Roundup: Media's Take

Lisa Camner: Why Would North Korea Sink a South Korean Warship?

[Lisa Camner is a graduate student in politics at Princeton University.] On Thursday, the South Korean government announced that the warship it lost in March was sunk by a torpedo attack from North Korea. While South Korea, Japan, and the United States discuss punitive action, North Korea has threatened "all-out war" if new sanctions are imposed. This saber-rattling by the desperately poor North should not be a surprise, says Kongdan Oh, co-author of The Hidden People of N

Dilip Hiro: The American Century Is So Over

Irrespective of their politics, flawed leaders share a common trait. They generally remain remarkably oblivious to the harm they do to the nation they lead. George W. Bush is a salient recent example, as is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When it comes to foreign policy, we are now witnessing a similar phenomenon at the Obama White House.Here is the Obama pattern: Choose a foreign leader to pressure.  Threaten him with dire consequences if he does not bend to W

Name Withheld: Thailand’s Crisis

[The author, whose name has been withheld for safety concerns, is a retired businessman.] It has been a week since the Thai military cracked downed on antigovernment protests in the capital. Bangkok has not seen such violence in its city streets in nearly 20 years. The city is still under curfew, travelers are being told to avoid it, and the country is at a political impasse.... Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932 after the Siamese revolution. High hopes f

David S. Broder: The Perils of Tampering with Political Done Deals

[David S. Broder is a columnist for the Washington Post.] Much of political wisdom consists simply of understanding and acknowledging which subjects and practices are off-limits. Yes, I know, to some people the very term "political wisdom" is a contradiction. To them, true wisdom rejects compromise and insists on clarity and discipline. But those who understand that the American system of governing a free society involves finding practical approaches to comple

Wajahat Ali: The Many Problems with France's Proposed Burqa Ban

[Wajahat Ali is a writer and attorney.] As a practicing Muslim, even I admit to being somewhat startled by the appearance of the black burqa that entirely veils a woman's face and body, revealing only a narrow opening for her eyes. Even though the women who wear burqas sometimes remind me of comic book ninjas, I nonetheless understand and respect their choice of dress and freedom of religious expression. Unfortunately, France's proposed ban on the burqa is a hypocritica

Quin Hillyer: Dunkirk Conservatism

[Quin Hillyer is a senior editorial writer at the Washington Times and senior editor of The American Spectator.] The greatest rescue operation in history began in full 70 years ago today. In nine days beginning May 27, 1940, the British Navy and hundreds upon hundreds of private vessels rescued an astonishing 338,266 men from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France, all while under constant bombardment from German air and land forces that killed 68,111 Brits and captured as many a

Karl Rove: Yes, the Gulf Spill Is Obama's Katrina

[Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence".] As President Obama prepares to return to the Gulf Coast Friday, he is receiving increasing criticism for his handling of the oil spill. For good reason: Since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up on April 20, a lethargic Team Obama has delayed or blown off key decisions requested by state and local governments and left British Petroleum in c

Cord Jefferson: Is the Tea Party the New Black Panther Party?

[Cord Jefferson is a staff writer for The Root.] They were armed to the teeth. They were mad. They gathered at public buildings, guns tucked into their waistlines, demanding limited governmental authority and the right to self-determination. They believed the Democratic White House to be an untrustworthy, imperialistic power, one that "robbed" them under spurious circumstances. They were wary of the "Zionist media," and they loved to quote at length from America'

Jonathan Chait: A Reply To Peter Beinart

[Jonathan Chait is senior editor for The New Republic.] Not long ago, I ran into an AIPAC staffer at a social gathering. We debated the Middle East for a bit, and continued the discussion over lunch. I told him that I thought the political estrangement of liberalism and support for Israel posed a long-term existential threat, and that his organization was contributing to the problem. We agreed to disagree. Former TNR editor Peter Beinart has a sharp, attention-grabbing

