Roundup: Media's Take

John Nichols: Enlightened Founders Favored Pluralism Not a Law Setting a National Day of Prayer

[John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.] Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New

Robert Lowry Clinton: The Marbury Myth

[Robert Lowry Clinton is professor and chair of political science at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He was a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University in 2007–08, and is the author of Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review and God and Man in the Law.] ‘We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the Court says it is.” These famous words of future Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes have become a cliché for judicial supremacy — the idea that the Supreme Cou

Joshua Green: The Oil Spill Has Failed to Change Policy

[Joshua Green has been a senior editor for The Atlantic since 2003. Columbia Journalism Review named him one of ten young writers on the rise.] In Washington, environmental disasters come with a silver lining. They have the power to change the legislative dynamic almost overnight. A 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara was the impetus for the original Earth Day, and prompted Congress to pass the National Environmental Policy Act, which among other things banned new offshore

James Howard Kunstler: Worse Than 1789?

[James Howard Kunstler is the author of "The Long Emergency," the novel "World Made By Hand," and the sequel, "The Witch of Hebron, coming out in September from The Atlantic Monthly Press.] Sen. Carl Levin pretty much had Goldman Sach's (GS) Lloyd Blankfein dead in a casket with that now-notorious email from GS's head of sales and trading, Tom Montag, describing one of their billion-dollar investment "products" as "one shitty deal." Levin

Timothy Egan: Groundhog Day for Oil

[Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.] Wish it weren’t so, but I fear my lasting memory of many trips to Prince William Sound will be of hunched-over workers with toothbrushes, trying to scrub black tar from shivering birds and sea-worn rocks in the Alaska spring of 1989. All the images were staggering: The birds looked lost and stunned, their coats of warmth matted black, their wings greased by hydrocarbons that would eventually kill most

Yulia Latynina: Another Munich Agreement

[Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.] It may seem strange that I am writing about the 2009 report by the European Union fact-finding commission on the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war since it was published a year ago. But the report is still very important today — in some sense, even more important than the war itself. The report, which was lead by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, is a blatant appeasement to Russia — a new Munich Agreement of

Antonia Senior: Don’t write the Restoration out of British history

[Antonia Senior is a British journalist.] Samuel Pepys, my very favourite lecher, noted in his diary on May Day 350 years ago that London was ablaze with bonfires, that bells were ringing and that the streets were full of men sunk to their knees, drinking the King’s health. Pepys, ever the kettle-coloured pot, moralised that this excess of drinking was, “methinks a little too much”. Charles II had been declared the rightful King and was on his way home, restoring the mo

Kurt Volker: The next Prime Minister must nurture the Special Relationship

[Kurt Volker was US Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009, and a diplomat working in Europe for over 20 years.] It has become disturbingly fashionable to vow that Britain must not “slavishly follow America.” David Cameron has said it. Nick Clegg has said it. And I agree. Nor should Britain “slavishly follow” Luxembourg. Or Burma. Or even the Galapagos Islands, green as they may be. These latter examples are, of course, throw-aways. It is the phrase “not slavishly follow Am

Gerry Hassan: Goodbye to Gordon Brown and All That

[Gerry Hassan is a writer, policy analyst and researcher.] The last act of Gordon Brown has surely arrived. A gruelling election campaign fighting on two fronts. Three years of leading a disunited, unpopular government. Thirteen years in office and a culmination of mistakes made and enemies created. Gordon Brown is as well as being the Prime Minister for the last three years and a senior Labour politician for more than two decades, a prolific writer who has ‘written’ an

Chris Brooke: A hung parliament wouldn't leave Nick Clegg in the driving seat

[Chris Brooke teaches politics at Cambridge University and blogs at the Virtual Stoa] Obviously, it's the Lib Dems that have made this election both interesting and enjoyable. If it were just a straight Labour-Conservative fight, then we'd be seeing the formation of a Conservative government with a large majority, and to the extent that that outcome is not really on the cards, we the (substantial majority of the) people have good reason to be grateful to the Liberal Democrats.

Jonathan Freedland: Remember 1983? I Warn You That a Cameron Victory Will Be Just as Bad

[Jonathan Freedland writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, and presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View.] On the eve of the 1983 election – which, until this year, seemed destined to represent for ever the low watermark of Labour performances – a young member of the party's shadow cabinet delivered what was to be one of his most compelling speeches. Neil Kinnock knew a

Sadanand Dhume: Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists

[Mr. Dhume, the author of "My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist" (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009), is a columnist for WSJ.com.] Monday night's arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American accused of planting a car bomb in Times Square on Saturday, will undoubtedly stoke the usual debate about how best to keep America safe in the age of Islamic terrorism. But this should not deflect us from another, equally pressing, question. Why do Pakistan and

Nick Turse: The Pentagon Book Club

[Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives and a forthcoming history of US war crimes in Vietnam, Kill Anything That Moves (both Metropolitan).] In the spring of 1984, a young Army officer wrote a seminar paper about the use of force in the post-Vietnam era. Three years later he returned to the subject in a Princeton University doctoral dissertation titled "The

Gideon Rachman: A nuclear-free world? No thanks

[Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times.] Barack Obama wants a world without nuclear weapons. America will push the idea of “global zero” at the United Nations conference on nuclear non-proliferation that opened in New York on Monday. The vision was unveiled just over a year ago. In a speech in Prague, the US president painted a glorious picture of a world freed from the nuclear threat, while adding (in words that faintly echoed Martin Luther King)

Alexei Bayer: Not Much Victory on Victory Day

[Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.] Russia is a divided nation, bitterly split in a variety of ways: rich and poor, rulers and ruled, nationalists and Westernizers, modern Moscow and the dreary, Stone Age provinces. But even 65 years after World War II, most of its 140 million citizens come together on May 9 to mark victory over Adolf Hitler. As a friend observed, it is the only true national holiday left. This is why Russians of all polit

Brian Bow: Canada Can’t Return to Its Special Relationship with the United States

[Brian Bow is an associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University, and is currently a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.] A few weeks ago, we were treated to a bit of classic Canadian political theatre. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went out of her way to highlight differences between Canadian and American government positions on the Arctic, Afghanistan and abortion. The comments themselv

Charlotte Higgins: Gordon Brown invokes Demosthenes and Cicero - Badly

[Charlotte Higgins writes a culture blog for the Guardian.]At last Gordon Brown has delivered what Jonathan Freedland called "a barnstormer of a speech".In fact his speech to Citizens UK was a pretty rare moment in this campaign of almost American-style sweeping

Michael White: A History of Hung Parliaments

[Michael White is assistant editor and has been writing for the Guardian for over 30 years, as a reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist.] The party leaders are reluctant to talk about what they might do if none of them wins a clear majority on Thursday. But, as keen students of political history, they know the half-forgotten secrets of coalitions, minority governments, pacts and haggling over electoral reform that may come into play on Friday. Such dilemmas were

Dallas Darling: From Vietnam to Iran and the March of Either/Or Thinking

[Dallas Darling is the author of "Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action," "Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections on Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, and Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision," and "The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace."] On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh, the most important and popular leader in the French colony

Dennis Prager: Jews Who Cheapen the Holocaust

[Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.] If there is any group that should know the uniqueness of Nazi evil and should not want the evil of the Holocaust cheapened for political purposes, it is the Jews. Yet, there is at least a 50-50 chance that if you read or hear a public personality use Nazi imagery to describe conservatives, the person is a Jew. Specifically a Jew on the left. Of course, non-Jews on the left also compare conser