Roundup: Media's Take

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Palin's Play of the Obama as Hitler Card Was Inevitable

[Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally acclaimed author and political analyst. Hutchinson is the author of ten books on race and politics in America.] The only surprise when Sarah Palin tweeted out her message to followers likening President Obama to Hitler was that it took so long for her to make the comparison. Her tea party pals, and a rogues list of GOP and rightwing hacks, bigots, loudmouths, and spin artists took giddy delight in making the Obama to Hitler comparison even befo

Steve Kettmann: Byrd, Despite Dark Past, May Have Been the Last Great U.S. Senator

[Steve Kettmann is an American writer living in Berlin who writes a weekly column on politics for the Berliner Zeitung. He has reported from more than 35 countries for publications including ForeignPolicy.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Salon.com, Wired.com and Motherjones.com, and was a finalist for the 2001 Online Journalism Award in commentary.] I hope the passing of Robert Byrd, longest-serving Senator in the history of

Christopher Hitchens: The Narcissism of the Small Differences in Ethnic Conflicts

[Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution.] Reviewing the sudden spasm of violence between the Uzbek minority and the Kyrgyz majority in Kyrgyzstan recently, many commentators were at a loss to explain why the two peoples should so abruptly have turned upon one another. Explanations range from official pandering to Kyrgyz nationalism, to sheer police and army brutality, to provocations from Taliban-style militi

Stephen Kinzer: BP in the Gulf -- The Persian Gulf

[Stephen Kinzer is a veteran foreign correspondent and the author of Bitter Fruit and Overthrow, among other works.  His newest book is Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future.]To frustrated Americans who have begun boycotting BP: Welcome to the club.  It's great not to be the only member any more!Does boycotting BP really make sense?  Perhaps not.  Aft

Charles Glass: Prince Charles Saves Chelsea Barracks

[Charles Glass was ABC News Chief Middle East Correspondent from 1983 to 1993. His books include Tribes with Flags (Atlantic Monthly Press,1990) and Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation (Penguin Press, 2010).] Something happened to British architects after the Second World War....I have yet to meet a British architect who does not believe that the Trellick Tower, a 31-storey socialist-realist monstrosity that dominates the northern reaches of Notting Hill, is bea

Howard Fineman: Roberts vs. Marshall at the Kagan Hearings

[Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief.] When she finally got to speak on Monday, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, in grave tones, promised to be a “modest,” “restrained,” “even-handed,” “impartial” custodian of the Constitution. But in an odd way, Kagan's so-far-uneventful hearings aren’t just about her. They’re shaping up as a trial in absentia of two powerful justices; one curren

Richard Johnson: Rwanda Takes a Strict Line on Genocide Denial. The U.S. Should Support That

[Richard Johnson is a retired American diplomat living in Kigali.] Arrogance, ignorance, and indifference to African victims of genocide have long been hallmarks of Western treatment of Rwanda. The US government should take care not to perpetuate this unfortunate tradition in the run-up to Rwanda’s presidential election in August and fan ethnic tensions in Rwanda. Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire poses at her home, on April 7 in Kigali in Rwanda. Ingabire was

Eugene Robinson: Robert Byrd: A Story of Change and Redemption

"End of an era" is an overused trope, but in this case it's appropriate: The last of the old Southern Democrats is gone. Sen. Robert Byrd had long since repented, of course. The West Virginian, who died Monday at 92, deeply regretted his segregationist past, which included a year as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and at least several more years as a Klan sympathizer. He eventually became a passionate advocate for civil rights, and he was one of the most vocal supporters of l

Mario Loyola: Echoes of Korea

[Mario Loyola is a frequent contributor to NR.] Sixty years ago today — at dawn on a quiet Sunday morning — the Korean War broke like a clap of thunder. After a short artillery barrage along the 38th parallel, more than 200,000 North Korean forces, under the command of Gen. Kim Il Sung, began pouring into the newly born Republic of Korea. There was no warning. South Korea’s tiny security forces were shattered instantly — and, just as quickly, President Truman decided to fight back.

