Roundup: Media's Take

Wen Liao: Bismarck’s lessons for Beijing

[Wen Liao is chairwoman of Longford Advisors, a political, economic and business consultancy.] Both America and China have blinked in their dispute over the renminbi’s exchange rate. A fortnight before Tim Geithner was due to pronounce on whether China manipulates its currency, the US Treasury secretary postponed the report. The decision followed President Hu Jintao’s announcement that he would attend this week’s US-led nuclear disarmament summit for forthright discussions on imposi

Anna M. Grzymala-Busse and Joshua A. Tucker: The Unlikely Triumph of Polish Democracy

[Anna M. Grzymala-Busse is an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Joshua A. Tucker is an associate professor of politics at New York University, a National Security Fellow at the Truman National Security Project, and a co-author of the political science and policy blog The Monkey Cage.] One of the worst days for Poland is rapidly becoming one of its greatest. The country's president, its armed forces' chiefs of staff, and its National

Tevi Troy: A New Wave of American Populism Could be Good for the Jews

[Tevi Troy is a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former White House liaison, under President George W. Bush, to the American Jewish community.] “Christoph Waltz played a Nazi obsessed with finding Jews,” Steve Martin said at the Academy Awards this year, referring to the Austrian actor’s Oscar-winning turn in Inglourious Basterds. Martin then gestured ostentatiously to the theater filled with Hollywood’s glitterati and added, “The mother lode.” Martin’s joke brou

Marc Ambinder: Sexual Politics and the Supreme Court

[Marc Ambinder is the politics editor of The Atlantic. He has covered Washington for ABC News and the Hotline, and he is chief political consultant to CBS News. He has 11,171 followers on Twitter. Wait, 11,172.] Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the woman who tops President Obama's short list for the Supreme Court, is the subject of a baffling whisper campaign among both gay rights activists and social conservatives: those whispering assume she's gay, and they want her -- or someone --

Roger Pilon: Is Federal Power Now Unlimited?

[Roger Pilon is vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and director of Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies.] With stormy midterm elections just ahead, and much of President Obama’s agenda still undone, the last thing congressional Democrats needed is the distraction of a difficult and protracted Supreme Court confirmation battle. Yet that’s likely what’s in store after Friday’s announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s liberal lion,

Timothy Rieger: Pentagon Must Stop Dissembling Before Repeal of DADT

[Timothy Rieger, a former congressional lobbyist and LGBT advocate, is a writer living in Miami.] The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is an easy target for an editorial board to express its moral indignation over the lies of U.S. military leaders. The Times has published several editorials on the subject, most recently the March 29 piece on retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan's false allegations that gay Dutch troops were partly to blame for the Srebrenica massacre.

Aaron David Miller: U.S. Acts as Though It Seeks Regime Change in Israel

[Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has advised both Democratic and Republican secretaries of State on the Arab-Israeli negotiations. His book "Can America Have Another Great President?" is to be published in 2012.] Regime change. Generally it's a term and tactic reserved for America's enemies. But what if the Obama administration is developing a more nuanced version for one of the United States' closest all

Adam Chmielewski and Denis Dutton: A Fog of Questions in the Polish Plane Crash Tragedy

[Adam Chmielewski is a professor of philosophy at the University of Wroclaw in Poland and the author of "The Psychopathology of the Political Life." Denis Dutton is a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and editor of the website Arts & Letters Daily.] Everyone in Poland is mourning the catastrophic plane crash in a forest near Smolensk that killed the nation's president, his wife and 94 other senior members of the Polish political eli

Anne Applebaum: Out of Tragedy, a Detente of Sorts Between Russia, Poland

[Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and is married to Poland's foreign minister.] Last Saturday, the Polish president, the Polish national bank chairman, the chief of the Polish general staff and a host of other military and political leaders, some of whom were my friends and my husband's colleagues, died in a tragic plane crash in the forest near Smolensk, Russia, not far from where 20,000 Polish officers were secretly murdered by Joseph Stalin 70 years ago. Yet

Eugene Robinson: Haley Barbour's 'Diddly' Sense of Slavery's History

[Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post.] It was bad enough when Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell proclaimed "Confederate History Month" without mentioning slavery, but at least he came to his senses and apologized. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's contention that the whole controversy "doesn't amount to diddly" is much worse. "I don't know what you would say about slavery," Barbour told CNN, "but anybody that thinks that yo