Jeffrey Goldberg: Beinart, Chait, and that Disappearing Zionist Feeling

[Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa. He also writes the magazine's advice column.] Peter Beinart has a new essay (in the New York Review of Books) about the slow death (or possibly not-so-slow death) of Zionist feeling among young, liberal Jews, caused mainly by what he perceives to be the American Jewish establishment's acquiescence to the spr

James Kirchick: Curing the Israel Estrangement Syndrome

[James Kirchick is a contributing editor to The New Republic. His blog appears at World Affairs Journal.] Peter Beinart's recent essay denouncing the "American Jewish establishment" is drawing a great deal of controversy not for what it says -- attacks on the pro-Israel community in the New York Review of Books are a dime a dozen -- but for who wrote it. The New Republic, which Beinart used to edit, is not known for producing writers who pen harsh criticisms of the Israel

Peter Beinart: Why Israel Has to Do Better

[Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.] It has been a week since my essay, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” was published in the New York Review of Books, and t

Andrew Sullivan: The Anti-Beinart Fallacy

[Andrew Sullivan writes for the Atlantic Monthly.]I'm glad Peter has gotten around to a response to the fundamental argument his critics have made, and shown the bleeding obvious - that it is not an argument at all: The main complaint is that I didn’t spend enough time discussing the nastiness of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and extremist Muslims in general. Well: duh. This was an essay about Israel and America's Jewish leadership, not about

Stephen M. Walt: Belated Thoughts on Peter Beinart

[Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.]I was overseas when Peter Beinart’s article on"The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" appeared on the website of the New York Review of Books and started an immediate hullabaloo. I read it quickly online but had little time to reflect on it or to post a reaction. My copy of the NYRB was waiting when I got home, however, and I’ve now had time to digest Beinart’s article

Noah Pollak: Peter Beinart and the Destruction of Liberal Zionism

[Noah Pollak is a graduate student at Yale University.] In political debates, it remains true that the messenger usually matters more than the message. I say this because Peter Beinart's much-discussed essay in the New York Review of Books and the reaction to it has been in substance merely a procession of the kind of cliches on liberal disaffection with Israel that anyone who has been paying attention became familiar with years ago. But because Beinart is a Jewish former editor of

Peter Beinart: The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

[Peter Beinart is Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and Senior Political Writer for The Daily Beast. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published in June.
]In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus critici

Olivia Hampton: North Korea ... Obama's 'Dumb War'?

[Olivia Hampton is a journalist based in Washington DC, covering US politics and military affairs.] For years, North Korea has thumped its chest and pumped its fists, shooting ill-fated missiles toward its neighbours and parading its million-strong military with tanks and artillery systems. Now that Kim Jong-il is finally getting the international attention he has craved, the enigmatic leader is rolling the drums of war as Washington steps into the fray. But President O

John Yoo: An Executive Without Much Privilege

[John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power From George Washington to George W. Bush.”] PRESIDENTIAL power has emerged as a potential topic of controversy in the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Her supporters from both parties argue that she is a defender of executive power, citing her work as the Obama ad

Alan Johnson: The New Authoritarian Marxism

[Alan Johnson is a professor of democratic theory and practice at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, England and was the founder and editor of Democratiya, a free online journal of international politics that has now merged with Dissent.] In his book Did Somebody say Totalitarianism?, Slavoj Žižek tells us what has gone wrong on the Left and how we are to put things right.The Left has accepted the basic coordinates of liberal democracy (“democracy” versus “t

Cameron Abadi: The German Debate Over Afghanistan

[Cameron Abadi is associate editor of Foreign Policy.] THIS PAST February, the Bundestag overwhelmingly approved the continuation of the German mission in Afghanistan just as it has done every year since 2003. But it was a vote marked by two palpable differences from previous votes. For the first time, the members of one political grouping—the Left Party—protested on the floor of parliament and were subsequently barred from participating in the debate. The second difference was psyc