Roundup: Media's Take

Erin Aubry Kaplan: President Obama, 'The View' and Race in America

[Erin Aubry Kaplan is a contributing editor to Opinion.] President Obama botched it again. From the beginning, I knew things were going to be tough for him, what with the economy and two wars and all. But I assumed he could at least strike the right tone on matters of race and color. Yes, I know he was the black guy elected to not say anything about color, but I refused to believe Obama would stick to that deal, at least not all the time. But then came the humiliation o

Alveda King: Glenn Beck's 8/28 Rally: It's a Matter of Honor

[Dr. Alveda King is the director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life, and the founder of King for America.] In front of the Lincoln Memorial in June, a group of students caught up in a moment of spontaneous patriotism broke into song. But the US Park Police were quick to shush the members of the Young America’s Foundation, saying singing is not allowed at the memorial. The song that was stifled? “The Star-Spangled Banner.” So much for freedom of speech.

Eugene Robinson: Even Beck Can't Mar King's Legacy

[Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the WaPo.] The majestic grounds of the Lincoln Memorial belong to all Americans -- even to egomaniacal talk-show hosts who profit handsomely from stoking fear, resentment and anger. So let me state clearly that Glenn Beck has every right to hold his absurdly titled "Restoring Honor" rally on Saturday. But the rest of us have every right to call the event what it is: an exercise in self-aggrandizement on a Napoleonic scale. I

Douglas E. Schoen: Time for Obama to Pull a Clinton

[Mr. Schoen, who served as a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is the author of the "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System," out from Harper on Sept. 14.] As campaign season heats up—for the midterms, of course, as well as for 2012—President Obama is pursuing a strategy that is bound to fail. To secure his political future, he needs to change his approach in the way that Bill Clinton did halfway through his first term.

Doyle McManus: Obama, Midterm Elections and the 2012 Race

[Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues from Washington for more than 25 years. His weekly Op-Ed column delivers original reporting and analysis on a wide range of national issues.] Sixteen years ago, as the summer of 1994 came to a close, then-President Clinton could see that his party's congressional campaign was in trouble. "Hillary had called our old pollster Dick Morris for his assessment," Clin

Jonathan Cohn: Reagan, Bush, and Rotten Eggs

[Jonathan Cohn is Senior Editor at The New Republic.] The next time you hear a conservative ranting about big government, ask him how he likes his eggs--plain or with a side of salmonella. As you’ve probably heard by now, a massive egg recall is underway. A midwest producer shipped tainted eggs to supermarkets across the country, causing more than 1,300 known infections--with more, possibly, to come. The company ran the kind of factory farming operation that, experts ha

Christopher Dickey: What an Irish Terrorist Teaches Us About Tolerance

[Christopher Dickey is the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek Magazine.] I was just beginning to think that this long summer of intolerance was coming to an end. American hysteria about the non-mosque that’s not at Ground Zero seems to be subsiding just a bit. The French government might be backing away from its ginned-up xenophobia amid reports the prime minister isn’t really on board with the president’s right-wing rhetoric. There’s even a chance that

Con Coughlin: Obama Risks Iraq's Future

[Mr. Coughlin is executive foreign editor of London's Daily Telegraph and author of "Saddam: The Secret Life".] "We won. It's over, America. We brought democracy to Iraq," one young American soldier proclaimed as the last U.S. combat troops completed their withdrawal across the Kuwait border. But all the hard-won achievements of the past seven years are now in jeopardy thanks to President Barack Obama's insistence on reducing Washington's military commitment befo

Justin Marozzi: Neglect of Somalia will have high price

[The writer is a senior adviser at Albany Associates.] The west is easily distracted. Just as the war in Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to regroup and consolidate its hold over much of the country, so the war in Afghanistan has blinded policymakers to the growing crisis in Somalia. Islamist rebels who on Tuesday killed more than 30 people including MPs and officials in a raid on a hotel in Mogadishu are now exporting terrorism beyond its borders. Soma

John B. Judis: The Unnecessary Fall of Barack Obama

[John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.] On April 14, 2009, as Barack Obama’s standing in the polls was beginning to slip, and as Tea Party demonstrators were amassing in Washington for tax day protests, the president gave a lengthy address at Georgetown University explaining the “five pillars” of his economic policies. The speech was intended to promote a memorable slogan for Obama’s program tha

