip Ward: The Big Bad Wolf Makes Good

[Chip Ward lives in Capitol Reef, Utah, where songbirds are eaten by housecats, housecats are eaten by coyotes, and coyotes are eaten by mountain lions. He is the author of Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West and Hope’s Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land. His essays can be found at chipwardessays.blogspot.com.]At long last, good news.  Fifteen years have passed since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and the results are in.  The co

John McWhorter: What History Actually Teaches Us About Race

[John McWhorter is a frequent contributor to The Root.] I just finished reading a new race book that came over the transom. It was the kind in which someone is worried about how younger blacks don't know the history of the civil rights movement. To be sure, the number of blacks who can give a capsule summary of the history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or tell you why Shirley Sherrod's husband was important dwindles away. But the book got me to thinking about how

Steve Richards: Can Miliband Lead Like Thatcher Did?

[Steve Richards has been The Independent’s chief political commentator since 2000.] The election of a new leader can generate a sense of outward looking optimism in a party or introspective anxiety. So far Labour's weird and subdued conference looks inward. Questions rage about the two brothers, the future of David and the suitability of Ed to meet the titanic demands ahead of him. Today in his first big speech as leader Miliband has the chance to guide his bewildered

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Hoover + McGovern = Obama

[Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are the authors of 2010: Take Back America: A Battle Plan.] Comparisons of Barack Obama’s presidency to Jimmy Carter’s miss the point. Carter’s presidency did little to change the basic party construct of the nation or to influence its ideology. Reagan’s presidency accomplished both. But Barack Obama is destroying the Democratic party. It may not recover for a long time. In this, he most closely resembles a synthesis of the failed candidac

Elliott Abrams: Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks Are Suspended. So What?

[Mr. Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, handled Middle East affairs at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009.] The sky is not falling. Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were suspended on Sunday, perhaps briefly and perhaps for months, after Israel's 10-month moratorium on settlement construction expired. Palestinian officials said they would refuse to talk if construction restarted, and so they did. Yet war hasn't b

Michael Lind: Offer Bolder Policies

[Michael Lind is the policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and the co-author of “The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics.”] If he wants to limit the damage done to his presidency and the Democratic Party by a voter backlash in November, President Obama has a choice of three messaging strategies. Two of them will not work. The first strategy is a message of “stay the course.” President Reagan’s stay-the-course message he

Jonathan Bernstein: Obama Passing Healthcare Reform Is Like FDR Bringing Booze Back

[Jonathan Bernstein writes at aplainblogaboutpolitics.com]Via a nice tweet from Brendan Nyhan, I see that Jay Cost is continuing to try to link the Democrats’ problems (which are, of course, very real) to their decision to act on health care reform: Rather than focus on doing what the voters elected them to do, they instead focused on a longstanding ideological goal of the party elite. On the other hand, if [...] Obama had focused on restoring the economy - ju

Stephen Biddle: War by Other Means

[Stephen Biddle is the Roger Hertog senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.] Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, quotes the president expressing concern about the domestic political implications of military strategy in Afghanistan: "I can't lose the whole Democratic Party," he tells Sen. Lindsey Graham in defending his decision to announce July 2011 as the date for the beginning of U.S. troop withdrawals.... This shouldn't be n

Jim Bencivenga: Tea Party is Rejuvenating American Politics

[Jim Bencivenga is a former teacher and Monitor staffer.] The "tea party" movement has a lot more going for it than a rightward shift in electoral preferences. It's restoring competition to congressional seats long dominated by incumbents. It's forcing the public to confront the toll of the Democratic Party's alliance with public-sector unions on America's fiscal health. And, for a conservative in Massachusetts like me, it means elected officials and candidates will take m