Roundup: Media's Take

Michael Lind: The Case for Economic Rights

[Michael Lind is the editor of New American Contract at the New America Foundation.] Three score and six years ago, the greatest president of the 20th century gave one of his greatest speeches. On Jan. 11, 1944, in a State of the Union address that deserves to be ranked with Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and King's "I Have a Dream" speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for recognition of a "Second Bill of Rights." According to FDR:

Eliot A. Cohen: Taking the Measure of Obama's Foreign Policy

[Mr. Cohen was counselor of the Department of State from 2007 to 2009. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.] If the first year of President Barack Obama's foreign policy were a law firm in Charles Dickens's London, it would have a name like Bumble, Stumble and Skid. It began with apologies to the Muslim world that went nowhere, a doomed attempt to beat Israel into line, utopian pleas to abolish nuclear weapons, unreciprocat

Nikolas K. Gvosdev: The Realist Prism ... Barack W. Obama Revisited

[Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign policy commentator in both the print and broadcast media. He is currently on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College.] A year ago, Christian Brose penned a provocative article for Foreign Policy entitled "George W. Obama." In it, the former speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice asserted that "Obama ran against a caricature of Bush's first term" during the 2008 election, rather

Stephen P. Cohen: Take a tip from Eisenhower, Truman on the Mideast

[Stephen P. Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, is the author of Beyond America’s Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East.] Many who believed in the feasibility of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace have concluded that it is no longer a realistic hope, at least in the first term of the Obama presidency. They are largely disillusioned by Israel’s dogged insistence on expanding settlements, even though Israel well know

Robert Kagan: Obama's Year of Failed Diplomacy

[Robert Kagan is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams.] President Obama’s policies toward Afghanistan and Iran—or lack thereof—have received more attention than any other issues during his first year in office. And with good reason. An American defeat in Afghanistan would throw an already dangerous region further into turmoil and severely damag

Jeffrey Lord: The War of the Presidents ... Reagan Battles Obama in 2010

[Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author.] Now it begins. The iconic election contest of the new century: Barack Obama versus…Ronald Reagan. In one corner of the ring: progressivism/statism/liberalism as championed by Obama. In the other: Reagan conservatism/individual liberty and freedom. It will be a knock down, no-holds barred fight, with Obama progressives already on the ropes, the consequences and costs of but one ye

Tara McKelvey: Remembrances of Battles

[Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at the Prospect, is a research fellow at NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security and the author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.] The former National Guardsman's voice was low and raspy on the phone, and I could barely hear him. Still, I heard enough to be shocked: A gunner in his squad had been awarded a Bronze Star for his courage during a battle near Baghdad in 2005 and had later

Michael Lind: The Clintonites Were Wrong

[Michael Lind is the editor of New American Contract at the New America Foundation.] Is the American economy facing a lost decade? That is the wrong question to ask. The right question is this: Is the United States facing another lost decade? During the past 10 years, inflation-adjusted wages have stagnated or declined for working Americans; net job creation has been zero; and temporary, bubble-driven gains in the stock market have been erased. This isn't what Bill Clinton an

Paul Krugman: That 1937 Feeling

[Paul Krugman is an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times and is a Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University] Here’s what’s coming in economic news: The next employment report could show the economy adding jobs for the first time in two years. The next G.D.P. report is likely to show solid growth in late 2009. There will be lots of bullish commentary — and the calls we’re already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government a

Devlin Leonard: A Writerly Approach to the Financial Crisis

One of the aftereffects of the financial crisis has been a flood of books promising to explain it. There have been books by economists, journalists, politicians, Wall Street insiders and even a federal judge, Richard Posner, who has produced more than 40 other books, and evidently couldn’t resist the temptation to churn out one on this subject. What has been hard to find is a book about the disaster by a writer with literary bona fides. But now comes “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Every

John McGlynn: Japan, Israeli Settlements, and the Future of a Palestinian State

[John McGlynn is a Tokyo-based independent foreign policy and financial analyst and an Asia-Pacific Journal associate.]   Japan has been speaking out recently on the matter of Israeli settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank Palestinian territory. At almost the same time, a senior official of the Palestinian Authority was in Tokyo seeking support from the Japanese government for a possible change in Palestinians tactics in their struggle for self-determination and statehood.  

Christopher Hitchens: The Death of Theocracy

[Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of God Is Not Great.] The term "theocracy" trips readily enough off the tongue and is an accurate description of a system where mortals claim the right to dominate other mortals in the name of God. But it is also a word that has uncomfortable implications for those who hope to stay out of the "internal affairs" of other societies. The Iranian theocracy, and the crisis of its regime, is a near-perfect illustr

Yoram Ettinger: In defiance of demographic fatalism

[Yoram Ettinger is executive director of Second Thought, which researches national security aspects of Judea and Samaria] In 1948, prime minister David Ben-Gurion declared independence in defiance of demographic fatalism, which was perpetrated by the country's leading demographers. He rejected their assumptions that Jews were doomed to be a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, that a massive aliya wave was not feasible, that the Jewish fertility rate was declinin

Tim Rutten: Jihadism and the Cold War

[Tim Rutten's career as a journalist spans more than 30 years at The Times.] As we sort through the implications of Umar Farouk Abdulmultallab's alleged attempt to incinerate a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, we're bound to hear a great deal about "the war on terror" and how it is or isn't being waged. We're also going to have to assimilate the confounding facts that Abdulmultallab converted to Salafism -- Islam's fundamentalist and puritanical variant -- not

George Walden: Before Preaching, Remember the Opium Wars

[George Walden’s book China: A Wolf in the World? is published by Gibson Square Books. He was a diplomat in Beijing in 1966-69.] Collecting calligraphy in China during the Cultural Revolution, I found some by Commissioner Lin Zexu, governor of Canton in the early 19th century when Britain and others were booting the country about. A cultivated man with a bold and vigorous script, he remains a hero to the Chinese to this day, one of the few incorruptible civil servants

Jack Hunter: Obama Is Like Clinton -- And Bush

[Jack Hunter is columnist for the Charleston City Paper.] When conservatives used to bash Bill Clinton their arguments usually centered on one thing — Monica Lewinsky. He lied to the American people! Clinton disgraced the office of the presidency! “Slick Willie!” Much like the popular culture they often claim to abhor, conservatives tend to focus on the personalities in politics rather than policy. I never cared much about Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky. My greate

Gabriel Schoenfeld: British anti-Semitism returns with a vengeance

[Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. His Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law is due out next year.] Like cancer, ideas can metastasize. In 2007, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt--the former a professor at the University of Chicago, the latter at Harvard--came out with The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. A "situation [that] has no equal in American history&quo

Leslie H. Gelb: Obama's Jimmy Carter Problem

[Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.] Don’t be fooled by the year-end reprieve of President Obama because the economy looks a bit brighter and the Senate passed a health bill. He’s been pummeled hard all alo

Daniel Laskin: Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Apology

[Jacob Laksin is managing editor of Frontpage Magazine. He is co-author, with David Horowitz, of One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy] When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jimmy Carter is

Steve Plaut: Sir Winston a war criminal?

A British court recently issued a subpoena for the arrest and indictment of Israel's former foreign minister in response to a petition by Hamas and its supporters in Britain. The court claimed historic precedent for its attempt to indict Tzipi Livni. I have done a considerable amount of research and believe I found, somewhere in the back of my mind while in a fatigue-induced haze, that the court may indeed be correct, as witness this petition to indict a prime minister for war, sub