Roundup: Media's Take

Alex Koppelman: A major defection in the conservative blogosphere

[A staff writer, Alex Koppelman writes and edits Salon's political blog, War Room.] For much of this decade, Charles Johnson was one of the right's leading bloggers. His blog, Little Green Footballs, was famous for its focus on Islamic terrorism, but also for the role it played in "Rathergate" and in exposing various faked photography. Lately, though, Johnson has been trending back to the left, where he was before the attacks of 9/11. He's been picking fights

Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson: The Real Shock of Fort Hood

[Steven Simon is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Jonathan Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College.] The greatest shock of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous spree at Fort Hood last week may not have been the spree itself, but the fact that it was the first of its kind in the United States. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims in America have been subject to innumerable stresses, including discrimination and the strain

Robert Kagan: Obama's lonely decision

[Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.] So now two presidents in the space of less than three years have bucked overwhelming conventional wisdom, as well as public opinion, and decided that they did not want to lose a war. And what lonely decisions these have been. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the last few years has been the stunningly large number of American thinkers, strategists and pun

Dick Morris And Eileen McGann: Obama Channels Bush

[Mr. Morris was an adviser to Bill Clinton for 20 years. He is the author of "Condi vs. Hillary." Mrs. McGann, an attorney and consultant, is a CEO of VOTE.com and LegislativeVote.com. She works with Mr. Morris on campaigns and around the world, specializing in using the Internet to win elections.] Tonight we watched Obama address the cadets of West Point and, over their shoulder, the American people. I kept asking myself: if I were in the audience did I hear anything wort

Jonathan Alter: The Faux Populism of Palin, Dobbs, and Beck

[Jonathan Alter is an award-winning columnist, television analyst and author. Since 1991, Alter has written a widely-acclaimed Newsweek column that examines politics, media and social and global issues.] Sarah Palin, flattered in recent days by a comparison to William Jennings Bryan, is a plausible presidential candidate, according to George W. Bush's pollster. Lou Dobbs, the modern incarnation of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, is dropping hints about running for the White Hou

David Swanson: Afghanistan: Our 177th Colony

[David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: davidswanson.org/book.] During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the U.S. military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it's been for weeks, speculation as to whether

Greville Janner: John Demjanjuk trial: we mustn't draw a line under crimes of the Holocaust

[Lord Janner is Chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust and a former war crimes investigator] The trial of John Demjanjuk, a man accused of assisting in the murder of 27,900 people in Poland during 1943, has provoked mixed feelings. “Let the past rest,” some murmur as his frail figure is wheeled into the Munich courtroom. An argument that the passage of time should oblige us to draw a line under crimes of the Holocaust has won some traction, but I consider it a perverse one.

Damon Linker: Against Common Sense

[Damon Linker is a Special Correspondent for The New Republic] Conservatives would have us believe that they hold a monopoly on common sense. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and many other right-wing rabble-rousers regularly portray themselves as defenders of the good, old-fashioned common sense of average Americans against an out-of-touch liberal elite. A growing cadre of ambitious politicians likewise aims to lead a crusade in the name of “commonsense conservatism.” Gl

Joan Walsh: Yes, it's Obama's war now

[Joan Walsh joined Salon in 1998 to become their first full-time news editor, and succeeded David Talbot as editor in chief in February 2005. ] I may be the only person in the United States who was trying to wait for President Obama's Afghanistan speech to make up my mind about his war plans. Of course, I mostly failed at that. Sure, all of Obama's options are bad, but still, few decisions seem as clear-cut as this one. Escalation is hard to see as an exit strategy. Obama has no cle

David Brooks: Clear, Hold and Duct Tape (on Afghanistan)

[David Brooks's Op-Ed column in The New York Times started in September 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, and he is currently a commentator on "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer."] In late 2006, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. James F. Amos released a brilliant book with a thrilling title. It was called the “Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24.” In its quiet way, this book helped overturn conventio

Mary Dejevsky: Iraq exploded the special relationship

[Mary Dejevsky is the chief editorial writer and a columnist at The Independent.] The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war is a week old and even at this very early stage it appears that its chief victim could be Tony Blair, the man who has so successfully prevented the mud sticking to him hitherto. The questioning may have been gentle, but one after another, the top civil servants of the time have plunged the knife in to the former prime minister, sometimes brutally, sometimes with a

Executive Summary: Countering Democratic Regression in Europe and Eurasia

Findings from an October 16, 2009 conference at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Organizers: Adrian A. Basora and Mitchell A. Orenstein Conference Co-Sponsors * Foreign Policy Research Institute * S. Richard Hirsch Chair of European Studies (JHU SAIS) * German Marshall Fund of the United States * Center for Transatlantic Relations (JHU SAIS) * The George Washington Univ

Jean MacKenzie: Karzai's Fall

[Jean MacKenzie is the director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Afghanistan and reports for GlobalPost News.] The president beamed, the guests applauded. As Hamid Karzai was sworn in for his second term in office amid a throng of 800 international and domestic dignitaries on November 18, one could almost forget that his presidency is under a cloud, his international support hanging by a thread, and his domestic standing lower than ever. It was a stark difference from

Loretta J. Ross: Birthers and Birchers: Hiding Behind Stars and Stripes

[Loretta J. Ross is National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a Consulting Editor on this edition of On The Issues Magazine.] Sustaining a progressive movement based on shared politics requires not only unification on positive values, but an understanding of the opposition and their tactics. Analysis of the various elements of opposition can do much to improve our own eyesight and path forward."Bir

Peter Bosshard: Lessons from China's Three Gorges Dam

[Peter Bosshard is the Policy Director of International Rivers, an environmental organization with staff in four continents. He has a PhD from Zurich University, and has worked to strengthen international environmental standards for more than 20 years. Before joining International Rivers, Bosshard was the coordinator of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss development organization. He frequently visits China and is currently learning Chinese.]The world’s largest hydropower project has reached i

WSJ Editorial: John Kerry's Tora Bora Campaign

President Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy today, and in the nick of time Senator John Kerry has arrived with a report claiming that none of this would be necessary if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only deployed more troops eight years ago. Yes, he really said more troops... ... On CNN with Larry King on Dec. 15, 2001, a viewer called in to say the U.S. should "smoke [bin Laden] out" of the Tora Bora caves. Mr. Kerry responded: "For the moment

James Taranto: Decisions, Decisions President Obama has no trouble making them! Well, except when they're hard.

[James Taranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com and author of its popular Best of the Web Today column. In August 2007 he was named a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.] If it seems as though the world is moving faster than ever before, maybe that's just because the White House is moving so slowly. To take an example at random, on Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush gave an address to a joint session of Congress about the war on terror. On Nov. 13, 54 days later, allie

Norman Solomon: The Hollow Politics of Escalation

[Norman Solomon is co-chair of the national Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign, launched by Progressive Democrats of America. He is the author of a dozen books including "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For more information, go to: www.normansolomon.com.] An underlying conceit of the new spin about benchmarks and timetables for Afghanistan is the notion that pivotal events there can be choreograp

Michael Moore: An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

Dear President Obama, Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people wh

Harry de Quetteville: 'Last Nazi' trial ... why we must listen to Demjanjuk's story

[Harry de Quetteville is the Telegraph's Berlin correspondent.] There are some crimes so ghastly that they seem to demand the norms of justice be overturned. Innocent until proven guilty? Sure, until the charge is herding 30,000 Jews into the gas chambers, then instinct wants the defendant locked up, reasonable doubt be damned. And when the defendant is John Demjanjuk, an 89 year-old Ukrainian turned US auto worker who, American courts have ruled, definitely worked at