Roger Cohen: The Glory of Poland

[Roger Cohen is a columnist for the NYT.] My first thought, hearing of the Polish tragedy, was that history’s gyre can be of an unbearable cruelty, decapitating Poland’s elite twice in the same cursed place, Katyn. My second was to call my old friend Adam Michnik in Warsaw. Michnik, an intellectual imprisoned six times by the former puppet-Soviet Communist rulers, once told me: “Anyone who has suffered that humiliation, at some level, wants revenge. I know

Bernard Weiner: What Happens When We Don't See the Tipping Points

[Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as 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.] Often in our busy daily lives, we miss the significance of a piece of news. Sometimes it's not until years later that we realize how very important that news event

Henry R. Nau: Obama’s Foreign Policy - The Swing Away From Bush ... How Far To Go?

[Henry R. Nau is professor of political science and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University.] American foreign policy swings like a pendulum. Under President George W. Bush, U.S. foreign policy promoted a democracy agenda, used force readily to buttress and at times even displace diplomacy, championed free markets, and risked if not relished unilateralism. Under President Barrack Obama, U.S. foreign policy has swung deci

Joshua Stanton: Why the U.S. Army Should Leave Korea

[Joshua Stanton is an attorney in Washington D.C. who formerly served as a U.S. Army Judge Advocate in Korea.] “‘It’s been 60 years since we went to war in Korea,’ said Paul. ‘Why do we have to have troops there?’ “‘North Korea!’ yelled a heckler.” Proceeding against the advice of my cardiologist, I must concede that for once, Ron Paul is actually on to something. The ground component of U.S. Forces Korea costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year to m

Joan Smith: Obama – the idealist turns assassin

[Joan Smith is a columnist, critic and novelist.] Back in the old days, when Barack Obama was one of the hopefuls trying to get his party's presidential nomination, he was asked a specific question: does the American constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charge as unlawful enemy combatants? The would-be candidate's response was unequivocal, rejecting the idea that there was any such power. No wonder, then, that so many people were startled when it emerged las

Tom Malinowski: How Not to Run an (American) Empire

[Tom Malinowski is Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.] This week's uprising in Kyrgyzstan didn't appear out of nowhere. For the last several years, many of this Central Asian country's people have felt betrayed by a government that came to power promising democracy and reform, but in their eyes delivered repression and nepotism instead. A confrontation had been brewing for months, with arrests of opposition leaders and restrictions on the media prompting public pro

Tony Kinsella: Redundancy of warheads signals end of big wars

[Tony Kinsella is a columnist at the Irish Times.] Our world became a little safer and a touch more mature yesterday when presidents Obama and Medvedev signed a deal to cut their nuclear arsenals by about 30 per cent to 1,550 warheads each. As the US and Soviet arsenals amounted to some 21,000 warheads 20 years ago, the continuing decrease is welcome news. Leaders from 46 countries will meet in Washington next week for a nuclear security summit, and the review meeting o

Eli Lake: The 9/14 Presidency ... Obama Using the War Powers Granted to Bush After 9/11

[Eli Lake is national security correspondent for the Washington Times.] If you believe the president’s Republican critics, Barack Obama takes a law enforcement approach to terrorism. His FBI came under fire for reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian national who nearly blew up an airplane on Christmas, his constitutional rights. His attorney general was blasted for wanting to give 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed a criminal trial in lower Manhattan. Republican Sen. Sc

Hillary Clinton: Our giant step towards a world free from nuclear danger

[Hillary Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving within the administration of President Barack Obama.] Tomorrow the United States and Russia will sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) in Prague, reducing the number of strategic nuclear warheads in our arsenals to levels not seen since the first decade of the nuclear age. This verifiable reduction by the world's two largest nuclear powers reflects our commitment to the basic bargain of the Nuclear

Keith B. Payne: Disarmament Danger

[Mr. Payne is a professor at Missouri State University and the head of its department of defense and strategic studies. In 2002 and 2003 he was a deputy assistant secretary of defense.] The Obama administration has placed nuclear disarmament at the top of its foreign-policy agenda. Other possible goals, such as modernizing U.S. nuclear forces for deterrence purposes, are now considered either transitory or subordinate to taking steps toward “nuclear zero.” In itself, banning nuclear