Roundup: Media's Take

Ben Gidley: Israel and the British Left

[Ben Gidley is Senior Researcher at the COMPAS Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, Oxford University.] I have no doubt that certain respectable forms of anti-Semitism—disguised as hatred of Israel—are endemic to large sections of the British left. This phenomenon needs exposing, and requires explanation, especially given the left’s earlier history at the forefront of the struggle against anti-Semitism and, indeed, against all forms of racism. The explanation given

Nick Gillespie: How to Save Cleveland (and Other Dying Cities)

[Nick Gillespie (gillespie@reason.com) is the editor of reason.com and reason.tv.] ...Since its population hit a high point in 1950, Cleveland has lost more than half of its residents and essentially all of its economic and cultural capital. The Rapture happened here, but instead of going to the bosom of God in heaven, the elect ended up in Houston, Charlotte, Los Angeles, New York, and, most galling of all because of its proximity and broad

Benjamin Schwarz: Gentrification and Its Discontents in Manhattan

[Benjamin Schwarz is The Atlantic’s literary editor and national editor.] Michael Sorkin, an architect and critic, and Sharon Zukin, an urban sociologist, have each written what they describe as books about contemporary New York City—but that’s putting things far too broadly. Zukin’s Naked City does make forays into the white-hot center of hipness, Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, and to rapidly gentrifying Harlem. But the bulk of her book, and all of Sorkin’s Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, i

Christopher Hitchens: We are Kim Jong-il's Willing Accomplices

[Christopher Hitchens is a British journalist. He writes for Slate, among other publications.] The military flags displayed at both ends of the Panmunjom strip are testimony to the fact of a cease-fire line, because the Korean War never ended. This is at best an armistice. And we are regularly reminded that the Korean peninsula could explode into a full-scale war or, rather, resumption of war, at any moment. The most recent reminder was the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean fri

Garrett Epps: Rand Paul's American Mistake: Taking 'New' for 'Unconstitutional'

[Garrett Epps, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is a novelist and legal scholar. He lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Creative Writing for Law Students at the University of Baltimore. His two most recent books are Peyote vs. the State: Religious Freedom on Trial and Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America.] Some years ago, I gave a public talk on the Bill of Rights. When qu

Subhankar Banerjee: BPing the Arctic? Will the Obama Administration Allow Shell Oil to Do to Arctic Waters What BP Did to the Gulf?

[Subhankar Banerjee is a photographer, writer, and activist. His first book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, received international media attention because an accompanying exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History was censored in the Bush years.]Bear with me.  I’ll get to the oil.  But first you have to understand where I’ve been and where you undoubtedly won’t go, but Shell’s drilling rigs surely wil

Jeremy R. Hammond: The Simplicity of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst and editor of Foreign Policy Journal, an online source for news, critical analysis, and opinion commentary on U.S. foreign policy.] There is a general perception that the reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continued for so long is because it is extremely complex. Nothing could be further from the truth. Placed in historical context, understanding the root cause of the conflict is simple, and in doing so, the solution be

Richard Cohen: A Right Not to Fight in Vietnam

[Richard Cohen writes a column for the Washington Post.] As a kid, I had an abiding fear, reinforced by movies and comic books, that I would die on some foreign battlefield. I would become a casualty of the war that every generation of American men seemed destined to fight: World War I for our grandfathers, World War II for our fathers and Korea for our older brothers. Then came Vietnam, which is where many of my generation drew the line: "Hell no, we won't go," in the cha

Jonah Goldberg: Rand Paul's Civil Rights Act Comments Revisited

[Jonah Goldberg writes a column for the LA Times.] It has already become a cliche on the right to tut-tut at U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul's "rookie" mistake of trying to conduct a "libertarian seminar" during the campaign. I'm not so sure. For starters, if you're not invested in Paul's political career, why not seize this rare opportunity for one of those much-coveted national conversations on race? Besides, Paul's not going to lose b

Ian Bremmer: Dangerous North Korean Insecurity

[Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of “The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?”] Following weeks of careful investigation, South Korea has publicly accused North Korea of an overt and deliberate act of war. The evidence is compelling that the North torpedoed the Cheonan, a South Korean navy ship, killing 46 sailors. The South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, has promised to take “stern action,” but Seoul won’t ris

Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez: Wiki-Constitutionalism in Latin America

[Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez directs entrepreneurial development programs for the Sucre municipal government in Caracas, Venezuela. He is a graduate of Carleton College and the Harvard Kennedy School.] Last year, Hugo Chavez amended Venezuela's constitution and abolished term limits. The entire business was a bit odd, but not because the constitution was changed, which is quite common in Latin America. Nor was it because the changes involved extended his rule (which is equally common)

Jonathan Chait: Our Idiotic Supreme Court Confirmation Process

[Jonathan Chait is a senior editor of The New Republic.] The Supreme Court is divided into two blocs, as hostile and immutable as NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In the middle of the two blocs sits Anthony Kennedy, a Yugoslavia-like figure who tilts toward one bloc but has demonstrated significant independence. When and how the delicate balance of power will be broken rests upon two questions: First, will one of the four liberals get sick and die during a Republican presidency before one

Cary Clack: Curriculum Decision Shortchanges our Children

[Cary Clack is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.] And so it is done. On Friday, the State Board of Education adopted, along party lines, a curriculum for Texas school children motivated as much by ideology as by education. In a Majority-Decides-What's-History-Vote, the ultra-conservative members on the board pushed through amendments that reflected their particular view of history. “Ultra” is used as a qualifier because some of the most eloquent critics of t

David Brooks: Two Theories of Political Change

[David Brooks is a columnist for the NYT.] ...[T]wo views of human nature produced different attitudes toward political change, articulated most brilliantly by Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke. Their views are the subject of a superb dissertation by Yuval Levin at the University of Chicago called “The Great Law of Change.”... As Levin shows, Paine believed that societies exist in an “eternal now.” That something has existed for ages tells us nothing about its value. The pa

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Gerald Kauvar: A Degree in Three

[Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is the president emeritus and a university professor of public service at George Washington University. Gerald Kauvar is a research professor of public policy and public administration there.] Over the next few weeks more than half a million students will graduate from American colleges, the vast majority with at least four years of campus life behind them. Indeed, the assumption that it takes four years to get an undergraduate education — or three to get

Robert Kagan: Obama's Hollow 'Reset' with Russia

[Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.] It took months of hard negotiating, but finally the administration got Russia to agree to a resolution tightening sanctions on Iran. The United States had to drop tougher measures it wanted to impose, of course, to win approval. Nevertheless, senior Russian officials were making the kinds of strong statements about Iran's nuclear program that they had long refu

Vernon Bogdanor: What history teaches us about the Tory-Liberal love-in

[Vernon Bogdanor is professor of government at Oxford University and the author of "The New British Constitution".] "If I am to die, I would rather die fighting on the left," said David Lloyd George when, in 1931, he explained why he would not be joining most of the Liberal Party in coalition with the Conservative-dominated National Government. The present coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has long ante­cedents. The Conservati

John Bolton: Don't mourn the euro ... It's always been anti-American

[John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, is author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the UN and Abroad."] The chaos in world financial markets over the stability of the euro calmed somewhat late last week. But the con ditions causing the European Union crisis -- the solvency and even creditworthiness of many governments using the euro -- are far from resolved, and the next stages may be even more perilous. Realize first that, from th

Bret Stephens: The Mosque at Ground Zero

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] The conservative blogosphere is buzzing with outrage over plans to build a 13-story mosque and Muslim cultural center just a few hundred feet from Ground Zero. As a resident of lower Manhattan, I see it differently: The center—to be known as Cordoba House and built (if it is ever built) at a cost of $100 million—might yet serve as an excellent test case for tolerance. Muslim toleranc

Tim Rutten: Newt's Tea Party

[Tim Rutten writes for the LA Times.] ...[Newt] Gingrich, a onetime history professor, always has had a fondness for big ideas and checklist politics, as evinced in his famous Contract with America. The overarching idea in his new book is that, "for the first time since the Civil War, we as Americans have to ask the most fundamental question possible: Who are we?" That existential dilemma, the former Georgia congressman contends, has been forced by a relentless and intrica