Reuel Marc Gerecht: Moderate Muslims Are Not the Answer

[Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard.] ...Are religious moderates really the key to our battle against jihadists and their sympathizers?...Are our actions—at least the “cultivation” of Muslim moderates—so pivotal in this struggle? I’m not so sure.Islamic radicalism isn’t a new phenomenon, although the militancy that we’ve seen grow in the Muslim world since World War II has a diffe

Kathleen Parker: A Nation United in a Failure to Communicate

[Kathleen Parker is columnist for the WaPo.] As I was perusing headlines that seem seldom to change -- mosque, immigration, sacred ground, 9/11, more mosque -- an unlikely trio intruded upon my malaise: Paul Newman, Rodney King and John Lennon.... "What we've got here is a failure to communicate" from Newman in "Cool Hand Luke" was first to come to mind. Next was King's "Can we all get along?" after the acquittal of the police officers who

Martin Luther King III: Still striving for MLK's dream in the 21st century

[Martin Luther King III is president and chief executive of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.] ...This weekend Glenn Beck is to host a "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial. While it is commendable that this rally will honor the brave men and women of our armed forces, who serve our country with phenomenal dedication, it is clear from the timing and location that the rally's organizers present this event as also honoring the ideals

Robert Monroe: Why the Senate Should Block 'New Start'

[Mr. Monroe, a retired vice admiral in the U.S. Navy, was director of the Defense Nuclear Agency from 1977-1980.] After returning from recess on Sept. 6, the Senate will consider whether to ratify New Start, the nuclear weapons treaty that President Barack Obama signed with his Russian counterpart in April. The treaty has many problems, from being unverifiable to giving Russia virtual veto power over U.S. missile defense, and more. But the Senate should block it for another more imp

Lara Setrakian: Beirut in Baghdad ... Is the 'Lebanonization' of Iraq complete?

[Lara Setrakian is based in Dubai, where she reports on Iran and Arab affairs for ABC News. She blogs for ABC's MidEast Memo and tweets at @laraabcnews.] Four years after a flurry of predictions about the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, they may be coming true. "Lebanonization" was a derogatory term, a hint at imminent civil war, political deadlock, Iran's hand in local militias and on many domestic levers. The columns and commentary on Iraq's "Lebanonization"

The Economist: India and China: A Himalayan Rivalry

MEMORIES of a war between India and China are still vivid in the Tawang valley, a lovely, cloud-blown place high on the south-eastern flank of the Himalayas. They are nurtured first by the Indian army, humiliated in 1962 when the People’s Liberation Army swept into Tawang from next-door Tibet. India now has three army corps—about 100,000 troops—in its far north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which includes Tawang. With another corps in reserve, and a few Sukhoi fighter planes d

John Hartigan Jr.: What Does Race Have to Do With It?

[John Hartigan Jr. is a professor of anthropology and director of the Americo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent books are What Can You Say? America's National Conversation on Race (Stanford University Press, 2010) and Race in the 21st Century: Ethnographic Approaches (Oxford University Press, 2010).] By any measure, this has been a busy year for news stories about race. The most recent, involving the firing of Shirley Sherrod f

Suhail A. Khan: Was George W. Bush America's First Muslim President?

[Suhail A. Khan serves on the board of directors of the American Conservative Union and as chairman of the Conservative Inclusion Coalition, an organization dedicated to the political involvement of Americans of all ethnic, racial, and faith backgrounds.] Muslim Americans are, by and large, both socially and economically conservative. Sixty-one percent of them would ban abortion except to save the life of the mother; 84 percent support school choice. Muslims overwhelmingly support t

Tony Karon: Two Minutes to Midnight?

[Tony Karon is a senior editor at TIME.com where he analyzes Middle Eastern and other conflicts. He also blogs on his own website Rootless Cosmopolitan.]America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked U.S. invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining moment

William Voegeli: Amid Record Debt, We Need a Welfare State We Can Believe In –- and Afford

[William Voegeli, the author of "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State," is a contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books.] 'Liberalism has always promised more," but it must now "become less generous and more rigorous," writes William Galston, a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution. The prospect of annual federal deficits averaging $1 trillion for the next decade requires no less. It's doubtful that many other l