Roger Cohen: The Black and the White of It

[Roger Cohen is a columnist for the NYT.] South Africa is a country where race is not the subtext of existence. It’s the text. I was at dinner the other night with my cousins, white South Africans divided as to whether they still have prospects here. The elder men said things like, “I now feel like a visitor,” or “The future is for the blacks.” They see race relations worsening, corruption spreading and inefficiency rampant.... The world has much at stake

David Brooks: Bill Wilson’s Gospel

[David Brooks is a columnist for the NYT.] On Dec. 14, 1934, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson was struggling with alcoholism at a New York City detox center. It was his fourth stay at the center and nothing had worked. This time, he tried a remedy called the belladonna cure — infusions of a hallucinogenic drug made from a poisonous plant — and he consulted a friend named Ebby Thacher, who told him to give up drinking and give his life over to the service of God....

Bernard Weiner: Potholes, Petroleum, Pashtuns: Afghanistan As a Local Issue

[Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, was a writer/ editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@hotmail.com.] Yes, all politics is indeed local -- at the same time it is national and international. The interconnections are more numerous and important these days. This is true f

Mona Charen: Obama Owes Bush an Apology

[Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.] Had it not been for opposing war, President Obama might never have been catapulted to the White House. It was taken for granted in the run-up to the presidential campaign of 2008 that candidate Obama had principled objections to the war in Iraq. He was the Left’s champion against Sen. Hillary Clinton, who had — along with 29 of the then 50 Democratic senators — voted in favor of the Iraq War resolution. That vote was t

Dominic Lawson: A Napoleonic Lesson on Austerity

[Dominic Lawson is a columnist for The Independent.] There is a phrase never far from the lips of the Government's critics, one that has assumed a peculiar potency: it is that the coalition's plans to reduce our national debt "will take money out of the economy". By this the critics say they are referring to the cuts in public expenditure outlined by George Osborne in his Budget last week – which are indeed eye-watering. Yet the alternative to such cuts would

Bret Stephens: Afghanistan ... Eyes Wide Shut

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs, which runs every Tuesday in the U.S. and is also published in the European and Asian editions of the paper.] With a wink of its left eye, the Obama administration tells its liberal base that a year from now the U.S. will be heading for a quick Afghan exit. "Everyone knows there's a firm date," insists White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. With a wink of its right, the admi

Paul Krugman: The Third Depression

[Paul Krugman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a columnist for the New York Times.] Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed t

Lee Smith: The Return of the Ottomans

[Lee Smith is the author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations (Doubleday).] A few months back, I was dining with a friend at an Armenian restaurant in Beirut, and at the end of the meal he gracefully sidestepped the Turkish question by ordering a “Byzantine” coffee. The waiter laughed grimly. “Aside from coffee and waterpipes,” asked my friend, “what did the Turks leave us? They were here for 500 years, and they didn’t even leave us their languag

Matthew Continetti: The Two Faces of the Tea Party

[Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard and author, most recently, of The Persecution of Sarah Palin.] ...The Tea Party’s movements and currents, its successes and setbacks, have revealed the dual nature of conservative populism. There is one tendency that tries, in Wilfred M. McClay’s evocative phrase, “to restore and preserve a less regimented, less status-stratified, less school-sorted, more open-ended America.” But there is also another tendency, one that

Robert Dreyfuss: The Land Where Theories of Warfare Go to Die

[Robert Dreyfuss is an independent journalist in the Washington, D.C., area. He is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone and Mother Jones. His blog, The Dreyfuss Report, appears at the Nation’s website. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, was published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in 2005. Listen to Dreyfuss in the latest TomCast audio interview discussing Obama's war with the military by clic

Garrett Epps: McChrystal Seen Through Washington's Glasses

[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.] On March 15, 1783, a group of Continental Army officers met in Newburgh, New York, to plan a mutiny against the Continental Congress. Independence was all but won, but the Army had not been paid. Some prominent politicians thought a brief uprising of the